Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Shaw, George E 1815 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com May 5, 2007, 12:21 pm

Author: Portraits & Bio Sketches, 1890

GEORGE E. SHAW, one of the most prosperous farmers of Plainfield, has been a 
resident of this township for more than thirty years, and has been closely 
associated with its agricultural development, helping to make Will County one 
of the finest farming regions in the State, and during this time he has 
acquired a goodly amount of property and has placed himself among the 
substantial citizens of the community. Mr. Shaw is a native of Elizabethtown, 
N. J., born February 2, 1815, a son of Elijah Shaw, who is thought to have 
been born in New York State. The latter learned the trade of a cooper and 
followed that calling in Columbia and Dutchess Counties. At his death, in 
1822, in the town of Milan, a useful and honorable life was brought to a 
close. The maiden name of the mother of our subject was Catherine Althouse. 
She is thought to have been born in Dutchess County and spent her last years 
with a daughter in Westchester County, N. Y. There were seven children born to 
the parents of our subject of whom the following six were reared: Mary, Jane, 
George E., Elijah, Phoebe and Helen. The mother of the subject of this sketch 
was married a second time, becoming the wife of George Shaffer and they reared 
one daughter, Louisa. Our subject was but seven years old when he had the 
misfortune to lose his father and one year later he went to live with a 
farmer, Philip I. Zink. He was bred to agricultural pursuits, receiving in 
return for his services his board and clothes. At the age of twenty-one he 
started out for himself, with empty pockets and in debt for the cloth to make 
the suit of clothes that he wore. A young man of his willingness and 
capability to work found but little difficulty in obtaining a situation, and 
he was soon engaged on a farm in Dutchess County, his wages being $12 per 
month for eight months in the year, and during the winter season he was 
obliged to work for $8 per month. He labored very hard and prudently saved his 
earnings, and the following spring invested a part of them in a tract of three 
hundred acres of wild timber land in Cochecton, Sullivan County, in part 
payment for it giving eight months more work. He did not locate on his 
purchase at that time but continued working for a few years, until he was 
enabled to buy two hundred acres adjoining it, and after marriage he bought a 
house and three acres of land in Stanford, Dutchess County. The following year 
(1847) he sold that place and went to Sullivan County intending to settle on 
his land there, but before building, he embraced a fine opportunity to sell a 
part of his land for an improved farm in the town of Bethel, the same county, 
and two years after that he bought the remainder of the first tract he had 
previously purchased. Hearing much of the wonderful fertility of the soil of 
the Prairie State and the various other advantages offered to the practical, 
wide-awake farmer, he determined to try life here, and selling his farm in New 
York, he came to this State and two years later purchased the farm where he 
now resides. Eighty acres of this is located on a part of section 35, and he 
has besides another eighty-acre tract on the same section, and eleven and one-
half acres of valuable timber land on section 27. In the years of hard labor 
that followed his settlement here Mr. Shaw devoted himself assiduously to the 
work of his farm, and has brought about a great change in every respect, 
erecting roomy, convenient buildings, suitable for every purpose, cultivating 
the land after the best, methods and providing himself with the best 
machinery, so that his place may be regarded as a model in its way. Mr. Shaw 
has been married three times. His first wife, to whom he was united in 1844, 
was Catherine E. Schoonover. She was a native of Dutchess County, N. Y., and a 
daughter of Richard and Ann Schoonover. Her death, October 31, 1850, deprived 
him of a good wife. He was next married, September 11, 1851, to Mary A. 
Colsen, a native of Ireland and a daughter of William and Ann Colsen. After a 
pleasant wedded life of nearly thirteen years he was deprived of her 
assistance by death Juty 10, 1864. To them had been born three children, 
namely: William E., George H. and Lewis. William married Martha Kennelly, and 
has three children—Ella, Margaret and Lester; George H. married Estella 
O'Strander and has one child, Ethel. The marriage of our subject to his 
present wife was solemnized May 16, 1869, her maiden name was Anna Coon, and 
she was born in Milan, Dutchess County, N. Y. Her father, Philip A. Coon, is 
supposed to have been born in Columbia County, N. Y., and his father, John 
Coon, was a farmer and died in Johnstown, Montgomery County, N.Y. Mrs. Shaw's 
father was also a farmer and at one time owned a farm in Milan. He came to 
Illinois with Mrs. Shaw and died at her home in 1871. The maiden name of his 
wife was Hannah Link, and she was a native of Milan. Her father, John Link, is 
supposed to have been born there, and to have been a descendant of German 
ancestry. He carried on farming in that town until his death. Mrs. Shaw's 
mother died in Milan about 1858. Mr. Shaw is a sturdy representative of our 
self-made men, as, beginning life in poverty, he has worked his way up to a 
position of comparative wealth all through his own efforts, he having been 
well equipped for the struggle with energy, determination, and a good capacity 
for skillful labor, besides being a man of steady habits, thorough 
conscientiousness and unswerving integrity. He and his wife are sincere 
religious people, and the Congregational Church finds in them two of its most 
faithful members. He was a Whig in former days, but since the formation of the 
Republican party has been one of its most consistent supporters.

Additional Comments:
Portrait and Biographical Album of Will County, Illinois, Containing Full Page 
Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens 
of the County; Chicago: Chapman Bros., 1890 
 


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