Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Woodruff, C E  
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deb Haines http://www.rootsweb.com/~archreg/vols/00003.html#0000719 February 2, 2008, 3:03 am

Author: Past & Present Will County, 1907

C. E. WOODRUFF. On the pages of Joliet's business history the name of C. E. 
Woodruff stands conspicuously forth as that of one who has been prominent in 
advancing commercial development in the city. He possesses the power of 
foresight which recognizes the resources of this region and has the executive 
ability and merit to marshal and put in working order the forces of progress, 
development and upbuilding as manifest in commercial and industrial circles. 
Born in Watertown, New York, in 1859, he is a son of Charles T. Woodruff, 
whose birth occurred in Jefferson county, New York, and who lived to be eighty-
two years of age. He owned a farm and in connection with agricultural 
interests engaged in the manufacture of brick. His brother, T. T. Woodruff, 
was the inventor of the Woodruff sleeping car and sold his patent to the 
Pullman Car Company. He was superintendent of the Pennsylvania railroads at 
the time he patented the car and Andrew Carnegie was telegraph operator in his 
office. Mr. Woodruff assisted Mr. Carnegie in securing one thousand shares of 
the stock in the company. The paternal grandfather was Simeon Woodruff, who 
married Rosa Adams, a grandniece of John Adams, the second president of the 
United States. The mother of C. E. Woodruff bore the maiden name of Mary A. 
Clark and was a native of Jefferson county, New York. Upon the old home place 
in Watertown, New York, on which his father had settled in 1835, C. E. 
Woodruff spent the days of his boyhood and youth. Passing through consecutive 
grades in the public schools, he was graduated from the high school in the 
class of 1877. He then engaged in teaching for a time and in 1884 came to 
Joliet, where he engaged in the manufacture of wire, continuing in that line 
for seven years and afterward in other business enterprises until 1896. On the 
1st of May of that year the idea of building an artificial ice plant had not 
been conceived but in July ice was being manufactured. The Joliet Pure Ice 
Company was incorporated in the former month with A. J. Rates as president; W. 
M. Cochran, vice president; C. E. Woodruff, secretary and manager; and Thomas 
H. Riley, J. J. Gaskill and James G. Hegge directors in addition to the 
officers. The capital stock was twenty-five thousand dollars and within the 
almost incredibly short space of time of less than three months the plant was 
in operation, owing to the enterprise and keen discernment and executive force 
of Mr. Woodruff. From the beginning the new venture has proved profitable and 
the enlargement in the business is indicated by the increase in the capital 
stock to one hundred thousand dollars. The present members of the company are 
M. F. Loughran, president; J. J. Gaskill, vice president; R. T. Kelley, 
treasurer; C. E. Woodruff, secretary; with H. Benjamin Smith, August 
Schoenstedt and T. H. Riley as additional directors. The company was organized 
for the purpose of manufacturing pure ice. The capacity was originally twenty-
five tons per day but this has been increased to over one hundred tons per 
day. The main building is three hundred by seventy feet and at the present 
time there is being erected a new building, three hundred by one hundred and 
eight feet, so that the company will have one of the most complete plants for 
the manufacture of artificial ice in the state. The water used is taken from a 
well drilled twelve hundred feet in rock and run through seven different 
filters before it is used. Employment is furnished to fifty men and twenty 
teams are utilized for hauling purposes. In 1897 the company extended the 
field of its operations to the coal trade and now handles from thirty to forty 
thousand tons each year. Mr. Woodruff is also secretary of the Joliet Printing 
Company, which he helped to organize three years ago, and is a director in the 
Joliet Warehouse & Transfer Company and in the Will County Abstract Company, 
which he assisted in organizing. In 1880, in Watertown, New York, was 
celebrated the marriage of Mr. Woodruff and Miss Jennie E. Robinson, a 
daughter of Dr. S. M. Robinson. They now have one son, Glenn C. Mr. Woodruff 
is prominent socially and was one of the organizers of the Union Club and 
assisted in framing its by-laws. He has been secretary and vice president of 
this organization and he is also a member of the Commercial Club, the Elks and 
Knights of Pythias lodges, the White Cross and the Modern Woodman camp. A man 
of unswerving integrity and business honor, having perfect appreciation of 
commercial ethics, he has gained and retained the confidence and respect of 
his fellowmen and is distinctively one of the leading-residents of the 
thriving city of Joliet with whose interests he has long been identified.

Additional Comments:
PAST AND PRESENT OF WILL COUNTY, ILLINOIS By W. W. Stevens President of the 
Will County Pioneers Association; Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing 
Company, 1907

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/will/bios/woodruff2425nbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/

File size: 5.5 Kb