Bloody Vendetta is History

The Bloody Vendetta of Southern Illinois is finally done. I am so happy.

I started this book last year and had planned to take it to the printers last November, but a drunk driver intervened and reset by calendar.

Now the book is larger and goes to the printer Monday. It should be back on shelves by the last week of August.

The book is 240 pages, 6" x 9", trade paperback.

I've held off on taking orders to make sure I was finally ready. Well I am now.

For readers of IllinoisHistory.com I'm offering a pre-order price of $14.95, which is normally the regular price, but without the $3 shipping cost and I'll cover the sales tax if you are an Illinois resident.

Plus, every book ordered from IllinoisHistory.com will be autographed and dated.

But this offer is good only until I get the books back from the printers in about three weeks.

To make a secure order online all you have to do is go here and click the "BUY NOW" button.

Or, you can pay by check or money order. Just make it out to IllinoisHistory.com and mail to this address:

IllinoisHistory.com
PO Box 1142
Marion IL 62959

New Writers Blog Begins

I've just added a new blog to the site focusing on Illinois writers and authors. It's entitled, the new "Illinois Writers Blog".

I plan on using this to plug new books and works by Illinois-based writers as well as those who write about Illinois.

Politics, History & Troubles

While I've been gone there have been some trouble developments with the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

Former IHPA Director Maynard Crossland has sued the state for his dismissal and is blowing the whistle on political machinations in the supposed-to-be independent agency.

Here are some of the details Crossman brought forward in his lawsuit.

Don't know if any of these are true, but the administration is racking up a number of losses in the courts when it comes to former employees.

Mission Trip Blog Up & Running

In less than 10 hours I will be leaving for a mission trip with my church in Marion and another one in Andalusia, Alabama. We're heading back to Chernivtsi, Ukraine, where we last went in July 2004.

I've signed up and learned how to update the blog by e-mail as well as add an audio blog by phone.

Check out the new Ukraine Mission Trip 2006 blog for more.

The Liberator and the Fourth

The folks over at Power Line blog have two great pieces dealing with Abraham Lincoln and Stephan Douglas.

The Eternal Meaning of Independence Day recalls two speeches made by Douglas on July 9, 1858, and Lincoln, the next day, during their famed race for the U.S. Senate.

Douglas downplayed the Declaration of Independence in his support for popular sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision. Lincoln, as he did repeatedly through the campaign, stressed the importance of those important words about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

If [immigrants to America since 1776] look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration [loud and long continued applause], and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. [Applause.]

The second post, Thinking about the Great Liberator, deals with Lincoln's effort to preserve the Constitution even though he took extreme measures to do so.

The constitutional powers of the commander-in-chief in time of war are critical to the system established by the framers. Lincoln's analysis and exercise of the commander-in-chief's war powers during the Civil War both serve to illuminate those powers. Given the Supreme Court's decision in the Hamdan case this past week, it may be an opportune moment to revisit some history.

Lincoln's primary aim as commander-in-chief was of course the preservation of the Union — the restoration of democracy and the rule of law among the seceding states. He meant to demonstrate that "among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that those who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost."

Both articles offer reminders of history's lessons too often ignored.

New Dig Eyes Site of 1730 Battle

The Pantagraph of Bloomington has an interesting article this week on Parkland College Professor Len Steele's search to find the exact location of a major battle between the French and Illini Indians on one side and the Mesquakie on the other.

The French account of the 1730 siege of a Mesquakie fort, the remains of which are buried beneath rows of corn, are the “the beginning of history in McLean County,” the Parkland College professor said. What remains below the ground are buried trenches and dug-in houses, musket balls, arrow points and various tools and goods, such as blades from hinged French knives.

It was the last stand for the Mesquakie, who were outnumbered in the fortified grove near the Sangamon River, Steele said. There were up to 900 people in the acre-size fort, including women and children, and 1,400 French and Illini troops around them during a 23-day battle, he said.

The professor, his wife, 10 students and a woman whose family has owned the farm since the 1800s have been at the dig site near Saybrook several hours four times a week for the last three weeks, and the class is scheduled to end today. But Steele said he may extend the dig.

