CHAPTER XIX.

HON. WILLIAM BROSS.

WILLIAM BROSs, the subject of this sketch, whose name is familiarly connected with the growth and material progress of the North-west, is emphatically a self-made man.

His success in life has grown out of his own internal energy, unassisted by extraneous aids or mere adventitious circumstances. Remarkable strength of will, force of character, and honest directness of purpose have been alone the elements which have enabled him to rise from humble beginnings and win an honorable and distinguished place among men. In the space at our command, we must pass briefly over the principal events of this stirring, busy life; but, perhaps, these very events will tell the story of that life, and furnish the example for others to follow, better than whole pages of comment or moralizing.

He is the oldest son of Deacon Moses Bross, now a resident of Morris, Illinois, and was born in an old log-house, in the North-west corner of Sussex county, New Jersey, about two miles from Port Jervis.

The first nine years of his life were spent in that locality, at the end of which time his family removed to Milford, Pa., where he remained until manhood, engaged in the active life of the lumberman. He commenced his classical education, at the Milford

Academy, in 1832, and, two years later, entered Williams College, from which he graduated with high honors in 1853. During the next ten years he filled the position of public instructor at various academies in his native State and achieved an enviable success as a teacher.

One year after his graduation he took to himself a wife, the only daughter of the late Dr. John J. Jansen, of Goshen, New York. After nine years of married life, and ten of teaching, he made the first great change which led to his after success, by removing to Chicago, where he arrived May 12, 1848, as the active partner in the bookselling firm of Griggs, Bross & Co. His connection with this firm lasted about a year and a quarter, when the partnership was dissolved, and Mr. Bross made his debût in newspaper life by publishing the Prairie Herald, a religious newspaper, in conjunction with Rev. T. A. Knight. In 1852, the year which first saw Chicago start upon its unexampled commercial career, he shared all the activities of the time, was not slow to perceive the greatness in store for his adopted city, and determined to aid in making that growth a healthy one, and in placing Chicago among the great commercial centres of the country. The result was the establishment of the Democratic Press in connection with the late John L. Scripps, Postmaster of Chicago during Mr. Lincoln's administration, the first number of which was issued in 1852, and appeared as a conservative Democratic sheet, reflect ing the political principles of Mr. Bross himself.