TheGoshen Settlement was an early American pioneer settlement in what is nowIllinois, United States, located to the east ofSt. Louis, Missouri. The settlement was located about one mile (1.6 km) southwest of modernGlen Carbon, Illinois, at the point where Judy's Creek emerges from the bluffs into theAmerican Bottoms, on its way to theMississippi River.[1]
In 1799, David Bagley, a Virginia Baptist minister passed through the area and determined that it was a land of such expanse and luxuriant vegetation that he compared it to the BiblicalLand of Goshen. References to this Land of Goshen have persisted since that time.
In 1801, Col.Samuel Judy received a military grant of 100 acres (0.40 km2) near the base of the bluffs, just north of Judy's Creek, and became the first permanent American settler ofMadison County. The area became known as the Goshen Settlement, and, while its boundaries were never clearly outlined, it was centered on the Judy property at the junction of Judy's Creek and present dayIllinois Route 157.
In 1808, theGoshen Road was built as a wagon road across Illinois, from the Goshen Settlement tothe salt works nearShawneetown. The trail crossed the state diagonally following a route from Peter's Station to the north and west of Glen Carbon, east toTroy, and then in a southeasterly direction, eventually ending at Shawneetown on theOhio River. The existing Goshen Road running fromRoute 159 to the intersection ofRoute 143, south ofEdwardsville, is part of the original road.
Today the Goshen Settlement is mostly remembered by a line of short road segments named "Goshen Road", across Illinois, and many places named "Goshen" that were once adjacent to this long lost road to a long lost place. These names are all the more confusing because the modern towns of Goshen, Illinois andGoshen, Indiana are nowhere close to the old settlement.
Municipalities and communities ofMadison County, Illinois,United States | ||
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| Footnotes | ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties | |