Joshua C. Morgan, Pekin’s first Town President

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Specialist

One of the most prominent of Pekin’s community leaders in the earliest years of its existence as a pioneer settlement was Joshua Carmen Morgan (1804-1849), whose name appears repeatedly in the early records of Pekin’s history. He was born 15 July 1804 in Xenia, Ohio, eldest son of Isaac and Margaret (Carmen) Morgan, who were natives of Virginia and Kentucky, respectively.

Turning to William H. Bates’ first-ever history of Pekin (which was included in the 1871 Sellers & Bates Pekin City Directory), we find the several notices regarding Joshua C. Morgan, all of them relating significant facts in Pekin’s early history.

First, on page 12 Bates informs that Morgan held most Tazewell County offices from 1831 to 1836:

“During the time intervening between the removal of the County Seat from Mackinaw to Pekin in 1831 and its removal from Pekin to Tremont in 1836, the offices of Circuit Clerk, County Clerk, Recorder, and Master in Chancery were held by Joshua C. Morgan, who was also post-master. He lived with his wife and four children, a brother and a young lady, and transacted the business of all his offices, in two rooms of the house now occupied by Dr. W. S. Maus. His house was also a great resort for travelers, and our informant says: ‘I have spent the evening at his house when the entire court and bar were there with many others.’”

While we can be grateful that Bates provided us with this description of Morgan and his important role in Pekin’s and Tazewell County’s early days, nevertheless there is a problem with his statement that Morgan’s house was “now” (i.e. in 1870-71) occupied by Dr. W. S. Maus. On page 46 of the same directory, Bates says Dr. W. S. Maus then resided in a home at the northeast corner of Logan St. and Park Ave., a very unlikely location for the home of one of Pekin’s earliest residents during the 1830s. However, Bates also mentions on page 46 that Dr. J.S. Maus then resided at the southwest corner of Elizabeth and Capitol, a far more probable site for Morgan’s home.

The unnamed informant’s recollection of seeing the entire court and bar being entertained in Morgan’s home means that the notable visitors to his house would have included men such as David Davis, John T. Stewart, and Samuel Treat, and later Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln.

The very next paragraph of Bates’ history of Pekin, also on page 12 of the 1871 city directory, named J. C. Morgan among the settlers who had arrived in Pekin prior to 1831 and who had survived the “Deep Snow” of 1830. In addition to this information from Bates’ account, federal land records show that Morgan obtained letters patent for grants of land in Tazewell County on 15 Oct. 1834, 22 Oct. 1835, and 1 Nov. 1839.

At the bottom of page 12, Bates devotes a paragraph to the Black Hawk War of 1832. He does not mention, however, that Joshua C. Morgan himself served in the Illinois Militia during the Black Hawk War. The Illinois Secretary of State’s Illinois Veterans Index says Morgan served in the 5th Regiment of Whiteside’s Brigade, with the rank of Quartermaster, having entered the service at Dixon’s Ferry in what is now Lee County.

On page 13, Bates devotes a paragraph to the terrible cholera outbreak of July 1834 that carried away many of the pioneers not only of Pekin but other parts of Tazewell County:

“With the opening of July, 1834, Pekin was visited by the Asiatic Cholera, and for a time the village was enveloped in a pall of gloom, sorrow and despondency. Quite a number of prominent (sic) citizens, among whom we find the names of Mr. Smith, Mrs. Cauldron, Thomas Snell, Dr. Perry, Mrs. Perry, Mrs. J. C. Morgan, and many others, fell victims ere the terrible malady took its departure.”

Charles C. Chapman’s 1879 Tazewell County history, page 566, relates these same facts in very similar wording (showing that Bates’ account was Chapman’s source).

Mrs. J. C. Morgan was Almeda (Moore) Morgan, who had borne Joshua two daughters, Julia and Caroline, and two sons, Isaac and Frank. Joshua remained a widower for less than a year, for Tazewell County marriage records show that he remarried on 23 April 1835 to Elizabeth Green Shoemaker, who bore him five sons and two daughters, Alphonso, Jerome, Spencer, Charles, Sidney, Florence, and an unnamed daughter who died in infancy.

On 2 July 1835, the residents of Pekin voted to incorporate as a Town, which gave Pekin to right to govern itself through an elected Board of Trustees. This event, however, is not mentioned in Bates’ history of Pekin. As we have previously related, for some reason the incorporation vote was not legally recorded. (Morgan, as we have seen, was then the Recorder of Deeds.) That omission made it necessary for Pekin’s officials to ask the Illinois General Assembly to retroactively legalize the incorporation of the Town of Pekin, which the General Assembly did by a special act passed on 19 Jan. 1837.

Be that as it may, on page 13 of the 1871 directory Bates tells us the results of Pekin’s first Town election:

“‘July 9th, 1835, agreeable to notice given according to law, in the Court House, in the Town of Pekin, Tazewell County, Illinois, for the purpose of electing Five Resident Freeholders of the Town of Pekin, as Trustees of the same, who shall hold their office for one year and until others are chosen and qualified.’ The vote given was for D[avid] Mark, 24; D[avid] Bailey, 24; Samuel Wilson 17; J. C. Morgan, 22;  S[amuel] Pillsbury, 24, and S. Field, 12. The five gentlemen first mentioned were elected, and the members were qualified before Alden Hull, a Justice of the Peace. On the 11th of the same month, the Board of Trustees was organized, J. C. Morgan being elected President, and Benjamin Kellogg, Jr., Clerk.”