People had lived in the area about 12,000 years, but the military accounts are the first written histories for the area, he said.

Not familiar with Saybrook's location, well here's a map.

Benton eyes TIF for Wood Building

Kudos for the Benton City Council after deciding to pursue a tax increment financing (TIF) district for the redevelopers of the historic Wood Building on the square of the Franklin County seat.

The developer's plans for the building, "include a banking facility, retail space and studio, and 2- and 3-bedroom units on the top floors."

Now if the city would consider expanding the proposed TIF for the rest of the downtown, help the county build a new courthouse, and merge with West City, the community would be set.

Historians stake claim for Fort Crevecouer

Fascinating article in the State Journal-Register today by Michael Smothers of Copley News Service. A group of outside historians is challenging the long-thought-settled location of the first French forts built in the Illinois Country in the late 17th Century.

Following the script I've seen over and over Smothers managed to find a state-employed historian who disagreed and is backing the traditional site of near Peoria.

Marty Fischer of Macomb, whose research inspired the reappraisal, believes Fort Crevecoeur, long believed to have been built in 1680 on the Illinois River in the Peoria area, actually was constructed at Beardstown.

A research team eventually is expected to travel to farm country just south of Beardstown in search of evidence - shifted dirt, rotted wood pylons, maybe iron nails three centuries old - to, perhaps, resolve that question.

So far no one has found solid proof that the Peoria or the Beardstown locations are the location of the first French fortified settlements, but Fischer's research is based on some intriguing clues.

The Fischer theory is steeped in possibly ground-breaking discoveries, thanks to satellite photography, that offer fresh clues to historians.

• Who built a 600-foot-long earthen wall, once at least 15 feet high and at least several hundred years old, on a high rocky bluff just down and across the river from Beardstown?
  
  
• What is a perfect rectangle of ditches, 450 feet in circumference, doing in a farm field nine miles south of Beardstown on the highest plateau in the area?
  
  
• Why was a very old ditch apparently carved between the beds of two streams to encircle a flat, sandy knoll that once was lapped by a wide bay jutting from the river just south of town?
  
  
• What happens when you trace the 40th degree of latitude on two dozen maps produced by early French explorers to its intersection with the Illinois?

On those old maps, you find Fort Crevecoeur, which La Salle, Henri de Tonti and about 25 men built in January 1680 before abandoning their attempt that year to reach the mouth of the Mississippi River from Canada.

On modern maps, you find Beardstown.

Just when you think that all of historical mysteries are solved someone comes around with a new answer.

Way to go Marty Fischer. Keep researching and keep digging. The answers are there somewhere.

Grant Announced for Old Slave House

The newest round of Illinois Transportation Enhancement Grants have been announced including $400,000 in federal highway funding for the Old Slave House.

The funds are to be used for engineering work and a historic structures report. Added to the $150,000 of state funding already announced for a historic structures report, this will allow the agency to likely conduct archeaological surveys and possibly engineering work on visitor services such as restrooms.

IHPA officials asked me for help on this grant last fall both in gathering letters of support as well as helping find the links to the site and transportation issue. While the main link is the site's recognized status as one of the last, if not the last, station on the Reverse Underground Railroad still standing.

Other links included John Crenshaw's role as a road supervisor for the 19th Century version of Route 13 between Shawneetown and Eldorado, as well as his role as a contractor in the first effort to build a railroad between those two towns in the late 1830s.

Overall, almost $2.9 million in grants are headed to Southern Illinois.

Other projects include the following:

• Cairo - Confluence Tourist Welcome Center at Fort Defiance (I think this would be in the old Toll House) - $673,000.
  
  
• Chester - Tourist Welcome Center in Segar Park near the Mississippi River bridge. This is something needed with the opening of the World Shooting Sports Center at Sparta later this year - 385,000.
  
  
• Saline County - Engineering work for extension of the Tunnel Hill State Bike Trail from Harrisburg to Eldorado to eventually connect the city-owned bike trails in Harrisburg and Eldorado - $110,000.
  
  
• Metrpolis - Brookport - Engineering work for the proposed George Rogers Clark Discovery Trail between Metropolis and Brookport to follow an old railroad grade between the two towns that also crosses through Fort Massac State Park - $354,000.
  
