1955 - This is Knox County - Illinois Ancestors

of the ex-soldiers sold tneir " prairie quarter " for $100or even less, while others traded theirs for a horse, a cowor a watch.What happened afterwards was that many of the firstsettlers of this region had great difficulty in ascertainingthe legal status of the land they had staked out; they oftendid not know if their claim was " Congress Land, " whichthey were entitled to pre-empt, or " Patent Land, " whichbelonged to some veteran. Quite a few of the veterans soldtheir tracts to Eastern " land sharks. " Cases were commonwhere a " land shark " would turn up as owner and demand anexorbitant price for the land on which a settler had builthis cabin home and laid out a farm.KNOX COUNTY CREATEDAltnough Knox was one of eight new counties created bythe Illinois state legislature at Vandalia (then the capitalof the state) on January 13, 1825, the enabling act havingbeen signed by Governor Edward Coles, it did not nave aformal county government until 1830. During this interval itwas a dependency of its parent county, Fulton, and the firstsettlers of Knox had to carry on their county business atFulton's county seat, Lewistown.By 1830, however, there were enough legal residents,350, in Knox County to meet the requirements of formalcounty organization. On demand of these early settlers.Circuit Judge Richard M. Young, sitting at Lewistown, issuedan order calling for formal organization of Knox County and