Baptist missionary described early 1800 Sangamon County as one of the 'most flourishing'
In the early 1800s, John Mason Peck traveled widely in Missouri and Illinois as a Baptist missionary. He helped establish more than 900 churches and was important in efforts to eliminate slavery in Illinois.
He also “wrote prolifically,” Wikipedia says, “including on agriculture, frontier history and Native American matters.” Among his books is the epically titled ‘A gazetteer of Illinois: in three parts, containing a general view of the state, a general view of each county, and a particular description of each town, settlement, stream, prairie, bottom, bluff, etc., alphabetically arranged.’ Peck’s Gazetteer was published in 1837.
Here is part of what Peck wrote about Sangamon County (spelling and punctuation in the original).
“Sangamon County is one of the largest and most flourishing, counties in the state. It is bounded on the north by Tazewell; east, by Macon; south by Montgomery and Macoupin and west by Cass and Morgan counties. The northwestern corner runs down between the Sangamon River, which separates it from Cass county, and Tazewell county, to the Illinois river. (Peck was writing two years before Sangamon County was reduced to its present size with the creation of Menard, Logan and Dane, now Christian, counties.)
“It is forty-eight miles long, besides the corner mentioned; and forty -five miles wide – containing, in the whole, an area of about 1,270 square miles.
“Sangamon county is watered by the Sangamon river and its numerous branches. … These streams not only furnish this county with an abundance of excellent water and a number of good mill seats, but are lined with extensive tracts of first rate timbered land.
“Here are oaks of various species, walnut, sugar maple, elm, linden, hickory, ash, hackberry, honey locust, mulberry, sycamore, cotton wood, sassafras, etc., together with the various shrubs, common to the country.
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“The size of the prairies in Sangamon county is seized upon as an objection, by persons who are not accustomed to a prairie country. But were the timber a little more equally distributed with prairie surface, its supply would be abundant. The prairies vary in width from one to eight or ten miles, and somewhat indefinite in length, being connected at the heads of the streams. …
“A stranger to observations upon the surface of Illinois, upon first sight, would pronounce most parts of Sangamon county a level or plane. It is not so. With the exception of the creek bottoms and the interior of large prairies, it has an undulating surface, quite sufficient to render it one of the finest agricultural districts in the United States. …
“This county contains a larger quantity of rich land than any other in the state, and therefore can maintain a larger agricultural population, which is the great basis of national wealth.
“At the present time, the borders of the prairies are covered with hundreds of smiling farms, and the interior animated with thousands of domestic animals. The rough and unseemly cabin is giving place to comfortable or brick tenements, and plenty every where smiles upon the labors of the husbandman.
“This county is in the geographical centre of the state, and will eventually be in the centre of population. … Its population, at the last census, was 17,573, its numbers now would exceed 20,000.
“Villages and towns are springing up, some of which may become places of note, as Athens, New Salem, Richland, Salisbury, Greenfield, Rochester, etc.
“The seat of justice is Springfield.”
Excerpted from SangamonLink.org, online encyclopedia of the Sangamon County Historical Society.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Early 1800s missionary captured the essence of Sangamon County in book