Probably the most important act of Morgan’s administration as Pekin’s first Town Board President was the removal of the County Seat from Pekin to Tremont. The primary reason for the relocation of the County Seat was the then-prevailing opinion in the General Assembly that a County Seat ought to be geographically central within a county’s borders. Tazewell County was much larger when first erected in Jan. 1827, but by 1835 the county was much smaller due to portions of Tazewell County being reassigned to newly erected counties. Another consideration was that Pekin in the 1830s was something of a swampy place and (especially after the 1834 cholera outbreak) was regarded as sickly.

Bates tells the story of the removal of the County Seat to Tremont on page 14, and concludes his account with:

“The last meeting of the first Town Board was held on the 27th of June, 1836, at which meeting Joshua C. Morgan having removed the courts to Tremont, resigned, and Samuel Pillsbury presided.”

After that, Morgan no longer appears in Bates’ narrative of Pekin history. Although he is known to have acquired additional land in Tazewell County in late 1839, at some point after that he must have joined his parents and other relatives in Lee County, Illinois. He died in Palmyra in that county on 12 July 1849 and was buried in Prairieville Cemetery near Prairieville in Lee County. His widow Elizabeth later moved to Seward, Nebraska, where she died on 20 Oct. 1900 at age 85. She is buried in Clarinda Cemetery, Clarinda, Iowa.

The gravestone of Joshua C. Morgan, who served as Pekin’s first Town President, in Prairieville Cemetery, Prairieville, Lee County. Photo by Michael Kuelper.

#alden-hull, #almeda-moore-morgan, #benjamin-kellogg-jr, #black-hawk-war, #cholera-epidemic, #county-seat, #david-bailey, #david-mark, #deep-snow, #dr-joseph-s-maus, #dr-samuel-pillsbury, #dr-william-s-maus, #elizabeth-green-shoemaker-morgan, #isaac-morgan, #joshua-c-morgan, #joshua-carmen-morgan, #margaret-carmen-morgan, #pekin-history, #pekin-incorporation-snafu, #s-field, #samuel-wilson, #tazewell-county-history, #tremont-cooperative-grain, #william-h-bates

The pioneer doctors of Pekin

This is a reprint of a “From the Local History Room” column that first appeared in May 2015, before the launch of this weblog.

The pioneer doctors of Pekin

By Jared Olar

Local History Specialist

When local historian and journalist Ben C. Allensworth in 1905 undertook to update and augment Charles C. Chapman’s 1879 “History of Tazewell County,” he no doubt saw that one aspect of local history that Chapman had overlooked was the origin and development of the medical profession in Tazewell County. Allensworth therefore asked Dr. W. E. Schenck to write a special chapter providing an account of the “Pioneers in the Medical Profession,” found on pages 880-882 of Allensworth’s history.

Dr. Schenck began his account with a general description of “the pioneer doctor,” who

“was not educated in his profession as the modern physician has been. He was scholastic, often polished, but many things are now in common use that were unknown in his day. He had no knowledge of chloroform. The elegant pharmaceutical products which we now dispense were not to be had in his day. The X-ray had not been dreamed of, and modern surgery, which has astonished the world by its boldness, and gratified suffering humanity by its success, would have been considered cruel rashness a generation ago. With his ponderous saddle-bags he went from his humble domicile on hi mission of humanity and never refused to respond to a call, no matter what the prospects for remuneration. He was often compelled to make long rides in all kinds of weather and all conditions of roads; was often detained for many hours where his only compensation was the gratitude of a suffering patient, and not always even that. His powers of observation were very acute. He usually readily discovered the nature of the difficulty and promptly gave a suitable remedy; though it was not always pleasant to take. He lived, and loved to live, for his work, and the good he did lives after him. He was, by all odds, the most useful man in the community, the most universally beloved and most missed when he died.”

After sketching the life of a pioneer doctor in general terms, Schenck provided a list with brief personal descriptions of Tazewell County’s early doctors and physicians, grouped according to the communities in which they lived and worked. Schenck’s list covers Pekin, Washington, Tremont, Groveland, Delavan, Mackinaw and Minier. Following is how Schenck summarized the story of Pekin’s first doctors:

“Dr. John Warner was the first physician of whom we can find any account in Tazewell County. He was located in Pekin at the time of the Deep Snow — the last days of December, 1830. Nothing more can be learned.

“Dr. S. Pillsbury came to Pekin in 1831 and was prominent in the profession and in society for many years. He died here and is still favorably remembered by the oldest citizens. In 1834 one Dr. Perry and his wife died of cholera in Pekin. Drs. Pillsbury and Griffith were the only doctors left in Pekin after the death of Dr. Perry.

“Dr. William S. Maus came to Mackinaw in 1831 and to Pekin in 1838. He served one term in the legislature in 1838. He died in Pekin in 1870.

“Dr. Joseph S. Maus came to Mackinaw in 1838 and to Pekin in 1853. He died in Pekin in 1872. The Doctors Maus were highly educated and successful physicians. They had the confidence and esteem of the community for many years and their memory is still fondly cherished by all who knew them.

“Dr. Samuel Wagenseller was one of the most noted characters that the profession ever had in this county. He came to Pekin in 1849. He read with Dr. Fitch and began practice in 1855. He was for many years at the head of the profession in this county, and no man ever succeeded in getting such a hold on the people as he. He was killed by accident October 7, 1877.

“Dr. R. C. Charlton was born in Ireland. He was a graduate at the ‘School of Medicine, Apothecaries’ Hall,’ Dublin, December 5, 1837. He practiced many years in Pekin and died of pneumonia, the result of exposure in his professional duties, at the age of 73.”

