Maps West of Mercer County, Illinois
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Westward Development Maps and Links
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Mercer Home Page
Return to Mercer Maps Page
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Page created 5/8/2005 as a Supplement to our Mercer and Illinois Map Page

Can't find your ancestor after a certain time period in Mercer County? Consider they might be helping fulfill America's "Manifest Destiny" by settling the West. On this page we are including useful research tools that we (and others) have found for researching such movements. If you know of some good sites and/or maps we would be happy to post a link here.

One of the finest historical Web Sites on the Internet is the Library of Congress - American Memories Web Site. One of their collections is Railroad Maps. It covers many regions and many time periods. The 1854 County Map linked on the main map page was cut out of one of its Illinois Railroad Maps. It takes time and patience and lots of memory to download one of their maps, but it is a fun site to visit.

1895 U. S. ATLAS


A great site for America West History including migration trails and maps.

Ancestry.com Free Map Images

MAP OF AVERAGE RAINFALL OVER THE U.S. - Why do we care? West of the 100th meridian the rainfall drops sharply except in the far Northwest of the United States. Settlers could not sustain themselves with dry land farming and many who had migrated returned back east of the Mississippi including several Mercer County residents. [ Click]

TO OREGON:
Many early residents of Mercer County went on to Oregon. The Coons Diary is especially interesting as it is specific to Mercer County with their trip starting in Sugar Grove. (links from Jayne Mundell)
http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/00.n.dairies.html
http://www.oregonpioneers.com/ortrail.htm
https://sites.rootsweb.com/%7Eorbenton/COONDIAR.htm
http://www.usgennet.org/alhnorus/ahorclak/census.html
http://www.oregonpioneers.com/1850.htm

History of the State of Kansas, William G. Cutler 1883: Many Mercer County people went to Kansas after the Civil War as Kansas gave special land bonuses to veterans. This book is on line at the University of Kansas Web Site. The chapters are arranged by County so do your homework before attempting to use it.

History of the State of Nebraska A. T. Andreas 1882: Nebraska was another popular destination for Mercer County people after the Civil War. Again this book is arranged by counties but it does have a name index. It is a work in progress so check back from time to time.

Gold Rushes - Check out our page on the various gold rushes to look for people who may be temporarily or permanently gone from Mercer County and out looking for gold or settling somewhere to make a living from miners and mining.



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