Flagg, William F.

Born: 1808-04-02 Massachusetts

Flourished: McLean County, Illinois

At age eighteen, Flagg studied with an architect in Worcester, Massachusetts, and in 1836, he moved to Bloomington, Illinois. Initially, he engaged in work as a builder, constructing three county courthouses in central Illinois. In 1848, Flagg and John W. Ewing formed a partnership to manufacture reapers in Bloomington. Flagg & Ewing designed their own reaper and built a factory to manufacture the reapers. In 1850, Flagg was an architect in Bloomington and owned real estate worth $6,500. By 1860, Flagg was a reaper manufacturer and he owned $50,000 worth of real estate, with a personal estate of $25,000.

E. Duis, The Good Old Times in McLean County, Illinois (Bloomington, IL: Leader, 1874), 336-37; The History of McLean County, Illinois (Chicago: Wm. Le Baron, Jr., 1879), 337; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Bloomington, McLean County, IL, 21; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 1, Bloomington, McLean County, IL, 154.