History of Lee County, Illinois - Bushnell Historical Society

HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY 79
talents subserve the demands wliieli the conditions of society
impose at the present time is his piu'pose and by reason of the
mature judgment which characterizes his efforts he stands today
as a splendid representative of the prominent financiers to whom
business is but one phase of life and does not exclude active participation
in and support of the other vital interests which go to make
up himian existence.
F. M. YOCUM.
A history of the business development of Lee county during the
past thirty years would be incomplete without mention of the
activities of F. M. Yocum, who beginning with the installation of
one telephone line among his neighbors has evolved a large system,
known as the Yocum Telephone Lines, thus contributing in an
exceptionally useful way to general progress and advancement in
this section of the state. Moreover, he has been for many years
connected with agricultural interests as the proprietor of a fine
farm of four hundred acres near the city limits of West Brooklyn
and by practical methods in its cultivation has made this one
of the most valuable properties in the locality. He was born in
Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, March 5, 1851, and is a son of
Thomas D. and Rachel (Stedman) Yocum. pioneers in Lee county.
The father settled with his family south of Amboy on the Colonel
Wyman farm, in 1855 and after four years and a half bought a
farm on the same section whereon his son is now residing. He became
one of the prominent men of this locality and his death,
which occurred in 1907, when he was eighty-five years of age, was
widely and deeply regi'etted. He had long survived his wife,
who passed away in 1878, at the age of fifty-eight. Both are
buried in West Brooklyn.
P. M. Yocum acquired his education in the district schools of
Brooklyn township and also attended the academy at East Paw
Paw for a few winters. He laid aside his books at the age of
twenty-one. but continued on his father's farm imtil 1877. when
he bought a drug store at Lamoille, operating this for one year.
In 1878 he returned to the farm and soon afterward installed a
telegraph line from his home to the town of West Brooklyn.
Later he ran telephone wires between his neighbors' houses and
his own, extendinar these bv degrees until gi-adually the large sys-