Author: hefadmin

Beginning with the first days of the Civil War in 1861, Republican Governor Richard Yates of Illinois responded with enthusiasm and loyal support for the Union cause. To answer Lincoln’s call for volunteers, he worked diligently to recruit, enlist, equip, organize, and train the sons of Illinois for the battlefield. He ordered the occupation of Cairo and encouraged Lincoln to protect the federal arsenal in St. Louis. Later he would secure high military commissions for prominent Illinoisans and personally brought hospital supplies to the wounded from the state.

Despite his energetic commitment to wartime activities, Yates still had time to become entangled in a good, old-fashioned sex scandal with Belle Reynolds, a woman Yates honored for meritorious conduct in caring for the wounded during the battle of Shiloh in April 1862. At the time, Ms. Reynolds also just happened to be the wife of an officer who fought in that battle with the 17^th Illinois Infantry.

History professor A. James Fuller from the University of Indianapolis will provide the details in a presentation entitled, “The Lady Major and the War Governor: Belle Reynolds, Richard Yates, and the Politics of a Civil War Sex Scandal.”

Historic Elsah Foundation is providing this presentation as part of its ongoing Hosmer-Williams Lecture Series, which is sponsored by Liberty Bank, a United Community Bank. Originally scheduled as an in-person event, the presentation has been moved online and will take place via ZOOM on Thursday, September 17, 2020, at 7:00 pm. Those wishing to attend may use this link to join the talk.

Join the talk on September 17 at 7:00 pm, Central Time. You may want to join a few minutes early to be sure your computer, tablet, or phone is connected.

This talk is canceled for now for the health and safety of the speaker and community.

Have you ever wondered what Civil War soldiers wrote in personal letters to parents, family members and friends back home? What did they reveal about what they saw or how they felt during fearful extraordinary times in battle and during routine daily events in camp? 

In his presentation, “From the Monticello Female Seminary Archives: The Civil War Letters of Captain David W. Norton to Mary (Mollie) Chapman,” Springfield writer Mark Flotow will tell us about one such correspondence between a young lady attending Monticello Female Seminary and an Union Army officer stationed in Tennessee. 

Mark’s presentation draws from his recently published book: In Their Letters, in Their Words: Illinois Civil War Soldiers Write Home. He discovered the letters written to Mary—she called herself Mollie—in the Monticello Archives in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. He also found more tidbits about Mollie in her student writings and letters to home in Jerseyville. 

In addition to writing the book, Mark is a volunteer interviewer for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library’s Oral History program. He is a past member of the advisory board for the Illinois State Historical Society and has written several articles for the Society’s magazine, Illinois Heritage.

The presentation will take place Thursday, March 19 at 7:30 p.m. at Farley Music Hall in Elsah. It is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. Parking is available. Refreshments will be served following Mark’s presentation.

This presentation is one of this year’s Hosmer-Williams Lectures sponsored by Historic Elsah Foundation and underwritten by Liberty Bank: A United Community Bank.

Attention media, print and otherwise, for additional information, contact George Provenzano, at [email protected], or visit our website, historicelsah.org

Historic Elsah Foundation welcomed more than 600 visitors to Elsah on December 7, 2019. The tour included 11 private homes and many businesses and public buildings. HEF is grateful for all the visitors who made the trip, and especially for village residents who opened their homes.

Please enjoy some of the photos from the 2019 tour.

Photo credit: Kim Howland Photography

In 1823, fourteen years before the murder of abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy in Alton, a fierce wave of antislavery sentiment among pioneer farmers in the Wabash River Valley prevented Illinois from becoming a slave state. These early settlers of our state were instrumental in voting down a referendum for a constitutional convention that would have undoubtedly legalized slavery Illinois. 

These frontiersmen were followers of two English idealists, Morris Birkbeck and George Flower, who sought to establish utopian communities that were free from what they regarded as the economic and political tyranny of emerging industrialization. But Birkbeck and Flower soon came to realize they could not achieve their goal in an environment where slavery existed, and both men took steps to halt the advance of what historians now refer to as the ‘peculiar institution.’ 

Historian Caroline Kisiel will tell us about this largely forgotten but momentous episode in Illinois history in a presentation, “Antislavery Activism on the Illinois Frontier: The Story of the English Prairie,” at Farley Music Hall, 37 Mill Street, in Elsah, Thursday, November 14, at 7:30 pm. 

Caroline Kisiel is coming to Elsah courtesy of the Illinois Road Scholars Speakers Bureau, a program of the Illinois Humanities. Illinois Humanities is a non-profit organization that promotes public dialogue and examination of issues important to sustaining democracy. 

George’s presentation is one of this year’s Hosmer-Williams Lectures sponsored by Historic Elsah Foundation and underwritten by Liberty Bank: A United Community Bank.

The program is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. Parking is available. Refreshments will be served following the lecture.

Attention media, print and otherwise, for additional information, contact George Provenzano, at [email protected].