Williamson County Illinois Historical Society

An extensive index to the book “Steal Easy: A Memoiric History of Crab Orchard, Illinois” written by ex- resident John M. Brewer and published in 1985 has been added to our Master Local History Index and made available from the Records tab on our website.

The book recounts the formative pioneer years of Crab Orchard and details a fair amount of information about local families, businesses, churches, schools and events through time. It also explains, of course, why Crab Orchard was often referred to as “steal easy” due to how easy it was to steal merchandise from the local mill in the early days. Some of the many families covered are Allen, Brewer, Corder, Davis, Edwards, Ensminger, Fowler, Fiveash, Furlong, Harris, Hill, Motsinger, Parks, Pulley, Richey, Smith, Swan, Tanner, Tidwell and Turner just to mention a few. The new index contains 1,614 references to people, crime, acts of God, churches, businesses, organizations, schools, places and events.

The new book index can be viewed individually here: Steal Easy, a History of Crab Orchard

or the entire Master Local History Index can be viewed here:  Master Local History Index

Not long ago we posted the index to the book “Glances of the Past” put together by Pearl Roberts in 1977. The book covered the history of Johnston City starting in the small village of Shakerag and covered the years from 1894 through the end of WWII. The book was based upon a series of 168 articles that Pearl had originally written for the Williamson Observer newspaper between July 1972 and continued writing through November 1979 after publication.

Because a lot of information had to be culled and was missed for the book and since there was a fair amount of county history contained within the articles that wasn’t included in the book we decided to index the original newspaper articles that covered Johnston City through its history up to 1952.

Whereas the index of the book is titled as “Glimpses of the Past, Johnston City, 1894-1945” in the Master Local History index, the index for the articles will be titled “Glimpses of the Past, Articles, Johnston City.”

Both are now incorporated into the Master Local History Index that can be found under the Records tab of our site.

A list of Williamson County Death Records filed with the Illinois Dept. of Health from 1916-1950 has been added to our Records tab. The complete file for county death certificates filed between 1916 and 1950 was extracted from Illinois state records and reflect last and first name, sex/race (N/S means not stated), age if given, death certificate number, death date, location of death, and the date the death was filed with the county. The file is under the Records tab or can be accessed at this link, 1916-50 WC Deaths.     

Another index added is the 1868 Tax Assessor’s Book for Williamson County. This interesting book reflects real estate taxes, values of city lots located in towns and personal property assessment sheets reflecting the net worth of persons on the tax list. The personal property assessments reflect the quantity and value of livestock, wagons, watches/clocks, pianos, acreage, goods, manufactured items, money and credit, bonds and stocks and more. The index has been added to the Master Misc. County Records Index and can be found under the Records tab on our website. The newly added file can be viewed by its self at this link, 1868 Tax Assessor’s Book.