Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Oliver, Stephen A 
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Deb Haines http://www.rootsweb.com/~archreg/vols/00003.html#0000719 February 28, 2008, 11:16 pm

Author: Past and Present of Will County, IL; 1907

Stephen A. Oliver, engaged in the real-estate and insurance business in 
Joliet, was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, February 28, 1838, and is a 
representative of a prominent and distinguished old family of that place. His 
grandfather was postmaster of Lynn, Massachusetts, in early days and was also 
representative from his district in congress. The father, Edwin H. Oliver, was 
born in Lynn and was a shoe manufacturer in connection with Stephen Oliver, 
Jr., one of the most noted representatives of that line of business in his 
day. He wedded Mary E. Sanderson, a native of Salem, Massachusetts, and the 
family home was established in Lynn, where Stephen A. Oliver of this review 
was reared. Early in life he became connected with shoe manufacturing and 
continued in the business until after the outbreak of the Civil war, when he 
enlisted in the Eighth Massachusetts State Militia on the 15th of April, 1861. 
He had been an interested witness of the trend of thought and action at that 
period, regarded the attitude of the south as regarding secession entirely 
unconstitutional and resolved that if a blow was struck to overthrow the Union 
he would stand loyally in its defense. Accordingly the smoke from Fort 
Sumter's guns had scarcely cleared away when he offered his services to the 
government and on the 16th of April left for the seat of war. He had enlisted 
as a member of Company D for three months' service and when it was proven that 
the war was to be no mere holiday affair but that it would be a long and 
bitterly contested struggle he re-enlisted in 1862 in the same company and 
regiment for nine months' service. He was with the Army of the Potomac and 
North Carolina during that period and was with the reserves at the battle of 
Gettysburg in 1863. When his second term of enlistment had expired Mr. Oliver 
returned to his old home and again engaged in the shoe manufacturing business. 
He was thus connected with industrial life in New England until 1878, when he 
removed to Chicago, where he engaged in the manufacture of shoes with the firm 
of Phelps, Dodge & Palmer. In 1882 he came to Joliet to superintend the shoe 
factory at the state prison for Selz, Schwab & Company, and in 1885, 
withdrawing from that position, he engaged in the real-estate and insurance 
business in connection with A. C. Clement. He has been alone in business, 
however, for the past fourteen years and now has a large clientage, being one 
of the foremost real-estate dealers of the city, with comprehensive knowledge 
of values and with ready recognition of opportunities as presented in the 
field of real-estate operation. On the 2d of October, 1863, Mr. Oliver was 
married to Miss Carrie A. Laskey, a native of Salem, Massachusetts, and they 
have two children: Mrs. Fred Humphrey, of Joliet; and William H., a member of 
the surveying department of the E. J. & C. L. Sand Railroad. Mr. Oliver is 
prominent in Masonic circles, belonging to the blue lodge and chapter, while 
of Apollo Commandery, No. 1, K. T., he is a life member. He also affiliates 
with the Grand Army post and was senior vice department commander in New 
Hampshire and is past commander of the post in Joliet. His life of business 
activity and honorable commercial enterprise, of loyalty in citizenship and 
valor in days of war have made him one of the valuable and representative 
residents of Will county. 

Additional Comments:
PAST AND PRESENT OF WILL COUNTY, ILLINOIS By W. W. Stevens President of the 
Will County Pioneers Association; Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing 
Company, 1907

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