In 1820, Samuel Norton moved his family from Vermont to Crawford County, Illinois. In 1821, he died, leaving his wife and children behind on the prairie.
In 1820, Samuel Norton used credit to purchase the eighty acres of land about 5 miles of Lawrenceville, in the Allison Township. His son, Samuel Harris Norton, was issued the Credit Volume Patent in 1830 on behalf of Samuel Norton’s heirs, which suggests that in the interim, the family was able to save up money to finish paying for the land. The land was directly south of Centreville, one of the earliest communities in Lawrence County. His forty acres were located within the green markers.
The Norton family were neighbors with Andrew McClure and David Ruby as evidenced by both the 1820 census and the BLM related documents to the patent. Additionally, they lived in close proximity to other Nortons: Stephen Norton and Reuben Norton.
It is unclear how Samuel Norton died. In the “Combined History of Edwards, Lawrence, and Wabash County”, the author describes the “the difficulties incident to life in a new country”: and specifically names disease, wild animals, and American Indians. Two forts had been erected in the area by the Euro-American settlers as they continued to occupy the indigenous people’s land. Of these, disease is most likely the cause of Norton’s death.
In the book “Illinois in 1837” by Samuel A. Mitchell names the prairie where the Norton’s settled as Allison Prairie. “The eastern part, towards the Wabash, contains some wet land and purgatory swamps, but the principal part is a dry, sandy, and very rich soil, covered with well-cultivated farms. Few tracts in Illinois are better adapted for the culture of corn than this.” Yet, the presence of the purgatory swamps meant disease.
Death had thinned their numbers. The purgatory swamps, as they are called, around the prairie, had a deleterious influence, and retarded the progress of population.
After Samuel’s death, Lydia continued to live in Lawrence County. She was listed in the 1840 census as Widow Norton and living with her children.
The oldest son, Samuel Harris Norton continued to work the land that his father had purchased with a down payment. The “Combined History of Edwards, Lawrence and Wabash Counties” describe the Allison prairie as the “cotton-field of Wabash Valley” and coupled with the production of cotton, the Euro-Americans engaged in bee-hunting: “when the farmer wished a little “land office” money, this was an article that would readily command it.”
It is likely that Samuel Harris cared for hives and “would take their beeswax, deer-skins and peltries to the watercourses” to sell in markets like New Orleans. If so, it would have allowed him to complete the purchase of his father’s land in 1830 and to purchase additional land in 1839. An 1860 Agricultural Schedule shows that about half of his land was “improved” and the other half “unimproved”; he had 25 bushels of clover seed and had manufactured honey on hand. His crop, however, was not cotton, but rather corn, which he likely fed his 16 sheep and 10 pigs.
Samuel Harris Norton married twice: first, in 1835 to Elizabeth Johnston, who died in 1838; secondly to Adalia Atkins, who died in 1852. Both of his wives is buried in Howard Cemetery, north of the land his father purchased near what was Centerville.
It is unclear when he died.
Finding the Yellow Bricks 