I first looked at this plat book years ago when I thought I “knew everything” and that the plat book showing properties and landowners would teach me nothing new.
I was wrong.
The 1890s map showed the eighty-parcel in section 10 of Hancock County, Illinois; Bear Creek Township owned my my forebear John Johnson. An adjacent landowner was Henry Sartorius. Sartorius was John’s father-in-law and a man who I had originally thought spent his entire life in Adams County, Illinois, after arriving in the United States. He did not.
Sartorius only owned in Hancock County and lived there for a few years–he is not enumerated in any census records there. This plat book was the first document I found showing he lived in Hancock County–a document I thought I did not need.
You never know what information something contains until you look at it.
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