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Sometime in early 1860 Lincoln finally came to Gridley’s defense. In October of 1831, Gridley came to Bloomington, Illinois, where he opened a general store. The Economic Panic of 1837 devastated Gridley's business, so he pursued law as a means to recover his fortune. Gridley served in the state legislature in the 1840s, and, in 1850, he was elected to the state senate where he served a total of four years. Gridley organized Bloomington's first bank, the McLean County Bank, and soon became the bank's sole proprietor. In 1857, Gridley became the sole proprietor of the Bloomington Gaslight Company.
Gridley turned over much of his legal practice to Abraham Lincoln so he could pursue banking, real estate, and railroad construction matters. By 1856, Asahel Gridley was coming off his success as land agent for the Illinois Central Railroad; had acquired full ownership of the McLean County Bank and moved into his new bank building . This Italianate building, restored in 1994, was built to house the bank.
Asahel Gridley's Lincoln Anecdotes
It ran directly east from Bloomington, Illinois to Lafayette, Indiana. Gridley was elected president of the company and served until January 31, 1872 when the management of the company was sold to the New York-based Toledo, Wabash, and Western Railway. As soon as the State of Illinois granted the railroad company a charter, the company was able to sell the land to raise capital to fund the construction of the railroad. The land was divided and agents were appointed to the districts to sell it.
McLean County “furnished three companies of mounted volunteers for the campaign of 1832.” The first two belonged to the Fifth Regiment of Mounted Volunteers. Gridley enrolled in the first company on April 23, 1832 and was immediately made First Lieutenant. His company was under the command of Captain Merritt L. Covel.
Bloomington's success can be linked to Asahel Gridley
These farms comprised “over 6,000 acres of the best land in Central Illinois.” According to his obituary, instead of making loans, he invested his money in farms. About 4,000 acres were in McLean County, lying in Dry Grove, Dale, Gridley, and Martin townships. He also had a farm of about 1,100 acres of land on the Mackinaw River in Woodford County and one of equal size in Iroquois County. It was reported that he died of exhaustion and a lung ailment aggravated by fighting a fire at his bank the previous year.
He stated that “a wife, making her husband, a laughing stock bringing him into public ridicule, and hurting his feelings in public, needs the chastisement that ‘Lord Hale’ thought was right under certain circumstances. A great many men would not live with her another day after such an impropriety.” Even after his death, stories continued to be told as to how Mary continued to seek revenge. Some members of the community continued to complain about the high cost for flammable gas lighting considering recent discoveries and improvements in electricity. A special correspondence printed in The Daily Pantagraph stated that the author felt the present City Council was tying their hands with such a lengthy contract “for use of inferior light” that was costly.
Lincoln Lore: Recollected History
The apartment buildings were constructed in front of the house in the mid-1930s after Howard Humphreys, owner of a large wholesale grocery warehouse in downtown Bloomington, bought the property. Rosalie Thornton and her son, Richard, owned the buildings from 1966 until the Sullivans purchased them. Several interesting incidents have been recorded while Gridley owned and operated the McLean County Bank.
It provided loans to a number of stockholders and businessmen as well as a safe depository for the community’s money. According to Gridley family lore, after Lincoln was elected President of the United States, he summoned Gridley to Washington, D.C. To offer him a political appointment; probably as a way to thank Gridley for all that he had done for Lincoln in the presidential campaign. Gridley’s daughter Mary Gridley Bell recalled later in life that Lincoln offered her father “the first ministership to the court of St. James, London,” which Gridley turned down. Lincoln then offered to send Gridley to Russia as a minister and again, Gridley said no, stating that he preferred to remain a private citizen. It makes sense that Gridley chose to turn Lincoln’s offers down because as a private citizen, he would probably make more money from his business ventures than he would holding a political position.
But Mary was a strong-willed woman and found ways to get back at Asahel for his nasty temper. During the presidential campaign in October 1860, several political rallies were held in Bloomington. Stephen Douglas and Governor Thomas Corwin , where in town to speak at these rallies. Asahel, being an ardent supporter of the Republican Party, escorted Gov. Corwin to the Republican rally being held across town.
By 1859, Gridley was recognized as McLean County’s first millionaire. A substantial part of his wealth was the land and property he owned. By the time of his death in 1881, in addition to his mansion on Grove Street and eight business and storehouses, he also owned twenty-six farms.
In a series of articles and advertisements Gridley published during the month of July that year, he stated this reduction was to make the price of “Gas Light as cheap as any other light for the same amount of illumination” for all families within his Gas District. Gridley was involved in a variety of careers and owned many different businesses throughout his lifetime. In addition to the before mentioned, in 1853 Gridley founded Bloomington’s first bank, the McLean County Bank. The bank was located on the corner of Front and Main Streets, the site of Gridley’s original store. It is a three-story, Italianate-style building constructed of Milwaukee brick.
The courthouse was to be built on land that had been donated by James Allin, an early settler who was instrumental in the founding of McLean County and establishing Bloomington as the county seat. The new courthouse was to be “one story high, eighteen feet by thirty feet and to be finished as a comfortable dwelling house.” Gridley won the bid to construct the first courthouse with a bid of $339.75 (which in 2013 would have been about $9,540). The building was constructed out of “whipsawn cherry and black walnut.” This courthouse stood from December 1832 to 1836 and was situated on the current Courthouse Square. A great deal of the information known about Asahel Gridley is based on reminiscences of his friends and family, enemies and rivals, hearsay, conjecture, and by his own account.
Lincoln, who represented the Illinois Central Railroad in many matters and was also engaged with Gridley in other legal work, often visited here. Worried about time away from your clients while trying to complete a business relocation on your own? Let our office movers help transport your warehouse space, retail shop, or another company location to its new spot. Asahel Gridley (April 21, 1810 – January 25, 1881) was an American politician, lawyer, merchant, and banker. Born in New York, Gridley moved to Bloomington, Illinois, when he was twenty-one.
He retreated from politics after the dissolution of the Whig Party in the 1850s. Although Gridley was successful in business and had extensive wealth, his marriage to Mary Gridley was not as fortuitous. It is said by their neighbor Jonathan Cheney that Asahel once chased Mary out of “The Oaks” on a snowy winter evening in only a nightgown after one of their arguments and shut the door. However big of a rivalry the Gridleys and Davis’ had, Gridley did respect David. Gridley’s friend Jesse Fell recalled that Gridley had admitted to him that he and Davis were completely different men and “his relations with the Judge were not as pleasant as” Fell’s were.
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Perhaps Gridley’s most important accomplishment which the city of Bloomington benefited from occurred during his tenure as an Illinois State Senator. Gridley was instrumental in securing not one, but two, major railroad lines directly through Bloomington. The location of both of these railroads through Bloomington “gave a boom to the little village,” that would alter the course of its history dramatically. With the outbreak of the War with Mexico (Mexican-American War) in 1846, the United States House and Senate voted unanimously to give President James Polk the authority to call for 50,000 volunteers to fight in the war.
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