Paris, Illinois
County: Edgar
Location: Kiwanis Park, west side of IL 1, at north
edge of Paris
Erected: 06/24/1973 Erected by:
Illinois Department of Transportation and The Illinois State
Historical Society
Paris lies in the heart of a rich farming area. Most of the land
embraced in Edgar County, including Paris, remained Kickapoo hunting
grounds until 1819, but the eastern quarter of the county was part of
a tract ceded by the Indians in 1819 and offered for sale at
Vincennes as early as 1816. Edgar County was established in 1823, and
Paris was laid out on twenty-six acres donated by Samuel Vance in
April of that year. The Edgar County Courthouse is located at the
center of this parcel of land. Alone or with others, Vance laid out
the earliest roads from Paris in 1823-24. The first road, later known
as the lower Terre Haute Road, is still being traveled today. A
second road ran to Darwin, in Clark County. The fourth road, to the
Vermilion salines near Danville, formed part of the Vincennes Trace
and is now a section of Illinois Route 1 to Chicago. At 130 South
Central Avenue in Paris is the former home of Milton K. Alexander,
Brigadier General in the Illinois Mounted Volunteers during the Black
Hawk War of 1832. The house was built in 1826 and enlarged in 1840.
Alexander was acquainted with Abraham, who as a lawyer frequently
came to Paris when Edgar County was in the Eighth Judicial Circuit.
Lincoln spoke in Paris in August 6, 1856, on behalf of the Republican
presidential candidate, John C. Fremont. Lincoln spoke in Paris again
on September 7, 1858, in his unsuccessful campaign against Stephen A.
Douglas for United States Senate. A large proportion of the early
settlers in Paris were from the South, and during the Civil War,
there were many southern sympathizers called Copperheads. Some of
these people were defeated in a minor clash with Union troops in
February 1864.
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