Richmond, Illinois is a very quaint little town on the Illinois and Wisconsin border. Its population is now about 1,500, but new housing developments will quadruple the number of homes in the next 10 years. It is called “The Old Town” because it has many Victorian-style houses and an interesting variety of antique shops.
William A. McConnell is credited with founding the town of Richmond.
Also known as “The Squire,” McConnell was a 27-year-old carpenter and farmer living in Pennsylvania. He dreamed of independence and rode to the Richmond area in 1837. In his biography, McConnell stated that there were only two neighbors in the area. He staked out a claim to 480 acres of land and bought it when he came on the market in 1840 under the Blackhawk Treaty. Family lore has it that McConnell spent his first night under an oak sapling across the street from what is now Richmond Elementary School. That very mature tree is still standing. Bo McConnell, a great-grandson, calls it “the little oak tree.” At the time, the Richmond area was mostly prairie with patches of oak trees and still part of Lake County, Illinois.
In 1838, McConnell and his new wife, Elizabeth, built a 16′ x 18′ log cabin in which their family lived for 15 years. It was located just to the west of what is now Grace Lutheran Church and was the first residence built in Richmond Township.
A mill was built at Nippersink around 1840 and that area is now occupied by Doyle’s restaurant.
In 1852, McConnell built a home in the Greek Revival style across the street from the log cabin. He and his family lived in this house for 20 years and raised three children. In 1872 the house died to his son, John.
Over time, McConnell purchased approximately 1,400 acres from the government. The city limits were established in 1844, and Richmond was named for him in a contest for the man who climbed the highest when the new mill was built. That man was Isaac Reed, who chose the name of a town he remembered from his childhood in Vermont.
McConnell participated in many local activities. He was on the railroad commission, legislator in Springfield, elected McHenry County commissioner, Richmond’s first justice of the peace, its first postmaster, and associate justice for 16 years. He belonged to the first temperance group in McHenry County.
McConnell opened the first cheese factory about a half mile west of town. The Old Bank Building on Broadway was owned by McConnell’s son George. “That’s Uncle George’s bank. That’s what we would call it,” recalled Bo McConnell, a great-great-grandson of William A. McConnell.
What was Richmond called?
Theodore Purdy purchased the log home from Charles A. Noyes in 1937. Purdy planned the town in 1844 with Charles Cotting, who settled in Richmond in 1844. Together they built a mill at Main & Mill Streets.
A contest was organized so that the person who climbed the highest on the new mill could name the town. Isaac Reed won the contest and named the village after Richmond, Vermont, where he lived as a child.
richmond grows
In the mid-1840s, Richmond looked like a small town with a hotel, a sawmill, a wagon maker, a doctor, and a lawyer. McConnell built a cheese factory (possibly the first in McHenry County) west of town.
Officially incorporated on September 2, 1872, Dr. Fillmore Bennett was elected the town’s first president. The first headmaster of the graduate school, Fillmore wrote religious poems and hymns. “In the Sweet Bye and Bye” was the most famous.
Railroads made their appearance in the 1850s. McConnell was one of the directors of the railroad. The first train crossed Nippersink in 1855.
memorial hallway
Charles DeWitt McConnell donated $10,000 to the village “to be used for the purpose of erecting a town hall or town hall, the same to be called Memorial Hall, to be used when required by ecclesiastical societies and school functions free of charge, and not for be used for immoral displays or immoral shows…” Village President EC Covell purchased the land where Memorial Hall now stands from Charles Kruse, owner of the corner hardware store in downtown Broadway and Rt. 12. The Hardware Store Story later became the Emporium Antique Store and the name “Kruse” can be seen engraved on the top of the front wall today.
Memorial Hall was built in the early 1900s. It contained an auditorium with a balcony and a stage where the JB Rotnour Players performed for many years.
The Richmond Police Department occupied part of the base along with two jail cells.
Town board meetings were held in Memorial Hall until the new town hall was built in 1993. This building is now shared with the police department. This left the hall vacant until Chris Gallagher won a grant from the Illinois Arts Council in 1992 to create the Nippersink Center for the Creative Arts. Founding members include Christina Gallagher, Yvonne Cryns, Carolyn Janus, Donna Karolus, and Nancy Richardson. Many local groups donated money to the organization. The Center for the Creative Arts lobbied to make Memorial Hall the landmark historic building it is today.
The public library used the room beginning in the 1930s. In the 1940s, the library moved to a portion of the pharmacy building at Broadway and Main. But on July 7, 1972, the library moved back into Memorial Hall before moving into its own building in 1990.
In addition to village government work, the Memorial Hall hosted school plays and graduations. Basketball games have been played there beginning in 1908.
Other basement activities included meetings held by the Boy and Girl Scouts, the American Legion, and a senior group known as the Pioneers. This is where the local polling place resided.
Richmond Fire Department
Founded in 1926, the first meeting of the Richmond Volunteer Fire Department was held in Memorial Hall and was led by Mayor JG “Curly” Stevens.
Richmond Post Office
The post office has been in service for over 150 years. Appointed in 1940, William A. McConnell served as the first postmaster for six years. In the early years, settlers in the area found great comfort in the post office, which brought news of events in their hometowns. As late as the 1960s, the Post Office delivered the Chicago Tribune. Farmers needed honey bees which were also delivered by the post office and sent eggs to the big city.
Until 1946, trains carried mail to Richmond. Since 1946 mail has been delivered by truck. The current postmaster has been William L. Schaeppi since 1988.
The new mayor of Richmond, Illinois is Laurie Olson. The Olson family has a long history in Richmond. Olson was a homemaker and volunteer member of the fire department before being elected mayor in 2004.