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Martin Township History
McLean County, Illinois
(Transcribed by: Teri Moncelle Colglazier)

The Mackinaw River has influenced the history of Martin Township. It comes from Anchor Township on the east into Section 12, flows westward and is joined in Section 10 by a stream from the south called Bray’s Branch. The mackinaw then flows mainly northwestward through Sections 3, 4, 5 and 6 sometimes meandering into Lawndale Township, then back into Martin, before going on into Lexington Township. From the junction of the tow streams in Section 10, there was timber and that became the location of the first settlers. The rest of the township was prairie land and remained so fro many years after the first people settled near the groves. These prairie lands were hunting grounds and pasture land until a few people began to settle there during the 1850’s. This group was followed by an influx of settlers during the 1860’s when all the land was taken up. Some of those who first claimed the land never settled here and sold their claims to others, while some rented their land, so 1870 brought many more people to Martin Township. John R. and William Wiley, with their families, came in 1835 and took up land in the north part of the township in Sections 3, 4, and 10. Shortly afterward, Curtis Batterton settled on the west side of Section 5. Their neighbors lived to the north and to the northwest in Lawndale and Lexington Townships. McLean County had been divided into five precincts and these people were part of the Mackinaw Precinct, with the voting place at Pleasant Hill. There were no good traveling routes, but there was a trail that crossed the township, part of a trail from Cheneys Grove to Pleasant Hill. Isaac Funk had claimed land, when the land went on the market in 1835, but he never improved it. His son, George Funk, placed a foreman, John S. W. (Watson) Johnson, in charge of a cattle operation, then sold out to Peter Harpole about 1866 Hosea Wright had claimed land at an early date, and sold to Perry Parker in 1853 and two years later Parker sold William G. Anderson of Indiana the northeast quarter of Section 3. This tract was to become part of the Original Village of Collfax. In 1854 James E. Wood, also from Indiana took up land in Lawndale Township and some in the southeast quarter of section 3, also to become part of the village. J. W. Ritter, was one of the first settlers on the prairie land in the southern part of the township, settling in Section 34, on land taken first by his father-in-law, Henry Dawson, which he soon purchased. There was a small stream flowing through his land toward the Mackinaw. Deer was still hunted in this area, and there were no fences so cattle grazed as they wandered about, and had to be herded by their owners. Hunters from Bloomington came to hunt birds, ducks, deer and other game. In 1855, S. W. Bray chose a spot near the middle of the township in Section 15, along a stream where there was a clump of timber. The stream became known as Brays Branch and the timber was called Bray’s Bunch. The nearest school for the Ritter and Bray children was the school on the Batterton land and the nearest shopping center was at Pleasant Hill. On the western side of the Township Reese Horney, Isaac and John Bunn took up land before 1860. By that year, there were 45 households listed on the census. Names included Smith, Miller, McMakin, Warner, Foster, Thompson, Langstaff, Eskridge, Wiley, Wood, Williams, McKee, Anderson, May, Simmons, Johnson, Bray, Lambert, Ritter, Creamer, Radbourne, Kennedy, Hayes, Bunn, Hudson and Henline. Martin Township was organized as a political unit in 1858. The name, Martin, was chosen for Dr. Eleazer Martin of Bloomington, who owned 1700 acres, in the northwestern quarter of the township. His name never appeared on a Martin Township census. He sold some land to John U. Lyons and Charles Rich in 1860, but at the time of his death in 1871, still owned the rest, which was inherited by his daughters, Mrs. Elder and Mrs. Ewing. Richard R. Williams was elected the first supervisor and served for one year. John S. W. Johnson, foreman on the Funk Cattle land, was elected the second supervisor. He served terms in 1859, 1860 and again in 1864. Absolom Smith was the first township clerk and M. Brooke was the second clerk, and he served for five years. W. G. Anderson, the first assessor served for three years, H. W. Langstaff was the first collector and S. W. Bray was the second collector. Other supervisors during those early years were H. C. Langstaff, W. G. Anderson, S. W. Wiley, James Kennedy, James Gillan and Jacob Ritchie. Other early settlers included the Ritchie, Hurt, Baker, Jacobs, Bierbower, Lyons, Rich, Joshua, Barnes, Mundell, Sells, Hornick, McReynolds, Canady, Conklin, Fossett, Williams and Bradford families. We cannot list here all of the 115 households in Martin Township by 1870. Most of the early settlers had come from Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, and other eastern states. Now a few people were arriving from Europe. Some lived first in Tazewell or other counties with larger towns. John Nirk was form Wartemburg, but the emigrants from Ireland, Thomas Kelley, James Gillan, and Robert McClure were among the first from that country. During the 1870’s more families from Bellymenna, County Antrim, Ireland came to join James Gillan and McClure. These included William Blair, William Leetch, Thomas Small, Samuel Moody, and more Gillan families. These people were from the Protestant area of Ireland. Another group, from the Catholic part of that country, the McGowans, Mulcaheys, Kellys, Murphys, also settled on the prairies of Martin Township. They were mostly from County Leitrim. This group had close ties with the families who had settled at Merna. On the 1880 census there were 157 households in the township, plus 17 households in the new village. W. G. Anderson led the movement to get the railroad built into Martin Township. Others from Martin and Lawndale contributed to the fund and grading was done and tracks laid on the midsection line through Sections 1 and 2 and into Section 3, from Section 5 in Anchor Township, in February 1880. The first train arrived on July 3, 1880, W. G. Anderson’s land lay on the north side of the railroad, and James E. Wood’s on the south. Each man planted part of this farm into blocks and lots. The new town, named Colfax, grew rapidly. Many families moved there from farms nearby. James E. Wood died in 1881, and his sons continued to make more of the family farm into sub-divisions. Anderson also converted more of his farm into more sub-divisions, one of which contained a race track for horses. Doctor Martin had died in 1871, and when the railroad was built to Bloomington, a few years after it had reached Colfax, a station and a siding were built several miles southwest of Colfax, and since it was on land inherited by Mrs. Elder, it became known as Elder Switch or Elder Siding. Nothing now remains of the station or grain elevator once located there. Farming has remained important to Martin Township. Most of the area is quite level. Drainage was a problem and parts of the Mackinaw and its tributaries have been dredged to provide a deeper and straighter channel. There are a few bluffs along the river in the northwestern corner of the township. Bridging the river had been a problem. The large bridge built about 1906, known as the Harpole Bridge, later the Marquis Bridge, was one of the longest in the county at the time. It was built in three spans. It was replaced in 1970 because the narrow bridge whose supports had been weakened was unsafe for heavy loads and for school buses. Route 9, a state highway, borders Martin Township on the south. On the north side for 3 miles, is a concrete highway, Route 165. Then it turns south for a mile crossing the Mackinaw on a bridge built by the state in 1928. To avoid a railroad crossing, the highway follows a new road bed made at the time the highway was built on the north side of the railroad until it reaches a section line father west, then follows that to the Martin-Blue Mound Township line joining the two concrete state highways. Another state-aid road crosses the township from west to east midway between the two state routes. [History of Lawndale, Martin, And Anchor Townships And The Villages Of Colfax And Anchor - McLean County, Illinois - A Project Of The Bi-Centennial Committee Muriel Martens Hoffman Historian - April 1976]

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