Vandalia, Illinois

“ Nevertheless the compact at the time of the admission of the western states supposed the western termination of the road should be the Mississippi. The estimated expense of the road’s extension to Vandalia, Illinois, sixty-five miles east of the Mississippi, amounted to $4,732,622.83, making the total expense of the entire road amount to about ten millions. ”

“ The Vandalia Railroad Company is a consolidated corporation, organized on January 1, 1905, under the laws of Indiana and Illinois, pursuant to an agreement made by five railroad companies. Of these the Terre Haute & Indianapolis Company owned a railroad extending from Indianapolis westward to the boundary between the states of Indiana and Illinois, and the St. Louis, Vandalia, & Terre Haute Company owned a railroad extending from that point to East St. Louis, Illinois. These two lines, forming a continuous route between Indianapolis and East St. ”

“ The organization of political parties in Illinois really takes its rise from this time, and in great measure from the work of Mr. Peck with the Vandalia Legislature. There was no man more dreaded and disliked than he was by the stalwart young Whigs against whom he was organizing that solid and disciplined opposition. But a quarter of a century brings wonderful changes. ”

“ He had come to Vandalia from Morgan County to conduct his campaign, and Lincoln met him first in the halls of the old court-house, where he and his friends carried on with success their contest against Hardin.
The ninth Assembly gathered in a more hopeful and ambitious mood than any of its predecessors. Illinois was feeling well. The State was free from debt. The Black Hawk War had stimulated the people greatly, for it had brought a large amount of money into circulation. ”

“ Among the colleagues of Lincoln at Vandalia were young men with destinies only less brilliant than his own. They were to become governors, senators, and judges; they were to organize the Whig party of Illinois, and afterwards the Republican; they were to lead brigades and divisions in two great wars. Among the first persons he met there—not in the Legislature proper, but in the lobby, where he was trying to appropriate an office then filled by Colonel John J. Hardin—was his future antagonist, Stephen A. Douglas. ”

“ It enters the Illinois river on the easterly side, about one hundred and forty miles above its mouth.
The Kaskaskia river has a long course in the central part of the State, and the lands upon its borders are happily diversified with hill, vale, prairie and forest. On its banks are Kaskaskia, the former seat of government, and Vandalia, the present metropolis.
The region of Rock and Fox rivers is a beautiful and healthy portion of the State. The land is rich; [Pg 83] the prairies are high, dry and gently undulating and surrounded by excellent timber. ”

“ Another friend, William Butler, with whom Lincoln had become intimate at Vandalia, took him to board; life at Springfield thus began under as favorable auspices as he could hope for.
After Chicago, Springfield was at that day the most promising city in Illinois. It had some fifteen hundred inhabitants, and the removal of the capital was certain to bring many more. Already, in fact, the town felt the effect. Houses and blocks were started; lawyers, politicians, tradesmen, laborers, were pouring in. ”

“ They brought agricultural implements and some money.537 The Kentucky Gazette lamented the fact that a large number of the best families of Lexington were removing to Illinois.538 An Illinois newspaper reported: “The number of emigrants passing through our Town [Vandalia] this fall, is unusually great. During the last week the waggons and teams going to the north amounted to several hundred. ”

“ He was a member of the Washington Guards during the War of 1812-15, was promoted to the 2nd United States artillery, and accompanied Decatur on his expedition to Algiers (1815) . Resigning in 1818, he practiced law at Shawneetown, Illinois (1820-27) , and filled the office of public prosecutor and judge of the circuit court. He moved to Vandalia (1827) and began editing the Illinois Intelligencer and the Illinois Monthly Magazine. From 1836 to 1853 he was president of the commercial bank at Cincinnati, and acted as state treasurer. He published: Letters from the West (London, 1828) ”

“ V., 9.507.“Illinois Intelligencer” (Vandalia) , Apr. 24, 1821.508.“Ninth Census of the U. S., Population and Social Statistics,” 3.509.The vote for governor given by W. H. Brown, “Early Movement in Illinois for the Legalization of Slavery,” (“Fergus Hist. Ser.,” No. 4, p. 15) , differs from that by Washburne, “Sketch of Edward Coles,” 58, and Bonham, “Fifty Years Recollections,” 22, while neither gives Coles a plurality of 46 votes, as Harris in “Negro Servitude in Ill.,” 31, says the official returns show him to have received. ”

“ Beginning in a public highway at the Indiana state line east of Danville and running along such highway in a general westerly direction to Jacksonville, affording Danville, Urbana, Champaign, Monticello, Bement, Decatur, Springfield, Jacksonville and the intervening communities reasonable connections with each other. ROUTE No. 11. lci;innini; in a pnldic highway at the Indiana state line east of Marshall and running along such highway in a general south westerly direction to East St. Louis, affording Marshall, Greenup, Effingham, Vandalia, Greenville, Baden Baden, Highland, East St. ”

“ There are no large towns in Illinois, but quite a number of flourishing villages. Danville, near the eastern line of the State, is quite a flourishing town; and here the land office for the northern section is kept. It is one hundred and thirty miles south of Chicago, and it is supposed, that the office will shortly be removed to that place. Springfield, situated on a branch of the Sangamon river, is near the centre of the State, and is a large, flourishing village. It is sixty miles south of Peoria, about thirty east of the Illinois river ”

“ It is bounded on the north by White Oak, on the east by Normal, on the south by Dale, and on the west by Danvers Township. It is known as Town 24 north, Range 1 east of the Third Principal Meridian. As will be seen by this the Third Principal Meridian forms its western boundary, separating it from Danvers Township.
Besides the grove mentioned above, there is another in the southeastern part of the township, called Twin Grove. These skirt the southern border, forming almost an unbroken line of timber nearly across the southern side. On the north there is no native forest ”

