My Genealogy Hound

ROPER, WILLIAM, farmer and stock raiser, Sec. 6, P.O. Breese. Mr. Roper, who for the past twenty years has been a resident of Greene County, was born at Manchester, England in 1822. His father, John Roper, was a machinist by trade, and to him young Roper was regularly apprenticed. Completing his apprenticeship he worked some time as a journeyman, and on the decease of his father became proprietor of his shops. In 1844 he married Miss Mary Ann Sherwin, a daughter of William Sherwin, of Derby, England. In 1849 William determined to emigrate to America. On two occasions he was nearly shipwrecked. Landed in New York City, and from here he made his way to Scott County, thence to St. Louis, where he worked in the Western Foundry for seven years. He then went to Springfield, from Springfield to Jacksonville, and thence to Greene County, where he now owns a farm of forty acres. He has four children living: John, William, George and Catherine, who married Charles Clough.