From: History of Illinois and Her People
by Professor George W. Smith, M. A.; pub. 1927; Vol. VI, p.209

William Calvin Fairweather

William Calvin Fairweather, publisher of the McLeansboro Times, is a native of Hamilton County, and is best known in that and other counties of southern Illinois on account of his prominence as an educator.  For many years he was engaged in school work, and since retiring from that vocation has engaged in newspaper work.

He was born on a farm four miles south of McLeansboro, October 11, 1871, son of William and Rachel (Manning) Fairweather.  His grandfather, Samuel Francis Fairweather, was a native of Lincolnshire, England, and brought his family to America, homesteading 160 acres in Hamilton County, Illinois.  William Fairweather was a small boy when the family came to America, and he spent his life as an industrious farmer and influential citizen of Hamilton county, where he died in 1914, at the age of eighty years.  His wife, Rachel Manning, was a native of Illinois, her people coming from Tennessee.  She had four brothers who were soldiers in the Union army.  William Fairweather and wife were members of the Missionary Baptist Church and he was a democrat in politics.  Their children were:  Sarah Elizabeth, deceased, who married James Dudley; William Calvin; and Charles Arthur, who married Clara Brandt.

William Calvin Fairweather grew up on the home farm, and after the advantages of the common schools his advanced education was acquired as a result of his own effort, largely alternating with school teaching.  He attended the State Normals at Carbondale and Normal, the Valparaiso University in Indiana, and had one year in the University of Illinois.  Mr. Fairweather was engaged in school work for thirty years and is now on the teachers' pension roll.  He taught a number of terms in country districts.  For three years he was a teacher at McLeansboro, four years at Murphysboro, in 1902 was elected superintendent of city schools at McLeansboro and held that position ten years.  For six year he was superintendent of schools at Nashville, Illinois, for two years superintendent of the grade school and township high school at Neoga, and held a similar position at Farmer City for one year.

Mr. Fairweather in 1923 bought the McLeansboro Times.  This is a weekly newspaper, and has a large circulation and influence in Hamilton county.  It is democratic in politics.  Mr. Fairweather is himself a democrat, and is a member of the Fifty-first Senatorial District Committee.  He is president of the McLeansboro Merchants Co-operative Association.  He is a member of the Missionary Baptist Church and is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias.  He married, September 8, 1900, Miss Excie O'Neal, who was born and reared in McLeansboro.