Bailey, William W. (IL State Representative)

Born: 1796-11-25 Breckinridge County, Virginia

In 1816, Bailey moved to Adair County, Kentucky, with his parents. He married Elizabeth Walker there on January 19, 1819. He was a captain and then a colonel in the Kentucky militia. In 1833, he settled in Macomb, Illinois, where he operated a mercantile business and lived for the rest of his life. He served as a county commissioner for McDonough County from 1838 to 1840, and in 1840, he won election as a Whig to the Illinois House of Representatives, in which he represented McDonough County. In 1850, he was a farmer in McDonough County, and he owned $4,000 in real property. By 1860, Bailey had amassed $6,000 in real property, with a personal estate of $6,000. After his first wife died, he married Hannah A. Deane on May 5, 1864.

History of McDonough County, Illinois (Springfield, IL: Continental Historical, 1885), 211, 256, 271, 361; Theodore C. Pease, ed., Illinois Election Returns, 1818-1848, vol. 18 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1923), 346; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), McDonough County, IL, 278; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), McDonough County, IL, 181.