As Tazewell County approaches our Bicentennial in April of 2027, current Tazewell County Clerk John C. Ackerman and former County Clerk Christie A. Webb will be honoring and recognizing the previous community leaders to hold this position. The office of Tazewell County Clerk was the first Countywide Office established on April 10th 1827. Since then, only 22 individuals have served in this vital County Government position. Two of them were surgeons, two owned cigar companies, one was a race car driver. The youngest elected was 22, while the oldest elected was 64. One later served in the State Legislature, while another was appointed Assistant Secretary of State, and five received numerous United States Presidential Appointments to positions within the Federal Government.

Each month on the 10th as we approach the Bicentennial we will be placing a floral wreath from The Greenhouse Flower Shoppe in Pekin at the gravesite of these 22 individuals. This is the second in this series of twenty-two recognitions. Additionally, we will share the biographies and signatures of these county government leaders, thanks to the research to Susan Rynerson of the Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society and Jared Olar of the Pekin Public Library. Please join us as we build momentum for the historic Tazewell County Bicentennial by honoring and recognizing these tremendous individuals.

This month we recognize the Clerk of the first Tazewell County Courthouse and first Mayor of Pekin, Joshua C. Morgan, 1828-1836, of the Whig Political Party.

Joshua Carmen Morgan was born July 15th, 1804, in Xenia, Greene County, Ohio. He married Almeda Moore about 1823 and they soon moved to Sangamon County, Illinois, where they began their family. Their known children were Julia Jones Loomis (1824-1908), Isaac (1828-1849), Carolyn Hutton (1830-1893), and one other, maybe Frank. Almeda died during the July 1834 cholera epidemic in Pekin.

Joshua was next married on April 23rd, 1835, to Elizabeth G. Shoemaker (1815-1900). Their minister was Flavel Bascom, which suggested they were married in Pleasant Grove. Joshua and Elizabeth’s children were Alphonzo (1837-1922), Jerome (1842-1862), Spencer (1843-1924), Charles (1846-1894), Sidney (1847-1925), and Florence Remington (1850-1902). His sons served in the Civil War.

Joshua C. Morgan was listed as Mackinaw Postmaster as early as 1828. He served as Tazewell County Clerk, Circuit Clerk, and Recorder of Deeds. He was 24 years old when elected Tazewell County Clerk, the last to serve as both County Clerk and Circuit Clerk. Between March and May of 1828, the meetings of the Tazewell County Commissioners’ Court were held in the home of Joshua C. Morgan in Mackinaw till the first Tazewell County Courthouse was opened on May 12th, 1828. He was also Tazewell County Clerk when the County Seat was moved from Mackinaw to Pekin in 1831.

During his tenure, Joshua C. Morgan recorded many meeting minutes and documents but the record that stood out was this one: “At a County Commissioners Court begun and held in the Town of Pekin on Monday the fourth day of June A.D. 1832”… “This day came into court Morrison a man of color and presented voucher and paper certifying that he the said Morrision had obtained his freedom from William N. Burnett. Ordered that the said Morrision be required to enter into bond with approved security in the penal sum of one thousand dollars. Ordered that said bond be filed in court which was done in open court. Wm N Burnett entered into bond, order that he be allowed to take out a certificate of his freedom from the Clerk’s office.”

Joshua C. Morgan was the man that recorded the 1830 Plat of Pekin; and once Pekin was organized as a town in 1835, he was one of five to be elected as a town trustee. The first act of the Pekin Board of Trustees was to make Joshua C. Morgan President of the board. He was still living in Tazewell County in 1842, after which the family moved to Palmyra, Lee County, Illinois, where Joshua was stricken with typhoid and died July 12th, 1849. He was buried in Prairieville Cemetery near Palmyra in rural Lee County.