Album of genealogy and biography, Cook County, Illinois, Volume 1899, Part 56

Author: La Salle Book Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : La Salle Book Co.
Number of Pages: 910

USA > Illinois > Cook County > Album of genealogy and biography, Cook County, Illinois, Volume 1899 > Part 56

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his father, and also a prominent early-day Demo- crat.

April 18, 1852, Mr. Spalding married Miss Jane Ann, daughter of William Augustus Ellis and Prudence Horton, his wife. The Ellis fam- ily, like the Spaldings, was early planted in New England. The parents of William A. Ellis were Warren Ellis, born February 26, 1766, and Nancy Spalding, born February 2, 1774. They were married January 17, 1793, and had five sous and three daughters, William A. being the eldest son and second child, born January 17, 1796, and died July 27, 1832. He had two sons and a daughter, Mrs. Spalding being the only survivor at this time. Warren Ellis died August 10, 1813. The adopted daughter of William A. and Jane A. Spalding is now the wife of Ferdinand W. Peck, of Chicago (whose biography will be found elsewhere in this work).

JOSEPH KIPLEY.

OSEPH KIPLEY is Assistant Chief of Police of Chicago. He has reached this responsible and important position through meritorious conduct, which has won for him promotion from rank to rank, until he is now almost at the head of the police department of the second city of the Union. The record of his life is as follows: He was born in Paterson, N. J., in 1848, and is a son of Charles and Catherine (Waller) Kipley. The family is of German origin. The parents of our subject were both born in Baden-Baden, Germany, and there continued to reside until 1845, when they crossed the Atlantic to America, and located in New Jersey. The father is a carpenter by trade, and has made that pursuit his life work. Both parents are still living in Chicago, at the age of seventy-seven years.

No event of special importance occurred during the boyhood and youth of Joseph Kipley, who

was reared in his parents' home, and acquired his education in the public schools of his native State. He thus obtained a good knowledge of the English branches, and has since been a close student of the topics of the time and of current events. When his school life was ended, he came westward, locating in Chicago, and entered the employ of R. B. Appleby, a picture dealer of this city, with whom he continued until he entered upon the work which led to his present position. It was on the 22d of January, 1872, that he be- came a member of the police force, serving as a patrolman. From that position he has risen suc- cessively, step by step, to a position of prominence. When he joined the force it consisted of only two hundred and fifty men, and he has made his way without any political influence.

In1 1872 Mr. Kipley was united in marriage with Miss Winnefred Wheeler,

OF THE L'VERSITY OF ILLIN":)

SAMUEL E. GROSS.

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SAMUEL EBERLY GROSS.

AMUEL E. GROSS is one of Chicago's best known business inen, and especially in real- estate circles has he a wide acquaintance. He has long been active in promoting the growth and advancement of the city, not merely for his own interest, but largely for the benefit of the community as well. He was born on the Old Mansion Farm in Dauphin County, Pennsylva- nia, November 11, 1843. He is descended from Huguenot ancestry, and reliable information shows that the family lived in America in 1726, at which time Joseph Gross was the owner of property in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. His grandson, who was the great-grandfather of our subject, valiantly aided the colonies in their struggle for independence and became a captain in the service, his commission, dated November 25, 1776, being signed by John Hancock, Gov- ernor of Pennsylvania. When the war was over he went to Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, where he owned extensive farm and milling interests. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Sahler, was of Holland descent on the paternal side, and of Huguenot on the maternal, coming from the #Du Bois family, which was prominent in Kings- ton, New York, as early as 1649. The mother of Mr. Gross was in her maidenhood Elizabeth Eberly. She came of a family of German origin, whose representatives have been prominent in various professional walks in life.

The American people are coming to recognize more fully every day the fact that good blood tells. The most prominent characteristics of Mr. Gross are inherited from ancestors who were active in war and in the same lines of business as himself. His genealogy is traced as follows: Seigneur Jean de Gros, Master of the Chamber of the Count of Dijon, (died 1456), married Peronette le Roye; their eldest son, Jean, of Dijon, Secre-

