Oh right, I knew we had a former capital city (2 actually, the first one was practically in Missouri and pretty much swallowed by the mighty Mississip) but I didn’t know the capital was still outside Springfield by the time Abe was elected to the legislature. The Springfield chamber of commerce had worked hard to tie Abe to that city.
Vandalia. I was there in Jan ‘84 and think I went back in Nov ‘84 while going past on I-70. My favorite place in ILL. I hope it hasn’t changed since my visits.
Except for a drive to Pittsburgh-Cleveland in ‘95, I haven’t been out of the northeast since ‘85. I’ve just been too busy to travel. I’ve just got to get out more often.
you ILL freepers got to plan a group road trip to Dubuque, IA for the next caucuses. IMPY map, shows he been to Alaska, but never MICH or IOWA.
Have you ever visited Kaskaskia ? I have. That’s the first capital. You can only access it from Missouri because the Mississippi shifted course to the east of the old townsite. I learned recently that my GGG-grandfather’s father-in-law, Seth Gard, was a delegate from Edwards County to the 1818 Constitutional Convention at Kaskaskia. A tiny county today, but at its founding, it took in most of the eastern half of IL up to Wisconsin (which means all of Cook County & environs were in it). Gard would be considered an Illinois “Founding Father.”
I asked why Gard wasn’t my GGGG-grandfather, but it was a sad story. My GGG-grandfather had moved up from Middle Tennessee around IL’s statehood (he was the one who participated in the Creek Campaign under Andrew Jackson). He met and married Gard’s daughter and gave him a decent chunk of farmland. Unfortunately, both she (and their children) died before long, leaving just my GGG-grandfather and Gard. My GGG-grandfather remarried a young French widow whom had moved to the area (she had married a ship captain, probably en route from Europe, as she left from the Netherlands), but chose to stay on the land that Gard had given him. That French widow would become my GGG-grandmother.
The family apparently stayed on that plot of land for another century (my paternal grandmother would visit it as a child almost a century ago). At some point, they either sold or abandoned the land and farmhouse (that area lost a large % of its population, although not a lot in actual numbers). 27 years ago, we drove up to see it and all that was left was the shell of the farmhouse overgrown with weeds alongside a dirt road (my grandmother was with us and came close to having a big emotional episode at seeing the decayed farmstead - emotions not being something she much displayed, at least of that sort). Delegate Gard is buried in a nearby rural cemetery (that area having been named for him, which is now on the west side of Wabash County), and my GGG grandparents in another. I’d like to go back and visit again, if my health ever permits.