  
• Mount Vernon - Downtown streetscape improvements - $500,000.
  
  
• Rosiclare - Downtown streetscape improvements - $50,000.
  
  
• West Frankfort - Downtown streetscape improvements - $427,000.
  

Drought Leads to Archealogists to Buffalo

The Chicago Tribune ran a interesting story Saturday on a buffalo prehistoric archealogical find on the Illinois River. It now appears that buffalo roamed the prairies long before historians thought they had moved east from the plains.

But even better, one of the buffalo was found with a broken rib along with a Woodland Indian spearpoint, suggesting a story of how prehistoric Indians from around 1,000 to 200 B.C. used a narrow cossing point on the Illinois River as a funnel to hunt bison.

New Union County Museum Opens Saturday

The former Cobden Museum has a new name and location with an opening set for Saturday.

The Union County Museum, located in downtown Cobden at 117 Appleknocker St., next to the post office, will have a grand opening at 1 p.m. with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house for people to view the very first display of historical items from all over the county.

Fort de Chartres Ready to Host Rendezvous

PRAIRIE DU ROCHER -- The French are returning to southwestern Illinois.

The Midwest’s largest gathering of 1700s era soldiers, settlers, traders and campers, the 36th Annual Rendezvous at Fort de Chartres, will be held Saturday and Sunday, June 3 and 4, at Fort de Chartres State Historic Site near Prairie du Rocher.

Rendezvous features 1700s military units, traditional craft demonstrations, period music and dancing, an 18th century fashion show, black powder shooting events, cannon firings and more from the time when France controlled what is now the State of Illinois. All activities are free and open to the public, and many feature public participation. The event is cosponsored by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and Les Coureur de Bois de Fort de Chartres.

Each day’s activities begin with the Opening Ceremony and Posting of Colours at 10 a.m. The Retreat Ceremony ends each day’s activities at 4:30 p.m. Reverend Albert Kreher, St. Joseph’s Church, Prairie du Rocher, will lead Mass at Fort de Chartres Chapel at 8 a.m. Sunday, June 4.

If you are looking for something to do this weekend take a drive over to Randolph County. It's well worth the trip.

For more details and the daily schedule see the IHPA news release.

Opium, Bleeding & Other Hardin Co. Cures

The Daily Register had an interesting article yesterday that goes along with the Anna Bixby/Bigsby references in the entry below.

Brian DeNeal's article focuses on four early 19th Century medical books found two decades ago during the remodeling of an Elizabethtown commercial building. They are believed to have belonged to William Warford, an early Hardin County physician.

Local Authors Needed for Event

The Anna Bixby Women's Center is hosting a two-day Seven Windows/One View event at the Saline County Fairgrounds on Friday, Aug. 18, and Saturday, Aug. 19. As part of the festivities they want to host a local author book fair on Saturday.

Each author will conduct their own sales. The women's center is asking for 10 percent of the sales in lieu of any upfront registration costs. The whole event is an outreach for the center which serves as emergency housing for domestic abuse victims in a seven county area in Southeastern Illinois. They also sponsor and conduct numerous other anti-domestic violence awareness and prevention programs.

Authors interested in participating should contact Diane Taborn at the center at 618-252-8380 and provide a 50 to 60 word description of their works and themselves as soon as possible because they are starting work on a brochure and advertising. Diane can also be reached by e-mail at abixby (at) accessus.net.

As a historical note the center is named for Anna Bigsby, the patron saint for battered women in southeastern Illinois. A mid-19th Century midwife who lived in Hardin County Anna was chased off of a bluff by her second husband. That husband Eson Bigsby believed Anna had buried the fortune of her first husband out in the woods. Anna apparantly survived the fall, which by my research likely took place around the time of the Civil War.

"Dr. Anna" is also remembered for "discovering" the plant that caused milk sickness in cows and humans who drank the milk from sick cows. She was supposedly shown the plant by a woman folklore only recalls as "Aunt Shawnee". For more historical information check out .

