Chose Site For Decatur With A View To The Future Original Plat Had 45 Lots - Streets Were Planned Systematically By E.T. Coleman The carefully chosen site for the town of Decatur was on the line
where woods and prairie met which explains the names of two of the streets. Wood street was
in the woods and Prairie street was in the prairie. To the south the timber extended to the
river and beyond and to the north stretched the "Savannah of the Sangamon" of which the poet
William Cullen Bryant sang. It was not by chance or accident that this site was but after
various sites had been "carefully and imparitally viewed and examined with regard to the
convience likewise the advantages of the present and future population." The immigrant moving in his prairie schooner pitched his camp at night at the
edge of the timber, "a point of land." The timber furnished fuel for his fire, the prairie
provided pasture for his animals. John Fleming, Jesse Rhoads and Easton Whitton selected the
site of Decatur for these same reasons and others. Decatur was to be a permanent camp and
would need material for its homes as well as fuel for many years and also drainage. The
adjacent prairie would furnish a fine and necessary grazing ground for flocks and herds. PAID $1.50 PER DAY The legislative commissioners having fixed the site for the town of Decatur
and made their formal report to the county commissioners' court, were done and they were
paid at a rate determined by the statute of $1.50 a day, which was little enough for the
services of good men. Easton Whitton received $1.50, which shows that he only served one
day. John Fleming and Jesse Rhoads were paid $7.50 each or for five days service. There
is nothing in the record to show that the legislative commission had anything to do with
the platting of Decatur. Indeed, that was no part of the specific or implied duty of this
body. The commission was merely required to locate a site of not less than twenty acres.
It was up to the county to do the rest. SITE OF 14 ACRES The original town of Decatur as it was laid out did not include twenty acres.
It was laid out in the form of a square of 936 feet on a side. Who fudged on the town and
the statute to the extent of six acres we are unable to say. It is inconceivable that County
Surveyor Benjamin R. Austin made a mistake of this kind of that he changed the statutory
requirement as to the area on his own initiative. The county surveyor was working under
the directions of the county commissiones court and it is conceivable that this court thought
that twenty acres was more than Decatur could ever possibly need. The legislative commission did not survey the site of Decatur or definitely
fix its boundaries. It merely designated the section, the quarter section and the half of
the quarter and stipulated that the southeast cerner should be where Wood and Water streets
were made to intersect. This left the county a free hand in platting the town. It is rather easy to see now that the county made a mistake in not taking all
of the twenty acres required by the statute but we have reason to be glad that Decatur in the
beginning was systematically planned and not permitted to just grow up. It was symmetrically
laid out with wide streets and alleys and after the form of Shelbyville. It was not the fault
of that first commissioners court of the first county surveyor that a later generation
permitted one street in the original town of Decatur to be narrowed. FORTY-FIVE LOTS The town was platted with four full blocks and five fractional blocks and a
total of forty-five lots. The streets were eighty feet wide and the alleys sixteen feet
wide. The lots in the four full lots were eighty feet wide by 152 feet long. The fractional
lots on the north were 153(?) feet on Prairie street by fifty-six feet on Water and Main. The
fractional lots on the west had a frontage of eighty feet on Prairie steet and a depth of
fifty-six feet. The fractional lot in Block 7 was fifty-six feet square. Then half of each
lot cornering on the public square was dedicated to the, leaving a fractional lot in each
block. Every town must have a Main street and Decatur being born under particularly
happy circumstances was given two Main streets or four as you choose to county them. This is
slightly confusing to strangers but very satisfactory to us of Decatur. WATER STREET SWAMPY Water street was bordered by ponds and was almost a morass at times and the name
was fitting. On Church street the first Decatur church was erected. The naming of that street
was almost prophetic for it now has more churches than any other street in Decatur. Merchant street was not on the original plat but was laid out many years later
by Franklin Priest who owned much of the lots on the east side of North Main. He had made up
his mind that the inside corners of the square were had for business. He offered to give the
west half of those lots on the east line of the public square including Central block and
Merchant street to the city but the city wouldn't have it. The two alleys of the original town were named on the plat. The alley between
Main and Water, now called Merchant street alley, was Jail alley. That between Main and
Church street was Court alley. This is some reason to conclude that the location of the
first courthouse and the first jail had been determined in advance of the platting of the
town. Originally published in the Decatur Review, on 13 December 1925
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