Indianola, Illinois

About the year 1820 Mr. Starr, an uncle of Barnett and Absalom, bought, at the land sales at Palestine, eight hundred and eighty acres of land near where Mr. R. E. Barnett now resides, and proposed to make his home there. He was then living at or near Palestine, where Henry Johnson and his nephews were living. If he ever came here to live it was only temporarily, for, either that year or the following, he traded the entire tract to John Myers for his eighty-acre farm in Ohio.

Passage source: History of Vermilion County, Together with Historic Notes on the Northwest, Gleaned from Early Authors, Old Maps and Manuscripts, Private and Official Correspondence, and Other Authentic, Though, for the Most Part, Out-of-the-way Sources, published 1879.

Moses Bradshaw came here from Virginia in 1821 and cleared a place in the timber, near by Mr. Barnett's present residence. He had several sons, two of whom, Daniel and William, were able to help him in making a farm in the timber-land; but it was sickly here, and he took the first opportunity to sell oat, and went back to Virginia. The Richmond family lived in the timber here one winter and summer. The boys were William, David, James, John, and Lewis, " the squealer," and there were four girls. They went to Douglas county before there was a house in Charleston. Simon Cox came in 1822 and took up land. He and Myers commenced to build a mill. First they tried a watermill, and then put in steam ; but neither were practical millwrights, and did not succeed in their enterprise. Peter Summe assisted in building the mill. It was both a grist and saw mill, and, like all these old ones, the stones were cut out of boulders found here. It stood -where the first county road running from where Abraham Sandusky's house stands, south across the stream, and about one mile southeast of Indianola.

Passage source: History of Vermilion County, Together with Historic Notes on the Northwest, Gleaned from Early Authors, Old Maps and Manuscripts, Private and Official Correspondence, and Other Authentic, Though, for the Most Part, Out-of-the-way Sources, published 1879.

Silas Waters came from Kentucky in 1828, and took up a farm just east of where Mr. Dickson lives. Mr. and Mrs. Waters died here, but the nine children they brought with them are still living. The mother of this family of old folks was for many years a member of the Methodist church, and inspired their young steps in the paths she delighted in. The eldest of this remarkable family is eighty-one, and the youngest is sixty-live. The united ages of the nine is six hundred and fifty-seven years. The remarkable instance is so much more remarkable in view of the liability to sickness which those who came here fifty years ago were under. There were few families who remained here during the pioneer times without having their circle shattered by the hand of death. The children of old Silas Waters, Silas, Mrs. Kiel, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Crumbaugh, live at LeRoy, in McLean county, where the former has, for almost fifty years, been the stay and strength of the Methodist church at that place. John is in Shelby county, James in Georgetown, Mrs. Wright in Middlefork, Mrs. Dickson and Mrs. Sconce here.

Passage source: History of Vermilion County, Together with Historic Notes on the Northwest, Gleaned from Early Authors, Old Maps and Manuscripts, Private and Official Correspondence, and Other Authentic, Though, for the Most Part, Out-of-the-way Sources, published 1879.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Carroll Township - it names this place 33 more 33 times.