FINDING THE AMERICAN DREAM - William Drury by Matt Van Winkle

Happy New Year 2020 to all my readers!

Last year Matt Van Winkle from Aledo, Illinois provided this blog with two stories about people buried in the Aledo City Cemetery.  Matt did such a good job with his articles I asked him for another contribution and he provided it to me today.  So sit back, relax, and enjoy the story of William Drury:

In a time in which the American dream is considered obsolete or not attainable anymore, I decided to focus on a time that is the epitome of Americana—a time of western expansion and pioneering, a time of conquering the harsh wilderness and achieving the impossible. Here in Mercer County, Illinois, one man stood out to me, a man that saw opportunity in the woods and prairie of the Mississippi River Valley. William Drury is a name that you will not see in school textbooks, but he deserves a place in American history as a true American pioneer during the height of American “Manifest Destiny.” Though there are thousands of exemplary pioneers throughout this time of American history, Mr. Drury in my opinion stands out as a cut above the rest. 

William Drury

William Drury was born to Edward and Jane (Burns) Drury in Fairfield County, Ohio, on September 17th, 1809. Two years after his birth the family would settle in Wayne County, Indiana, and during the War of 1812 they had to seek refuge in nearby forts in order to survive the onslaught of the British-backed Native American raids. 

I was not able to find much on Mr. Drury’s childhood, but I know that by 1833 William was teaching school before he headed west to Illinois. It was in 1833 that William made a trip to what is now New Boston, Illinois.  He was so taken by what he saw there that he proclaimed this was “God’s country” and decided that he would make the area his home. William purchased four 80-acre tracts of land near present day New Boston before he returned to Indiana to round up his family for the big move. William and company would return permanently in 1834.

During the time William returned to Indiana to gather his family, he apparently was insufferable when it came to his constant chatter about the amazing land and opportunity that was to be had in western Illinois. Ultimately, he was able to convince others to follow him and thus became foreman of land sales for Mercer County, a job which paid $1.25 an acre. 

When William settled in Mercer County in 1834, he wasted no time in becoming one of the most important people in the county. He was elected county recorder in 1835, and was elected clerk of the county commissioner’s court and postmaster of Keithsburg, Illinois, in 1836. It was 1836 that William started his business enterprise by opening a dry goods store with future in-law Levi Willits. Drury and Willits dry goods bought pork, grain and other products, shipping them from St. Louis. Because of the success of this venture, William and Levi opened the first pork packing business in the county. William and Levi were able to furnish the people with the required necessities of the time. William and Levi would eventually sell this business to William’s brother Courtney and his friend James Thompson in 1848.

By July 1840 William had found love and married his business partner’s granddaughter Vashti Lewis. 

Vashti Lewis Drury

Vashti was born in 1822 to Caleb and Polley (Willits) Lewis. Caleb was an Indiana state legislator for many years and stayed in Indiana while the rest of the Willits and Lewis families migrated to Illinois. William and Vashti didn’t have any naturally born children but adopted a son in 1857 and named him Edward.

    

By 1850 William branched off on his own and opened a small cash store, but he retired in 1853 for health reasons and decided then to focus on real estate and the importation and raising of stock. By 1855 William had made a fortune in his business ventures and decided it was time to build his mansion, which he named Verdurette. William built Verdurette on what was known at the time as Drury Grade Road, and the house is still in existence to this very day and is owned by his descendants. 

Here are two photos of Verdurette as it looks today:

Verdurette is styled in a very elegant Gothic style east of New Boston, and it housed the first electricity power station in Mercer County (the descendants have the original blueprints that were done by Thomas Edison). William filled the area around Verdurette with deer and built a park that housed buffalo, elk, deer, and other exotic animals. Though I haven’t been able to confirm it, Williams’s descendants have said that Verdurette was also used as a stop on the Underground Railroad. This wouldn’t surprise me as this would fit into William’s personality as well as the abolitionist fervor in this area, particularly in the Galesburg, Illinois, area 45 minutes away from Mercer County. 

    

After everything he had accomplished in his life, William and other wealthy citizens in the area decided to organize and establish a Farmer’s National Bank in Keithsburg, Illinois, in 1871. William was to serve as a large stockholder as well as bank president. For being a “retired” citizen, William up to this point had accomplished more than most people today during their regular career. It must have been nice to be able to retire and have hobbies such as these.

By 1897 old age and health issues had finally caught up to William and he passed away at Verdurette on March 13th. At the time of his death, William had amassed over 100,000 acres of land in Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, and Texas, making him one of the biggest and richest landowners in the United States.  William Drury is buried in the New Boston Cemetery in New Boston, Illinois:

In his will, William left money to found a college in Aledo, Illinois, which would become William and Vashti College in honor of his wife and himself. After much litigation brought on by his son Edward contesting the will, William and Vashti College finally opened, but it only operated for 15 years and closed at the outbreak of World War One. The campus would later become two different military schools before finally shutting its doors for good in 1973. Most of the building remains today in ruins, but the dormitories were repurposed and opened as “Vashti Village,” an assisted living facility for the elderly. 

William and Vashti College

Vashti Lewis Drury died in 1909.  She is buried with her husband and her brother Levi in the New Boston Cemetery:

William Drury was one of the most colorful citizens in Mercer County’s history. William was a spiritualist in his beliefs and vowed that he would return after his death. One would think nowadays that this would make him an oddball during his time, but spiritualism at the time was very popular among the citizens of Mercer County. William made his mark all over the county and you can still see a lot of that today. He offered an account of his prosperity by saying that he made it a practice all his life, that at the end of each year his income shall be greater than his expenses. He said that this accounted for his large estate and not any mental gift. Whatever it was, be it talent or mental gift, if it weren’t for pioneers like William Drury, America wouldn’t be what it is today. The American pioneers like William fought everything to carve out a life for themselves and to prosper, and I personally think they should be remembered and celebrated, especially today when so many people think the American Dream is no more. If we can persevere like the pioneers of the 1800s, then we can accomplish the impossible and continue what the pioneers began.