Whiteside County IL Archives Biographies.....Dill, Elsworth 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deb Haines http://www.rootsweb.com/~archreg/vols/00003.html#0000719 January 31, 2008, 1:25 am

Author: Portrait/Bio Album, Whiteside County IL 1885

Elsworth Dill, furniture dealer and upholsterer, Sterling, was born at Hamden, 
Vinton Co., Ohio, June 22, 1847, and is a son of Benjamin and Armada (Catlin) 
Dill, natives of Ohio. The senior Mr. Dill, who was engaged in a stove 
manufactory and in a tannery, sold out in 1864 and came to Coleta, this 
county, engaging in farming and stock-raising. Three months afterward Elsworth 
came West, stopping with his father six or eight months, when, arriving at the 
age of legal freedom, he struck out in the world for himself. He commenced to 
work for Galt & Tracy before the fire, continuing only two months; then for 
six months he followed the butchering business with his father; next, he was 
an employee in the Boyington Hotel at Sterling for ten months; then a clerk in 
the Wallace Hotel three months; after three months out of employment, was 
clerk at the Boyington again, four months; followed farming one season in 
Nebraska, but a hail-storm nearly ruined his crop; returning to Sterling, he 
engaged again as clerk at the Boyington Hotel for a year; put in and attended 
another crop in Nebraska, this time with success; returned to Sterling and for 
three months was engaged in the coal business; sold out and for a time worked 
for Mr. Seely in his restaurant, and then went with him into the Wallace Hotel 
and clerked for two years; employed for six months, most of the time as 
superintendent, by the Sterling Gas Company; clerked again at the Wallace 
Hotel until the Galt House was opened, where he was chief clerk a year, then 
in the same capacity at the Wallace one year; ran a meat market for six 
months; sold out and engaged in a restaurant a month; sold again, and from 
1878 to 1883 he was employed as traveling agent by the Rock Falls 
Manufacturing Company; then was manager of the Galt House one year; and 
finally, June 1, 1884, he rented the Sterling Mercantile Block and opened out 
with a large stock of furniture, where he is at present carrying on a 
prosperous trade. Ralph Waldo Emerson remarks that he is not the greatest man 
who succeeds by sticking to one business, but he who, in trying many kinds, 
falls every time like a cat,—lighting upon his feet. E. Dill & Co. now carry a 
stock of $5,000 worth of goods and have a large and increasing trade. They do 
much in the line of upholstering. Mr. Dill is a member of the A. O. U. W., of 
the Select Knights and of the Modern Woodmen of America. He was married Feb. 
12, 1872, to Miss Addie E. Bowen, of Rock Falls, and they have two sons,— 
Edwin E. and E. Leroy T.

Additional Comments:
Portrait and Biographical Album of Whiteside County, Illinois, Containing Full-
page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative 
Citizens of the County. Chicago: Chapman Brothers, 1885.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/whiteside/bios/dill2151nbs.txt

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