Silas Field Leachman (20 August 1859 – 28 April 1936) was an American pioneer recording artist, possibly the first person to make recordings in Chicago and known for making hundreds of thousands of phonograph cylinder recordings in the 1890s. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and worked on the railroad before marrying and moving to Chicago in the 1880s. He began recording for the North American Phonograph Company's Chicago branch around 1892, then recorded prolifically for the Chicago Talking Machine... [more on Wikipedia]