The Goshen Settlement was an early American pioneer settlement in what is now

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

, USA, located to the east of

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

. The settlement was located about one mile (1.6 km) southwest of modern

Glen Carbon, Illinois Glen Carbon is a village in Madison County, Illinois, United States, northeast of St. Louis. The population was 13,842 at the 2020 census. History In 1801, Colonel Samuel Judy received a military grant for of land near the base of the bluffs, ...

, at the point where Judy's Creek emerges from the bluffs into the

American Bottoms The American Bottom is the flood plain of the Mississippi River in the Metro-East region of Southern Illinois, extending from Alton, Illinois, south to the Kaskaskia River. It is also sometimes called "American Bottoms". The area is about , mos ...

, on its way to the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

.Musgrave, Jon. “The Land of Milk and Honey.” Illinois Heritage: A Publication of The Illinois State Historical Society, vol. 7, no. 4, 2004.
/ref> 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 Biblical

Land of Goshen The land of Goshen ( he, אֶרֶץ גֹּשֶׁן, Modern: ''ʾEreẓ Gōšen'', Tiberian: ''ʾEreṣ Gōšen'') is named in the Hebrew Bible as the place in Egypt given to the Hebrews by the pharaoh of Joseph (Book of Genesis, ), and the la ...

. References to this Land of Goshen have persisted since that time. In 1801, Col.

Samuel Judy Samuel Judy (August 19, 1773 – January 12, 1838) was a Swiss-born American pioneer, military leader and legislator. Born in the canton of Basel, Switzerland, Judy and his family moved to Maryland and then to Kaskaskia, Illinois Territory. ...

received a military grant of near the base of the bluffs, just north of Judy's Creek, and became the first permanent American settler of Madison 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 day

Illinois Route 157 Illinois Route 157 (IL 157) is a north–south state highway in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Illinois. The southern terminus of the highway is at an intersection with IL 3 in Cahokia. The northern terminus of the hig ...

. In 1808, the

Goshen Road Goshen Road was an early road that ran from Old Shawneetown, Illinois, on the Ohio River, northwest to the Goshen Settlement, near Glen Carbon, Illinois, near the Mississippi River. In the early 19th century, this was the main east/west road in Ill ...

was built as a wagon road across Illinois, from the Goshen Settlement to the salt works near

Shawneetown Shawneetown is a city in Gallatin County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,239 at the 2010 census, down from 1,410 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Gallatin County. Geography Shawneetown is located southeast of the cent ...

. The trail crossed the state diagonally following a route from Peter's Station to the north and west of Glen Carbon, east to

Troy Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in prese ...

, and then in a southeasterly direction, eventually ending at Shawneetown on the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

. The existing Goshen Road running from Route 159 to the intersection of Route 143, south of Edwardsville, 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 and

Goshen, Indiana Goshen ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Elkhart County, Indiana, United States. It is the smaller of the two principal cities of the Elkhart-Goshen Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in turn is part of the South Bend-Elkhart-Mishawaka ...

are nowhere close to the old settlement.

Notes

External links

Glen Carbon History
{{Madison County, Illinois Pre-statehood history of Illinois Madison County, Illinois Populated places established in the 1800s