Hattie McRoberts

Page 165

Hon. William Gardner McRoberts, now actively and prominently engaged in the practice of the law in Peoria, Illinois, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 9th day of August, 1870, and is the son of William and Ellen Barker McRoberts. William McRoberts, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Belfast, Ireland, and immigrated to the United States of America about the year 1845 and located at Cincinnati, where he was employed by Boyle, Miller and Company distillers, and was later admitted to the firm, which then became Miller and McRoberts. He rose high in the business world until his fortune was destroyed by a disastrous fire.

Ellen Barker, the mother of the subject of this sketch, was born in Peoria, on the 29th day of October, 1843, and was the daughter of Gardner Thurston and Helen (White) Barker, pioneers who located in Peoria, Illinois, in 1838. Ellen Barker was in part educated at the Maplewood School for Girls at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Her wedding to William McRoberts was a great event in the social life of Peoria. To them were born two sons and one daughter. The subject of this sketch was the younger son and the daughter Helen McRoberts died at the age of four years.

Gardner T. Barker, grandfather, of the subject of this sketch, was from 1838 until his death in 1894 a dominant figure in the political and business life of the City of Peoria, elected five times mayor of the city and being prominent in the distilling business of the city and the founder of the Commercial National Bank, and its president until his death.

William Gardner McRoberts has resided in the City of Peoria, Illinois, since 1876. He received his education in the grade schools of Peoria, with one year of high school added. From 1897 to 1900 he occupied a humble position with Allaire Woodward and Company, drug millers. Leaving that employment to seek his fortune in the state of Washington, he spent one year in the big timber in the northwest corner of that state, close to Cape Flattery, at a time when every white man in that locality carried 45-90 Winchester rifles and when no court and no peace officers were needed. Returning to Peoria, he entered the employ of Colburn Birks and Company, wholesale druggists, passing through the various office and stock room positions and becoming a traveling salesman.

In 1894 the death of his maternal grandfather permitted him to contemplate the study of the law. He entered Cornell University Law School at Ithaca, New York, by exanimation in the fall of 1895, having a very successful year at that institution, and later took his degree of Bachelor of Law at Northwestern University Law School in 1897. He was then admitted to the bar and has since maintained an office in the City of Peoria, taking an active part in public affairs and in the business of the courts, and especially in the administration of the law. He served as a member of the Lower House of the Illinois State Legislature in 1903 and again in 1907, and during the years 1912 and 1914, inclusive, was attorney for the Law Enforcement League in the City of Peoria. He has served as president of the Peoria Bar Association and was chairman of the committee of the Illinois State Bar Association which in the year 1916 submitted a report which was adopted by the State Bar Association and became the first schedule of fees for the guidance of new members of the bar to be adopted by any State Bar Association in the United States. He has served as attorney for the Commercial National Bank of Peoria for the last twenty years, as one of its directors for the last fifteen years and as chairman of its Examining Committee for the past ten years, and has had a wide experience, in administration of corporate affairs.

In 1897 he was united in marriage with Miss Hattie Feger, of Peoria, Illinois, daughter of Isaac Newton and Melissa H. Feger. To them was born one son, who was born and died on the 9th day of August 1900.

William Gardner McRoberts is a member of Delta Phi fraternity and of the Creve Coeur and University Clubs of Peoria, Illinois.

Bibliographic information:

• History of Illinois and her people
• by Smith, George Washington, 1855-
• Publication date 1927
• Publisher Chicago : American Historical Society
• Contributor University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Volume 4
• Possible copyright status Public domain. Published 1923-1963 with notice but no evidence of copyright renewal found in Stanford Copyright Renewal Database. Contact digicc@library.illinois.edu for information.
• Pages 690
• https://archive.org/details/historyofillinoi04smit/page/185/mode/1up

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/L2RG-BLB