In this frame of Jim Conover’s video of the 30 June 1988 excavation of the Tharp Pioneer Burying Ground (now under the parking lot of Pekin’s Schnucks grocery store), the remains of a victim of the July 1834 cholera epidemic is shown. In the upper left corner an archaeological site worker picks up a coffin nail and points to the spot on the skull where the nail had been found embedded. Another coffin nail was found in the left femur. The nails are evidence that the coffin was hastily built around the cholera victim to reduce the possibility of exposure to the disease. Pekin’s local physician Dr. Perry helped treat Pekin’s cholera victims in July 1834, but he and his wife both succumbed to the disease themselves.

#ben-c-allensworth, #cholera, #cholera-epidemic, #dr-fitch, #dr-griffith, #dr-john-warner, #dr-joseph-s-maus, #dr-perry, #dr-r-c-charlton, #dr-samuel-pillsbury, #dr-samuel-wagenseller, #dr-w-e-schenck, #dr-william-s-maus, #jim-conover, #mrs-perry, #pekin-pioneer-doctors, #preblog-columns, #tharp-burial-ground

A look inside Root’s City Directory of 1861

This is a reprint of a “From the Local History Room” column that first appeared in Feb. 2014, before the launch of this weblog.

A look inside Root’s City Directory of 1861

By Jared Olar
Library Assistant

A couple months ago in this column space, we took a look through the city of Peoria’s very first city directory, “The Peoria Directory for 1844,” compiled and published by Simeon DeWitt Drown, town surveyor for Peoria.

The later city directories for Peoria were published by Omi E. Root – and it was Root who published Pekin’s first city directory in June 1861, 17 years after the publication of Drown’s Peoria directory. A facsimile copy of the 1861 directory for Pekin, reprinted by the Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society, may be found in the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room collection.

Besides a facsimile reprint of the 1861 Root’s City Directory of Pekin available for study in the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room, the library’s private archives also include a fragile first edition of the 1861 directory that had belonged to Pekin historian William H. Bates (who heavily annotated this copy while preparing the 1870 directory).

Called “Root’s Directory of the City of Pekin for the year 1861,” this volume is only 93 pages long. To give an idea of Pekin’s growth since 1861, the most recent Polk city directory for Pekin extends to 470 pages.

Later Pekin city directories, prepared and published by William H. Bates, would include an essay on the history of Pekin, but Root’s directory has no historical or geographical essays. The entries are grouped into nine categories, each with its own section. The section titles are: Special Business Directory; Streets and Avenues; Names; City, Town, and County; Stages, Railroads, and Packets; Educational; Companies and Associations; Religious; and Business Directory.

The largest section of the directory (from pages 12 to 64) is “Names,” which lists the households of Pekin in alphabetical order by the surname of the head of household. “Stages, Railroads, and Packets,” on page 68, lists the local stage coach, railroad and steamboat companies for the convenience of those needing transportation or shipping of merchandise or property.

Shown here is an advertisement from the 1861 Root’s Pekin City Directory for local riverboats and railroads that operated in and around Pekin.

The next section, on page 70, lists the schools of Pekin. At the time, Pekin had only six schools, each with simple if not especially memorable or interesting names: the Brick School-House (predecessor of Pekin Community High School, and remembered by its former students as “the Old Brick”), Cincinnati School, Yellow School-House, Second-Street School, Frame School-House, and German and English School.

The section entitled “Companies and Associations” is a descriptive list of Pekin’s community clubs, such as the Odd-Fellows, the Masons or the Sons of Temperance. Curiously, the city’s three fire companies – Independent No. 1, Rescue No. 1 and Defiance, all organized in 1860 – are grouped with the community associations. That was before the establishment of a single fire department as a branch of city government.

Under the header of “Religious” are listed the 11 churches that then existed in Pekin: First Baptist Church (30 members, 140 Sunday School students), the Roman Catholic Church (400 members), St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (50 regular attendants), the German Evangelical Association, St. Paul’s German Evangelical Church (64 members), the German Evangelical Church (separate from St. Paul’s, having 45 members), St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (40 members), the Methodist Episcopal Church (96 members), the German Methodist Episcopal Church, the Reformed Dutch Church (average attendance of 60), and the First Universalist Church of Pekin (38 members).

The section called “City, Town, and County,” on page 65, is a list of the elected and appointed government officials of the city of Pekin, Pekin Township and Tazewell County. In those days, municipal elections took place annually on the third Monday in April, and Isaac E. Leonard had just been elected to serve a one-year term as mayor of Pekin. The city council in those days was a Board of Aldermen, with four aldermen representing the city’s four wards. Also in the list of county officers were Tazewell County Sheriff Chapman Williamson, Coroner John Wildhack, County Clerk John Gridley, Circuit Clerk and County Recorder George H. Harlow, and County Treasurer William S. Maus.

Notably, Maus (a former physician whose biography has been sketched in a previous Local History Room column) was wearing two hats in April 1861. He was Pekin Township Supervisor as well as County Treasurer, having been asked to fill a vacancy in the treasurer’s office on Dec. 8, 1860. He served as treasurer until the end of the unexpired term in November of 1861.

Among the full-page advertisements in the 1861 Root’s City Directory of Pekin was this one for the Haines Agricultural Works, which was owned and operated by the brothers Ansel and Jonathan Haines at a spot just east of present-day James Field. Among the implements made at their factory was Jonathan’s patented Illinois Harvester, also known as the Haines Harvester.

