HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
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was a participant in the battles of Chickasaw Bayou, Arkansas Post, Missionary Ridge, Kenesaw Mountain, the siege of Vicksburg, and of Atlanta, Resaca and Decatur, Ga., as well as in many less important engagements. At the close of the war he was mustered out as Captain, and returning to Kane County began the study of law with Hon. Charles Wheaton, of Aurora, as his preceptor. He graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan, and was admitted to the bar in 1867. In 1875 he was elected City Attorney, was re-elected in 1877, in 1874-5 was Mayor of Aurora, and for more than thirty-five years has held a high position at the Kane County bar. In 1875 he married Miss Bonnie Snow, of Aurora.
JAMES C. LONG, merchant, Geneva, Ill., was born at Surry, Me., in 1845, a son of Robert and Betsy (Carr) Long, and was brought by his parents to Illinois in 1855, receiving his education chiefly in the Geneva public schools, and beginning work early in life in his father's store. In 1862, when only seventeen years of age, he enlisted in the Sixty-ninth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and put in three months' service in the war for the Union. In 1869 he became the junior member of the firm of R. Long & Son, of Geneva, and succeeded to the business which his father had established in 1880, and with which he has been connected, as boy and man, for over forty years. Mr. Long is actively connected with the Geneva Unitarian church, of which his father was a liberal supporter. Mr. Long was married in 1889 to Miss Medora Welch, daughter of Rodney Welch, of Chicago.
ROBERT LONG (deceased), merchant, Geneva, III., born in Hallowell, Me., in 1803, was reared and educated in his native place. In 1828 he engaged in mercantile pursuits in Bangor, Me., where he lived for some years, when he removed to Ellsworth, in the same State, where he continued in trade until about 1853. In the latter year he received an appointment in the United States Treasury, which he filled under the administrations of Presidents Pierce and Buchanan. In 1855 his family removed to Geneva, Ill., and in 1860 Mr. Long established what is now the oldest store in that city, which he conducted until his death in 1888, in the meantime establishing a reputation as an upright merchant, and in all respects a worthy citizen. In 1838 he was married to Miss Betsy S. Carr, of Ellsworth, Me.
SILAS LONG (deceased), physician; born at Shelburne, Franklin County, Mass., in 1783, obtained his education in the East and came to Big Rock Township, Kane County, where he began practice in 1840 and became one of the most widely known pioneers. He died Oct. 27, 1857; his wife, who was Matilda Stebbins, died in 1845. Mr. and Mrs. Long reared a family of ten children. Their son, Silas O. Long, physician, was born in Shelburne, Mass., June 3, 1814; was a farmer in early life, and was the first of the family to come to Illinois. He visited Kane County in 1839 and selected the claims on which the family afterward located. After coming to Kane County he studied medicine and had a large practice for many years, succeeding his father in the profession. He died July 3, 1874. His wife was Miss Sarah Severance, who died in 1899. The second son of Dr. Long, Sr., was Edward R., born in Greenfield, Mass., Sept. 21, 1827; came with the family to Kane County in 1840 and settled on Government land, where he passed the remaining years of his life as a successful farmer and stock-raiser. Modest and retiring, he never sought public office, but aided in advancing educational interests and in the conduct of local affairs. For many years he was leader of the Baptist choir at Big Rock. He was married in 1854 to Miss Emma Dale, of Aurora.
GEORGE P. LORD, real-estate and loans, Elgin, Ill., was born in Le Roy, Genesee County, N. Y., March 26, 1819, son of William and Emily (Ely) Lord. His early boyhood passed on the farm, where he secured a public school education. He entered upon mercantile pursuits in Palmyra, N. Y., in his youth, and in 1839 went to New York City, where he was clerk for Arthur Tappen. Before coming west he was a partner in the mercantile house of Alfred Edwards & Co., of New York. Coming to Chicago in 1855 he was for ten years engaged in the grocery trade with Reynolds, Ely & Co., of that city; in 1866 became purchasing agent for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, a position he held for about a year, when he became business manager of the Elgin National Watch Company, remaining nine years during the formative period of that great corporation, which was then, as it is now, one of the great
