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WILLIAM PRIDDLE, living on section 19, Buffalo Hart township, is a native of Somersetshire, England, born April 4, 1847. His father, Jacob Priddle, was also a native of that country and was reared and married there. The son spent his boyhood days upon a farm and pursued his education in the public schools. After attaining his majority he was married in Somersetshire to Miss Oceanna Vile, also a native of England.
In 1871, when a young man of about twenty-four years, Mr. Priddle came with his wife to America and located upon a rented farm in Sangamon county, Illinois. For several years he continued to cultivate land which he had leased, and then, with the money which he had acquired through his own labor, he purchased his present farm on section 19, Buffalo Hart township, about 1899. The following year he took up his abode there and is now carefully and systematically carrying on general farming with good success. He has one hundred and thirty acres of well-improved and valuable land, which is known as the A. B. Cass homestead. Upon the place is a good brick house, which was erected in 1853, and barns and sheds have been built. The fields are well tilled with the latest improved machinery and Mr. Priddle is doing all in his power to make the farm profitable and productive.
In 1903 he was called upon to mourn the loss of his wife, who died on the 5th of March of that year. They were the parents of eleven children, ten of whom are yet living: Mary, wife of William Taylor, a farmer of Barclay; Elizabeth; Samuel, who is married and follows farming in Buffalo Hart township; Fred; William; Ida; Estella; Edith; John; and Harold. They also lost one son, Henry, who died at the age of two years.
Mr. Priddle indorses the Republican party, its men and measures, and he and his family are members of the Presbyterian church. He has never had occasion to regret his determination to seek a home in America, for through its opportunities he has worked his way steadily upward, and in agricultural circles has made for himself an honorable name and gained a fair measure of success.