Naming the last 18 Illinois counties

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

A total of 84 Illinois counties were organized from 1790 (when Illinois was a part of the Northwest Territory) until 1839, when the Illinois General Assembly established a record 15 new counties in a single year.

The remaining 18 counties of Illinois were founded from 1841 to 1859, which averages out to one new county a year during that period. However, the establishing of those 18 counties didn’t happen that regularly, for seven of them were established in 1841: Grundy, Henderson, Kendall, Mason, Piatt, Richland, and Woodford counties.

Grundy County is named for Felix Grundy (1777-1840), a Tennessee senator who served as the 13th U.S. Attorney General. Henderson County was named for Henderson County, Kentucky, which in turn was named in honor of North Carolina pioneer Richard Henderson, a colleague of Daniel Boone who was involved in a land investment scheme that aimed to create a new state called Transylvania out of land that is now a part of Kentucky and Tennessee.

This 1905 map, from “Origin and Evolution of Illinois Counties,” shows the final boundaries of Illinois’ counties with the dates they were first organized by the territorial and state legislatures of the Northwest Territory, Indiana, and Illinois.

Kendall County was named after Amos Kendall (1789-1869), who served as Postmaster General in the cabinets of Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. Mason County was named after Mason County, Kentucky, which had been named after George Mason IV, remembered as the Father of the Bill of Rights. Mason was one of the three delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 who refused to sign the new Constitution because it failed to safeguard the rights of the citizens and the states.

Piatt County is named after John Piatt, the father of one of that county’s prominent pioneer families. Richland County is named after Richland County in Ohio, which had been so named for its rich soil. Woodford County is named after Revolutionary War Gen. William Woodford, who died as a prisoner of war in 1780.

Four new counties were formed in 1843: Cumberland, Massac, Moultrie, and Pulaski counties. Cumberland County is so named because the Cumberland Road entered the county. The road in turn got its name from Cumberland, Maryland, which was named for the Cumberland range of the Appalachian Mountains, themselves named after the Cumberland mountains of northern England. (The ultimate origin of “Cumberland” is in the early medieval kingdom of Cumbria in Britain, so named because the kingdom’s inhabitants were Britons or Welsh, whose own name for themselves in modern Welsh is Cymry.)

Massac County, in southern Illinois on the Ohio River, is named for a French outpost called Fort Massac, constructed near the river in 1757 within the present bounds of Massac County. Moultrie County is named after Revolutionary War Gen. William Moultrie (1730-1805), who also served as Governor of South Carolina. Pulaski County is named after Gen. Casimir Pulaski, a Polish American who commanded U.S. cavalry during the Revolutionary War.

Saline County, named for the salt deposits found there, was established in 1847. Six years later, in 1853, Kankakee County was added, named for the Kankakee River. The river’s name is thought to derive from the Miami-Illini Algonquin term teeyaahkiki, meaning “open country” or “country exposed to view,” probably given to the area because it was a marshland.

The last two counties of Illinois, Douglas and Ford, were established in 1859, only two years before the start of the Civil War. Ford County was named after Thomas Ford (1800-1850), eighth Governor of Illinois.

Douglas County was named in honor of Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861), the well-known and popular racist Illinois Democrat who argued that slavery should remain legal in a famous series of debates with Abraham Lincoln in 1858. Even with his pro-slavery views, Douglas nevertheless was staunchly pro-Union – in the first weeks after the Civil War began, Douglas called on his Democrat supporters to support the Union before he succumbed to typhoid fever on June 3, 1861.

For more information about the founding and naming of Illinois’ counties, see the State of Illinois’ 1991 booklet, “Origin and Evolution of Illinois Counties,” available for study in the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room.

#abraham-lincoln, #casimir-pulaski, #george-mason, #illinois-bicentennial, #illinois-counties, #stephen-a-douglas

Illinois county names of the latter 1830s

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

On Friday, April 6, at 11 a.m., the Pekin Public Library will present the fourth video in its Illinois Bicentennial Series in the Community Room. As the nation this month marks the 153rd anniversary of the surrender of the Confederacy that ended the Civil War, the video will be “Illinois’ Memory of the Civil War,” 29 minutes in length and produced by the Illinois State Archives in 1992. Admission is free and the public is invited.

