McCue
documents Abraham Lincoln Eighth Judicial
Circuit historical markers
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[July
02, 2019]
Chuck McCue stopped by the June monthly meeting
of the Logan County Genealogical and Historical
Society Monday to share an interesting story
that spans the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
Chuck likes to delve into the places, events,
and people that make up the fascinating history
of central Illinois, and spread the word. In
this case, he brought the little known history
of the Daughters of the American Revolution
(DAR) program from the 1920’s to mark the route
of the Eighth Judicial Circuit with monuments.
This story starts in 2007 and then travels back
to the 1840’s. “I would never have known about
this event if I had not met Guy Fraker,” said
Chuck. Guy Fraker is a lawyer, historian, and
author who lives in Bloomington. His focus has
always been on Abraham Lincoln, and how Illinois
shaped our most beloved President.
Abraham Lincoln was a successful lawyer in
Illinois, and as part of his practice traveled
the Eighth Judicial Circuit bringing the law to
areas that had no legal access.
The Eighth Circuit was a circuitous route that
went to county seats from Springfield to the
Peoria area then to Bloomington and Danville.
The Eighth stopped at the Postville Courthouse
in Lincoln when the town was the first county
seat of Logan County. It then wended its way
south to Taylorville and Shelbyville before
returning to Springfield.
The lawyers who traveled along with Mr. Lincoln
formed a community who not only represented
people needing legal representation, but also
acted as prosecutors and judges. “The travelers
on the Eighth spent up to four months and
traveled four-hundred miles to cover what would
otherwise have been a legal desert,” said Chuck
McCue.
Initially, the lawyers and Mr. Lincoln actually
did ride horses around the circuit, but later on
some county seats were accessible by train.
It is no exaggeration that Mr. Lincoln’s time on
the Eighth was instrumental to his successful
career as a lawyer, and his later climb to the
top of the political ladder.
In 1923, the DAR decided on a plan to
memorialize the Eighth with monuments that would
be placed at every county courthouse where Mr.
Lincoln practiced law, and every location where
it crossed a county line.
It was an ambitious project. Think about the
logistics. Since Mr. Lincoln’s time on the
circuit, county lines had changed, counties were
added, county seats moved, and new roads were
built and old roads were abandoned. All of this,
and funding the project, but they got it done.
The DAR talked the counties into funding the
project within their jurisdiction, hired an
artist who worked on the Lincoln Memorial in
Washington D.C. to design the monuments, and
even interviewed in 1919 the last surviving
lawyer who rode the Eighth with Mr. Lincoln in
the late 1850’s.
Where are these monuments today? Well, some of
them still exist, mostly at the location of a
county seat courthouse. Many courthouses have
been torn down since the 1920’s, but some of the
monuments still exist.
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A marker that still remains along the Eighth
Judicial Circuit Route.
The monuments at county lines are more
problematic. Roads have been abandoned, but some
monuments still exist in the middle of nowhere,
while some still stand on a road that sees
little if any use. Many of the monuments that
still exist are in poor condition, while some
are missing altogether. “One may be at the
bottom of Lake Shelbyville,” said Chuck McCue.
A few of the monuments still remain. They could
be along a lonely country road that sees little
traffic, or a busy highway.
A farm family saved the plaque from a damaged
marker, and built one of their own design near
the original location.
In the original plan, Logan County had five of
the monuments.
There is a plan to repair as many of the
monuments as possible. A concrete expert from
Iowa has been engaged by the DAR to assist in
restoration of a few of them.
Chuck has created a map with the location of the
remaining monuments with their GPS coordinates.
Today, there are wine trails, craft brewery
trails, and bourbon trails, but from a time gone
by, there was an Eighth Judicial Circuit Trail
that recorded the movements of one of the
greatest of Americans. Abraham Lincoln grew in
stature as he traveled the Eighth, and then
saved the ‘United’ States.
The Logan County Genealogical and Historical
Society meets on the third Monday of the month
at 6:30 p.m. at their research facility on
Chicago Street. They always have an interesting
speaker and the public is invited.
[Curtis Fox]
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