JUDD, MARQUIS L., a retired farmer of Dawson, Sangamon County, comes of old American families which have proven themselves reliable in times of public peril in successive generations. His parents were Rezin and Eve (Shinkle) Judd, natives respectively of Kentucky and Ohio. The father emigrated with his parents from Kentucky to Ohio when he was five years old. The family settled in Clermont county, that state and lived there twenty-eight years. When they removed from Ohio to Illinois, making the journey by wagon, and passing through the woods and unbridged streams, they found the "new country" plentifully peopled by Indians. They acquired 208 acres of government land two miles east of Clear Lake, where they made improvements and farmed until 1857. In 1858 they traded their land for houses and a stock of merchandise at Dawson, where the elder Judd died in 1876, aged seventy-four years, and his widow in 1888, aged eighty-four years. They had ten children, four of whom are living at this time. William W., the eldest, manages a store in Dawson, Ill.; Margaret E. (Judd) Alls, born February 13, 1839, lives at Roby, Ill.; Rezin A. V., agent for the Illinois Traction System at Dawson, was born December 16, 1846; Marquis L., born December 23, 1841.

Marquis L. Judd was reared on his father's farm and acquired his education in the public schools near his home. He was employed on his father's place most of time until the family removed to Dawson. His father enlisted in Company F, Seventieth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, for service in the Civil War, but was taken sick before the muster. Marquis then took his place in the company, was mustered in and served under Captain Cummings, being mustered out at the end of his term of three months and honorably discharged. Later he took part in the operations before Vicksburg, Miss., in 1863.

Mr. Judd was variously employed during his active years. Some of the time he farmed with considerable success. He was the first carried of Dawson rural Delivery Route No. 21, which he drove for six years. Previously he was in the employ of a coal company for a considerable time. He is a Republican and a Methodist. In Masonic circles he is known as a member of Dawson Lodge No. 556, Free and Accepted Masons, and is also a member of the allied Order of the Eastern Star. He has never married.

Mr. Judd is the owner of considerable property near Dawson and is popular and influential in his community.