HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
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high school, and two weekly papers. Pop. (1890), 1,602; (1900), 1,000.
VOCKE, William, lawyer, was born at Min-den, Westphalia (Germany), in 1839, the son of a Government Secretary in the Prussian service. Having lost his father at an early age, he emigrated to America in 1856, and, after a short stay in New York, came to Chicago, where he found employment as a paper-carrier for "The Staats-Zeitung," meanwhile giving his attention to the study of law. Later, he became associated with a real-estate firm; on the commencement of the Civil War, enlisted as a private in a three months' regiment, and, finally, in the Twenty-fourth Illinois (the first Hecker regiment), in which he rose to the rank of Captain. Returning from the army, he was employed as city editor of "The Staats-Zeitung," but, in 1865, became Clerk of the Chicago Police Court, serving until 1869. Meanwhile he had been admitted to the bar, and, on retirement from office, began practice, but, in 1870, was elected Representative in the Twenty-seventh General Assembly, in which he bore a leading part in framing "the burnt record act" made necessary by the fire of 1871. He has since been engaged in the practice of his profession, having been, for a number of years, attorney for the German 'Consulate at Chicago, also serving, for several years, on the Chicago Board of Education. Mr. Vocke is a man of high literary tastes, as shown by his publication, in 1869, of a volume of poems translated from the German, which has been highly commended, besides a legal work on "The Administration of Justice in the United States, and a Synopsis of the Mode of Procedure in our Federal and State Courts and All Federal and State Laws relating to Subjects of Interest to Aliens," which has been published in the German Language, and is highly valued by German lawyers and business men. Mr. Vocke was a member of the Republican National Convention of 1872 at Philadelphia, which nominated General Grant for the Presidency a second time.
YOLK, Leonard Wells, a distinguished Illinois sculptor, born at Wellstown (afterwards Wells), N. Y., Nov. 7, 1828. Later, his father, who was a marble cutter, removed to Pittsfield, Mass., and, at the age of 16, Leonard began work in his shop. In 1848 he came west and began modeling in clay and drawing at St. Louis, being only self-taught. He married a cousin of Stephen A. Douglas, and the latter, in 1855, aided him in the prosecution of his art studies i