#a-j-haines, #ansel-haines, #coroner-john-wildhack, #county-clerk-john-gridley, #dr-william-s-maus, #drowns-directory, #first-baptist-church, #first-universalist-church-of-pekin, #george-h-harlow, #german-evangelical-association, #german-evangelical-church, #german-methodist-episcopal-church, #haines-harvester, #isaac-e-leonard, #jonathan-haines, #methodist-episcopal-church, #nebraska-packet-boat, #old-brick, #omi-e-root, #pekin-fire-companies, #preblog-columns, #reformed-dutch-church, #roots-city-directory, #sheriff-chapman-williamson, #simeon-dewitt-drown, #st-johns-evangelical-lutheran-church, #st-joseph-catholic-church, #st-pauls-episcopal-church, #st-pauls-german-evangelical-church, #william-h-bates

Ehrlicher Brothers’ first prescription

This is a reprint of a “From the Local History Room” column that first appeared in February 2015 before the launch of this weblog.

Ehrlicher Brothers’ first prescription

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

When Pekin celebrated its centennial as an incorporated city in 1949, the Pekin Association of Commerce’s Centenary Committee assigned the task of compiling and publishing a souvenir book of Pekin’s history to a group of eight men and women.

The result was the 1949 “Pekin Centenary 1849-1949.” Chief among those who produced this book were Thomas H. Harris, chairman, Charles Dancey, who wrote the history, Bea Falkin and Charlotte Rau, who wrote other articles, and Marge Brenneman and June Wieburg, who were in charge of selling advertisements for the book.

While the Centenary’s historical narrative is naturally the heart and core of the book, the advertisements also in their own way help to tell of Pekin’s history. Often the ads take the form of tributes and congratulations to the community from its various businesses or social organizations, and many times the tribute ads include summaries of the history of the city’s businesses or utilities.

The tribute ad of Ehrlicher Brothers, on page 29 of the Centenary, is a perfect example of one of those historically informative ads. Not only did this long-established pharmacy take the opportunity to brag about their work — “All prescriptions entrusted to our care are filled as written — no substitution — which has gained us the confidence of the physicians who wrote them. All ingredients used are pure and fresh . . .” — but the ad also includes some fascinating historical details, making it of interest even today, long after Ehrlicher Brothers went out of business.

“We have just completed 85 years of continuous drug business in the same room. We feel we have a right to be proud of our record,” the ad says. Ehrlicher Brothers Co., Druggists, 328 Court St., was founded in 1864 by Henry M. and Otto D. Ehrlicher, sons of the German immigrant Johann Georg Ehrlicher (1824-1876) whom this column featured in October 2014. As we’ve noted before, Henry and Otto are recognized as Pekin’s first druggists, and along with their brother George and their wives they donated the land where the original Pekin Hospital was built in 1918.

The most fascinating detail of the Ehrlicher Brothers tribute ad, however, was that it includes “an exact reproduction of PRESCRIPTION No. ONE filled July 7, 1865, one year after the founding of our establishment. It was written by Dr. Samuel T. Maus for Mrs. James Haines Sr., two of Pekin’s earliest pioneers.” (In fact the prescription is clearly dated July 18, 1865, not July 7.)

Shown is a reproduction of Ehrlicher Brothers’ first prescription, from July 1865.

Regular readers of this column will recall that the Haines and Maus families were among the first settlers of Pekin. The life of Dr. William Maus, son of Samuel, was featured in Sept. 2013, while the life of pioneer settler William Haines, older brother of James Haines, was featured in May 2014. “Mrs. James Haines Sr.” was Annie, daughter of Dr. William Maus.

#annie-haines, #charles-dancey, #dr-samuel-t-maus, #dr-william-s-maus, #ehrlicher-brothers, #henry-ehrlicher, #james-haines, #johann-george-ehrlicher, #otto-d-ehrlicher, #pekin-centenary, #pekin-hospital, #pekin-pharmacies, #preblog-columns, #william-haines

Bernard Bailey (1812-1903), Pekin’s first mayor

This is a revised version of one of our “From the Local History Room” columns that first appeared in March 2012 before the launch of this weblog, republished here as a part of our Illinois Bicentennial Series on early Illinois history.

Bernard Bailey, Pekin’s first mayor

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

Last time we reviewed the story of how Pekin became an incorporated city in 1849. When the residents of Pekin formally adopted a city charter on Aug. 20, 1849, Pekin opted for a mayor/alderman form of government.

The earliest published history of Pekin is found in the Sellers & Bates 1870 Pekin City Directory. On page 28 of that volume, we read, “The election for city officers occurred on the 24th of September, 1849, and resulted in the election of the following named officers: Mayor – Bernard Bailey. First Ward – John Atkinson. Second Ward – David P. Kenyon. Third Ward – Wm. S. Maus. Fourth Ward – Jacob Riblet.”

The Bailey name is an old one in Pekin – part of Pekin is known as Bailey Addition, and Lake Arlann (Meyers Lake) formerly was called Bailey’s Lake. However, Bernard Bailey does not appear to have been a member of that Bailey family. The 1880 “History of Peoria County” says he was born in Maryland on March 26, 1812, the son of Vincent and Susanna (Bernard) Bailey. He first came to Tazewell County, Illinois, around 1830, where he worked as a school teacher and worked at his father’s ox mill. Settling in Pekin, he went into the grocery business and did some wagon making, saving enough money to become a lawyer.

