■i-iSi! a-^ir & m MM^} #^ » Mv HISTORY -?^ilFj&f^ p: ILLINOIS 1879 .v.f-- ^ii is LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 977.384 D7lh iri 1 •ii C^ '^j/i/i/^4 ( I *•• LIBRARy OF THE UNIVERSITY oflLUNOIS. FOUNDER OF THE TOWN OF ROODHOUSE HISTORY OF Greene County. ILLINOIS Ets ^ast anlr present, CONTATNING A History of the County; Its Cities, Towns, Etc.; A Biographical Directory of its Citizens; War Record of its Volunteers in THE Late Rebellion ; Portraits of its Early Settlers and Prominent Men; General and Local Statistics; His- tory OF THE Northwest; History of Illinois; Constitution of the United States; Map of Greene County; Miscellaneous Matters, Etc., Etc. ILLUSTRATED. CHICAGO: Donnelley, Cassette & Loyd, Publishers. 1879- COPYRIGHT, DONNELLEY, GASSETTE AND LOYD 1879. Donnelley, Gassette & Lotd. The Lakeside Press. Preface. A single county in the great State of Illinois occupies but an insignificant place upon the map of the world, and its people and its story are comparatively unknown. Yet the grand river of national history is formed by the union of many rills of tradition and record flowing from a thousand counties and states all over the land. The tracing of one of these rills to its source, and the occasional gathering of a blossom from its banks, or a glittering pebble from its bed, is the province of the present volume. The dweller on the shores of a mighty Father of Waters knows more of the busy scenes of commerce than the hardy mountaineer, but the boy whose home is by the side of a rippling brook is familiar with every stone on its bank, with every fish in its bosom, and every tree that shades its tiny wavelets ; so the History of Greene County, though it deals not with the tumults of war or the intricacies of diplomacy, gives, the reader a much clearer view of the thoughts, the habits, and the trials of the people with o whom it is connected, than is possible in a more pretentious volume. It is with " this view that we issue the present work. It is not a record of the convulsions of nations, but of the lives of a few people who lived for a short time in a very vlimited territory. *^ The History of Greene County contained in this volume on pages 221 to ^431, inclusive, were compiled by Clement L. Clapp, editor of the Carrollton Patriot, whose education and profession especially fit him for such a task. ° Mr. Clapp desires us respectfully to apologize for the fact that —various events have not received the relative attention that their importance ^demands. Owing to the haste in which the work was, of necessity,