The Bobbitt Family In America
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[29]"Inasmuch as many a noble citizen passes from our midst without a proper appreciation of his true worth, I have thought it altogether fitting and proper to record here some of the virtues of my late friend and comrade, George B. Bobbitt of Lansing, West Virginia (1858-1937).
"Like a shock of corn cometh in his season, so Mr. Bobbitt came to his grave in a full age. He was born on the last day of the year in 1858 on a large farm near Galax, Virgina. While there was much in his life that was on the order of sunshine, he was nevertheless a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. When a child of three his mother exchanged worlds. The civil war was under way. His father and negro slaves cared for the little boy. Incidentally, after Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation, these slaves continued to live on the Bobbitt plantation for nearly twenty years longer.
"But the sectional strife of the sixties so depleted the farm at Galax that George B. Bobbitt and two of his brothers started the long trek westward. Reaching the Lansing section where he spent practically all of his mature life, Mr. Bobbitt stopped. His two brothers went on to Indiana. (John H. Bobbitt, and Thomas M. Bobbitt). One of these brothers (John H. Bobbitt) became Superintendent of an Academy at Greensburg, Indiana, and it was in this school that George B. Bobbitt, studied for two years.
"Something like 45 years ago, the colonial cottage, where he lived was erected by Mr. Bobbitt. Here is where his first wife died in 1909.
"Mr. Bobbitt was a public spirited citizen. He served as Justice of the Peace in Mountain Cove District for a time. Several times he served on the Board of Education under the old district plan of school organization. The people of the community sought his counsel in matters of importance to them. No child ever passed Mr. Bobbitt without a pleasant notice by him. He magnified the good in people and was inclined to cover the faults and flaws in others with the gracious hand of charity. He was liberal with his worldly goods and equally given to mercy in judgement. With his homegoing another patriarch of the people has entered into the rest that remaineth unto the people of God."
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