WHITING, WILLIAM P.,
farmer, P. O. Fairfield, was born May 5, 1837, in Fayette County, Ky.
His father, William Whiting,
was born in Virginia, but died in Wabash County, Ill., in 1876. He
lived many years in White County, where he farmed. While living in
Kentucky with his uncle, he enlisted in the United States Army,
fighting in the war of 1812. He was not of age when he went, and on
asking his mother's consent, she told him, with the spirit of a Spartan
mother, " Go, my son, only be not shot in the back." The mother of our
subject was Margaret (Robison) White;
was a native of Kentucky. She was the mother of eleven children, of
whom six are now living, viz., Henry C.,
Sarah E. Hughes, Matilda J.Johnson, William P. (our subject), John Thomas and Lydia Ann Crowder. Mrs. Margaret Whiting died
September 7, 1876, in White County, Ill.
Our subject went to school in Cynthiana, Ind., to which place his
father had moved from Kentucky; he also went to school in Phillipstown,
White Co., Ill. He has been a farmer all his life, with the exception
of about three years which he spent in the United States Army during
our late war. He enlisted August 15, 1862, in Phillipstown, Ill., in
Company K, of the Eighty-seventh Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry.
After one year's service, he was transferred to Company E of the
Fifteenth Veteran Reserve Corps. This was after he came out of the
hospital at Jefferson Barracks, Mo.
At the close of the war, he returned to White County, where he farmed,
and was married, October 24, 1865, to Miss
Ellen Baught, born August 31, 1840, in White County, Ill.,
daughter of William and Margaret
(George) Baught, he a native of Kentucky and she of South
Carolina. Our subject has 100 acres of land in Wayne County, where he
now resides, and to which he came in 1873.
Mr. and Mrs. Whiting are members of the United Baptist Church. In
politics, he is an Independent Democrat.