Source: The Biographical Record of Whiteside County, IL
Originally printed 1900
The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, IL

Transcribed by: Denise McLoughlin
Tampico Area Historical Society
www.tampicohistoricalsociety.citymax.com

Pages 504-505

THOMAS HUGGINS, one of the most prosperous and successful agriculturists of Garden Plains township, Whiteside county, Illinois, comes for across the sea, his birth having occurred in Kent county, England, August 8, 1831. His parents, Thomas and Eliza Huggins, were farming people of Kent, where they spent their entire lives. Our subject was reared and educated in his native land, and was married on Christmas day, 1849, in Kent, to Miss Susan Randolph, a daughter of William Randolph.

After his marriage Mr. Huggins remained in England for four years, being engaged in agricultural pursuits, but in 1853, with his wife and two children, he sailed for the new world. He first settled in New York state, where he followed farming until 1856, and then came to Illinois, locating in Garden Plains township, Whiteside county. Here he purchased and improved a farm of one hundred acres, and meeting with success in his farming operations, he has been able to add to his landed possessions until he now has a valuable land of four hundred acres which is under excellent cultivation and improved with good buildings. He is a systematic and skillful farmer and a good business man of sound judgment and industrious habits. He carries on general farming and stock raising, but has never made a specialty of any one  branch of agriculture. The success that he has achieved in life is due entirely to his own well-directed efforts, and for the same he deserves great credit. Politically he is identified with the Republican party, and gives his support to all measures which he believes will be of public good.

To Mr. and Mrs. Huggins were born twelve children, namely: Thomas, born in England, May 12, 1850, wedded Mary Drury and is now engaged in farming in Newton township, this county; Edward, born in England, January 8, 1852, married Mary Hudson, by whom he had six children, and also followed farming in Newton township; Eliza, born in New York state, January 22, 1854, is the wife of John Jordan, a farmer of Garden Plains township, and they have one child; George, born in New York, April 11, 1856, married Henrietta Bolds, by whom he has four children, and is engaged in farming in Garden Plains township; Henry, born in this county, November 23, 1857, resides on the home farm; Oliver O., born December 2, 1859, married Minnie Randolph, by whom he has one child, and they live in Albany, Illinois; Frank, born October 5, 1861, married Luella Shears, by whom he has three children, and he followed farming in Newton township; Rosa Emma, born August 10, 1863, is the wife of George Heffelfinger, a farmer of Garden Plains township; Fanny M., born July 29, 1865, is the wife of Harvey Byers, a United Brethren minister of Kent, Illinois, and they have three children; Freddy, born September 27, 1867, died when about three years old; Amelia A., born March 29, 1871, is the wife of Albert Curry, a farmer of Newton township, and they have two children,, Albert J., born September 8, 1872, wedded Mary Udy, by whom he has two children, and he is engaged in farming in Garden Plains township.