Long ago, a large mill, known as the City Mills, was located at the southeast corner of Broadway and what was then known as Pleasant Street (now called Third Street) in Pekin. A bit further west, at the foot of Broadway, there stood the Pekin Gas Works. In the latter half of the 1800s the City Mills and the Gas Works were owned simultaneously by the same man, William Stanbery, Esq. (1816-1896).
William Stanbery belonged to a very prominent family of Newark in Licking County, Ohio. His father was U.S. Congressman William Stanbery (1788-1873), who is best remembered for his racist insult of and altercation with Sam Houston in 1832 that resulted in the senior Stanbery’s formal censure for “unparliamentary language” on 11 July 1832. Congressman Stanbery had spoken very derogatorily of Houston for his connections to the Cherokee (Houston was an adopted Cherokee who had taken a Cherokee wife). When Houston and Stanbery met on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., a fight erupted in which Houston struck Stanbery with his hickory cane. Stanbery then tried to shoot Houston, but his gun misfired. Houston was convicted of battery but received a light reprimand, but Stanbery’s misconduct and censure spelled the end of his political career — his lost his reelection bid that year, and returned to practicing law in Newark.
The Congressman’s son William decided to follow his father in becoming an attorney — hence the “Esq.” Stanbery graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1837, and then after his legal studies was admitted to the Bar in 1840. He worked as an attorney in Ohio until 1847, when he decided to seek new prospects out West. Settling in Pekin, he purchased a 440-acre farm and pursued a farmer’s life for the next 10 years. At some point during that time, Stanbery built a house at a site that would later be numbered 338 Buena Vista Ave. Stanbery was also one the founding members of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, with Pekin’s small group of Episcopalians originally meeting in Stanbery’s home before they obtained their first small meeting hall. Stanbery would serve St. Paul’s as Senior Warden for 40 years. He also served from 1859 to 1862 as one of the directors of the Pekin and Cincinnati Union District Schools.
In 1857, Stanbery purchased the City Mills, operating them under the name of W. Stanbery & Co. along with his partner John Fitzsimmons. By the mid 1860s, however, Fitzsimmons had left the operation, and in 1866 the firm was reorganized as Stoltz, Stanbery & Co., a firm headed by senior partner John W. Stoltz, a prominent Pekin businessman who would later serve as Pekin mayor in 1872. Besides Stoltz and Stanbery, the company’s proprietors were J. G. Lederman and S. W. Stone.
In 1865, just a year before Stoltz joined Stanbery’s milling firm, the Pekin Gas Light Co. was organized. Stanbery joined the gas company’s board of directors in 1866, and then in 1873 he became president and manager of the company, a position he would hold until his retirement in April 1893. It was under Stanbery’s leadership that Pekin’s first gas street lights was installed in 1866. Pekin’s streets would continue to be lit by gas lights until 1888, when they were replaced by electric lights.
Stanbery had married in 1839 to Jerusha Emma “Emily” Woodbridge (1817-1891), with whom he had only three children: Ella A. Stanbery Barber (1840-1937), one of the founding members of the Ladies’ Library Association of Pekin and husband of Pekin Mayor Samuel E. Barber (1835-1869); Frederick Stanbery (1843-1854); and Frank Howell Stanbery (1855-1940), who worked with his father for many years as secretary of the Pekin Gas Works.
William Stanbery survived his wife Emma by only five years, dying in Pekin on 24 May 1896. He, his wife, his son Frederick, and his daughter Ella are buried in the Stanbery family plot in Lakeside Cemetery. His obituary, published in the Weekly Pantagraph of Bloomington, Ill., on Friday, 29 May 1896, page 2, reads as follows:
“Death of William Stanberry.
“PEKIN, May 24 – William Stanberry, a resident of Pekin since 1847, died Sunday afternoon at 4 o’clock from a complication of diseases and old age. He was born at Newark, January 1, 1816. He graduated at Miami College at Oxford, Oh.
“He was admitted to the bar that state in 1840. He came to Pekin in 1847. He was senior warden of St. Paul’s Episcopal church for forty years past. He leaves a son and daughter. Funeral Wednesday afternoon.”
Two years before his death, a biographical sketch of William Stanbery’s life and career was published in “Portrait and Biographical Record of Tazewell and Mason Counties” (1894), page 697, as follows:
“WILLIAM STANBERY, one of the early settlers of Pekin, dates his residence here from 1847. He was born in Newark, Ohio, January 1, 1816, and is a son of William Stanbery, a native of New York City. The grandfather, Dr. Jonas Stanbery, was a physician of New York, whence he went to Zanesville, there passing his last days. The family is of English origin. The father of our subject was a lawyer, and was admitted to the Bar in his native city. In 1808 he became a practitioner of Newark, Ohio, and won a foremost place among the lawyers of the west. He also served as State Representative and Senator, and for six years was a Member of Congress. In politics he was first a Whig, and afterward a Republican. He held membership with the Episcopal Church, and died in Newark, Ohio, in 1873. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Mary Shippy [sic – Shipley], died just three weeks from that time. They had eight children who grew to mature years, while five are yet living.
“After attending the common schools, William Stanbery entered Miami University, of Oxford, Ohio, from which he was graduated in 1837 with the degree of A. B. He then studied law, and in 1840 was admitted to the Bar. For some years he served as Master in Chancery in Newark, and in 1847 cast in his lot with the early settlers of Pekin. Here he purchased four hundred and forty acres of land, and for about ten years engaged in the cultivation and improvement of his farm.
“Mr. Stanbery was married in Newark, Ohio, in 1839, to Emma J. Woodbridge, a native of Connecticut, and in 1889 their golden wedding was celebrated. In 1891 the lady who had been to him a faithful companion and helpmate for fifty-two years was called to her final rest. They had three children, two yet living: Mrs. Ella Barber, and Frank H., of Pekin.
“In 1857 Mr. Stanbery bought the City Mills, having learned the milling business in the Buckeye State, and in 1866 the firm of Stanbery & Stoltz was formed. In 1873 he became President of the Gas Light Company, which was organized in 1865, and of which he had been a Director since 1866. In 1873 he was made President and manager, and by careful management and methodical efforts he greatly enlarged its business until it became one of the leading industries of the place. With it Mr. Stanbery was connected until April, 1893, when he sold out. He is the only charter member now living of the Episcopal Church of this place, and since its organization in his own home in 1849 he has been Senior Warden. The present house of worship was erected in 1872. In politics, Mr. Stanbery was a Whig in early life, and on the organization of the Republican party joined its ranks.”
