CHAPTEB XXXIII. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF HON. W. C. FLAGG. 



PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION. 



Willard Cutting Flagg was born September 16, 1829, 

 on the farm where he now resides, in what was then known 

 as Paddock s Settlement, Madison County, Illinois. He is 

 the. son of Gershom Flagg and Jane Paddock, both natives 

 of, and early emigrants from, Vermont. 



Attending the local school and doing the usual work of a 

 farmer s boy until 1844, he thereafter spent the winters at a 

 first-class English and classical high-school in St. Louis, Mis 

 souri, until 1850, when he entered Yale College as freshman, 

 graduating in course in 1854, and taking the rank of an 

 &quot;oration man&quot; in scholarship. He was awarded. two prizes 

 in English Composition in the sophomore year. In the 

 junior year he took the Yale Literary Gold Medal for Eng 

 lish Composition, and was chosen one of the five editors of 

 the Yale Literary Magazine for senior year. 



After graduating, he returned home and commenced work 

 upon the farm, continuing, however, to intersperse a good 

 deal of reading and some magazine writing with his labors. 

 On the 13th of February, 1856, he married Miss Sarah 

 Smith, of St. Louis, Missouri. Entering into the political 

 canvass of that year, in support of Fremont and the Ee- 



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