Clark. Virginia then established a "County of Illinois" with Kaskaskia as the county seat, and Capt. John Todd as its Lieutenant Governor, or Commander. When Virginia surrendered her claims in 1784, we became a part of Indiana in the Northwest Territory.
On June 20, 1790, Gen. Arthur St. Clair, our territorial governor, decreed the first county to be named St. Clair in his own honor. He then put our area in a second county and named it for Gen. Knox. The second county covered much of Indiana and Illinois. The southwestern boundary of this was described as a line running straight to the northwest "from a small creek or stream ... above Fort Massac" to the "mouth of the Little Michilmacinack," which is our own Mackinaw River. After being in this huge county we were transferred frequently, as follows:
February 3, 1801: To St. Clair County, along with all of Northern Illinois. We were still in Indiana Territory.
September 14, 1812. To Madison County, Territory of Illinois; Governor Ninian Edwards designated the "house of Thomas Kirkpatrick" as the county seat.
November 28, 1814: To Edwards County by legislative action, instead of decree as all transfers except the very first had been. Our boundary on the west is mentioned in a new manner: "The Meridian Line which runs due north from the mouth of the Ohio River." This 1814 act made the survey of the third meridian a necessity, accomplished seven years later.
December 31, 1816: To Crawford County with the same western boundary.
March 22, 1819: To Clark County, with the same western boundary. It was our first transfer by legislative act of the new State of Illinois.
February 14, 1821: To Fayette County, a much smaller unit, with the Third Principal Meridian, then being surveyed, still our western boundary. Our northern boundary is moved southward to the Illinois River line.
January 31, 1827: To Tazewell County; our northern line was then fixed as it remains today, except that it extended eastward some miles into what is now Livingston County.
December 25, 1830: To McLean County, newly formed and named for John McLean. Our western boundary was moved west to a north and south line now Eureka's main roadway.
February 27, 1841: To Woodford County with its present day boundaries. Organizer Thomas Bullock arranged a zigzag line in parting from Republican McLean County which would assure known Democrats would live in Woodford County thereafter, and Woodford County repeatedly voted for the Democratic Party until the turn of the century. He also named the county seat Versailles and the county Woodford, after his old home in that county in Kentucky.
(From Counties of Illinois, compiled by Edward J. Barrett, Secretary of State, as to dates of transfer only.)
7. Condensed from several early Illinois histories; see Edwards, Reynolds,
or Struve and Davidsons.
8. Struve and Davidson. Also see Howe's The Loyal West, p. 311.
9. Joseph and Elizabeth (McNaught) Bartholomew were among the most prominent of McLean County's celebrated pioneers. He became a major
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