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Quincy and Adams County, Illinois
VOLUME I
The geographical position of Adams County gave it historical prominence from the time of its first settlement ; so forcibly was this evident that in not a few of the events and movements which have been of national import, Adams County and its stanch citizenship have wielded decisive influence. Quincy, its beautiful county seat, occupying a commanding site on the banks of the Mississippi, on the western confines of Central Illinois, which here juts into the border territory of the South, was early recognized as a community where disputants over Slavery, States Rights and Mormonism would be accorded justice and even untrameled discussion. Although its leaders have never lacked positiveness and forceful expression of their opinions, Adams County earned a name for liberality and charity in its very infancy and has always maintained it. That statement applies to both its men and women, one of the pioneer organizations in the United States for "the emancipation of the weaker sex" having originated in Quincy and there developed, with the progress of the times, as a representative body of American womanhood.
In politics, in social matters, in educational influence, in patriotic works and in industrial and commercial expansion, Quincy and Adams County have constituted a credit to the state and the nation. The Soldiers' Home, the Chamber of Commerce, churches, farmers and their splendidly conserved interests, the factories and stores, and all the fine men and women, comprise subjects of interest and pride for the writers and compilers of this history. They do not pretend to have done any of such subjects full justice, but have been honest in their endeavor.
In bringing these wonders to pass, no class or nationality has been pre-eminent. No section of Illinois or the nation has been more truly American than Adams County; and especially has this been made manifest in the acid and fiery test of these days of fearful stress and war. A considerable portion of this history, however, has been devoted to the influence of the German element upon the development of Quincy and the territory tributary to it, and the supervising editor, with his advisory associates, takes pleasure in spreading the record over many pages charged with interest and instruction. No citizen of Quincy could have been better prepared to undertake and complete this exposition than Henry Bornmann. Those who know him well, and the many personalities who have been woven into his narrative, need be told that Adams County does owe a great debt to the pioneer Germans, who migrated to free America, from the country which bound them with shackles and whose intelligent and patriotic descendants, reaping the fruits of their racial industry and thrift amid the very conditions and institutions which their fathers sought, have long since forgotten that they have any blood in them but American.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I
IN A STATE OF NATURE 1
CHAPTER II
WEALTH BASED ON THE SOIL 17
CHAPTER III
PREDECESSORS OF THE WHITES 31
CHAPTER IV
COUNTY HISTORY IN THE MAKING 38
CHAPTER V
SOME YEARS PRECEDING COUNTY ORGANIZATION 88
CHAPTER VI
COUNTY GOVERNMENT AND INSTITUTIONS 107
CHAPTER VII
PROFESSIONAL SKETCHES 138
CHAPTER VIII
ROADS AND BRIDGES OP ALL KINDS 180
CHAPTER IX
THE MARTIAL RECORD 200
CHAPTER X
COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM 243
CHAPTER XI
The German Element: Its Importance in the History and Development of Quincy and Adams County 263
CHAPTER XII
CORPORATE HISTORY AND PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS 439
CHAPTER XIII
LITERARY, REFORMATORY AND CHARITABLE 510
CHAPTER XIV
CHURCHES AND SOCIETIES 540
CHAPTER XV
INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL 579
CHAPTER XVI
CAMP POINT 590
CHAPTER XVII
CLAYTON AND GOLDEN 601
CHAPTER XVIII
MENDON AND LORAINE 612
CHAPTER XIX
PAYSON AND PLAINVILLE 621
CHAPTER XX
OTHER TOWNSHIP AND VILLAGES 630
CHAPTER XXI
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS AND HISTORIES 640
CHAPTER XXII
OTHER HISTORIC CELEBRATIONS 680
CHAPTER XXIII
ADAMS COUNTY WORLD WAR PERSONNEL 689
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VOLUME II
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Adams is one of the Mississippi River counties, west of the center of the State, and lies a trifle away from the great routes of discovery and exploration into the interior of the country which were marked out by the great French adventurers and Catholic priests. As it is not far north of the historic valley of the Illinois, the region soon came within the scope of these activities, especially when the lower reaches of the Mississippi, which were supposed to lead toward the South or Oriental Seas, had been carelessly explored, and the upper waters of the great river beckoned to the revealers of the New World. What is now Adams County was then passed and repassed by great men, but they did not linger on its soil, as it was watered and fertilized by no large or attractive stream; that is, as all the majestic, bewildering and mysterious rivers of America were subject to their choice, there was no waterway in what is now Adams County which could attract them overpoweringly to its soil.
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