STANDARD ATLAS
OF
SCOTT COUNTY, ILLINOIS
1903
Geo. A. Ogle & Co.Publishers & Engravers
134 Van Buren St.
Chicago
Transcribed by Larry Fearneyhough
Page 93
Scott county is filled with energetic, enterprising middle-aged men who were born here. The county seems to be a land of "milk and honey," and when one secures a taste of the good things found in old Scott there at once springs up a desire for perpetual residence. Three miles north of Winchester, on a farm, Sylvester Groce was born May 10, 1847. His father, John Groce, was a native of North Carolina and his mother was a Kentuckian by birth. They came to Illinois and settled in Scott County (It was a part of Morgan County at that time) in 1830, in what was known as the Perkins settlement. Later they moved to where the subject of our sketch was born and there they died. Sylvester has lived his entire life in that neighborhood and around Winchester. He was the ninth child in a family of twelve. All the children with the exception of five are dead.
Mr. Groce secured what education he could at the district schools in his neighborhood, and has made the best of what he got. For years he has been engaged in farming and stock raising, giving to his labors the thought and direction born of the school of experience. In his undertakings he has been successful and has made considerable money. He is unmarried. He owns a quarter-section of land and is one of the many native Scott countians who has found his Eldorado in the land of his birth.