Horace
B. George, a retired farmer and one of the oldest citizens of Leland,
LaSalle county, was born in Jefferson county, New York, October 28, 1824,
and is a son of Gilman and Fannie (Bartlett) George. His father was born in
Vermont and the mother in New Hampshire, and both were descended from
Puritan stock, their ancestors having come from England. They were married
in New Hampshire and settled, about 1820, in Jefferson county, New York,
where they followed farming and both ended their life. Their family
consisted of the following children: Horace B., our subject; Moses,
deceased, and for more than thirty years an engineer on the Rock Island
Railway; Harvey, who has been a farmer of Iowa for about thirty years; Mary
Jane, deceased, who married I. A. Thompson, of Watertown, New York; and
Daniel, who lived many years in Jefferson county, New York, but came to this
county about three years before the civil war, enlisted in the Eighth
Illinois Cavalry and died in Baltimore, Maryland, while in the service.
Horace B. George was reared on a farm and received but a limited education as the facilities for attending school were very poor. He left home when twenty-one to learn the trade of miller, securing a place at Redwood in one of the mills. He came west in 1848, in the fall of that year locating in this county, where he has been a resident ever since, — more than fifty years. He first secured employment in a mill at Dayton, this county, where he remained at a good salary for fifteen years. He was a poor man when he came west and went on to California in 1852 during the gold excitement, making some money by the trip. He saved his earnings and invested in one hundred and sixty acres of land in Earl township, locating it with a warrant that cost him one hundred and fifty dollars and was signed by President Fillmore. He afterward added another eighty, for which he paid fifty dollars per acre. His brother first moved upon this land and improved it for him, and he moved upon it in 1863, and from that time until 1885 he continued to make this place his home. In 1885 he moved to the village of Leland and has since lived a retired life.
Mr. George was married,
while working in Dayton as a miller, in 1852, to Miss Elizabeth Stadden, a
daughter of William and Judah (Daniels) Stadden, who came from Ohio to this
county in 1829, and here Mrs. George was born four years later. Mrs.
George's father was one of the early sheriffs of LaSalle county and also
served two terms in the state senate, and later as a member of a
constitutional convention for the revision of the state constitution, and
was also prominent in Masonry. He settled at Dayton, and there operated one
of the first gristmills of the county. He was a prominent character in the
early history of the county. We record, however, that he died rather early
in life, being only forty-five years of age at the time of his death.
Mr. and Mrs. George were the parents of four children, one of whom died in early childhood. The other children were William, deceased, who was a hotel-keeper in Spring View, Nebraska, where he died in 1891, aged thirty-nine years; he married Hellen Target and left a daughter, Myrtle; Ida B. married William G. Cove, a traveling salesman for Kimbark & Company, of Chicago; and Edgar C. married Jennie Fluellen, and is living on the old homestead in Earl township. Like his father, Mr. George is a stanch Democrat, but has never been an aspirant for political preferment. He has been honest and industrious and his life has been pure and simple, — one that will bear the closest scrutiny.
Extracted 19 Dec 2018 by Norma Hass from Biographical and Genealogical Record of LaSalle County, Illinois, published in 1900, volume 2, pages 570-571.
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