County of Mason County
Location of courthouse: Plum St. & Main St. Havana
Location of county: Almost center in state; crossroads of: US-136; IL-10 and IL-29, IL-78, IL-97
Founded: 1841
Named After: George Mason
Elevation: 730+ ft (223+ m)
Population: 12,881 (2021)
"History is but the footprints upon the sands of time, by which we trace the growth, development and advancement of the people constituting a nation. It takes note of the humblest tiller of the soil as well as of the scholar, the states- man, the soldier, and the great and good men and women who build the imperishable monuments of a country's greatness.
Tradition tells us of the glories of the garden of Eden, and the purity and happiness of the first pair, and also of their transgression and fall from their high and happy estate. Of the men and things that existed in the world during the many dark centuries that precede the historic period, we know nothing, except through rude hieroglyphics and vague traditions, handed down through the beclouded minds of unlettered and superstitious people.
Beginning with the age of letters and improvements in the languages
of the world, followed by the modern inventions of printing types and presses, and the immense institution of the daily newspaper and telegraph, minute and reliable records of the world's daily doings are chronicled, and out of these veritable history is formulated.
The multiplicity of inventions and discoveries, resulting from a rapid growth of intelligence, during the last half-century, has produced the necessary conditions for the production of a more perfected type of the genus homo, by whom the world is peopled, and through whom history of a still higher order will be furnished for those who may live in the hereafter.
The events that make up the annals of a new and growing country will always be of interest to the seeker after knowledge, who may in them learn who has lived and what has been done in the past ages of the world. The time is approaching when ignorance of the world's historic past will be a reproach, however it may be as to a lack of knowledge of the future!
America constitutes a great nation of people, made up from the populations of many other nations, and Illinois is one of the greatest and most highly favored by nature of all the thirty-eight States ; extending as it does over a range of five and a half degrees of latitude, causing a more varied climate than any other State, and for its fertility of soil is unsurpassed in the world ; thus making Illinois the jeweled crown in our glorious Union.
"Mason is one of the hundred and two counties of Illinois, and is entitled to her place in the local history that makes up that of the State, in its intelligence, enterprise and industrial wealth and prosperity. The patient toil and hardships of its pioneers, living in their rude huts and log cabins, as well as the noble and patriotic deeds of its public men in later years, and the gallantry of its soldiers on the battle-field are a part of the pride and glory of the State and the nation.
"The territory that constitutes the county of Mason has been subjected to many changes since the discovery and settlement of America.
"Who Mr. Lo got it from we may never know ; that once the red men lived here in their homes we do know. On the bluff banks of the Illinois River, at Havana and Bath, they occupied their villages, and built their mounds (providing always that they were not built by some other people who lived here before them) in which they buried their dead and deposited their wares and implements of war, where these trophies of the ages of the past may still be found.
"For a long period, the territory constituting the county of Mason and the State of Illinois, was dominated by the French nation, whose brave pioneers were the first of the white race to tread upon its soil and voyage upon its rivers.
In the year 1678, Louis Joliet, a French trader, and James Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, who had possibly received a call, started out from Green Bay on a voyage of successful discovery of the great Father of Waters, which the Indians informed them flowed southward through the great west country. Going up the Fox River and crossing over the narrow portage into the Wisconsin, they in due time came to the Mississippi, on the ample bosom of which they floated down to the mouth of the Arkansas. At this point, they became satisfied that the great river emptied itself into the Gulf of Mexico, and, as they were satisfied with the situation and did not propose to make any changes
in the course of the river, or put any jetties in its mouth, they retraced their voyage up to the mouth of the Illinois River> and up that stream to Chicago, via the Des Plaines, passing by Havana, and perhaps Bath, on their way.
"Tradition says that these men of God and Mammon stopped upon the bluff where Havana now stands, and had a grand fish-fry, but it does not inform us that they had the incomparable culinary services of Judge Mallory on that occasion! In their piscatorial exploits, it is said they lost a "spoon hook," and from this little incident, the river coming in on the opposite side was called Spoon River!
"In October, 1778, the Virginia Assembly erected the conquered territory of the Northwest into the county of Illinois: a pretty extensive county, which has since been carved into five States Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin with a population of over eight millions of people!
"On the llth of January, 1805, Congress passed an act cutting off the
peninsula of Michigan from the Territory of Indiana and forming the Territory of Michigan ; and, on the 3d of February, 1809, all that part of Indiana Territory lying west of the Wabash River and a line drawn due north from the river at Vincennes to the line between the United States and Canada, was, by act of Congress, set apart into the Territory of Illinois, the act to take effect on the 1st of March, 1809. This included what is now the State of Wisconsin. The population at that time was estimated at 9,000, leaving about double that number in Indiana. The entire Territory at that time composed but two counties, St. Clair and Randolph." ~ Living History of Illinois