Source: Portrait & Biographical Album of Whiteside County, Illinois
Originally Published 1885
Chapman Bros., Chicago, IL

Transcribed by: Denise McLoughlin
Tampico Area Historical Society
www.tampicohistoricalsociety.citymax.com

Page 267

William P. Palmer, grain, coal and lumber merchant, at Sterling, was born in Franklin Co., Pa., Oct. 9, 1846. His parents, Jonas C. and Catharine (Fleck) Palmer, were also natives of that State; his father was a frmer by vocation.

After obtaining a district-school education, the subject of this notice, at the age of 19 years, attended the Iron City College at Pittsburg for a period of six months. At the age of 20 he left home and for a year was clerk in a grain house at Chambersurg, then until 1877 he was a member of the firm of Keefer, Palmer & Co., dealing in grain, coal, and agricultural implements. Then selling out his interest in the latter business, he came to Sterling and assumed charge of the interests of the Langford & Hall Lumber Company. Two years afterward he bought them out, and since then he has managed the business alone. He is a successful and enterprising business man, shrewd and well qualified for public trusts. Politically, he is a Republican, and religiously a member of the Presbyterian Church of Ster.ing, as is also his wife: bother were members of the First Reformed Church in Chambersburg, Pa. He is a member of the Orders of Masonry, Legion of Honor and Knights of Pythias. He is also a member of the Wallace School Board, and in the municipality he is at present the Chairman of the committtee on Streeets and Alleys.

In the spring of 1865, he married Maggie B.. a daughter of Michael and Mary (Bear) Rutt, and of Pennsylvanian nativity, born in 1866. Mr. and Mrs. Palmer have four children: Bertie, Minnie, John G. and Bessie. The last named died at three years of age.