History of Fulton County, Illinois; together with
Sketches of its Cities, Villages and Townships, Educational, Religious,
Civil, Military, and Political History; Portraits of Prominent Persons
and Biographies of Representative Citizens. Chas. C. Chapman & Co.,
Peoria, Illinois, 1879, page 885-886, Union Township
Jonathan Babbitt, farmer and stock-raiser; P. O., St. Augustine;
was born in Fayette Co., O., March 13, 1811, and is the son of Job
Babbitt, who removed with his family to Indiana in a flat-boat in 1818,
thence to Springfield, Ill., in 1829, and to Fulton Co. in ’30. Job
Babbitt was one of the first pioneers of Union township, and helped
carry the chain for General Stillman while the latter was surveying the
State road from Farmington to Burlington in 1835. The subject of this
sketch is the oldest pioneer now living in Union township, and has
undergone the anxieties and hardships of pioneer life. In 1832 he, in
company with the other members of the family and neighbors, left their
log huts during the Black Hawk war and went to the Fort at Canton. He
helped bury the first person that died in the township. To Mr. B.
belongs the honor of naming the township (Union). Several years ago Mr.
Babbitt saw a trough (dug from an elm log) containing the skeleton of
an Indian, which had been fastened in the fork of a leaning tree on
Spoon river, where the State road crossed said river; hence the name,
Indian Ford. Mr. B. has been married 3 times: first, Oct. 18, 1832, to
Amelia Jennings; second time, Oct. 12, 1834, to Charlotte Ducolon;
third time, Dec. 6, 1838, to Elizabeth E. Taylor. He is the father of 7
children. Mr. and Mrs. B. are members of the Christian Church.
