The Cahokia Courthouse State Historic Site is a reconstructed French-Canadian structure built about 1740 at what is now 107 Elm Street, Cahokia Heights, Illinois. At various times it has served as a house and as a courthouse. It is currently interpreted to resemble its appearance about 1800 as a frontier courthouse of the Northwest Territory. The courthouse was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

on November 9, 1972. The old Cahokia log home is believed to have been built in 1737 as a four-room private residence by Jean le Poincet and acquired in later years by Jean Francois Saucier, son of the designer of

Fort de Chartres Fort de Chartres was a French fortification first built in 1720 on the east bank of the Mississippi River in present-day Illinois. It was used as the administrative center for the province, which was part of New France. Due generally to river floo ...

, from his first wife's family as her dowry. It was here that Jean Francois Saucier's six children with his first two wives, Marguerite Cadron and Angelique Lapensee were born. His other eight children with third wife Marie Francoise Nicolle were born and raised in Missouri. It is the oldest house in Illinois as well as the mid-west.

French period

Following the explorations of Marquette, Jolliet and La Salle in the 1670s, the Mississippi Valley became part of

New France New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spa ...

. The adventurous French had mapped more territory than their numbers could settle, but their attention soon focused on a section of the valley south of the mouth of the Missouri River. In this region, which would later be known as the

American Bottom 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 , mo ...

, the

alluvial Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. All ...

soil was exceptionally fertile, and the local Native Americans, members of the

Illiniwek The Illinois Confederation, also referred to as the Illiniwek or Illini, were made up of 12 to 13 tribes who lived in the Mississippi River Valley. Eventually member tribes occupied an area reaching from Lake Michicigao (Michigan) to Iowa, Ill ...

nation or Illinois Confederacy, were friendly to the newcomers. In the early 18th century, French-speaking immigrants, mostly from

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, settled villages in the American Bottom such as

Kaskaskia The Kaskaskia were one of the indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. They were one of about a dozen cognate tribes that made up the Illiniwek Confederation, also called the Illinois Confederation. Their longstanding homeland was in ...

, Prairie du Rocher, and

Cahokia The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site ( 11 MS 2) is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south- ...

. They lived in harmony with the Indians and named several of their villages, such as Cahokia, after constituent tribes of the Illiniwek who lived nearby. The building now known as the Cahokia Courthouse traces its ancestry back to a French-Canadian log cabin built by one of these settlers about 1740. In line with his group's customary architecture, the unknown builder built the cabin with logs raised vertically. This was different from having the logs placed horizontally, as had become the custom among English-speaking frontiersmen farther east. The French colonial building style is called ''

poteaux-sur-sol Poteaux-sur-sol ("posts on a sill" – sol is also spelled sole and solle) is a style of timber framing in which relatively closely spaced posts rest on a timber sill. Poteaux-en-terre and pieux-en-terre are similar, but the closely spaced posts ...

'' (French:post on sill) construction, with the building's posts grounded in a foundation sill to retard wood rot.

American Bottom

Following the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

and the

Treaty of Paris Treaty of Paris may refer to one of many treaties signed in Paris, France: Treaties 1200s and 1300s * Treaty of Paris (1229), which ended the Albigensian Crusade * Treaty of Paris (1259), between Henry III of England and Louis IX of France * Trea ...

in 1783, the Cahokia region was transferred with the rest of the east bank of the Mississippi from Great Britain to the new

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. The alluvial region, east of the river, came to be known as the

, to distinguish it from the west bank of the river, at that time a colony of

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. The American frontiersmen were jealous of their right to govern themselves in local communities, and invested a substantial amount of their very limited resources to set up a legal infrastructure of local self-government. On April 27, 1790, St. Clair County, Illinois, the first county located within the Illinois region of the Northwest Territory, was organized. Soon afterwards, the 1740 Cahokia house, an unusually well-built structure, was promoted to the status of a courthouse for the new county. Territorial law books describe the kind of decisions and court cases that were made and heard in this small building.

Land titles Land registration is any of various systems by which matters concerning ownership, possession, or other rights in land are formally recorded (usually with a government agency or department) to provide evidence of title, facilitate transactions, ...

and transfers were registered here. Certain types of businesses, such as frontier

tavern A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food such as different types of roast meats and cheese, and (mostly historically) where travelers would receive lodging. An inn is a tavern t ...

s and

ferryboat A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water tax ...

s, required licenses that were issued from this building. Criminal cases were heard, and votes were counted. In 1804 the federal government opened its first Illinois land office, in Kaskaskia, to sell former Native American land to settlers. Soon the population of St. Clair County grew far too large for the small log cabin to be adequate as a courthouse.

Reconstructions

In 1904, promoters for the St. Louis World's Fair discovered the old Cahokia courthouse, which by this time had become one of the oldest surviving buildings in Illinois. They bought it, dismantled it, and carried the surviving posts and other wooden pieces across the river to

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

for rebuilding as a fair attraction. The courthouse appears to have survived this experience and to have excited interest from Illinoisans. At the end of the fair, the cabin was again dismantled, this time for a 1906 rebuilding in Jackson Park in

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. Cahokia residents resented the fact that their oldest building had been moved to the opposite end of the state, and successfully lobbied in the 1920s for the old log cabin to be purchased and reconstructed a third time on its original site. By this time, however, very little of the 1740 cabin remained. Each act of dismantling and reconstruction had replaced much of the original wood with new timbers. The third reconstruction was mostly a new building. The state of Illinois stated that the rebuilt Cahokia courthouse contained some pieces of timber from the original structure.

Today

The reconstructed Cahokia Courthouse is a historic site of the state of Illinois and is one of the oldest in the United States. Since 1985, it has been under the jurisdiction of the

Illinois Historic Preservation Agency The Illinois Historic Preservation Division, formerly Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Illinois, and is a division of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. It is tasked with the duty of m ...

(IHPA). Exhibits focus on the issues dealt with by the court around 1800, and the history of the structure's physical movements. A visitor center also features exhibits about the area's occupation by the French in the 18th century, as well as the nearby Nicholas Jarrot Mansion. Due to state budget cuts, the IHPA temporarily closed the Cahokia Courthouse to the public from December 2008 until April 2009.

References

External links

Cahokia Courthouse - Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
- Visiting information

* ttps://thesaucierfamily.weebly.com/cahokia-court-house.html History of Saucier family {{Protected areas of Illinois Poteaux-sur-sol framing Houses completed in 1740 Metro East Museums in St. Clair County, Illinois Law museums in Illinois Former courthouses in Illinois National Register of Historic Places in St. Clair County, Illinois Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois 1740 establishments in the French colonial empire