Carmi, Illinois
County: White
Location: 1: On private property, south side of US
460, 5 miles west of Carmi. 2: On private property east side of IL 1,
south edge of Carmi. 3: Onthe east side of Illinois 1, 2 miles north
of Carmi
Erected: 08/01/1967 Erected by:
Division of Highways and The Illinois State Historical Society
On December 9, 1815, the General Assembly of the Illinois Territory
created White County out of the northern section of Gallatin County.
Settlers had been in the area for almost a decade before Carmi was
platted as the seat of the new county in 1816 when captain Leonard
White, veteran of the War of 1812 for whom the county was named,
James Ratcliff, Daniel Hay and White were joint proprietors of Carmi,
and Hay selected for the community the name which can be traced back
to the Biblical character who was a son of Reuben, nephew of Joseph,
and grandson of Jacob. The residence of John Craw served as White
County's first courthouse. It later became the home of John M.
Robinson (1794-1843), who served as US Senator from Illinois
(1831-1843) and was a justice on the Illinois Supreme Court (1843).
Carmi was also the home of four members of the US House of
Representatives: Colonel John M. Crebs (1868-1873), James Robert
Williams (1889-1895, 1899-1905), Orlando Burrell (1895-1897), and Roy
Clippinger (1945-1949). Other sites of historical interest in Carmi
include the Ratcliff Inn, where Abrahanm Lincoln stayed in 1840 while
campaigning for Whig presidential candidate William Henry Harrison
and which was restored in 1960 by the White County Historical
Society, and the house built in 1871 by Colonel Everton J. Conger,
commander of the troops which captured John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln's
assasin. Historical markers have been erected on these sites.
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