James Frederick Huitt, born August 14, 1855 was the second child of
     three boys and one girl born to John B. and Lovina Huitt in Auburn, Illinois.
     His father was shot by Southern bushwackers when he was home on leave during
     the Civil War. Lovina and the children later moved to Stafford County, where
     the three boys worked on the railroad being built going west through Kansas.
     J.F. met and married Martha Bolin who had moved to Stafford County, Kansas
     from Ohio. She was of Irish descent with long, beautiful, heavy, dark red
     hair. They had 12 children, five boys and seven girls. Ernest Leland Huitt
     was their first child and at his birth the family lived about 2 1/2 miles
     south of Ellinwood.
          James Frederick was a farmer, a water well driller, and a trader. He
     farmed, drilled water wells, erected windmills and traded almost anything -
     land, cattle, horses, machinery, potatoes, what-have-you.
          J.F. and Martha and their family of nine moved to Barber County in 1901, 
     to a farm one mile east of Isabel and north of the Santa Fe Tracks. Two of
     their children, Claud and Pearl, had died in childhood and were buried in
     Ellinwood Cemetery in Barton County. Ernest, Ida (Runkle), Frank, Sula (Swinson),
     Ethel (Robinson), Earl, Webb, Maude (Stitzle), and Florence (Wells), came
     with their parents, and Grace (Campbell) was born shortly after they arrived
     in Isabel.
          Mr. Huitt served on the Isabel school board and as a result, his son
     Ernest, along with one of the McGuire boys (whose father was also on the
     school board) was "selected" to set out the two original rows of trees along
     the west and north sides of the present school yard. Ernest sometimes recalled 
     that the McGures, the Raleighs, and the Huitts all arrived in Isabel the
     same spring and the school population took a large leap!
          After a few years, the Huitts moved from the farm and built the big
     two-story house across west from the school house. This house still stands.
     Martha, the mother, died in 1915. Later J.F., and some of the children moved
     to Palacious, Texas, and spent the remainder of his life there. He died in
     1944; both he and Martha are buried in the Isabel Cemetery.
               
     Source: Isabel, Kansas - The First 100 Years, 1887 - 1987,  pg. 101 
     
     Submitted by: LaVeda Huitt Carpenter