Portrait and Biographical Album of Fulton County,
Illinois: containing full page portraits and biographical sketches of
prominent and representative citizens of the county: together with
portraits and biographies of all the presidents of the United States,
and governors of the state; Biographical Pub. Co., Chicago, IL; 1890;
page 399-400; Transcribed by Margaret Rose Whitehurst
George W. Little, the subject of our present sketch has been
prominently identified with the progress of Farmington and surrounding
county, His birth occurred at the town of Hampstead, N. H., August, 12,
1810, he being the son of Nathaniel and Abiah (Emerson) Little, both
natives of New Hampshire. To Mr. Little's parents were born four
children: viz., Polly, Belinda, Robert E. and George Washington, of
whom the last named is the only one living.
Our subject passed his boyhood on a farm, enjoying the quietude
of rural life until about seventeen years old. At that age he went to
Boston, where he clerked in a West India goods store for a period of
five years. He was invited to join Lowell Mason's choir in the Bowdoin
Street Church at the "Hub," and continued to sing tenor in that choir
for four years. Being thoroughly ambitious and imagining the West to be
a broad unbroken field where wealth and fame were to be had for the
asking, Mr. Little sailed for New Orleans and from that point came up
the Mississippi river to St. Louis. However, not liking that place he
soon moved to Quincy, Ill., from there to Jacksonville, and finally to
Peoria in the spring of 1834. He settled on the Marchant Settlement
(now known as Farmington Township) and paid Mr. Palmer two hundred
dollars for ten acres of land with a view to laying out the town of
Farmington. This was in September of the year 1834. He built the first
store in Farmington, and was the first man to engage in a mercantile
business there, and his success even from the start was good. He has
served as school Treasurer uninterruptedly for more than fifty-three
years and for eight years has been Justice of the Peace. In addition to
this he has been Notary Public for thirty years and served as Township
Clerk for several years. He is a strong supporter of the Republican
party, and actively interested in politics. He has been chorister since
the first church was built in Farmington in 1856. At first he was
identified with the Presbyterian Church, serving as Elder in same, but
has long been connected with the Congregational Church, the
Presbyterian Church having been merged into that, and is a faithful
Christian. Indeed, a short biographical sketch cannot in any measure
render full justice to so prominent and popular a citizen. He has been
interested in the religious, mercantile and social circles of this
place, and has by means of his superiority and energy done much to
advance all worthy causes.
The subject of our sketch was married in Lyman, Me., in 1834 to
Miss Louisa Lambert Lord, native of Alford, Me., and member of an
ancient and aristocratic family. To this union were born seven
children: viz., Louisa Jane, Frances Helen, who died in childhood;
Belinda Tarleton, who married Everett R. Breed and is now deceased:
Alfred Herman, deceased; Carrie Alice, Robert Franklin, and Nathaniel.
Carrie A. married David Schoonmaker, and resides in West Union, Iowa.
Our subject at the present writing is in his eighty-first year,
but conducts the choir at the Congregational Church. Educated in the
East and having every advantage both for intellectual training and
social culture Mr. Little is well fitted to be a leader. He has in his
possession a genealogy of the Little family which extends back into the
sixteenth century, and also preserves a cane which was made out of a
log used in building the first house belonging to his ancestors who
settled at Newberry, Mass., in 1640. This family is now very numerous,
and a complete history of it would fill a large volume and be very
interesting reading matter. Mr. Little's grandfather and
great-grandfather were both soldiers of the Revolutionary Army, the
former as Lieutenant, the latter as Commissary.
