McDonough ILGenWeb

ZIMMERMAN, George M., a well-known farmer of Hire Township, McDonough County, Ill., was born in that township on March 16, 1859, and obtained his early education in McDonough County. He is a son of John and Eliza (White) Zimmerman, natives of Ohio, in which State the paternal grandfather, John Zimmerman, was also born. John Zimmerman, the father, came to McDonough County in 1846 when a youth. His father took up land there and followed farming. When about twenty-one years old our subject started farming for himself, first on a place three and one-quarter miles west of here, and afterward in Hire Township, in 1881. In 1885 he bought eighty acres of land in Section 35, Hire Township. He now owns 300 acres in McDonough County, on which he has made all the improvements, and carries on general farming, feeding and stock-raising. He operates all the farms himself — fifty acres in Section 36, Hire Township; 100 acres in Section 31, Emmet Township; some land in Colchester Township, and ninety acres in Hancock County, Ill. At one time the elder Zimmerman owned about 500 acres in Tennessee and Hire Townships. He died August 21, 1903, and the mother October 9, 1905.

On February 27, 1881, Mr. Zimmerman was married to Lizzie Bright, a native of McDonough County, and daughter of William and Almyra (David) Bright. The father was a native of England and the mother of Fulton County, Ill. The children resulting from this union are as follows: John F., Ray Thomas, Nellie May, William, George Glynn and Marie. John F. married Maud Young and resides near his father, and Nellie May is the wife of Frank Wisherd, who lives in Indian Territory. They have one child, Iva. Politically, Mr. Zimmerman is a Democrat, and fraternally, he is affiliated with the M. W. A. and Mystic Workers.

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Source: The Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of McDonough County, compiled by Dr. Newton Bateman, and Paul Shelby, 1907, volume 2, page 1054, extracted 26 Oct 2020 by Norma Hass.