Randolph County, Illinois

County: Randolph

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 38.0667, -89.8500

Randolph County was established in 1795, when the area was still part of the Northwest Territory, and named for Edmund Randolph, the first U.S. Attorney General. Kaskaskia served as the county's seat of government and as the capital of the Territory and then State of Illinois from 1809 to 1819. In 1844, a flood forced the relocation of the county seat to Chester, Illinois.

The population of the county grew from 3,812 persons in 1825, 4,448 in 1830, and 7,944 in 1840.

The Kaskaskia River and the Marys River each flowed through the county, along with a few smaller creeks. The soil and landscape were varied, from rolling prairies to the rugged bluffs along the Mississippi River.

John M. Peck, A Gazetteer of Illinois in Three Parts (Jacksonville, IL: R. Goudy, 1834), 155; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 26, 33-34; Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois (Philadelphia: J. L. McDonough & Co., 1883), 116-17, 119-21.