Map of the Bounty Lands

Military Land Tracts of Illinois. Bounty lands for Veterans of The War of 1812.

Welcome!

Welcome to the official blog of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County. It's been around for only a couple days, but this is what you'd call the initial public offering. Check out the earlier posts, and keep coming back for plenty more - including information about HSQAC events and anything else history related that's going on...

Contributions and help from the public are more than welcome here. If you have any old photographs related to the history of Quincy and Adams County, that you'd like to share... Please email them to meprovine@yahoo.com, along with all the details, and I'll get them on.

Adams County Map, 1875

Historical Society of Quincy & Adams & Marquette County?

Adams County was created on January 13, 1825 - formed from Pike County and Unorganized land. The County was named for John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States. Marquette County was formed in 1843 from Adams County, and abolished in 1847.

If you have any more information or media of Illinois' former Marquette County, please send it to meprovine@yahoo.com, and I'll post it on the blog.

Pays des Ilinois

Click this map to see a larger version. It's a 1784 French map of North America. This "General Chart" doesn't show much in our area of the Illinois Country (Pays des Ilinois). After all, it is 1784. It's hard to tell where Adams County will eventually be, as the map's dimensions are askew in our neck of the woods, but it's interesting to check out...

Old Quincy From Above

The Adams County Geographic Information System has an incredible amount of mapping data related to the entire county, but from an historical perspective, the 1938 aerial photos are really cool to see. Check it out: Adams County GIS.

Quincy, Capital of Forgottonia

The book Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made It, features the "lost state" of Forgottonia. Check out the Lost States blog entry, or read a more detailed explanation on Wikipedia.

Forgottonia is not the only possible realm Quincy and Adams County could have fallen under. Stay tuned for more information on that.

Back when Illinois became a state...

The Illinois Territory was created on February 3, 1809, with its capital at Kaskaskia. In May 1812, an act of Congress was passed which set aside bounty lands as payment to volunteer soldiers for the War against the British (War of 1812). The land was set aside in western territories that became part of the present states of Arkansas, Michigan and Illinois. On December 3rd, 1818, Illinois became the 21st U.S. state. The new state debated slavery, finally rejecting it, as settlers poured into southern Illinois from Kentucky.

The Illinois tract, surveyed in 1815-1816, contained more than 5 million acres, of which 3,50 million were deemed fit for cultivation and set aside for military bounties. Comprising 207 entire townships, each 6 miles square, and 61 fractional townships, the tract included present Illinois counties of Adams, Brown, Calhoun, Fulton, Hancock, Henderson, Knox, McDonough, Mercer, Peoria, Pike, Schuyler, Stark, and Warren Counties.

The newspaper Illinois Bounty Land Register, first published in 1835, to advertise lands granted to veterans, is one of the ancestors of the current Quincy Herald-Whig newspaper.