Ford County IL Archives Biographies.....Gullett, William May 25, 1844 - 
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Norma Hass http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00013.html#0003021 March 5, 2017, 7:42 pm

Source: History of Ford Conty, Illinois: from its earliest settlement to 1908, Volume 2, pages 532-536
Author: Gardner, Ernest Arthur

William H. Gullett is a retired farmer now living in Roberts, his activity in 
former years having gained for him the competence that now enables him to 
enjoy the comforts of life without further recourse to labor. He was born in 
Devonshire, England, May 25, 1844, and comes of one of the old families of 
that land. Tradition has it that the Gulletts crossed from Normandy to England 
at the time of the invasion of that country by William the Conqueror. The 
ancestral history is traced back in unbroken line through five hundred years 
and graves of members of the family through that period are now seen in the 
parish of Shaw in Devonshire. The parents of our subject were Robert and 
Elizabeth (Skelley) Gullett, also natives of Devonshire. The mother died there 
nine years before her son William came to America but the father afterward 
joined his son here and lived with him for twelve years prior to his demise. 
In the family were two sons and five daughters and the sons and two of the 
daughters became residents of America.

There were five generations of Robert and Elizabeth Gulletts who were laid to 
rest in one cemetery in Devonshire, and the subject of this review, being the 
eldest child, according to custom should have been named Robert, but his 
second brother was given that name. His father's grandmother, who also bore 
the name of Elizabeth, was born in Philadelphia and married a Mr. Grant, who 
was an American officer in the Revolutionary war. He was killed in battle and 
she afterward married an English officer, Colonel Fox, and went to England to 
live. Thus Mr. Gullett claimed to be part American before he came to this 
country.

William H. Gullett spent the first thirty-nine years of his life in his native 
land. He followed farming there until 1868, when he went to London, where he 
did police duty for four years and then returned to the farm, carrying on 
general agricultural pursuits until his emigration to the new world. In 1883 
he crossed the Atlantic, establishing his home in Woodford county, Illinois. 
He was accompanied by his wife and six children and for ten years they lived 
upon a farm which he rented in Woodford county. On the expiration of that 
period he took up his abode upon a farm a mile southwest of Roberts, renting 
land from his uncle, and, as his financial resources increased, buying land 
for himself. He now owns two farms of eighty acres each, one in Wall and the 
other in Lyman townships. As the years passed he carried on the work of the 
fields and annually harvested rich crops as the reward for the labor which he 
bestowed upon the farm. Thus his financial resources annually increased and 
with a comfortable competence he retired from active farm work in March, 1904, 
and took up his abode in Roberts, since which time he has built the dwelling 
which he now owns and occupies.

In 1869 Mr. Gullett was married to Miss Marian Baskerville, who was born in 
Devonshire, England, in March, 1817, a daughter of John and Mary (Tozer) 
Baskerville, who spent their entire lives in England. The Baskervilles were an 
old family of that country, supposed to have gone from Normandy to England at 
the time of the conquest of the Anglo-Saxons by the Norman people. Mr. and 
Mrs. Gullett have eight children who are yet living: William H., a resident 
farmer of Wall township; Robert John, who is living on his uncle's farm in 
Lyman township; Albert Edward, who is engaged in the grain business in Roberts 
as a member of the firm of Roberts & Gullett; Ernest James, of Omaha, 
Nebraska; Julia Mary, the wife of W. A. Kenwood, of Wall township; Albert 
Thomas, who follows farming in Lyman township; Elias Frederick, of Lyman 
township; and Esther Maud, who is on the farm with her single brothers. They 
also lost two children — Francis George, who died in infancy and Bessie 
Marian, who died at the age of four years.

Mr. Gullett has been active and influential in community affairs and has 
filled several township offices. He has served as township drainage 
commissioner for the past seven years, has been school director for ten years 
and a trustee for nine years. He is interested in all that pertains to the 
material, intellectual, social and moral progress of the community. His 
political allegiance is given to the republican party and his religious faith 
is that of the Congregational church, in which he has served as a trustee for 
six years. Though born across the water and maintaining a love for his native 
land, he is yet thoroughly American in spirit and interests and loyal to the 
institutions of his adopted country. He and his wife have revisited their 
native land, making a trip to England in 1905. There they visited the scenes 
of childhood and renewed many of the acquaintances and friendships of their 
earlier years but willingly returned to Ford county, which they recognize as 
their permanent home.

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