“I was born in Petersburg, Boone County, Missouri, on the 15th day of August, 1838. The town in which I was born is no more, but in its stead there has arisen the present flourishing town of Sturgeon. I am of Irish-French descent; my mother’s maiden name being La Fontaine, my father’s that of Cunningham. My father was Captain John M. Cunningham. My mother’s maiden name was Elizabeth Hicks La Fontaine. Continue reading
John A. Logan’s Speech Aug 19, 1861
Barely four months after a party of 10 or 15 had gotten together in a Marion, Illinois saloon in 1861 and organized a meeting calling for the secession of Williamson County from the Union. General John A. Logan rode into town and addressed an explosive crowd on the square in a two-hour speech from the bed of a wagon on the Marion Square. Continue reading
1004 West Main Street sits on the corner of West Main and North Vicksburg, just across the intersection from where C.H. Denison lived and the Marion Memorial Hospital was located later. Continue reading
John Hartwell Duncan is a Kentuckian by birth, and the son of a Kentuckian. His father was Captain Samuel Duncan, of Co. A, 15th Kentucky Cavalry, who died September 25, 1867, at New Burnside, Illinois, at the early age of forty eight. Continue reading
Commercial Hotel 303 N. Market 1904
I am fairly certain that the Commercial Hotel at 303 N. Market Street was created out of necessity. For years this location had been the home of a very large family. John Henry and Almira Catherine (Barham) Reynolds had seen the birth of 12 children and already the deaths of at least three or four. Continue reading