One of a series of Looking For Lincoln Historical Markers across the State of Illinois, this placard is located in front of the Livingston County Courthouse (
visit link) and adjacent to a statue of a young Abrahama Lincoln - see (
visit link)
The marker has three sections which read:
"COUNTY SEAT ALMOST MOVED
RIDING THE EIGHTH
JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, LINCOLN PLEADED
cases in Livingston's first
courthouse located on this site.
But these events almost did not come to
pass. The town proprietors has promised
a courthouse, which two years later had
not materialized. The unrest grew, and
on August 30, 1839 an election was held
for the purpose of moving the Seat of
Justice several miles up the river to the
Oswego Township farm of Daniel
Rockwood. The arguments waged in its
favor were numerous: Pontiac was not the
most central point, it was an unhealthy
locality, being low and marshy, and the
proprietors had not made the promised
improvements. The proposed fifty-acre
site was high and dry; it was in a central
location, being the nearest of the center
of any on the river, and the courthouse
would be built immediately. The result of
the election was a huge majority in favor
of the move- 81 for to 56 against.- but
not quite the two-thirds majority required
to move the county seat. The vote was
sufficient enough, though, to move those
parties interested in Pontiac real estate to
expedite the building of the much-
needed and long-awaited courthouse.
LIVINGSTON COUNTY'S first courthouse
completed in 1841, was occupied on July 23, 1842. used for political
and social meetings, church services, and Sunday school, the twenty-two by thirty foot, story and a half frame building gave great satisfaction . In 1843, Samuel Ladd taught the area's first public
school in it. Hugh Taylor rented the jury room for a store in 1845, and also rented the courtroom for three months. Though Pontiac remained largely uninhabited , the country around gained population, and court sessions offered a most popular entertainment.
THERE WAS MUCH WORK IN CONTENTIOUS LIVINGSTOM
County for Lincoln, Douglas and other circuit-riding attorneys.
Lincoln also appeared in the state Supfreme Court in 1843 with an appeal from the circuit court here. Livingston County Sheriff Garret Blue had been found guilty in circuit court of slandering Eliza Allen by calling her a perjurer. Mrs. Allen and her husband, Moses, sued for $2,000 but won only $250 damages and court costs of $13. (Blue's alleged name-calling, it is thought, grew out of an earlier case in which Blue was found guilty of publicly accusing Mrs. Allen of adultery. The Allens lost and paid $18.75 in costs.) The state Supreme Court reversed Blue's conviction of perjury and ordered the Allens to pay $8.50 costs. During one term of court, Lincoln paid his hotel bill here by attending to one of owner John Foster's many pending legal cases."