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 22 community leaders to have held this position. The office of Tazewell County Clerk was the first Countywide Office established on April 10, 1827. 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 month we recognize the Clerk of the second Tazewell County Courthouse, located in Tremont, John Huston Morrison, 1836-1847, of the Whig Political Party.

John Huston Morrison was born May 19, 1799, to John and Ann Gilfillan Morrison. He was married February 10, 1825, in Washington, Pennsylvania, to Isabella Work Dickey (1807-1879). Isabella W. Dickey Morrison was the granddaughter of James Dickey (1754-1813), a patriot who served in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

The Morrison family moved to Tremont in 1835 and can be found in the Federal census of Tazewell County in 1840 and 1850. John served as Tazewell County Clerk from 1836 to 1847, which was during the time the courthouse was in Tremont. Today, an Illinois State Historical Marker identifies the location of Tremont’s Tazewell County Courthouse at the intersection of East Washington St. and South Broadway St. He was 37 years old when elected Tazewell County Clerk. The Morrison family later moved briefly to Marshalltown, IA, and then on to Iowa City, where John died on May 3, 1869, and is buried in Oakland Cemetery. John and Isabella had nine children: Martha, William, Andrew, Theodore, Sarah, John, Annabella, James, and Susan.

John H. Morrison was known to be the clerk of record for a dozen or so Abraham Lincoln-connected cases, including one that saw Sheriff Briggs sued by several men for failing to “attach” the Steamer Fayette before it could leave the area. Tazewell County Sheriff Briggs retained Abraham Lincoln as his attorney for this case.

John H. Morrison is also connected to Abraham Lincoln as the individual who deeded 234 acres in Tazewell County to hold in trust as security on a loan of $284.94 from Lincoln’s law partner. Held in the records of the Tazewell County Recorder of Deeds Office, in Book 14 on Page 135 and dated September 10, 1844, the main section of this land is located at the Southwest intersection of Springfield Rd. and Allentown Rd. between Groveland and Tremont, and at the Southwest intersection of Illinois Route 9 and Springfield Rd. just west of Tremont.