Wathen and Gibson entered their quarters for taxation on August 31 and September 18, 1852, and the patents came to them from President Franklin Pierce on May 5 and April 15 respectively, in 1853. What had caused our two founders to press their patents to such quick conclusion in those days of slow transportation?
On June 22, 1852, the Illinois Legislature had passed an act which provided in its ninth section that the "Peoria and Oquawka Railroad Company is hereby authorized to continue said railroad from Peoria eastward on the most eligible route, to a point on the Indiana line which shall not be more than twenty miles north or south of a due east and west line that would run through La Fayette, Indiana."6
A supplemental act dated February 8, 1853, revised this wording to read forty miles instead of the original twenty, showing that the route then being considered did not come within the twenty mile limitation. There is evidence that the Peoria and Oquawka people originally planned a southerly route through Bloomington, Champaign and Danville; a point east of there would have qualified without the supplemental act. On May 14, 1853, powerful Bloomington interests were meeting there to organize a Mississippi and Wabash Railroad Company over this route, headed by James Allin, founder of Bloomington, K. H. Fell, David Davis, Isaac Funk and Asahel Gridley and others too important politically for even a Peoria group to fight. So the Peoria men changed their effort to the line we now have, apparently taking over from still another group planning a Logansport and Pacific Railroad Company being organized in Indiana to run interstate through Peoria and westward. The Indiana group planned to "cross the Illinois Central a little south of Panola, Illinois."7
Our land promoters, Wathen and Gibson, knew a man in Peoria named Charles E. Denison who seemed to be on the inside in these railroad matters, and there is no doubt they obtained some confidential information from him for a consideration of benefit to him and the railroad. On April 20, 1854, Woodford County Surveyor C. H. Chitty had their original town plat ready for filing; lest they tip their hand to rivals, including Harry D. Cook and his proposed town of Oneida north of Hudson, they held up the recording until May 6, 1857.8 The Peoria and Oquawka was then completed to Chenoa and was using the 100 foot right-of-way they had platted on their map for it without cost to the railroad. Switch tracks called Y's gave the Peoria road connecting tracks with the Illinois Central; this Peoria outlet had been so valuable to the Central that it had bought stock in the Eastern Extension.
What is today called the Main Line of Mid-America made its first scheduled passenger run northward, passing Kappa at 8 A. M. on May 23, 1853, and Panola at 8:54 A. M. The engine and cars had been previously brought south from the Illinois River on a nonscheduled run. Allen Hart, the early Palestine Township settler, came into Kappa on this train, the first ever scheduled over the first fifty miles of rails
Page 46