This is Stark County, IL

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EARLY VILLAGES

Founded in the same year as Wyoming, two stark county villages which survive to the present time are La Fayette and Osceola. Located at the western border of the county, in Goshen Township, the incorporated village of La Fayette was platted by William Dunbar, an early settler of the region. Today La Fayette has a population of 301, contains a number of retail stores and service establishments, and has its own postoffice. It is located on the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad and on State 17. The tillage of Osceola is located near the north border of the county, in Elmira Township, and was laid out by Robert Hal 1, William Hall, Archibald Van Dyke, Charles Van Dyke and Brady Fowler. It has a present population of seventy- five and is served by the postoffice at nearby Neponset (in Bureau County).

"SCOTCH SETTLEMENT"

In the northern portion of Stark County today lies the village of Elmira, with a population of 100. This village was the outgrowth of a colony of Scotsmen who settled here in 1838 and whose colony later became known as the " Scotch Settlement." We are told that the immigrant founders of the colony voyaged for six weeks on the Atlantic, and that thev traveled an even longer period in the cross-country journey to what is now Stark County. They were a strict, religious group and were strongly opposed to Negro slavery in the United States. They soon joined the Abolitionist movement and made the " Scotch Settlement " an important station of the Underground Railroad. In this activity, the Scotsmen here secreted escaped slaves in attics and barn lofts by daylight, and on moonless nights aided the slaves to the nearest station north.

STARK COUNTY ORGANIZED

After the close of the Black Hawk War of 1832, a

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conflict which resulted in the permanent removal of the Indians from Illinois, more homeseekers poured into the Prairie State than at any time in its previous history. Although many of the earliest settlers of Stark County were from Southern states, having come up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers and passed through the " gateway " of Peoria, there now appeared in the region, during the late 1830' s, almost as many settlers from Eastern states; families from New England and New York State who had come by way of the new Erie Canal and the Great Lakes and had passed through the " gateway " of Chicago.

A glance of some of the pioneer families of Stark County will show the diversity of their origins. We find that the Buswells, Smiths, Spencers, and Eastmans were from New England; the Thomases, Moores, Holgates, Fullers and Whittakers from Pennsylvania; the Coxes from Ohio; the Perrys, Essexes and Parkers from Virginia; the McClanahans from Kentucky; the Hendersons from Tennessee; the Lees and Hayeses from New Jersey; the Halls from England; and the Turnbulls and Olivers from Scotland.

As more and more homeseekers established farms in the western portion of Putnam County and the eastern portion of of Knox County, as settlements began to grow in number in this rich, fertile area, there soon arose talk of the formation of a new county. And this talk eventually grew into a definite call for action after a canvass showed there were 350 legal voters in the locality the required number then for the formation of a new county.

Now followed the circulation of petitions among khe settlers on either side of the upper reaches of the Spoon River. When enough signatures had been obtained, the petitions were brought before the Illinois state legislature. That body acted favorably on the petitions and thus Stark County was created on March 2, 1839. The enabling act for the new county was signed by Governor Thomas Carlin.

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As a matter of fact, the Illinois state legislature, in that same year of 1839, created fourteen other new counties besides Stark. These were Marshall, Brown, DuPage, Dane (now Christian), Logan, Menard, Scott, Carroll, Lee, Jersey, Warren, DeWitt, Lake and Hardin.

When Stark County was organized, the residents in two eastern townships of Knox County were directed by law to vote on whether they wanted to remain in Knox or be attached to the new county of Stark. They voted in favor of the new county. And thus it was that Goshen and New Jersey townships became part of Stark County.

GENERAL JOHN STARK

Stark County is one of the twenty-two Illinois counties named after military heroes, most of whom fougnt in the American Revolution. At the time Stark County was created and named after him, General John Stark was no longer alive. He was an outstanding officer in the American Revolution. A native of Londonderry, New Hampshire, where he was born August 28, 1728, John Stark saw his first military service as a lieutenant in the French and Indian Wars. He later was commissioned a captain in that conflict. At the o utbreak of the American Revolution he raised his own regiment, became its colonel, and fought gallantly at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Afterwards, he served in the expedition to Canada and in General Washington' s campaign in New Jersey during the winter of 1776-1777. Later in 1777 he resigned his commission in the Continental Army. But he was soon in the field again, this time as major general in command of New Hampshire militia. With this force, General Stark defeated two detachments of Burgoyne's army near Bennington, Vermont, on August 16, 1777.

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As this battle did much to bring about the final capitulation of Burgoyne and his men, Stark was commissioned a brigadier general iin the Continental Army. He subsequently played an important part in the action about Saratoga, and later was placed in command of the northern department of the Continental Army.

At the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783, Stark was breveted a major general by action of the Congress. He died at Manchester, New Hampshire, May 8, 1822. The story of his life and military exploints is told in detail in Life and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, written by his grandson, Caleb Stark.

