John D. Sitts, born January 23, 1831, in Oneida County, New York, is a longtime resident and grocery merchant in Franklin Grove, Lee County, Illinois. Coming from a family with deep American roots, his grandfather, Henry Sitts, was a Revolutionary War soldier. John moved to Illinois in 1854, initially working in railroading and later in the lumber trade before settling into the grocery business. He married Eva E. Lincoln in 1863, and they had four children: Henry B., Gertie G., Bertha C., and Helen Edna. John has been active in local politics, serving as a Justice of the Peace and a County Supervisor.
John D. Sitts, an old resident of Lee County, has been engaged in the grocery business at Franklin Grove many years and is numbered among the pioneer merchants of this section. He was born in Oneida County, N.Y., January 23, 1831, and is of sturdy Teutonic and Revolutionary stock, being one of the fourth generation of the American branch of the Sitts family that settled in this country in colonial times. His grandfather, Henry Sitts, was born either in New York or New England, and was a gallant soldier of the Continental Army throughout the struggle of the colonists for freedom from the mother country. He died in Montgomery County, N.Y., many years after at the venerable age of ninety-three years.
The parents of our subject were George and Harriet (Bartlett) Sitts, who were natives of the Mohawk Valley, in the Empire State. His mother died when he was fourteen years old. His father was a contractor on the Erie Canal in his early life. He came to Chicago in 1819 and was prosperously engaged in the grain and lumber trade in that city until his death in 1863 in the midst of his busy career at the age of sixty-three years. He had six children, four sons and two daughters, who came to Illinois, namely George, who died in Chicago in April 1891; Joseph, who died in Cleveland, Ohio; Benjamin F., a resident of Chicago; Elizabeth A., who married John M. Wandell, of Chicago; John D.; and Margaret H., who married Cyrus Thomas, of Columbus, Ohio, and died at Franklin Grove in November 1865.
Our subject learned the trade of an iron moulder when he was young, and pursued it in Monroe County, N.Y., for some years. He came from there to Illinois in 1854 and for three years was engaged in railroading. He subsequently became interested in the lumber trade at Franklin Grove, forming a partnership with others under the firm name of Sitts, Thomas & Co., and continued in that line six years. At the end of that time, he began farming in Bradford Township, but four years later he abandoned agricultural pursuits, and returning to Franklin Grove, has ever since been engaged in the grocery business at this point, and is one of the oldest and most experienced business men in this part of the State. He has his store well fitted up, and carries a good and varied stock of everything that the market affords in his line that is demanded by his customers. He has acquired a comfortable property, and besides his possessions in this village, owns a farm nearby in the southern part of Ogle County. His political sentiments are in accord with the policy of the Republican party, of which he is a tried and true member. He has held several local offices, filling them satisfactorily and always with an eye single to the public good. He has been a member of the County Board of Supervisors and did all that he could in that capacity to push forward all schemes for the further development of township, village, and county, as indeed, he has always done since he became a resident of this section. He was at one time Justice of the Peace and was active in preserving law and order in the community while he was an incumbent of that position.
Mr. Sitts was married in January 1863, to Miss Eva E., daughter of John and Lydia (Gifford) Lincoln, and a native of Genesee County, N.Y. For a quarter of a century, they lived together in a harmonious and felicitous wedded life, and then death invaded their pleasant home, April 11, 1888, and removed the devoted wife and loving mother, who had filled in a perfect measure those sacred offices. She was fifty-four years of age when she died. Four children were born to her and our subject: Henry B., an employee of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway; Gertie G., wife of W. S. Winter, of Turner, Ill.; Bertha C.; and Helen Edna.