Jasper County, Illinois

County: Jasper

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 39.0000, -88.1667

The Illinois General Assembly authorized the creation of Jasper County in 1831 from parts of Crawford and Clay counties, but required a subsequent general assembly to organize the county. The General Assembly named the county in honor of Revolutionary War hero Sergeant William Jasper, and appointed commissioners to designate the location of the county seat, which would be named Newton after Jasper’s fellow soldier, Sergeant John Newton. Parson Mason Locke Weems popularized and embellished the story of Jasper and Newton in his biography of General Francis Marion, published in 1809.

“An Act Establishing the Counties of Jasper and Effingham,” 15 February 1831, Laws of Illinois (1831), 50-52; “An Act to Organize the County of Jasper,” 19 December 1834, Laws of Illinois (1835), 154-55; Edward Callary, Place Names of Illinois (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 176.