|
|
This item is a wonderful,original group of 25 postcard covers, all dating from 1876 and 1877, with Belvedire and Chicago cancels, mostly family chit-chat from George Wilbur's mother to him; regarding family life.A good group,,,,please see the scans...
The George W. Wilbur Family is characteristic of many American middle class families of their time. It was headed by George W. Wilbur (1851-1931), a Chicago attorney, whose brother Albert H. Wilbur (dates unknown) lived in many parts of the West while working on the railroads. Their mother was Sarah Ann Cook Wilbur (1816-1904), a resident of Belvidere, Illinois, where George and Albert Wilbur grew up. George Wilbur and his wife Ellen Rice Wilbur (d. 1932) had a daughter, Susan Wilbur Jones (1893-1969), who attended Wellesley and became an editor and translator while living first in Chicago and then Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Very little is known of the early life of George Wilbur. While he lived in Belvidere he was the secretary of the local "America Base Ball Club," worked in the livery business, and taught school briefly in Flora, Boone County, Illinois. Wilbur enrolled at Champaign University in the fall of 1872 to study civil engineering. Lack of funds caused him to end his studies there in March 1873. He went back to the livery business in the spring of 1873, working for W. G. Leonard. George occasionally wrote unsigned articles for the Belvidere Standard about local happenings; the earliest such article in the collection dates from the middle of 1873.
George Wilbur began his legal career in 1874 with a brief stint as Deputy County Clerk of Boone County. After this, he found employment as a clerk in several law firms in Chicago. He continued to work after enrolling at the Union College of Law in Chicago, jointly run by the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. In June 1876 he received his Bachelor of Law, which carried with it automatic admission to the Illinois bar.
In 1888 George Wilbur married Ellen Georgette Rice, known as Nellie, a neighbor of his when he lived in Belvidere. In 1890, an infant son, named George Rice Wilbur, died of pneumonia. A daughter, Susan Warren Wilbur, was born in 1893. George doted on Susan and developed a very close relationship with her much as he had with his mother. The year after Susan was born, George and Ellen moved to Oak Park, Illinois, though he continued to practice in Chicago.
Wilbur had other financial interests in the West. In 1900 he purchased a stamp mill in Pittsburgh, Colorado, which he had previously co-owned. The mill was not a success, as it was situated too far from the mine it was meant to serve to operate efficiently. In 1923, James W. Sheridan, a client, gave Wilbur a fifty year oil and gas lease for 160 acres in Hartley County, Texas. The same year Wilbur and his wife sold 599 acres of Colorado farm land.
Early in his career, George Wilbur worked for many different law firms: Palmer Monroe, Bisbee Sheldon & Waterman; Wallace Heckman; and Rogers & Appleton. In the mid-1880s he formed a partnership with James H. Ward (Ward & Wilbur); in the 1890s he and William R. Hauze formed Wilbur & Hauze. After dissolving this partnership, Wilbur maintained his own practice for the remainder of his working life, dealing primarily with civil cases: real estate transactions, contracts, probate, and street improvements. Wilbur had several longtime clients, including two mining companies in which he held stock, the Pittsburgh Concentrating and Mining Company, and the Ruby Chief Mining and Milling Company.
..Please view the other historical and Civil War related documents I'll be listing this week.SEE SCAN.I now accept PAYPAL, personal checks or money orders. I allow International bidders and will ship Internationally, usually an $8 fee. Buyer pays shipping(usually $4 within the US and $8 for International),payment must be received within 14 days.
.
|