Joseph M. Mullikin has made a name for himself in the farming enterprise of Champaign County and has been a land owner and progressive agriculturist for the past thirty years. His efforts in business and his attitude in civic matters have been in every way commendable, and there are few country places around Champaign which will better repay inspection than that of Mr. Mullikin, located on Route No. 1 out of the city of Champaign.
Mr. Mullikin was born in Johnson County, Indiana, February 7, 1863, but has lived in Champaign County since early infancy. He is a son of George C. and Nancy (Jones) Mullikin, the former a native of Indiana and the latter of Kentucky. Joseph Mullikin is a brother of Mr. Charles J. Mullikin, now postmaster in the city of Champaign. His father was a prominent man and a splendid character and a more extended reference to his career will be found on other pages.
Joseph M. Mullikin remained at home until he was twenty-four years of age. In the meantime he attended the local schools and fitted himself by practice and exertion for the work that he has followed as a business career. At the age of twenty-four he located on 160 acres near Bondville in this county, and that was the stage of his activities as a farmer for eighteen years. In the meantime he bought eighty acres elsewhere, and kept increasing his farm enterprise until he was cultivating 370 acres as a general farmer. In 1902 he bought 160 acres, and in 1911 sold the eighty acres above mentioned. In the same year he purchased another 160 acres and at the present time his fine farm comprises 400 acres situated in sections 20 and 29. In 1915 Mr. Mullikin suffered the misfortune of having his entire home destroyed by fire, but has since replaced it with a modern two-story, eight room house that realizes some of the best ideals and standards of Champaign County rural homes.
On February 12, 1887, he married Miss Belle Lowman, who was born in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, a daughter of Allison and Sarah J. (Lytle) Lowman, both natives of Pennsylvania and both now deceased. The Lowman family came to Champaign County in 1867, locating south of Bondville. In 1868 occurred a destructive cyclone in this section of Illinois, and the first home of the Lowmans was blown down. After nightfall the daughter Belle was discovered in’ the garden near the home fast asleep, having been blown there during the storm and having slept peacefully through it all. Mrs. Mullikin was one of nine children, the record of the family being briefly as follows: Inez, wife of Chalmer Stitt, of Champaign; Alice, deceased; Mrs. Mullikin; Elizabeth, wife of Charles Mullikin, postmaster of Champaign; John L., who lives near Staley and is road commissioner of that district; Mary, wife of Charles Shotts, of Milmine, Illinois; Samuel L., in the grocery and grain business at Staley; William, deceased; and Cora, wife of Frank Brown, of Champaign.
Mr. and Mrs. Mullikin have two children, Maude Edith and George Allison. Maude Edith is the wife of George Armstrong and their home is one mile west of Bondville. Their three children are named Dorothy Marie, Verlie and Marian Esther. George Allison is a farmer associated with the enterprise of his father. By his marriage to Blanche Fowler 5 a native of Urbana, he has one child, Marcella May.
Mr. Mullikin is a Democrat in politics. He is now serving his district as school director. He and his family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Their post office is at Champaign and they are well known in that city.
