Sangamon, Menard & Tazewell Counties
Page 28

ORIGIN OF SANGAMON COUNTY Sangamon, which included within its limits a part of Mason county, was formed from Bond and Madison counties in 1821, and in 1837 was the largest and most populous in the State, being forty miles from north to south, and forty-two from east to west on its southern boundary, and upwards of sixty on its northern boundary; containing sixty full townships, or two thousand one hundred and sixty square miles. Previous to 1819 there was not a white inhabitant on the Sangamon river; in 1837 they amounted to over twenty thousand. The whole territory watered by the Sangamon and its branches is an Arcadian region, in which nature has delighted to bring together her happiest combination of landscape and scenery. There is in this region a happy combination of timber and prairie land, the soil is of great fertility, being of a rich, calcareous loam, from one to three feet deep, intermixed with fine sand. The summer range for cattle in inexhaustible. All who ever visit this fine tract of country admire the beauty of the landscape which nature has here displayed in primeval loveliness and freshness. So delightful a region was soon selected by emigrants from New York, New England, North Carolina, and Canada, and more than two hundred families had settled themselves here before it was surveyed. It constitutes several populous counties now, one of which is Mason, inhabited by thriving farmers, and prosperous commercial towns. "Arcadian vales, with vine-hung bowers, And grassy nooks beneath the black jack's shades, Where dance the never ceasing hours To music of the bright cascade. Skies softly beautiful and blue As Italia's, with stars as bright; Flowers rich as morning's sunrise hue, And gorgeous as the gemmed midnight. Land of the west! Green forest land! Thus hath creation's bounteous hand Upon thine ample bosom flung Charms, such as were her gift when the gray world was young." MENARD COUNTY The county of Menard was taken from the northwestern part of Sangamon county, in 1838, and includes within its boundaries about sixty miles of the lower part of the Sangamon river, and a part of Salt creek. It was bounded on the north by Tazewell county, on the south by part of Sangamon county, on the northwest by Schuyler and Fulton counties. It towns are Petersburg, New Salem and Athens. TAZEWELL COUNTY From which the northern part of Mason was taken, was originally bounded on the north by Putnam county, east, by McLean, south, by Sangamon, and west, by Peoria and Fulton, from which it was separated by the Illinois river. Its length from north to south was forty-eight miles, and from east to west, on its southern boundary, forty-five miles, and on its northen, ten miles. Its area is about twelve hundred and twenty square miles. Tremont was the county seat, about ten miles east of the Illinois river, and nearly the centre of the county. It was laid out in 1835, and in 1837 contained seventy houses, and about three hundred inhabitants. The other towns, in the original limits of the county, were Pekin, Wesley city, Havana, Mackinaw, Dillon, Bloomingdale, Washington, Detroit and Hanover. Mackinaw was the original county seat, before it was removed to Tremont. The town contained about one hundred inhabitants.

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