Posts Tagged Gallatin County

In February 2009, I was passing through southern Illinois and wanted to stop by and see Old Shawneetown and part of Gallatin County, Illinois where my ancestors had resided in the 1840s-1860s. I took several pictures, links to which are provided below. As you can tell, there is not much development in the area and much of the land probably hasn’t changed too much from the 19th century.  Old Shawneetown, on the banks of the Ohio, was devastated by a great flood in 1937 and a new town of Shawneetown was built on a bluff about 3 miles west of Old Shawneetown.  One of the more interesting structures in Old Shawneetown is the old Bank of Illinois building that was built from 1839-1841.

St. Patrick’s Catholic Church and Cemetery are located at the corner of Big Hill Rd. (Co. Rd. 3) and Ponds Church Rd.  The first Catholic Church was built near this site in 1848 or 1849 and the cemetery was established about the same time.  Most early Catholic settlers of the Pond Settlement area – families such as the Hickeys, Maloneys, Lawlers, Dailys, and Keanes – are buried there.  The first Irish Catholic settler in Gallatin County was John Lawler, father of Civil War Union General Michael Kelly Lawler, who arrived in 1816.  John Lawler is buried in St. Patrick’s Cemetery.

Old Shawneetown Pictures

St. Patrick’s Catholic Church/Cemetery Pictures

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Michael Hickey was one of my great-great-great grandfathers.  He was born October 8, 1840 just outside Shawneetown in Gallatin County in southeast Illinois, on the banks of the Ohio River.  Michael was the son of Michael and Mary Keane Hickey.  He had one sister, Hanora, and family lore says that he had a brother, John (although no record of any brother has been located to date).  Michael lost his mother sometime before his 10th birthday and his father died shortly thereafter in September 1856, before Michael turned 16.  Michael’s father (Michael Sr.) had come to America from Ireland in 1839 and had settled in the small Catholic community of Pond Settlement in Gallatin County, Illinois, having received a Federal land grant of 120 acres.

Orphaned at age 16, Michael inherited his father’s farmland, but went to live with his uncle and neighbor, Patrick Keane.  Hanora’s fate after 1856 is unknown.  Patrick Keane operated a small one-room schoolhouse on his property, and likely provided his nephew with a proper Catholic education.  Michael spent the next five years after his father died working a plow and possibly working in the salt mines of southern Gallatin County.

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