PIONEER MISSIONARY

An outstanding personage of early Stark County days was the pioneer missionary, the Reverend Philander Chase, Jr. He was a son of the Right Reverend Philander Chase, first bishop of the American Protestant Episcopal Church in Illinois and founder of historic Jubilee College near Peoria. After being ordained in 1846, the younger Chase became a missionary among the early settlements of both Stark and Peoria counties.

Then, in 1852, he took up permanent residence in Stark County, settling on a farm in Valley Township southeast of the city of Wyoming, In that same year his father established Jubilee College in Peoria County and this became a leading educational institution of the time. It is now an historic shrine maintained by the State of Illinois.

Four years after settling on his Stark County farm the Reverend Philander Chase, Jr. , was appointed pastor of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Wyoming. He and his family moved to Wyoming and resided there until 1860. In that year the Reverend Mr. Chase moved back to his Valley Township farm but continued to serve his congregation in nearby Wyoming

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FROM " MILLERS POINT" TO TOULON

LINCOLN COMES TO STARK

An event of unusual interest in the history of Stark County was that of a political speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln in Toulon city on October 8, 1858. It was during the senatorial campaign of that year, when Lincoln sought to unseat Stephen A. Douglas as senator for Illinois, that Stark County friends of the tall Springfield lawyer invited him to speak in Toulon.

After engaging Senator Douglas in one of the series of Great Debates at Galesburg on the afternoon of October 7, 1858, Lincoln boarded a Chicago, Burlington & Quincy train and rode to Kewanee, where he stayed overnight. On the following day he rode in a carriage over dusty roads to Toulon city.

A delegation, headed by Lincoln's friend Thomas J. Henderson, met the future President in Toulon and escorted him to the Virginia Hotel. Following a series of conferences with his supporters in the hotel, Lincoln was escorted to the city' s Courthouse Square in the afternoon and there he addressed a large crowd of Stark County citizens. When the

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meeting was over Lincoln returned by carriage to Kewanee and continued on his stump- speaking tour. Later, en October 26th, Lincoln's opponent, Senator Douglas, arrived in Toulon and also delivered a political speech. As has since been established, this 1858 senatorial campaign in Illinois gave Lincoln a national reputation and placed him in the front rank of presidential possibilities for the coming 1860 election, even though he was the loser in the contest with Douglas.

AN AUTOMOBILE INVENTOR

If the automobile as we know it today is the combined work of a dozen or so American and European invent ors.fi rst on this list of inventors is the name of Charles E. Duryea, who as a boy lived in Stark County. Although Charles E. Duryea was born in 1861 at Canton, Illinois, just south of Stark County, he was still a youngster when his family moved to the city of Wyoming, in Stark County. For some years afterwards, young Charles Duryea attended the South Side school in Wyoming.

On growing to maturity, Duryea went east and in 1892 he and his brother, Franklin, after working in a barn at Springfield, Massachusetts, produced what is now considered the first American-made gasolene car. In appearance it was a buggy driven by a one- cylinder motor and steered by a lever. When this new type of vehicle appeared in the streets of Springfield, it was promptly dubbed a " horseless carriage. "

It was in 1895, three years after Charles Duryea came out with his gasolene car, that the first automobile race in America was staged in Chicago. It was sponsored by a newspaper, the Chicago Times Herald, and held on Thanksgiving Day. The winner of this historic race was Franklin Duryea, who rode in a " horseless carriage " made by his brother. The race was from Chicago to Waukegan, a distance

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of fifty- four miles. It took Franklin Duryea more than ten hours to reach the goal at Waukegan.

SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY

Supposedly inspired by the lives of people who once lived along the Spoon River, a stream that winds through Fulton and Stark counties, Spoon River Ant ho lo gy} when it first appeared in 1915, was acclaimed by most critics as a new American literary classic. And its author, Edgar Lee Masters, who grew to manhood in Lewiston, Fulton County, was hailed as a major American poet.

Although forty years have passed sincd the book was published and although its author has been dead for some years, Spoon River An t ho I ogy still remains firmly placed on the shelf cf American literary classics. It is a volume of poetic epitaphs, in free verse, reputedly haiing to do with the secret lives of people who once lived in towns alcd villages along the Spoon River.

Actually, however, the people described in it could have been found in any of the towns and villages of the United States, or in similar places in England or elsewhere in the world. In other words, Spoon River Anthology has a universal appeal, like all good classics. In this respect it is similar to Oliver Goldsmith' s masterpiece, "The Deserted Village"

In addition to this volume and a biographical work called Across Spoon River, Masters wrote Starved Rock{1919) Doomsday Book (1920), Open Sea (1921), Neic Spoon River Ant hology( 1924), and The Serpent of the Wilderness (1933). He also wrote two boys' books, Mitch Miller and Skeeters Kirby. In 1922 Masters penned a novel, Children of the Market Place with Senator Stephen A. Douglas as its central figure. Another real historical figure of the countryside from which

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Masters came, Abraham Lincoln, is described in Lincoln the Man published in 1931. Edgar Lee Masters died in Philadelphia in 1950 at the age of eighty-one.

