Shirley, William C.

Born: 1823-11-20 White County, Tennessee

Died: 1900-01-26 Staunton, Illinois

Flourished: 1852 to 1900 Macoupin County, Illinois

William C. Shirley, farmer, merchant, and public official, relocated with his family to Hamilton County, Tennessee as a young boy and was educated in his native state and in neighboring Georgia. About 1840 he moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where he was employed in a store. Two years later he settled permanently in Illinois, living first in Montgomery County, near Hillsboro, where he was worked as a livestock trader and farmer. Shirley moved to Madison County in 1849 and continued farming, then lived in Staunton from 1852 onwards. He maintained a farm in the vicinity of Staunton and operated a store in the town between 1852 and 1861. During the Civil War he was a government contractor supplying horses and mules for the U.S. War Department. Politically, Shirley was a Democrat and a supporter of Stephen A. Douglas, and was elected as a Douglas Democrat to represent Macoupin County in the Illinois House of Representatives in 1858. Beginning in 1855 he was a charter member of the Freemason’s lodge in Staunton. Shirley married Mary J. Hoxsey in 1845 and was survived by his wife and six children.

History of Macoupin County, Illinois (Edwardsville, IL: Brink & McDonough, 1879), 128; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Montgomery County, 4 December 1845, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Madison County, IL, 432; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 222; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Macoupin County, IL, 271; Springfield Sunday Journal (IL), 28 January 1900, 1:6; Gravestone, Staunton City Cemetery, Staunton, IL.