GILBERT POTTER BABCOCK BIOGRAPHY AS RECORDED IN: COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF
TOLLAND AND WINDHAM COUNTIES BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PROMINENT AND
REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS AND OF MANY PUBLISHER: J.H.BEERS & CO., CHICAGO; 1903 P. 981 GILBERT POTTER BABCOCK. Mention of the Babcock family is made in the earliest history of New England. James Babcock, the founder of the family in the United States, changed the family name at the time of his coming to these shores, it having been Badcock before that day. This old Puritan was born in Essex, England, in 1580, and in 1620 accompanied the Pilgrims to Leyden, Holland, and later to this country. He crossed the ocean in the ship Anne in 1623, and arrived at Plymouth, Mass., in July, where he spent the remaining years of his life. Mr. Babcock was a member of the most venerable body of men the world has ever known, men of profound spiritual illumination, and a most vital sense of dependence on an over-ruling Providence; and among them he occupied a very honorable place. James Babcock brought with him to these shores four children, who were born in England from 1612 to 1620, James, John, Job and Mary. Mr. Babcock contracted a second marriage in Plymouth about 1650 and became the father of one son, Joseph, by his second wife. The four older children, already noted, remained with their father in Plymouth, but the youngest son, Joseph, removed to Saybrook, Conn., where he made settlement. John Babcock, the second son, later settled in Rhode Island, in that section which is known as Westerly, about 1648, and there he died in 1719, when over one hundred years of age. At the time of his death he left ten children, and their descendants at the present time number over 5,000. The first magistrate in Westerly, he held that office many years. Nearly all Westerly, and much of South Kingston belonged to him, and much of this land is now in the hands of his descendants, two hundred years after his death. Nearly all the offices of the town within
the gift of the people, were filled by him or his family for many years.
Joshua Babcock, born in 1707, Henry Babcock, born in 1736, was a colonel in the English service prior to the Revolution, and was wounded at the battle of Ticonderoga in the French war. In the Revolution he was General of the State Troops of Rhode Island, and distinguished himself on many occasions. Oliver Babcock, another distinguished member of this family was a captain in the Revolutionary army, and was at the siege of Fort Washington, becoming so indignant at its surrender that he broke his sword across a cannon, with the declaration that it should never be yielded to the British. Simeon Babcock, great grandfather of Gilbert P., lived in Columbia, Conn., where he died, having been the father of seven boys and seven girls. When he died in 1852, he was ninety-four years of age. Stanton Babcock, the grandfather of Gilbert P., was born in Westerly, R.I., was bred a farmer, and came to Connecticut when a young man. Almira Robertson, of Coventry, became his wife and bore him the following children: Janes M.; Horatio; Gurdon; Stanton. Janes Maxwell Babcock, the father of
Gilbert Potter, was born Feb. 14, 1820, in Coventry, Conn., and died April
18, 1895, in Vernon, Conn. Bred to a farming life, he followed that calling
all his active years. In 1858, he removed from Coventry to Tolland, where
he combined farming and lumbering until 1870. That year he settled in Vernon,
where he made a specialty of tobacco raising. In 1892 he gave up farm work
on account of old age. It was in 1872 that he went to California, and for
a time had a dairy of a hundred cows at Cape Mendocino, in Humboldt county,
spending seven years all told in that State. Always a strong Republican,
he was a selectman in Coventry for several terms and represented that town
in the General Assembly in 1857, and at different times held many town offices.
In Tolland he was first selectman several terms, and was county commissioner
four years, the last year being chairman of the board. His services as
justice of the peace Gilbert P. Babcock was born in Columbia,
Conn., Jan. 2, 1850, but when he was only two years of age his parents removed
to Willimantic, and two years later to Coventry. In 1858 he came to Tolland,
where he received his education, both at the public school, and at a select
school taught by Prof. Fred Lilley, of Coventry. Mr. Babcock left school
when he reached the age of seventeen years, and engaged in farming, a business
he followed until 1874, when he went to Scranton, Pa., where he became an
engineer, having a stationary engine in charge for several months, and then
becoming a fireman on the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. In
1881 he left railroad work, and came back to Vernon, Conn., where he bought
the Blinn mill of Charles Underwood, operating both the grist and saw mill
for sixteen years. Mr. Babcock belongs to the Grange, an institution in which he has always taken an active part, having been a charter member of Vernon Grange, No. 52, of which he has been steward, overseer, and for three years a trustee. Mr. Babcock attends the Tolland Congregational Church, and in politics is an ardent Republican. In 1897 and in 1898 he was first selectman. In 1898 he was defeated for representative by only four votes, running ahead of his ticket eighteen votes. Mr. Babcock was married Oct. 22, 1873, to Inez Brown, who was born in Tolland, a daughter of James A. and Frances E. (Kimball) Brown. To this union have come the following children: Frank Gilbert, born July 22, 1875, a graduate as a mining engineer from the school of Technology at Boston, class of 1903; Harry Janes, born July 27, 1877, who entered Yale in 1902 to study sanitary engineering; Elliot Kimball, born March 27, 1896. Mrs. Lurancy Hall, born Lurancy Huvey,
a daughter of Alvia Huvey, and a sister of the mother of Mr. Babcock, is
the widow of Egbert Hall, of Reproduced by: Linda D. Pingel great-great granddaughter of Cyrus White of Rockville, Ct. Biographies of Tolland County |