History of Maeystown
(The following is taken from
"The Significance of the Village of Maeystown, Illinois"
by Gloria Bundy.) Copies of this booklet are
available for $3.00, plus $1.00 shipping and handling
from: Mark Bundy, P.O. Box 35, Maeystown, IL 62256.
The picturesque village of
Maeystown, nestled in the hills and among the spring-fed
streams in one small spot of Southern Illinois was
founded in 1852 by Jacob Maeys, who was born in
Oggersheim, Bavaria, in 1828.
Although the village was founded
in 1852 and settled entirely by German immigrants of the
Forty-Eighter movement, its historical significance
begins in 1782, at the time of the Moore settlement at
La Belle Fontaine, at what is now Waterloo, Illinois.
 Captain
James Moore, a native of Maryland, was a soldier under
George Rogers Clark and was with him at Kaskaskia when
he captured the Illinois Country for Governor Patrick
Henry, making it a county of Virginia. Having seen the
advantages of the Illinois Country, he returned with his
family and four other pioneers and their families and
spent the winter of 1781 in Kaskaskia. In 1782, Moore
and his party moved northward on the Kaskaskia Trail and
settled at a place the French called La Belle Fontaine
because of the beautiful spring there. This was the
first permanent American settlement made in the Illinois
Territory. Other pioneers subsequently followed,
stopping briefly at the Moore settlement until they
staked claims for themselves elsewhere.
One such young pioneer was James
McRoberts, a Revolutionary War Soldier, who joined the
Moore party and then staked a claim of 100 acres (Survey
704; Claim 316), which he received for an improvement
right. He left his claim, went to Tennessee, where he
married Mary Fletcher-Harris and came back to Monroe
County in 1797, receiving another 100 acres, presently
owned by Mr. and Mrs. Halbert Mueller (Survey 703; Claim
315), from the government as a militia donation. This
claim was about one mile north of the first one. It was
on the second claim that he built his dwelling out of
cedar logs. Here his ten children were born. Samuel, the
eldest, "was the first native-born Illinoisan elevated
to the United States Senate."
Following the elder McRobert's
death in 1844, his Survey 704; Claim 316, now known as
the McRoberts' Meadow, was sold and re-sold in rapid
succession. It was a hilly, wooded tract of land, not
suitable for cultivation. It contained three streams and
a large spring, with limestone deposits protruding out
of the hillsides and along the creek banks.
In 1848, Jacob Maeys purchased the
Meadow from James O. Hall because of the large spring
upon it. Young Maeys intended to use the water power
from the spring to run a saw mill. Here he built his log
house to which he brought his bride, Barbara Fischer,
also a native of Germany.
Purchasing this 100 acres was very
timely, as it was just when the Forty-Eighters were
coming up the Mississippi River from the port of New
Orleans, stopping briefly at St. Louis and then
spreading by the thousands into the surrounding areas of
Missouri and Illinois.
For more information about
Maeystown, contact the Maeystown Preservation Society,
C/O Postmaster, Maeystown, IL 62256. Group tours are
also offered. For information call 618-458-6660. |
