The Fike Family
Quartermaster Captain Henry Clay Fike
Henry Clay Fike was born near Mascoutah, Illinois on December 21, 1832. His father
was Abel Fike, who came with his family from South Carolina to the Turkey Hill Settlement
near Belleville in 1811. Abel Fike was a McKendree graduate. Henry Clay Fike attended
McKendree College in 1852 and received both a Bachelors and a Master’s degree. He
was a member of the Platonian Literary Society. He married Miss Lucy C. Power of Trenton
on Christmas Day in 1855. Henry and Lucy had two daughters: May and Ellie. Lucy passed
away in June of 1906. Fike taught at a public school in Highland, Illinois from 1852-1854.
He later became the president of the Mascoutah schools. In 1882, Fike became a part
of the auditing department of the Missouri Pacific Railway Company. After seven years
with the railway company, Fike served twenty years of service as a clerk of the U.S.
Internal Revenue Office in Kansas City, Missouri. He also served on the Board of Education
and the City Council of Warrensburg, Missouri. He was a member of the Masonic Fraternity
and the National Union, a beneficiary organization. He was also a member of the Episcopal
Church. He served as a Sunday School Superintendent for thirty-eight years. He was
also a lay delegate to the General Conference in Baltimore, Maryland in 1876. He passed
away on April 1, 1919 in Warrensburg. His manuscript collection, including his civil
war diary, is located in Kansas City, Missouri.
Musician Doniphan M. Fike
Doniphan M. Fike, the younger brother of Captain John Fike and the nephew of Quartermaster Captain Henry Clay Fike, joined the McKendree Regiment at the age of sixteen. In February of 1864, Doniphan was captured while in a forage train near Canton, Mississippi. He was held as a P.O.W. at Andersonville Camp for nine months and was later transferred to N.E. Ferry, North Carolina and released in April of 1865. He discussed his experience as a P.O.W. at the 117th Reunion on October 8, 1902. He lived in Des Moines, Iowa after the war. His brother, John W. Fike, succeeded Captain Nathan Land as commander of Company K. All of the Fikes were originally from Mascoutah at the start of the war.
