The Williamson County Historical Society held its first membership meeting since the beginning of the Covid pandemic on Sunday, May 7th, 2023 at its museum/library located at 105 S. Van Buren St. in Marion.
The membership meeting was conducted by society president, Sam Lattuca who brought the membership up to date on the society’s museum and library activities since the shutdown in the spring of 2020. Parts of the report included building maintenance, its website, museum display room updates, books published, new items introduced into the museum and the status of its membership as well as ongoing and upcoming projects.
The program for the meeting was conducted by Marion resident and society member, Charla Murphy who gave a talk about the short lived 128th Illinois Infantry founded in the county not long after John A. Logan’s speech on the Marion public square in the fall of 1862 during the Civil War. The 128th has often been maligned through history and jokingly called the ‘wang dang doodles’ due to what appeared to be a mismanaged and highly disorganized unit with a high desertion count. Murphy, however, through reading newspapers of the time, government reports, regimental records and pension reports made the case that there was another far more complicated side to the story that involved potential sabotage by confederate sympathizers, failure of leadership and political intrigue.
The historical society’s museum/library is open to the public for tours or genealogy research Wednesday through Saturday from 9:30 A.M. till 3:00 P.M.