WILLIAM D. CHILTON. - William D. Chilton is spending the closing years of a long and useful career in honorable retirement from labor at his pleasant home on section 25, New Berlin, where he has a well-improved place of seventy-eight acres. He is a native of Illinois, born in St. Clair county, on Silver creek, March 15, 1819, and is a son of William D. Chilton Sr., whose birth occurred in Loudoun county, Virginia, in 1789. The Chiltons were from England and were among the early settlers of Virginia. There the father of our subject grew to manhood and was married in Tennessee to Miss Mary Kimbrough, a native of that state. By trade he was a carpenter and blacksmith, at which occupations he worked in early life. Coming to Illinois in 1819, he first located in St. Clair county, but the following year removed to Sangamon county, becoming one of the first settlers of Round Prairie, on the Sangamon river, where opened up a farm and also worked at his trade. Later in life, when his children were all grown, he removed to Nodaway county, Missouri, where he spent his last years, dying there in August, 1871, at the ripe old age of eighty-nine years. His wife had passed away some year previous in Green county, Wisconsin. Our subject is the only one of their six sons now living, the others being James, Duke, Martin, Augustus and Thomas, but he has a sister, Mrs. Sarah Trotter, a resident of Zion City, Lake county, Illinois.

Mr. Chilton, whose name introduces this sketch, passed his boyhood and youth in Sangamon county, Illinois, and Green county, Wisconsin, and after arriving at years of maturity returned to this county, where he was married in November, 1840, to Miss Lucinda Moore, who was born and reared in this state and died in 1854, leaving two sons and one daughter, namely: Thomas, who is married and follows farming in this county; James H., who is also married and operates his father's farm of one hundred and sixty acres in Cartwright township; and Malinda E., wife of James Coons, whose sketch appears on another page of this volume. In 1855 Mr. Chilton was again married, his second union being with Miss Marinda Hedges, a daughter of Josiah Hedges, now deceased, who came to this state from Kentucky during the girlhood of Mrs. Chilton, she being a native of that state. By this marriage one son was born, John C., who married Mary J. Dunlap, daughter of William T. Dunlap, of New Berlin township, on the 28th of march, 1878, and lives in New Berlin. They had five children: Margaret Hazel and Harriet Ethel, both deceased; Anna, wife of John G. Talbott, of Springfield; and Lillian Louise, at home.

After his first marriage Mr. Chilton located on forty acres of railroad land in Sangamon county, which he broke, fenced and improved, and in 1850 he bought an adjoining tract of one hundred and twenty acres at five dollars per acre. He purchased the eighty acres where he now resides in 1851 and ten years later built a good house thereon. He set out fruit and shade trees and has made many other valuable improvements to the place, so that he now has a fine farm supplied with all modern conveniences. For several years he has rented his land, while he lives a retired life, enjoying a well-earned rest, free from the cares and responsibilities of business.

Politically Mr. Chilton is a stanch Democrat, but has never cared for office. Almost his entire life has been spent in this county, and he has therefore, witnessed its wonderful growth and development from pioneer conditions. In this work he ever bore his part, aiding in the arduous task of transforming the wild land into good farms. he is also familiar with all of the hardships and trials of frontier life and is entitled to a prominent place on the roll of honored pioneers of Sangamon county.