tary to Duc de Bourgogne, married Philiberte de Sourlam; their son, Ferry, of Dijon, in 1521, married Phillipolte Wielandt; their son, Jean, of Dijon, (died 1548), married Catharine Laurym; their son, Jean, of Dijon, in 1599, married Jacque- line de Berneincourt; their son, Jean, of Dijon, in 1620, married Leonore de Briard; their son, Jacob, married Marie Debar, and removed from France at the time of the persecution of the Hugue- nots to the Palatinate, Germany, and later re- moved to Mannheim on the Rhine. Their son, Johann, of Mannheim, in 1665, married Miss Neihart; their son, Johann Christopher, of Mann- heim, in 1703, married Elizabeth Metger; and their son, Joseph, in 1719, accompanied the Men- nonites from the Palatinate to America, residing for some time on the banks of the Hudson, and removing afterward to Pennsylvania. He mar- ried Catherina , owned property in the neighborhood of the Trappe, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, previous to 1726, and land in Philadelphia County in 1728, and died in 1753; their son, John, of Montgomery County, married Clara -, and died in 1788; their son, John, born in 1749, was a Captain in the War of the Revolution. In 1778 lie married Rachel Salı- ler, and died in 1823; their son, Christian, born in 1788, of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, mar- ried Ann Custer, of Montgomery County, and died in 1843; their son, John C., in 1843, married Elizabeth Eberly, of Cumberland County, Penn- sylvania; and their eldest son, Samuel E., is the subject of this biography.

Through his great-grandmother, Rachel Sah- ler, wife of Capt. John Gross of Revolutionary fame, Samuel E. Gross is directly descended from Matthew Blanshan, Louis Dubois and Christian Deyo, Huguenots of France, who, like Jacob de Gros, at the time of the persecution, removed to

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the Palatinate in Germany, and thence emigrated to America in the middle of the seventeenth cen- tury. Matthew Blanshan and his family were the first of the refugees to try their fate in the New World, sailing from the Palatinate April 27, 1660. Louis Dubois and Christian Deyo soon followed, and were two of the twelve patentees who, in 1677, obtained title to all the lands in Eastern New York State lying between the Shawangunk Mountains and the Hudson River, and were in- strumental in founding New Paltz and Kingston in Ulster County.

Rachel Sahler was the daughter of Abraham Sahler and Elizabeth Dubois. Her mother, Eliza- beth Dubois, was the daughter of cousins, Isaac Dubois and Rachel Dubois. Isaac Dubois, her father, was the son of Solomon Dubois, and her mother, Rachel Dubois, was the daughter of Sol- omon Dubois' eldest brother, Abraham. The mother of Rachel Dubois was Margaret Deyo, daughter of Christian Deyo, the patentee. Abra- ham Dubois, Rachel's father, and Solomon Du- bois, her husband's father, were both sons of Louis Dubois, the patentee and founder of New Paltz, and his wife, Catherine Blanshan, daugh- ter of Matthew Blanshan, the first of these Hugue- not arrivals.

In 1846, Mr. Gross came with his parents to Illinois, and after residing for a time in Bureau County removed to Carroll County. His early ed- ucation was acquired in the district schools, and he afterwards attended Mt. Carroll Seminary. Prompted by patriotic impulses, he enlisted in his country's service on the breaking out of the late war, although only seventeen years of age. He joined the Forty-first Illinois Infantry, and took part in the Missouri campaign, but was then mus- tered out by reason of the strong objections made by his parents to his service, on account of his youth. He spent the following year as a student in Whitehall Academy, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, but in June, 1863, he again left school, for the Confederates had invaded the Key- stone State and he could no longer remain quiet- ly at his books. On the 29th of June he was made First Lieutenant of Company D, Twentieth Penn- sylvania Cavalry, being one of the youngest offi-

cers of that rank in the army. His faithful and valiant service won him promotion to the rank of Captain of Company K, February 17, 1864. He participated in many of the important battles of the eastern campaign, and when the war was over was mustered out at Cloud Mills, Virginia, July 13, 1865.

At this time Chicago was becoming a city of prominence and gave rich promise for a brilliant future. Attracted by its prospects, Mr. Gross here located in September, 1865, and entered Un- ion Law College. The following year he was ad- mitted to the Bar, entering at once upon practice. In the mean time, however, he had invested a small capital in real estate. He built upon his lots in 1867, and as his undertakings in this di- rection met with success, he gave more and more attention to the business. He was instrumental in the establishment of the park and boulevard system in the winter of 1869. When the great fire broke out in 1871, and Mr. Gross saw that his office would be destroyed, he hastily secured his abstracts, deeds and other valuable papers, as many as he could get, and, putting them in a row- boat, carried them to a tug. When the flames had completed their disastrous work, he returned to the old site of his office and resumed business. A financial depression from 1873 until 1879 fol- lowed the boom, and Mr. Gross gave his time to the study of politics, science, and to literary pursuits.