The formation and naming of Illinois’ 102 counties, which we have been tracing in recent weeks, was completed two years before the outbreak of the Civil War. Last time in this series, we had reached the year 1833, when Champaign and Iroquois counties were established. Six new counties were added three years after that: Kane, McHenry, Ogle, Whiteside, Will, and Winnebago counties.

Kane County was named after U.S. Senator Elias Kane of Illinois (1794-1835). McHenry County was named for Major William McHenry, (c.1771-1835), an Illinois legislator who had fought in several battles against Native Americans. Ogle County was named after Joseph Ogle (1737-1821), an Illinois pioneer who co-founded Illinois’ first Methodist congregation. Whiteside County bears the name of Illinois legislator and militiaman Samuel Whiteside (1783-1868). Will County was named after Illinois legislator and physician Conrad Will (1779-1835). Winnebago County was named for the Winnebago tribe of Native Americans who lived in Wisconsin and northern Illinois before being dispossessed and moved to reservations west of the Mississippi River.

Just one year later, in 1837, six more counties were added: Boone, Bureau, Cass, DeKalb, Livingston, and Stephenson counties. Boone County was named for the famous Kentucky frontiersman and trailblazer Daniel Boone. Bureau County was named after the French fur trader Pierre de Buero. Cass County was named after Lewis Cass (1782-1866), second territorial governor of Michigan and 14th U.S. Secretary of War.

DeKalb County was named in honor of Johann von Robais, Baron de Kalb, a Bavarian-French soldier who fought alongside Lafayette during the Revolutionary War and was killed at the Battle of Camden in 1780. Livingston County was named after U.S. Congressman and Secretary of State Edward Livingston (1764-1836). Stephenson County was named for Benjamin Stephenson (1769-1822), Illinois territorial delegate to Congress.

1839 was a banner year for the creation of new Illinois counties – the General Assembly erected 15 new counties that year: Brown, Carroll, Dane, DeWitt, DuPage, Hardin, Jersey, Lake, Lee, Logan, Marshall, Menard, Scott, Stark, and Williamson counties.

This map, from “Origin and Evolution of Illinois Counties,” shows the boundaries of Illinois’ counties in 1839, when the Illinois General Assembly created a record 15 new counties in a single year.

Brown County is named for War of 1812 veteran Jacob Brown. Carroll County was named in honor of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832), a signer of the Declaration of Independence who was the only Catholic Christian Founding Father (the other Founding Fathers were Protestant Christians, Unitarians, or Deists).

As for Dane County, one may search a map of Illinois diligently but will not find it, because the county existed under that name for just one year. It was originally named in honor of U.S. Congressman Nathan Dane of Massachusetts (1752-1835), a principal drafter of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 who personally added the ordinance’s Article 6 that banned slavery in the Northwest Territory. However, the people of the new county were Democrats whereas Dane had been a Federalist, so a settler named Daniel Goode, a Jacksonian Democrat, petitioned to have the county renamed. Dane County thus became Christian County in 1840, named after the already-existing Christian County in Kentucky, which was in turn named in honor of Revolutionary War officer Col. William Christian (c.1743-1786).

DeWitt County, with its county seat at Clinton, was named for New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton of Erie Canal fame – the same man for whom Clinton County, with its county seat at Carlyle, had been named in 1824. DeWitt Clinton is the only man to have two Illinois counties named in his honor.

DuPage County takes its name from the DuPage River, which got its name from an old French fur trader of the 1700s named DuPage, who had operated a trading post near the place where the river joins the Des Plaines River near Channahon.

Hardin County was named after Hardin County in Kentucky, which was itself named for John Hardin (1753-1792), a noted veteran of the Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War who was slain by the Shawnee in Ohio in April or May of 1792. With only about 4,800 inhabitants, Hardin County has the lowest county population in the state.

Jersey County was named after the state of New Jersey, from which many of the county’s settlers had come. Lake County got its name because it is on the shore of Lake Michigan. Lee County was named for “Light Horse” Henry Lee III (1756-1818), a Revolutionary War officer and ninth Governor of Virginia, father of Confederate general-in-chief Robert E. Lee.

Logan County is named for Illinois pioneer and doctor John Logan, father of Civil War Gen. and U.S. Senator John A. Logan of Illinois. Remarkably, even though Illinois is known as “the Land of Lincoln,” none of Illinois’ counties are named after Abraham Lincoln – but the county seat of Logan County is named in his memory.

