Sherrard Banking Company

The Bank of Cable was conducted in the '90s by Evans & Jones, but assigned in December, 1895, and C. A. Samuelson of Sherrard was appointed to wind up the business. The assets were about twenty-one thousand dollars and the deposits amounted to sixteen thousand dollars. L. D. Thomason helped to wind up the affairs of the bank. Mr. Jones of the bank was finally arrested upon the charge of having received deposits after he knew the bank was insolvent. In recent years the town has not been as prosperous as it formerly was.

Passage source: Past and Present of Mercer County, Illinois, published 1914.

The Village of Sherrard was duly acknowledged May 1, 1894, and was laid out by Ransom R. Cable and H. B. Sudlow, and located on section 4. Since that date several additions to this town have been made. The coal branch of the Chicago, Rock Island 6c Pacific Railroad was extended east from Preemption to section 4, where the new coal shaft was sunk ninety-three feet deep, under the direction of David Sherrard, who platted forty-four acres there and commenced the Town of Sherrard about two and a half miles east of Cable. One of the first industries here was the Richland Grove Creamery, which ran during the cold weather of 1893-4, three days in the week. It ground feed for the farmers the other three days. During February, 1894, they paid $903 for cream and one day in April purchased 6.000 pounds of cream. Thev operated two separators. In the spring of 1894 it was made a postoffice. Other coal shafts were sunk, every one being about two hundred feet deep. In May, 1894, six houses were going up at one time. The first lots were sold in May, and by January 1, 1895, there were fifty houses, nearly all of them occupied by miners and their families. There were two lumber yards, two hotels, one livery stable, and a Congregational church was organized. P. L. Jones and G. M. Jones, of the firm of Evans & Jones, built a large hotel at that time. It was 44 by 50 feet, three stories high and contained twenty-eight rooms. It was steam heated and gas lighted. The banking firm of Evans & Jones started up at this time. In November, 1895, the village voted on the question of incorporation, there being cast forty-four votes for incorporation and fifty-five against it. The question was voted down because many of the voters did not desire to include within the town limits certain tracts of land which they thought should remain outside.

Passage source: Past and Present of Mercer County, Illinois, published 1914.

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 Richland Grove Township - 3,318 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.