Friday, May 16, 2025

Book Purge - Illinois

Clay County Genealogical Society. Clay Roots, Vol. XXI, Louisville, IL: Clay County Genealogical Society, 2010.

p. 64 5 generation chart of Mary Ann Bryan translated as ahnentafel

1. Mary Ann Bryan, b. 13 Dec 1923 Clay Co., IL, d. [FindaGrave indicates burial in Ingraham Cemetery] md. 12 Aug. 1945 Champaign, IL Garland Walter Heinrich Poehler
2. Norva Cassel Bryan b. 9 Apr 1887 Clay Co., IL, d. 13 Dec. 1971 Bible Grove Twp., Clay Co., IL, md. 12 Dec. 1906 Clay Co., IL
3. Anna Colborn b. 30 Aug. 1886 Richland Co., IL, d. 23 June 1975 Clay Co., IL
4. Wesley Ingraham Bryan b. 14 Aug. 1852 Bible Grove Twp., Clay Co. Il, d. 16 Oct. 1925 Clay Co., IL md. 22 Aug 1875 Clay Co., IL
5. Catherine Isabel Smith b. 21 Apr 1858 Clay Co., IL, d. 13 Jan 1931 Clay Co., IL
6. Thomas Jefferson Colborn b. 10 Mar 1852 Richland Co., IL, d. 11 Apr 1923 Richland Co., IL md. 19 Nov. 1877 Richland Co., IL
7. Mary Alice Mulford b. 6 May 1853 Cold Springs, IN, d. 11 Feb. 1902 Richland Co., IL
8. Gideon Thompson Bryan b. 11 Mar 1803 Green - Grainger Co., TN, d. 6 June 1870 Clay Co. IL, md. 15 March 1845 Randolph Co. AR
9. Charlotte (Page) Brewer b. 6 oct. 1812 Chatham Co., NC, d. 1 Apr 1897 Clay Co., Il
10. William Edward "Eddie" Smith b. 7 March 1823 Frederick Co., VA, d. 24 July 1905, Clay Co., IL md. 1 Mar 1846 Clay Co., IL
11. Clarinda Benefield b. 17 Apr 1827 Huron, IN, d. 13 Mar 1902, Clay Co., IL
12. Samuel "Sam" Colborn b. 13 Aug 1823 Floyd Co., IN, d. 18 Apr 1873 Richland Co., IL md. 2 July 1846 location unknown
13. Lydia Ann Lewis b. 14 May 1822 location unknown, d. 27 Sep 1877 Richland Co., IL
14. John Legg Mulford b. 20 July 1831 IN, d. 28 Feb 1895 Sparta Twp. Dearborn Co., IN, md. 1 Jul 1852 IN
15. Cynthia (Miller) Henderson b. 2 Apr 1835 IN, d. 1895 Richland Co., IL
16. William Bryan b. ca. 1780, d. ca. June 1825
17. Martha (Patsey) Webster b. 1784, d. 17 Jul 1860
18. Solomon Brewer b. ca. 1785, d. 1785 [this is what is printed, clearly, it cannot be correct FindaGrave gives death date as 1866]
19. Rahcel Ruston [no dates given]
20. James Christopher Smith b. ca. 1798, d. 5 Feb 1843
21. Elizabeth Tewalt [no dates given]
22. Robert Benefield b. ca. 1784
23. Elizabeth Blair b. b/t 1795 & 1800, d. ca. 1845
24. Robert Colborn III b. 10 Mar 1801, d. 31 Jan 1854
25. Rosana West b. 23 Apr 1803, d. 16 Sep 1872
26. Crawford Lewis b. 22 July 1801, d. 6 Sept. 1843
27. Elizabeth Neal b. 1803, d. 24 Dec. 1858
28. Benjamin Mulford b. 17 Aug. 1802, d. 28 Feb. 1883
29. Mary Legg b. b/t 22 Feb 1808 & 1810, d. 1 Mar 1882
30. Edward Henderson b. 1776, d. 1840
31. Mary S. Richards b. 14 Feb 1793, d. 27 May 1865

Names of World War I Men Registered, listed in Louisville Republican, 1917, pages 18-41, list is incomplete - columns #, surname, first name, residence