Marshall County is named in honor of the famous U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. Menard County is named for Illinois’ first lieutenant governor Pierre Menard. Scott County takes its name from Scott County, Kentucky, which was named for Charles Scott (1739-1813), a Revolutionary War officer who became the fourth governor of Kentucky.

Stark County was named after Revolutionary War Gen. John Stark (1728-1822), who won a significant American victory at the Battle of Bennington in 1777. Williamson County was named for Hugh Williamson (1735-1819), a North Carolina delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Thus, by the end of 1839 Illinois had 84 counties. The Illinois General Assembly would organize the 18 remaining counties over the next two decades. We’ll conclude the roll of the names of Illinois’ counties next time.

#illinois-bicentennial, #illinois-counties, #northwest-indian-war, #northwest-ordinance

The county names of Illinois, continued

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

This week we’ll continue with our review of the names of the counties of Illinois, beginning with the three counties that the State Legislature established in 1824: Clay, Clinton, and Wabash counties.

Clay County was named after Henry Clay of Kentucky, a notable American leader during this period who served in both the U.S. House and Senate, best remembered for negotiating the important Missouri Compromise of 1820 that safeguarded the nation’s fragile equilibrium between slave and free states. Clinton County is named in honor of New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828), who spearheaded the building of the Erie Canal that bolstered the U.S. economy.

Wabash County takes its name from the Wabash River, which was in turn named by the Algonquin-speaking Miami and Illini tribes. The Wabash forms a part of the Illinois-Indiana border. The Native American name for the river, Waapaahšiiki, means “water over white stones,” a reference to the limestone river bottom in Huntington County, Indiana.

In 1825, the Illinois General Assembly established 10 new counties – the most that had been founded in Illinois history up till then. The counties were Adams, Calhoun, Hancock, Henry, Knox, Mercer, Peoria, Putnam, Schuyler, and Warren counties.

This map, from the “Origin and Evolution of Illinois Counties,” shows the boundaries of Illinois’ counties in 1825 — one year after the arrival of Jonathan Tharp at the future site of Pekin.

Adams County is named in honor of John Quincy Adams, sixth U.S. president. Calhoun County is named after U.S. Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, who also became the seventh U.S. vice president. Hancock County is named for Founding Father John Hancock of Massachusetts, famous for his over-sized signature on the Declaration of Independence. Henry County is named after another Founding Father, Gov. Patrick Henry of Virginia who reportedly declared, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Five of 1825’s new counties were named after men who fought in the Revolutionary War. Knox County is named for Gen. Henry Knox, who became the first U.S. Secretary of War. It is noteworthy that there had formerly been a Knox County that included parts of Illinois, back in the days of the Indiana Territory – but with the formation of the Illinois Territory in 1809, the original Knox County became an Indiana county. Illinois’ Knox County of 1825 was never a part of the original Knox County.

Mercer County is named for Gen. Hugh Mercer. Putnam County – the smallest Illinois County, covering only 160 square miles – is named in honor of Gen. Israel Putnam, U.S. commander at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Schuyler County is named after Gen. Philip Schuyler, who also served as a U.S. Senator from New York. Warren County is named for an American patriot who was killed very early in the Revolutionary War, Joseph Warren.

Peoria County was, of course, named for the Peoria tribe of the Illiniwek, who formerly lived on the shores of Lake Pimiteoui (Peoria Lake).

Only two new counties were founded in 1826: McDonough and Vermilion counties. McDonough County is named after Commodore Thomas Macdonough, who commanded U.S. naval forces at the Battle of Plattsburgh in New York, where the U.S. thwarted Britain’s final invasion of the northern states during the War of 1812.

Vermilion County is named for the Vermilion River, a tributary of the Wabash River. This tributary was called the Piankeshaw by the Miami tribe, but European settlers renamed the river from the reddish color of the earth or chalk found in the bluffs above the river, which the Native Americans used for face paint.

Besides Tazewell County, three other counties were established in 1827: Jo Daviess, Perry, and Shelby counties. Jo Daviess County is named after Joseph Hamilton Daveiss, who commanded the Indiana Dragoons at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. Curiously, although his last name was spelled “Daveiss,” in all of the places named for him the misspelling “Daviess” is used instead. Perry County is named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, who led American naval forces to victory at the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812. Shelby County is named after Kentucky Gov. Isaac Shelby, a veteran of both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

Two counties were founded in 1829: Macon County, named after Nathaniel Macon (1758-1837), sixth Speaker of the House of Representatives and a U.S. Senator for North Carolina; and Macoupin County, which is named from an Algonquin word that is believed to mean “white potato.”

