BlockRichland Township
The complete chapter on this township from History of LaSalle County, Illinois : Its Topography, Geology, Botany, Natural History, History of the Mound Builders, Indian Tribes, French Explorations, and a Sketch of the Pioneer Settlers of Each Town to 1840, with an Appendix, Giving the Present Status of the County, Its Population, Resources, Manufactures and Institutions, published 1877. 358 words, covering 2 settlements. Source changes inside the text are labelled at the exact paragraph where the next book begins.
Contents
1 sectionThe section headings the book prints inside this chapter. Each one jumps to where it begins.
The modern record here
2 settlementsWhat the federal record holds for each settlement inside this township: wildfires and storm reports since the 1950s, mineral workings, and museum specimens collected nearby. These are counted within a few miles of each settlement, so neighbours share them and the columns are deliberately not added up. Every row links to the settlement's own page, where each figure is broken out.
Settlements in this township
2 placesEvery populated place the Geographic Names Information System records inside this township's Census boundary. None of the 2 is named in the chapter: they were founded later or were never more than a post office.
The chapter
358 wordsReproduced complete and unedited from History of LaSalle County, Illinois : Its Topography, Geology, Botany, Natural History, History of the Mound Builders, Indian Tribes, French Explorations, and a Sketch of the Pioneer Settlers of Each Town to 1840, with an Appendix, Giving the Present Status of the County, Its Population, Resources, Manufactures and Institutions, published 1877. The text is machine-read from scans, so expect recognition errors: misspelled names, dropped words, and stray characters. Nothing has been corrected, because correcting a proper name invents one. The headings below are the books' own; source changes are labelled in place.
Richland Township
The town of Richland embraces the west twothirds of T. 31, of R. 2. It constituted a part of Eagle Township till 1867. Itis an elevated prairie district, with no considerable stream, and no timber land within its limits. When the county was diyided into townships, under the Township Organization Act, the Commissioners decided to make the navigable rivers, or such as were so declared by law, township lines, and consequently all towns eut by the Tlinois, Fox, and Vermillion rivers, were divided by the stream.
The town of Eagle embraced T, 31, R. 2, and half of the town east of it, and south of the river. This policy was adopted for the reason that there were no bridges, and the streams were impassable at high water. Where the streams have been bridged, the tendency has t to so alter the town lines as fo have the boundaries correspond with the surveyed township. This is a great convenience in electing school officers, and doing the business relating to schools - and that size is doubtless the most convenient. If Brace had claimed the part of her township south of the river, and Eagle or Richland taken the balance, or the whole of T. 31, R. 2, it would have been a better arrangement. Bruce would have been forced to build a bridge over the Vermillion, which ought to huve been done long since. Rich- Jand, being a prairie town, remained unoceupied till the building of the canal and railroad made its settlement practicable, In 1840 William Linder settled on 8.8. Peter Eschback, in 1851, settled on the same section, Conrad Eschback, in the same year, settled on S. 10, all from Germany, and commenced what is now the prosperous German settle. ment in the northeast part of the town,
Israel Jones, from Maine ; W. Keller, from Ohio ; Tsaae Vale, from Pennsylvania ; William Copeland, Andrew Foss, and Alfred Lathrop, from Maine. The foregoing were those who first occupied and improved farms and participated in the experiences incident to the opening of anew country. Richland is now a well settled and populous town, the German element largely predominating.
Provenance
Text from History of LaSalle County, Illinois : Its Topography, Geology, Botany, Natural History, History of the Mound Builders, Indian Tribes, French Explorations, and a Sketch of the Pioneer Settlers of Each Town to 1840, with an Appendix, Giving the Present Status of the County, Its Population, Resources, Manufactures and Institutions, published 1877, in the public domain in the United States and digitised by the Internet Archive. The settlements listed against this township are matched by point-in-polygon test of each Geographic Names Information System coordinate against the Census Bureau's county subdivision boundary, not by name.