396 - Colclasure, Willard Floyd [missing residence column]
449 - Smith, Clarence, Flora, IL
471 - Blackburn, Pearl, Flora, IL
472 - Monical, John Walter, Flora, IL
474 - Wilfong, John Arthur, Flora, IL
513 - Toliver, Virgil, Flora, IL
533 - Toliver, Clide, Flora, IL
556 - Colclasure, Clyde E., Xenia, IL
569 - Colclasure, Claude O., Xenia, IL
580 - Smith, Clyde T., Xenia, IL
585 - Smith, William J., Xenia, IL
593 - Smith, Marion, Xenia, IL
594 - Colclasure, Alva, Xenia, IL
595 - Colclasure, Floyd W., Xenia, IL
619 - Smith, Floyd, Xenia, IL
642 - Erwin, Wilbur Esta, Louisville, IL
660 - Smith, Lawrence E., Louisville, IL
730 - Smith, Harry, Clay City, IL
741 - Tolliver, Charley Harrison, Noble, IL
764 - Irwin, Charles Jefferson, Xenia, IL
771 - Colclasure, Isaac Clinton, Xenia, IL
784 - Smith, Roda, Xenia, IL
826 - Smith, Charles D., Edgewood, IL
883 - Smith, Robert E., Edgewood, IL
898 - Robertson, James I., Edgewood, IL
900 - Fitzgerald, Olsa R., Iola, IL
929 - Bryan, Lankford E., Louisville, IL
929 - Bryan, Henry I., Louisville, IL
934 - Irwin, Harvey H., Louisville, IL
956 - Smith, Elzie R., Louisville, IL
963 - Smith, Earl, Clay City, IL
988 - Tolliver, Jesse O., Clay City, IL
1000 - Bryan, Fred Andrew, Louisville, IL
1022 - Colclasure, Solomon, Ingraham, IL
1027 - Smith, Marvill V., Ingraham, IL
1033 - Smith, Arthur, Ingraham, IL
1037 - Colclasure, John F., Ingraham, IL
1088 - Fitzgerald, Edward, Mason, IL
1114 - Wolf, Loren, Louisville, IL
1117 - Smith, Sewell, Louisville, IL
1178 - Wolf, George Ellie, Bible Grove, IL
1189 - Brooks, John Vardy, Louisville, IL
1199 - Brooks, Marvin Wesley, Louisville, IL
1204 - Brooks, Elza Bernie, Bible Grove, IL
1217 - Colclasure, G.H., Iola, IL
1219 - Colclasure, Harvey Everett, Louisville, IL
1224 - Smith, Frank, Iola, IL
1226 - Smith, Ralph, Iola, IL
1251 - Colclasure, Russell Warden, Iola, IL
1256 - Smith, Virgil, Iola, IL
1301 - Colclasure, Ora Franklin, Louisville, IL
1307 - Wolfe, William Washington, Louisville, IL
1319 - Wilson, William Oscar, Louisville, IL
1329 - Wolf, Arden Aaron, Louisville, IL
1330 - Porter, Vernie Aaron, Louisville, IL
1337 - Tolliver, Ocie, Louisville, IL
1338 - Wolf, Steve A., Louisville, IL
1340 - Trinkle, William Everett, Louisville, IL
1355 - Porter, Leroy, Louisville, IL

