Bureau County Illinois History

County History and Information
general county history and information

Civil War

NEW!!
Transportation

(Railroad, Highway, and other transportation history)

Pioneers

Photos

Disasters

Bureau County History

The History of Bureau County (Taken From the Earliest Historical Facts of Marshall-Putnam Counties, Also Bureau and Stark Counties,Compiled and Published by Mr. Henry A. Ford, 1860)
Chapter II:  The History of Illinois 1690-1825 and Chapter V:  The Black Hawk War
Chapter I: European Discovery in the West

 Past and Present of Bureau County, Illinois by George B. Past, Chicago: Pioneer Publishing, 1906.

• Chapter III:  Early Settlement of the County
  • Pages 20 and 21 (First settlers, Pierre de Beuro and  Bulbona; First permanent white settlers; John Dixon and Charles Boyd's cattle trip from Springfield to Galena; short biography on John Dixon, Charles Boyd and Boyd's Grove - his early experiences in the county)
  • Page 22  and 23 (More on Charles Boyd and family; John and Justin Ament, Abram Stratton, Sylvester Brigham, James Coddington, John Leeper )
  • Page 24 and 25 (More of John Leeper, Cyrus Langworthy, Warren Sherley, Eli and Elijah Smith, Robert Hinman, William Mercer and Family.  Special section - Providence Colony)

• Part One:  Table of Contents   All Chapters are Now Online

• Old Settlers Meeting (The second meeting of the settlers of Old Putnam county (November 24, 1868))

• Central Illinois Before Its Settlement
• Bill Rogers Defies The Civil Authorities
• Princeton Sent A Delegate to Spoon River
• Religion At The Time Of Early Settlement
• Princeton and the Underground Railroad

1877 Bureau County Voters and Taxpapers - Partial Listing

1874 Marshall, Putnam and Bureau County Township Election Results

• News about the new Bureau County from the Alton Observer, August 1837
• Distressing Calamity - Death of Dennis Daily and family by fire (1854)
• Plentiful grain in Burea County (1855)
• Burning Well in Milo (1860)
• Out in the Country  (Taken From the Henry News Republican, October 21, 1869 - A visit to Pleasant Ridge Nurseries, Mineral and Bradford, Illinois)
• Fondulac, Amboy and Peoria Railroad(1875)
• 1877 Railroad News (Info about the Bureau Valley railroad and the burning of the Bureau Junction Bridge)
• Diptheria Rages around Milo (November 1878)
• Dam washed out (January 15, 1880)
• The All-new Wonderland World¹s Fair - To appear in Walnut and Kewanne - September 1881 - Donated by Mike O'Neal
• Aug. 31, 1892 Bureau Gossip (Courtesy Mikki Judge)

Bureau County  and the Civil War

• Our Bold Soldier Boys:  (Taken From the Henry News Republican  - Lists the Name, Residence, Date of Enlistment, Wounds, Discharge, Death or Mustering Out of Officers and Soldiers who enlisted in the US Service  during the Civil War from Marshall and Putnam counties and its vicinity - Bureau (Lone Tree, Milo, Wheatland, Arispie), Peoria (Chillicothe) and Stark (Bradford, Osceola) Counties. Carefully complied from the Adjutant’s General Report 1861 to 1866.)

Bureau County Schools

• Arlington School Photos -  Donated by Mary Hunter Eichhorn
  • Arlington Grade School 1931
  • Arlington Grade School 7th and 8th Grade School - 1930's
  • Arlington Grade School - 1930's
  • Arlington Grade School - Fall 1936
  • Arlington Grade School (Grades 4,5,6) - 1938
• 1910 Lone Tree School, Wheatland township, Bureau County, Illinois (Includes photo and names of students, teacher and directors) Much better picture of the school - donated by Dorothy Ary (Please be patient.  This will take time to load.)
• Recent Photo of Lone Tree School (courtesy Janel Wheeler)
• Lone Tree School House Reunion Photo (courtesy Pat Rosenquist )
• Memories of Shurts Schools (This was written by my husband's grandmother.  It was found in a box of her "research" and since it gives such a wonderful description of early school life, I decided to share it.  Below the article is a picture of Schurts school,  Grandma (Elsie Piper) looks to be only about 6 or 7, so it was probably taken about 1915. Grandma had written the students names on the back of the picture so they are printed below it.
•  Bunker Hill School  ( Location  and several students names identified by Judy Stutzman.)
• 1932-1933 Nye School, Arispie Township (Includes photo and names of students, teacher and a little bit of family history on each student)(courtesy Patricia Nordstrom Rosenquist)
•  Photo of Dover GRADE SCHOOL CHILDREN, Dover, Bureau Co., ,IL – LATE 1880’s  - Donated by Linda (Heaton) Matthews  (Includes names and birth dates of children, teachers and school directors)  
• Prior School, District 69, Bureau County, Illinois - Donated by Susan Whalen  
•  Malden Photos - Donated by Bob Watson
  • 1925-26 High School Basketball Team
  • 1925-1926 High School Orchestra
  • 1927 Basketball Letter
  • 1927 Malden High School Graduating Class
  • 1927 Diploma of Snyder Watson, Malden Illinois(This will take time to load)
  • 1928 Malden High School Graduating Class
  • 1929 Malden High School Graduating Class

Do you have memories of growing up and attending "country schools" in Bureau County?   If so, I'd like to hear from you.  Email me at n.piper@mchsi.com

12/28/07 NEW!!  Kenneth Phillips writes "I started school in Sheffield in 1941 but moved to NW of Wyanet where I started school at Pleasant Valley, a one room country school. I had to walk to and from school every day which was four miles round trip. I graduated from eighth grade in spring of 1949 and then started high school in Wyanet graduating in 1953. Some of my teachers that I remember at Pleasant Valley were Ethyl Serie, Mrs George Springer, Edith Swanson, and Berniece West who was a substitute teacher. If there were any others I don't recall them. Hope this information is useful."

Disasters

The Cherry Coal Mine Disaster:  

• News Articles From the Daily Review, Decatur, Illinois - Photos donated by Tracey Ristau-MacLeod
  Just north of the town of Cherry , Bureau County, Illinois are remnants of the Cherry Coal Mine, where 259 miners lost their lives in one of the worst mine disasters in United States history.  On Saturday, November 13, 1909, the mine caught fire. A load of hay, intended for the mule stables at the bottom of the mine, was apparently ignited by burning oil dripping from a kerosene torch.   Read and see how this terrible tragedy was relayed to the people around the state from the newspaper articles and photos taken.

Transportation
(Railroad, Highway, and other transportation history)

Railroads

• History of the CRI&P Railroad (Short history and photo of crossing at Wyanet)

• History of the C&B Railroad (Short history and photo of crossing at Wyanet)