St. Simon Cemetery

St. Simon Cemetery. Looking for Lincoln. Forty acres of land were acquired by the Catholic church in the early 1830's from land in the Military Tract, which had been set aside for the veteran survivors of the War of 18 12. Title to this land on the Southeast Quarter of the Northeast Quarter of Section Thirty-Four, Township Number Six, North of Range Number Five, West of the Fourth Principal Meridian in Hancock County, Illinois was vested in the most Reverend Peter Richard Kenrick, Archbishop of St. Louis, St. Louis County, Missouri. On August 16, 1849, conveyance was made of forty acres of this tract to the Right Reverend James Vandeveld, Bishop of Chicago. In 1866, the Catholic Church sold thirty acres, and on July 25, 1877, the remaining ten acres were conveyed by Thomas Foley, administrator of the estate of the Right Reverend Vandeveld to John Lancaster Spaulding, Catholic Bishop of Peoria. Later, nine more acres were conveyed to Martin W. Burrow, leaving one acre of ground in the present cemetery., The St. Simon the Apostle Cemetery was named for a Catholic chapel that stood nearby. Henry Riley built the chapel from 1832 to 1834, with the assistance of the son of James B. Lincoln (president Lincoln's first cousin). The chapel was sued from 1834 to 1857 and was later moved to Tennessee in McDonough County, Illinois. Fifty people are buried here, with twelve of them bring President Lincoln's Hancock County relatives. , Shortly after settling in Hancock County, Abraham Lincoln (President Lincoln's first cousin) was summoned to serve as Grand Juryman of the circuit court. He also served as a petit juryman. In 1834, he was appointed as an Election Judge for Crooked Creek Precinct in Hancock County and served as the second Justice of the Peace of Fountain Green Township. He was considered to be just and honest., James B. Lincoln (President Lincoln's first cousin) also assumed public leadership. The first election held at Crooked Creek Precinct made him the first Justice of the Peace of Fountain Green Township. He was one of the three commissioners of Hancock County and was later appointed by the County Commissioners to be a "Road Viewer" for a road running past Fountain Green to Edward White's Ferry on the Mississippi.