CLINTON COUNTY

       This county was named in honor of DeWitt Clinton who was governor of New York and made himself famous by fathering the Erie canal. Clinton county was created by act of the general assembly on December 23, 1824. It has for neighbors, on the east Marion, on the south Washington, on the west St. Clair and Madison, on the north portions of Madison, Bond and Fayette. The Kaskaskia river flows through the county from the northeast to the southwest and forms part of the southern boundary. It is a picturesque and historic stream. Other streams are— in the west, Sugar creek, to the east of that stream Shoal creek, further east Beaver creek, then Kaskaskia, and in the southeast Lost creek, Prairie creek, and Crooked creek. These streams all run southward and westward. The land along the Kaskaskia is dotted with lakes, many of considerable size. Along the Kaskaskia the lands are heavily timbered, and in other parts there are timbered areas. The prairie lands are rich and loamy while the uplands that are timbered are somewhat claycy.

CARLYLE, FIRST SETTLEMENT AND COUNTY SEAT

       The first settlers located on the Kaskaskia. Carlyle was founded as a village of a few log cabins As early as 1817. A mail route from St. Louis via the sites of Belleville, Carlyle, to Vincennes, was established as early as 1805. Another mail route from Kaskaskia to Vandalia passed through the site of Carlyle in 1810.

       Another road, though not a mail route, ran from Shawneetown and Equality to McLeansboro, Mt. Vernon, to Carlyle. At the outbreak of the War of 1812, a block house was built somewhere near the present site of Carlyle. The old maps show it on the river some three or four miles below the present city of Carlyle. On Rufus Blanchard’s map made in 1883 this fort is called Tourney’s fort. But others say Tourney’s fort was near the present village of Aviston on Shoal creek some twelve miles west of Carlyle.

LAID OUT IN 1818

       When Clinton county was created, Carlyle was made the county seat and has remained the county capital from that day to this. It was laid P 444

THE SUSPENSION BRIDGE ACROSS THE KASKASKIA, CARLYLE, CLINTON COUNTY

out as a village or town in 1818. It was platted around a spacious square in which is now a beautiful court house. The ground, twenty acres, was given by Charles Slade and his wife Mary D. Slade. The deed was recorded July 4th, 1824. A village charter was granted in 1837 and another one in 1865. Boats have navigated the Kaskaskia up to Carlyle. The first one, about 1835, was called ‘‘the Belleville.’’ Little use is now made of the river for steamboat navigation. It is used for lumbering and fishing purposes and by pleasure parties. There is a very fine suspension bridge across the Kaskaskia at Carlyle. It was built in 1860 by the county at a cost of $45,000. It has a span of two hundred and eighty feet swung from piers seventy feet high. It is a unique feature to strangers who drop into the little city without knowing the bridge is there.

       The city takes its name from Thomas Carlyle, the British essayist. The first settlers were English people through Virginia.

       Carlyle had a population in 1910 of 1,982, while Breese numbered 2,128. Other towns are Aviston, Boulder, Germantown, Huey, Keysport, New Baden, Shattuc, and Trenton. There are twenty post offices in the county.

CANDIDATE FOR STATE CAPITAL

       It is said that Carlyle was a candidate for the location of the State Capital in 1819. The constitution of 1818 provided that at the first session of the legislature under the constitution that body should ask congress for a grant of land somewhere on the Kaskaskia, preferably east of the third principal meridian, for the location of the state capital. Carlyle, which had been recently laid off or at least settled, was a candidate for the honor. Nathaniel Pope had some land above Carlyle on the river and he wished to have the capital on his land. It is said that while the location was under discussion as to Pope’s Bluff or Carlyle, a hunter by the P 445 name of Reeves happened in and made a short speech and captured the location for his land where the present city of Vandalia stands. It was known as Reeves’ Bluff.

JUDGE SIDNEY BREESE

       Without doubt the most distinguished citizen Clinton county ever had was Judge Sidney Breese. Judge Breese came to Kaskaskia in 1818, and studied law with Elias Kent Kane. He acted as postmaster at Kaskaskia, and was a clerk or assistant in the office of the secretary of state. He drove the wagon which removed the archives of the state to the new capitol, Vandalia, in 1820. He says he was obliged to make his own road in some places. He was from time to time prosecuting attorney, United States district attorney, supreme court reporter, lieutenant colonel in the Black Hawk war, circuit judge, supreme judge, United  States senator, and later supreme judge and chief justice of Illinois. Judge Breese resided in Carlyle during most of the time he was in public life. Scarcely another early citizen of Illinois was held in such high esteem as was Judge Sidney Breese.

       The first newspaper published in Clinton county was the Beacon. It was started in 1843. It was edited by George B. Price, and was Whig in politics. It suspended after a short time and was then revived and named the Truth Teller. The Truth Teller flourished from 1844 to 1846, when it was moved to Carrollton, Greene county, and became the Carrollton Gazette.

PRESENT CONDITIONS

       Clinton county has 22,832 inhabitants. The farming population is chiefly. native-born, but quite largely of foreign extraction. In the cities and towns there is a large element of Germans. Clinton county people are very thrifty. This is shown by the fact that they have fourteen banks in the county. This is an average of one bank for every 1,616 people.