Editing Winnebago County, Illinois (section)

==History==
Winnebago County was formed on January 16, 1836, out of [[Jo Daviess County, Illinois|Jo Daviess]] and [[LaSalle County, Illinois|LaSalle]] counties. It was named for the [[Winnebago (tribe)|Winnebago Tribe]] of [[Native Americans in the United States|American Indians]]. At the time the county was founded its inhabitants consisted almost entirely of New Englanders and New England transplants from upstate New York.<ref>History of Rockford and Winnebago County, Illinois: From the First Settlement in 1834 to the Civil War pg. 253</ref>  These were "Yankee" settlers, meaning they were descended from the English Puritans who settled New England during the early 1600s. They made up virtually all of Winnebago County's inhabitants during the first several decades of its history. In this regard the county was similar to most of the northern portion of the state of Illinois, and almost all of the neighboring state of Wisconsin. After the conclusion of the [[Black Hawk War]] there was an additional surge of immigration from [[New England]]. As a result of this heritage the inhabitants of Winnebago County considered themselves, and functioned as, a cultural expansion of early New England culture.<ref>The Expansion of New England: The Spread of New England Settlement and Institutions to the Mississippi River, 1620-1865 by Lois imball Mathews pg. 210-212</ref>  In the presidential election of 1860, [[Abraham Lincoln]] won 3,985 votes in Winnebago County, whereas [[Stephen A. Douglas]] only won 817 votes.<ref>History of Rockford and Winnebago County, Illinois: From the First Settlement in 1834 to the Civil War, pg. 379</ref>

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File:Winnebago County Illinois 1836.png|Winnebago County for its first year of existence
File:Winnebago County Illinois 1837.png|Winnebago County in 1837, reduced to its current borders by the creation of Stephenson and Boone Counties
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