History of DeWitt County Illinois: with biographical sketches of prominent representative citizens of the county.
Chicago: Pioneer Publishing Co., 1910
Daniel Rung. (Volume II, Page 186)
To be known as the oldest business man of such a place as Kenney, Illinois, requires that the person shall have taken up his calling quite early in life, and that is just what Daniel Rung, the oldest business man and the first blacksmith of Kenney, did. Coming to DeWitt county thirty years ago from Logan county, Illinois, where he learned his trade at the fires of Adam Shaffer, the Mount Pulaski blacksmith, Mr. Rung chose Kenney, then in its infancy as a village, as his home, and, with an occasional interruption while he looked over land in the west and north, he has remained there ever since.
Daniel Rung was born at South Bend, Indiana, February 7, 1859, and attended school there until his family removed to Oregon, Missouri, in 1865. He is a son, of John Adam and Margaret (Smith) Rung, both of whom died at Oregon, Missouri. John Adam Rung was the son of John Rung and wife, who came from Bremen, Germany, in 1833 with their son John. The family settled in New York city, where the father and son sawed wood for a time and gained enough money to permit them to make their first venture into the new country, as western Pennsylvania and Ohio were then called. They collected fifty dollars by five weeks' earnest work on the part of the two, which sum, according to John Adam Rung, "was enough to make us feel richer than Jay Cook ever did." In fact, so much improved was the condition of the Rungs in the new country over that [which] they had endured in the old, that the father of John thought that such wealth as five dollars in one week was not only too much but bordered on the unlawful, and he talked with his son over the advisability of returning a portion of their earnings, fearing that a mistake had been made.
The first venture on the newly landed family was into Pennsylvania. There the son worked on the Erie canal, then building, being seventeen years old at that time. Two years after the family settled in Pennsylvania his brother and sister, Peter and Elizabeth Rung, came from Bremen and located near the homestead in Dauphin county. Upon the completion of the work on the canal, John Adam Rung went to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was employed in a stove foundry for a year. He then removed to Michigan City, where he worked in a foundry for a time, then bought a forty acre plot of land near South Bend, Indiana, cleared and improved it and settled his family upon it. Later he traded his farm for another of one hundred and twenty acres, which lies four miles north of the city of South Bend. John Adam Rung was married to Margaret Smith in 1846, and their children were: Mary, deceased; Elizabeth, the widow of John Berger of Wiggins, Colorado; Peter, living at Mound City, Missouri; Jacob, the twin brother of Daniel, now living at Perkins, Oklahoma; Katie, wife of John Frost, of Roulau, Canada; and Henry, of Goodland, Kansas. John Adam Rung died February 8, 1892, his wife Margaret having passed away in November, 1866. Both died at the home in Oregon, Missouri.
Daniel Rung left Oregon, Missouri, in 1877 and settled at Mount Pulaski, Logan county, Illinois, where he learned his trade, as already stated. He was eighteen years old at that time and was accompanied by his brother Peter and his sister Elizabeth. He finished his trade after four years of profitable labor and study and then came to Kenney, starting the first fire in his own shop November 28, 1880.
On August 27, 1884, Mr. Rung was married to Miss Nettie E. Mitchell, a daughter of James and Josephine (Weaver) Mitchell. Mrs. Mitchell died February 2, 1910, leaving her husband and daughter to mourn her loss. To this union were born two children: Harry L., who died in infancy; and Vera Lee, who was born February 14, 1897.
Mr. Rung is chancellor commander of Kyle Lodge, Knights of Pythias, of Kenney, is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, which he joined over twenty-one years ago, and has held all the offices in the several lodges to which he belongs. What he prizes most of all in the way of honor or reputation is that which he has earned by close application to his work, together with detailed study at night, and the reputation won of being the very best blacksmith on implement work---be it shovels or intricate fittings--- that this portion of DeWitt county has ever known. It is a reputation of which one may well feel proud, yet Mr. Rung counts it but as a beginning, holding that one may always improve oneself---may always learn---even though he be rated as the best craftsman of the county.
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