HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
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DEERING, William, manufacturer, was born at Paris, Oxford County, Maine, April 26, 1826, completed his education at the Readfield high school, in 1843, engaged actively in manufacturing, and during his time has assisted in establishing several large, successful business enterprises, including wholesale and commission dry-goods houses in Portland, Maine, Boston and New York. His greatest work has been the building up of the Deering Manufacturing Company, a main feature of which, for thirty years, has been the manufacture of Marsh harvesters and other agricultural implements and appliances. This concern began operation in Chicago about 1870, at the present time (1899) occupying eighty acres in the north part of the city and employing some 4,000 hands. It is said to turn out a larger amount and greater variety of articles for the use of the agriculturist than any other establishment in the country, receiving its raw material from many foreign countries, including the Philippines, and distributing its products all over the globe. Mr. Deer-ing continues to be President of the Company and a principal factor in the management of its immense business. He is liberal, public-spirited and benevolent, and his business career has been notable for the absence of controversies with his employees. He has been, for a number of years, one of the Trustees of the Northwestern University at Evanston, and, at the present time, is President of the Board.
DE KALB, a city in De Kalb County, 58 miles west of Chicago. Of late years it has grown rapidly, largely because of the introduction of new industrial enterprises. It contains a large wire drawing plant, barbed wire factories, foundry, agricultural implement works, machine shop, shoe factory and several minor manufacturing establishments. It has banks, four newspapers, electric street railway, eight miles of paved streets, nine churches and three graded schools. It is the site of the Northern State Normal School, located in 1895. Population (1880), 1,598; (1890), 2,579; (1900), 5,904; (1903, est.), 8,000.
DE KALB COUNTY, originally a portion of La Salle County, and later of Kane; was organized in 1837, and named for Baron De Kalb, the Revolutionary patriot. Its area is 650 square miles and population (in 1900), 31,756. The land is elevated and well drained, lying between Fox and Rock Rivers. Prior to 1835 the land belonged to the Pottawatomie Indians, who maintained several villages and their own tribal government. No sooner had the aborigines been removed than white settlers appeared in large numbers, and,
