Notes from the White County Historical Society as they appear in "The Carmi Times."

Copyright ©2001 by "The Carmi Times" Permission to reprint granted to Cindy Birk Conley and the ILGenWeb by Tammy Knox, editor, "The Carmi Times."

"Burnt Prairie, a small farming village in southeastern Illinois,
began its existence in the early years of the 19th century with the name
of Liberty. It was the center of trade for the surrounding small,
one-family farms and traded its produce of grains, flour (and meal), and
pork in a wide area. Some of the products followed the great inland
waterways of the Wabash, Ohio and Mississippi rivers and entered the
international trade markets through the port of New Orleans.

"During the Civil War, Liberty was staunchly Union in its loyalty, and
many of its sons and fathers joined the Union Army despite the proximity
to the south. Situated at 38.25 degrees N (88.25 degrees W), it lies
south of the Mason-Dixon Line and is nearly as far south as the Capital
of the Confederacy, Richmond, Va."

Thus begins the foreword of a new book (really new: it's dated May 31,
2001), entitled LEST WE FORGET...BURNT PRAIRIE AND ITS PAST. This book
resulted from the combined effort of four men who were boyhood friends
when growing up in the Burnt Prairie area: Ray Anderson, James Ralph
Cash, Joe Phillips and Jim Whetstone.

The book is chock full of pictures of the present-day buildings and
their occupants, and many buildings of the past. Fully indexed, it
contains about 1,200 names of people with Burnt Prairie connections.
We're impressed with this effort and feel anyone with any interest in
this area will want a copy of this book. Perhaps you'll wish to come in
and look through our copy.

The books sells for $15, plus $3 shipping. At that price, they can't
possibly be making a profit on this endeavor. We have a few copies for
sale at the Genealogy Library. A copy may be obtained by writing any of
the following: Joe Phillips, Route 5, Fairfield IL 62837; Ray Anderson,
27 Sunderland Drive, Morristown, NJ 07960; or Jim Whetstone, 11 Turtle
Pointe Road, Monticello, IL 61856. (Cindy's note--all copies were sold out by 6/15/2001--more are to be printed.)
........

Librarian Pat Davis has been delving into boxes of material (mostly old
newspapers) which we've had around the library for some time. She found the following news item which had no date nor notation of which newspaper it came from. The convoluted sentence structure is enough to give an English teacher fits, and it is certainly a poor example of how to announce a wedding."Miss Ella Rice, daughter of the late Hiram Rice of Nashville, Ill., who died in a sanitarium in Mt. Vernon from the wounds inflicted in a street fight with sheriff J. K. May and City Marshal August Le Kerr, at Nashville, both of whom he killed, was married Saturday to John
Evelsizer, Jr., the 'man in the case.' Efforts to obtain a license the
following day after the shooting failed, as County Clerk H. F. Heckert
was opposed to issuing a wedding permit before the victims of the
tragedy had been buried. The groom is 20 years old and his bride 16."
........

The Genealogy Library is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through
Saturday.
........

Address letters to Genealogy, White County Historical Society, PO Box
121, Carmi, IL 62821.

Return to the White County ILGenWeb Page

The Coordinator for the White County, Illinois ILGenWeb page is Cindy Birk Conley

Copyright © 2001 by Cindy Birk Conley, all rights reserved. For personal use only. Commercial use of the information contained in these pages is strictly prohibited without prior permission. If copied, this copyright notice must appear with the information.