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NAVIGATION
LaSalle
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History at
Rays Place
Also see [ Railway Officials in America 1906
] NEW
Rays
Place
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The Town of Grandview, lying west of Paris Township, contains 28,800 acres (45 sections) of laud, of which perhaps
one-third was once covered with timber. There is some land, along the tributaries of Big Creek which drains this
part of the county, that is quite rough and broken; yet these timber lands are very rich and productive. There
are many fine views in this town. It should have been named “Grandviews,” from the number and beauty of the landscapes
within its boundaries. The town was once included in Fairfield Precinct, and there was a settlement made in Grandview
at the same time that the first settlers came to Paris.
The Darnells, Augustus, Rudy, McMullens. Smiths, Tates, Steele, Mann, Jones, Perisho, Shrader, Zinks, Sutherland,
Payne, King, Gano, Brinkerhoffs, Zimmerly, Stevens, Gills, Bragg, Kime, Boyer, Elledges, Thomas, Beatty an.i others
who were seeking homes in what was then the Far West, stopped here and developed this beautiful part of Edgar County,
and when township organization was effected, they gave to the township the appropriate name of Grandview, which
had been the name of their village. The lands are undulating, both prairie and timber, and are exceedingly fertile,
much of the timber being walnut and sugar maple, with oak of large growth.
The village of Grandview was begun as early as Paris, and was, as far as trade was concerned, quite equal to Paris.
The region round about was rich in every way, for a new country. The lands were exceedingly fertile and the settlers
good and thrifty men, far-seeing and full of the energy and enterprise of that time. While the village is less
busy than it once was, the town as a whole, is abreast of any other section in this new century.
There are two brick churches in the village of Grandview. The Methodist church was erected several years ago. The
Presbyterian church was built this year (1904) and is a handsome structure costing several thousand dollars, and
is quite modern in its appointments. Besides a town house, the village has three stores and a number of good residences.
One of these was the home of Col. Tom Smith, who came to Grandview in 1829 and took part in the Black Hawk war
as a volunteer from Edgar County, as he did later in the Mexican war. He built a large frame house in 1834, all
of hard wood, which seems now as good as new, though never repaired except by renewing the roof and reducing the
size of the big fire places in order that coal might be used for fuel in place of the heaps of wood of earlier
days. This house is an old landmark, and is the present residence of Mrs. Robert Mosely, an octogenarian daughter
of “Col. Tom” as his neighbors called him. There is but one of the pioneers of Grandview now living—James Melancthon
Tate—who resides on his fine farm near the village in a handsome modern cottage, with which he replaced his former
old-fashioned home. Mr. Tate is a Virginian by birth, but he came west in an early day from “The Valley” which
has furnished so many heroic frontiersmen, and became a true son of Illinois.
Dudley, in the Town of Grandview, is a station on the Big Four Railway. It is a neat village’ with three churches,
Methodist, Christian and Presbyterian. It was for many years the greatest shipping point for cattle on this railway;
but the grazing and feeding industry on a largo scale has languished since the period in the ‘80’s, when Mann and
Shrader abdicated their kingship as cattlemen. Conlogue, in the Town of Grandview, is also a station on the Big
Four, and these stations are the markets and shipping points for this district, and are supplied as to the necessary
outfits of elevators. etc., for products of the surrounding region.
TOWN OFFICERS.- The following are the town officers of Grandview Township: C. F. Rudy, Supervisor; David Ryan,
Town Clerk; William Rhoads, Assessor; Walter S. Elledge, Collector; William Ryan, A. D. Hybarger, Justices of thc
Peace; George Menk, John Mullenix, Constables; Joseph Hawkins, Henry Marrs, John Kemper. Commissioners of Highways.
FROM:
Encyclopedia of Illinois
and the History of Edgar County
Edited by: H. Van Sellar.
Munsell Publishing Company
Chicago 1905
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