1860's Loring Pease Wheeler Advertising Trade Card, Quincy, Illinois

#677: 

Printed on this Vintage Victorian Advertising Card: "Loring P. Wheeler, Dealer in Staple & Fancy Dry Goods, Hosiery, Gloves, Notions. Fancy and Variety Goods Generally, No. 10 Fourth Street, West Side the Public Square, Quincy, Illinois."

This is an early yellow coated thick card stock with various fonts, showing wonderful early American typography. The back has tiny scribbles as if a young child was attempting handwriting on it, in pencil. The card is circa 1850-70's.

Found in Public Genealogy Records:
Loring Pease Wheeler 1838-1934, died Age 96
His Father: John Wheeler, married 1837, Massachusetts ties, Welsh Wales ancestry
His Mother: Rebecca Pease Wheeler, married 1837, her father was Nathaniel Pease
His Wife: Clara Elizabeth Craw 1838–1909 born Stafford, Genesee County New Y ork and died in the state of Illinois
Her Father: Stephen Beckwith Craw 1813–1851
Her Mother: Sarah Dodge Craw 1808–1885
Their Children:
Ruth Rebecca Wheeler 1864–1959
John P Wheeler 1866–1895
Sarah Katherine Wheeler 1872–1926
Walter Frank Wheeler 1877–1943

Buried together at Woodland Cemetery, Quincy, Adams County, Illinois

Publication: Freeport Journal-Standard, Freeport, Illinois
Friday, January 12, 1934 "THIS MAN LIVED 95 YEARS IN ONE HOME Qulncy, HI., Jan. 12. Adams' county oldest native, 96 year old Loring P. Wheeler, died a week after fracturing his hip in a fall. All his life he lived In the farm home in which he was born in 1838. His father also died at 96."

Source: An Illustrated Chapter of Representative Men and Residences of Quincy, Illinois: The Most Beautiful of All Western Cities by Addison L. Langdon, 1888: "Loring P. Wheeler was born in Quincy, Illinois. The earlier years of his life were spent upon the river, his tastes inclining him that way. At the early age of sixteen years he was captain of a river packet boat, being the youngest officer, of so high a rank, known in river history. His family, however, were not favorably inclined toward steamboat life and they finally persuaded him to abandon steamboating. In 1851 he engaged in the dry goods business in this city, which he continued until 1872, with the exception of a short interval, about 1868, when he operated the pleasure and health resort hotel at Versailles. In 1872 he purchased the elegant farm, four miles south of Quincy, known as the Elmland stock farm, and has managed its extensive business since that time. Elmland consists of one hundred and sixty acres of magnificent land, and the improvements made by Mr. Wheeler have made it, without exception, the finest farm in this section of country. He has a mammoth barn, the largest in Adams county. He has a huge reservoir, which is filled with water pumped into it by a large wind engine, and all over his farm pipes are laid which convey the water in all directions—the force being sufficient to throw a hose stream powerfully, which he utilizes for sprinkling his beautiful lawn and other purposes. Mr. Wheeler was married in Oswego, Illinois to Miss Clara E. Craw (Clara Craw) in 1863. They have four children: two boys and two girls: Ruth Wheeler, Sarah C Wheeler, John P. Wheeler, and Walter Frank Wheeler. Loring P. Wheeler is in reality a model farmer. He has had a thorough commercial training before he became a farmer, which materially assists him in the management of his extensive estate. He is a retiring, pleasant gentleman; fond of his friends; charitable and generous, and his country home is one of the happiest on earth. We have enjoyed a personal acquaintance with him for a quarter of a century, and he is always the same: quiet, unostentatious, pleasant. His life has been a successful one, and his example worthy of imitation."

