VILLAGE HISTORY1871 was a busy year. Ulysses S. Grant was in the White House. The Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln of six years before had been all but forgotten in the rush of venturesome Easterners from Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana immigrants from across the Atlantic to the Illinois country with its prairies, its rivers gently flowing , and perhaps to catch an echo on the breeze, rustling thru the leafy trees.
When people are on the move, there is activity in the establishment; transportation speeds up, housing must be built, schools and churches established, land to be surveyed, and cities laid out. Railroads were leaping from city to city through horse high prairie grass and over rippling and ripping streams. The art of railroad building was at its height. Thus it was that the towns of Pekin, Lincoln and Decatur became linked with 40 pounds per foot steel rails and neat little engines with bell shaped some stacks cautiously commenced testing the new road. By the spring of 1871, all was ready for this transportation system to receive freight and human cargo. Before this date there had come a trickle of farm folks from Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky to settle on what is known as the Bethel Ridge. They were established American citizens and their choice of location was due to their experience that lowlands, while perhaps more fertile, too often flooded, and rolling land was more reliable both for cropping and livestock. After the town of Emden was established in the valley to the west, come of these men became its first merchants. It was at this stage that the fortunes and misfortunes of the growing city of Pekin began to play their part in the settlement of this valley, the coming of the Germans. It may be said that the two men most responsible for settling the Emden area were William Scully, an Irish landlord, and Teis Smid, a German blacksmith. We are still reaping the benefits of this fortunate timing of the lives of these two farsighted men. More information may be read about them in the original Emden Centennial book. The area now occupied by the Village of Emden originally was owned by William Scully. He acquired the parcel from the United States Government on June 28, 1851. On May 3, 1860, Mr. Scully sold 70 acres to William Cooper and, for the most part, this is the area east of the Illinois Central Railroad tracks. In 1867, William Cooper sold this land to James Okey Johnson, and the first home was erected and occupied as the farmstead of Mr. And Mrs. A. J. Snyder. Later, Mr. Johnson sold the 70 acres on May 16, 1871, to John M. Gill. This now is the east part of town. The west side also belonged to William Scully and also on May 3, 1860, he sold the west 70 acres to Robert Watts. Two years later in 1862, Mr. Watts sold the land to Christian Nehemire. Mr. Nehemire owned the land until March 9, 1869, when he sold it to William Johnson, who in turn sold these west 70 acres to John Gill. John Gill then caused the town to be surveyed on June 15, 1871, and dedicated on June 24, 1871. The site was surveyed by Thomas Gardner and contained 30 blocks. The Village was located in Orvil Township, County of Logan, and adjacent tot he Peoria, Lincoln, and Decatur railroad. Mr. Gill disposed of the Village site rather rapidly by acres rather than lots, and by 1873 he had disposed of most of his property. From this point on, we do not know of his whereabouts. In the first 100 years, nine additions were added to Emden. They carry the names of Malone, Van Buenning, Luebhers, McCormick, Rademaker, and Hildebrand acres. The Village received its name from Emden on the River Ems in northern Germany. Rather large numbers of Germans were immigrating to the United States at this time. Pekin, Illinois, on the Illinois River, just 30 miles to the north, was experiencing a large influx of German immigrants, and it was natural for them to wish to settle in a communing bearing the same name as a city in the country they had just left. There was also an opportunity to find employment on the large land holdings being developed by William Scully. The first store in Emden was built by B. F. Furnett and operated as a general store and post office. Burnett also served as the town's first Postmaster and Railroad Agent. During the first month of existence, R. C. Moore of Delavan put in a set of Fairbank scales at the southwest corner of Lincoln and Mason Streets and employed Elias Carnahan to operate it. The first grain purchased over these scales was delivered by A. T. Cathcart farming east of San Jose. It was then shipped by rail to Peoria, the rail line having been completed at this time to a point a mile south of Emden. The next merchant or craftsman to arrive in town was a blacksmith name Sol Jennings. This was a very necessary trade and, in the intervening years, more than a few followed this profession in Emden. The last of the old line was Joseph Creager. |