PHILLIPS, John A. - Fountain County INGenWeb Project

The subject of this review is a self-made man who, without any extraordinary family or pecuniary advantages at the commencement of life, has battled earnestly and energetically, and by indomitable courage and integrity has achieved both character and a comfortable competence.  By sheer force of will and untiring effort he has worked his way upward and is numbered among the leading business men of Danville.  He is now the proprietor of the Phillips Laundry, one of the leading enterprises of this character in Vermilion county.

John A. Phillips was born in Fountain county, Indiana, January 23, 1848, his parents being Jackson and Margaret (McQuig) Phillips.  The Phillips family was originally from Virginia and the McQuigs are from Ohio.  Unto the parents of our subject were born four children:  Edward, who makes his home in Danville; Frank T., who is living in Montana; Ora, also of Danville; and John A.  The father died at the age of fifty-eight years and the mother passed away at the age of sixty-seven years.

When a young of only thirteen years John A. started out to make his own way in the world.  He is therefore largely a self-educated as well as self-made man and through reading, experience and observation he has gradually added to the knowledge he had acquired in the public schools in his early youth.  He began to earn his own livelihood by working as a farm hand and in 1860 he accepted the position of assistant to a photographer who was deaf and dumb and who had formed an attachment for Mr. Phillips, teaching him the business in his art gallery in Fairbury, Illinois.  Our subject continued this connection with photography for twenty years fifteen years of which time he was engaged in business in Danville, having located here in 1871.  In 1885 he and his brother, Frank T. Phillips, formed a partnership and established the Phillips Laundry, which is the leading enterprise of its kind in this city and our subject is now sole proprietor.  He took charge of the business in 1893 and five years later he purchased his brother’s interest and has since been sole owner.  When they established their laundry they employed eight people, including two washers and two ironing men.  Their business has so increased in volume that they now give employment to thirty people, including seven washers.  The plant is splendidly equipped, having an eighty horse-power boiler, two twenty-six inch extractors, a collar and cuff Troy ironer, number five and nine regular ironers, and their machinery is all run by gas, which is manufactured by a patent process in the building.  Mr. Phillips also has a shirt and collar dryer which is a machine of his own device.  There is also a carpet cleaning machine.  It is the most modern and perfect plant of the kind in Vermilion county.  Four wagons are utilized in calling and delivery goods and the business has now grown in volume until it has assumed very extensive and profitable proportions.  

In 1873 Mr. Phillips was united in marriage to Rosa Noyes, a daughter of William Noyes, a native of Kentucky now living in Danville.  Four children have been born of this marriage:  George A. William, who died August 10, 1902, at the age of twenty-three years; Roy B.; and Frank A., who is an assistant in the laundry.  The parents hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal chrurch [sic] and Mr. Phillips is a prominent Odd Fellow.  For ten consecutive years he served as a representative to the grand encampment.  He is also identified with the Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen, the Court of Honor and the Battery A Association.  His success has been by no means the result of fortunate circumstances, but has come to him through energy labor and perseverance, directed by an evenly balanced mind and by honorable business principles.  He commands the respect of all with whom he comes in contact and his honorable career excites their admiration