Old Slave House Status Report

Just returned this afternoon from a trip to the Old Slave House where IHPA officials, including Historic Sites Division Manager Paula Cross, had arranged a tour for a Federal Highway Administration official whose name I admit I didn't catch.

Gallatin County tourism officials were also present. Last year they were successful in securing the designation of an official spur off of the Ohio River National Scenic Byway along Route 13 to come down Route 1 to the house.

That's the first transportation tie-in. The second is a major grant application IHPA submitted last year for a transportation enhancement grant for the Old Slave House, or the Crenshaw House as they continue to call it.

The highway official was about 120 pages into my book and asked good questions during the tour.

Cross also noted that principals from Ratio Architects had met with officials from the Illinois Capital Development Board to negotiate their contract for the historic structure report.

Due to the limited funding - $150,000 - they will apparently be doing just the report, no archeaological work and most likely no repair work.

As to book updates, I'm am for all practical purposes out of the paperback edition of "Slaves, Salt, Sex & Mr. Crenshaw". All I have left are about 15 returns sent back to me from the distributor. I am only selling these to individuals or bookstores when they have seen the books first as these are not pristine copies, and a few are damaged.

The paperback was the 2004 edition. I still have plenty of copies of the 2005 expanded and revised hardcover edition.

I won't print a new paperback edition until I've almost sold out of the hardcover one. At that point it will likely be an abridged edition without some of the back matter from the hardcover. It will though include any correction or new research finding that's been found since the hardcovers came out.

New People Count Set for Hub of the Universe

The Marion City Council authorized funds Monday to pay the U.S. Census Bureau for a special census to be conducted later this year.

Marion was the 139th largest incorporated place in Illinois in the 2000 Census, and the third largest in the Southern Illinois region outside the MetroEast. Only Mount Vernon and Carbondale were larger.

The Census Bureau currently estimates that Marion has grown by 818 residents since the 2000 Census for a new total of 16,853. The city council thinks the city has grown even faster and I agree.

The bottom line is that if the city has grown at least 500 residents then the cost of the special census will be covered by the increased per capita funding the city receives from the state. Anything over that is gravy.

What's interesting are the population figures for Williamson County. Enumerators counted 61,296 residents in 2000, which meant that the county had finally recovered from the four-decade downward spiral that began in the 1920s following the Herrin Massacre and the general switch from underground coal mining to surface mining that eliminated thousands of jobs.

The 2000 population figure for the county was only 204 residents more than in 1920. The downward trend ended following 1960 when the population was 46,117, or just 1,019 more than we had in 1910.

Despite the booming economy now, the fastest population growth actually took place in the first two decades of the 20th Century when the county went from 27,796 residents to 61,092 in just 20 years.

Herrin went from a post office in a prairie to the largest community in the county during those same two decades. (People have wondered if it will survive the upcoming closing of the Maytag plant. Trust me, it will. The community has survived far worse economic and social upheavels).

Interestingly, the Census Bureau estimates that in 2002 Marion surpassed Mount Vernon as the region's second largest community. Between 1990 and 2000 Mount Vernon lost 719 residents. By 2004 the Census Bureau estimated they only grew by 68 for a total of 16,337.

The 2000 Census also showed that Williamson County had surpassed Jackson County as the largest county in the region outside the MetroEast with 1,684 more residents. Census estimates through 2004 show the gap widening to 4,823 as Williamson County's population is now projected to be 63,094.

Population isn't the only way to measure the region, there's also retail sales.

Figures from the Illinois Department of Revenue show Marion edged past Carbondale for the title of the region's top retail trade center in FY2004 (the latest year available online) with $427.1 million in retail sales versus Carbondale's $426.9 million. The difference is even greater comparing the counties. Jackson County businesses reported $578.2 million in taxable sales. In Williamson County the figure was $679.0 million.

Besides the increased government funding the new census will provide hard data to replace the estimates now in place. The new data, if it shows the growth that's apparent, should help in the effort to attract new outside investment in the region in terms of new industry and other businesses.

Old Slave House Backer Dies

Assistant House Majority Leader Lou Jones, D-Chicago, a strong backer of the Old Slave House died yesterday Chicago media are reporting.

