... The maternal grandfather, Rodolphus [sic] W. Padelford, was born at Savoy, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, in 1806, and came west in 1842, locating in Elgin. He was of English descent, a descendant of Jonathan Padelford, who came across the water in a very early day.
In early life he followed farming, but learning the daguerreotype business he established the first gallery in Elgin, and followed that profession until 1866, when he was burned out. A friend of liberty, while residing in Buffalo, New York, he conducted a station on the underground railroad, and many a poor colored person owed his liberty to Mr. Padelford's watchful care. Owen Lovejoy, Wendell Phillips and other noted abolitionists were numbered among his personal friends.
Few men were ever better known in Kane county than Adolphus Padelford. On the organization of the city of Elgin in 1854, he was elected its first city clerk, and continued in that office for twenty years consecutively. In 1866 he was elected clerk of the city court of Elgin, and served as such until 1889. In 1886 he was elected police magistrate of Elgin and held that office two terms. A strong Baptist, he was clerk of the Baptist Association of Illinois from 1850 until his death, and was clerk of the First Baptist church of Elgin for over forty years, and deacon for the same length of time. He was clerk of the board of trustees of the Northern Illinois Hospital for the Insane for twenty years, and township treasurer of Elgin for twenty-five years. As a bookkeeper and accountant he had few superiors. His death occurred at Elgin in 1894 at the age of eighty-eight years, four months and twenty-four days. ...
