I. W. Burgett, deceased, was, during his residence in Douglas County, one of its leading and most successful farmers. From the time he was ten years old he spent the whole of his eventful life in Sargent Township. He is a descendant of English and German ancestors, who were among the early residents of Ohio. His grandfather was in the war of 1812. His father, Abraham Burgett, lived in Pickaway County and there married Eliza Wells, a native of Ohio. He and his wife continued to live in that County, and there Isaac W. Burgett was born. The family shortly afterward removed to Indiana and settled in Vermillion County, near Perrysville, on the Wabash River. Here Abraham Burgett followed the occupations of cooper and farmer. He died in 1840, leaving five children.
Isaac W. Burgett was born June 18, 1829.
When the family removed to Douglas County they settled near the mouth of Brushy Fork. He went to school in the Sargent neighborhood and in the vicinity of Newman. On coming to Douglas County his mother rented land, and when a mere boy he had charge of the farm and with a younger brother performed nearly all the labor. This continued until his mother’s second marriage. In the summer he worked at home and in the winter went to school. When about eighteen years of age he started out for himself and worked on a farm for from eight to ten dollars a month. Two or three years were spent in this way.
December 28, 1848, he was married to Telitha Howard, a native of Jackson, Ohio, whose parents had emigrated to Vermillion County, Indiana, and then to Douglas County, Illinois. At this time his capital consisted of twenty-five dollars in money and one horse, and on this he rented land on Brushy Fork and began farming, renting land for two years. He afterward bought, on credit, twenty acres of timber and entered eighty acres on ,which he moved in the spring of 1853, and at the time of his death owned over one thousand and six hundred acres of land. He became not only prominent in farming, but also an extensive dealer in live stock. Mr. and Mrs. Burgett had eleven children : William B., Margery A.. John Wesley, Hezekiah W., Eliza Ellen, Sarah Elizabeth, Scott, Wilson S.. Maud L., Carl S. and Thomas P.