On the revival of trade, Mr. Gross determined to devote his entire time to real-estate interests, and to the southwest of the city founded several suburbs. In 1882, to the north, he began what has now become Gross Park. In 1883, he began the work which has made him a public benefac- tor, that of building homes for people of moderate means, and the selling the same to them on time. Thus many a family has secured a comfortable home, where otherwise their wages would have been expended in rent, and in the end they would have had nothing to show for it. Unimproved districts under his transforming hand became pop- ulated and flourishing neighborhoods. In 1886, Mr. Gross founded the town of Brookdale; platted Calumet Heights and Dauphin Park the following

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year, and platted a forty-acre subdivision on Ash- land Avenue. A large district near Humboldt- Park was improved by him, and some three hun- dred houses were built near Archer Avenue and Thirty-ninth Street. The beautiful town of Gross- dale has been one of his most successful ventures. He established the town one mile west of River- side, and beautiful drives, lovely homes, churches, a theatre and fine walks make this one of Chica- go's best suburbs. He has also recently founded the beautiful town of Hollywood, and during the last twelve years he has founded sixteen thriving suburban towns and cities. His fortune is esti- mated at $3,000,000, or over, and although his reputation is that of a multi-millionaire the United Workingmen's societies showed their confidence in him by nominating him to the mayoralty in 1889, an honor which from press of private busi- ness he was obliged to decline.

Constantly has the business of Mr. Gross in- creased, until his dealings have reached the mill- ions. He buys property outright, and then sells as the purchasers feel that they can pay. It is said that he has never foreclosed a mortgage, and his kindliness, forbearance and generosity have won for him the love and confidence of the poorer people and the high regard of all.

Mr. Gross was married in January, 1874, to

Miss Emily Brown, a lady of English descent. He is a member of the Chicago Club, the Union Club, the Washington Park, the Athletic, Mar- quette and Iroquois Clubs. He is a patron of the Art Institute and the Humane Society, and his support is given to other benevolent organizations. He holds membership with the Chicago Union Veteran Club; U. S. Grant Post No. 28, G. A. R .; the Western Society Army of the Potomac, and the Sons of the American Revolution.

In 1886, Mr. Gross made a trip to Europe, spending four months in visiting the leading cit- ies and points of interest in that continent. He also made investigations concerning city develop- ment. In 1889, he traveled through Mexico and the cities on the Pacific Coast, and later in the year attended the Paris Exposition. In 1892, he went to Europe once more, and also visited the Orient. In manner, Mr. Gross is genial, pleas- ant and entertaining, and the kindliness of his face at once wins him friends. Although he would not be called a professing philanthropist, his life has certainly been characterized by a practical charity, which has probably proven of more bene- fit than the acknowledged philanthropic work of some others. His success in business seems mar- velous, yet it is but the result of industry, enter- prise, and careful and well-directed management.

CALVIN DE WOLF.

ALVIN DE WOLF, now one of the foremost citizens of Chicago, is an example of the manner in which men rise to stations of wealth and honor through sturdy moral integrity and unceasing, ambitious toil. His story is that of a young man who came to Chicago with nothing in the days of the city's infancy, and by a sustained effort has grown with the city's growth, until he is numbered among the representative men of the "great city by the inland sea."

Calvin De Wolf was born in Braintrim, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, on the 18th of February, 1815, and was one of the family of fifteen children of Giles M. De Wolf, a well-to-do farmer. His father and grandfather were born in Pomfret, Con- necticut, and his more remote ancestors were among the early settlers in Lyme, Connecticut, being colonists who came over from Holland, to which country they had probably been driven from France (where the family originated) by religious

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persecution. His mother, whose maiden name was Anna Spaulding, was born in Cavendish, Ver- mont, and was a descendant of Edward Spaulding, who settled in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, in 1633.

Soon after the birth of Calvin De Wolf, his par- ents removed to his mother's native place and re- mained there until he was five years of age, and then returned to Braintrim, Pennsylvania, from whence, four years later, they removed to the ad- joining county of Bradford, where his father pur- chased a farm in the beech woods of that county. This farm was covered with heavy timber, the clearing of which was a task of a different kind and of much greater magnitude than falls to the lot of most farmers of the present day. Putting this land into condition to be sufficiently produc- tive to support the large family of its owner fur- nished work for every hand for years.