Deaths in 2009 pages 2-9 - columns surname, first name, age, month, date
  • Smith, Flora 100, Jan. 20
  • Wolfe, Juanita B. Gish, 95, Feb. 17
  • Wilson, Lester C. 92, Mar 10
  • Burgess, Ancil Lewis, 77, Mar 15
  • Colclasure, Bruce, 60 Mar 30
  • Wolfe, Mildred M. 90, Apr 23
  • Colclasure, Calvin, 84 May 9
  • Bryan, E. Rose, 93, May 16
  • Wilson, Robert Eugene, 86, July 12
  • Colclasure, David Rose, 54 Jul 15
  • Colclasure, Lyle "Jake" 92, Jul 19
  • Tolliver, Charles E. 86, Aug 23
  • Smith, James R. "Jim" 64 Sep 12
  • Smith, Lela M. 90 Sep 12
  • Burgess, Betty L., 80 Sep 16
  • Trinkle, Pauline M. 92 Sep 20
  • Smith, James Edwin, 88 Oct 6
  • Smith, Kathryn S. 92 Nov 14
  • Porter, Heather Lynn (Young) 25 Nov. 18
  • Smith, Leland Deon 80, Dec 7
  • Smith, W. Harry, 86, Dec. 22
Lis of Taxable Real Estate in the Town of BIble Grove 1880 pages 51-62.  Columns: Name, Description, Acres, Land Patentee, Description, Date, Date
  • Smith, James M. lot 2 NE1/4 Sec. 13, T5R7, 5 acres
  • Smith, James M. lot 3 NE1/4 Sec. 13, T5R7, 5 acres
  • Smith, James M. E1/2, NW1/4 Sec. 13, T5R7, 80 acres, George W. Colborn, SENW, 8/22/1851, 1850c
  • Smith, Margaret, Part Lot 7 SW1/4 Sec. 17, T5R7, .5 acres
  • Brooks, Henry, Part Lot 8 SW1/4 Sec. 17, T5R7, 4.12 acres
  • Smith, Margaret, Lot 7 SE1/4 Sec. 17, T5R7, .5 acres 
  • Chrisitansen, R. E1/2, NE1/4 Sec. 18, T5R7, 80 acres, Lewis Wolf, SENE, 11/30/1869
  • Schmidt, John, E1/2, SE1/4 Sec. 18, T5R7, 80 acres, Henry Brooks E1/2SE, 11/30/1868, 1870c
  • Wolf, Andrew, NE1/4, NE1/4 Sec. 23, T5R7, 40 acres, Edward Sparling NENE, 3/17/1853
  • Wolf, Leonard, NW1/4, NE1/4 Sec. 23, T5R7, 40 acres, Henry Brooks W1/2NE, 12/8/1836
  • Rodes, J.A. SW1/4, NW1/4, Sec. 22, T5R7, 40 acres, Henry Brooks, SWNW, 12/31/1840, 1850c
  • none - Sec. 23, R5T7, no acres, Anderson Wolf, NENE, 11/7/1844
  • Brooks, Jackson, E1/2, NE1/4, Sec. 24, T5R7, 80 acres, Abraham Rife, E1/2NE, 3/7/1844
  • Wolf, Anderson, N1/2, W1/2, W1/2, NW1/4 Sec. 24, T5R7, 20 acres, Anderson Woolf, NWNW, 9/6/1852
  • Edwards, L.M. NW1/4, NE1/4 Sec. 25, T5R7, 40 acres, John Reed, NWNE, 3/17/1853
  • none - Sec. 23, T5R7, no acres, Anderson Wolf, SENE, 9/4/1851
  • Curtright, S.G. NE1/4, NW1/4 Sec. 23, T5R7, 40 acres, Henry Brooks, NENW, 2/4/1853
  • Vickrey, E.D. SW1/4/, SE1/4, Sec. 23, T5R7, 40 acres, William Brooks Sen., SWSE, 9/1/1851, 1850c
  • Kepley, Elijah, SW1/4, SE1/4 Sec. 24, T5R7, 40 acres, William Brooks, Sr. W1/2SE, 3/29/1839
  • Colborn, George W. NE1/4, NE1/4, Sec. 25 T5R7, 40 acres, William Brooks, Sr. NENE, 10/6/1843
  • Wyatt, Frank, NW1/4, NW1/4, Sec. 25, T5R7, 39 acres, William Brook(s), Sen. NWNW, 1/5/1853
  • Brooks, Jonathan SE1/4, NW1/4, Sec. 25, T5R7, 40 acres, William Brooks, SENW, 1/31/1853
  • Brooks, Jonathan NE1/4, NW1/4, Sec. 25, T5R7, 40 acres, William Brooks, NENW, SWNW, 3/24/1851, 3/20/1851
  • Huston, William, NW1/4, SW1/4, Sec. 25, T5R7, 40 acres, William Brooks, W1/2SW, 8/21/1836
  • Brooks, Jonathan S1/2, SW1/4, Sec. 25, T5R7, 80 acres, William Brooks, E1/2SW, 2/9/1853
  • Smith, Jacob, S1/2, NE1/4, SE1/4, Sec. 25, T5R7, 20 acres
  • none - Sec. 25, T5R7, no acres, William Brooks, SWSE, 2/9/1853
  • Brooks, James A. SW1/4, SE1/4, Sec. 25, T5R7, 40 acres, Isaac McMannine, E1/2SE, 1/26/1853
  • Brooks, Jonathan S1/2, NE1/4, SEc. 26, T5R7, 80 acres, Nelson Vickery, SWNE, 8/1/1849, 1840c
