The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1906-05-19
THE RISE OF A CAPITAL.
BY L. k. BECKER.


The Sangamon River of Illinois
flows through the heart of garden
as rich and fertile as the one which
the Euphrates watered in the far dis
tant days of Adam and Eve.
The county of Sangamon was form
ed out of vast, verdant solitude of
800 square miles.
Three commissioners were chosen
to set in motion county organization
of government, and they met, with
out delay, at the cabin of John Kelly
on Spring Creek, tributary of the
Sangamon.
Kelly had wandered into the State
in 1913 and had built himself a cabin
on the edge of a green-bordered
stream which he had named Spring
Creek.
The Sangamon officials sent forth
their report regarding the establish
ment of a temporary eouHty-seat of
justice and agreed that it should be
called by the name OF Springfield"
A contract was made at once for a
court house of rough logs to contain
one room ample for court, and with
plenty of space for the Office of county
officials, who were already named.
The courthouse was completed in
twenty-four days and paid for in the
sum of torty-two dollars and fifty
cents.
AS it was evident that a constable
could not exercise his functions with
out provision for the safe-keeping of
offenders, a Jail, to cost eighty-fve
dollars, was next projected to furnish
proper support to the courthouse by
holding in check a population not yet
arrived, but hourly expected.
These expectations were not so abb
surd as they seem, and within two
years the county commissioners de-
cided upon making the temporary
county-seat permanent.
Courts in the log quarters were
rude, but justice was administered
with generally even hand and the
early lawyers, Edwards, Kane,
Thomas, and others, were men whose
learning and ability were hardly sur
passed in later and more pretentious
courts.
There was an indescribable quality
about these early administrations of
law and equity that somehow make
them of untold interest today.
Abraham Lincoln appeared in the
Sangamon country about 1891, and
the broad footprints he left during
his sojourn of thirty years may easily
be followed.
For six years he was, by turns,
clerk in a country store, merchant,
soldier, postmaster, student, orator,
and last a full-hedged lawyer. Bit
by bit, as the artist designs choice
mosaic, this man was developing a
character whose bold outlines were
to stand out, an illuminating beacon
to all mankind.
In 1897 Lincoln became a citizen,
of Springfield and began the practice
of law.
He was elected the same year to
represent Sangamon county in the
legislature, and was also at the head
of project to remove the capital
from Vandalia to Springfield.
AS every other town in the State
was desirous of the same distinction
the scheme seemed doubtful of reali-
cation, nevertheless it was accom-
plished.
While the delegates in convention
assembled were here and there dis
cussing merits among themselves.
Lincoln gained the floor and called
for vote of those in favor of the re-
moval of the capital from Vandalia.
There was but one dissenting vote
Vandalia's. Then, without delay,
or discussion, he called for the vote
of those desiring to remove the capi-
tai to Springfield.
He was answered by such ma
iority as gave the legislature the
prompt duty of passing bill for the
removal, and thus Springfield carried
off the prize, as some rustic beauty
has been known to do in a social con-
test where dozen bellies were con-
cerned.
The pleasant hunting ground OF
| John Kelly became III those sixteen
years a capital destined to be the
guardian of those sacred treasures oi
our nation, the haunts, the home, and
the tomb of the illustrious Lincoln
/ TIE Eo,,a 7%0rk Mems