We have been permitted to copy some old papers, now in possession of our friend and long time subscriber William McClintock, Esq., which are in themselves a history. About the year 1800 Abraham Eyman settled on a tract of land in "Turkey Hill township, St. Clair county," containing 320 acres, made claim to the same in accordance with usage in those days, and paid taxes thereon. One of his tax receipts reads as follows:

"Received of Abraham Eyman one Dollar and Seventy cents his Tax for 1806. John Hays, Shrr."

Next in order we find the permit granted Mr. Eyman from the U.S. Land office as follows:

No. 143 Land Office Kaskaskia, January 8th, 1808

In Conformity with the Act of Congress, entitled "An act to prevent Settlements being made on Lands ceded to the United States until authorized by law," Permission is hereby given to Abraham Eyman new settled on a certain Tract of Land belonging to the United States situate in Turkey Hill Township, in St. Clair County, within three miles of Forbisher's Prairie, on the dividing ridge between Rich Land and Prairie du Pont Creek, bounded on all sides by vacant Land and containing three hundred and twenty acres, to remain thereon as Tenant at will, on the Condition of doing no waste or Damage on the Land, and on the other Conditions expressed in the Act above Mentioned. Michl. Jones, Regr."

Two year thereafter we find an increase in taxation of about 33 per cent which Mr. Eyman paid, as is witnessed by the following paper which we copy from the original:

"Received of Abraham Eyman two Dollars and Forty cents the amount of his tax for 1810. John Primm, Dep. Shff."

Some trouble in perfecting title to this tract caused the owner to allow it to be sold for taxes, and then he himself bought it at the sale by the sheriff, in 1816, and we copy the tax deed executed by the sheriff therefore, in full:

By John Hans [Hays], Sherrif of St. Clair County, in the Illinois Territory.

To all people to whom these presents shall come, I, the said Sheriff send greeting:

`Know ye that pursuant to the several laws of the Said Territory for levying and collecting a tax on land, I the Said Sheriff of hereby Certify that I did advertise according to the Said Laws, the Tract of Land herein after mentioned and Described as the property of Abraham Eyman owner or proprietor and entered with the assessor of Said County of St. Clair for taxation for the year 1816, in a public newspaper printed as Kaskaskia in the Illinois Territory Called the Illinois Herald and Missoury Advertiser; and that I did accordingly on this the thirteenth day of May in the year one thousand Eight hundred and Sixteen Sell according to said Laws at the Dorr of the House in which Court is Usually held at Belleville in the County of St. Clair aforesaid at 10 of the Clock A. M. of this day (having given Notice as aforesaid by advertising on the Court House door and three Successive weeks in the Newspaper aforesaid) the Said Tract of Land herein after Mentioned and described for the Tax and Costs due theron for the Said Year 1815 the same being due and unpaid and that Abraham Eyman of St. Clair County Illinois Territory became purchaser thereof for the price and sum hereinafter mentioned that it to say to wit, the Southwest quarter of Section No. 86, and the South half of Section No. 85(?) in Township No. 1 North and Range No. 9 West of the third principal Meridian which was sold for the Sum of three dollars and seventy-five cents Tax & cost said due thereon which Said sum I acknowledge to have Received from the said Abraham Eyman in consideration of which I hereby certi9fy that all the right, title, and Interest of the aforesaid Tractcs of Land herin Certified, and sold is hereby Vested in him the Said Abraham Eyman and his heirs, Subject only to the provision of Redemption Contained in the aforesaid Laws.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal at Belleville the 16 day of May 1816 John Hays, (Seal) Sherrif and Collector of St. Clair County Ill. T. Witness Wm. Kinney'

Since this sale the land has mostly remained in the hands of the Eyman family. The heirs of Isaac Eyman paid for taxes of 1874 on some 350 [?] acres of the above described, $152.95, which is a fair percentage higher than the $1.70 paid by their ancestor on the whole tract in 1806; but the land is worth more than $1.25 per acre now.

[End of article.]

Abraham Eyman, of St. Clair/Belleville may have been the first of Eymans to move to the Illinois Territory. He seems to have visited in 1796, staked out land at American Bottom, and returned with his young family the next year. There are several engaging tales regarding happenings on the trail. He bought lands in New Design, and subsequently moved up to the prairie near what would become Belleville. He was one of the first settlers near Turkey Hill, along with his brother-in-law Stookey, neighbors Teter, Primm, and Millers. Abraham is listed in many St. Clair historical records and in 1824 was elected as a farmer to the second House of Representatives for the new state of Illinois, most likely as an anti-slavery candidate. He died a very old man, likely pleased with the attention of being one of the last surviving founders of the Belleville area. There's a great deal of confusion in family circles about where Abraham came from, though it's my hunch that he was a country boy from Upper Paxtang. The old German must have had some cross-cultural gifts, for he gave most of his kids in marriage to off-spring of the flinty Joseph McClintock. Other Eymans are said to have been involved in the ill-fated Badgley migration from Hardy County of West Virginia to New Design before the turn of the century, but no names of participants have been identified.

