Due to outrageous heating costs through the winter, we will be falling back to our winter hours of operation after Thanksgiving. Following Thanksgiving through February we will only be open on Saturdays from 10 AM to 3 PM or by special arrangement until the first Monday in March.
The museum was recently gifted a Grand Army of the Republic Charter for the Carterville Post 237. The charter was hanging on the walls at the Haven at Crab Orchard Lake for years and was donated to the museum for future safekeeping. Apparently the original charter for the Carterville post was lost in a fire long ago and this citation is a replacement for the original.
This charter is dated April 25, 1907 and the charter members listed were:
| Hugh M. Richart | Calvin M. Waggoner |
| Thomas Impson | Phillip Sprague |
| William J. Dowell | Nimrod G. Perrine |
| J.D. Beasley | Abraham H. North |
| James McCabe | H.C. Walston |
| Henry G. Price | Thomas Claxton |
| Bennett H. Stotlar | Jordan Halstead |
| Asa B. Blankenship | William R. McCall |
| James E. Ledbetter |
The GAR was a fraternal organization created in Decatur, Illinois in 1866 for Union soldiers and sailors. Linking men through their experience of the war, the G.A.R. became among the first organized advocacy groups in American politics, supporting voting rights for black veterans, promoting patriotic education, helping to make Memorial Day a national holiday, lobbying the United States Congress to establish regular veterans’ pensions, and supporting Republican political candidates. Its peak membership, at more than 490,000, was in 1890, a high point of various Civil War commemorative and monument dedication ceremonies.
At least one or more of the charter members of this particular post were captured by the confederacy and served time at Andersonville Prison. Colleen Norman is working up biographies on each member and will publish her results in the next members quarterly of our society.
The museum has only a picture of this medal but would really like to have an original medal as part of our collection. If anyone has one they would consider parting with, we would sincerely appreciate it.
It was a Defenders of Liberty medal given to WWI soldiers by the county as a token of thanks for serving.
We were requested to install a display for the annual John A. Logan Autumn Fest activity that is scheduled for November 14 and 15th 2015. The theme was specified as “the 1940’s.” The display was put together by Sam Lattuca and Sharon Vansaghi of the Williamson County Historical Society and was installed by them on November 2nd and will remain on display until late November at the college outside the conference rooms in the main building.
The display highlights the “Roots of the Crab Orchard Wildlife Refuge” by showing story boards related to the development of Crab Orchard Lake followed by the development of the Illinois Ordnance Plant otherwise known as Ordill in 1941. The plant was closed on V-J day in 1945 at the close of WWII. All of the property was later repurposed as the wildlife refuge in 1947.
Also highlighted in the display is our involvement in WWII, our military commitment and what life was like at home during the war. Featured are reproduced newspapers, WWII ration books, OPA tokens used as change from merchants when ration stamps were used and many more other items related to the 1940’s, the war and home life.
A special thanks goes out to Andy Sisulak of Baysinger Architects on N. Market Street in Marion for the printing of the large newspaper reproductions and posters that were specially made for the display.
The Williamson County Historical Society held its annual membership meeting on Sunday, October 25, 2015 at the county museum. The event was attended by 35 people. The meeting was held to review the previous year’s activity, outline future goals and elect the board of directors for the year 2016.
President, Sam Lattuca, reviewed the activities of the previous couple of years and outlined the future pressing needs of the museum. The new board of directors elected for 2016 were as follows: Sam Lattuca, President; Colleen Norman, 1st Vice President; Helen Lind, 2nd Vice President; Dolores Thetford, Treasurer; Ursula Richey, Secretary; George Mavigliano, Director till 2018 and Andrew McRoy, Director in 2016. Bob Jackson already maintained a seat as Director until 2017.
A number of previous board members were forced to resign this year due to illness and death requiring three new positions to be filled.
A program followed the meeting, conducted by Colleen Norman about basic genealogy and the use of our museum’s resources.