Henry G
Herget
Henry George Herget, benefactor of this city,
died late yesterday. Half reclining on a hospital cot, in his
beloved Park Avenue home, he died just as a golden winter sun sank in
the year that would have been his golden wedding year. He had wed
50 years ago this coming autumn. His wife, tho herself confined
to a wheel chair for eight years, had overseen his care during the
three and half years since he was stricken with paralysis.
The end had been imminent since the turn of
the new year. In fact, several times it had seemed certain that
he would not live out the passing hour but in his 81st year, Mr.
Herget's stury heart stretched the final hour into days. He had
been without food or water this year, and exhaustion finally took its
toll.
Henry G Herget was the builder of modern
industrial Pekin. Many believe that if he had not lived, Pekin
would be a town of less than 10, 000 today, instead of a thriving,
industrial city of 20,000. From the days of his 20's, when he
helped organized and became vice-president of the newly formed
Herget company, he was active in Pekin's industrial life.
In his early days, his father, George Herget,
and his uncle John Herget, were active with him in industrial
enterprises. As a youth he worked for J and G Herget, wholesaler
grocers, located where the Herget bank now stands. He, with the
elder Hergets, was actively interested successively in the Star, the
Cresent and the Globe distilleries. The last one, the Globe, was
sold to become the Liberty Yeast Company. They engaged also in
making and giving employment to some 250 to 300 people.
In 1898 Mr Herget engaged with others in the
building of the Illinois Sugar Refining Company, which operated as a
beet sugar factory. Old timers remember the Russians who were
imported as beet growers. P.G. Holden, later of national corn fame in
Iowa, was brought in to take charge of beet culture. After two
years the factory was changed from a beet processor to a glucose
factory. It became the present Corn Products refining
company. In 1902 this company was merged with several like
plants. The Pekin plant now employs more than 1000 people.
I that same year of 1902, Mr. Herget became
interested in the management of the Pekin Cooperage company and shortly
thereafter was in control of its operations. The business, under
his management, became much enlarged and eventually in 1915 the
corporation became the largest of its kind in this country. It
was decide in 1920 that it would be advisable to have a New York
office, and as Mr. Herget was largely interested in the wholesale drug
firm in New York.
Along the way Mr. Herget started the
strawboard plant, which later became Quaker Oats paper mill, a steady
industry employing around 100 people. Also he took over the Smith
Wagon Company, which he resumed under the name of Pekin Wagon.
Later he brought the Bain Wagon of Kenoshia Wisconson. As the
need for wagons lessened, he converted the plant into the cooperage
company, which was originally at 1101 Margaret. He moved it down
to the Pekin Wagon location, now Chickasaw Wood Products company.
At the old location (1101 Margaret), Pekin got the Hummer Saddlery
company, later the Pekin Leather Products company. Mr. Herget
owned large timber interests and operated a stave factory at Paragould,
Arkansas. The company's products were shipped widely in this
country and to foreign countries.
Mr. Herget's interests even extended to part
ownership of a mile race track on East Broadway, to which some of the
finest race horses of the country were lured; and among the incidentals
that he found at least part way in his pocket at one time was a sheet
known as the Pekin Daily Times. Important in his business
enterprises were the Herget National Bank, of which he was co-creator
and vice-president. This company had many elevators up and down
the river, performed an important service for the farmers of central
Illinois.
Probably the biggest disturbance that he and
his associates ever raised in Pekin was when a company formed by Mr.
Herget and a Mr. McCoy of Lincoln, bought the local light
company. They hired Tom Cooper to manage it and told him to
modernize the plant. This Mr. Cooper did by installing meters,
and people who had been letting all their lights burn in all their
rooms all the time marched in high dudgeon to berate Mr. Cooper when
they got their next light bills. It was during that era that logs
laid end to end with pipes thru their gores were installed in the
midtown section of Pekin to carry city steam - a service which was
maintained until 1936.
