Place:Morgan, Illinois, United States

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source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Morgan County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it had a population of 35,547. Its county seat is Jacksonville.

Morgan County is part of the Jacksonville, IL Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Springfield-Jacksonville-Lincoln, IL Combined Statistical Area.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Morgan County was formed in 1823 out of Greene and Sangamon Counties. It was named in honor of General Daniel Morgan, who defeated the British at the Battle of Cowpens in the American Revolutionary War. General Morgan was serving under General Nathanael Greene at Cowpens. Jacksonville was established by European Americans on a 160-acre tract of land in the center of Morgan County in 1825, two years after the county was founded. The founders of Jacksonville, Illinois consisted entirely of settlers from New England. These people were "Yankee" settlers, that is to say they were descended from the English Puritans who settled New England in the 1600s. They were part of a wave of New England farmers who headed west into what was then the wilds of the Northwest Territory during the early 1800s. Most of them arrived as a result of the completion of the Erie Canal and the end of the Black Hawk War. The Yankee migration to Illinois was a result of several factors, one of which was the overpopulation of New England. The old stock Yankee population had large families, often bearing up to ten children in one household. Most people were expected to have their own piece of land to farm, and due to the massive and nonstop population boom, land in New England became scarce as every son claimed his own farmstead. As a result, there was not enough land for every family to have a self-sustaining farm, and Yankee settlers began leaving New England for the Midwestern United States. When they arrived in what is now Jacksonville there was nothing but dense virgin forest and wild prairie, the "Yankee" New Englanders laid out farms, constructed roads, erected government buildings and established post routes. They brought with them many of their Yankee New England values, such as a passion for education, establishing many schools as well as staunch support for abolitionism. They were mostly members of the Congregationalist Church though some were Episcopalian. Due to the second Great Awakening some of them had converted to Methodism and Presbyterianism while some others became Baptist, before moving to what is now Jacksonville. Jacksonville, like some other parts of Illinois, would be culturally very continuous with early New England culture for most of its early history.

Timeline

Population History

source: Source:Population of States and Counties of the United States: 1790-1990

Cemeteries

Cemeteries of Morgan County, Illinois, United States

Research Tips

External Links

• Outstanding guide to Morgan County family history and genealogy resources (FamilySearch Research Wiki). Birth, marriage, and death records, censuses, wills, deeds, county histories, cemeteries, churches, naturalizations, newspapers, libraries, and genealogical societies.
• www.rootsweb.com/~ilmorgan/morgan.htm