THE WHITLEY POINT RECORD BOOK

The Justice of the Peace Docket Book,
Estray List and Country Store Record
of the Earliest Settlement in
Moultrie County, Illinois

by R. EDEN MARTIN

Preface

This book reproduces one of the earliest surviving judicial docket books in Illinois, and also one of the early customer records of a country store.

To set the stage, I should tell the reader that I grew up in Sullivan, Illinois, the county seat of Moultrie County, a small county in the east-central part of the state. In late October 1994 I received in my office in Chicago an auction catalogue from S wann Galleries in New York describing several hundred lots of rare printed and manuscript materials that would soon be sold at auction.

In paging through the catalogue, I came upon item 155, described as follows:

Manuscript ledger book of two attorneys practicing in Shelby County, Illinois during the 1830s and 1840s. Over 400 pages, with clients' names indicated, the nature of their legal concern, the finding of the court, and fines and charges. Small folio, co ntemporary 1/4 sheep, worn.

The description added these details:

Ledger book of William G. Haydon and Amos Waggoner, both lawyers in Illinois during the time Lincoln was practicing there. The ledger is entirely in manuscript, with a manuscript running headline reading 'Parties at Law.' The entries during the later p art of the 1840s are scattered in terms of date, but the entries for the earlier years show a busy and thriving practice for the two lawyers.

In reading this description, I remembered that much of what is now Moultrie County had once been part of Shelby County. But what sparked my interest was the fact that one of my great-grandfathers, John R. Eden, had practiced law in Shelbyville before m oving to Sullivan in 1853. Eden, a Democrat who knew Lincoln well, was elected in 1862 to Congress, where he served until the end of the

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Civil War. In 1868, he was the Democratic candidate for Governor of Illinois, but was defeated by the Republican, John M. Palmer. Eden was later elected four more times to the House of Representatives. It occurred to me that the item about to be sold a t Swann's might contain information about John R. Eden and his law practice. If not, it might have interesting material on the practice of law in a small town during the period before the Civil War.

There was, however, one non-trivial problem. The auction house experts estimated that the ledger book would sell for an amount in the range of $1,000 to $1,500--a lot to spend on a document with unknown contents. Accordingly, I called Swann's and asked the Americanist who had catalogued the mate rials to look through the ledger book and tell me if there was any reference to anyone with the last name of Eden. The cataloguer was friendly, but after making a quick further inspection he explained that the ledger book was unindexed and the handwrit ing difficult to read. My only option was to make a special visit to New York and inspect the ledger personally--an option that did not seen economical. So I contented myself with putting in a low bid of a few hundred dollars, thinking it unlikely that anyone else on Swann's catalogue distribution list would be interested in the practice of law in Shelby County in the 1830s and 40s.

My optimism was misplaced. The successful bidder, although I did not know it at the time, was a rare book and manuscript dealer from Boston. When I was informed a few days later by Swann's that my bid was unsuccessful, I wrote asking them to forward a letter to the successful bidder. I asked the unknown buyer if he or she would have the document copied for me, at my expense. Alternatively, depending on where the buyer lived, I offered to stop by sometime, inspect the document, and make a few handwritten notes. With that, I put the lawyers' ledger book, as I now thought of it, out of my mind.

Almost a year went by, and I heard nothing. Then in early October 1995, I received a letter from the dealer, who had received my letter from Swann's. He indicated that he had tried unsuccessfully to sell the ledger book to an institutional buyer, such as a Un iversity library, and that he now intended to offer it in a catalogue he was putting together. If I wanted to buy it, he was giving me the first opportunity.

The dealer's description of the item differed significantly from

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Swann's auction house. Now it was described not as the office record of two lawyers, but as the ledger book of two justices of the peace, constituting a "rich source of information on early local law enforcement" for Shelby County. "Legal matters take up approximately the first 300 pages; the final 100 pages contain Waggoner's personal accounts." The legal proceedings were described in a general way; and because of the "span of years" covered, "a good many local citizens make an appearance here, maki ng this a valuable historical-genealogical, as well as legal source." "Voluminous" records "documenting daily life in the early Mid-West" were described as "uncommon."

