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Blue Mound Township History
Political
McLean County, Illinois

(Transcribed by: Teri Moncelle Colglazier)

The following persons have served as Justices of the Peace : J. M. Rayborn, Isaac Smith, P. Barnhouse, G. L. Libbey, J. Van Bushkirk, D. Wheeler, E. Easley, J. B. Bender, L. C. Blake, Thomas Arnold. The following have had charge of highways: J. Lupton, J. S. Stagner, H. Horney, H. Coal, W. Newton, William McHugh, Isaac Smith, J. W. Abbott, W. H. Hayes, William Benjamin, James Smith, Wesley Lewis, W. I. Arnold, D. Wheeler, W. H. Murphy, J. Arnold, W. L. Sapp, M. S. Sill, L. Bender, E. H. Burbank, E. B. Johnson. D. Wheeler served as Township School Treasurer three years, Isaac Smith ten years, until his tragic death. After him, William McHugh for some time, then Benjamin McCoy, the present very efficient officer. On the death of Mr. Isaac Smith, a deficit was discovered in his affairs ; demand was made upon the signers of his bond; they resisted payment for several reasons which seemed sufficient to them, the principal one being that the School Trustees, whose officer the Treasurer is, had been derelict in duty, in not sufficiently examining his affairs, and in permitting him at the time of his last election to serve six months without a new bond. Hon. William H. Smith, of Lexington, was one of the bondsmen. and he was known to be wealthy, which was thought to have bad its influence on the Trustees, they probably reasoning that he was "good for it." The case was tried before Judge Tipton and decision given against the Trustees and in favor of the bondsmen, on the ground that the office was an annual office and that an annual bond must be signed, and for this neglect the signers of the bond were released, following the decision given in the case against the bondsmen of Duff, Treasurer of the State Reform School. The amount was not large; but the legal principle and its effects were important ant to every township in the State. Capt. Rowell, attorney for the Trustees, carried the case to the Supreme Court, where Judge Tipton's decision was reversed and a new trial granted, which resulted in holding the bond good, thus throwing an additional security over all school funds. The Reform School case was never carried to the Supreme Court, through the negligence of the State officials, or it might have been reversed. For some years, the people of all this prairie country suffered great inconvenience in consequence of the expensive fencing necessary to protect their crops from the great herds of cattle which were allowed to roam at will over the prairie. In 1872, the township provided by ordinance against cattle running at large, at their regular town meeting. The ordinance followed the one of the town of Cropsey, which had been sustained and proved successful in its operation. [The History of McLean County, Illinois, Chicago: W. LeBaron Jr. & Co., 1879]

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