Shown are the federal letters patent signed by President Andrew Jackson confirming the purchase of land in Tazewell County on April 15, 1833, by Bernard Bailey of Pekin, who later was elected Pekin’s first mayor on Sept. 24, 1849. IMAGE FROM U.S. GENERAL LAND OFFICE ARCHIVES VIA ANCESTRY.COM

Bailey then left Pekin, moving to Mercer County, Illinois, and then south to Louisiana, the native state of his wife Arabella Gilmore. In East Baton Rouge Parish, he tried his hand at sugar and cotton planting, until in 1848 he returned to Pekin, being elected mayor the following year.

Originally Pekin’s mayor and aldermen were elected to serve one-year terms, with elections taking place in the spring. Because the first mayor and city council were elected in the autumn, however, they could only serve about seven months before the next election. The 1870 City Directory says the second city election was on April 15, 1850, and Mayor Bailey and three of the four aldermen were reelected (Atkinson losing his reelection bid to Peter Weyhrich, who later would serve a term as Pekin’s mayor in 1858-1859).

Before Pekin could vote to incorporate as a city, a hasty enumeration of the town’s inhabitants had to be conducted to verify that Pekin had at least 1,500 residents. However, immigration and prosperity was fueling a population boom during Mayor Bailey’s two terms. The 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial says, “Only a year later, Pekin’s population had increased by more than 20% to 1,840, many of the new arrivals being German immigrants. Bailey was re-elected Mayor (the terms then being one year) and all seemed to be going well.”

“That did not last long, however,” the Sesquicentennial continues.

It was at this point that the fledgling city government experienced its first “hiccup.” The 1887 Pekin City Directory, page 30, briefly explains:

“On the 9th of October, 1850, it was resolved by the Council that the Mayor be requested to resign his office, that the city may elect a Mayor who will attend to the duties of his office. On the 25th of October, Mayor Bailey sent in his written resignation which, on motion, was accepted.”

It should be noted that the 1870 City Directory mistakenly switched the calendar dates of the council resolution and Bailey’s resignation. That error was corrected in the 1887 edition, but the 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial repeats the 1870 City Directory’s mistake.

The standard reference works on Pekin’s early history do not tell us why Mayor Bailey was not “attending to the duties of his office,” but Charles C. Chapman’s 1879 “History of Tazewell County,” page 723, includes a brief reference to Bernard Bailey that may or may not shed some light on that question:

“In the month of October, 1848, the Tazewell Mirror was purchased from John S. Lawrence by John Smith, now of Princeton, Ill. In 1850 Smith sold to Bernard Bailey, but repurchased the Mirror in 1851 in company with Adam Henderson.”

Could Mayor Bailey have been distracted from his civic duties in 1850 by his struggle to operate a newspaper? Whatever the answer to that question, after Bailey’s resignation, a special election was held on Nov. 25, 1850, and Abram Woolston (mistakenly called Woolstein in the 1879 “History of Tazewell County”) was elected to serve the remainder of Bailey’s term. Since Mayor Bailey’s election in 1849, a total of 48 men and one woman (Laurie Barra, 2011-2015) have held the office of Mayor of Pekin. There have been three mayors in Pekin’s history who have served more than one term: Charles Diusdieker (1895-1996, 1911-1915), J. Norman Shade (1939-1954, 1959-1966), and David Tebben (1995-2003, 2007-2008).

After owning the Mirror for six months, Bailey sold out and moved to Peoria. There he bought an interest in the Peoria Republican newspaper, later going into the boot and shoe business. In 1856 he was elected Justice of the Peace. He and his wife had 11 children. Pekin’s first mayor lived to the age of 91, dying at Peoria Hospital on Aug. 22, 1903. He was buried in Springdale Cemetery in Peoria.

#abram-woolston, #bernard-bailey, #charles-duisdieker, #david-tebben, #dr-william-s-maus, #illinois-bicentennial, #laurie-barra, #mayor-j-norman-shade, #pekin-history, #pekins-first-mayor, #peter-weyhrich

How Pekin became the 10th incorporated city in Illinois

This is a revised version of one of our “From the Local History Room” columns that first appeared on 28 Jan. 2012 before the launch of this weblog, republished here as a part of our Illinois Bicentennial Series on early Illinois history.

How Pekin became a city

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

Pekin has been Tazewell County’s leading community and the continuous seat of county government about as long as Pekin has been a city. But our city had not a few birth pangs in its earliest days, and during Pekin’s first two decades or so the community’s future was often in doubt.

As stated in the Nov. 5, 2011, “From the History Room” column, the 1824 arrival of Jonathan Tharp three years before the formation of Tazewell County was the seed from which Pekin would grow. However, things got off to a slow start, and by 1830 only eight white families lived in the settlement that was given the name “Pekin” that year.

Pekin’s fortunes were then on the rise, however, and in the spring of 1831 the county’s officials obtained permission from the state to temporarily move the county’s government operations from Mackinaw to Pekin – an interim decision until a state-appointed commission had determined where the permanent county seat should be.

Four years later, on July 2, 1835, Pekin’s voters chose to formally incorporate as a town and the community held its first town election on July 9, 1835, to install “a board of five trustees of the Town of Pekin” to serve one-year terms. The vote results were: D. Mark, 24; D. Bailey, 24; Samuel Wilson, 17; Joshua C. Morgan, 22; S. Pillsbury, 24; and S. Field, 12. In the words of Pekin’s early historian W.H. Bates, “On the 11th of the same month, the Board of Trustees was organized, J.C. Morgan being elected President, and Benjamin Kellogg, Jr., Clerk.” (1870 Pekin City Directory, p.13)

Just one year later, however, Pekin suffered one of its many early setbacks, when the above mentioned state-appointed commission decided that county seat was to be moved from Pekin to Tremont. Pekin’s Board President J.C. Morgan moved to Tremont at that time and resigned from the Pekin town board on June 27, 1836.

