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Jesse W. Fell

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This article is about the prominent Illinois businessman. For the discoverer of a new process for coal combustion, see Jesse Fell.

Jesse W. Fell (1808 - 1887), a Bloomington, Illinois businessman, founded Illinois State University, originally Illinois State Normal University. He called upon his attorney friend Abraham Lincoln to draw up the bond of guarantee for the Board of Education on May 5, 1857. During Lincoln's 1858 United States Senate campaign, it was Fell who urged him to challenge his opponent, Stephen A. Douglas, to their famous series of debates [1].

Life

Fell was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania,studied law in Ohio, and moved to Bloomington in 1831. After opening up the town's first law offices,and began dealing in real estate.During the Illinois land boom of 1835 - 1837 he crisscrossed Illinois buying and selling real estate. He with James Allen he co-founded the town of Clinton, Illinois and worked to create DeWitt County and arranged for his brother Kersey Fell to become the clerk responsible for organizing the new county. He established Livingston County, which he named, and backed the founders of Pontiac, Illinois, which he also named. He worked to preserve the boundaries of McLean County Eventually he turned the practice over to a young lawyer, David Davis. He invested in lands in Bloomington, Chicago, Milwaukee, Danville ,and many other places. With restless energy and knack for making friends, he would often ride sixty to seventy miles a day, braving any kind of weather. He manipulated roads and post offices, went east to raise money, and developed an abiding faith in the future of his his adopted Illinois home. [2]

Fell then founded the city's first newspaper, The Bloomington Observer and McLean County Advocate on January 14, 1837. Begining in 1837 he suffered a series of financial reverses. Moorehouse, 1916, p.29. He married Hester Brown in January 1838, and in 1845, the couple moved to Adams County, near Quincy to start a fruit nursery. In 1851 he returned to McLean County and once more became active in real estate and was soon working as an agent for the Alton & Springfield Railroad to secure the right of way through McLean County. He became co-founder helped of the town of Towanda and with his brother Kersey and three other men founded the town of Dwight.[3] He helped defeat an effort to have the railroad bypass Pontiac where he had extensive land holdings.[4] He sold lots in Decatur, Lexington, Clinton, ElPaso, Joliet, and LeRoy. In 1855 he purchased timber land and began operation a sawmill near Ullin in southern Illinois. [5]

He also got back into the publishing business, joining with Charles Merriman to resurrect a failing newspaper, The Whig, which was rechristened The Intelligencer in 1851. It took the name The Pantagraph in 1853.

Fell also is credited with developing much of the town of Normal, known in the 1850s as North Bloomington.

Fell became a close friend of such fellow Illinoisans as David Davis (Supreme Court justice) and Abraham Lincoln. According to Davis's biographer Willard King, Fell and Davis "had a large part in making Lincoln President."[6] After his election, President Lincoln rewarded Fell by appointing him an army paymaster[1].

Death

Fell died at his home in Normal, Illinois on February 25, 1887. The Normal Town Council declared that through his "untiring and disinterested efforts" he had secured the crossing of the two railroads and they passed a resolution thating that, "Normal without Jesse Fell is comparatively like a family without a father."[7]

Legacy

  • Many place names in Normal reflect Jesse W. Fell. Fell Park in Normal is located on land he set aside for public use in the 1850s.[8] There is also a Fell Avenue extending from Bloomington to Normal. Hester Street in Normal is named for his wife Hester Brown Fell. Fort Jesse Road in Normal takes its name from the nickname given by the Fell family to their isolated rural home during the early years in Illinois.
  • Co-founded, along with James Allen, the city of Clinton, Illinois. With Charles W. Holder he co-founded the town of Towanda Illinois. He was one of five men who founded Dwight, Illinois. He was deeply involved with the founding of Pontiac, Illinois and in the creation of Livingston County, Illinois. Fell park in Pontiac is named in his honor.
  • His granddaughter married Lewis Stevenson, and thus he is an ancestor of the Illinois political family Stevenson, including his great-grandson, Democratic presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson II.[9]

References

  1. ^ a b http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/inside.asp?pageID=41&subjectID=3 Mr. Lincoln and Friends: Jesse W. Fell
  2. ^ Frances Milton Moorehouse, The Life of Jesse W. Fell (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1916) pp 1-29.
  3. ^ Moorehouse, 1916, p.32.
  4. ^ History of Livingston County Illinois (Chicago: LeBaron, 1878) p. 326.
  5. ^ Moorehouse, 1916, p.33.
  6. ^ Willard L. King: Lincoln's Manager, David Davis Harvard University Press, 1960
  7. ^ William D. Walters, Jr. A Brief History of Fell Park, Normal, Illinois (Normal: Town of Normal, 2003) p.5. His remains were interred at Evergreen Cemetery in Bloomington.
  8. ^ Fell Park
  9. ^ Ancestry World Tree Project: Boss Family Tree
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