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Show 226 Early Western Travels [ Vol 26 told by Charlevoix, the French voyageur, is the Indian name of an esculent with a broad corolla, found in many of the ponds and creeks of Illinois, especially along the course of the romantic stream bearing its name. The larger roots, eaten raw, were poisonous, and the natives were accustomed to dig ovens in the earth, into which, being walled up with flat stones and heated, was deposited the vegetable. After remaining for forty- eight hours in this situation, the deleterious qualities were found extracted, and the root being dried, was esteemed a luxury by the Indians. The region bordering upon Carlinville is amazingly fertile, and proportionally divided into prairie and timber - a circumstance by no means unworthy of notice. There has been a design of establishing [ 208] here a Theological Seminary, but the question of its site has been a point easier to discuss than to decide. 141 My tarry at the village was a brief one, though I became acquainted with a number of its worthy citizens; and in the log- office of a young limb of legality, obtained, as a special distinction, a glance at a forthcoming " Fourth- of- July " oration, fruitful in those sonorous periods and stereotyped patriotics indispensable on such occasions, and, at all hazard, made and provided for them. M Macoupin Creek flows southwesterly through the county of the ssme name, westeily through Greene County, and empties into Illinois River at the southwestern extremity of the latter county. It is now believed that Macoupin is derived from the Indian word for white potatoes, which were said to have been found growing in abundance along the course of this stream. Carlinville, named for Thomas Carlin, governor of the state in 1834- 42, was settled about 1833. Gideon Blackburn, a Presbyterian minister, laid a plan in 1835 for founding a college to educate young men for the ministry. He entered land from the government at the price of one dollar and twenty- five cents an acre, and disposed of it to the friends of his cause at two dollars, reserving twenty- five cents for his expenses and turning over the remaining fifty cents to the proposed college. By May, 1837, he had entered over 16,656 acres. The people of Carlinville purchased eighty acres from him for the site of the school. The enterprise lay dormant until 1857, when the state chartered the school under the title of Blackburn University, which was opened in 1859.- ED. |