DAVID ILER, who in former years was one of the most active and successful farmers of Ridott Township, is now retired from active labor and is spending his declining years quietly at a pleasant home in the village. He has been a resident of this part of the county for over thirty years, taking up his abode here in the pioneer days, and contributing his full share toward the cultivation of the soil and the development of its natural resources. He is now the owner of a considerable extent of land, embracing 160 acres in Ridott Township, and similar amounts in Leaf River Township, Ogle County, and Humboldt County, Iowa. The farm in Ridott Township is finely improved and supplied with convenient and substantial farm buildings. His other land is also valuable and fertile.

The subject of this biography was born in Sharpsburg, Washington Co., Md., June 2, 1823. His father, David Iler, Sr., was a native of the same county, where he learned the trade of a shoemaker, but later in life engaged in farming pursuits which he followed until called hence. He became a resident of this State in 1837, and died in Leaf River Township, Ogle County, Jan. 1, 1873, when nearly eighty-seven years old. The mother of our subject in her girlhood was Miss Polly Harmon, also a native of Washington County, Md. She came to Illinois with her family, and died in Leaf River Township two years after the decease of her husband. The ten children of the parental household accompanied their parents to the West, and assisted them in building up a homestead from the wilderness.

David Iler, Sr., had secured possession of an unbroken tract of land, mostly covered with timber, and in common with his brother pioneers endured cheerfully and patiently the difficulties and hardships of a new country. David, our subject, was then but a lad of thirteen years, and in common with his brothers put his shoulder to the wheel and assisted the family in their efforts at building up a home. A part of the journey to the West was made by water, and young David had charge of a team the remainder of the way. They had started in the spring of the year, and in consequence encountered much trouble in getting over the lowlands, a part of the surface being covered with water, and much of the way was destitute of regularly laid our roads. Our subject remained with his parents until twenty-three years of age, and was married at Mt. Morris, in December, 1846, to Miss Susan Kitsmiller. This lady was born near the Brinn & McPerson Iron Works, in Washington County, Md., Oct. 6, 1825, and is the daughter of John and Elizabeth (Woolford) Kitsmiller, natives of Maryland and of German descent. The mother died on the home farm in Maryland, when her daughter Susan was sixteen years of age. The latter in 1845, came to Illinois with a married sister who settled in Leaf River Township, Ogle County, where they were soon afterward joined by the father. He died there some years later when seventy-three years of age.

The wife of our subject was the youngest of a family of twelve children, of whom but five are now living, namely, Samuel, Nancy, Sallie, David, and Susan, Mrs. Iler. The latter, by her marriage with our subject, became the mother of five children, one of whom, William, died when twenty-six years of age; Mary, the wife of S. J. Stokes, is a resident of O'Brien, Iowa; Leroy married Miss Mary Swingley, and is farming in Leaf River Township, Ogle County; John M. married Miss Elizabeth Kirchner, and is farming in Ridott Township, this county; James A. is at home with his parents.

After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Iler located on a farm in Leaf River Township, which they occupied for a time and then removed to another not far away. They took possession of the farm in Ridott Township in 1854, when they labored industriously until 1882, and then wisely decided to leave the more active labors of life to younger hands. Mr . Iler has always lived quietly and unobtrusively, mixing little with the buiness of other people, content to attend strictly to his own concerns, and having little to do with politics except to regularly vote the straight Democratic ticket.

The maternal grandfather of Mrs. Iler, Henry Woolford by name, was a man of much prominence in the old Colonial days, and served as a soldier in the Revolutionary War. He was particularly distinguished for his bravery and his warm sympathies with the cause of American independence. Mrs. Iler's mother, after the Revolution, carried victuals to parties who had been captured and confined for raising a liberty pole near Hagerstown, Md., and she was there at the time Gen. Washington came with soldiers to liberate them.

Contributed by Carol Parrish from Portrait and Biographical Album of Stephenson County, Ill. (1888), p. 663