Will County ILGenWeb Biographies..... 
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File contributed for use by:
Dori Leekly & Margie Glenn

Author: History of Will County, Illinois; Chicago: Wm LeBaron Jr & Co, 186 Dearborn Street, 1878.

Alexander GROSS, general superintendent of the stone-cutting department Illinois State 
Penitentiary, Joliet; born in Baden, Germany, Jan. 26, 1834, where he lived until 20 
years of age, learning and working at the trade of stone-cutting in his father's 
quarries; he emigrated to America in 1854, landing in New York July 26, and came to 
Chicago the following September, engaging at his trade for two months, when he went 
to Macon Co. and worked at farming for four months; returning to Chicago, he again 
engaged at his trade until the panic of 1857, when he came to Joliet, and after working 
one year as foreman of the stone cutting department of the Illinois State Penitentiary, 
he was appointed general superintendent, in 1858, which position he has filled with 
credit since that date, a period of twenty years. Mr. GROSS married in February 1868, 
Margaret VEBEL; she was born in Prussia; they are the parents of five children, three 
living, viz., Laura, Theodore, Rosetta; the deceased are Albert and Amelia.