The next meeting of the Tazewell County Genealogical and Historical Society will be on Tuesday, February 10th at 7 PM. The program will be about the American Revolutionary War Soldiers that lived in Tazewell county.

All history is local until it is woven together with other stories to become part of the National fabric and there is no aspect of National history that doesn’t touch Tazewell County. The man below was said to have a grandfather that served during the Revolution and that must’ve made an impression on him as he was quick to sign up for duty during the War of the Great Rebellion.

William Henry Bates
Bates was born 28 April 1840 in New London, Ohio to Walter Truman and Elizabeth Bowman Bates. The family moved near Terre Haute, Indiana, where his father was employed as a wagonmaker in 1850. His parents then moved the family to Lafayette, Indiana, but by 1860, young William was living in Peoria, where he apprenticed to Nathaniel Nason before entering the Civil War. 

Bates joined the American Zouaves 8th Missouri Infantry in June 1861. He would participate in the battles at Westville, MO., Fort Donelson and Monterey, TN., and was present during the siege of Corinth, MS. He was at Chickasaw, Arkansas Pointe, Steel’s Bluff, the siege of Vicksburg, Jackson, and many more before he was discharged in 1864.

During the time he was in Missouri in 1861 he found two abandoned newspaper shops and took the opportunity to publish an issue of the Zouave Register at Cape Girardeau and the Star Spangled Banner at Mexico, Mo. They were sent to the regular subscribers in the area in hopes of converting rebels to the Union cause.

After the war, he returned home to marry Filener Sleeth on 21 March 1865 in Pekin, where he set up his print shop, a vocation he would pursue until his death. The couple would go on to raise four children. 

Ida B (1867-1951) never married, and neither did her sister, Teena (1868-1946). Both girls were school teachers in Pekin. Teena’s twin, William H. (1868-1940), married and moved to Chicago, where he, too, was employed as a printer. Roy S. (1873-1936) also moved to Chicago but was employed as a bookkeeper, insurance agent, and real estate broker.

An interesting bit of trivia is that Roy’s daughter, Helen, married Harry Neal Baum (1889-1967) whose father, Lyman Frank Baum (1856—1919) wrote “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” in 1900. It would go on to become an epic film 20 years after his death.

Bates the Printer
Bates had learned the printers’ trade while living in Lafayette, where he worked on the Argus as a printer’s devil and carrier. He was next employed by the Lafayette Courier and later the Times. He was a journeyman five years later when he left for Illinois and ended up in Peoria where he first worked for Harriman Couch and then Nathaniel Nason. He was with Nason when the war broke out, and the very patriotic Bates signed up to preserve the Union. The fact that he was with Nason in Peoria in 1861 means that it’s very likely he at least assisted in printing the very first Pekin City Directory, which was published by Omi Root but printed by Nason & Hill.

Bates at work in his print shop.
Tazewell County owes a debt to Bates that could never be repaid, in that he more than anyone recorded local history for posterity. He didn’t just record it, he related Tazewell’s incredible history at every opportunity. 

Bates included an abbreviated history in the first directory that he published in Pekin in 1870. He also published Souvenir booklets for a speech he gave at the 50th anniversary of the Union League of America. He also published a Souvenir booklet for the dedication of the new courthouse in 1916.

Bates was also a carpenter, a trade that he learned early on from his father. He would combine his love for history and woodworking to build three Martha Washington tables from the walnut seats in the old 1849 courthouse, which he gave to his daughters. There are two cabinets still in the 1916 courthouse that were also fashioned from the old walnut benches of the first courthouse, and I have little doubt that Bates had a hand in that, too.

He and pioneer photographer, H. H. Cole, combined their talents to create the Historical Room in the 1916 courthouse. Cole’s photos and Bates corresponding directory of those images still survive here at TCGHS.

And if all of that were not enough, Bates also led two excursions to visit Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh) and Corinth battlegrounds during the 1880’s. The Second Excursion left Peoria on the morning train on Friday, April 3rd, 1885. They planned to be at Pittsburg Landing on the 23rd anniversary of the great battle, where many lives were lost.

A pamphlet prepared for the Second Excursion can be found in our collection, along with a list of names of all the folks who were on the excursion, and they were from all over the Midwest.  

The civic-minded Col. Bates was the first to sign up for any parade or celebration of any kind. It’s fitting that when he died at age 91, the whole world seemed to turn out for his funeral. It was said that 10,000 people were on hand to watch his funeral procession make its way to his final resting place. The old soldier was transported on an old army caisson drawn by beautiful black horses. At the time of his death on 12 November 1930, he was the last surviving member of the first council of the Union League of America, oldest active printer in Illinois and one of the 3 surviving members of the Joe Hanna post of the Grand Army of the Republic.

The Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society is an award-winning 501c3, all-volunteer organization that has been in continuous service to our members and the public for 47 years. TCGHS operates an archive, library and research facility at 719 N. 11th St., Pekin. Visit our website at www.tcghs.org to learn more about us. If you have any point of interest that you would like to know more about, stop in at TCGHS or drop us a line.