Cedarville, Illinois

City: Cedarville

County: Stephenson

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 42.3667, -89.6167

Located about six miles north of Freeport, the place that became Cedarville saw its first white settlers in 1837 and eventually became the main settlement in Buckeye Township. The village was known in 1840 as Harrison, named for William Henry Harrison, and was surveyed nine years later. A U.S. Post Office was established in 1840 as Cedar Creek Mills, and the name of the village was changed to Cedarville in 1851.

“An Act to Change the Name of the Town of Harrison,” 17 February 1851, Private Laws of Illinois (1851), 277; Edward Callary, Place Names of Illinois (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 63; The History of Stephenson County. Illinois (Chicago: Western Historical, 1880), 537-39.