Jones visited the house towards the end of the spring legislative season back in 1997 during a trip organized by the then local state Rep. David Phelps, D-Eldorado.

The site fascinated her and the other members of the Black Legislative Caucus who were able to attend. That fascination led to funding and she's been the House leader the state representatives in the 118th District had gone to in their efforts to secure additional funding for the site.

She was an interesting lady who has suffered long with poor health. I wish her family, friends and staff well.

How Many Cabins To Make A Village?

Tom Kane has a good article in today's Marion Daily Republican about the cabins of Olde Squat Inn northeast of town.

PITTSBURG - Some people collect stamps or coins. Jim Grisley of Pittsburg collects log cabins.

Most of the cabins date from before the Civil War. He has 14 buildings on his Pittsburg property and seven of them are for rent as part of a bed and breakfast business he calls Olde Squat Inn. Not one of the 14 buildings is newer than 1874.

I've never been out to see the place though I know I should.

The most interesting aspect of the story comes towards the end of the story. Besides the 14 cabins standing, he has 17 in pieces in storage ready to reassemble. Overall, his goal is 100.

Lincoln Museum Celebrates Anniversary

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield celebrated its first birthday today. Some 600,000 visitors have toured the exhibits since opening. For comparison the Bill Clinton Presidential Library only attracted 500,000 visitors its first year.

I was up in Springfield last week. Although I was supposed to be researching I decided I really didn't want to and walked on over to the museum. It was my first time touring.

The "Ghosts in the Library" multi-media event is fabulous. Even though I thought I recognized the technology before it started, I actually became more confused as the presentation ended. If you haven't noticed, I was paying more attention to how everything worked rather than the content.

Still, the content in that theatre should serve as an excellent opener to students to what historic letters and documents can reveal.

Compared with the "Ghosts" the "Eyes of Lincoln" presentation isn't as technologically impressive. I would strongly encourage anyone to see that one first.

Although the history is presented in such a way to be entertaining and engaging, I understand the flak the library's received for its disdain for facts if they don't fit the decor (in the case of the rug in the Emancipation Proclamation room or the fake generic regimental flag in the "Ghosts" presentation). For that, the flak is deserving.

However the Disney-fication of history complaint is a bit too harsh. None of the displays are real. It's a brand-new building, so fake and entertaining are OK if it works to convey the message.

The real problem is the poor condition of the historic sites across Illinois controlled by the state. Here's where history really took place.

For these sites, lack of staff has kept more than half the sites shuttered and mothballed for years, and those sites lucky enough to be open have limped along with hours only for five days a week. A recent announcement for part-time seasonal hires at some of the sites will help, but not if they are filled with political hacks and not persons enthralled by history.

The state does not have a long-term plan to open and staff the sites it owns. That needs to change, or all the efforts made so far to preserve history will be just that — history — with nothing left to show for it.

Architects Selected for Old Slave House

The Illinois Capital Development Board may have forgotten the state capital was in Springfield when they relocated their April meeting to Chicago yesterday, but they didn't forget to select an architectural firm for Project # 104-620-002, which the state likes to inaccurately describe as "Renovate the Crenshaw House".

Surprisingly in my view CDB tabbed Ratio Architects Inc out of Champaign, Illinois, and Indianpolis, Indiana, for the project. My money was on White & Borgognoni Architects from Carbondale who did the work on the Old Rose Hotel in Elizabethtown and on some big historic preservation projects for the state in Springfield.

Still it will be interesting to see what becomes of the this project. There's $150,000 attached and CDB and IHPA can't seem to agree on a definition of what's included for the price. CBD uses the verb "renovate". IHPA limits their statements to basic repairs and weatherproofing, as well as a historic structures report.

From the budget front, have not heard any news about funding for the site, though the budget talks between the governor's office and the Democratic leaders controlling the Illinois House and Senate have broken down and everyone's taking the next week or so off.

In case you're wondering who's at fault. It's the Republicans' somehow.

The chances of a major capital projects bill passing are looking slim to none, though there's hope in the House for a scaled-down $500 million package for school construction.

Still it will be interesting to see what happens next. I look forward to meeting the good folks at Ratio.