Undaunted by the loss of county seat status, Pekin carried on with its annual town elections and its population steadily increased. Calamity struck in late 1843, however, when a deadly scarlet fever epidemic swept over the community, which then numbered about 800 residents.

This detail from page 27 of the 1870-71 Sellers & Bates Pekin City Directory shows W. H. Bates’ account of the vote and local census that enabled Pekin to become an incorporated city in August of 1849.

It would be more than a decade before Pekin found itself on surer footing. As the 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial says, “After years of misfortunes, epidemics, wars, droughts, and general weariness, Pekin seemed due for a change of luck. It came, and 1849 was the turning point. The population had risen to 1,500, and the town’s residents voted unanimously to organize under a city charter (dated August 20, 1849). On September 24, Bernard Bailey was elected mayor, heading a council of four aldermen: John Atkinson, David Kenyon, William Maus, and Jacob Riblet.”

Maus, incidentally, was one of the town’s doctors, and he had attended to the sick during the scarlet fever epidemic of 1843-1844. He had previously treated Pekin’s cholera victims during the July 1834 epidemic.

In the 1870 Pekin City Directory, W. H. Bates details the process of how Pekin became a city. To begin with, Bates says the county seat was moved from Tremont back to Pekin in 1848. But Illinois state records show that it was 1849, the same year Pekin incorporated as a city, and “1849” is handwritten — perhaps by Bates himself — on the page of the library’s copy of the 1870 City Directory.

Bates then relates that on Aug. 7, 1849, the town board approved a resolution to take a census of Pekin “preparatory to city organization under the general act of incorporation allowing towns of fifteen hundred inhabitants the privilege of adopting the Springfield or Quincy charters if a majority of the inhabitants, upon due notice, vote in favor of it.” (Springfield and Quincy had themselves both received their city charters from the Illinois General Assembly on Feb. 3, 1840.)

Only two days later, on Aug. 9, 1849, the census results were reported to the board, and, having found that Pekin contained at least 1,500 people, it was “ordered that two weeks’ notice, to be published in the ‘Mirror,’ for an election, to be held on the 20th of August, 1849, to vote for or against the City of Pekin.”

With the unanimous vote on Aug. 20, the “City of Pekin” was born, with a mayor/alderman form of government. Bates says Pekin was only the 10th incorporated city in the State of Illinois. Records show that it had been only six months since the state’s ninth city, Rock Island, was incorporated.

#bernard-bailey, #county-seat, #dr-william-s-maus, #illinois-bicentennial, #j-c-morgan, #joshua-c-morgan, #pekin-becomes-a-city, #pekin-becomes-a-town, #preblog-columns, #w-h-bates

When Pekin was only a town

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

For the first 19 years of its existence, from 1830 to 1849, Pekin was a pioneer town, with much of the character that is associated with the Wild West rather than a modern semi-rural Midwestern city. A Native American village even thrived near the new town until 1833, first located on the ridge above Pekin Lake and later on the south shores of Worley Lake.

However, as Pekin’s pioneer historian William H. Bates tells in the 1870-71 Pekin City Directory, it was in that first period of Pekin’s history that the crucial groundwork was laid for Pekin’s civic development.

Thus, Bates tells us that Pekin’s nascent economy got a boost in Pekin’s first year with the opening of two stores – one belonging to Absalom Dillon and the other to David Bailey – and a hotel or tavern operated by Pekin co-founder Gideon Hawley. Religion in the new town also made its debut in 1830, with the construction of Rev. Joseph Mitchell’s Methodist Church on Elizabeth Street between Third and Capitol.

The following year, Thomas Snell built the town’s first school house, located on Second Street between Elizabeth and St. Mary. Thomas’ son John was the school teacher. The same year, Thomas built Pekin’s first warehouse.

The most significant of 1831’s milestones for Pekin was the transfer of the county seat from Mackinaw to Pekin. When the Illinois General Assembly created Tazewell County in early 1827, Mackinaw was designated as the county seat because it was near what was then the geographical center of Tazewell County. But Pekin’s location as a port on the Illinois River meant Pekin was less remote than Mackinaw. That greater accessibility gave Pekin better prospects.

Another thing that may have played a role in the decision to move the county seat was a memorable extreme weather event: the incredible “Deep Snow” of Dec. 1830, a snowfall and sudden freeze that had turned life on the Illinois prairie into a desperate fight for survival. Pekin was closer to other, larger towns and settlements than Mackinaw, and therefore safer for settlers.

With such considerations in mind, the county’s officials decided to relocate to Pekin even though Illinois law still said Mackinaw was the county seat.

Pekin remained the de facto county seat for the next five years. During that time, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Samuel D. Lockwood presided over the Circuit Court in Tazewell County. Court at first took place in the Snell school house, but later would convene in the Pekin home of Joshua C. Morgan, who simultaneously held the offices of Circuit Clerk, County Clerk, Recorder of Deeds, Master in Chancery, and Postmaster. That house was later the residence of Pekin pioneer doctor William S. Maus.

