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File contributed to the Fulton County ILGenWeb Project
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Source: The Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Fulton County
Munsell Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908

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The Biography of Jonathan J. BABBITT 

Transcribed exactly according to the original complete text by Alice Stipak. 

[Surnames: BABBITT, MARTZ, RANDALL] 

[Page 773] 

    
BABBITT, Jonathan J. (deceased).--The subject of this sketch was a veteran of the Civil War, a well known farmer and stock-raiser and a citizen honored for the conscientious discharge of his duties in whatever walk of life he pursued. His death, therefore, on the 21st of December, 1905, was sincerely and generally mourned. Jonathan J. Babbitt was born in Union Township, Fulton County, November 21, 1837, the son of James Babbitt, born in Washington County, Pa., in 1813, and Mary (Randall) Babbitt, a native of New York, born in 1820. The father was an extensive land owner, and a pioneer and prosperous farmer of the township. The subject of this sketch spent his earlier years on the home farm, assisting in its management during his later life and obtaining a fair education in the district schools. He was engaged in agricultural work until the last year of the Civil War, when, under President Lincoln's last call for troops in that contest, he enlisted on March 21, 1865, in Company H, Twenty-third Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and was discharged July 24th following. The voting period of Mr. Babbitt's life was almost contemporary with the birth of the Republican party, of which he was a firm and intelligent member, his society associations being naturally with the Grand Army of the Republic. 
    
Jonathan J. Babbitt was married in Knox County, Ill., to Rebecca Martz, a native of Virginia, born in that State on the 4th of September, 1843. Eight children were born of their union, namely: Minnie D., Lula, Flora, who died September 25, 1887; Emma, Lydia, Fanny, James and John. The surviving widow, who is now numbered among the honored mothers of the county, was a little over twenty years of age at the time of her marriage, December 30, 1863. Her husband's death occurred within a few days of their forty-second anniversary. The deceased was a member of the Christian Church and truly a Christian in the highest sense of the word.