Cumberland County, Illinois

County: Cumberland

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 39.2667, -88.2500

The Illinois General Assembly created Cumberland County out of Coles County in March 1843, naming it for the Cumberland Road, which had been named for Cumberland, Maryland. The act creating the county left it to county residents to choose the site for the county seat, and in September 1843, voters selected Sconce' Bend (DeKalb) over Greenup as the new county seat. Sconce' Bend (DeKalb) never became the county seat, and Greenup acted as the de facto county seat until 1855, when voters selected Prairie City as the permanent seat of government. In February 1857, the General Assembly legalized the actions of the Cumberland County Court in moving the county seat to Prairie City.

Origin and Evolution of Illinois Counties (Springfield: Illinois Secretary of State, 2010), 10, 13, 63; "An Act to Establish Cumberland County," 2 March 1843, Laws of Illinois (1843), 94-98; Counties of Cumberland, Jasper and Richland, Illinois: Historical and Biographical (Chicago: F. A. Battey, 1884), 91-97, 128-30; "An Act to Legalize the Acts of the County Court of Cumberland County, in Connection with the Permanent Location of the County Seat of Said County at the Town of Prairie City, and in Providing the Necessary Public Buildings at Such County Seat," 10 February 1857, Private Laws of Illinois (1857), 349.