Sepia Saturday: John J. M. Biggs
The photo today is grainy and blurry, the result of scanning and trying to enlarge a tiny photo taken by my paternal grandfather Lloyd Arnett when he was a teen. The man with the horse and buggy is John James Madison Biggs. Lloyd's mother was Mary Biggs, daughter of John and his wife Dicy Reed Biggs. John James Madison Biggs was born March 5, 1837 in McCracken County, Kentucky to Elijah Biggs, Jr. and his wife Mary "Polly" Brown, the fourth of eight known children, though there were said to be ten. The family moved to Illinois when John was a boy and his father Elijah died when John was only 12. About a year later, Polly Brown Biggs married Larkin Cantrell. For whatever reason, shortly after her marriage, she farmed out the boys to a local Williamson County family, J.W. McCreery and his wife. All the Biggs boys were said to have served in the Union army during the Civil War, but I've never found John's records. John married Dicy Caroline Reed in...