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PAST AND PRESENT OF PIKE COUNTY. 45
tween townships two and three south touches the
Illinois river, thence west on said line to the range
line between ranges four and five west, thence
north from said line to the northwest corner of
township three north, range one west, thence east
on said township line to the Illinois river, thence
down the said river to the place of beginning."
The same year an act was passed forming new
counties. Those formed were Adams, Hancock,
McDonough, Warren, Mercer, Henry, Putnam
and Knox. Their boundaries were fixed by the
act of January 30, 1825. Calhoun county was cut
off from Pike county and organized in 1825.
GENERAL REVIEW.
No whites settled north of Alton for agricultural
purposes prior to 1819. During that year
and the next three there was a sufficient number
of settlers to organize a county. Accordingly the
Legislature of 1820-1, as above seen, organized
the county of Pike, which then included all of the
State of Illinois between the Illinois and Mississippi
rivers. The county seat was first fixed at
Coles' Grove, adjoining the locality of Gilead,
which flow into the Mississippi ;
and Big and Little
Blue, and the North and West Forks of Mc-
Gee's creek, which enter into the Illinois. Good
mill sites are furnished by these streams.
"The land is various. The section of country,
or rather island,, between the Sny Carte slough
and the Mississippi, is a sandy soil, but mostly
inundated land at the spring flood. It furnishes a
great summer and winter range for stock, affording
considerable open prairie, with skirts of heavy
bottom timber near the streams. Along the bluffs
and for two or three miles back the land is chiefly
timbered, but cut up with ravines and quite rolling.
Far in the interior and toward Schuyler
county excellent prairie and timber lands are
found, especially about the Blue rivers and
McGee's creek. This must eventually be a rich
and populous county.
"In Pleasant Vale, on Keyes creek, is a salt
spring twenty feet in diameter, which boils from
the earth and throws off a stream of some size,
and forms a salt pond in its vicinity. Salt has
been made here, though not in great quantities.
"In the county are seven water saw mills, four
grist mills, one carding machine, five stores, and
afterward the county seat of Calhoun county. a horse ferryboat across the Mississippi to
This place was named after Edward Coles, Governor
Louisiana."
of Illinois.
HANSON AND SHAW.
We copy the following topographical sketch of
Pike county from "Peck's Illinois Gazeteer," published
1834, as giving an idea of the county at
The State constitution, adopted on the admission
of Illinois into the Union in .1818, prohibited
i-
that early date :
slavery in this State. Owing to this fact many of
"Pike county is the oldest county in the Military
the early immigrants coming west, who were
Tract, and was erected from Madison and from the slave States of Virginia and Kentucky,
other counties in 1821. It then embraced the passed right through this garden of Eden into
whole country northwest of the Illinois river, but Missouri. An effort was made, therefore, to so
by subsequent formation of new counties it is amend the constitution as to permit slavery in this ^,
now reduced to ordinary size, containing twentytwo
State that it
might be more attractive to settlers,
townships, or about 800 square miles. It is and the sequel showed that Illinois had a narrow
bounded north by Adams, east by Schuyler and escape from the dreadful evils of slavery. When
the Illinois river, south by that river and Calhoun,
the necessary preliminary resolution was offered
and west by the Mississippi. Besides the in the Senate it was ascertained that the requisite
Mississippi and Illinois rivers, which wash two two-thirds vote to pass the resolution for the call
sides, it has the Sny Carte slough, running the
whole length of its western border, which floats
of a convention to amend the constitution could
be obtained and to spare but in the House they
;
steamboats to Atlas at a full stage of water. Pike needed one vote. At first it was strenuously
county is watered by the Pigeon, Hadley, Keyes, argued that the two-thirds vote meant two-thirds
r.lack. Dutch Church, Six-Mile and Bav creeks, of the two Houses in joint convention ;
but the