Sugar Creek, Illinois.

After the War of 1812 many American farmers settled the region of grasslands and woods in central Illinois, especially along Sugar Creek. Most of these settlers came from Kentucky and other areas of the Upper South. (As so often happened in the expanding Southern economy, plantation slavery so restricted the opportunities of smaller farmers that many moved West and Northwest.) Some of the settlers on Sugar Creek quickly bought land, and others became squatters.

Moving onto the Prairie.

Corn, hogs, and hunting formed the initial subsistence-based economy for those who lived on the Illinois prairie. Most families initially settled in the timberlands bordering creeks and rivers because they found open grassland daunting. Although farmers eventually discovered that the prairie possessed incredibly rich soil, early Illinois pioneers saw it otherwise. They believed that trees represented fertile soil and thought that land...