Calvin De Wolf was the eldest of his father's sons who lived beyond the infantile period, and converting the beech forest into tillable land was a task in which he was required to practice, and which, with the tilling of the soil, required all his time except the three winter months, when he at- tended school until he was twenty-one years of age. After attaining his majority he made up his mind to obtain an education, and, under the in- struction of his father, who was a man of more than ordinary ability, had a good common-school education and was well versed in mathematics, he obtained a good knowledge of arithmetic, algebra and surveying. He was also assisted to a knowl- edge of the elements of Latin by a gentleman of liberal education who lived in the neighborhood. When he had progressed to this point in educa- tion, he left home and entered Grand River In- stitute, in Ashtabula County, Ohio, in 1836. That institution, then famous throughout eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, was conducted some- what on the plan of agricultural colleges of the present day, in that students who desired to do so could partially support themselves by manual la- bor and pursue a course of study at the same time. For a year and a half young De Wolf maintained himself at this school and fitted himself for teach- ing; he also presided for a term or two at the peda-

gogue's desk. At all times, however, when op- portunity offered, he was intent on study and made the most of his educational opportunities.

Then, as now, the West was looked to as the land of opportunities and the goal of the ambition of every aspiring young man. Calvin De Wolf, with his industrious habits and ambitious desires, was not content to spend his days in the East, but looked westward with longing eyes, and in those days the West was not so far away as now and Chicago was included in the term. In the fall of 1837, young De Wolf arranged with a trader who was making a shipment of fruit by boat from Aslı- tabula to Chicago to pay his passage between the cities by assisting to load and unload the fruit and take charge of it in transit, which agreement he faithfully carried out and, in due time, found him- self in this city, then covering a small area of ter- ritory at the mouth of the Chicago River and hav- ing but one four-story brick building-the old Lake House, then the pride of the West. The first thing the young man had to do was to look for employment, for he had come West with very little money. He hoped to obtain a situation as teacher in the city schools, and passed the required examination for license to teach, but his hopes were disappointed and he had to seek elsewhere, as there were others whose claims had to be first considered. Disappointed but not cast down, he set out on foot across the prairie to seek like em- ployment in some other locality. After traveling thirty-five or forty miles, he at last arrived at Hadley, Will County, Illinois, with only a York shilling in his pocket. He was more fortunate in his quest there, and obtained the position of vil- lage schoolmaster, teaching during the winter of 1837-38, and returning the following spring to Chicago. Here he again made application for em- ployment as teacher, and was successful. While teaching school he also engaged in various other occupations which were calculated to improve his financial condition.

In 1838, Mr. De Wolf began the study of law in the office of Spring & Goodrich, a firm com- posed of Giles Spring, afterward Judge of the Su- perior Court of Chicago, and Grant Goodrich, for many years one of the prominent lawyers of the

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city. In 1843, he was examined and admitted to the Bar by Judge Richard M. Young, and The- ophilus W. Smith, then sitting on the Supreme Bench, and immediately after began practice in this city, which then had a Bar consisting of about thirty lawyers, a large number of whom became prominent as jurists in later years. Up to 1854, Mr. De Wolf was engaged in the active practice of law. He was then elected Justice of the Peace, an office which at that time and place was a highly important and responsible one, as the city was de- veloping rapidly and the amount of business in- cident to its growth gave rise to a great deal of friction, which had to be adjusted in the tribunal of law. Mr. De Wolf held this office six successive terms, four by popular election and two by ap- pointment. The whole period covered was more than twenty-five years, and more than ninety thousand cases were disposed of by him, a far greater number than any other judicial officer in this State had ever decided. Preliminary exam- inations in many important cases which afterward became celebrated in the higher courts were heard in the earlier years of his magistracy by Judge De Wolf, as he was then known to the profession and the public.