Everybody regretted that Mr. Herget had to be
bedfast the last years of his life. He suffered a stroke in 1939
and had been unable to carry on a conversation successfully
since. But in the 77 active years of his life, he blessed Pekin
beyond measure. Those four score years reach back to the winter
day of January 28, 1862, when he was born at 303 N Fifth Street, oldest
child of George and Caroline Gainer Herget. When he was a small
boy, the family moved to 629 Washington Street. It was there that
the father died March 11, 1914. The mother, who was born in Pekin
in 1840, died in this family home on August 6, 1925.
The father had been born in 1833 in
Hergerhausen, near Darmstadt, in Hesse, Germany. George's brother
was three years older. They were the son's of Phillip and
Margaret Reuling Herget. John, when 19, migrated to
America. Three years later, in 1852, when George became 19, he
left the little German village and embarked at Harve, France, for the
new world. Both John and George had learned from their father the
trade of wagon makers, and after reaching America they first found work
in Gettysburg, PA, but they tarried briefly there, and in 1853 they
took boat down the Ohio River and came back up the Mississippi and
Illinois rivers to Pekin.
Here they got jobs in the old T and H Smith
carriage works, operated by Teis and Henry Smith, who employed many
young Germans
coming from the old country to escape murderous wars that have plagued
that country to this day.
Only five years after coming to Pekin,
George Herget started in retail grocery business. Two years later he
was joined by his brother John, forming the partnership of J and G
Herget. In 1870 they erected the store building at the corner of
Court and N. Fourth Street, and shortly afterward George's eldest son,
henry, became active in the business.
As a child, Henry Herget attended the
parochial school of St. Paul's Evangelical church, and at 14 years of
age he was confirmed by Rev. Kampmeier. He attended the Pekin
Public Schools and after that took a short course at the seminary at
Elmhurst, Illinois.
October 5, 1893, Mr. Herget married
Helen A Aydelott of 339 Buena Vista avenue and two years later they
moved to their present home at 615 Park Avenue. Sentiment for
family tradition was strong in Mr Herget and he made three trips to
Europe. The first one was in 1895, the second in 1902, and the
third in 1910. The old home of his father still stands in the
well kept little German village, which is named after the family, and
there are any of the older people of the village who remembered Henry
Herget and will learn with regret, of his passing.
The middle trip abroad was to have been a trip
around the world. In that year Mrmrs Herget, accompanied by rmrs
J. Harold Ross, Peoria, started east on a globe circling tour.
Mr. Herget became ill at Franzens Bad in Bohemia. After improving
somewhat, he and Mrs. Herget went to Copenhagen, Denmark, for a trip to
the North Cape. While in Copenhagen, he had a relapse and was ill
there for about seven weeks. After he recovered, they still
planned to continue the trip, but after reaching Vienna, plans were
changed and he and Mrs. Herget returned to Pekin.
Chief charity interest of Mr. Herget's
life, although he had many, was the Union Mission, to which he donated
heavily and of which he was president. He has been instrumental
in the improvement and upbuilding of this fine Mission, which has done
a splendid work in Pekin for many decades. Great, indeed, is the
Mission's loss in Mr. Herget's passing.
Mr. Herget was a member of the Tazewell club,
Pekin Country Club, and the Union League Club of Chicago. At one
time he was a charter member of the National Foreign Trade
council and the India House of New York. In 1914 he was honored
by being elected president of the Illinois manufacturers
association. A severe blow to Mr. herget was the death of his
younger brother, William P. Herget, who died July 22, 1941, some two
years after Henry Herget suffered his stroke. The younger brother
was president of the Herget Bank and in the years 1920 to 1929, when
Henry Herget lived in new York, William became used to taking care of
many of his older brother's interests. A sister, Mrs. Adolph
(Carrie) Harnish, died 30 odd years ago. Mr. Herget is survived
by his widow, and a sister, Mrs. George Ehrlicher Sr.
Mr Herget's death removes a link with Pekin's
past. Also it removes from Pekin, the man who did so much to make
his city prosper that in 1940 the Pekin Association of Commerce
presented to him a certificate of civic recognition.
(His funeral services were held the
Thursday morning following his death at 11 o'clock at the
Congregational church of which Mr. Herget was a member. The body
will lie in state at the church from 10 until 11 o'clock.)
contributed by Linda T. posted 04/05/08
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