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| Illinois Map with Pertinent Towns |
Mauvaisterre Creek, which anchors our story, wanders through west-central Illinois to empty into the Illinois River. The creek originates southwest of Springfield, about halfway between the cities of Jacksonville and Springfield.
Of course, Springfield is known as the state capitol and that city was used by the family as a way to describe to later generations the area of Illinois where this story took place. In actuality, the family lived near the communities of Merritt and Exeter, in Scott County, about 50 miles west of Springfield.
Scott is a fairly small county of only 253 square miles. The largest town in the area in 1869 was Jacksonville, in adjacent Morgan County.
The family story includes several of the small communities and towns in Scott and surrounding counties. These maps are marked with only the towns that you will discover in our story; however, there are many more communities in the area.
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| Area Map |
These area maps show the towns in relation to the present day Interstate 72. There were many rural roads in 1869, but that road did not exist as a major highway. Old highway 36 ran to the north of today's I-72 and it appears as an existing road on area maps from 1873.
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| Scott County Area Detail Map |
The following map was drawn in 1873 for a land owners' atlas. It shows, highlighted in green, the land owned by the William Maddox estate. Mauvaisterre Creek is indicated by the black line that meanders through the map from left to right. The yellow area says "Merritt PO" (post office) and is next to the community called Mary Ann, which was renamed to Merritt.
The town of Exeter is just off the left side of this township map. Old Illinois 36 is just off the bottom of the map.
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| 1873 Land Owners |
