“Danville is too far from the railroads. Will have to live out of the world a year or two yet,” Oscar F. Harmon wrote his wife Lizzie on June 20, 1854.
Harmon was an attorney and a natural leader. The future looked bright for him that year in the mid 1800s. The railroad was near, the Great Western had already connected with the Illinois Central and that allowed travelers to switch trains and reach Urbana from Springfield. From there they could take a stagecoach to Danville.
Harmon was doing well. He was speculating in land and building up his law practice. He would eventually serve a term in the Illinois legislature. He was a gifted speaker and supported the temperance movement. Like many other Vermilion County men his future was limited. He had 10 years and one week to live when he wrote that letter. He would be Colonel Harmon in 1864 and he and many of his men would die in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, on June 27th.
That was all in the future and Harmon and other citizens of the county welcomed the Great Western when it reached Danville in October 1856. To use Harmon’s words the growing town was no longer “out of the world.” A Great Western article in the Sangomo Journal stated a passenger could now board a train and travel by rail to St. Louis, Chicago and all stations, also to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Cincinnati. This was a great change from the time it took the pioneers weeks to travel from the east to Vermilion County. Residents could also ship and receive freight on the railroad. The telegraph was also major advancement in communications. Times were changing rapidly as an economy dependent on agriculture began to grow as the vast prairie was slowly giving up its grass to crops.
The Great Western did not arrive without some opposition. Even though the people wanted it, farmers did not want to see their land damaged. The previous year Abraham Lincoln and Ward Hill Lamon had a number of cases representing farmers who sued the Great Western for damages. They represented Derias Makenson, James Makenson, Lloyd H Price, and Edward Martin and won all four cases. The Great Western paid $699 in damages and agreed to build fences and crossings. The Danville law office of Lincoln and Lamon was thriving on Main Street that year.
Lincoln’s political star was also beginning to rise during the time he attended court in Vermilion County. In 1856 he was campaigning for John C. Fremont. He was the first candidate for president of the newly formed Republican Party. The Republicans were known as the anti-slavery party. Doctor Fithian of Danville was also campaigning for Fremont and he joined Lincoln for a giant all day Fremont rally in Urbana on Sept. 17, 1856.
County Clerk John C, Short was proud of Vermilion County. He noted it was one of the best agriculturally in the state. He noted in 1857 there were 214 mules, 21,055 cattle, 31,477 sheep, 31,677 hogs and 9,594 horses in Vermilion County.
Doctor James H. Faris owned one of those horses and he noted in the Vermilion County Press it had strayed or been stolen. He offered a $20 reward to anyone who could identify the thief. The Doctor was a popular, respected member of the community. In a few years, during the war, he would murder the Union soldier son of Tom McKibben, be lynched, and left to die on the courthouse steps in Danville. Turbulent times were just ahead.
On June 15, 1858, eight men from Vermilion County boarded a Great Western train that carried them to Springfield to a convention of the Republican Party. They were led by county chairman of the party, Doctor William Fithian. He was a friend, client and political supporter of Lincoln. Hiram Beckwith, Thomas McKibben, and James D, Kilpatrick were also members of the group.
Beckwith was now practicing law in the former Lincoln-Lamon law office on Danville’s Main Street. Lamon, whom Lincoln referred to as his Particular Friend, was now prosecuting attorney of the 8th Judicial Circuit. When the colorful Lamon was nominated for that position in 1856, P.B. Carothers noted in The Independent, a Danville newspaper, he was “a pro-slavery man and (gently let it be spoken) not a temperance man.” By 1858, the fiery Mrs. Carothers, had toned down her criticism of Lamon in her husband’s newspaper, “we have the honor and pleasure to state that the bar was duly sober during the whole court. Mr. Lamon abstaining from his usual southern hospitalities.”
McKibben was a former sheriff of the county and would be one of Lincoln’s most stalwart supporters in the future. Kilpatrick was the publisher of the Vermilion County Press. He grew up in Danville and had watched Lincoln many times in the courtroom. He would devote thousands of words in his newspaper, the Vermilion County Press, supporting Lincoln in his coming Senate and Presidential campaigns.
The Vermilion County men were present in Springfield the evening of June 16, 1858, when history was made in what is now referred to as the Old State Capital. Lincoln delivered an address after being nominated to run for the U.S. Senate. His words were referred to as controversial by some people at the time, but they are now eternal, it was the famous House Divided Speech. Abe would soon become well known as he began debating Stephen Douglas, the “Little Giant.”