Week 33 -- Visit an area you've never been to before

This is one view of the re-created Fort LaMotte.

     Recently, Cheryl and I were in Palestine, Ill., to watch Jordan's travel baseball team. Palestine is a town of about 1,400 in Crawford County, near Robinson and Newton.
     The town water tower is in the park where the games were played. The water tower said Palestine became a municipality in 1811! That caught me offguard because Illinois didn't become a state until 1818. Then I remembered that our newspaper had done a story a couple years ago about some people in Crawford County looking for information about U.S. Rangers from Fort LaMotte coming up to what eventually became Coles County and Charleston in, like, 1818, to protect some surveyors from Indians. So, history buff that I am, when Jordan's team had about an hour break in the schedule, Cheryl and I went off to look for Fort LaMotte.
     It wasn't easy to find, even in a town of 1,400. We had to ask directions twice. But we eventually did find it. It was kind of cool but very small. The first U.S. settlers came to the area about 1809. A French explorer named Jean LaMotte named the area Palestine, thinking it was like the Biblical "land of milk and honey." LaMotte, incidentally, was part of the group with the French explorer LaSalle, who built the fort on top of Starved Rock near Ottawa where I grew up. LaMotte got separated from LaSalle's group and explored the area that eventually became Southwestern Indiana and Southeastern Illinois.
     Fort LaMotte was the site of the Battle of Africa Point, one of the few battles from the War of 1812 to take place in the Illinois terrtory.
     According to stories handed down, Rangers from Fort LaMotte came to the Coles County area in 1816 when Indians attacked surveyors near what is now Lake Charleston. Then, in 1818, the Rangers came up again when Indians stole horses and cattle and harassed the few white settlers who had set up again on Lake Charleston.
     It was kind of neat to hear about these stories and connections. Coles County wasn't established by the legislature until Christmas Day 1830. And Charleston was selected as the county seat in 1831. The five legislative representatives actually favored a spot near Lake Charleston for the county seat but Charles Morton and a man named Eastin gave them 40 acres of free land about two blocks south of where the courthouse now stands if the men would make that the site for the county seat. And they did. Charleston gets its name from Charles Morton. Supposedly, the men decided to name the town Mortonville but Morton's wife didn't like it and suggested combining Charles and part of Morton to name the town Charleston.
     We enjoyed watchng the ballgames but it was a bonus to find Fort LaMotte and learn a little more about history of Southeast Illinois.