Woodford County, Illinois Genealogy Trails

The present Court House of Woodford County was built in 1845, by David Irving. The contract was taken by Rockwell and Parks, two prominent citizens of Hanover, and the former a stockholder in the Hanover Company, which company owned some 12,000 acres of land near the town. Its members had taken an active part in getting the county seat removed to Hanover, and made, it is said, liberal donations toward the erection of the public buildings. Neither Rockwell nor Parks being mechanics, they sub-let the contract for building the Court House to Mr. Irving, who at once proceeded to work preparing timbers and material for it. Building facilities were not so good nor so complete then as at the present day, and such a contract was looked upon as an undertaking of stupendous magnitude. Railroads in Illinois, as well as in the United States, were in their infancy, and such a transaction as going to Chicago, buying the material for a large building and receiving it on the spot in a day or two after purchase, was an event beyond the wildest imagination of the most visionary individual of the time.

Irving burned his own brick, got Out the timbers in the neighboring forest, cut logs and hauled them to Parks’ saw-mill, at what was then called Partridge Point, from which the lumber was sawed for the joists and the floors. The finishing lumber was white walnut, from Johnson’s mill, near Spring Bay, where the logs were cut and sawed. It was covered with shingles made of black walnut, in the woods near town, and the lime, with the exception of a small quantity burned near the work, was hauled in wagons from the Kickapoo bluffs, beyond Peoria. The contract for building was taken by Irving for $4,400 and was paid for with the lots donated by the Hanover Company for the purpose, and with the surplus revenues of the county for two years. It is a substantial two story brick, of much better material and workmanship than is usually put into a building at the present day, at that modest price, .and is a type of the old court houses of forty years ago, still numerous in Illinois. The house used in Versailles, for the sessions of the Honorable Court, has, it is said by some, passed away with other relics, and, by others, that it has fallen from its exalted position and been converted into a stock barn.

After the removal of the county seat to Hanover (now Metamora), and until the Court House was completed, court was held in a little house which stood at the southeast corner of the square, where Plank’s law office now stands. The September session, in 1843, was the first Circuit Court held in the new metropolis. In those days there seem to have been no blue or red ribbon societies as now, as the records of the court for several years show that most of the indictments were for selling liquors, with a few variations occasionally, for “harboring slaves.”

In 1849, the Legislature changed the mode of holding County Court, from Commissioners to a County Judge and two Associate Justices. Judge Welcome P. Brown was the first County Judge under this law, with William C. Pointer and W. E. Buckingham Associates, and Edgar Babcock the first Clerk. Their commissions were signed by Augustus C. French, Governor of Illinois, and H. S. Cooley, Secretary of State. The first business on the records of this new court was the granting of a license to one David A. Couch to keep a “grocery” at Spring Bay, he to pay the enormous sum of $6.25 license, after giving bond.

When the county was re-organized under Government survey, in 1850, the list of townships and their Supervisors was as follows, viz.

Metamora, Simon P. Shope; Montgomery, James Vance; Olio, Joseph Meek; Panola and Minonk, Robert M. McCleland; Greene, John R. Gaston; Roanoke, David S. Brown; Linn and Clayton, Isaac Fisher; Cazenovia, John W. Acres; Worth, Jacob Shook; Spring Bay, Geo. W. Schrubley; Partridge, Jefferson Hoshor; Palestine, Allen Hart.

Simon P. Shope was elected Chairman for the ensuing year, at their first meeting, and Edgar Babcock Clerk; but no business was done other than organization. According to the statutes, it became necessary for the Clerk to record the abstract of taxable property, which, for 1854, the first year the act was in force, was as follows:

Personal property of Woodford County... $ 640,308.00

Real estate of Woodford County... 1,589,926.00

Total personal and real... $2,230,229.00

Total tax levied... 19,051.44

As showing the county’s increase in wealth and in taxes, we append the assessed valuation of property for 1877 and the amount of taxes levied:

Total real and personal... $7,901,160.00

Total tax levied... 174,732.00

The expenditures for the year ending September 1, 1877... 24,528.73

At the Presidential election in 1844, the first after the organization of Woodford County, the vote stood as follows: Polk Electors (Democratic), 322; Clay Electors (Whig), 159.

Presidential election in 1876: Tilden Electors (Democratic), 2,105; Hayes Electors (Republican), 1,733; Peter Cooper Electors (Independent). 237.

At present, Hon. J. M. McCulloch is Judge of the Woodford County Court; F. M. Bassett, Clerk; John Leys and Jacob Ray. Deputies, and L. H. Bullock, Sheriff. George Thode is Clerk of the Circuit Court, and N. P. Baker Deputy. Hon. John Burns, of Lacon, is the Presiding Judge of this the Eighth Judicial Circuit. David Irving, mentioned as building the present Court House, was the third Sheriff of the county after its organization, and Deputy for the term previous to his election as Sheriff.