Lewis and Clark Expedition ~ Golconda, IL
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 37° 22.056 W 088° 28.944
16S E 368735 N 4136683
A series of markers in Southern Illinois, at the various stops made by the expedition.
Waymark Code: WM7MTE
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 11/10/2009
Views: 4
Marker Text:
Lewis & Clark Expedition
1803 ~ 1806
Golconda
In 1796 Major James Vance Lusk, Revolutionary War veteran, and his wife Sarah, daughter of Gen. James McElwaine, led a party of 35 - half of them children - from Washaw, South Carolina to a site in Kentucky, opposite the mouth of Lusk Creek.
Lusk obtained a license from Kentucky, and operated a ferry until 1798 when he established an unlicensed business on the Illinois bank, in protest of Kentucky's slave status. He built a two-story house of keelboat timbers near the mouth of the creek which still bears his name. Known as the Ferry House or the Tavern House, it was visited by many important travelers. In 1803 Major Lusk died after completing a narrow road from Tennessee to Green's Ferry on the Mississippi.
In 1804 Sarah Lusk was granted a license by Gov. Wm. Henry Harrison of Indiana Territory. She operated the ferry and a store until 1805 when she married Thomas Ferguson, later a member of the First and Second Territorial Legislatures. Ferguson took control of the business and sold it in 1816.
In 1798 this was the only Illinois settlement between Kentucky and Kaskaskia. Records of 1807 show there were three small stores, one tavern, one saloon, and twenty dwellings. The name changed from Lusk's Ferry to Ferguson's Ferry, Sarahville, and finally became Golconda in 1817.
[The space below for sponsors is not large enough for the complete list, So I will provide it here:
This sign was erected by the Illinois Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission in 2003 in conjunction with the Illinois Bureau of Tourism, the National Park Service, Pope Co. Historical Society, Golconda Rotary Club, Golconda Pope Co. Chamber of Commerce, Pope Co. Board of Commissioners, Pope Co. Education Assoc., City of Golconda, Main Street Golconda, R.C. & Joan Davidson, Michael Pricha, Curtis O. Broadway and Walker and Associates.]
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