Paris Illinois

Paris Illinois. . Paris lies in the heart of a rich farming area. Most of the land embraced in Edgar County, including Paris, remained Kickapoo hunting grounds until 1819, but the eastern quarter of the county was part of a tract ceded by the Indians in 1809 and offered for sale at Vincennes as early as 1816. Edgar County was established in 1823, and Paris was laid out on twenty-six acres donated by Samuel Vance in April of that year. The Edgar County Court House is located at the center of this parcel of land., Alone or with others Vance laid out the earliest roads from Paris in 1823-1824. The first road later known as the lower Terre Haute Road, is still traveled today. The second road ran to Darwin, early seat of Clark County. The third road, to the Vermilion Salines near Danville, formed part of the Vincennes Trace and is now a section of Illinois Route 1 to Chicago. The fourth road ran to Marshall, now the seat of Clark County., At 130 South Central Avenue in Paris is the former home of Milton K. Alexander, Brigadier General in the Illinois Mounted Volunteers during the Black Hawk War of 1832 the house was built in 1828 and enlarged in 1840. Alexander was acquainted with Abraham Lincoln, who as a lawyer frequently came to Paris when Edgar County was in the Eighth Judicial Circuit., Lincoln spoke in Paris on August 6, 1856 on behalf of the Republican Presidential candidate, John C. Fremont. Lincoln spoke in Paris again on September 7, 1858 in his unsuccessful campaign against Stephen A. Douglas for the United States Senate. A large proportion of the early settlers in Paris were from the south, and during the Civil War. There were many southern sympathizers called copperheads.