E. C. Gillett, presiding judge of the county court of Dade County, and a resident of Lockwood, was born in Stephenson County, Ill., in 1836. His father, Ezra B. Gillett, was descended from three brothers who came from Wales in a very early day; he was born in Oneida County, New York, in 1806, but left home in 1826, went to Wisconsin, and mined several years, then to Ohio, where he married Sophronia Rima, a native of Onondaga County, New York, born in 1810. From there he removed to Illinois, thence to Wisconsin, and in 1870 to Lawrence County, Mo., where he still lives, his wife having died in 1884. He was a farmer, and a soldier in the Black Hawk War. The subject of this sketch, the second of two sons and two daughters, received his education at the common schools till the age of eighteen, when he attended the State University, at Madison, Wis., one year. In 1860, in Illinois, he married Eliza C., daughter of Jacob and Nancy Miller, of Center County, Penn., both of her parents having died in Wisconsin, about 1845. He engaged in farming till 1867, when he removed to Monroe, Wis., and entered the grain and stock business, remaining there until 1880, when he went to Lawrence County, Mo., and the next year to Lockwood, where he has since conducted a grain and stock business with success. In 1886 he was elected presiding judge of Dade County court for four years. He owns a good property in Lockwood and about 600 acres of land in Dade, Lawrence and Jasper Counties, and in Texas. In politics he is a Republican, having voted for Lincoln in 1860. He was formerly a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and a Good Templar. Both he and his wife are Methodists, he formerly being a member of the United Brethren Church.