  • Wyatt, Frank NE1/4, NE1/4, Sec. 25, T5R7, 40 acres, William Brooks, Sen. NWNE, 9/1/1851
  • Brooks, J.A. S1/2, SE1/4, SE1/4, Sec. 27, T5R7, 20 acres, Lumky Green, SESE, 9/27/1849
  • Brooks, H.W. N1/2, NW1/4, NE1/4, Sec. 28, T5R7, 20 acres, John Cheary NE, 10/16/1838
  • Brooks, H.W. S1/2, NW1/4, NE1/4 Sec. 28, T5R7, 20 acres
  • none, Sec. 26, T5R7, no acres, William Brooks, W1/2SE, 3/25/1851
  • none, Sec. 26, T5R7, no acres, William Brooks, E1/2SE, 8/21/1838
  • Finley, Meril/Merll(?), NW1/4, SE1/4 Sec. 27, T5R7, 40 acres, Crawford Erwin, NWSE 8/26/1851
  • Brooks, H. SE1/4, NE1/4, NW1/4 Sec. 28, T5R7, 10 acres
  • Brooks, J.A. S1/2, SW1/4, SE1/4, Sec. 28, T5R7, 20 acres
  • Brooks, J.A> S1/2, NW1/4, Sec. 29, T5R7, 80 acres
  • Brooks, J.A. N1/2, SW1/4 Sec. 29, T5R7, 80 acres, Wyatt S> Berry, NWSW, 10/2/1852
  • Wolf, Wm. H. SE1/4, SW1/4, Sec. 29, T5R7, 40 acres
  • Wolf, Catharine, SW1/4, SW1/4, Sec. 29, T5R7, 40 acres, Jacob Wolf, SWSW, 3/21/1853
  • Wolf, James H. SW1/4, SE1/4 Sec. 30, T5R7, 40 acres, James Bogart SESE, 9/21/1861
  • Wolf, Catharine, SE1/4, SE1/4, Sec. 30, T5R7, 40 acres, David B. Shields, SWSE, 2/4/1851
  • Wolf, Jacob Lot 2 NE1/4, Sec. 31, T5R7, 19.12 acres, George Henshaw, NENE, 5/28/1838
  • Wolf, Jacob Lot 3 NE1/4, Sec. 31, T5R7, 6 acres 
  • Bunderman, Wm. W1/2, SW1/4 Sec. 28, T5R7, 80 acres, Jacob Wolf, SWSW 9/8/1849
  • none Sec. 29, T5R7, no acres, Jacob Wolf, NWSE, 9/8/1849
  • Sunderman, Wm. SE1/4 Sec. 29, T5R7, 160 acres, Jacob Wolf, E1/2SE, 9/8/1849
  • McKnelly, John NE1/4, NE1/4, Sec. 30, T5R7, 40 acres, Jacob Wolf, NENE, 9/30/1868
  • Wolf, Jacob Lot 4 NE1/4, Sec. 31, T5R7, 10 acres
  • Wolf, Jacob Lot 5 NE1/4 Sec. 31, T5R7, 30 acres
  • Wolf, William Ept Lot 6 NE1/4 Sec. 31, T5R7, 2 acres, Andrew Fulk, E1/2NE, 9/25/1839
  • Wolf, Jacob Lot 7 NE1/4 Sec. 31, T5R7, 25 acres
  • Wolf, Jane NW1/4, NE1/4 Sec. 31, T5R7, 40 acres, Susan Fulk NWNE, 7/31/1850, 1850c
  • Wolf, Jacob NW1/4, SE1/4 Sec. 31, T5R7, 40 acres, George Henshaw, W1/2SE, 5/28/1838
  • Wolf, Jacob, Lot 1 SE1/4, Sec. 31, T5R7, 15 acres
  • Wolf, Emma NE1/4, NW1/4 Sec. 32, T5R7, 40 acres
  • Wolf, Catharine W1/2, NW1/4 Sec. 32, T5R7, 80 acres
  • Wolf, Charles SE1/4, NW1/4, Sec. 32, T5R7, 40 acres, Jacob Wolf, SENW, 6/2/1863, 1860c
  • Brooks, James S1/2, SE1/4, NE1/4, Sec. 33, T5R7, 20 acres
  • Erwin, Crawford SW1/4, SW1/4, Sec. 33, T5R7, 40 acres 
  • Brooks, J.A. NW1/4, NE1/4 Sec. 34, T5R7, 40 acres, John Johnson NWNE 7/30/1853, 1850c
  • Brooks, J.A. NE1/4, NE1/4, Sec. 35, T5R7, 40 acres, William Brooks N1/2NE, 8/30/1851
  • Brooks, Jonathan NW1/4, NE1/4 Sec. 35, T5R7, 40 acres
  • Edwards, L.M. NE1/4, NW1/4, Sec. 35, T5R7, 40 acres
  • Brooks, Sarah, NW1/4, NE1/4, Sec. 36, T5R7, 40 acres
  • Brooks, Sarah NE1/4, NW1/4, Sec. 36, T5R7, 40 acres, WIlliam Brooks, Jr. N1/2NW, 12/31/1840
  • Brooks, Sarah Lot 1 NW1/4, Sec. 36, T5R7, 25 acres
  • none, Sec. 35, T5R7, no acres, William Brooks, Jr. SENE, 3/25/1861
  • Brooks, Sarah E1/2, NW1/4, NW1/4, Sec. 36, T5R7, 20 acres
  • Brooks, J.A. W1/2, NW1/4, NW1/4, Sec. 36, T5R7, 20 acres
  • Brooks, J.A. W1/2, NW1/4, NW1/4, Sec. 36, T5R7, 20 acres William Brooks, Jr., S1/2NW, 3/25/1851, 1850c
  • Brooks, Sarah E1/2, SW1/4, NW1/4, Sec. 36, T5R7, 20 acres 
  • Hudelson, W.H. E1/2, NW1/4, Sec. 1, T5R7, 78.28, James Galbaith, E1/2 Lot 1 & 2 NW, 2/1/1853
Davis, James. Frontier Illinois, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998.

