Moshier, Timothy

Born: 1812-05-18 Washington County, New York

Died: 1888-08-05 Waukesha, Wisconsin

Flourished: Galesburg, Illinois

Timothy Moshier was a farmer, land speculator, banker, and businessman. Born to a Canadian father and American mother, Moshier spent his early years on the family farm in Cayuga County, New York, where his educational opportunities were limited. He left home at the age to sixteen to make a life for himself. At the age of twenty-three, he moved from Cayuga County to Cass County, Michigan, where he remained for three years. In November 1837, he married Sarah Garwood, with whom he had six children. In 1838, Moshier and his family moved to the Platte Purchase in Missouri, where he worked for five years before moving to Illinois and settling in Warren County, where he became a prosperous farmer. In 1850, he owned real property valued at $10,000. Sarah Moshier died in 1851 and Moshier married Adelia Gardner in 1854, with whom he had one child. In 1852, Moshier moved to Galesburg, Illinois, finding continued success in agriculture, trading, real estate, and shipping. In 1860, he owned real property valued at $50,000 and had a personal estate of $100,000. Moshier became involved in establishing the First National Bank of Galesburg in 1864 and served as its largest shareholder and director. He was a Universalist but never joined any church. Politically, he was a Whig and, later, a Republican.

The Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago, IL), 6 August 1888, 1:4; Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, eds., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and Knox County, ed. by W. Selden Gale and Geo. Candee Gale (Chicago: Munsell, 1899), 738-39; Portrait and Biographical Album of Knox County, Illinois (Chicago: Biographical, 1886), 811; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Warren County, IL, 21; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Galesburg, Knox County, IL, 408; Gravestone, Hope Cemetery, Galesburg, IL.