The Illinois General Assembly formed two new counties in 1830. One of them, Coles County, was named for Edward Coles, second Governor of Illinois (1822-1826), who devoted his political career to the cause of the abolition of slavery, striving mightily to prevent the legalization of slavery and end the practice of indentured servitude in Illinois.

The other, McLean County, formed from Tazewell County the same year that Pekin was founded, was named for Illinois Congressman and Senator John McLean. McLean is geographically the largest county in Illinois, covering 1,184 square miles.

Illinois’ most populous county, Cook County (with a current population of about 5.2 million), was established in 1831, and is named after Illinois’ first Attorney General Daniel Pope Cook (1794-1827), a newspaper owner and editor who had advocated for Illinois statehood in his newspapers.

Also founded in 1831 were Effingham County, named for Thomas Howard, 3rd Earl of Effingham, who resigned from the British Army rather than fight against the 13 colonies; Jasper County, named for Revolutionary War hero Sgt. William Jasper (c.1750-1779); LaSalle County, named after the French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle; and Rock Island County, named for Rock Island, a notable island in the Mississippi where Fort Armstrong was built in 1816 and an arsenal was established in the 1880s.

In 1833, the year after the Black Hawk War – Illinois’ final war against its Native American population – two more counties were added: Champaign County, named after Champaign County, Ohio, from which pioneers of the county had come (“champaign” in French means “battlefield”), and Iroquois County, named after the New York-based League of the Iroquois that had controlled the Illinois Country during their expansionist wars of the 1600s.

By this time Illinois had been subdivided into 60 counties. Another 42 counties would be established over the next 26 years. We will continue down the roll of Illinois counties next time.

#daniel-pope-cook, #gov-edward-coles, #illinois-bicentennial, #illinois-counties, #iroquois-league, #la-salle, #tippecanoe

The names of Illinois’ counties

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

In the last few weeks we have recalled how Tazewell County was founded and named, and how the county boundaries were redrawn during the 1830s and 1840s. As we noted previously, Tazewell County was named for a Virginia state governor and U.S. Senator named Littleton Waller Tazewell.

But what of the names of the other 101 counties of Illinois? Where did they get their names? Starting today and continuing over the next few weeks, we’ll present the counties of Illinois in order of their founding, telling the years they were established and the origins or meanings of their names. Most of our state’s counties were named for notable men of U.S. and Illinois history.

St. Clair County was established in 1790 when Illinois was a part of the Northwest Territory. It was named for Maj. Gen. Arthur St. Clair (1737-1818), first governor of the Northwest Territory.

Randolph County was established in 1795 during the time when Illinois was part of the Northwest Territory. It was named after Edmund Randolph (1753-1813), the first U.S. Attorney General as well as a U.S. Secretary of State.

Three counties were founded in 1812, three years after the formation of the Illinois Territory: Gallatin County, named for Albert Gallatin (1761-1849), the fourth U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (and the one who served the longest); Johnson County, named for Richard Mentor Johnson (c.1780-1850), ninth U.S. vice president and a U.S. senator from Kentucky; and Madison County, named for President James Madison (1751-1856).

In 1814, Edwards County was formed, named after Illinois Territorial Gov. Ninian Edwards (1775-1833) who later served as Illinois’ third state governor. The city of Edwardsville, county seat of Madison County, is also named after Ninian Edwards.

White County was formed the following year, being named for Isaac White (1776-1811), an Illinois settler who joined the Indiana Territorial Militia and was slain at the Battle of Tippecanoe. The next year, in 1816, Crawford County was founded, named after William H. Crawford (1772-1834), ninth U.S. Secretary of War and seventh Secretary of the Treasury.

Also founded in 1816 were Jackson and Monroe counties, named for Presidents Andrew Jackson and James Monroe (it was Monroe who would admit Illinois to the Union two years later), and Pope County, named for Illinois Territorial Delegate Nathaniel Pope who played a central role in getting Illinois admitted as a state. Then in 1817, Bond County was formed, being named for territorial congressional delegate Shadrach Bond (1773-1832), who would be elected the first Illinois state governor just one year later.

