Henry, Illinois

City: Henry

County: Marshall

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 41.1000, -89.3500

The city of Henry is located on the Illinois River, thirty miles north of Peoria. The process of laying out the town of Henry began in 1833, and the site was located in a portion of Putnam County which later became Marshall County. In the following year the town layout was finalized, and the location was named for recently-deceased General James D. Henry, who had led Illinois volunteers during the Black Hawk War. Henry received a U.S. Post Office in 1836, and the Illinois General Assembly chartered Henry as a city in 1854. Abraham Lincoln gave a speech in Henry during the election campaign of 1858.

Merriam-Webster’s Geographical Dictionary 3rd ed. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1997), 481; Henry A. Ford, The History of Putnam and Marshall Counties (Lacon, IL: Gazette, 1860), 111-15; Edward Callary, Place Names of Illinois (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 158; “An Act to Amend the Charter of the Town of Henry,” 1 March 1854, Laws of Illinois (1854), 226-28; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 23 August 1858, http://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-08-23.