Chicago Board of Trade Members: William H. Beebe Company

W. H. B. & Co.

AUG    9     1898

David Thompson scan

This stamp came from a lot of Chicago documents that were all fragments of futures memoranda of sale. The initials WHB&Co. can be uniquely attributed to William H. Beebe & Co. from the 1898 tax period among members of the CBOT.  Mr. Beebe was a commission merchant.

CBOT #2191 William H. Beebe

From The Educational History of Illinois, 1912:

William Hempstead Beebe was born at Galena, Illinois, September 18, 1846, his father being Thomas H. Beebe, born at St. Louis, Missouri, in 1819, and his mother, Catherine Eddowes, of Dover, Delaware. The family came to Chicago in the spring of 1853, where Thomas H. Beebe engaged in the commission business as president of the Peshtigo Company, being associated with William B. Ogden.

William Hempstead Beebe was educated in the private schools of Chicago and the University of Chicago, class of 1866. On leaving college, he entered the office of the Peshtigo Company, lumber manufacturers, and afterward engaged in the lumber business with Edward Hempstead, under the firm name of Hempstead & Beebe. Subsequently he joined the Chicago Board of Trade, and for twenty-seven years was engaged in the grain commission business with R. Hall McCormick, as McCormick & Beebe, and afterward under the style of William H. Beebe & Co.

While a member of the Board of Trade, Mr. Beebe served successively as a member of the Arbitration and Appeals Committees and as a director of the Board. In 1887 he was appointed by Mayor Roche a member of the Library Board, serving on the Administration Committee, and was elected president of the Board for 1888 and 1889. In 1893 he was appointed by Mayor Washburne a member of the Board of Education, serving as chairman of the Committee on Buildings and Grounds during 1895. 

Mr. Beebe is a member of the Presbyterian Church, was married in October, 1871, to Miss Kate Krebs, of Baltimore, Maryland. He is agent for the Estate of L. J. McCormick, with offices in the McCormick building. He resides at 154 East Superior street, Chicago.