p. 92 Borrowing New England's passion for order, the Land Ordinance of 1785 established the township and range rectangular survey system, dividing land into townships six miles square according to cardinal directions, fields assuming rectangular shapes. 

p. 93 Squatters dogged Illinois[5] They occupied public land before survey or sale, sometimes never filing claim. . . . In Illinois, over time customs and laws expanded squatters' rights, especially for those intending to settle.

Chapter 6 Footnote 4 . . . The townships north of the Ohio were "regular, easily replicated one-mile-square" and "symbolized order as much as openness and opportunity."  [One source says, not given.]

Chapter 6 Footnote 5 Squatters and squatter lif are disccused i Robert W. McCluggage, "The Pioneer Squatter," Illinois Historical Journal, Spring 1989. McCluggage believes squatter culture was markedly and deliberately different from the larger culture. Squatters faded in Illinois, he claims, when by the 1830s they acquired the means to buy land. 

p. 95 First stage government consisted of three appointed officials: a governor, a secretary and three judges. . . . When "there shall be five thousand free male inhabitants of full age" in a district, that region could form a general assembly, achieving the second stage. Voters elected the lower house, the House of Representatives. This house sent Congress a list of men meeting property qualifications, and from it Congress selected five to form the upper house, the legislaive Council. Property, citizenship, and residency requirements for members of the general assembly were reasonable, as they were for suffrage. Bills required majorities in both houses, and the governor had absolute veto. In selecting a non-voting delegate to Congress, the houses met jointly. 

. . . Prior to second stage government, the governor appointed sheriffs and other county and township magistrates; after the general assembly was organized, it defined and regulated such magistrates, the governor keeping power of appointment. 

p. 97 Although first stage government was hardly democratic and the second stage's steep property requirements scrreded out most voters from the Council, undemocratic features diminished after statehood.

p. 102 . . . Treaty of Greenville, ceding most of the southern and eastern Ohio. Indians also ceded land in Illinois: a six mile square tract at the mouth of the Chicago River, where in 1803 authorities built Fort Dearborn to control the portage of the Des Plaines River; a six-mile-square tract at Peoria, which later housed Fort Clark; and Fort Massac and its hinterland. The treaty moreover, confirmed squatters' rights. 

p. 103 Governor St. Clair divided St. Clair County, Illinois' sole county until late 1795, into three judicial districts, centered in Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Prairie du Rocher. 

p. 104 . . . County of Randolph in October of 1795. Kaskaskia becoming the county seat. This county, the second in Illinois, covered southern Illinois.

p. 107 By 1790 suffrage included "every free male inhabitant of the age of twenty-one years, resident in the territory, and hath been a citizen of any state in the union or who hath been two years resident in this territory" who either held a freehold in fifty acres of land within any county in Illionis or held fewer acres worth one hundred dollars, including improvements.

One law in 1795 stated: "For every grown dog or bitch-wolf, two dollars: for every wolf-puppy, or whelp, one dollar: for every grown fox, or wild-cat, twenty-five cents: for every young fox, or young wild-cat, twelve and a half cents." 

p. 109 Milling laws of the 1790s were analogous to laws regulating ferries. They promoted mill consruction, predictable operation, and public confidence. They enjoined millers to provide accurate measures of one-quart, two-quart, half-peck, one-peck, and half-bushel sizes. Millers who kept inaccurate measures, lost entrusted grain, or overcharged faced fines or jail. Mills were quasi-utilities, like ferries. Laws shelved competition, supply and demand dynamics, and other market mechanisms, in exchange for responsibile behavior by millers. These laws were on the books for decades.

Under law, operators of water and wind mills received in payment one-tenth of the wheat and rye they ground; one-seventh of INdian corn, oats, barley, and buckwheat, if bolted; one-eighth, if bolting was not requested; and one-twelfth for grinding malt and chopping rye. Farmers providing their own horses at horsemills paid the rates charged at water or wind mills. Millers providing horsepower kept the following fractions: wehat, one-fifth; rye, Indian corn, oats, barley and buckweath, one-fourth; malt and rye, one-sixth.

p. 115 In 1798 St. Clair claimed the Northwest Territory contained over 5,000 white adult males, the threshold for second stage government. He slated elections to the general assemlby, the country's first territorial legislature. Of its twenty-three members, two represented Illinois. Shadrach Bond, Sr., represented St. Clair County and John Edgar, Randolph County.

p. 121 On February 3, 1809, Congress established the Territory of Illinois as of March 1. Kaskaskia was the territorial capital. Territorial Illinois included all of modern Illinois, Wisconsin, western [p. 122] upper peninsula of Michigan, and northeastern Minnesota.

p. 123 Southerners left other imprints on Illinois. They settled in or near woods in southern Illinois. Settlers derived much from woods: fuel, cabins, furniture, wagons, utensils, yokes, tools, fences, barrels, and other necessities. Nuts, acorns, fruit, berries, roots, bark, and other forest products provided food, mast for animals, dyes, medicines, and other useful items. Also, southern Illinois was heavily forested, partially settled, close to the South, and distant from most British-Indian threats. 

. . . Southerners were riverine people, and river valleys were wooded. Kentuckians, Virginians, and others reached Illinois by rivercraft, settled along rivers, hunted and fished, raised crops in rich, rock-free alluvial soils, traveled on rivers, and used water power for mills, saws, and trip hammers. Ice, furthermore, rarely clogged rivers of southern Illinois. 

p. 124 So Southern Illinois acquired a distinctly southern cast, which was strongly contrasted following statehood by infusions into northern Illinois of Northerners and others. (Illinois' central region spawned cultural mixtures of Southerners, Northerners, and others.) Cultural differences sparked prolonged shrill clashes, reaching crescendo levels by the late 1830s.

p. 141 Lawmakers quickly addressed taxation, placing land into three categories: first rate (Mississippi and Ohio river bottom land), second rate, and third rate. Tax on first rate land was one dollar per hundred acres, on second rate seventy-five cents, and on third rate thirty-seven and a half cents. Legislators furthermore, authorized counties to tax personal property, including productive slaves and indentured servants. Finally, they taxed houses and lots in towns, rural mansions and other real property, and even billiard tables, horses and cattle, and gave towns taxing authority. 

p. 142 Secure land titles were still not available when Illinois attained second stage territorial geovernment in 1812. In 1812 at Shawneetown another land office opened, no more ready to sell land than Kaskaskia's office. Unable to get secure titles, frustrated settlers [p. 143] squatted, igniting disputes and further testing territorial and federal government. Squatters clamored for a preemption law to enable them to bid firs on lands they had improved. Such law, they insisted, was both fair and necessary.