“ There was a very prominent trail passing through the settlement, which connected the Wabash with the Illinois. Indian paths, of course, followed the most direct and convenient course. The first road made by white men did the same. Many of these became regularly-established highways, and, as a result, we find the township crossed in all directions by roads that follow section or half-section lines but little. In townships that are composed of prairie-lands almost wholly, we naturally look for roads on every section line, but, where there has been a considerable amount of timber, it is not so. ”

“ Danville, making, in all, nearly seven hundred acres, which he purchased at the Government price. His neighborhood was called Priceville, and still popularly retains the name, although the station and post office are called Downs. In 1871, Mr. and Mrs. Price celebrated their golden wedding in a most pleasant and long-to-be-remembered entertainment. He has always been a public-spirited man, and has taken an active part in township affairs. He was proprietor of the little village, and has taken a lively interest in its welfare. ”

“ No preëmption act had yet been passed, and of the more than twelve thousand inhabitants of Illinois some two hundred and twenty possessed a freehold of fifty acres, thus giving the balance of power, if the territory should enter the second grade under the old provision, to one hundred and eleven persons. Nearly one-third of the entire population lived either near the Ohio or between it and the Kaskaskia, and among them there were not more than three or four freeholders, and not one who possessed two hundred acres—the necessary qualification for a representative. ”

“ Today the term city would be almost a favor to a place containing no more inhabitants than were then to be found in the white settlements in Illinois. Moreover, few as were the whites, they were dispersed in a long half-oval extending from a point on the Mississippi near the present Alton southward to the Ohio, and thence up that river and the Wabash to a point considerably north of Vincennes. ”

“ It marked the beginning of the subdual of that wonderful wild prairie of Vandemark Township and the Vandemark farm. No more fruitful espousal ever took place than that--when the polished steel of my new breaking plow was embraced by the black soil with its lovely fell of greenery. Up to that fateful moment, the prairie of the farm and of the township had been virgin sod; but now it bowed its neck to the yoke of wedlock. Nothing like it takes place any more; for the sod of the meadows and pastures is quite a different thing from the untouched skin of the original earth. ”

“ By this time, 1851, the passage of the bill to build the Illinois Central Railroad through Bloomington, closed to market all land lying between the west line of this township and Bloomington, and, of course, every one who wanted to buy land near the latter, then a growing young town, rushed into the towns of Range 5 in a hurry. The entire town soon filled up. Its history from that time (except what refers to the village) is a continued story of prosperity. ”

“ IN traveling over the great fertile prairie State of Illinois, and viewing its many railroads, its many beautiful cities and towns, its school houses, its churches, its broad fields of waving grain, its orchards bending under their load of golden fruit, its vast population of industrious and intelligent citizens, its mills, and its factories, one can hardly realize that nearly all of this great improvement has been made in the last sixty years, but such is the case. ”

“ Progressing westward, the timbered prairie gradually changes to the grass-covered prairie, spreading everywhere a great ocean of fertility. Across the Wabash is the "Prairie State" of Illinois, its name coming from its principal river, which the Indians named after themselves. The word is a French adaptation of the Indian name "Illini," meaning "the superior men," the earliest explorers and settlers having been French, the first comers on the Illinois River being Father Marquette and La Salle. ”

“ There certainly can be no discount on the fertility of the soil. One branch of Sugar Creek takes its rise in this township. There are numerous branches of this stream from the center, east and northeast. They unite in one and leave on the south side near the center of Section 33. There is also a small stream flowing northwest from the northern part, and one on the west rises near the railroad, and flows in a zigzag course to near the northwest corner. The Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western Railroad enters the township one-fourth mile west of the southeast corner of Section 35. ”

“ Illinois is where things grow; the corn, the wheat, the hay, the oats, the fruit, the vegetables, the horses, the cattle, the hogs; the eggs don’t grow on bushes in Illinois, but they come as near to it as they do in any other State. And not only these things, which have been mentioned, grow in Illinois, but brains grow in Illinois too; and if they are about to be bothered to find a man who is smart enough for President, tell them not to be uneasy, that Illinois can furnish five hundred, if that many were needed. Yes, Illinois is where things grow. ”

“ No one can be surprised if our feelings prompt us to speak pretty highly of our native home, Illinois, the great fertile prairie valley between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, like a choice gem placed between the more hilly states on the East and the West. Illinois, the second and soon to be the first agricultural state in the Union; destined by her Creator to do a worthy share in feeding the world. Her merits and her charms have drawn on the intelligence and industry of every nation upon the globe.
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Pioneer Work. ”

“ As causes for the fact that more than a quarter of a century after the Revolution, Illinois had a population estimated at only eleven thousand, may be suggested the [pg 098] presence of hostile Indians; the inability of settlers to secure a title to their land; the unsettled condition of the slavery question; the great distance from the older portions of the United States and from any market; the fact that Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana had vast quantities of unoccupied land more accessible to emigrants than was Illinois; the danger and the cost of moving ”

“ The districts, therefore, within which these fall will never contain a sufficient number of inhabitants to entitle them to membership in the confederacy.”224 Some of the most fertile of the Illinois prairies were not settled until far into the nineteenth century. The false prophets of the early days will be judged less harshly if we recall that wood was then a necessity, that no railroads and few roads existed, that wells now in use in prairie regions are much deeper than the early settlers could dig, and that the vast quantities of coal under the surface of Illinois were undiscovered. ”