James B. Fields – Preacher / Orator / Pioneering Businessman
James B. Fields (1850-1896) was a Baptist preacher and orator in Illinois and Denver, Colorado. He was known for his orations in opposition to agnostic, Robert G. Ingersoll. J. B. Fields was born a slave on March 1, 1850 in Prairieville, Missouri. His parents were Henry and Minnie Fields and had originated in Virginia. The family escaped slavery in…
Read MoreLawrence Yates Sherman – U.S. Senator
Lawrence Yates Sherman was born November 8, 1858 in Miami County, Ohio. His parents Nelson and Maria (Yates) Sherman, first moved to McDonough County, Illinois in 1859 and eventually settled in Jasper County in 1867. Sherman attended public school and the Lees Academy in Coles County. In order to pay for a college education he alternately…
Read MoreErnest J. Stevens – Millionaire Hotelier and Businessman
Ernest James Stevens was born on February 13, 1884 in Colchester, McDonough County, Illinois. His parents were Jessie Louise (Smith) and James William Stevens. In 1890 the family with four sons moved to Chicago where Ernest’s father James W. and his brother Edward established the Illinois Life Insurance Company, a business that ultimately generated the substantial…
Read MoreEd & Lon Maxwell (alias The Williams Bros.) – Outlaws
Two of the most notorious men this county ever produced, and who at one time attained a national reputation for their murderous and nefarious deeds, were Edward and Alonzo Maxwell, the outlaw brothers, raised in Forgottonia‘s McDonough County, who rivaled Frank and Jesse James in their notoriety. Beginning with petty thievery in Blandinsville, IL and ending with the…
Read MoreLamoine River Valley Basin
Lamoine River is a beautiful 125-mile-long tributary of the Illinois River in western Illinois which gracefully meanders directly through the heart of Forgottonia, Macomb. Its watershed covers approximately 2,000 square miles, and it is the sixth-largest tributary to the Illinois River. It is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River. The Lamoine or La Moine River rises in southwestern Warren County and initially flows lazily southwestward through southeastern Henderson and northwestern McDonough…
Read MoreVillage of Tennessee
In March, 1854, Tennessee township, was selected by L. C. Bacon, T. K. Waddill and S. Cockerham as a site upon which to establish the village of Tennessee. Work along the line of the C. B. & Q., railroad had already commenced, which, from the survey, passed through that section of McDonough County, and was…
Read MoreVillage of Blandinsville
Blandinsville is a village in McDonough County, Illinois, 16 miles northwest of Macomb. The town is named for Joseph L. Blandin, owner of the first general store, whom, with his parents he came to Illinois, in June, 1837, settled on land which now forms a part of Blandinsville. In 1842, the town was platted on a tract known as…
Read MoreNew Philadelphia, IL – Mound Township
New Philadelphia was laid out in 1857 by Lloyd Thomas when the Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw Railroad first surveyed to pass through that area. When the railroad was eventually run a half mile north of the original survey, Mr. P. Wilson and J.H. Langford, in 1866 laid out the town at that location changing the name…
Read MoreWalnut Grove, IL
The unincorporated community of Walnut Grove township was laid out in 1870 by County Surveyor Wm. J. Edie. It lays seven miles northwest of Bushnell in McDonough County along what was the C.B.& Q. Railroad. This beautiful prairie country is bounded on the north by Warren County, on the east by Prairie City and Bushnell…
Read MoreColmar, IL
Colmar is an unincorporated community in Lamoine Township, McDonough County, Illinois that is located on Illinois Route 61, 4 miles north-northeast of Plymouth. Colmar and the Lamoine Township has a robust Amish community and you can often see it’s members in their horse drawn buggies along the scenic rural roadsides.
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