Download or read book Tales of John Wood and His Adams County written by Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2024-10-10 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enter the leather-hinged door of the dirt-floored, one-room log cabin that John Wood built in October 1822 near the Mississippi River on Illinois’ westernmost shore. Two months later, Wood, a New Yorker in the vanguard of pioneers into the West, threw the first Christmas party there. A local historian wrote that Wood provided the whiskey, and the guests stayed all night. It was a standard of hospitality that John Wood set for all who followed. And his community responded. Here they provided refuge to 5,700 Mormons facing death, organized Illinois’ first antislavery society, comforted Potawatomi Indians forced over a “Trail of Death” into the West. Here Adams County’s pioneer men and women brought ideals and dreams. They built a powerful, river-based economy, became inventors and industrialists, doctors and lawyers, artists and soldiers, saints and sinners, living an enduring spirit made clear in these stories of 19th century Adams County, Illinois.