Lee, William L.

Born: 1814-10-26 Canada

Died: 1891-11-26 Chicago, Illinois

Flourished: Rock Island County, Illinois

William L. Lee, farmer, banker, and state legislator, had settled in Rock Island County, Illinois by 1844 when he began a three-year term as a county commissioner. He acquired eighty acres of land in the county in the early 1850s, and by 1860 he owned real estate valued at $30,000 and possessed $30,000 in personal property. Around 1852, he was a founder of the Rock Island Bank. From 1855 to 1856, Lee represented Rock Island County in the Illinois House of Representatives. He married Deborah P. Sears in 1842 and the pair had six children who lived to adulthood.

The Past and Present of Rock Island County, Ill. (Chicago: H. F. Kett, 1877), 133; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Rock Island County, 1 May 1842, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Rock Island County, IL, 216; Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales, Rock Island County, 710:34, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Historic Rock Island County (Rock Island, IL: Kramer, 1908), 138; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 221; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Rock Island County, IL, 206; Rock Island Daily Argus (IL), 27 November 1891, 5:3; Gravestone, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, IL.