George P. Huff Biographical Review

GEORGE P. HUFF was born in Schuyler county, Illinois, July 28, 1850. His father was William Huff, born in North Carolina in 1808, and his grandfather was John Huff, also of North Carolina, where he lived and died. The name of his grandmother was Charity Adams, born in North Carolina. William A. Huff married Betsy Ann Teaney, daughter of John and Nancy Teaney. She was born in Pennsylvania in 1812. When she was fourteen years old, her parents moved to Bartholomew county, Indiana, which they did with their own team. Mrs. Huff was married at the age of twenty-three, fifty-seven years ago. They set out for Illinois with their own horse and buggy and reached Rushville in the fall, where they remained thirteen years, and then moved to their present home. They had enough means to buy ninety-six acres of Government land on which they built a hewn-log house containing one room. This land was all wild, the country entirely unsettled, abounding in game, large and small. Mr. Huff afterward bought eighty acres more, making his farm in all 156 acres. In 1860 they built the present frame house, which was nearly completed in the fall of 1861, when he died. They had buried one son, John, who left a widow. Since the death of her husband she has buried, Sarah Huff, aged thirty-four; Melissa Tucker, about forty years old, and Martha Duncan, who died at fifty-two years, leaving ten children. Mrs. Huff has eight children still living: Mary Clampitt of Greeley, Kansas; Amanda Lineburger, of Hancock county, Illinois; Maria Fisher, of Creston, Iowa; Francis, a stock dealer of Hancock; George F. and Homer W., are still at home; Perry P., a farmer on an adjoining farm, and Eliza Wilborn, living on the old homestead. Mrs. Huff is still well and active in mind and body, and considering that she has been the mother of twelve children, has been a toiler these many years, being now eighty years old, she is a fair sample of the sturdy pioneer women of early days. Mr. Huff died in the faith of the Methodist Church, of which his widow is a member. He and his sons have always been Republicans, and they are highly regarded in the community in which they live.