Editing Bond County, Illinois (section)

==History==
Bond County was formed in 1817 out of [[Madison County, Illinois|Madison County]]. It was named for [[Shadrach Bond]], who was then the delegate from the [[Illinois Territory]] to the [[United States Congress]], and who thereupon became the first [[governor of Illinois]], serving from 1818 to 1822.<ref name="historicgville">Allan H. Keith, [https://books.google.com/books?id=1gJ_RVeb5JYC&pg=PA2 ''Historical Stories: About Greenville and Bond County, IL'']. Consulted on August 15, 2007.</ref>

The county's primary city, Greenville, had a post office from 1819 and was incorporated as a town in 1855 and as a city in 1872.<ref name="historicgville"/>  A few possible reasons have been put forth for the naming of the town. Some think the town was named after [[Greenville, North Carolina]], which had been named after [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]] general [[Nathanael Greene]]. Others say that Greenville was named by early settler Thomas White because it was "so green and nice."  A third possibility is that Greenville was named after Green P. Rice, the town's first merchant.<ref name="historicgville"/>

In 1824, a vote taken on slavery in Bond County had received 240 votes against and 63 votes for slavery.<ref name="underground rr">{{cite news |title= Several Stops On 'Underground Railroad' In Bond County |publisher=Greenville Advocate |date=November 11, 2008}}</ref> While Illinois was not a slave state, it was adjacent to slave states, [[Missouri]] and [[Kentucky]], and did allow the continued use of "indentured servants," a process many slaveowners used to keep their slaves even in a free state.<ref name="underground rr"/>

In Bond County, at one point 14 slaves were registered to eight owners.<ref name="underground rr"/> One slave, Silas Register, took his last name from the act of being registered at the county clerk's office. Register was the last known Bond County slave to survive; he died in 1872 at the age of 76.<ref name="underground rr"/> A few of the slaves are buried in the county with the families they were indentured to.<ref name="underground rr"/> One former slave, Fanny, was free after her owners moved out of the state and worked in the town so that she could buy her husband, Stephen, at [[auction]] in Missouri.<ref name="underground rr"/>

During the 1840s, Bond County played host to a few people conducting slaves to freedom on the [[Underground Railroad]].<ref name="underground rr"/> Teacher T.A. Jones lived in [[Reno, Illinois|Reno]] and in 2008, a letter in which he told of his Underground Railroad activities was discovered in a staircase in [[Sparta, Illinois|Sparta]].<ref name="underground rr"/> Slaves were often spirited from Missouri, sometimes through [[Carlyle, Illinois|Carlyle]] to Bond County.<ref name="underground rr"/> Rev. John Leeper was able to disguise his Underground Railroad activities due to his milling business.<ref name="underground rr"/> Dr. [[Henry Perrine]] practiced medicine near Greenville and helped with the secret railroad activities.<ref name="underground rr"/> Rev. George Denny's house was found in the 1930s to conceal a secret chamber that had been used in the Railroad.<ref name="underground rr"/>

Greenville University was founded as Almira College in 1855. In 1941, college president H.J. Long "declared the founding of Almira and Greenville ran parallel, for both were founded on [[prayer]]."<ref name="historicgville"/>

When [[Abraham Lincoln]] and [[Stephen Douglas]] gave speeches in Greenville in 1858 during a campaign for the [[United States Senate]], Douglas said: "Ladies and gentlemen it gives me great and supreme gratification and pleasure to see this vast concourse of people assembled to hear me upon this my first visit to Old Bond."<ref name="historicgville"/>  The ''[[The State Journal-Register|Illinois State Register]]'' reported of the occasion: "I've seen many gatherings in Old Bond county but I never saw anything equal to this and I never expect to."<ref name="historicgville"/>

Women in Bond County could vote for the first time in 1914.<ref name="historicgville"/> On November 21, 1915, the [[Liberty Bell]] passed through Greenville on its nationwide tour returning to [[Pennsylvania]] from the [[Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915)|Panama-Pacific International Exposition]] in [[San Francisco]]. After that trip, the Liberty Bell returned to Pennsylvania and will not be moved again.<ref name="historicgville"/><ref name="libertybell">{{cite news |title= Liberty Bell Attracts Crowd in Greenville During 1915 Stop |publisher=Greenville Advocate |date=July 3, 2007}}</ref>

The [[Greenville Public Library]] was established as a [[Carnegie library]] and is on the [[National Register of Historic Places]]. Hogue Hall at Greenville College, demolished in 2008, also formerly appeared on the National Register.<ref name="historicgville"/>

On April 18, 1934, during the [[Great Depression]], a group of 500 protesters marched to the Illinois Emergency Relief Commission to lodge complaints about the delivery of emergency supplies from the state and federal governments.<ref name="historicgville"/>

[[Ronald Reagan]] visited Greenville [[1980 United States presidential election|on the campaign trail]] in the 1980s and gave a speech on the courthouse lawn.  [[Barack Obama]], the junior Senator from Illinois elected as president in November 2008, also visited Greenville while campaigning for his Senate seat in 2004, in a visit hosted by the Bond County Democrats.<ref name="obama visit">{{cite news |title= Obama Visited Cafe in 2004 |publisher=Greenville Advocate |date=November 11, 2008}}</ref>

<gallery>
File:Bond County 1817.png|Bond County at the time of its creation in 1817, extending north to Lake Superior.
File:Bond County 1821.png|Bond County between 1821 and 1824
File:Bond County 1824.png|Bond between 1824 and 1843
File:Bond County Illinois 1843.png|Bond county was enlarged slightly to its current size in 1843.
</gallery>