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Lewistown was founded in 1821 by Ossian Ross (the first veteran of the war of 1812 to claim his quarter section in the Military Tract) and named the community for his son. In 1823 Lewistown became the county seat of the newly created Fulton County which extended to the Wisconsin border. From 1823 - 1825 citizens of Chicago came to Lewistown to vote, attend court and obtain marriage licenses. The records of the first marriage performed in Chicago, that of Ellen Kinzie to Indian Agent Dr. Alexander Wolcott in 1823, were filed in the Lewistown Courthouse.
The Lewistown Courthouse is the fourth to serve the county. The first courthouse, built of logs in 1823, was in use when much of Western Illinois, including Chicago, was under the jurisdiction of Fulton County. A wooden frame building replaced it in 1830. The third courthouse, built of brick in 1836 had a portico of four stone columns. Stephen A. Douglas served as a Circuit Court Judge in this courthouse, and on August 17, 1858, Abraham Lincoln stood between the columns to deliver much quoted "Return to the Fountain" speech in which he said:"Now, if slavery had been a good thing, would the Fathers of the Republic have taken a step calculated to diminish the beneficent influences among themselves, and snatch the boon wholly from their posterity? These communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the whole world of men: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by ther Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. (Applause) Yes, gentlemen, to His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward adn seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children's children, and the countless myraids who should inhabit the earth in other ages."Dickson Mounds Museum. Don Dickson began digging on his family farm in 1927 into the ancient burial mounds removing only the dirt and leaving the history intact. In 1992 the exposed burial closed to the public and Dickson Mounds went through major renovation to make it more of an interpretive center.
Edgar Lee Masters Home. The Master's family moved to Lewistown from Petersburg (near Springfield, Illinois) in 1880 when Edgar Lee was eleven and pruchased this house in 1883. (The house is today a private residence. Note the original Masters footstone to the right of the front door.) Edgar Lee graduated from Lewistown High School in 1886. He participated locally in debating, oratory and theatre; worked in a news office; and studied law with his father. He left Lewistown for Chicago in 1891, and became a law partner of criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow. Although he published over 50 books, Masters' only great literary success was The Spoon River Anthology, which appeared in 1915. Masters died in 1950 and is buried in Petersburg. |