Judge De Wolf had been taught from childhood to hate slavery, and as early as 1839 became Sec- retary of an anti-slavery society, of which Rev. Flavel Bascom, a Presbyterian minister, was the first President, and Judge Manierre, Treasurer, and of which many of the prominent business and professional men of the city were earnest and ac- tive members. In 1842, the Illinois State Anti- Slavery Society held a meeting in Chicago, at which an organization was effected to raise funds for establishing an anti-slavery newspaper in Chi- cago. Henry L. Fulton, Charles V. Dyer, Shu- bal D. Childs and Calvin De Wolf were appointed a committee to collect funds and set the enterprise 011 foot, Mr. De Wolf being made Treasurer of the committee. As a result of their efforts, the West- ern Citizen came into existence, with Z. Eastman as editor and publisher, and for several years it was recognized as one of the leading Abolition newspapers in the country. It was in 1858, that Mr. De Wolf, in connection with other Abolition-

ists of Chicago, brought down upon himself the wrath of a disappointed slave-hunter and his sym- pathizers, who sought to inflict upon him condign punishment for facilitating the escape of a liberty- seeking black woman.

Stephen F. Nuckolls was a southern man who had carried his slaves with him into Nebraska. One of these slaves, a young negro woman, Eliza, made her escape, and by some means or other found her way to Chicago, to which place she was followed by her master, Nuckolls, who came near effecting her capture. His scheme was frustrated by the parties who appeared before Judge De Wolf, charging him with riotous conduct. Under the warrant issued from the magistrate's court, the slave-owner was arrested and locked up for a few hours, and in the mean time the colored wo- man made her escape from the city. Nuckolls carried the matter to the United States Courts, and succeeded in having the magistrate, Mr. De Wolf, George Anderson, A. D. Hayward and C. L. Jenks indicted for "aiding a negro slave called Eliza to escape from her master," she having been "held as a slave in Nebraska and escaped to Illinois." This involved the constitutional ques- tions as to whether or not slaves could be held in free territory. The defendants held that the negro woman was not lawfully held as a slave in Nebraska, and moved to quash the indictment on that ground. This motion was never passed upon by the court, but, in 1861, the case was dismissed by advice of the Hon. E. C. Larned, United States District Attorney.

. It is almost superfluous to state that a man hold- ing the radical views of Calvin De Wolf became identified at the outset of its existence with the Republican party, and that he still remains in the ranks of the same organization. But he has never been an active politician. He served two terms as a member of the Board of Aldermen of Chicago, and from 1856 to 1858 served as Chair- man of the Committee on Revision and Publication of Ordinances, where he rendered important service to the city in codifying and putting the ordinances in form to be easily referred to, to be generally u11- derstood and easily and systematically enforced. He retired from the position of Magistrate in 1879,

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and is not now engaged in the practice of law, but devotes liis time mainly to the management of his financial affairs.

Mr. De Wolf is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and is now one of the Elders of the Sixth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, in which he is an influential member, and in the work of which he bears a prominent part. "Do right" is a motto which he has made the rule of his life. In the discharge of his duties as a public official he was

conscientious and upright; as a lawyer, watchful over his client's interests and honorable in his dealings with both court and client; in his general business dealings he has been a man of his word, upright and honest. His residence in Chicago from pioneer times has caused him to be well known, and he is regarded as one of the land- marks of a generation of sagacious business men now rapidly passing away.

DR. CALVIN M. FITCH.

12 R. CALVIN MAY FITCH, one of the oldest physicians now in active practice in this city, graduated at the medical department of the university of New York in 1852, and subse- quently studied in Europe. He came to Chicago in 1855, and is therefore in the fortieth year of his practice in this city. Doctor Fitch was born January 3, 1829, in Sheldon, Franklin County, Vermont. His grandfather, Dr. Chauncey Fitch, married the daughter of Colonel Sheldon, for whom the town of Sheldon was named, and prac- ticed there until his death. Colonel Sheldon com- manded the Connecticut Cavalry during the Revo- lutionary War, and the family have several letters of Washington's still in their possession. Doctor Fitch's father, Rev. John Ashley Fitch, an Epis- copal clergyman, married the daughter of Dr. Cal- vin May, who for nearly fifty years practiced medicine in St. Armand, Canada, just across the Vermont line. Doctor May graduated from Yale about the close of the Revolutionary war, and he and Dr. Chauncey Fitch were the pioneer physi- cians in that section, and although eighteen miles apart, frequently met in consultation.

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Album of genealogy and biography, Cook County, Illinois, Volume 1899, Part 56

Author: La Salle Book Company (Chicago, Ill.) Publication date: 1899 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : La Salle Book Co. Number of Pages: 910

Author: La Salle Book Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : La Salle Book Co.
Number of Pages: 910