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Revised 27 December 2010

	ILLINOIS
Illinois is deemed the transportation center of the United States.  It was visited by French explorers in the late sixteen hundreds.  Many of the early hunters and explorers and those who passed through in times of war, returned to this area later to farm.  Illinois has deep rich soil and many rivers and streams, which made it ideal for settlement. The first part of the area to be settled by permanent settlers (other than the Indians) came from North Carolina, Virginia and Kentucky.  They also came from the east from Maryland and Pennsylvania.   Settlers began to arrive in the northern portion of Illinois about 1825.  They generally came from the New England states.  As industrial growth began in Illinois, European emigrants flocked there by the thousands every month.  These furnished the man-power for the factories and industrial plants that sprung up along Lake Michigan. They came from Ireland, the south European countries,  and Germany, followed closely behind by the Poles, Italians, Swedes and Russians. Illinois was part of the Northwest Territory which the United States obtained from Great Britain after the Revolutionary War.  It had been ceded by France in 1763 and became part of the United States in 1783.  It was organized as American Territory in 1787 and included the land north and west of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi, and south of Canada.  Illinois became the third of five territories and other states were formed from that area.  Illinois became a territory in its own right in 1898 and our twenty-first state in 1818
Name Date Formed Parent County County Seat Adams 1825 Pike Quincy Alexander 1819 Johnson Cairo Bond 1817 Madison Greenville Boone 1837 Winnebago Belvidere Brown 1839 Schuyler Mt. Sterling Bureau 1837 Putnam Princeton Calhoun 1825 Pike Hardin Carroll 1839 Jo Daviess Mt. Carroll Cass 1837 Morgan Virginia Champaign 1833 Vermillion Urbana Christian (Formerly Dane) 1839 Sangamon, Shelby Taylorville Clark 1819 Crawford Marshall Clay 1824 Wayne, Lawrence, Fayette Louisville Clinton 1824 Washington, Bond, Fayette, Crawford Carlyle Coles 1830 Clark, Edgar Charleston Cook 1831 Putnam Orlando Park & Chicago Crawford 1815 Edwards Robinson Cumberland 1843 Coles Toledo Dane 1839 Name changed in 1840 to Christian County DeKalb 1837 Kane Sycamore DeWitt 1839 Macon, McLean Clinton Douglas 1859 Coles Tuscola DuPage 1839 Cook Wheaton Edgar 1823 Clark Paris Edwards 1814 Madison, Gallatin Albion Effingham 1831 Fayette, Crawford Effingham Fayette 1821 Bond, Wayne, Clark, Jefferson Vandalia Ford 1859 Clark Paxton Franklin 1818 White, Gallatin Benton Fulton 1823 Pike Lewistown Gallatin 1812 Randolph Shawneetown Greene 1821 Madison Carrolton Grundy 1841 LaSalle Morris Hamilton 1821 White McLeansboro Hancock 1825 Pike, Unorganized Territory Carthage Hardin 1839 Pope Elizabethtown Henderson 1841 Warren Oquawka Henry 1825 Fulton Cambridge Iroquois 1833 Vermillion Watseka Jackson 1815 Randolph, Johnson Murphysboro Jasper 1831 Clay, Crawford Newton Jefferson 1819 Edwards, White Mt. Vernon Jersey 1839 Greene Jerseyville Jo Daviess 1827 Henry, Mercer, Putnam Galena Johnson 1812 Randolph Vienna Kane 1836 LaSalle Geneva Kankakee 1853 Iroquois, Will Kankakee Kendall 1841 LaSalle, Kane Yorkville Knox 1825 Fulton Galesburg Lake 1839 McHenry Waukegan LaSalle 1831 Putnam, Vermillion Ottawa Lawrence 1821 Crawford, Edwards Lawrenceville Lee 1839 Ogle Dixon Livingston 1837 LaSalle, McLean Pontiac Logan 1839 Sangamon Lincoln McDonough 1830 Schuyler Macomb McHenry 1836 Cook Woodstock McLean 1830 Tazewell, Unorganized Territory Bloomington Macon 1829 Shelby Decatur Macoupin 1829 Madison, Greene Carlinville Madison 1812 St. Clair Edwardsville Marion 1823 Fayette, Jefferson Salem Marshall 1839 Putnam Lacon Mason 1841 Tazewell Havana Massac 1843 Pope, Jefferson Metropolis Menard 1839 Sangamon Petersburg Mercer 1825 Unorganized Territory, Pike Aledo Monroe 1816 Randolph, St. Clair Waterloo Montgomery 1821 Bond, Madison Hillsboro Morgan 1823 Sangamon Jacksonville Moultrie 1843 Shelby, Macon Sullivan Ogle 1836 Jo Daviess Oregon Peoria 1825 Fulton Peoria Perry 1827 Randolph, Jackson Pinckneyville Piatt 1841 DeWitt, Macon Monticello Pike 1821 Madison, Bond, Clark Pittsfield Pope 1816 Gallatin, Johnson Golconda Pulaski 1843 Johnson Mound City Putnam 1825 Fulton Hennepin Randolph 1795 Northwest Territory, St. Clair Chester Richland 1841 Clay, Lawrence Olney Rock Island 1833 Jo Daviess Rock Island & Carbon Cliff St. Clair 1790 Northwest Territory Belleville Saline 1847 Gallatin Harrisburg Sangamon 1821 Bond, Madison Springfield Schuyler 1825 Pike, Fulton Rushville Scott 1839 Morgan Winchester Shelby 1827 Fayette Shelbyville Stark 1839 Knox, Putnam Toulon Stephenson 1837 Jo Daviess, Winnebago Freeport Tazewell 1827 Sangamon Pekin Union 1818 Johnson Jonesboro Vermilion 1826 Unorganized Territory, Edgar Danville Wabash 1827 Edwards Mt. Carmel Warren 1825 Pike Monmouth Washington 1818 St. Clair Nashville Wayne 1819 Edwards Fairfield White 1816 Gallatin Carmi Whiteside 1839 Joe Daviess, Henry Morrison Will 1836 Cook, Iroquois Joliet Williamson 1839 Franklin Marion Winnebago 1836 Jo Daviess Rockford Woodford 1841 Tazewell, McLean Eureka
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