Peoria County, Illinois - Chapter 4: Organization of Peoria County, 1880

St. Clair County - Madison County - Pike County - Fulton County - The First Election in Fulton County - Going to the Election in Canoes - The Candidates for Sheriff - Eads and Ross - Eads Elected by one Majority - Ross Contests the Election - The Result - Peoria County Organized - Origin of the Name.

St. Clair is the oldest county organization in Illinois, and was established by proclamation of Governor Arthur St. Clair in 1790. Madison county was established by proclamation of Governor Edwards, dated September 14, 1812, with the following boundaries :

"Beginning on the Mississippi, to run with the second township above Cahokia east, until it strikes the dividing line between the Illinois and Indiana Territories ; thence with the said dividing line to the line of Upper Canada ; thence with the said line to the Mississippi ; thence down the Mississippi to place of beginning."

These boundaries included not only Peoria and three-fourths of the State besides, but all of the present State of Wisconsin and that part of Minnesota which lies on the east side of the Mississippi river. Edwardsville was the county seat, and some of the early documents relating to realty in what is now Peoria county, were first entered of record in the offices at that place.

Pike county, as elsewhere noted, was organized by an act of the second State Legislature, approved January 31, 1821, with the following boundaries: same ; thence up the south fork of said river until it strikes the State line of Indiana ; thence north with said line to the north boundary of this State ; thence west to the west boundary line of the State ; and thence south with said line to the place of beginning."

After the passage of this act, until 1823, the few settlers about Fort Clark were subject to the jurisdiction of Pike county, and all papers of a legal character were served from the officers of that county, and land documents were entered of record at the county seat of Pike.

Under an act of the Legislature approved '28th January, 1823, Fulton county was organized from Pike county, with Lewistown as the county seat. Fulton county included all the territory north of the State line. The first election for county officers was held at Lewistown, and the few voters at Fort Clark and vicinity must either go thereto vote, or not vote at all. They had a candidate for sheriff, Abner Eads, and were especially interested in that election. They mustered in full force, laid in a full supply of commissary stores, and went down in a body by canoes, to attend the election, two canoes being sufficient to accommodate them. They went equipped as the custom of the times demanded. When the votes were counted, it was found that Eads had one majority over Ossian Ross, the Fulton candidate. Ross contested tlie election on the ground that some of those who voted for Eads were not residents of the county ; that they lived on the east side of the river, and, consequently, were not entitled to vote in Fulton county ; and on the further ground that Eads could not write, and was, therefore, incompetent to discharge the duties of the office. To obviate this difficulty Eads took lessons in penmanship from Jesse Wood, who was a preacher and a teacher, and in about four weeks advanced far enough to write his name. Judge Reynolds was presiding judge and ordered depositions to be taken as evidence in the case, and the log cabin office of John Hamlin, who came to Fort Clark about 1821, and who was appointed justice of the peace when Fulton county was organized, was selected as the place where the depositions should be taken. His associate, H. R. Coulter, sat with him while the depositions were being taken. It is said there was about as much excitement over that contest as there was over the Presidential election in 1876. However, Justices Hamlin and Coulter were not hampered by Returning Boards, nor were they intimidated by the presence of " Visiting Statesmen." The contest was not sustained, and Eads was declared legally elected sheriif.

Peoria county was created under the provisions of an act approved January 13, 1825, entitled "An act to form a new county out of the country in the vicinity of Fort Clark," as follows :

Sbction I. Bt it enacted hy the people of tht State of Illinois, represented in tkt Central Assembly; That all that tract of country within the following boundaries, to wit ; Beginning where the line between towns eleven and twelve north intersects the Illinois river ; thence west with said line, between ranges four and five east ; thence south with said line to the line between towns seven and eight ; thence east to the line between ranges live and si» ; thence south to the middle of the main channel of the Illinois river ; thence up said middle of the main channel to the place of beginning, shall constitute a county to be called I'eoria.

Section two provided " That all tliat tract of country north of town twenty, and west of the third principal meridian, formerly part of Sangamon county, be, and is hereby attached to said county of Peoria, for county purposes : Provided^ however. The citizen« of the attached part of said county are not to be taxed for the erection of public buildings, f)r for the purchase of the quarter section iiereinafter mentioned.

Section three ^'further enacted That the county seat of said county of Peoria should be esUiblished on the northeast quarter of section nine, town eight north, range eight east, and that the County Commissioners of said county are hereby authorized to purchase said quarter section of land of the United States as provided for by the law of Congress."

SECTtON 4. fie it furiKerenaite.i, That on the lir^t day of March next, (1825.) an election shall be held at the house of William Eads, at which time there shall be elected one sherifl, one coroner and three county commission- ers, for said county ; which election shall, in all respects, be conducted agreeably to the provisions of the law now in force regulating elections : Provided, That the qualified voters present may select from among their number three competent electors to act as judges of said election, who shall appoint two qualified voters to act as clerks.

Section 5. Be it further enacted. That it shall be the duty of the clerk of Sangamon county to give public notice in said Peoria county, and the attached part, at least ten days previous to the election to be held on the first Monday in March next ; and in case there should be no clerk, then the sheriff of said county shall give notice, as aforesaid, of the time and place of holding the election.

Section six provided That the county of Peoria should receive " two hundred dollars out of the public treasury, as full compensation for their proportion of non-resident land tax, in the same way as the county of Pike might or could do under the act entitled ' An act amending an act entitled an act providing for the valuation of lands and other property, and laying a tax thereon.' approved February 15, 1821."

Section seven provided " That the said county of Peoria and the attached part of said county mentioned in section two should vote witli the county of Sangamon for Representative and Senator to the General Assembly."

Section eight declared " That all that tract of country north of said Peoria county, and of the Illinois and Kankakee rivers, be, and the same is hereby attached to said county, for all county purposes."

The name Peoria is derived from a tribe of Indians who once inhabited this part of Illinois. Mr. Ballance, who settled here in November, 1831, and from whose history of the city of Peoria we have frequently quoted, and who ought to be good authority by reason of his early and long residence, as well as by reason of his profession - the law - says : " Travelers and historians have not agreed in the spelling of the name. I have seen it spelt Piorias, Proraria and Proneroa. Hennepin wrote it Pimitouii ; but this, I suppose, is another name given to it, as Peoria was, after a tribe of Indians, who were destroyed or driven away by the Peorias. This word is also variously spelt. I have seen it terminate with one ;', with two i's and with three. There were Indians here when I came, who called the place Cock-meek, but what they meant by it I never knew. The French sometimes called it O'Pa, their mode of pronouncing Au Pied, the foot, meaning the foot of the lake. However, in old times they called their town, which was about a mile and a half above the outlet, Peoria. When they began to build at the outlet, they called that place La viUe de Maillet, after John B. Maillet, who first built there, or the new village of Peoria. But in process of time, when the old village had become entirely abandoned, the name Peoria was transferred to the new village, and so it came to be generally called, until the building of Fort Clark."

From the time of General Howard's campaign against the Indians in the Summer and Fall of 1813, and the building of Fort Clark by his army, this region was known as the " Fort Clark country," and the law creating the county was styled " An act to form a new county out of the country in the vicinity of Fort Clark." The act named the county Peoria, however, and established the county seat on a particular quarter section, and the name of Fort Clark, as applied to this particular locality, gradually passed out of use and into history.