My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE P. SARGENT was born in Douglas county, Ill., Aug. 17, 1842, where he was raised until twenty-four years of age on the home farm. His father immigrated from Pike county, Ohio, to Illinois in 1829, during the Black Hawk War of historical fame. It was from here, Douglas county, that George P. Sargent enlisted in the Twenty-fifth Illinois Infantry, under Gen. Jeff. C. Davis, of Indiana, in 1861. He participated in some of the bloodiest battles of the late war, being in the battles of Pea Ridge and siege of Corinth, where red flannel shirts were torn into strips and worn upon the arms of those detailed to bear off the dead. He was wounded in the battle of Chickamauga, and after completing his service he removed to Jasper county in 1866, paying ten cents a mile for the privilege of carrying a rail and prying out the stage on its route to the comparatively new Southwest, as full of wild deer as cattle now upon the prairies, March 31, 1869, is the day upon which he took unto himself Mollie Elliott as his wife, daughter of John Elliott, her birthday occurring May 22, 1847, of Athens county, Ohio. The names of the children are Guy E., John H., and Carrie E., who died in 1877, and Lottie J. Sargent. Mr. Sargent is a Mason. He has a farm of 173 acres in Mineral township, section 35, range 33; 116 acres were sown to winter wheat, averaging 20 bushels; also three acres of apple, peach, and pear trees, and a fine vineyard. Mr. Sargent owns and operates a steam thresher, and makes a business of separating grain, having run out in three months $1,400 worth of work. All honor to such men, who, having spent years in the country’s cause and liberation from the trammels of degradation, to quietly settle down to the peace and quiet of a farm and its royal independence.