The Black Hawk War, Illinois’ last conflict with its Native American population, broke out in 1832. The war lasted only a few months. It began disastrously for the Illinois militia with the debacle at Stillman’s Run in northern Illinois, where the untrained and undisciplined militia recruits quickly succumbed to panic and fled, leaving behind the few brave men in their number to be butchered and scalped. As Bates sardonically put it, “The balance of the command, so history hath it, saved their scalps by doing some exceedingly rapid marching to Dixon on the Rock River.” Among the fallen was Pekin co-founder Major Isaac Perkins.

The town of Pekin itself was not directly affected by the fighting, although the townsfolk did build a stockade around the Snell school house as a precaution, renaming it Fort Doolittle. The fort never had to be used, however, which was a very good thing, because, as Bates commented, it “was so constructed, that in case of a siege, the occupants would have been entirely destitute of water.”

Despite the war’s inauspicious start, the Illinois troops quickly gained the upper hand and Sauk war leader Black Hawk (Makataimeshekiakiak) was forced to give up the struggle. The outcome of the war was the greatest calamity for the remaining Indian tribes of Illinois, who beginning in 1833 were almost to a man forcibly relocated to reservations west of the Mississippi – including the Pottawatomi and Kickapoo bands who lived in Tazewell County. Tazewell County’s Pottawatomi were soon joined by the harried remnants of their kin from Indiana, whom state militia soldiers forced to march west from their homes in Indiana in 1838 along a route that is remembered as the Pottawatomi Trail of Death.

In July 1834, an epidemic of Asiatic cholera struck Pekin, causing the deaths of several pioneers, including Thomas Snell and the wife of Joshua C. Morgan. The victims were hastily interred in the old Tharp Burying Ground, the former site of which is now the parking lot of the Pekin Schnucks grocery store.

Given the challenges and upheavals of the first five years of Pekin’s existence, it should not be surprisingly to learn that there are no surviving records of the town’s elections prior to 1835. On July 9, 1835, the townsfolk elected five men as Trustees: David Mark, David Bailey, Samuel Wilson, Joshua C. Morgan, and Samuel Pillsbury. Two days later, Pekin’s newly elected Board of Trustees organized itself, choosing Morgan as its president and Benjamin Kellogg Jr. as clerk.

One of the first acts of the new board was passing an ordinance on Aug. 1, 1835, specifying the town’s limits. At the time, Pekin’s boundaries extended from the west bank of the Illinois River in Peoria County eastward along a line that is today represented by Dirksen Court, reaching out as far as 11th Street, then straight south along to 11th to Broadway, then westward along Broadway back across the Illinois River to Peoria County. It is noteworthy that land in Peoria County has been included within the limits of Pekin ever since 1835.

This detail from an 1864 map of Pekin has been cropped to match the town limits of Pekin as they stood in 1835 — extending from the west bank of the Illinois River eastward to what is today 11th Street, and from Broadway north to what is today Dirksen Court. Many of the 1864 streets did not yet exist in 1835, of course.

Pekin’s first Board of Trustees continued to meet until June 27, 1836, when the county seat was formally relocated by Illinois law to Tremont, where a new court house had been built. Pekin then elected a new board on Aug. 8, 1836, the members of which were Samuel Pillsbury, Spencer Field, Jacob Eamon, John King, and David Mark. King was elected board president and Kellogg was again elected clerk.

Board members served one-year terms in those days, so Pekin held elections every year. Getting enough board members together for a quorum was evidently a real challenge. The board addressed that problem by passing of an ordinance on Jan. 4, 1838, stipulating that any board member who was more than 30 minutes late for a board meeting would forfeit $1 of his pay.

Another notable act of Pekin’s board around that time was a resolution of Dec. 29, 1840, adopting “an eagle of a quarter of a dollar of the new coinage” as the official seal of the town of Pekin.

On Dec. 29, 1840, the Pekin Board of Trustees officially adopted an American eagle like the one shown on this mid-19th century quarter as the seal of the Town of Pekin.

Throughout these years, Pekin continued to see economic developments. The first bank in town, a branch of the Bank of Illinois, was established in 1839 or 1840 at the rear of a store on Second Street. There was not yet a bridge across the Illinois River, but ferries were licensed to operate. Alcohol distilleries also were established in the area that is still Pekin’s industrial district, and around those years Benjamin Kellog also built the first steam mill near the river between Margaret and Anna Eliza streets.

In spite of a scarlet fever epidemic in winter of 1843-44, these economic developments were signs of Pekin’s continuing growth and progress, notwithstanding the loss of the county seat to Tremont. The pioneer town was poised to attain the status and rank of a city.

#benjamin-kellogg-jr, #black-hawk, #black-hawk-war, #david-bailey, #david-mark, #deep-snow, #dr-william-s-maus, #fort-doolittle, #gideon-hawley, #illinois-bicentennial, #isaac-perkins, #joshua-c-morgan, #pekin-history, #pekins-first-town-seal, #pottawatomi, #pottawatomi-in-pekin, #pottawatomi-trail-of-death, #rev-joseph-mitchell, #stillmans-run, #tharp-burial-ground, #thomas-snell, #tremont, #tremont-courthouse

A pioneer physician of Pekin: Dr. William Maus

Here’s a chance to read again one of our old Local History Room columns, first published in September 2013 before the launch of this blog . . .

A pioneer physician of Pekin: Dr. William Maus

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

The first published history of Pekin, found in the 1870 Pekin City Directory, tells of a calamity that befell Pekin just a few years after its founding – a plague of cholera:

“With the opening of July, 1834, Pekin was visited by the Asiatic Cholera, and for a time the village was enveloped in a pall of gloom, sorrow and despondency. Quite a number of prominent citizens, among whom we find the names of Mr. Smith, Mrs. Cauldron, Thomas Snell, Dr. Perry, Mrs. Perry, Mrs. J. C. Morgan, and many others, fell victim ere the terrible malady took its departure.

