By Ben Cox
Photos/Submitted to The Source
The members of the Nortonville Community Club have worked diligently over the last couple of years to bring a landmark to the tiny hamlet in the southeast part of Morgan County. The little town goes back to the 1820s before Morgan County was carved out of Madison County.
William Tabor built the first house in 1828. The first sermon was preached by Rev. Newton Cloud, a Methodist circuit rider, at the house of John Wyatt later in the spring of 1828. The first school was taught by John Shepherd in the winter of 1827 and 1828. Since then, the tiny town has sent a large number of soldiers off to war.
Ann Newingham, current president of the Nortonville Community Club, says she asked members of the club when she first took office to take stock of what they wanted the club to do and to write down a vision for the club’s future.
Roger True, a longtime resident of Nortonville, is credited with the idea of creating a veterans monument to be installed in Nortonville Community Park. The park is famous for the “Nortonville Hitch,” an emblem of yesterday when people rode horses for transportation and would have to hitch their horses to a post or rope so they wouldn’t wander off while they conducted business. The park has held a number of events over the years, including the Nortonville Family Fun Day.
Newingham says a small wooden monument of approximately 60-70 names existed previously. “It was in bad shape,” Newingham explains, “It needed to be replaced. Roger suggested the monument be placed in the park because it would benefit the community. I happened to like the idea, and we went with it. We’ve worked on it for a little over a year from that first meeting that I became president.”
True then set about gathering all of the soldiers’ names from Nortonville proper and from the direct surrounding area. Newingham says that True used his longtime association with all of the folks who lived in town to gather names starting with the Civil War and forward.
In all, True gathered 228 names to place on the monument. It was a bit of an arduous task because the National Archives in St. Louis burned in the early 1970s, causing many records to be lost.
Newingham gives credit to True for putting in a lot of leg work and making hundreds of phone calls.
“Roger did a lot of digging. He knows a lot of people that I don’t know. I was gone from here for 35 years and then I moved back and he stayed around here and he knows everybody. He just did a lot of investigating and came up with [the names].”
True stuck with veterans’ names and did not separate them or designate by rank or branch of service. “We wanted everyone’s name to appear there as they were, because frankly, their sacrifice was all equal.”
True, himself a veteran, explains, “It was a sacrifice. You gave up something of value to you — two years of your prime life, at least — for the good of the country. And so that’s kind of the way we approached it.”
That approach started a chain reaction of information from the community at large to help find the roughly 160 other names that had previously not appeared on the old wooden monument.
According to Newingham, work to fund raise for the monument, which was installed the week of September 11 by Daws Monuments of South Jacksonville, is still ongoing.
“We had an anonymous donor step forward to pay Daws so we could get the monument installed,” Newingham, who was present at the installation, explained.
“We’re hoping to get more money for it.” There is also a nearby brick garden with names of donors as another drawing point. The money will go toward the upkeep of the monument and ongoing activities of the Nortonville Community Club.
True, whose name is included on the monument, also has several family members listed. Newingham also has direct family listed on it.
Those wishing to donate toward the monument and the Nortonville Community Club may direct a check or payment to: Ann Newingham, 20 Jacksonville Place, Jacksonville, IL 62650.
“We have depended on the donations [for the project] and we’re thankful for everything that we got,” Newingham says.
Newingham, 86, estimates that the club needs approximately $7,000 to see the project through. Newingham herself was instrumental in some of the fundraising, personally selling over 140 bricks in the garden next to the monument.
“I told Roger over and over again that I hoped to live to see the monument get installed,” Newingham smiles, “No one is ever guaranteed any time.”
True says Newingham gave the monument her proud blessing after the slab of gray marble was stood up and secured.
