896
HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
the later years of his life in Carpentersville, where he died May 22, 1884. Mr. Sawyer married Abigail P. Blake, who was born and reared in New Hampshire. She died Aug. 31, 1891. Their only living children are: William G., now of Elgin, Ill., and Henry G., of Carpentersville.
HENRY G. SAWYER, manufacturer, Carpentersville, Ill., was born in Elgin, Ill., March 21, 1844, son of George E. and Abigail (Blake) Sawyer, grew to manhood on his father's farm near Carpentersville, and obtained his education in the public schools of that place and at the Elgin Academy. In 1866, in connection with his brother, William G., he bought a general store in Carpentersville, which they conducted successfully for several years. In 1873 he organized the Star Manufacturing Company, and at first engaged in a small way in the manufacture of agricultural implements. This plant has since been expanded into one of the leading industries of the Fox River Valley. Mr. Sawyer has been general manager of the factory almost continuously from the beginning, and has been President of the corporation since 1892. He is also interested in other manufacturing enterprises, and in a cattle ranch in Nebraska. Fraternally he belongs to the I. O. O. F., the K. O. T. M., the M. W. A., and the K. 0. T. G. Nov. 7, 1867, he married Miss Ella Brown, daughter of True Brown. She died Nov. 10, 1868, and in 1871 he was married to Miss Mary Kingsley, daughter of S. W. Kingsley, of Barrington, Ill. Mr. Sawyer's second wife died March 25, 1879, and he married Miss Lillian M. Burkill, of Dundee, Dec. 25, 1880. Five children were born of the first marriage, and three of the last. Three sons and three daughters were living in 1903. Lora, the oldest daughter, is now Mrs. Charles F. Harvey, Superintendent of the Borden Condensed Milk Factory, at Auburn, Washington; Clara is now Mrs. Henry J. Mickelson, of Los Angeles, Cal.; George K. has charge of the stock ranch owned by himself and brother in Nebraska; Clarence E. is in the office of the Star Manufacturing Company; Ethel M. and Howard C. are at home; Bertha E. married Robert Nightengale, of Barrington, Ill., and died Dee. 7, 1894; Addie K. died in infancy. Mr. Sawyer, together with his brother, W. G., owns a 285-acre dairy farm two miles northwest of Carpentersville, where they keep from 90 to 100 cows each year.
GEORGE J. SCHNEIDER, physician and surgeon, Elgin, Ill.; born in Germany, March 10, 1866; came to America with his parents in 1867, locating first in Woodstock, Ill., where he was reared and educated; graduated from the medical department of the University of Michigan in 1889, and held the position of Resident Physician of that institution for one year thereafter; located in Elgin in 1890. The Doctor was married in 1892 to Miss Eva L. Schryver, of Woodstock, Ill.
REV. GEORGE SCHORB, familiarly known as the Blind Orator, Author and Philosopher, was born on a farm in the great woods of Wisconsin in 1850. He was born blind, and at the age of eleven years was placed in the Wisconsin School for the Blind, where he was under the tuition of Thomas H. Little, an accomplished scholar and thorough educator from Bowdoin, and Mrs. Little, a graduate of Oberlin. Here he studied all the branches taught in the school, read all the best books, besides taking private instruction in rhetoric, Latin and philosophy. He finally became a teacher in the school, but later resigned his position to take a special course of study at Evanston, Ill., where he was the only blind student, but by employing a reader was enabled to recite in class with seeing men, and graduated from that institution with high honor and won some important prizes. He has maintained himself by lecturing, preaching and writing for the past twenty-six years, and has traveled without a guide eastward to Boston and westward to the plains. Mr. Schorb is the author of several books, the most successful of them being "Poems and Proverbs," "Nuts to Crack, or Four Hundred Riddles," and "The Golden Rule and the Rule of Gold." He was married Dec. 24, 1901, to Mrs. Ann Gray Dennison, of Aurora, and has since made his home in that city.
JOHN H. SCOTT, retired merchant, Aurora, was born in Oneida County, N. Y., Oct. 26, 1834, son of John and Mary (Atkinson) Scott; his father being born in County Derry, Ireland, and his mother in Leeds, Eng., the latter coming with her parents to Chicago, Ill., where her father was employed in 1837 on the Illinois and Michigan Canal. January 1, 1838, the family removed to Kane County, and the following spring lived in St. Charles. In 1839 they settled on a 400-acre tract in Virgil Township, and
