Pre-Columbian era

Cahokia, the urban center of the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, was located near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. That civilization vanished circa 1400–1500 for unknown reasons. The next major power in the region was the Illiniwek Confederation, a political alliance among several tribes. The Illiniwek gave Illinois its name. The Illini suffered in the 17th century as Iroquois expansion (caused by European expansion in the eastern United States) forced them to compete with several tribes for land. The Illini were replaced in Illinois by the Potawatomi, Miami, Sauk, and other tribes.

European exploration and colonization

French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet explored the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers in 1673. As a result of their exploration, the Illinois Country was part of the French empire until 1763, when it passed to the British. The area was ceded to the new United States in 1783 and became part of the Northwest Territory.

Illinois in 1718, Guillaume de L'Isle map, approximate state area highlighted.

The Illinois-Wabash Company was an early claimant to much of Illinois. The Illinois Territory was created on February 3, 1809. Illinois saw the construction of numerous civilian forts during the War of 1812, as well as the short-lived Fort Johnson.

Statehood

On December 3, 1818, Illinois became the 21st U.S. state. Early U.S. settlement began in the south part of the state and quickly spread northward, driving out the native residents. In 1832, some Indians returned from Iowa but were driven out in the Black Hawk War, fought by militia.

Illinois is known as the "Land of Lincoln" because it is here that the 16th President spent his formative years. Chicago gained prominence as a lake and canal port after 1848, and as a rail hub soon afterward. By 1857, Chicago was the state's dominant metropolis.

The Territory of Illinois was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 1, 1809, until December 3, 1818, when the southern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Illinois. The area was earlier known as "Illinois Country" while under French control, first as part of French Canada and then as part of Louisiana. The British gained authority over the region with the 1763 Treaty of Paris, marking the end of the French and Indian War. During the American Revolutionary War, Colonel George Rogers Clark took possession of the entire Illinois Country for Virginia, which established the "County of Illinois" to exercise nominal governance over the area. Virginia later ceded nearly all of its claims to land north of the Ohio River to the Federal government of the United States in order to satisfy objections of land-locked states. The area had been a part of the larger Northwest Territory (from 13 July 1787 until 4 July 1800), and then part of the Indiana Territory as Ohio prepared to become a state. On 3 February 1809, the 10th United States Congress passed legislation establishing the Illinois Territory, after Congress received petitions from residents in the far western areas complaining of the difficulties of participating in territorial affairs.

Boundaries

The Illinois Territory originally included lands that became the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, the eastern portion of Minnesota, and the western portion of the upper peninsula of Michigan. As Illinois was preparing to become a state, the remaining area of the territory was attached to the Michigan Territory.

The original boundaries of the Territory were defined as follows: “...all that part of the Indiana Territory which lies west of the Wabash river, and a direct line drawn from the said Wabash river and Post Vincennes, due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada...”

Kaskaskia was the territorial capital. The 1810 census showed a population of 12,282.^[1]

Kaskaskia is a village in Randolph County, Illinois, United States. In the 2010 census the population was 14, making it the second-smallest incorporated community in the State of Illinois in terms of population.^[1] A major French colonial town of the Illinois Country, its peak population was about 7,000 when it was a regional center in the 18th century. Kaskaskia then became the capital of the United States' Illinois Territory, created on February 3, 1809. In 1818, when Illinois became the 21st U.S. state, it briefly served as the state's first capital until 1819, when the capitol moved to Vandalia.

Most of the town was destroyed in April 1881 by flooding, as the Mississippi River shifted eastward to a new channel, taking over the lower 10 miles (16 km) of the Kaskaskia River. This resulted from deforestation of the river banks during the 19th century, due to the need for wood fuel to feed the steamboat traffic. The river now passes east rather than west of the town. The state boundary line, however, remained in its original location. Accordingly, if the Mississippi River is considered to be a break in physical continuity, Kaskaskia is an exclave of Illinois, lying west of the Mississippi and only reachable from Missouri. A bridge crosses the old riverbed, a creek that is sometimes filled with water, and sometimes not. Kaskaskia has Missouri telephone area code and a Missouri zip code.

History

The town was named after the Native American word for the Kaskaskia River. At first favorably situated on a peninsula, the town was cut off and mostly destroyed by repeated flooding and a channel change by the Mississippi River.

The site of Kaskaskia near the river was first a Native American village, inhabited by varying indigenous peoples for thousands of years.

