Adam Guthrie (1825 - 1904

     Adam Guthrie was born March 10, 1825, in Circleville, Pickaway County, Ohio. He was the youngest of five children born to Robert and Catherine Guthrie of Pennsylvania. His mother, Catherine, was the daughter of Valentine Spaur of McLean County, Illinois and of German descent. His father, Robert, was of Scotch-Welch descent.

     In 1826, Robert Guthrie moved his family to Funk’s Grove in McLean County, Illinois. Robert began husking corn and splitting rails for Isaac and Absalom Funk. He was paid fifty cents per day for the corn he husked and was also paid twenty-five cents per hundred rails that he split. As Robert’s sons got older, they were expected to work alongside their father. In 1829, Robert moved his family again, this time to Money Creek, which was located northeast of the town of Bloomington. Robert sent his children to the subscription schools in the area. They had to walk over a mile each way through some of the worst winters of legend. The winter of 1830-31 was remembered for many years as the winter of the deep snow.

     In 1831 the family moved again to Major’s Grove, which is where the railroad yards were later located on the west side of Bloomington. There, Robert improved a farm for James Allin. In 1832, Robert built a house at the corner of Front and Lee Streets. He began the business of plastering and carpentry, which he continued until his death in 1856.

     Adam helped his father in the plastering business as he had helped earlier with the family’s farm. He would attend school in the winter and help his father during the spring and the summer months. After his father died, Adam apprenticed along side Squire Lawrence to continue learning the plastering trade. He eventually set up his own plastering business, and followed that occupation until 1862.

     Adam then answered the call of duty put forth by President Abraham Lincoln by enlisting as a Union soldier in Company A. of the 94^th Illinois Volunteer Infantry and participated in the Prairie Grove engagement of December 1862. He made the rank of corporal, but was discharged for ill health after only eight months of service. In 1863, he joined the Bloomington police force after returning home from the army. After serving on the police force for two years, Adam resumed the plastering trade in 1866. He took pride in this work and profession as being his role and contribution as an early settler in the development of the city and county. He served as a township assessor from 1865 to 1873.  From 1868 to 1870, he acted as deputy recorder for his brother, who was clerk of the circuit court. He also was a census taker in district seven in 1870.

    On December 6, 1849, Adam married Lucinda L. Butler, who was born in Stafford New York about 1826 and eventually moved to Bloomington with her parents. Lucinda and Adam had three children, one daughter named Eva, and two sons; Permeno A. and Oscar F. Guthrie. Lucinda died on June 13, 1889 at their home located at 802 North Center Street in Bloomington. 

     During his later years, Guthrie opened a cigar store at the corner of Main and Jefferson Streets – directly north of the courthouse. It was successively known as “Noah’s Ark,” “Adam’s Ark,” and finally just “The Ark.” The shop became the gathering place of old timers and men of all ages to swap stories and hear tales of how things used to be in the earliest years of McLean County. A recollection by one of Guthrie’s grandsons was that most of the patrons of the cigar shop had long white beards, wore frock coats, and talked of the “deep snow of 1831” – that grew deeper with each retelling. The cigar store remained a headquarters for the old settlers and politicians until it was destroyed in the fire of 1900.

     Because the Guthrie family had been one of the pioneering families to settle Bloomington, Adam was featured in the Pantagraph occasionally.  In 1896, an article in the Pantagraph named him as the oldest subscriber – since 1837, when the paper had been originally named the Bloomington Observer and the McLean Advocate. In another interview for the Pantagraph in 1899, Guthrie commented that he liked to hang around the courthouse as a boy. He remembered Lincoln, Douglas and others. “But Lincoln was my favorite - many a story I heard him tell, both in court and around town.” Adam was known for his many stories about the early days of life in Bloomington and McLean County.

     In September of 1904, Adam was struck by a sudden illness and after only a few days, he passed away.  Because he was one of Bloomington’s oldest residents and a member of a pioneering family of the area, the Pantagraph featured a large article chronicling his long life.  He was buried at Evergreen Memorial Cemetery in Bloomington, Illinois.

Compiled by: Mary Alice Wills

                                                                                    April 2, 2007

                                                                                    Edited by Candace Summers

                                                                                    April 25, 2007