Grundy County IL Archives Biographies.....Jordan, William Allen 
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Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com April 29, 2006, 1:56 pm

Author: 1883 US Bio Dictionary

William Allen Jordan

Morris

The subject of this sketch is the son of Allen Jordan and Catharine (Dayton) 
Jordan, and was born at Hudson, Columbia county, New York, July 17, 1829.  His 
father was a practicing lawyer of Hudson, and in 1839 the mayor of the city.  
Ambrose L. Jordan, who succeeded John Van Buren as attorney-general of New 
York in 1850, defeating him in a well-fought canvass, and who became famous in 
the defense of Big Thunder, the chief of the Anti-Renters, and his principal 
followers, was the paternal uncle of Mr. Jordan.  Coming of a family of 
successful lawyers, it was natural that his own early aspirations should be in 
the same direction, and it is more than probable that they would have been 
realized had not a dreadful calamity overtaken his father when he was about 
eleven years old.  At the age of forty-two his father was stricken with 
paralysis, which deprived him of speech, when in the full tide of prosperity, 
and full of vigor, ambition and hope.  William was the elder of two children 
by a first wife, and Mr. Jordan had a family of seven by his second wife, when 
overtaken by this calamity.  For seven years the family struggles against 
fate, but the father had finally to abandon his profession, and in 1847 came 
West, where on a piece of land his boys could more effectually aid him in 
making a living.  They reached Plainfield, Will county, in May, and for the 
first year rented a piece of land.  The year following Mr. Jordan settled his 
family on a piece of government land, in the town of Seward, in Kendall 
county, which was named at his suggestion after William H. Seward, with whom 
he was familiar, and between whom and himself a warm friendship existed.

William was at the academy in Hudson at the time of his father’s misfortune, 
and continued his studies three years longer, or until fourteen years of age, 
but had then to give up his studies and go energetically to work to help 
support the family.  When eighteen years old he came west with them, and was, 
until he married, of great assistance to the family.  These were years of 
arduous toil and great privation and self-denial.  While he felt that he was 
capable of filling a higher sphere in life, he abandoned at the call of duty 
all his hopes and aspirations, and became a farmer.  His summers for several 
years were spent on the farm, and his winters in teaching school.

November 1, 1853, when past twenty-four years of age, he married Miss Anna E. 
Wing, the daughter of Captain Clifton Wing, of Sandwich, Massachusetts, and 
removed to a piece of land of his own.  He had previously bought 100 acres of 
prairie land, to which he very soon added 110 acres more, and began his 
married life under most favorable auspices.  For about twelve years he stuck 
to his farm.  About 1865 he began to realize the immense demand for 
agricultural implements which a dense farming population on the rich virgin 
soil of the prairies of Illinois was soon to make, and saw in it an 
opportunity for wealth, beyond what he could hope to attain in farming.  He at 
once sold his farm at a fine figure, and invested his capital in the business 
at Minooka, Grundy county.  He began to do a very prosperous business, made 
money rapidly, and continually enlarged his operations until he had no less 
than seventeen sub-agencies, and did a much larger business than any other 
dealer in that part of the state.  But the grange movement came and 
demoralized prices and business generally, until in his efforts to keep up 
till the craze passed away he lost heavily.  For several years he lost money 
as fast as he had previously made it.  The usual unreliability of agents also 
had a part in his misfortunes, and his resources were seriously crippled.  In 
1870 he sold out entirely at Minooka, and moved to Morris, where he has 
continued to prosecute his business with much less spread than formerly, but 
with more safety and satisfaction, and with equal success.  He now does the 
largest business in his line in the county.

Mr. Jordan has never been an office seeker, but in January, 1882, he received 
the appointment of postmaster at Morris, which he has administered to the 
entire satisfaction of his neighbors.  He is a republican in politics, a 
staunch temperance man, and fully alive to the issues of the hour.  It need 
not be said that Mr. Jordan is a very popular man, and widely known.  He is 
one of the pioneers of northern Illinois, and as such, plain, simple, 
hospitable and generous to a fault.  He is public-spirited and active in every 
public enterprise, open, frank, genial and enthusiastic in his friendships.  
He sometimes regrets the necessity which checked his early ambitions, but 
finds in the consciousness of having done his duty a full reward.

He is the father of seven children, of whom four survive, and his home is a 
very happy and prosperous one.

page 403-404.


Additional Comments:
Source: The United States Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of 
Eminent and Self-Made Men, Illinois Volume; Chicago and New York: American 
Biographical Publishing Company, H. C. Cooper, Jr. & Company, Proprietors, 1883

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