Dime Novel Desperadoes: The Notorious Maxwell Brothers

3. The Maxwells in McDonough County

dUD 3 The Maxwells in McDonough County The Maxwells did not travel all the way back to where they had lived during the troubled 1860s but, instead, moved into a tenant house in McDonough County, which was just to the west of Fulton. Their rented farm was on the northern edge of Tennessee Township, in Section 4, just a mile or so above the heavily wooded banks of the Lamoine River and a half mile west of the road leading from the hamlet of Tennessee across the huge North Prairie to the village of Blandinsville. Like so many counties in western Illinois, McDonough had been organized in the 1820s. At that time, most of the region’s villages—such as Peoria, Quincy, Beardstown, and Fort Edwards (Warsaw)—were scattered along the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, which lay more than thirty miles away, to the east and west. The steamboat era soon arrived, and because McDonough County was not on a major river, it developed slowly. The county seat, Macomb, was not laid out until 1831—five years after the county had been formed—and twenty years later, the town still had only 700 people. The coming of the Northern Cross (later Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy) Railroad in the mid-1850s spurred development, generating new farm-center villages like Prairie City, Bushnell, Bardolph, and Tennessee, as well as the coal-mining community of Colchester. In Macomb the first i-xvi_1-408_Hall.indd 39 3/22/11 1:59:50 PM McDonough County and surrounding areas, showing the approximate location of the 1870 Maxwell tenant farm and several communities related to the outlaw career of Ed and Lon. i-xvi_1-408_Hall.indd 40 3/22/11 1:59:52 PM 41 The Maxwells in McDonough County depot was erected a few blocks west of the square, and strange new signs went up that warned, “Look out for the cars when the bell rings or the whistle sounds.” A new, more progressive era had dawned, and the county ’s population soon doubled. But the coming of the Civil War slowed the pace of progress once again. As in Fulton County, local people were badly divided over issues related to the war. Some wanted strict enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law while others opposed slavery and approved of the Underground Railroad, which had operated in McDonough County since the 1840s. Some viewed Lincoln—who had visited Macomb twice in 1858—as a destroyer of the Union and a threat to constitutionally guaranteed rights, while others viewed him as the preserver of the Union and a champion of freedom. Some opposed the draft and rejected the war itself, as “a foolish, vain, wicked, and impossible attempt to break down the sacred barriers of the Constitution and abolish slavery,” while many others served in the Union Army—or supported the effort of their husbands and brothers, and prayed for their safe return. With almost 2,700 men from McDonough County serving in the conflict, and hundreds of them not returning, there was widespread hardship and suffering. The close of the war brought steady population growth, new business initiatives, and a renewed impulse toward local development. In 1871 the Atlas Map of McDonough County appeared, underwritten by the more prosperous businessmen and landowners. In lithographs, maps, and historicalbiographical sections it celebrated the county as a localized version of the American Promise—an agrarian empire, newly wrested from the wilderness and characterized by lovely, productive farms, progressive villages, and a splendid, substantial county seat. From the look of things in that grand, oversized book—itself a symbol of social status—no one had failed and no one was poor. The achievers had created a great localization of American culture, and prosperity was available for all. Published at a time of rising expectations, the Atlas testified to a prevailing philosophy of life—the Gospel of Success. It seemed to demonstrate that economic independence was the natural order of things, open to all “through diligent effort and pursuit of the main chance”—especially if you possessed certain virtues. You simply shaped your character, which prompted the right choices and, in turn, shaped your life. That was also the message preached at home, school, and church—and it was often reflected in local newspapers as well. In 1875, for example, the Macomb i-xvi_1-408_Hall.indd 41 3/22/11 1:59:54 PM Dime Novel Desperadoes 42 Journal...