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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
JOHN McNEIL, merchant, Elgin, Ill., born at Airdrie (near Glasgow), Scotland, May 22, 1839, and came with his mother to the United States in 1848, locating with the family on a farm in Dundee Township, Kane County. He obtained his education chiefly at the Elgin Academy, and in boyhood was trained to farming. In 1862 he engaged in merchandising in Elgin as junior member of the the firm of Todd & McNeil, and later became a member of the firm of M. &. J. McNeil, dealers in dry goods and groceries. In 1872, after the Chicago fire, the brothers McNeil formed a .partnership with Charles Higgins and founded the wholesale grocery business of the McNeil & Higgins Company, one of the oldest wholesale grocery establishments in Chicago. Mr. McNeil has resided in Elgin since 1862 with the exception of three years spent in Chicago. He has been a Director of the Home Savings Bank of Elgin since its organization, and a Director of the Home National Bank for many years; is also largely interested in the West Elgin Improvement Company. Mr. McNeil was married in 1864 to Miss Janet Crichton, daughter of Robert Crichton, a pioneer settler of Dundee Township. Mr. and Mrs. McNeil are the parents of four children, viz.: John L., Walter W. and Howard C. (all graduates of Harvard College and now associated with their father in business) and an only daughter, Miss Maude McNeil, educated at Ogantz Seminary, Philadelphia.
MALCOLM McNEIL, merchant, Chicago, was born near Glasgow, Scotland, Sept. 12, 1832, and educated in the home schools; came to the United States in 1848, and with his mother and family, established a home three and a half miles from Dundee, in the township of that name in Kane County. In 1858 he engaged in the retail grocery trade in Elgin, but later became a member of the wholesale firm of M. & J. McNeil, in which his brother John was junior partner. In 1872 Mr. McNeil removed to Chicago and founded the McNeil & Higgins wholesale grocery house, one of the largest in the West. Mr. McNeil has long given his personal attention to the business, having been President of the company since its beginning. For many years, including the period of its most successful operations, he was President of the Chemical National Bank of Chicago, and lately has managed several extensive farms, one being his own beautiful country home three miles northwest of Elgin. He has frequently revisited his old home in Scotland and is an extensive traveler in Europe. In 1859 Mr. McNeil married Miss Catherine Dempster, daughter of Alexander Dempster, a pioneer .settler of Dundee. Mrs. McNeil died in 1870, and the following year Mr. McNeil married Miss Orel Martin, of Wayne, Ill. His sons, Gordon and Marvin, are associated with him in business in Chicago.
CHARLES I. McNETT, lawyer, Aurora, Ill.; born in DeKalb County, Ill., Jan. 10, 1860; read law under the preceptorship of E. B. Snow; admitted to the bar in 1882; began practicing law in Aurora in 1883, and has since been actively engaged in professional work in that city; has served as City Attorney of Aurora, and in 1893 was appointed Master in Chancery for the Circuit Court of Kane County by Judge Henry B. Willis, and has since filled that position. He was married in 1889 to Miss Clara Salem, of Aurora.
CHARLES B. MEAD, publisher, Geneva, Ill., born in Beloit, Wis., Aug. 17, 1856; when seven years old went with his parents to Iowa, settling at New Oregon, where he learned the printer's trade in the office of the Cresco "Plain-Dealer." In 1881 he established the "Journal" at Waterloo, Wis., and nine years later, the "Daily Citizen," at Beloit. In June, 1891, Mr. Mead came to Geneva, bought the "Geneva Republican," which he has since conducted as a tri-weekly publication. He is Coroner of Kane County, and President of the District Republican Editorial Association. At Cresco, Iowa, in 1881, he was married to Miss Anna Bungard, and they have three sons: Cadwell P., Ernest J. and Leonard C., all living at home.
JULIA MEIKLEJOHN, physician, Elgin, Ill., a native of Fond du Lac, Wis., was born in 1867, the daughter of John Meiklejohn. Her academic education was obtained in the Merrill Institute at Fond du Lac, Wis., and in the State Normal School at Oshkosh, Wis. For four years she taught school, in the meantime reading medicine, and graduated from the Women's Medical Department of the Northwestern University, at Chicago, in 1895. For the ensuing six months she was interne at the Women and Children's Hospital in Chicago, and in 1896 came to Elgin, where she established herself
