CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

FAYETTE COUNTY

P. 461 FIRST SETTLERS OF THE COUNTY—

FIRST CAPITOL AT VANDALIA—

SECOND CAPITOL—PERRYVILLE, SEAT OF FAYETTE COUNTY—

ERNEST, OR HANOVER COLONY—FAYETTE AND VANDALIA ITEMS

       By the Enabling Act, the capital of Illinois was Kaskaskia until such time as the legislature should relocate it. In the first session of that body in Kaskaskia steps were taken to remove the seat of government. The  United States government was asked to grant four sections of land for the benefit of the state in locating, building and putting the new capital on its feet. The point selected was the present site of Vandalia. The Enabling Act provided that the capital when relocated should remain where located for twenty years. When the four square miles had been selected the next thing was to lay off the town. This was done and lots offered for sale. The lots were sold at public auction bringing from one hundred dollars to seven hundred and eighty dollars each. The total amount received from the sale of lots was $35,234.

FIRST SETTLERS IN THE COUNTY

       The first settlers within the limits of what is now Fayette county was a family by the name of Beck. The head of the family, Guy Beck, first came to Cahokia in 1809 from Kentucky. Here he remained till 1814 when he removed to section 9, township 8, range 2 east. Here he built a cabin. The place is about thirteen miles up the Kaskaskia river from Vandalia. A creek flows into the Kaskaskia river there which is called Beck’s creek. His father and four brothers came to this new settlement in 1818. Guy Beck was a blacksmith and gunsmith and was therefore a very valuable man in that  region.

Valentine Brazil and Hiram Higgins settled on section 34, township 8, range 1 east in 1816. The Haleys came in 1818-19. Other early settlers were the Lesters, Beals, Wakefields, Thompsons, Lees, and William Padousen.

FIRST CAPITOL AT VANDALIA

       When the legislature decided to move the capital up the Kaskaskia and the commissioners finally selected Reeve’s Bluff as the site, there was a rush of settlers to the region of the new capital. This left a wide unsettled space between the northern edge of the permanent settlements eastward from Alton and Edwardsville, and the new settlements about Vandalia. P 462  
       The commissioners to locate and erect the new capitol building soon performed their duty. The town was surveyed and laid off in large blocks with wide streets—eighty feet. The first capitol was a log house of two rooms located on Fifth street, one block south of Gallatin street.

       The first session to be held in this new capitol assembled in December, 1820. During this session the structure burned and the legislature was forced to meet in private houses. The senate met in a Mr. Brown’s house, and the House of Representatives met in the home of Colonel R. K. McLaughlin.

SECOND CAPITOL

       The second capitol was a small brick built on the site of the log capitol. This served as the state house till about 1834 or 1835 when very commodious brick building,
 
THE OLD STATE CAPITOL AT VANDALIA.

NOW THE FAYETTE COUNTY COURT HOUSE

the present Fayette county court house, was built by the citizens in the hope of holding the capital in Vandalia.

       The state set aside certain lots for church purposes and for a cemetery.

       Prominent among the early comers to Vandalia was one Ferdinand Ernest who was on the ground when the auction of lots took place. Mr. Ernest was from Hanover, Germany, and was looking up a suitable place for the settlement of a small colony by his countrymen. He bought some lots in the new city and built a store room. He also secured land for his colony which came a year or so later.

PERRYVILLE, SEAT OR FAYETTE COUNTY

       When the capital was moved to Vandalia in 1820, the site was in Crawford county. In 1821, February 14, the county of Fayette was created and the county seat fixed at Perryville which had served as the P 463 county seat of Bond which was organized in 1816. This old town of Perryville was in the present Seminary township some seven miles down the river from Vandalia. It contained a log court house and a log jail. The county seat was subsequently moved to Vandalia.

ERNEST, OR HANOVER COLONY

       Much could be written of the Ernest colony—sometimes called the Hanover colony. Ferdinand Ernest was a broadminded, patriotic man. He brought a colony of some twenty families to the vicinity of Vandalia. He was wealthy but used his means to assist his colonists to get a start in the new world. Among those who came with Ernest was Colonel Frederick Remann, born in Hanover in 1807. He took an active part in the Black Hawk war; was a successful business man; served in the legislature; was one of the fifty-six Republican electors in Fayette county who voted for Fremont in 1856.

FAYETTE AND VANDALIA ITEMS

       This county was named in honor of General LaFayette, who in 1825 was the guest of Illinois. He visited at old Kaskaskia and at Shawneetown, and tradition has it that he came to Vandalia, but this is very doubtful.

       The moving of the capital to Springfield in 1840 was a great blow to Vandalia. The former capital became an ordinary county seat town and the dream of its founders has never been realized.

       It is said the first school was taught in Vandalia by a man named Jackson in an old shed in 1819. The first child born was named Vandalia McCullom, son of John F. McCullom. The first frame house was erected in 1820. The first store was kept by Ernest, Holman and others.

       Fayette furnished Colonel Ferris Foreman in the war with Mexico. He was colonel of the Third regiment and was a gallant officer. General T. E. G. Ransom, a brilliant soldier of the Civil war, was from Vandalia.

        Vandalia was the center of great political activity during the great slavery fight in 1823-4. The first newspaper in Illinois was the Illinois Herald, founded in 1814 in Kaskaskia. In 1816 the name was changed to Western Intelligencer; in 1818 changed to Illinois Intelligencer. In 1820 it was moved to Vandalia and eventually came out as an anti-convention paper. It was continued till 1832, when it was merged with the Illinois Whig. In 1830 a literary journal called the Illinois Monthly Magazine, the first publication of its kind in Illinois, probably in the west, was begun in Vandalia by Judge James Hull, the most versatile writer of his time. There have been published in Vandalia since 1820 thirty-seven different papers and periodicals.

       Fayette gained ten in population in the past decade. In 1900 the population was 28,065; in 1910, 28,075. In 1900 the value of all farm property, including lands, was $11,945,902. In 1910 it was *25,489,267. The value of domestic animals nearly doubled in the decade. The corn crop in this county is larger than in other Southern Illinois counties.

       Vandalia is the chief city of the county, with a population of 2,974. St. Elmo has 1,227 and is a thriving town. There is a number of other important towns—Shobonier, Farina, Ramsey, Brownstown, St. Peter. P 464 The old National road had its western terminus at Vandalia. The road was surveyed to the Mississippi river, but the construction was never continued further west than the capital city. The old bridge across the Kaskaskia is an interesting reminder of the old regime. Vandalia was like a reservoir into which poured the streams of immigration over the old “National pike.”

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