The history of Carroll County, Illinois

While the contents of this History of Carroll County were being; prepared for the press, the writer had occasion to visit one of the public schools, and during that visit one of the teachers remarked that a few days before one of the scholars had asked the following questions:

"When and at what point was Carroll County first settled?"
"Who was the first settler?"
"When was the county organized?

The teacher in question, a very thorough and competent one in all the branches usually taught in the common and graded schools of the country, and a lady of more than ordinary intelligence, admitted to the scholar, as she admitted to the writer, that she could not answer these questions until she had consulted her parents, and that even they could not answer all of them. This teacher, while conversant with the general history of the United States, with all the incidents of the late war, and familiar with the physical geography of the old world, humiliatingly confessed her ignorance of the history of the county in which she was born and raised and educated — a subject that bears the same relation to the history of the state that the alphabet docs to orthography and the higher branches of ordinary education. And this is not an isolated case. More than twenty men were asked, "When was Carroll County organized?" and not one could tell. To supply such deficiencies in the historical literature of the county is the object of this volume.

That this volume will he perfect in all its details, the publishers do not expect, for perfection is yet to be attained by the most experienced book-makers. But it has been the purpose to render it not only readable, but to make it a standard book of reference — to preserve to those who will come to succeed the present population in the not very distant by-and-by the annals and incidents pertinent to pioneer life.

 

Table of Contents

HISTORICAL

History Northwest Territory 19
History of Illinois 109
History of Carroll Co. 221
History of Towns

ILLUSTRATIONS

LITHOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS

CARROLL COUNTY WAR RECORD

BIOGRAPHICAL TOWNSHIP DIRECTORY

ABSTRACT OF ILLINOIS STATE LAWS

MISCELLANEOUS

TOO LATES AND ERRATA 501

 

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In January, A.D. 1818, the territorial legislature of Illinois petitioned Congress for the admission of the territory into the Union as an independent state. At that time Nathaniel Pope was territorial representative (delegate) in Congress, and it was through him the petition was presented to Congress. By reason of a pressure of other business, the petition was allowed to remain in abeyance until the following April, when, with certain amendments prepared by Mr. Pope, it became a law, and Illinois was declared to be a sovereign and independent state of the American Union. The amendments proposed by Mr. Pope were, first, to extend the northern boundary of the new state to the parallel of 42 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude; and second, to apply the three per cent, fund, arising from the sales of the public lands, to the encouragement of leaving instead of to the making of roads leading to the state, as had been the practice on the admission of Ohio and Indiana.