CEDARVILLE

Cedarville, Illinois

Cedarville is a beautiful village six miles south of Freeport in the valley of Cedar Creek. About the village along the creek that cuts its way through the outcropping Galena limestone, are some of the most picturesque scenes in the County of Stephenson. The absence of railroad or trolley gives the village many characteristics peculiar to the towns of earlier days.

The first settlements were made in 1837. That year Dr. Van Valzah, the pioneer of that long train of immigrants from Pennsylvania, built a cabin and bought the claim to the mill site. The same year came the Chicagoans. Josiah Clingman had visited the vicinity and picked out a claim in 1836, and then brought his family in 1837. His wife, Mrs. Maria Clingman, is still living in Cedarville having passed the century mark, Dec. 12, 1909. She says there was just one log shack in the present limits of Cedarville when her family arrived in 1837. Levi Lucas had a log house north of the village, and here the Clingmans stayed until Mr. Clingman put a roof on his log house. John Goddard and Barton Jones had marked the mill claim which they sold to Dr. Van Valzah.

The village was laid out in 1849 by George Ilgen, the surveying being done by Marcus Montelius. About 185o, James Canfield set up a brick kiln about two miles west of the village. The present store and postoffice building was built about the same time by Samuel Sutherland. Other houses were built around 1851 by Francis Knauss, James Benson, David Clements and Dr. Bucher. John H. Adams built a handsome residence in 1854, and put up the mill in 1858.

The village grew slowly until it reached a population of 400 or 500. Its citizens of the early days were among the most progressive people of Stephenson County. Schools and churches have been maintained and in all the greater movements of the county, Cedarville has been represented by earnest and able men and women.