Gilbert Clement, Lamoille, who is the subject of this biography, was born June 17, 1815, in Danville, Caledonia Co., Vt. He is one of our few early settlers who came here when this county was a mere wilderness. He was here as early as 1836.
His parents, Merrill and Hannah (Morrill) Clement, were natives of New Hampshire, where the former died. The latter died in Hardin County, Ohio. She was an aunt of Taddeus Stevens, the statesman and anti-slaveryman. Our subject is the youngest of a family of eleven children, of whom he and his sister, Mrs. Lydia Hatch, are the only survivors.
Mr. Clement was reared in Vermont. In 1835 he, accompanied by his mother and oldest brother and family, removed to Hardin County, Ohio, where he resided one year, and then came to Bureau County, Ill. He traveled by water, coming down the Ohio, then up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, landing in Princeton in December 1836. Here he has made farming his principal occupation, but also followed the carpenter’s trade ten years. He has resided in Lamoille Township with the exception of six years, which he spent in Livingston County.
He was married here to Lucy A. Barton, who was born December 4, 1821, in South Hadley, Mass. She is a daughter of Ezekiel and Nancy (Cadwell) Barton, and came to this county with her aunt, Mrs. Julia Church, in October 1836. She is the mother of the following children: Mrs. Elizabeth B. Bullard, Mrs. Josephine Eastman, Mrs. Hannah Sturdevant, Mrs. Lucella McCombs, Mrs. Sophronia Newberry, Alice M. Clement, Mrs. Chastine McCulloch, Eliza J. (deceased), Gilbert M., Edith M. and Norman B. Clement, the latter deceased.
Mrs. Clement is an active member of the Baptist Church. Eight of her daughters have been teachers; of these seven have taught in this county, and thus added materially to the advancement of morality and intelligence in this community.
Politically Mr. Clement is identified with the Republican party, and is greatly in favor of prohibition. He filled different offices in Clarion Township where he resided seventeen years. When the evening twilight of life gathered about him he removed to the quiet village of Lamoille, where he now resides.
Source: History of Bureau County, Illinois, H. C. Bradsby, Editor. World Publishing Company Chicago 1885