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WILLIAM S. BABBITT,
Superintended of the county farm, was born in Orleans County, Vt.,
December 19, 1825, and is one of the four children of Joshua and
Betsey Scott Babbitt. His father was a native of New Hampshire, and
moved to Ohio in 1826; he was a soldier in the war of 1812, and
commanded a battery at the battle of Plattsburg; he was Sheriff of
the county at the time of his death; his mother was a native of
Vermont, and died in 1832. William S. Babbit lived with a man named
Kimball until he was eleven years old, when he ran away and shipped
on a Cape Cod fishing vessel, and afterward on a whaling cruise,
making three voyages.
He has doubled Cape Horn five times and crossed the Isthmus of Panama once. He has been twice shipwrecked, the crew being saved each time. In 1854, he quit seafaring, and settled to farming in Ross Township, this county. On December 25, 1854, he was married to Harriet Irish, a native of Vermont. To this union there followed five children, four living - John J., Aaron S., Lucia M. and Sabra H. Mr. Babbitt was a soldier in the late war in Company E, Twentieth Indiana Volunteers; eight months later he was commissioned Second Lieutenant, and in 1862 promoted to a Captaincy, and transferred to Company C. At the battle of Chancellorsville, he was severely wounded and discharged July 2, 1863. He was afterward Deputy Provost Marshall and Government detective during the war. He then resumed farming until made Superintendent of the Poor Farm in March, 1881. Mr. and Mrs. Babbitt are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Babbitt is a member of Lodge, 551, of Freemasons; he is also a Republican.
Source:
"Counties of Porter and Lake, Indiana, Historical and Biographical"
Goodspeed and Blanchard, 1882 Page: 599, 600; Crown Point and Centre Township Sumbitted by: marie626@email.msn.com |