Ivory Quinby was an American businessman who was notably one of the earliest benefactors of Monmouth College, and helped establish Monmouth, Illinois as a transportation center.
27 Facts About Ivory Quinby
2.
Ivory Quinby I was born on July 14,1817, in Buxton, Maine.
3.
Ivory Quinby was named after his mother's former husband, Ivory Fenderson, who had died four years earlier.
4.
Ivory Quinby's parents were Asa and Mehitable Quinby.
5.
Ivory Quinby had a brother and sister, named Rodney and Elizabeth.
6.
Ivory Quinby came from an old New England family, who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638.
7.
Ivory Quinby left to study law in Saco under Judge Shepley.
8.
Ivory Quinby arrived in Quincy, Illinois, in 1837, and met two men named John Mitchell and OH.
9.
In 1849, Ivory Quinby was elected to a probate court as a judge, where he served a single term from 1849 to 1853.
10.
Charles Armsby, Hiram Baldwin, Chancy Hardin, James Thompson and Ivory Quinby were all elected to the Board.
11.
When his term came to a close, Ivory Quinby was paid $5.00 for his time as president.
12.
In 1857, Ivory Quinby was elected mayor for a second time, running on the Democratic ticket.
13.
On June 2,1863, Ivory Quinby was elected to the board of health, again with Hardin and a health officer, Dr JR Webster.
14.
Ivory Quinby was one of the founders of the Monmouth Public Library, which he began in 1867 as a reading room, which could be utilized without charge.
15.
Since he owned acres of land around Monmouth, Ivory Quinby donated a section to the city, for the purpose of expansion, which he gifted in 1865.
16.
In 1867, after being elected mayor again, Ivory Quinby oversaw the placement of sidewalks in Monmouth.
17.
Ivory Quinby was not only a respected politician, but a very successful businessman as well.
18.
Ivory Quinby frequently bought and sold property in Monmouth, which generated a financially successful business.
19.
Ivory Quinby highly valued education, and so when Monmouth College was founded in 1853, he became a member of their Board of Trustees, where he served as treasurer.
20.
Ivory Quinby was one of the college's earliest benefactors, and donated a large amount of money, a sum which amounts to about $10,000.
21.
Ivory Quinby married Jane Allen, who had moved from Oneida County, New York, with her father Benjamin Allen, in 1839.
22.
Ivory Quinby moved to Berwick shortly after Allen's death to begin his mercantile business, and met Mary Pearce, whom he married in 1848.
23.
Ivory Quinby had five more children, bringing the total to eight.
24.
In 1866, Ivory Quinby decided to build a larger home than the others he had owned in Monmouth.
25.
Ivory Quinby set aside a plot of land on the corner of East Euclid and North 6th Street, which he had surveyed as early as 1862.
26.
Ivory Quinby contacted noted Chicago architect John C Cochrane, who designed a large two-story Italianate-Greek Revival mansion, now known as the Ivory Quinby House.
27.
The Ivory Quinby family deeded the estate to Monmouth College in 1965, under the condition that it be returned if the college no longer sees use for it.