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Not very far from Lexington, near Winchester, Clark county, in middle Kentucky, J. T. Hamilton was born in 1829. He was the youngest son in a family of nine children. In 1831 his father moved to Illinois and settled on the farm where Mr. Hamilton has always lived, with the exception of three years during which time he was a resident of Winchester. In 1852 he was united in marriage with Miss Sarah A. Martin. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton are the parents of three children. Two died in infancy and one, a daughter, yet remains to them.

Three score and twelve years Mr. Hamilton has been a resident of Scott county. He has witnessed its growth and development and is conversant with its history as it has come from nothing to be the best small county in the state. He has lived here at a time when "lickin' and larnin'" traveled hand in hand and when the "latchstring" always hung out. For years after he came to Scott county settlements were few in number and remote from each other, but there was a community of interest, and neighbors were indeed neighbors. This was long before the itinerant vendors of tinware and wooden clocks had made their appearance. But as Mr. Hamilton grew the settlements grew. The influx of immigration, coupled with the natural increase in population, cleared the forest and broke out the prairies. Cities and towns have sprung up. Farms and orchards have taken the place of the erstwhile haunts of chaotic nature and the wilderness has been made to "blossom as the rose." All this Mr. Hamilton has witnessed in the county of his adoption, and to considerable of it he has lent his energy and his efforts. The years of his life here have been filled with their portion of sunshine and shadow, of storm and calm. Today as he gazes down the long vista of years, fraught with so much of joy and sorrow; as he in memory wanders by the winding brook whose limped waters ripple o'er the pebbles or flow peacefully around the great flat stepping stones; up and on through the years flecked and checkered with trial, and struggle and toil, out at last into the golden beauty of ripe old age, he can but feel that his life has ben for a purpose and his labors have been crowned.