Livingston County, Illinois - Chapter 5: Townships and Villages, 1909

Chapter 5: Townships and Villages

ORGANIZATION OF TOWNSHIPS IN LIVINGSTON COUNTY IN 1857 - GEOGRAPHICAL AREAS AND ORIGIN OF NAMES - SUBSEQUENT CHANGES - FIRST SETTLERS - LIST OF VILLAGES AND CITIES WITH DATES OF INCORPORATION - SOME ABANDONED VILLAGES,

The county having township organization in 1857, the county commissioners appointed John Darnall, Robert Thompson and Absalom Hallam, as commissioners to lay out this county into townships. The commissioners divided the county into townships, and in 1858 they gave the inhabitants of the various towns notice that they would meet with them and give them an opportunity to name the towns in which they resided. The township and range, date and place of meeting, and name given the township, are as follows:

Township 26, Range 6, at school house on section 16. February 6 - Worth. (On May 11, 1858, upon petition to the board of supervisors, the name was changed to Indian Grove.)

At the meeting held in the court house, the commissioners added two more townships. 'Township 27, Range 4, was separated from township 28, Range 4 (Rooks Creek) and organized under the name of Pike, and township 29 in Range S was separated from township 30 in Range 8 (Round Grove) and named Broughtonville,

Belle Prairie included what is now Fayette, the latter being separated in 1871. Oliver's Grove was composed of the townships now known as Chatsworth, Forrest and Germanville. Saunemin included the townships of Sullivan, Pleasant Ridge and Charlotte. Union was a part of Odell until 1864. Waldo was separated from Nebraska in 1861.

EsMEN. - Given its name by Billings P. Babcock, who located in that townsnip in 1848. There was quite a strife in the town, Litchfield, Deer Creek and Campville being the names suggested, but Esmen carried the day.

BELLE PRAIRIE - Named by R. B. Harrington. The township at that time was largely Democratic, and some wanted it named Douglas, but a majority decided in favor of its present name.

NewtowNn. - First settled by people from Michigan. A little hamlet was located in the township, called New Michigan. When the township was organized, it was called Newtown.

NEvApA. - Named by Stephen Kyle. He had been to the far west in his younger days and had worked in Nevada. When the township was named, he gave it the name it now bears.

DwicHT. - Was named for Henry Dwight, builder of the Chicago & Mississippi Railroad (now the Alton), who was supposed to have been Wealthy, but lost it all in the failure of the road.

CHATSWORTH. - Was named by W. H. Osborne, former President of the Illinois Central Railroad, for the country seat of the Duke of Devonshire, in Scotland, who was largely interested in that road.

FORREST. - Was named by Mr. Frost, then President of the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad, for his former partner, Mr. Forrest of New York. It was first called Forrestville, but later changed to Forrest.

SAUNEMIN. - Given its name by Franklin Oliver, after the old sachem of the Kickapoo Indians. Oliver settled among the Indians in the spring of 1832, and knew the chief well.

Incorporated Cities And Villages

The following table presents a list of the incorporated cities, towns and villages of Livingston County, with rank and date of incorporation, and population according to census of 1900:

Abandoned Towns

Scarcely a township in Illinois but contains the site of what was once thought to be a "future great" city, and this state has the unique distinction of possessing more,instances of disappointed hopes relative to boom towns than any other in the Union. Ilinois was settled more rapidly during the pioneer era than any other state of the middle west, and hundreds of villages were founded which were believed by their enthusiastic progenitors to bid fair to become the metropolis of the west. Now the plow grates upon the forgotten stones of their foundation.

The village of Richmond was once a rival of Pontiac. It was laid out in 1851 for Henry Jones and Henry Loveless, and with prospects of the Chicago & Alton Railroad going through it, it boomed and became one of the most important towns in Livingston County. The railroad, instead, passed two miles to the west and there is no trace of the once populous and thriving village, although at one time there were several stores and shops and a school house erected there.

The village of Avoca, in Avoca township, passed out of existence when the town of Fairbury, three miles south, was laid out in 1857. The little village was laid out in the early 40's. It attracted attention through a revival meeting in which nearly all those who attended were afflicted with the "jerks." six miles to the northwest. The little town In the later '50s had the only academy in the county, where the higher branches of education were taught.

Sullivan Center, in Sullivan township, ceased to exist after the towns of Saunemin, Chatsworth and Cullom were started. At one time it did a thriving business.

Murphy Station and Norman were two small towns on the Chicago & Paducah Road, berween Fairbury and Strawn. The railroad track between the two last named towns was taken up over twenty years ago. Murphy and Norman are now waving corn fields,

The village of Potosi, on the south line of Belle Prairie, was quite a town in the "70s. Not a vestige of the place is left to tell where 1t once was located.

Zookville and Windtown are two villages of the past. Both were located in Nebraska township. Zookville was located on section 10 and Windtown on section 19. Seymour Thomas formerly conducted a store at the former place and John Linneman at the latter. Windtown received Its name from the fact that a windmill had been erected there at an early day. A Lutheran church still stands there, and besides having a resident pastor, it has a large congregation.