page_title: Geneseo, Illinois
section_title: Establishment of the city
hierarchical_section_title: Geneseo, Illinois / History / Establishment of the city
caption_attribution_description: English: Geneseo, Illinois 1895 WC Sheppard Mansion. The lot was a known location of the underground railroad in the 1830s through 1860s
context_page_description: Geneseo is a city in Henry County, Illinois, United States. The population was 6,586 at the 2010 census, up from 6,480 in 2000. Geneseo is 20 miles east of the Quad Cities, at the intersection of Interstate 80, U.S. Route 6 and Illinois Route 82.
  Geneseo is well known for its Victorian-style architecture, quaint downtown, and its successful high school football and music programs.
context_section_description: The town was split into lots by the trustees: John C. Ward, Cromwell K. Bartlett, and R.R. Stewart. They split the land into five blocks east to west and three blocks north to south with locations for a cemetery, a block for the school and church, a public square, and the "gospel lot," which, in 1846, became a seminary. Lots would be drawn by chance, assuming that the settlers would build on them, and immediately the town established its Christian and education-focused philosophy. A mandatory tithe on all proceeds (over a certain amount) were set aside to build a religious and educational seminary in the center of town, now the Geneseo City Park. This building, originally known as the Geneseo Manual Labor High School, was later renamed the Geneseo Seminary and was borne of the self-denial philosophy of the town's leaders. However, due to considerable debt, the Geneseo Seminary ended up closing in the year 1857 and was folded into the public school system as Geneseo Central School.
  Further proving their religious and educational convictions, when many of the town's founding families hadn't arrived and while the remainder battled frostbite, the settlers began a temperance society in 1836 with several families in Hanna Township and Cleveland, Illinois. Construction on the original First Congregationalist Church began in 1837 and its first communion was held on April 18, 1838 during a large hail storm that destroyed nearly all windows in the small town. Its first regular pastor was Rev. Jairus Wilcox. The Congregationalist Church was so important in Geneseo's early founding that Ms. Ella Hume Taylor wrote on the centennial anniversary of Geneseo's founding in 1936, "The history of Geneseo Colony and of the Congregational Church are so closely interwoven that, for many, to speak of one, meant the other also, for their interests were so in common. The church was a Court of Justice, settling community and family misunderstandings. At one time in the early days every adult but one, and most of the children, were members of this church, and for over eighteen years there was no other church affiliation in Geneseo, not until after the railroad went through, bringing in those of other denominations, also bringing some foreigners of different beliefs."
  
  These strong religious beliefs also strongly influenced the town's political leanings as well, being very strong abolitionists and Republicans. Ella Hume Taylor further wrote that, "scarcely had the colonists erected their cabins before Geneseo became a station of the Underground Railroad for the poor runaway slaves soon learned where friends were. Deacon Cone's cabin...was one place, for it had an attic for a hiding place. There were other places also, for those helping them had regular stations, and at night, or under grain or hay, by daylight some of the young men would get them on to the next station, and toward a land of safety.'" It was also discovered in 1999 that the structure of the Geneseo Historical Society was, too, used as a "stop" on the Underground Railroad.
  Even before the church was constructed, the first school was established when R.R. Stewart's daughter, Miss Susannah Stewart, began teaching classes in a one-room school house in 1837. It was built with puncheon floors, round poles, and the old wagon covers they used to make the journey.
caption: W.C. Sheppard Mansion, 1895 in Geneseo, Illinois. This lot was the location of Deacon Cone's house that was used for the Underground Railroad
exif: {}