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JACOB N. FULLINWIDER, farmer, residence section twenty-five, was born June 5, 1814, in Shelby county, Kentucky, and there passed the first twenty years of his life on a farm. Henry Fullinwider, his father, was a Pennsylvanian by nativity; spent a portion of his early life in Maryland, and from there went to Kentucky when a young man, where he soon after married Harriet Neil, who was born in Virginia. Ten children were born to them, of whom seven were sons, and three daughters. In the autumn of 1833, Mr. Fullenwider came to Sangamon county, Illinois, purchased a tract of land in what is now Mechanicsburg township, and returned to Kentucky for his family, but while there he took sick and died, in August, 1834. In the fall of that year, the widow and nine children moved to the new country of the Sangamon, arriving after a thirteen days' journey, on October 11. The family settled on land now forming a part of the homestead owned by the subject of this article, where his mother afterwards died, January 31, 1867.
On March 23, 1837, Jacob N. Fullinwider and Agnes Bullard were united in marriage. She was born March 24, 1814, in Shelby county, Kentucky, and is the daughter of Reuben Bullard and Elizabeth Gill, natives of Virginia. She came to Sangamon county, Illinois, in November, 1835. Mr. and Mrs. Fullinwider first settled in town sixteen, range two west, about five miles east of the village of Mechanicsburg. Fifteen years later they sold that farm and bought a farm which forms a part of their present estate, and settled on it but a few rods from the splendid dwelling they now occupy. This beautiful brick residence was erected by Mr. Fullinwider in 1862 and '63, at a cost of $10,000. The barns and other buildings surrounding it cost $2,500. Mr. Fullinwider, being a thorough going, prudent business man, has been successful in a financial way. After having bought the interests of the other heirs to the old homestead, he purchased other tracts about it, until at one time he owned one
thousand four hundred acres of fine farming lands. He has given each of his six sons and two daughters $7,000, and still owns a farm of four hundred acres. In early years he voted the Whig ticket, and since the birth of the party, has been a Republican, though he has not been active in politics. He has served Mechanicsburg township two terms in the county board of supervisors, and has for many years been a zealous and prominent promoter of church and school matters. He has been a member and efficient worker in the Methodist Episcopal Church forty-nine years, and has contributed much, both in labor and money, toward its prosperity. Mr. and Mrs. Fullinwider's children are all, but one, married and comfortably situated in life; and for habits of industry, thrift and morality, they are an honor to their parents, and an ornament to society. They are all members of the Methodist episcopal Church, and all the sons, save one, are farmers. Marcus L. graduated from Illinois Western University, in 1871, and from
Rush Medical college in 1876; and has since July, of that year, been extensively engaged in the practice of medicine in Mechanicsburg, Sangamon county.