Wilder-Waite History

Contributed by Lyle W.

Loren Wilder was born November 11, 1813, in Dummerston, Vermont, and died September 11, 1889 in Medina Township in Peoria County.   He was one of the early settlers of Medina Township, a member of the County Board of Supervisors, and a successful and highly respected farmer in the community.

Mr. Wilder was the son of Nat and Polly Warren Wilder.   Nat was one of the thirteen children of Joshua and Loes Wilder, who had moved to Vermont from Massachusetts in the latter part of the eighteenth century.  Joshua was a veteran of the Continental Army of the Revolutionary War.

When Loren was three years of age, his family moved to Sandy Creek in Oswego County, New York located on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario.   He was apprenticed to a tanner and followed that business in New York until he joined the migration to the West.  He came to Peoria in 1836.

Mr. Wilder lived in Peoria for a number of years and later purchased land in Medina Township.  He made improvements upon it and subsequently added to his farm holdings.  At the time of his death he was the owner of some 500 acres of productive farmland in Medina and Radnor Townships.

On December 4, 1848, Mr. Wilder purchased the southwest quarter of Section 19 in Medina Township.  He made this land his home the rest of his life.  His great-grandson Edward Wilder Allen currently lives in the Wilder home. 

Mr. Wilder married Mary Hanson, who had been born in Londonderry, County Derry, Ireland in 1823.  She came to Peoria with her family in 1839.  Their journey took them from Belfast by steamer, to Liverpool, and then to New York.  From New York, they crossed the Alleghenies by wagon through Pittsburgh and then down to the Ohio River.  They took a packet boat down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River and up the Illinois River. They arrived in Peoria in late 1839 after a six-month journey.  Mary's sister Eliza Jane Hanson, married Loren's cousin, Edward F. Wilder, and they made their home in Radnor Township.

Three children were born to the marriage of Mary and Loren Wilder.  Thomas died at age ten.  Maggie, who died April 9, 1883, was married to Alexander Keady.  Mr. Keady was a farmer in the Dunlap community.

The second child of Mary and Loren Wilder was Polly Frances.  Polly married Delizon M. Waite.  Polly was born in Medina Township on April 8, 1851 and died there in 1942.  Her children were Nellie and Loren Wilder Waite, both of who died in infancy, and Edward F. Waite and Linnie Waite Allen.

Delison M. Waite was born in Oswego County, New York in 1848.  At the age of 15, he joined a volunteer New York Calvary unit and spent the next two years as a soldier in the Civil War.  He was a descendant of a family of New England patriots and early settlers, the first of whom, Richard Waite, had come to Watertown, Massachusetts from England in 1637.  Delizon's grandfather, Thaddeus Waite, fought in the Revolutionary War and participated in the Battle of Saratoga when British General Burgoyne surrendered.

Included in the extensive land holdings, of which Loren Wilder was possessed at the time of his death, was a one-third interest in the 80 acres which comprised the town of Alta.  He and his father-in-law, Thomas Hanson, together with neighbor Imri Case, laid out the lots and dedicated the town of Alta.   The name was derived from its location as one of the highest points in the area.   The lots on which Wilder Waite School was built were among those owned personally by Loren Wilder.  The ownership continued in his family until the lots were dedicated to the school's use in 1948 by Loren's granddaughter, Linnie Waite Allen.

Mary and Loren Wilder, as well as Polly and Delizon Waite, were respected members of the Medina Township community for nearly a century.   Polly Wilder Waite was a graduate of the Alta School, which was once situated at the intersection of Allen Road and Alta Road.  She also attended classes conducted by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Peoria.  For many years, she was the secretary of the Alta School District.  They left a rich tradition of keen interest in the value of education and the contribution which can be made to any community by a good school.