Three new counties were formed in the preparation for Illinois’ admission to the Union as the 21st state in 1818, which explains the very patriotic names they were given: Franklin County, named after the famous Founding Father Benjamin Franklin; Union County, named in honor of the national Union of the states; and Washington County, named for the first U.S. President George Washington.

This map, from the “Origin and Evolution of Illinois Counties,” shows the boundaries of Illinois’ counties at the dawn of statehood in 1818.

The year after Illinois statehood, 1819, saw the creation of four new counties: Alexander County, named for William M. Alexander, a pioneer settler of Illinois who was elected to the Illinois General Assembly; Clark County, named for George Rogers Clark who led the Illinois Campaign during the Revolutionary War; Jefferson County, named for Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. president; and Wayne County, named for Gen. Anthony Wayne (1745-1796), who fought in the Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War.

In 1821, the state legislature created seven new counties: Fayette, Greene, Hamilton, Lawrence, Montgomery, Pike, and Sangamon. The county seat of Fayette County is Vandalia, second Illinois state capital (1820-1839). The current state capital, Springfield, is also the Sangamon County seat of government.

Fayette County was named in honor of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), a French aristocrat who won the enduring love of the American people by aiding the nascent U.S. army during the Revolutionary War. Lafayette later was a leader of the French Revolution, whose hopes to create an American-style republic in France were dashed by the violent insanity of the Reign of Terror and the rise of the self-crowned despot Napoleon. Lafayette returned to tour the U.S. in 1824-25, visiting with Illinois Gov. Edward Coles and other Illinois dignitaries at Kaskaskia, the former state capital, on April 30, 1825. When the U.S. entered World War I to support the British and French in 1917, the U.S. Expeditionary Force formally proclaimed their arrival in France with the words, “Lafayette, we are here!”

Greene County was named for Nathanael Greene (1742-1786), a Revolutionary War major general. Hamilton County was named after Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (Hamilton’s son William, a pioneer settler of Springfield and Peoria, was one of the dignitaries who met Lafayette at Kaskaskia in 1825).

Lawrence County was named for Capt. James Lawrence (1781-1813), commander of the U.S.S. Chesapeake in the War of 1812, remembered for his command, “Don’t give up the ship!” Montgomery County was named for Gen. Richard Montgomery (1738-1775), a Revolutionary War leader who led a failed American invasion of Canada.

Pike County is named after the explorer Zebulon Pike (1779-1813), after whom Pikes Peak in Colorado is named. Finally, Sangamon County is named for the Sangamon River that flows through it. “Sangamon” comes from a Pottawatomi term, Sain-guee-mon, meaning a place where food is plentiful.

Four more counties were added in 1823: Edgar County, named for John Edgar (c.1750-1832), a very wealthy settler who served as an Illinois delegate to the Northwest Territory’s legislature; Fulton County, named after Robert Fulton, the famous inventor of the steamboat, which greatly aided Illinois commerce and transportation; Marion County, named in honor of Revolutionary War Gen. Francis Marion (c.1732-1795); and Morgan County, named after Revolutionary War Gen. Daniel Morgan who later served as a U.S. Congressman for Virginia.

That brings us to the eve of the arrival of Pekin’s first pioneer settler Jonathan Tharp in 1824 (the future site of Pekin was then in Sangamon County), which is a convenient place for us to pause. Next week we’ll continue with the three counties founded in 1824 – Clay, Clinton, and Wabash counties.

#george-rogers-clark, #gov-edward-coles, #illinois-bicentennial, #illinois-counties, #lafayette-visits-illinois, #littleton-waller-tazewell, #nathaniel-pope, #northwest-indian-war, #northwest-territory, #revolutionary-war, #shadrach-bond, #st-clair-county, #tazewell-county, #tippecanoe, #war-of-1812

Redrawing the Tazewell County line

This is a slightly revised version of one of our “From the Local History Room” columns that first appeared in March 2013 before the launch of this weblog, republished here as a part of our Illinois Bicentennial Series on early Illinois history.

Redrawing the Tazewell County line

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

In the “From the Local History Room” column that ran March 9, 2013, we recalled the story of the old rivalry between Pekin and Tremont as the two communities contended for the honor and status of being the governmental seat of Tazewell County. It was due largely to that struggle that Tazewell County acquired its present geographical boundaries. As we noted previously, the county originally was much larger than it is today.

