In today’s vernacular, a teamster is a truck driver or a member of the union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Teamster originated as a term describing a person who drove a wagon pulled by a ‘team’ of horses or oxen.
Jacob Baylor was a teamster under the original meaning of the word. And he must have been a rather successful one.
Jacob Baylor, who was born in Pennsylvania. May 16. 1805. He moved westward to Ohio, where he married Nancy Beaty (Beatly) in 1830 and about 1837 he moved westward again to McLean County, Illinois. By 1839 he had purchased 80 acres in Downs Township.
Jacob made frequent trips with his team traveling north to Chicago and southwest to St. Louis, taking grain to market and returning with goods for Bloomington merchants. Each trip took two weeks. By 1848 he had been able to purchase additional acreage for his farm until he had accumulated a total of 200 acres.
Who knows how successful Jacob could have been if he had lived longer. Jacob died in 1848 at the age of 43.
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