Babcock, Amos C.

Born: 1828-01-20 Penn Yan, New York

Died: 1899-02-25 Chicago, Illinois

Flourished: Canton, Illinois

Amos C. Babcock, merchant, businessman, state legislator, U.S. Army officer, and bank director, came to Illinois at the age of eighteen and settled at Canton, where he partnered in a mercantile business with his brother. About 1854, he was involved in extending the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad from Yates City to Canton. Babcock represented Fulton County in the Illinois House of Representatives, 1855 to 1856. By 1860, he owned real estate valued at $10,000 and possessed $5,000 worth of personal property. Abraham Lincoln appointed Babcock assessor for the ninth district of Illinois in 1862. In 1863, he briefly served as a colonel in the 103rd Infantry Regiment of Illinois Volunteers. Babcock became a director of the First National Bank of Canton the following year. He married Margaret A. Bidamon in 1852 and the pair had seven children. Politically, Babcock was first a Whig and later a Republican.

Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, eds., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Fulton County, ed. by Jesse Heylin (Chicago: Munsell, 1908), 30, 708, 741, 762c; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Canton, Fulton County, IL, 153; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Fulton County, 24 February 1852, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 220; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Canton, Fulton County, IL, 59; Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1887), 13:17, 113; Illinois Statewide Death Index, Cook County, 25 February 1899, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; The Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), 8 February 1898, 2:6; The Chicago Daily Tribune (IL), 27 February 1899, 7:2-3.