STARK COUNTY TODAY

On the basis of latest United States census figures, Stark County in 1950 aad a total population of 8,721, of which 5,164 were classified as rural non-farm dwellers (residents of towns, villages and country places) and 3,557 as rural farm dwellers. It has a land area of 291 square miles and its density of populati on in 1950 was thirty inhabitants per square mile.

In that same year there were 953 infants under five years of age and 1,057 persons sixty-five years old and over; the median age of the county population was given as 32.0 years. The county contained 5,565 potential voters. Under the heading of vital statistics there were 191 births, 83 deaths (.including lour infants) and 67 m arriages. The total number of families (two or more perscns related by marriage or blood, was given as 2, 255, and the median income of all of these families in. 1949 was $3,017. More than 29 per centof these families had incomes of less than $2,000, while 20.1per cent had incomes of $5,000 or more.

In the field of education, Stark County in 1950 had a total number of 1,420 young persons between the ages of seven and seventeen (school age). Of this total, 955 between the ages of seven and thirteen were attending county primary schools (99.5 percent in this age group), and 410 between the ages of fourteen and seventeen were attending high school. The median number of school years completed by all persons in the county twenty- five years old and over was 10.6. A little more than 3 per cent of these completed less than five grades, while 42.4 per cent completed primary

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than five grades, while 42.5 per cent comp1eted primary school and attended high school.

As for the labor force in the county in 1950, there were 6,410 potential workers persons fourteen years old and over. Of this number 3,012 were actually employed(79.0 percent of which were males and 15.6 per cent females ) The largest number of employed, 1,276, were engaged in agriculture. Next largest group were employed in wholesale and retail trade(404), then came manufacturing (369) , professional and related services(211) , construction (180), transportation, communication and other public utilities (154), personal services( 132) , finance, insurance and real estate (48), and mining (5). The labor figures are summed up by showing that 42.7 per cent of all persons employed in the county were engaged in agriculture, while 12.4 per cent were engaged in manufacturing.

In 1950 there were 2,744 dwelling units in Stark County, with the median number of rooms per unit given as 6.3. More than 92 per cent of these were one-dwelling unit detached structures, and 53.1 percent had hot running water and private toilets and baths. The figures showed additionally that 61.7 per cent were owneroccupied, 64.4 per cent had central heating, 88, 3 per centhad mechanical refr i g. erators, and 98. 7 had radios. There were 1,712 houses classified as non-farm dwelling units, and the median value of these was given as $4,950. Of renter-occupied houses, the median gross monthly rental was given a s $41.03.

In 1948, when the last United States business census was taken, there were 135 retail stores in Stark County which grossed $6,045,000 in sales. The largest number were food stores, which grossed $1,536,000 in sales. The next largest were eating and drinking places, which grossed $537,000 in sales. That same year, there were 25 wholesale establishments in the county , and total sales amounted to $6,257,000. In the field of manufacturing, eight plants in

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the county produced goods in the amount of $1,35 6,000. As all of the census figures show, Stark is an agricultural county. In 1950 it had a total of 887 farms, of which 848 were classified as commercial farms. More than 43 per centof all farms were operated by tenants. The land in farms amounted to 177,000 acres. The average value of land and buildings per farm for all farms was given as $46, 394. In 1949, four years after the close of World War II, the value of all farm products sold (crops, livestock, poultry, dairy products, was given as $9,331,000- In that same year, farm expenditures amounted to $980,000 for livestock and poultry feed and $564,000 for hired labor. Total bank deposits in the county on December 30, 1950 (including deposits of individuals, partnerships and corporations) amounted to $8,204,000

With reference to apportionment districts in which it is located, Stark County is part of the 18th Congressional District, which also includes Peoria, Marshall, Putnam and Bureau counties. This district is currently represented in Washington by Congressman Harold H. Velde (Republican) of Pekin, chairman of the House Catimittee on Un-American Activities and member of the Education and Labor Committee.

Stark County is also in the 37th Senatorial District, which includes Bureau and Henry counties. This district is represented in the current Illinois General Assembly at Springfield by State* Senator Frank P. Johnson (Republican) of Kewanee, and by State Representatives Orville C. Chapman (Republican) of Bradford, Joseph R. Peterson (Republican) of Princeton, and Tobias Barry Sr. ( Democrat ) of Ladd.

Stark County, furthermore, is in the 10th Judicial Circuit, which also includes reoria, Marshall, Putnam and Tazewell counties. The judges of this circuit at present are John T. Culbertscn, Jr., of Delavan, Howard White of Peoria, and Henry J. Ingram of Peoria.

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Additionally, the county is in the 2nd Appellate Court District, which meets in Ottowa and the judges of which in 1954 were Fred G. Wol f o f Quincy , Frank lin R. Dove of Shelbyville, and Ben F. Anderson of Charleston. .Finall y, Stark County is in the 5th Supreme Court District, which is presently represented on the state Supreme Court bench by Justice .Joseph E. Daily of Peoria.

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