George W. Dole

Early life George Washington Dole

After traveling by public conveyances to Auburn, New York, Dole went by foot to Buffalo, New York. With meager means but a strong work ethic, Dole worked his passage on a schooner to Detroit, Michigan. He then traveled to Pontiac, Michigan (at the time a frontier trading post where a brother of his resided). He found little work in Pontiac except for employment on a monthly basis at a farm nearby. He lived in Pontiac for several years. With the labor combined with the weather of Pontiac proving harmful to his health, he returned to Detroit where he began working for the general trader Oliver Newberry. Newberry soon trusted Dole enough to send him to run one of his outpost stores at a settlement further inland. settling at Wolf Point. He and fellow-Wolf Point resident, R. A. Kinzie, were the only two merchants in the city at this time. Dole has been described as Chicago's first merchant".

In Chicago, Dole was a member of the Episcopal Church of the United States, attending St James church.

During the Black Hawk War, Dole served in Gholson Kercheval's Chicago company of the Illinois militia. In 1853, he married Julia Brown. From this beginning, Dole is credited with the establishment of the meat packing industry in Chicago, which would later grow into a long-term major industry for the city. Dole also, in partnership with John H. Kinzie, built the city's first steamboat.

Dole also engaged in the grain trade. In 1838, he and Newberry partnered to build the city's first grain storage facility, a gravity-pour grain elevator along Rush Street on the north bank of the Chicago River that loaded grain onto lake boats. The grain elevator's system was the first of several designed by engineer John Van Osdel. It used man-powered blocks and tackles to lift stacks of grain to its upper floor, where they were emptied into chutes into ship holds.

Public offices and community roles Rumsey was one of the incorporators of Chicago when it became a town on August 5, 1833. On September 3, 1833, Rumsey was appointed the board's inaugural treasurer. Dole also served on the Chicago Board of Water Commissioners.

Dole was the director of the first state bank of Illinois and helped to organize the Chicago Board of Trade. and later the Republican Party. From 1839 through 1840 he was the city treasurer of Chicago. Dole did not run in the subsequent April do-over election, however. Dole was an early and active member of the free Kansas cause as part of the Free Soil movement,

Later life and death

Near the end of his life, Dole lost the significant sum of $80,000 by investing in a real estate deal that a friend had assured him would be a guaranteed success for him, greatly diminishing his personal financial wealth.

He died at the age of 60 on April 13, 1860, at his home. His widow would live until 1865.