In 1703 French Jesuit missionaries established a mission with the goal of converting the Illini Native Americans to Catholicism. The congregation built its first stone church in 1714. The French also had a trading post in the fur trade at the village.^[3] French settlers moved in to farm and to exploit the lead mines on the Missouri side of the river. Kaskaskia became the capital of Upper Louisiana and the French built Fort de Chartres in 1718. In

In 1733 the French built Fort Kaskaskia near this site. It was destroyed by the British in 1763 during the French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Years War), which they won. Rather than live under British rule after France ceded the territory east of the river, many French-speaking people from Kaskaskia and other colonial towns moved west of the Mississippi to Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis, and other areas.

The city fell on July 4, 1778 to George Rogers Clark and his force of 200 men including Captain Leonard Helm during one of the western most battles of the American Revolution. The parish rang the church bell in celebration, which has since been called the "liberty bell". It is housed in a brick building shrine near the Church of the Immaculate Conception. The brick church was built in 1843 in the squared-off French style.^[7]

As a center of the regional economy, Kaskaskia served as the capital of Illinois Territory from 1809 until statehood was gained in 1818, and then as state capital until 1819. Its peak population was about 7,000 before the capital moved in 1819 to Vandalia. Although introduction of steamboats on the Mississippi River stimulated the economies of river towns in the 19th century, their use also had devastating environmental effects. Deforestation of the banks followed steamboat crews' regular cutting of trees to feed the engine fires. River banks became unstable and collapsed into the water.

Elvira
Johnson County, Illinois

History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois

Union County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 17,808, which is a decrease of 2.7% from 18,293 in 2000.^[1] Its county seat is Jonesboro.^[2]

History

Union County was formed out of Johnson County in 1818, the same year Illinois joined the Union. It was named for a joint revival meeting of the Baptists and Dunkards, called a "union meeting". The county seal depicts the leaders of these two groups shaking hands.^[4]

Census of 1818

Union County Illinois Genealogy Trails

The 1820 Census for Union County, Illinois

Union County Illinois Genealogy Trails

go here for maps, hx etc

Forts of Illinois

PRAIRIES - A peculiar feature of the country, in the middle and northern portion of the State, which excited the amazement of early explorers, was the vast extent of the prairies or natural meadows..... In spite of the uniformity in altitude of the State as a whole, many sections present a variety of surface and a mingling of plain and woodland of the most pleasing character. This is especially the case in some of the prairie districts where the undulating landscape covered with rich herbage and brilliant flowers must have presented to the first explorers a scene of ravishing beauty, which has been enhanced rather than diminished in recent times by the hand of cultivation. Along some of the streams also, especially on the upper Mississippi and Illinois, and at some points on the Ohio, is found scenery of a most picturesque variety. [Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois", 1901]

1813 Aug. 15 - Thomas GREEN - Justice of Peace - Johnson Co.

William P. Green was born October 28, 1854, in Union county, Illinois, the son of William and Cornelia (Bennett) Green. Nathaniel Green, the grandfather, an energetic South Carolinian, came to this county about 1803. He was the father of Mastin, David and William Green. Mastin and David were born in South Carolina and William was born in this county in 1806. The father died here soon after and the boys located in the Mississippi Bottoms. These brothers are all dead. p. 610

When they located in the Mississippi Bottoms they resided for a time with an uncle who managed Green's Ferry on the Father of Waters. The boys lived the wholesome, strenuous life of the pioneer, raising crops in the summer and in the fall and winter going into the woods where they made a flat-boat on which they floated their produce down to New Orleans and sold it. They were industrious and thrifty and in this way accumulated considerable money. In 1844 they were driven out of the bottoms by floods and they went to the hills. David Green settled on his farm at Green's Crossing near Cobden and opened a general merchandise store at that place in 1854. William Green, father of him whose name inaugurates this review, removed to Jonesboro and continued farming. He owned a section of land west of that place, and this he tilled up to the time of his death in 1865. This good man, who was respected and influential in his community, reared a family of four children. Florence W. born October 26, 1834, died August 15, 1899. He married Annetta Cover January 17, 1865, and their surviving children are as follows: Otis, Daniel, John H., Florence E., James A. and Roy. Mollie, second of the subject's sisters, married Calvin Miller first and after his death became the wife of A. C. Stage, her present residence being in Chicago. The subject is third in order of birth and the youngest member of the family is David M., an Arkansas farmer. The father, William Green Sr., was one of the organizers of the Union County Agricultural & Mechanical Society, which held the first county fair in this county. He was a member and deacon in the Baptist church of Jonesboro and his hand was given to all good causes. In his time he accumulated considerable wealth. His wife, whose maiden name was Cornelia Bennett, died in 1855, in the infancy of William, Jr.