HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
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and his mother Mary Morey. Left an orphan at the age of about eight years, he was taken to Massachusetts by a Mr. Green, who died a few years later, when the boy was sent back to his former home and bound out, being allowed only six months in school during his servitude. At the age of eighteen, in company with four cousins-all Cilleys-he started for the Far West and reached the Western Reserve in Ohio, where they all changed the style of their names, the subject of this sketch adopting Sylla as his name. After remaining in Ohio about two years, he returned to New Hampshire and was soon thereafter appointed Captain of a militia company, which office he held for many years. In 1831 he was married to Lavina Huntoon, of Salisbury, N. H., and of this union there were four children. James Sylla, of this family, was educated in Elgin public schools, Knox College and graduated at Rochester University, N. Y.; in 1856 taught in Raymond Collegiate Institute, N. Y.; was Principal of Elgin Academy (1858-9) and a Professor in Chicago University (1860-61), dying at Friendship, N. Y., in January, 1865. Sarah Jane (Sylla) Smith attended the public schools in Elgin and taught there and in Elgin Academy; married Edwin J. Smith in 1859, died in 1881. Win. F. Sylla (sketch elsewhere). Edwin Sylla, educated in the public schools of Elgin and Elgin Academy, served as Captain of Company H, Tenth Illinois Infantry, in War of the Rebellion, was Chief of Elgin Fire Department, a Republican in politics, and died at Elgin, June 28, 1875. Among the earliest manufacturers in Elgin. Ill., was Capt. Philo Sylla, who came from Wilmot Flat, N. H., in July, 1837, and located a claim just west of the present city of Elgin. Mr. Sylla was both an inventor and a mechanic. He had a shop on his farm where he built fanning mills and about the year 1839 constructed a thrashing machine. The latter had an entirely new feature, consisting of a fan for cleaning the grain as it passed through the machine instead of winnowing by hand. Oscar and Edward Lawrence, who are now living in Elgin, both assisted in thus thrashing grain on Mr. Sylla's farm, and William G. Todd says that he also well remembers the first thrashing machine that Mr. Sylla built. "After he had thrashed his own grain with this experimental machine and made some minor improvements, he moved it to my father's (James Todd's) farm, and thrashed the first crop of grain raised there. Having finished, he moved on to the place now known as the William Wing farm, on Highland Avenue, where thrashing went on until noon; but while the men were absent at dinner, the straw took fire and the machine was destroyed." Mr. Sylla built a second thrasher which was used on several farms in the neighboring towns. Of this machine Mr. Robert Corron, who is still living on the same land he entered in 1835, says: "In the year 1840 I bought a thrashing machine built by Philo Sylla at Elgin. It was named the 'Prairie Queen,' and was the first machine that both thrashed and cleaned grain ever used in this country. Two hundred bushels of wheat, or four hundred bushels of oats, could be thrashed and cleaned in a day; this was wonderful in those times!" In 1842 Mr. Sylla left his farm and moved into a house of his own construction on the corner of North State and Washington streets, Elgin, building a shop on the opposite side of the street, where, together with Charles Webster, he continued to manufacture hand fanning mills, thrashing machines and horse-power tread-mills. Alfred Hadlock was soon after taken into the firm, and improvements were made in the machines and horse-power by using a "tumbling rod" instead of a belt to convey power. Mr. Sylla soon left the manufacture of thrashers, etc., to Alfred Hadlock and George W. Renwick, while he devoted all his energies to the improvement and manufacture of reaping machines. He bought a patent and built machines, but his first efforts, which were "headers," proved failures, and he found that he had risked and lost his farm on the venture. In the year 1850 Mr. Sylla built a reaping machine upon which the grain was raked and bound by hand. In 1851 improvements were made, and combined for cutting grain or grass, and a hinged cutting bar was used. Three or four machines were built. In 1852 further improvements were made, and the hinged cutting bar and a reel without a continuous shaft was later adopted. The raking and binding were done by four men who rode upon the machine under a canopy which covered the entire platform, and the bundles of grain were carried upon the machine for each shock and dumped in place for setting up in the field. A copartnership was formed and these machines were manufactured by Sylla & Adams, Augustus Adams,
