Wagley, William C.

Born: 1826-08-06 Adair County, Kentucky

Died: 1907-09-22 Houston, Texas

Flourished: 1848 to 1860 Hancock County, Illinois

William C. Wagley, attorney and merchant, was educated at local schools in his native Kentucky and attended St. Joseph’s College in Nelson County in that state. He was second lieutenant of Company C, Third Dragoons, U.S. Army during the Mexican War, serving from 1847 to 1848. After the war he settled in Hancock County, Illinois, where he practiced law and was a merchant. Wagley partnered with William N. Grover in the Warsaw legal firm of Grover & Wagley in 1851 and 1852, and with George J. Rogers in the firm of Wagley & Rogers in 1854 and 1855. He was retired from the legal practice by 1856, and at the time of the 1860 census was the superintendent of a distillery and reported owning real estate valued at $50,000. Wagley lost a bid for election to the office of Hancock County prosecuting attorney in 1851, but served as mayor of Warsaw from 1855 to 1856 and again briefly in 1857. Politically, he was a Democrat, and in 1858 he ran unsuccessfully as a Buchanan Democrat for a seat in the Illinois Senate. In 1860 he was a presidential elector for John C. Breckinridge. Around the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, Wagley left Illinois, living in Memphis and New Orleans before settling permanently in Texas after the war. He married Elizabeth (Lizzie) Leech in 1851 and the pair had children.

History of Texas (Chicago: Lewis, 1895), 554; Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1903), 1:992; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Hancock County, IL, 318; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Adams County, 5 November 1851, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Th. Gregg, History of Hancock County, Illinois (Chicago: Chas C. Chapman, 1880), 240, 418, 452, 454; John Livingston, Livingston’s United States Law Register (New York: Monthly Law Magazine, 1851), 47; John Livingston, Livingston’s United States Law Register (New York: U.S. Law Magazine, 1852), 61; John Livingston, Livingston’s Law Register (New York: Monthly Law Magazine, 1854), 90; The Weekly Rock Island Republican (IL), 26 July 1854, 3:4; Rock Island Republican (IL), 17 March 1855, 1:3; John Livingston, Livingston’s Law Register (New York: Davies and Roberts, 1856), 112; Warsaw Sesquicentennial 1812-1962 ([Warsaw, IL?]: n.p., [1962?]), n.p.; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 4 November 1858, 3:2; Illinois Daily State Journal (Springfield), 27 November 1860, 2:1; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 3, Warsaw, Hancock County, IL, 670-71; The Houston Post (TX), 23 September 1907, 6:2; Gravestone, Glenwood Cemetery, Houston, TX.