The names of Christopher Eyman, (St. Clair/Belleville) and Henry Eyman, (St. Clair/Belleville) also appear in various early records for the area, including census accountings for 1820. Illinois Trails, (http://iltrails.org/monroe/hist002.htm) citing "The History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties", lists a Henry and a Christopher Iman as early owners of stock 1815-20. This change of names shouldn't be too disturbing to todays readers who are generally more sensitive about such identity markers. Abraham appears as Iman in a number of records, and his children were often described as Eyemans. (The chap who I take as his most likely father declared himself an Eiman as he signed the boat manifest on his arrival to the new land!) Both of these names (Henry and Christopher) also appeared in the two censuses (county & federal) taken for 1820 as well, though it appears that these may be the same household (record #213 in county census records)? That two similarly structured households provided different names of the "head of household" is suggested by a census audit which seems to have resolved the issue toward defining this as the household of a Henry Eyman.

It's possible that both of these names were in the same 1820 household. A Henry, thought to have been born 1790 in Hardy, would not have been one of the elderly couple reported to be in the household, though Henry's father and mother, Christian and Catherine, thought to have left Hardy by 1815 or so, may have been among the 264 males and 165 females over the age of 45 in St. Clair that year. The son Henry, born near 1790 , married a Catherine Elizabeth Sites in Hardy in 1811. I believe that it's this same Henry Eyman who showed in the 1850 census for Mordock precinct of Monroe, but by 1860 had migrated toward Bond County.

Sorting out and clarifying this secondary Eyman household in the St. Clair, and/or Monroe County area is a personal preoccuption since I believe my own ancestry arose from this household. A Christian Iman, born 1799 or so in Hardy is though to have migrated from there with his father of the same name. Christian the younger married a Mary Whiteside in 1828. This poor couple died of a cholera episode in 1850, with fragments of the family left to be raised in the Henry Eyman and Clark households. In my own line, it seems that Felix Grundy Iman, after putting his folks in the ground as the eldest son at about 20 years, surveyed the job scene in Chicago and couldn't find work that paid more than $8 a week, so he headed west with one of the wagon trains streaming through the area. He didn't head for gold, as some seem to have thought, but walked without an Ox to the Pacific Northwest and got involved in building steamships, sawmills, and log cabin schools.

Before 1820 there may have been other Eymans and Imans in the area. Several citations have been found which are not fully understood. Cahokia Court Records 2082 & 2083 p. 54 for 1812 show a Joseph Iman providing sworn testimony to work events 22-23 years before (1790 or so?) in the area, Joseph is described here as serving as a laborer to build a lean-to structure formed by a large fallen tree. (If we trust this account, we might assume that the laborer might be 20 years of age and thus born perhaps 1770?). Apparently the testimony was in support of a land claim by a French neighbor who was appealing for land rights based on previous inhabitation. Courts in those days were apparently full of fraudulent claims of the sort. There is no other pointer to a person of this name.

In addition to this unknown Iman, a Charles Eyman is listed in St. Clair Couty Board of Minutes Index (p.,27) 1817-1821. So far we have no other information about this person.

By 1830, new Eyman names appear in St. Clair census records - primarily the children of Abraham, including Daniel, Abraham Jr., and Jacob Eyeman. By this year, new migrants to the Missouri area (St. Charles MO) put relatives Daniel and James Iman in the neighborhood. A number of Eymans and Imans by then were migrating northwards in Illinois, or were heading over into Missouri. Old store records from the Monroe area are repleat with charges to the accounts of good father Henry by sons Samuel and Absalom.

RELATED NAMES:
Abraham Eyman had married Susannah Whetstone, a daughter of Susannah Stookey, in Hardy, while his possible brother, Christian, had married a Catherine (maiden name unknown), though often thought of as a Landes or Landis. With Gemanic background and possible Dunker roots, Abraham and Susannah's children tended to marry Scots-Irish: McClintock, McGuire, Lacey, Stout, and Weir. Abraham's likely brother's line married Hyre, Whetstone, Rohrbach, Sites, and Alkire; and in Illinois, Clark, Morgonthaler, O'Shepherd, Pate, Cruse, Uhls, Staltzman, Root, Kidd, Satterlee, Gibbons, and Windsor.