Elizabeth Angus Worrell Leebrick’s life spanned most of the 19th century. She was born in Lancaster County Pennsylvania in 1799 and died in Quincy in 1890. She married Benjamin Worrell in Pennsylvania at 19 and had two sons. Her father was a Revolutionary War soldier and her one son Franklin A. Worrell was assassinated while on horseback in Hancock County. While her parents were Seventh Day (German) Baptist, she became a Methodist. She was active in the church for the rest of her life. After her husband died in 1843, Mrs. Worrell moved to Quincy, where she later met and married … [Read more...]

One hundred years ago, the holiday season did not begin with Black Friday sales during Thanksgiving, although stores had some special offerings.  The Leiser Company held its Seventh Annual After Thanksgiving Sale at 417 Hampshire Street.  Their ad featured a “Coat Sensation” offered for sale at 9 O’clock in the morning, for two hours only. Sixty-three suits and coats from last season, with values up to $35, were sold for an astounding $2.97 each.As a comparison average household income was about $686 per year and the value of each 1915 dollar today would be about $23.00.  A car cost just … [Read more...]

Between 1880 and 1920, the United States evolved from a rural and agricultural society to an industrial and urban one. This period of unfettered industrial growth created both social problems and economic inequities.  As a consequence, labor and reformers got together to deal with industrialization’s downside.One remedy to industrialization’s ills was socialism.  The socialist antidote to the economic inequities of capitalism was expanded government and public ownership of transportation, utilities, and communication.  Though socialism never took hold in the United States, the Socialist … [Read more...]

Adams County was established by an act of the Illinois legislature on January 18, 1825. Later that year the site near cabin of John Woods was chosen as the county seat.The Quincy post office was officially established on March 15, 1826 with the appointment of Henry H. Snow as the first postmaster. The mail was kept in a pine box in the cabin of John Wood, making his cabin the first site of the Quincy post office. Five years after Snow was appointed postmaster, Robert Tillson became the second postmaster of Quincy on May 10, 1831. He remained postmaster until 1843.Tillson went into … [Read more...]

Louise Maertz 1837-1918, was born in Quincy and lived most of her life in this city. She was considered to be of a "delicate constitution" and yet managed to work in the field hospitals of the Civil War and to travel extensively. She never married and devoted her life to writing and philanthropy.  She is remembered mostly as a Civil War nurse, the author of "New Method for the Study of English Literature" published in 1879, and as a member of many civic and charitable organizations. Miss Maertz began nursing the wounded and sick just a few months after the war began in 1861 in her … [Read more...]

Many people think Quincy Notre Dame’s history starts with Christian Brothers High School in 1959.  However, Notre Dame’s history dates all the way back to 1597, which is when Blessed Alix LeClerc founded the original congregation of Notre Dame Sisters.  In 1833, a student of the original Sisters, Caroline Gerhardinger, reestablished the Sisters in Germany, who were then known as the School Sisters of Notre Dame.  In 1847, four School Sisters came to the United States. One was Mother Mary Caroline, who was the first major superior of the School Sisters in America. Mother Caroline … [Read more...]

A simple phone inquiry at the Historical Society by a descendant of Sheriff Jim Simmons led to this story of a murder on Hampshire Street, which was followed by a shootout on the Kansas City train, and the deaths of an innocent bystander and two Quincy law  men at the hands of a pair of brothers from Missouri.  The events read like the script of a western movie.Wednesday evening, April 2, 1919, the proprietor of a pawn shop, the Gem City Loan Bank at 333 Hampshire, Emil R. Licht was murdered during a robbery. Thirty-four gold watches, jewelry, diamonds, and cash were taken. The robbers … [Read more...]

 The history of Hon. Orville H. Browning’s prominent role in Quincy and in Illinois history is well known. It is lesser known that he played a prominent role in Hancock County, IL as a young lawyer in the 1830s.  His name is mentioned on at least a dozen pages of Gregg’s 1880 History of Hancock County. However, before introducing the Hon. Orville Browning into this article, a little background information is needed. Hancock County’s earliest historian, Thomas Gregg, settled in Hancock County in the mid 1830s and started numerous county newspapers and, for a time, lived and … [Read more...]

Today when we talk about health we frequently refer to exercise, eating right, and other lifestyle concerns.  When Illinois was the frontier, health meant not dying from communicable diseases. Those diseases were mostly eradicated by the 21st century but were a scourge throughout the 19th and earlier half of the 20th century.Documented health in Illinois began in 1674 when Father Jacques Marquette and his party recorded diarrhea as the cause of their extended camp on the Chicago River in 1674. With river travel as the dominant form of transportation, the journals of the earliest explorers … [Read more...]