The Connellys made a home for themselves in Lawrence County (burying Sarah Wilson Connelly in the Connelly Cemetery, now on the Sherwood farm) before deciding to move into Illinois about 1836. “History of Crawford and Clark Counties, Illinois” by William Henry Perrin holds a wealth of information. Among the families mentioned are the Robinsons; Josiah’s third wife, Sally Dixon Robinson, had a son, Levin D., who, probably in 1838, came to the area; his arrival in Parker Township, where he bought considerable property, was called “an important accession.” He settled in Section 33, and the tale is told that “when a babe he rode in his mother’s arms on horseback from Tennessee on the road to Indiana.” (Sally Dixon Robinson’s first husband, Richard, was born 13 Nov. 1795, Dickson County, TN, and died 13 June 1839, Clark County, IL.)

How fortuitous for the Robinsons that Sally and Josiah, along with William and T.H. Connelly (here spelled Connolly), arrived circa 1836. Another Robinson, Levin’s brother James C., was elected justice of the peace and later studied law, “with such success as to be numbered among the few leading lawyers of the State.” He served three terms in the lower house of congress (probably state) and was in 1864 a candidate for governor. (Richard J. Oglesby was governor in 1865 to 1868 and was re-elected in 1872 and 1884. In 1858 he was the Republican nominee for the Lower House of Congress, but was defeated by Robinson, a Democrat.)

As for the Connellys, T. H. became sheriff, serving for four years, while William acted as the first justice of the peace after the township organized.

Much is mentioned in the Perrin book about William. Perrin mentions that John Connely came from Ireland, and then goes into Josiah’s life and marriages. William “was a mere lad when he came to the county with his parents. His father was one of the pioneers of the township, and (William) in early life…was inured to farm labor.”

The Perrin history reveals that William married Sallie Robinson, daughter of his step-mother, Sally Dixon Robinson. Sallie was born in Edgar County in 1825 and died in 1852, after having five children. After his marriage “he moved on the place he now owns, Section 3, locating on land his father had entered.”

He again wed, in 1855, to Lydia Hammond, born Aug. 22, 1834, a daughter of Frederick Hammond, of the prominent Hammond clan. (Perrin writes that Fredrick Hammond’s daughter Polly married Josiah Connelly [though he calls him Josiah A., not Josiah W.]. Thus the two Connelly brothers married Hammond girls. Hammond is the second son of Alanson Hammond.) Of even more interest, Frederick ended up marrying Patsy Tennessee, daughter of Josiah and Sallie, and having seven children, one of whom, Alanson P., was said to be the person for whom my father was named.

William before his marriage to Lydia went out to California in 1848, traveling with an ox team and returning in 1851. He went west again in 1859, traveling to Pike’s Peak with a delegation that organized the territory. In 1864, he organized another company that went to Idaho and California, and took five men with him to Pike’s Peak in 1867. He had 1200 acres “before making any division” and ended up with 600 at the time the history was written in 1883. According to “History of Westfield,” William Morgan twice “had charge of the County Poor Farm, keeping the inmates in his large two story frame house while the family lived in a smaller brick home. William, both wives and most of the children are buried in the Connelly Cemetery, south of Westfield.” (Four generations of Connellys are buried in that cemetery.)

It is obvious, therefore, that the Connellys and the Hammonds were not only pioneers in but leaders of Clark County. It was formed out of Crawford County in 1819, just a short time after Illinois became a state. The county was named for George Rogers Clark, whose fame came mainly from exploits on the Illinois frontier during the Revolutionary War, according to the Illinois Trails genealogy website.

The county, according to “Early Recollections of Clark County” by John Littlefield, editor of the Marshall Weekly Messenger, on Jan. 28, 1869, is located in the southeastern part of the state, bordering on Indiana. “The Wabash River, navigable for steamboats, flows along the south-eastern margin of the county. Several smaller streams flow through it, among which may be mentioned the North Fork of Embarrass River . . . The surface is diversified with prairie and timberland.”

Clark County’s first settlement was on Union and Walnut prairies by immigrants from Kentucky, North Carolina, New York, and Ohio. The Connellys are not mentioned. A man named Crow, from North Carolina, introduced the first cotton gin. “The settlers were very friendly and obliging; neighbor assisting neighbor in everything,” he writes.

“These hardy settlers were subjected to many hardships and privations unknown to the present generation. The scarcity of mills, of proper farming implements. Of schools, of churches, of comfortable dwellings, etc., rendered it a life of excessive labor and privation . . . The personal appearance of these hardy sons of toil was rough and uncouth, yet a warm and generous heart beat within that rough exterior and no one was ever turned from their cabin doors cold and hungry.”

Another relationship that should be mentioned here is that between I.P. (Isaac Parker) Daughhetee, also profiled by Perrin, and Sidney Ann Wayne, whose daughter Elizabeth Farrar, from her marriage to William Farrar, later married Adam Coon. Their daughter, Ella Coon, in 1898 wed Charles Thomas Buckler; their child, Maude Mae, was my mother – and she married a Connelly as did her brother, Bruce (Sallie Connelly).

Daughhetee, born 8 June 1799 in Kentucky, son of John Daughhetee of West Virginia, and Susan Parker, came to the Edgar County area in 1820. He moved to Section 3 receiving 300 acres during Jackson’s administration (Perrin). He and Sidney (or Sydney), born 9 June 1808 in Clark Co., had six children. When he died in 1854, Sidney and his son, Nathaniel, resided on the 250-acre property.

Nathaniel, in turn, became a township supervisor in 1882 and, like his father, was a Democrat. He also acted as a county teacher “for 10 winters.”

Speaking of schools, there is a mention of a Connelly School in “History of Westfield” – Joel and Effie Pennington Connelly’s son Josiah Washington, known as “Washy,” owned 1500 acres about two miles northwest of Westfield “north of the Connelly School.” There was also a Lindsay School right near the Martin V. Connelly farm. This school, attended by Alanson Connelly and many of his brothers and sisters, was in existence in 1896 and was mentioned in the Clark County Herald “School News” story of May 20 of that year. Graduating exercises were held with Anna Daughertee noted as teacher of the Lindsey School.

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