The morning the letter arrived I called the dealer and asked if he would pa ge through the account book and see if John R. Eden's name appeared. He said he thought it did, but reading the handwriting was slow and difficult; and if I wanted it read carefully, I would have to do it myself. So, on the understanding that I could re turn it after an inspection if I was not satisfied, I ordered the ledger book.

It arrived a few days later. I opened the well-wrapped package carefully and found what appeared to be an account or ledger book bound in old covered boards and well worn, with approximately 400 pages of what appeared at first glance to be indecipherable hand-writing. The first section did appear to be a docket book or summary record of legal proceedings--the first one dated June 28, 1834. This judicial record app eared to occupy the first two-thirds or so of the book, perhaps 250 pages, and covered the period from 1834 to 1850.

As I would later learn, the docket book is an unusual survival from a very early period. A detailed survey of the county archi ves in Illinois conducted in 1911-1914 discloses that, although several of the older counties maintain circuit court records dating back to the admission of Illinois to statehood in 1818, judicial docket books from the period of the 1830's are rare.(1) The Summary Guide to Local Governmental Records in the Illinois Regional Archives, Springfield, 1992, lists surviving justice-of-the-peace dockets preserved in regional archives throughout the state. Very few date back to before the Civil War; a nd none shows a starting date as early as 1834.(2)

But there was more to the manuscript than the justice-of-the-peace docket. The last third or so appeared to be an account book--

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not of one man's finances, but a store account book, with different customer names appearing at the top of each page.

I looked again at the first page, just inside the front cover. Toward the bottom, a note appeared, apparently by a later hand : "Store was at what is now called the Old Hunt Farm about 4 miles North East of Gays." The note was signed by C.H. Bristow, who was not otherwise identified. I knew the small town of Gays was not in Shelby County; it was in Moultrie--and 4 miles north east of Gays would be Whitley Point--the first settlement in what is now Moultrie County.

Then I found an index of sorts, apparently of the last third of the record--the store account. The first name on the index was John Martin, my great-great grandfather.* Paging through the manuscript, I found John Martin's account for 1845 at the Whitley Point store. By 1845 Whitley Point was in Moultrie County, which had been created largely out of Shelby County just two years before, in February 1843. In March 1845 the new town of Sullivan was being surveyed so that lots could be sold. And there in the storekeeper's hand were recorded John Martin's purchases on account for that month--March 1845. He had purchased 10-3/4 yards of "Prince" (a type of cloth) and two "tuck combs," 21 2 lbs of tobacco for 25 cents, 9 lbs of coffee for $1.00, and 1 gallon of whiskey for 50 cents. Later in the year, he purchased more fabrics, buttons, nails--and more whiskey.

Down the page, on September 13, 1845 , John Martin's account shows a purchase "by son" of 25 cents worth of tea. Perhaps this was

James Scott Martin (c 1779-1865) came to southern Illinois with his family in late 1816 or 1817, and eventually settled in what became Coles County, where he and his family lived during the 1830's. He moved to the Whitlry Point settlement in 1833. James Scott Martin's oldest son was John Martin (1803-1856), a farmer who moved to the Whitley area in 1838. John's don, John Neely Martin (1833-1923), grew up in Whitley Point from the age of five, and lived in the area the rest of his life. His was the father of Ivory John Martin (1859-1952), editor of the Sullivan Progress, preparer of abstracts of title, and writer of Notes On The History of Moultrie County and Sullivan Illinois (Sullivan, 1990). I. J. Martin, was the father of Robert W. Martin (1895-1970), Sullivan lawyer and judge, who was in turn the father of the writer.

William Harvey Martin (1784-1852), the younger brother of James Scott Martin, was the first of the Martin family to arrive at the Whitley Point settlement--in 1929. He was a Baptist preacher and organized the Lynn Creek Baptist Church, the first church i n Moultrie County.

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my great-grandfather, John Neely Martin, who would have celebrated his 12th birthday earlier in that year.

What had I stumbled onto? And, how could such a rare record--from the earliest tiny settlement in a corner of one of the smallest counti es in Illinois--survive and fall into the hands of someone whose ancestors had lived in that community for almost 100 years?

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