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Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Ogle County, Volume II, by Horace and Rebecca Kauffman, 1909. Page 1006): ROW, William Henry — No more earnest and enlightened exponent of twentieth century farming methods has been evolved from the experiences of the past half century in Ogle, than is found in William Henry Row, who was born in Washington, Md., August 28, 1850, and came to this part of Illinois with his parents, Joseph and Nancy Row, during the summer of 1865. Benjamin Row, the paternal uncle of William Henry, came here in 1855, and in 1870 removed to Dallas, Iowa, where he is engaged in lumber business. Joseph Row seems to have followed closely upon the fortunes of his brother Benjamin, for in 1875 he also located in Dallas, Iowa, and after many years of successful farming, is enjoying in fair health and excellent spirits the approach of his eigthy-first year. Besides his son, William H., he had a son Martin, who went in Iowa about 1876 and was killed there by the cars in 1898. His son Courtney, after losing his wife, moved too his present home in Iowa. A daughter, Mary, lived for some years in Iowa, but now makes her home in Mount Morris with her retired husband, William Marshall. Nettie Row married, first William Smith, and now is the wife of Henry Miller, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Like many another youth of limited resources, William Henry Row entered his preferred arena of life throuth the ante-chamber of school teaching, equipping himself therefor in the country schools and the high school at Forreston. For twelve consecutive years he taught in the winter and farmed in the summer, and September 23, 1875, was united in marriage to Alice Swingley, daugher of Benjamin Swingley, and cousin of Nathaniel Swingley, partner of Samuel Hitt. Benjamin Swingley came in 1847 with his family of four children from Washington, Maryland, locating on what since has been the swingley farm, two miles north of Mount Morris. In 1892, Mr. Swingley moved to the town of Mount Morris, where his wife died the following year, and thereafter he made his home with his daughter, Mrs. Joseph Moats, until the latter’s death four years latter. He then went to live with his daughter Ellen, wife of J. E. McCoy, and there his life came to an and September 8, 1905, at the age of eighty-nine years. He was one of the original members of the Silver Creek Brethren, and until old age laid its limitations upon him, he was an active worker and deacon in the church. After his marriage, Mr. Row for three years rented a part of the Reuben Marshall farm, then mad his first land purchase of forty acres in Pine Creek Mount Morris Township. This land he operated in summer teaching school in winter, and at the end of four years, in 1881, bought 120 acres a mile and a half north of Mount Morris. For this land he paid $55 an acre, which was by no means cheap, as it was flat and undrained, and far from being a model of fertility. Owing to the untiring energy and good judgment of the new owner, it was converted into an admirable property, and in 1904 it was sold for $125 per acre, a gain of seventy dollars over the original cost. Mr. Row engaged in general farming an stock-raising on a large scale, rotated his crops to insure greater fertility and energy of soil, and fed large numbers of stock each year. He was widely recognized as a farmer who kept pace with the times, and was as much in accord with scintific agriculture when he abandoned the calling as he was when starting in to carve his fortune unaided. He now is living on a place on and a half miles north of Mount Morris, where he has an ideal country home, modern in every particular, and furnished with electricity obtained from the town. He owns forty acres of splendid land, which he contemplates converting into as fine and productive property as can be fou
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