This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Colby, Harris Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/wQJ.2ACEB/643 Message Board Post: Transcription of Biographical Sketch From History of McHenry County, Illinois, 1885 Inter-State Pub. Co. Chicago, 1885 p. 795 Henry Colby is a native of McHenry County, Ill., born in September, 1845, a son of Ira and Mary Colby, natives of Vermont. His father was born Dec. 27, 1808, and came to McHenry in 1840, and has been a Justice of the Peace of this township twenty-two years, and has held other offices of trust. His mother died in 1859. He remained on the farm, attending the district school in the winter until nineteen years of age, when he began clerking in his brother's drug store. Four years later he bought the store and carried it on alone several years, when his brother bought an interest and they carried on a general store under the firm name of Colby Brothers, at the same time running a store at Nunda. In 1881 the partnership was dissolved, O. C. taking the store at Nunda, and Henry remaining at McHenry. Mr. Colby was married Sept. 6, 1870, to Flora, daughter of David Harris. They have four children - Maud, born Sept. 7, 1873; Agnes, born Aug. 25, 1875; William, born Aug. 2, 1877! , and James, born Nov. 19, 1880. Mr. Colby is a member of the Masonic fraternity, McHenry Lodge No. 158; Chapter No. 34, and Calvary Commandery, No. 25, Woodstock. Politically he is a Republican, Mrs. Colby is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.