Henderson County Courthouse (Illinois)
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The Henderson County Courthouse is a government building in Oquawka, the county seat of Henderson County, Illinois, United States. Built in 1842 and later expanded, it remains in use as the county's courthouse, despite repeated attempts by other towns to obtain the status of county seat.
Treaties were signed with local Indians as early as 1804, but cruelty on the part of early squatters in the area provoked them to warfare, and not until 1829 could land be sold in what became western Henderson County.[1]: 920 Here a town was platted in 1836 and named Oquawka,[1]: 924 and by 1838 it was prosperous enough to attempt to gain the status of county seat for Warren County.[1]: 926
Henderson County was created out of Warren County in April 1841 by a law that designated also Oquawka the county seat,[1]: 865 and one of the first acts of the original county commission was to accept from commissioner Alexis Phelps a donation of land for county business.[2] (Phelps and others had reserved land for this purpose five years earlier, when founding the town.[1]: 936 ) In October 1841, the county commission first announced plans to build a courthouse, and as the lowest bidder, Phelps was chosen as the contractor for a price of $1,219.[1]: 882 Working with architect Abner Hebbard,[1]: 927 brick mason James Ryason, and a pair of other contractors, he finished the building by the end of 1842.[2]
Oquawka sits twice as far from the county's southern boundary as from the northern,[1]: 911 and for this reason, residents of the southern part of the county repeatedly sought to move the seat closer to their homes. Elections were held in 1859 (seeking to move it to Warren), 1865 (to Gladstone), 1869 (to Biggsville), and 1872 (again to Gladstone), but majorities consistently favored retaining the original location.[1]: 910 As the county has never replaced the original building, it is Illinois' second-oldest active courthouse.[3]
Although Oquawka was not chosen to host any of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, both men visited at the Henderson County Courthouse during their campaigns; Douglas spoke on October 4, and Lincoln spoke on October 9.[4] Douglas was already familiar with the location, having used the courthouse in the 1840s while a state appeals court judge.[2]