It [the preemption law] allowed each squatter to preempt a quarter section - 160 acres - of land they occupied. Upon paying one-twentieth of the purchase price, a squatter initiated the purchase and entered the land. 

p. 148 A major military reorganization on May 1, 1813, addressed this defect [poor military coordination], dividing he United States into nine military districts. Ohio and Kentucky and the territories of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri constituted the eight military district. Major General William Henry Harrison commanding Illinois and Missouri formed a subdistrict, St. Louis its headquarters. 

p. 150 Late 1814 found settlement largely confined to the same broad U-shaped region stretching from near Alton to modern Franklin County and then northeast to the Wabash north of Vincennes. 

p. 156 Federal law in 1817 reduced the minimum purchse of public domain land by half, to eighty acres. Although the price of two dollars per acre discouraged eastern laborers who toiled fourteen hours a day for eighty cents, terms were reasonable: a 5-percent down payment held land for forty days, when another 20 perscent was due. The remaining 75 percent was due, interest free, in three equal annual payments. Land reverted to the federal government only after five years' delinquency.

p. 158 Freakish dry, very cool weather in 1816 produced a "year without summer" nationally and boosted settlement in Illinois. Crop failures afflicted the East, breeding speculation, hoarding, and economic dislocation. Seeking relief, people prayed, restricted grain sales to distilleries, and inflicted that fall "the greatest defeat on incumbent congressmen in American political history."  One source noted, "New England in particular lost many of its farmers to the West."  Between 1815 and late 1818 Illinois; population increased by about 160 percent.

p. 169 Beginning in 1825, the year the Erie Canal opened, freight rates between Illinois and New York City fell to as low as one-twentieth the rates prevailing in 1818.

p. 171 Following the War of 1812 villages and towns popped up, often promoted by individuals or gropus. On the western tongue of settlement, Belleville, Edwardsville, Harrisonville, Brownsville, Collinsville, Jonesville and Alton joined Kaskaskia and Cahokia. The eastern tongue of habitation, along the Wabash and Ohio rivers, boasted Shawneetown, Colconda [Golconda], Carmi, Palestine, Palmyra and Albion. Perryville, Salem and Covington - and a few other communities - had already graced the southern interior of Illinois, but Greenville, Carlyle and Vandalia soon sprouted there too. By 1830 Jacksonville, Springfield, Fairfield and many small villages sprang into existence. Except for Springfield, Albion, Jacksonville and several others, virtually all were on navigable water and near timber. 

p. 172 . . . only in 1855 did the state create free, universal education, complete with a State Superintendent and a common school fund.

p. 173 Typically, at this time, a village of a hundred or more souls contained a mill, general stores, a tavern, an inn, a couple of coopers, a church or two, a school, one or more blacksmiths, a wagon maker, and often a wheelwright, gunsmith, cabinet maker, a pork-packing operation, a tanner, a physician, carpenters, and even a printer. Milliners, watchmakers, hattters and others catering to people of means served some settlements. Hamlets and villages served not only their residents, but also hinterlands that often extended several miles and contained hundreds of people.

Towns that were also county seats enjoyed distinct advantages. They sported lawyers, sheriffs, jailors, surveyors, a post office, several inns and taverns - including the region's finest - bankers and a newspaepr. County residents trekked to them to transact business involving county, state or federal government. Federal land offices blessed some county seats. With such solid underpinnings, county seats usually withstood economic downturns. 

p. 180 Before railroads, travel from the East Coast to Illinois often took at least six weeks, occasionally three months. Accomodations en route usually ranged from uncertain to wretched, food was often positively weird, and travel companions could be untrustworthy. . . . "There is no tithe nor tax onland till it has been bought five [p. 181] years; there is a small tax on cattle and farming utensils, but no other things. Our tax is $.87."  SIgnificantly, they added, "We can make our own soap or candles, and grow tobacco or anyhign else without duty; we have no exisemen nor any inspecting officer." . . . "All we grow is our own, we hav eno tax nor poor-rates but what I have mentioned. I never see any beggars here, almost every man owns a piece of ground, more or less."

p. 190 The pace of migration from places to the east, including locations in Europe, picked up with he opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 and spurted again with the arrival of Great Lakes steamships at Chicago in 1832. . . . The defeat of proslavery forces in the referendum of 1824 certainly discouraged some people from trekking from the South and settling in Illinois. 

