My Genealogy Hound

HENRY GRIZZELL, farmer and stock-raiser, Sec. 33; P. O. Sabina; born in Gloucestershire, England, July 28, 1815. He was the only child of Josiah Grizzell, who was born in 1769, and raised in Gloucestershire, England. He followed farming until his decease, which occurred in the fall of 1834. His mother was born in the same place; her maiden name was Anna Roach; her birth occurred in 1769; she died in England in 1843; they both lie buried in the churchyard in Harrisville Parish. The subject of this sketch attended the private subscription schools in his youth, after which he followed farming until he emigrated to America, where he landed in New York in April, 1851, after a tedious voyage of thirteen weeks. He then lived in Auburn, N. Y., two years, when he emigrated West, and located at Cleaverville, Cook Co., Ill., in 1853. Here he followed farming and carpentering for two years, and, in 1855, he came to McLean Co., living near Bloomington two years, and, in 1857, he came to West Township, and entered 160 acres of land, upon which he located the following year, and where he has since lived. He was one of the first settlers of West Township, and is one of, if not the oldest resident of the township. He now owns 290 acres of well-improved land in Sections 32 and 33 which he has accumulated by his own hard labor, energy and economy, in which he has been nobly assisted by his wife, to whom he was united in marriage in Monmouthshire, England, July 15, 1844; her maiden name was Jane Martin; she was born in the parish of Hardwich Gloucestershire, England, Dec. 12, 1815; her father, Thomas Martin, was born in the same shire and died in Monmouthshire in the fall of 1847; her mother’s maiden name was Hannah Vick; she was born in Gloucestershire, and died in Worcestershire, July, 1841. The children of Henry and Jane Grizzell were eight in number, of which four are now living, viz.: Ann Maria, born May 15, 1845, now Mrs. H. R. Benson, wife of a prominent lawyer of Bloomington; Edward H., Dec. 15, 1846, farming in Barton Co., Kan.; Robert, Aug. 27, 1848, now in Kansas; and John Martin, now attending the Wesleyan University at Bloomington. Mr. and Mrs. Grizzell have been members of the Episcopal Church since their childhood.