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JAMES H. FREETO, hardware and queensware merchant, Mechanicsburg, has been engaged in business in the village about twenty years. He carries a stock of $4,000 to $5,000, embracing hardware, stoves, glass and queensware, and a general assortment of tinware, of which he manufactures a considerable quantity, and also does a jobbing business in roofing, spouting, and cornice work.

Mr. Freeto was born in the State of New York, December 4, 1834, and was reared from three years of age in Dupage county, Illinois, whence he came to Sangamon county in the spring of 1860. He started a tine shop and stove store in Mechanicsburg soon after coming, and ten years ago added that of hardware.

James Freeto and Hannah M. Brown were married in Dupage county, Illinois, in 1858. Mrs. Freeto died April 19, 1865, leaving two daughters, Minnie L. and Florence May, and Mr. Freeto married Miss Rebecca J. Loughridge, November 29, 1867. She is a native of Arkansas, from which State her family fled as refugees during the war of the Rebellion, being friends of the Union. Four children have been born of this marriage, namely: Evalena S., born December 11, 1870; Luella Maud, November 13, 1872; Ida Marion, August 4, 1877, and George L., born July 19, 1880.