p. 201 Rocketing land sales made the 1830s exhilarating. By 1840 steamboats serviced all navigable waters, the National Road finally reached Illinois, and railroads made an appearance. Illinois' ties to the East multiplied.

p. 210 Grim economic conditions by 1838 cooled such ardor [land speculation / credit]. The 1830s also witnessed wild speculation in towns. From 1835 to 1837 alone, over five hundred new town sites were laid out. 

p. 220 The National Road . . . belatedly reached Vandalia in 1836, an anticlimatic milestone conferring meager benefits on the community.  . . . Furthermore, steamboats plying the Ohio's norther tributaries and canal boats siphoned freigh and passengers from the National Road. 

p. 223 By the late 1830s, average speed down the Ohio River was perhaps ten to twelve miles per hour; upriver, perhaps six. 

p. 230 In 1839 a state legislative committee spelled out advantages of railroads, reporting that Illinoisans transacting business over 100 miles away normally consumed three days of travel each way, for a total of six days, and food for man and horse totaling $16.50. (These calculations omitted lodging costs and wear and tear on the horse.) Traveling the same distance via train would require less than one day each way and cost just $13 for transportation and food.

p. 232 The Internal Improvements Act of 1837 burdened Illinoisans with crushing debt and teaxation in the very year in which economic depression engulfed the country. In 1838 the collapsing economy fell onto Governor Thomas Carlin, Joseph Duncan's successor. 

p. 234 As population surged northward, Springfield became the state capital in 1839.

p. 241 In 1825 state law provided for free common schools in each county, open to all white citizens to the age of twenty-one. In 1827, however, another law, declaring that no person could "be taxed without his consent," undermined tax-supported schools and resucitaed subscription schools - schools supported by parents' quarterly fees to itinerant teachers - which flourished into the 1850s, in the absence of state-supported education. 

p. 244 The lethal, legendary Deep Snow puncuated 1830-31.  Following downpours, deep, unrelenting snow blanketed Illinois, killing humans and animals and etching itself in personal and [p. 245] collective memories. Some persons simply vanished, while others' remains were found with spring's melt. Lingering cold hurt corn, game was scarce for years, and cotton fields in southern Illinois perished, never rebounding. Some Brown County residents gave up and fled. Stalwart residents of Pike County stuck it out, despite dangerously depleted liquor supplies. Indians slew immobolized animals, amassing extraordinary meat supplies. Spring melt water turned creeks into impassable torrents, restricting movement. From 1832 into 1834, cholera swept some survivors to their graves.

Nature struck again in late 1836. Snow melt covered Illinois with pools and slush. On balmy December 20 a fast-moving, icy front sliced eastward, freezing pools and slush solid in minutes. Persons caught in the open raced for shelter, many not making it. Cattle, hogs, birds and other animals froze fast to the ground and died. 

p. 276 Building on log-cabin imagery from William Henry Harrison's 1840 presidential campaign and swapping votes on tariffs, advocates of improved preemption laws finally succeeded in late 1841. Now, settlers could take up public domain land, gloss it with visible improvements, scratch a living from it, and then purchase it for minimum price. 

p. 279 Illinois in 1840 was truly decades removed from Illinois of 1830. Whirlwind activities during the 1830s terminated or at least termpered frontier characteristics. Perhaps the most important, permanent change was the maturing of the state. Its surging population was increasingly urban, commercial, diverse, sophisticated, and agile. 

p. 412 Half pay after forty-two days spurred legislators to finish necessary tasks and then go away. Citizens feared that loitering politicians generated much mischief.

p. 413 Beginning in 1849, dozens of counties held elections, and counties opting for township government reflected growing Yankee strength.

Northeastern counties adopted township government, as did a few counties along the Illinois and three western counties.  Throughout the 1850s additional northeastern and east-central counties adopted it, but relatively few counties in the southern third of the state did. The adoption pattern is significant. Before the new constitution, all counties had county commission government, a southern import with origins in Virginia. Eventually, only fifteen counties did not adopt township government, nearly all in southern Illinois, reflecting ascending northern influence, a crucial fact in turbulent years before the Civil War. 

p. 422-423 Vicious civil strife rocked Massac County in 1849.

p. 424 These [Old Settler] societies sprang up shortly before the Civil War, when the depression of 1857 still saddled the country. John Brown's Raid rocked the country, the Democratic Party dissolved, and similar events jolted confidence. 
Howard, Robert. Illinois: A History of the Prairie State, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972.