“The medical profession was at that time represented by Dr. Perry, (one of the victims,) Dr. Pillsbury, and Dr. Griffith. Dr. W. S. Maus, although not then residing in Pekin, was also present the greater portion of the time, lending his aid to the terror-stricken and suffering people.” (Sellers & Bates Pekin City Directory, 1870, page 13)

On the preceding page, we read that Dr. Maus was among the pioneer settlers of Tazewell County and the Pekin area who had arrived in 1831 and 1832, prior to the Black Hawk War. The 1870 Pekin City Directory also notes that Dr. Maus was elected a few times as a Pekin town trustee in the 1840s. The 1873 Atlas Map of Tazewell County, page 7, says he served on the committee appointed in 1849-50 to oversee the construction of a new Tazewell County courthouse in Pekin, and on page 51 says he was elected to the Tazewell County Board in 1850.

The 1870 City Directory, on page 12, also provides this glimpse into the early state of affairs in the governance of Tazewell County:

“During the time intervening between the removal of the County Seat from Mackinaw to Pekin in 1831 and its removal from Pekin to Tremont in 1836, the offices of Circuit Clerk, County Clerk, Recorder, and Master in Chancery were held by Joshua C. Morgan, who was also post-master. He lived with his wife and four children, a brother and a young lady, and transacted the business of all his offices, in two rooms of the house now occupied by Dr. W. S. Maus. His house was also a great resort for travelers, and our informant says: ‘I have spent the evening at his house when the entire court and bar were there with many others.’”

An extended biography of Dr. Maus was included in the 1873 Atlas Map of Tazewell County, on pages 51 and 54. That account says he was born in Northumberland County, Pa., on Aug. 5, 1817, the sixth child of Samuel and Elizabeth Maus and a grandson of a German immigrant to Philadelphia named Philip Maus.

“Dr. William S. Maus was educated in the common schools of Pennsylvania. When about eighteen years of age he engaged in the drug business and the study of medicine with Dr. Ashbel Wilson, a leading physician of Berwick, Columbia county, Pa. He attended medical lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating and receiving a diploma from that institution in 1830. Immediately thereby he commenced the practice of his profession in Luzerne county, Pa.”

He had married Mary Barton in 1829, and they had seven children, the eldest of whom, Annie, married an early and somewhat prominent resident of Pekin named James Haines.

The biography continues, “In the spring of 1831 Dr. Maus started with a horse and buggy for the west, traveling over the mountains to the mouth of Beaver river, where he took passage on board a steamboat, and traveled on it as far as Madison, Indiana. Here he purchased a horse, and made the balance of the trip overland to Tazewell county, locating in practice in the town of Mackinaw. In June, 1832, he brought out his wife and eldest child, who was then an infant, to Tazewell county, that time making the trip by land.”

Dr. Maus’ brothers Samuel and Joseph also came out to Tazewell County and settled in Pekin. Dr. Maus moved from Mackinaw to Pekin in 1838, and that fall he was elected to the Illinois General Assembly as representative for Tazewell County. He was a member of the last state legislature to convene in the former state capital of Vandalia and of the first legislature to convene in the new capital of Springfield. Around these years, in addition to his medical practice and his state office, Dr. Maus also was a contractor for several railroads, building five sections of the Pekin & Bloomington branch of the Central Railroad (later the I. B. & W.).

“Upon his return from the legislature,” the biography says, “the Doctor engaged in practicing medicine; he also carried on merchandising with his nephew, Jacob Maus. Dr. Maus enjoyed a lucrative and extensive practice up to 1851, at which time he discontinued the practice of medicine, and devoted his time and attention to a variety of business, and subsequently improved a large farm in Mackinaw township. In December, 1858, Mrs. Maus died at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. James Haines.”

He remarried in 1862 to Elizabeth Batterson of Pekin. The following year he moved to his farm, but returned to Pekin in 1864. “Since 1865 his attention has been largely devoted to Horticulture,” the biography says. A death notice in the Bloomington Pantagraph says he died in Pekin on Feb. 25, 1877.

Further details of his life, and his horticultural activities, can be gleaned from an “Odds and Ends” column published in the Pekin Daily Times on Sept. 23, 1930:

“Quite a number of folks remember Dr. William Maus, who during his residence in Pekin lived in a locality which is now one of the finest residence sections of Park avenue. The Dr. William Maus home was situated, north of and close to the home now occupied by Fred Epkens on Park avenue. . [Note: the 1930 Pekin City Directory says Fred and Eugenia “Epkins” lived at 1031 Park Ave.] In addition to being a doctor of medicine, William Maus was a pioneer nurseryman of this section.

“The home as many recall it was of southern colonial type and stood well back from the street (now Park avenue). Two rows of evergreen trees bordered the east and west sides of the wide drive which led up to the home and circled around it on each side.

“. . . [O]n the south side of the street [Note: in the 1100 block of Park Avenue] William Maus had a large orchard, which kids of those days often visited. Dr. William Maus was a kindly and generous man, one of our old timers said this morning, and the boys did not have to raid the orchard, for the doctor always gave them all the apples, pears and other fruit they wanted to eat.”

#cholera-epidemic, #dr-maus-orchard, #dr-william-s-maus, #james-haines, #pekin-history