Source: History of Bureau County, Illinois
H.C. Bradsby, Editor
Illustrated
Chicago: World Publishing Company  1885
Reprinted by: Higginson Book Co., Salem, MA

Trascribed by: Denise McLoughlin
Tampico Area Historical Society
www.tampicohistoricalsociety.citymax.com

Page 535

William G. Gudgell, Tiskilwa, was born October 1, 1827, in Warren County, Ohio. He is a son of Mahlon Gudgell, who was a native of Pennsylvania. He was a farmer and shoe-maker by occupation,  and died in Ohio. The grandfather of our subject was a soldier in the Revolutionary war. The wife of Mahlon Gudgell was Charlotte (Snodgrass) Gudgell, who was the mother of five children, viz.: Stephen, John, Samuel, William G. and Milton. Mrs. Charlotte Gudgell died in Bureau County, aged eighty-four years. Our subject went to school in Indiana, and at the age of fourteen he commenced to farm for himself on his widowed mother's farm. Even at that age he would do a man's work in cradling and mowing. In the fall of 1850 he came to Putnam County, Ill., where he farmed till 1856, when he removed to Tiskilwa, Bureau County, where he opened a grocery store the following January in partnership with C.A. Dean. In a few years the latter went to California, and Mr. Gudgell has continued the business ever since. For a number of years he was also engaged in the stock and grain business. Mr. Gudgell was married twice. His first  wife, Mary A. Sharpless, died March 4, 1861. She was the mother of four children, viz.: Harrison W., Luella V., Sarah L and William Frank. His present wife, Susan A. Smith i a native of New York. She is the mother of six children, viz.: John H., Emma A., Clarence E., Ida, May and Walter R. Mr. and Mrs. Gudgell are members of the Baptist Church. Politically he is a Republican, and was formerly a friend of the "underground railroad."