p. 110 More permanent, the first real settlers were half-hunters and half-farmers. Their wives also cooked venison in shanties, but they owned more tools and utensils, and like their predecessors had little hesitation about selling out and moving on. The first farmers made their homes in or at least at the edge of timber. In addition to the superstition that something must be wrong with soil that did not grow trees, good reason existed for shunning the prairie. For buildings, for fuel, and later for fences, wood was essential, and the light chopping ax was well worth a long trip to a blacksmith an dthe three or four dollars it cost. Hand-forged, it enabled a lone pioneer to fell and dismantle tall trees that in the climax forest ranged p to ten feet in diameter. The ax was the only tool needed for cabin building and for the splitting of logs to make bunks, tables, and benches. In carving a civilization it played a role as important as the long-barreled, small-bore rifle and the sod-breaking plow. In the cities broadcloths and silks mingled democratically with coonskin caps and hunting shirts, bu t a major handicap to Illinois was the absence of a laboring class. Most Illinois families lived by subsistence farming. Split rail fences protected the small fields and garden patches while the farmer let his cow and razorback-type hogs roam the nearby forest, hoping that they would no be killed by wolves. Working around the stumps of cleared timber was easier than breaking thick and tough prairie sod. From two to eight yoke of oxen were required to pull a cumbersome plow with a ten-foot wooden beam and moldboard crudely fitted with wrought iron. Easy to cultivate and adaptable to the prairie, corn soon became the staple crop. the root mat of the newly turned turf did not disintegrate for two or three years, bu "sod" corn wthout cultivation could produce from ten to thirty bushels an acre the first year. It was planted yropping hte seed into a hole made wth an ax or a pointed stick and then covering it with a bootheel. In established fierlds, Beck reported yields from fifty to eighty bushels, and asserted that they run as high as 120 to 130 bushels in the fabulously rich American Bottom [land across from Missouri / St. Louis area.] Corn could be ground into food or fed by ear to animals. One bushel made two gallons of marketable whiskey.

p. 111 - A dough of salted cornmeal scalded with boiling water could be cooked in ashes or on a hoe blade to provide the basic supplement for the meat of wild animals that dominated the diets of Indians and their immediate successors. Many farmers owned stills which converted sprouted corn mash into a clear but potent whiskey which could be transported easily by pack horse or flatboat. More compact than corn, the final product could be sotred or sent to a city market. Much was consumed at home. Corn whiskey was the popular western drink; home consumption ran high, and in many cabins all members of the family drank it at every meal. Whiskey cost from fifteen to twenty-five cents a gallon at groceries, where candidates for office made  a free supply available for several weeks before elections. The jug circulated freely at social events such as cabin raisings and militia assemblies, and travelers commented that the people of the West liked whiskey and indulged in it excessively. 

Illinois produced a surplus of wheat, the secondary crop, which could be converted into flour only at a mill. The most common type of mill ground meal and flour, with the miller taking his pay by keeping a portion of the final product. For grinding wheat, rye or malt, the legal withholding was one-eighth, which the settler usually thought was too much. A one-sixth portion could be taken for ground corn, oats, barley or buckwheat. The mills followed settlement and brought the mechanical age to the prairie. Where dam sites could not be found, horses and oxen provided the power to revolve the grinding stones. Other types of mills sawed logs, carded wool, and performed other speciallized tasks at which machinery could be substituted for manual labor. Skilled operators were in demand, and a blacksmith shop and general store in a ill's vicinity provided the nucleu for a village which gave the frontiersmen contact with the outside world.

The self-reliant settler tanned the hides of deer and cattle to make shoes, while his wife with a spinning wheel an dloom produced cloth for trousers, shirts and dresses. At the store, the settler could trade small surpluses of eggs, butter, meat, whiskey and maple sugar for coffee, salt, and sugar. The stores also carried small stocks of tools, powder, glass, dyes, iron utensils, crockery, cloth and addiitional foodstuffs. Almost no one had money. Trade [p. 112] was commonly carried on by barter, and the settler depended upon himself and the members of his family for the bulk of life's necessities. . . . 

Early settlement stayed near the streams, but as people moved inland trails became roads which an easterner had difficulty follwoing through tall grass and marshes. Over the original French routes, along paths cut by the hooves of buffalo, men could travel by land from the American Bottom to Peoria and on to Galena or Detroit. The overland trail from Fort Massac to Kaskaskia, on which [George Rogers] Clark almost lost his way in 1778, was largely replaced by routes starting at Shawneetown and Golconda. Under congressional authorization, a contract in 1820 provided that the road from Shawneetown should be "cut thirty-three feet wide, with stumps to be very low." Many newcomers took the Goshen Road connecting Shawneetown, Carlyle, Edwardsville and Alton, wiht a branch to Kaskaskia. For some miles it coincided with the Vincennes-St. Louis route. The roads were poor, muddy in the wet season and after rains, and dangerous when river torrents had to be forded or at nightfall when a traveler had to seek lodging in a cabin that might be the home of a brigand. Those who escaped that peril often complained of rude inns, unclean accomodations, and discourteous hosts.

Mail service from the East reached Vincennes in 1800 and Cahokia in 1804. The routes spread rapidly but by 1818 had no penetrated further north than Belleville. A stage ine between St. Louis and Kaskaskia opened in 1819.  . . . 

p. 113 - Life on the frontier may have been desolate and lonely, but worst of all Illinois had a reputation for being unhealthy. For the prevalence of a form of malaria, a severe and widespread affliction commonly known as fever an ague, or "the ager," the early resident had an explanation. Beck, a physician and chemist who did not know that bacteria caused diseases, accepted the belief that the trouble was due to a "miasma" or "noxious effluvia" arising from swamps. 
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