Visitors Guide to Atlas
Pike County, Illinois
A visitor to Atlas today would find it hard to imagine that this small crossroads village was once one of the largest communities in northern Illinois and its political center. The first permanent Europeans in what is now Pike County were the families of Ebenezer Franklin and Daniel Shinn who settled near what is now the village of Atlas in the spring of 1820. They were joined by the Ross brothers in the fall who settled on land that one brother, Leonard, who had been a captain in the War of 1812, had purchased as part of payment for his military service. New settlers were attracted by the natural beauty of the area and Ross’s Settlement grew rapidly. Pike County was organized on January 31, 1821 and originally encompassed all of the state above the Illinois and Kankakee Rivers. Although it covered the northwest third of Illinois out of which 50 counties would eventually be formed there were only 35 votes cast in its first election. The county was named after Zebulon Pike, leader of the Pike expedition in 1806 to map out the south and west portions of the Louisiana Purchase. Coles’ Grove, in what is now Calhoun County, was named the temporary county seat.
A rivalry soon arose with Coles’ Grove and Ross’s Settlement over where to locate the permanent county seat. This contest culminated in the election of the three county commissioners in August of 1822. The partisans of Coles’ Grove were led by John Shaw, an early influential force in state politics and called the Black Prince by his detractors. Shaw realized that if the county seat were moved it would be the death knell for his new community. Shaw’s candidates got the greater number of votes in the election but his opponents claimed illegal voting as many of the votes for Shaw and his associates were of Native American, mixed race, or French-Canadian origins and eligible voters could only be white males. For nearly a month the county had two sets of elected officials until the circuit court ruled in favor of the officials from Ross’s Settlement.
Whether Illinois was to be a slave state or a free state entered into the contested Pike County election. In 1822 there were more pro-slavery than anti-slavery advocates in Illinois, due largely to more immigrants from southern states than northern states. When Illinois became a state it had to adhere to the U.S. Ordinance of 1787 which prohibited territories from the Northwest Territory from entering the Union as a slave state. Slavery advocates the 1818 Illinois Constitutional convention had inserted the declaration that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall hereafter be introduced into this state.” The catch was that slavery had already been introduced into the state. Edward Coles, the namesake of Coles’ Grove but who lived in Edwardsville to the south, was among four men running for Governor in 1822. Coles was a former slave owner from Virginia who freed his slaves when he came to Illinois and became a strong abolitionist. Although the pro-slavery candidates garnered more votes in the election their votes were split and Coles was elected the second Governor of Illinois. In his first address to the State Legislature he called for a convention to amend the constitution by abolishing slavery and granting immediate emancipation. Although shocked by the Coles’ challenge the pro-slave forces saw an opportunity to amend the constitution in their favor.
It is here where the Pike County election comes into play. The candidate for the representative for the Illinois House from the Ross’s Settlement faction was Nicholas Hansen, who was anti-slavery by conviction but who made an agreement with the pro-slavery faction to vote for Jesse Thompson, the pro-slave candidate for U.S. Senate, in return for the appointment of a commission favorable to moving the Pike County seat to Ross’ Settlement. In an informal vote prior to the official vote, Hansen had voted in favor of a new convention. However, having felt that he had satisfied his obligations to the pro-slavery faction by voting for Thompson he switched sides in the official vote and the call for a new convention failed to reach its two-thirds majority by one vote. Pro-slavery voters were enraged and paraded through the streets throughout the night burning Hansen in effigy. Shortly thereafter they reconsidered Shaw’s claim that he was the winner in the contested election and found in his favor, removing Hansen and seating Shaw as the representative of Pike County. If Hansen had voted for amending constitution it is entirely possible that Illinois would have legalized slavery, the balance of power in the U.S. Senate between slave and free states would be altered, and the course of the history of the United States changed.
Despite Hansen’s “treachery” a new commission regarding the location of the Pike County seat was formed and recommended that a permanent county seat be established in the Ross’s Settlement area. In 1823 William Ross and Rufus Brown laid out a new town near Ross’s Settlement and called it Atlas, supposedly because after first seeing the beautiful prairie at the foot of the Mississippi bluffs one of the Ross party had exclaimed "At last!” Ross and Brown sold the county one acre of the new town for $50 on which to erect public building and the courthouse in Coles’ Grove was dismantled and moved to the new site. John Shaw was able to regain political control of the county but never was able to move the county seat back to Coles’ Grove. The size of Pike County was continually being whittled down as new counties were formed out of it. Pike County’s final boundaries were set in January of 1825 when three new counties were organized from Pike County territory. One of these was Calhoun County which was orchestrated by John Shaw who laid out a new county seat called Gilead and Coles’ Grove eventually faded into history.
A similar fate as that of Coles’ Grove awaited Atlas. In 1827 an election was held to form a commission to relocate the county seat but no action was taken. In 1833 a commission appointed by the state legislature recommended a new location more in the center of the county. The town of Pittsfield, named after the home town of the Rosses in Massachusetts, was platted and lots sold on April 15, 1833. After the county seat moved from Atlas it population declined and although it didn’t disappear from the map as did Coles’ Grove, its fate was to become the small country town it is today. At some point just prior to his founding of Quincy in 1825, John Wood was travelling with William Ross and showed him the site where he planned to build a new town. Ross congratulated Wood on his excellent choice of location and wished him success but remarked that it wouldn’t amount to much as was too near Atlas.