The trimming and shaving of Tazewell County during the 1830s and 1840s was just the last part of the process by which the county acquired its permanent shape on the map. When the Illinois General Assembly first created Tazewell County in 1827, the county was much larger than it is today. The frequent change in the county’s borders up to the year 1839 (prior to the Tremont-Pekin struggle) can be tracked by consulting the maps of Illinois found in one of the volumes in the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room: a 63-page booklet published by the State of Illinois in 1991 with the title, “Origin and Evolution of Illinois Counties.”

The county boundaries of Illinois as they stood in 1827 are shown in this map from the State of Illinois’ 1991 booklet, “Origin and Evolution of Illinois Counties.” Originally, Tazewell County also included all of Woodford, over half of McLean, and parts of Mason, Logan, DeWitt, and Livingston counties.

This booklet presents the development of the counties of Illinois beginning in 1790, when the land that would become the State of Illinois was a part of the Northwest Territory. In that year, there were only two counties in Illinois: Knox County (not to be confused with today’s Knox County which borders Peoria County on the west), which included most of the eastern half of Illinois and parts of Indiana, and St. Clair County, which took up about the southwestern third of Illinois. The Illinois River served as the northwestern boundary of St. Clair County and part of the northwestern and western border of Knox County. Most of present Tazewell County was then a part of Knox County, with about a fourth of Tazewell including in St. Clair County.

By 1801, Illinois was a part of the Indiana Territory, and the county lines had been moved, with almost all of Illinois (including the future Tazewell County) encompassed by St. Clair County. The southern quarter of Illinois was assigned to Randolph County. Knox County, however, was almost edged out of Illinois altogether. Most of Knox County was in Indiana, and just a narrow strip along the eastern border of what would become the State of Illinois was all that remained of Knox in Illinois.

Eight years later, in 1809, Knox County was no more – Illinois had but two counties, Randolph in the south and St. Clair in the north. In only three years, however, the territorial counties had been re-envisioned, with the southern quarter of Illinois divided among St. Clair, Randolph, Gallatin and Johnson counties, and the northern three-quarters of the territory (including Tazewell) assigned to Madison County.

Apart from some border adjustments of the southernmost counties, that basic arrangement remained until 1815, when two new counties were created: White County in southern Illinois, and Edwards County, which was formed out of the eastern half of Madison County by drawing of straight north-south line right through the middle of the Illinois Territory. The remaining territory of Madison County included the area that would later become Tazewell County.

By 1817 – just a year before Illinois became a state – the northern three-fourths of the Illinois Territory were taken up by three large counties: Crawford County in the east (which was most of the former Edwards County), Madison County in the west (which was most of the former Madison County), and a new county named Bond, created by slicing a perfect north-south strip from Madison County. Most of Tazewell County was included in Bond County, while the western part of Tazewell was in Madison County. The western border of Bond County passed right through the future site of Pekin.

Four years later, in 1821, the fledgling State of Illinois redrew the county borders in the northern three-fourths of its territory, reducing Bond County to a tiny rump of its former area and creating several new counties. One of them, Sangamon County, extended from Sangamon County’s present southern border as far north as the northern border of Putnam County at the Illinois River. Within Sangamon’s boundaries was the future Tazewell County – and in the summer of 1824, along the northwestern border of Sangamon County at the Illinois River, Jonathan Tharp built his log cabin where the city of Pekin would later arise.

In 1825, Sangamon County was reduced in size, with its northern half being separated from Sangamon and administered from the newly created Peoria County. This unorganized territory was not a part of Peoria County, but it also was not a county in its own right and was administered from Peoria.

Finally, on Jan. 31, 1827, the State of Illinois created Tazewell County out of lands that not only included the whole of the present Tazewell County, but also encompassed territory from the former Fayette County (which territory is today the western half of McLean County) as well as the whole of the future Woodford County and parts of Mason, Logan and De Witt counties.

Tazewell’s first reduction in size came with the creation of McLean County on Dec. 25, 1830. At that time, Tazewell acquired most of its current eastern border. Tazewell’s territory then still included a good part of what would become Woodford and Mason counties as well as a northern slice of the future Logan County.

Tazewell County would retain that shape and size for much of the following 10 years, after which the Pekin-Tremont rivalry reduced Tazewell to its permanent boundaries.

#illinois-bicentennial, #illinois-counties, #pekin, #preblog-columns, #tazewell-county-history, #tremont