WILLIAM McILROY. – The active and capable gentleman whose name appears above, is one of Union county’s progressive and enterprising stockmen and agriculturists, having wrought here as well as elsewhere with display of ability and sagacity that commend him to all lovers of thrift and industry and which have resulted in the accumulation of a goodly portion of property and the placing of our subject among the most prominent and influential men of this section, while his integrity and uprightness are commensurate with his other characteristics.
Iowa City, Iowa, is the birth place of our subject, and July 27, 1861, the date of this event, while his parents were James and Mary A. (Calahon) McIlroy, farmers of that state. The father migrated to Oregon later in life and lived on a farm east from Elgin. At the budding of his majority, our subject inaugurated independent action, going to South Dakota where he farmed for two seasons then came to Washington, tilling the soil in Walla Walla and Whitman counties for two years. In 1885 he came to Union county, settling on a farm three and one-half miles east from Elgin for five years when he sold and repaired to Los Angeles, California, farming there for three years. Returning to Elgin in 1893, he remained in the town for a time and then rented S.S. Thompson’s farm for some time until he purchased nine hundred and sixty acres ten miles south east from Elgin, also taking up a homestead there. He is now taking up the stock business on an extended scale and is manifesting great skill and wisdom in this enterprise, which will doubtless bring to him the accustomed success that has been his to enjoy.
On July 2, 1890, at the home of the bride’s parents near Elgin, Mr. McIlroy married Miss Inda, daughter of W.W. and Priscilla (Hoffman) Gordon, and three children have been born, Elsie, Jessie, and Una. Mr. and Mrs. McIlroy are highly esteemed members of society and they are numbered among our most substantial citizens, having displayed both a becoming demeanor of wisdom and affability, couple with uprightness that mark the worthy ones.