Author: David F. Wilcox. Title: Quincy and Adams County history and representative men (Volume 2) Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Publishing Company:
"Mr. Wheeler was born August 24, 1838. He was the oldest of three sons of John and Rebecca Pease Wheeler. He has one living brother. George E. Wheeler, who was formerly in the milling business, but is now a retired resident of Quincy, with home at 413 Vermont Street. His father, Mr. John Wheeler was of Wales, Welsh ancestry and was born at Sudbury, Massachusetts, in 1813. He died in 1908, in his ninety fifth year. He was reared in Massachusetts and his education largely depended on his private studies and the opportunities that came to him to acquire knowledge of men and affairs. During his long and active career, he was identified with farming and milling at Quincy. John Wheeler came to Quincy in 1837. He was here in time to meet and know the founders of the City of Quincy and all the early pioneers of the county, among whom he played a worthy and honored part. There were Indians in Western Illinois when he arrived, and he witnessed the final emigration of the red tribes across the Mississippi River. His location was in Melrose Township, where he obtained land from Captain Pease, a relative of his wife. This land is now owned by his son Loring P. Wheeler, and has been in the family possession for eight decades. John Wheeler began voting as a whig, and cast a ballot for the first republican nominee for President, General Fremont. He and his wife were laid to rest in Woodland Cemetery, where a monument marks their last resting place. Loring P. Wheeler, now in the shadow of his eightieth birthday, maintains all the vigor and intelligence of a man much younger, and his mind is as clear as many men half his age. He received a good education in some of the private schools of early day Adams County, and his father sent him East to get an academic training, spending one year at Meredith and one year at New Hampton, New Hampshire, in both of which places he attended academies. On returning to Adams County he did his first regular work on the Mississippi River. He was clerk on a steamboat, and when only seventeen years old was granted a master's license and was captain of the steamer "Colonel Morgan." From 1859 to 1872, Mr. Wheeler was a Quincy merchant and for four years he had an active part in the summer resort of Versailles in Brown County. Since then he has been located on his farm in Melrose Township. He has been prospered in his labors, has always been an exceedingly busy man, and aside from an inheritance of $1,000 when he reached his majority, his prosperity is the result of his own efforts. On June 16, 1863, in Will County, Illinois, Mr. Wheeler married Miss Clara E. Craw. They became the parents of four children, two sons and two daughters, three of whom are still living. The oldest is Ruth R. Wheeler, who lives at home with her father and was educated in the Quincy city schools and afterwards completed a four year course in the Chautauqua. She has always been a lover of good literature or books and has taken a commendable part in church and other local organizations. She is a member of the Methodist Church, of its auxiliary society, the Honey Bee Society, and is president of the local Quincy unit of the Home Improvement Association of Adams County. The son John P. Wheeler, who died October 31, 1895, at the age of twenty-nine, had already proved himself a man of achievement and talents and his early death cut short a career of great promise. He was always interested in things mechanical and though he had only a common school education he acquired what was for the time an expert knowledge of electricity and had the distinction of installing the second electric light system in Quincy. He married Miss Elizabeth Burroughs. Mrs. Elizabeth Wheeler is now superintendent of one of the dormitories, known as the Elliott House, at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Mr. and Mrs. John P. Wheeler had two children, a son and a daughter. The daughter, Marjory Wheeler, is a graduate of Wellesley College and is now an employee of the large dry goods house in Chicago of Charles Stevens & Company. The son, John Stephen Wheeler finished his education in the Quincy High School and is in Uncle Sam's service, having been promoted from second lieutenant to first lieutenant and is now performing the duties of adjutant at Camp Devens, Massachusetts. Miss Catherine Wheeler, the second daughter, is also sharing the comforts of home with her father. She is a graduate of LaGrange College at LaGrange, Missouri, and for five years was a successful teacher, four years in Adams County and one year in LaGrange. She has always taken much interest in literary affairs and also in patriotic organizations. Through her grandmother Wheeler, she is a direct descendant of an ancestor who bore arms in the Patriot cause during the Revolutionary war. With that lineage she is a member of the Quincy Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and is affiliated with the Baptist Church at Quincy. She has made a number of trips across the states, has visited the home of her ancestors in Massachusetts, and has seen a great deal of her own country. The son W. Frank Wheeler was educated in the Quincy High School and in the agricultural department of the University of Illinois at Champaign for one year, and is now living in Chicago, district agent for the Wilson Packing Company. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity and the Elks. He married Martha Rebecca White, who died in 1903, and had two children, one living, Frank White, now a student in a Chicago high school. W. Frank Wheeler married in October, 1917, Miss Eveline Lemen, of St. Louis, Missouri.  Mrs. Loring P. Wheeler was born at Bristol, Illinois, was educated in the common schools and had a musical training. She was active in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and her children and friends remember her for her many fine qualities as a kind and loving wife and mother. She died August 13, 1909, and was laid to rest in Woodland Cemetery. Mr. Wheeler has never shown any disposition to seek public office, and has done his part as a good citizen through other channels. He was at one time a member of the Military Company at Quincy, an organization which had on its roll such prominent names as General Morgan, Tilson, Prentiss and John Wood. The beautiful homestead of Mr. Wheeler is known as Elmland Farm. It is a highly productive place of 160 acres and also interesting and attractive as the abode of peace and contentment where any man might be happy to spend his declining years."

This is a beautiful and rare mid 19th century advertising piece on early cardstock for Loring P. Wheelers Dry Goods Store. It was found in Simsbury, Hartford County, Connecticut. A well known and illustrious Quincy, Illinois family with SAR & DAR Daughters of the American Revolution, Revolutionary War ties.

Size: 2 x 3.25 inches
      Note: Hello from ~debra. I have spent years collecting over 10,000 ID’d lost family photos & paper from US flea markets & antique shops. I do the best gen research I can, but am always open to corrections. This is an original antique item, not a reprint. A new high quality rigid sleeve is included for extra protection, especially during shipping. You may buy a piece alone, or large intimate 300 dpi scans of the front and back sent immediately via email, or both. Please search carefully, as they are often found together and many may be related. I also invite you to join me at Ancestorville Genealogy on facebook. Thank you, enjoy! ~Debra Clifford (contact info on top bar)