B. F. PARMER

PARMER

Posted By: Jake Tornholm (email)
Date: 4/20/2020 at 13:23:48

B. F. PARMER, of section 6, Carl township, was born in Washington county, Maryland, October 28, 1826, a son of Perry Parmer, a native of East Maryland, who served in the war of 1812 . He married Susan Kitzmiller, a native of Pennsylvania, and moved to Ogle county, Illinois, in 1846, where he died the same year, at the age of seventy-five years; his widow (second wife) survived until 1875 , dying at the age of seventy-three years, a worthy member of the Church of God. By his first marriage he had three children, and by his second six. He was a farmer all his life.

Mr. Parmer, whose name introduces this sketch, was reared upon a Maryland farm, and at the age of nineteen years moved to Ogle county, Illinois. In 1852 he went to California, overland with an ox team, being about half a year on the journey. Was in the Golden State five years, engaged in mining and farming. In 1857 he returned by way of the Isthmus and New York city.
In 1861 he purchased 120 acres of raw prairie where he now lives, and five years later he came and settled upon it, as a pioneer in that vicinity. It was then one mile, to the southeast and southwest, to the nearest neighbors. To the northwest there was but one family in the township of Victoria, Cass county, six miles distant. And here he has made one of the neatest, cosiest and finest improved farms in Carl township, appropriately called “ Sunnyside.” He has a good frame house, nicely furnished, an orchard of 100 bearing trees, a vineyard, a substantial Pennsylvania barn, 30 x 48 feet, with a stone basement, etc., etc. It now embraces 120 acres, and Mr. Parmer has also 120 acres in Washington township. Politically Mr. Parmer is a Democrat; has never sought office, but has served his township as Trustee. He is a popular man, being a faithful citizen and good neighbor.