Geer, Nathan C.

Born: 1821-XX-XX Hartford, Connecticut

Died: 1860-09-XX Peoria, Illinois

Nathan C. Geer was a printer, newspaper editor and publisher, and a Whig turned Republican. In October 1842, in East Hartford, Connecticut, he married Julia L. Burnham, with whom he eventually had at least five children. From 1845 to 1847, he co-edited and published the Chicago Journal. In October 1850, he began publishing the Waukegan Gazette out of Waukegan, Illinois, where he and his young family lived at the time. He published the paper as a Whig organ until 1856, then as a Republican paper until he sold his interest in 1858. Politically active, he served as a delegate to numerous Whig and Republican conventions throughout the 1850s. In early 1858, he purchased the Peoria Transcript and changed its political orientation to Republican. In 1860, he owned a personal estate valued at $18,000. He sold the Peoria Transcript in July 1860, then died shortly thereafter following a brief illness.

Connecticut, U.S., Town Marriage Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection), 12 October 1842, East Hartford (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2006); Franklin William Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879, vol. 6 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1910), 57, 279-80, 352; John J. Halsey, ed., A History of Lake County Illinois (Chicago: Roy S. Bates, 1912), 128, 146; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Waukegan, Lake County, IL, 137; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 5, Peoria, Peoria County, IL, 330; Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, eds., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, ed. by David McCulloch (Chicago: Munsell, 1902), 1:156; Illinois Daily Journal (Springfield), 12 May 1852, 3:1; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 30 May 1856, 2:2; 17 June 1858, 2:4; 26 January 1858, 2:2; Hartford Daily Courant (CT), 7 September 1860, 2:4.