Book Description

Excerpt from Henry S. Metz's History and Reminiscences of Schuyler County, Illinois But afterwards Leven Green, Thos. Blair and Benjamin Chadsey were appointed by the General Assembly to select a new location, and on the 20th day of February, 1826, a little over fifty years ago, they selected the present site of Rushville as the seat of justice, and called it Rushton (after an eminent physician in Philadelphia), which is the southwest quarter of section 80 in township two north range one west, and on April 24th, 1826, the County Commissioners ordered the range of the county seat changed from Rushton to Rushville. Thomas Blair, Samuel McKee and Samuel Horney were the first County Commissioners. The first town lots in Rushville were sold July 4th, 1826, and it was ordered that the notice of the same be published in the Edwardsville Spectator. J. D. Manlove was the first Surveyor of the county, Orris McCartney the first Sheriff, J. D. Terry the first Recorder and Circuit Clerk, Willis O'Neil the first Treasurer, and Major Harl. Fellows afterward held almost all the offices within the gift of the people at the same lime. The first court of record held in the county was presided over by Judge John York Sawyer, and was held in a little cabin belonging to Samuel Turner, at about where Pleasantview now stands. Right here we will refer to some of the noted personages who have lived, and some who still reside in Schuyler county. Judge T. Lyle Dickey, one of the Supreme Judges of the State, resided in this county in 1813-4. The lamented Senator W. A. Richardson was a resident of Rushville from about 1835 until 1849, when he removed to Quiney. Hon. Robert Blackwell, author of "Blackwell on Tax-Titles," also resided in Rushville until about the year 1850. The Hon. Wm. A. Minshall, who was second to none in the State as a jurist, was also a resident of and died in this county in the year 1851. And last, but not least, we still have in our midst Hon. Pinkney H. Walker, who has for over eighteen years graced the Supreme Bench, and for the present term was elected without opposition. Schuyler count embraces a superficial area of a little over eleven townships, or about four hundred and fourteen square miles, and is bounded on the north by McDonough and Fulton counties, on the east by Fulton county and the Illinois river; on the south by Brown county, and on the west by the counties of Adams and Hancock. When the county was erected all the territory lying north of it, and Hancock county, and west of the fourth principal meridian, was added to Schuyler for county purposes. Therefore Schuyler county virtually extended to and included all the territory north as far as Rock Island. Its surface is considerably diversified with hills and valleys, prairies and heavily timbered woodlands, the proportion of prairie and timber lands being about one of the former to thrive of the latter. Along the bluffs of Crooked creek and Illinois river the surface is quite broken and hilly, but even these broken lands possess a rich and productive soil, and are valuable for agricultural purposes wherever they are sufficiently level for cultivation. The prairies are mostly small and are restricted to the northern and western portions of the county. The county is well watered, mainly by Crocked creek and its affluents, which traverses its southern, and western portion, and by Sugar creek and the Illinois river, the former intersecting the eastern portion of the county and the latter forming in part its eastern boundary. Crooked creek furnished considerable water power, and in the early settlement of the county the inhabitants of this and several adjoining counties were dependent upon the water mills upon this stream for nearly all their milling facilities. More recently, however, steam power has to a great extent superceded the old water mill, and most of the mills on this stream have a steam engine attached to e