Clayville, Illinois
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Clayville is a former roadside hamlet, inhabited from 1824 into the 1850s, located in Cartwright Township near Pleasant Plains,
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...
,
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. The settlement was never large but was firmly centered on a once-thriving tavern on the main road between the state capital of Springfield and the
Illinois River The Illinois River () is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River at approximately in length. Located in the U.S. state of Illinois, the river has a drainage basin of . The Illinois River begins with the confluence of the Des Plaines ...
port of Beardstown. The Broadwell Tavern continues to stand on its original foundation today as a reminder of the once-active frontier settlement.


History


Tavern settlement

The Broadwell Tavern was built in 1824 by innkeeper and land developer John Broadwell as an investment in the Springfield area. The businessman sensed that the nearby
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of Springfield would grow and its residents would need to travel in and out. On the American frontier in the 1830s, a tavern typically doubled as a
logistics Logistics is the part of supply chain management that deals with the efficient forward and reverse flow of goods, services, and related information from the point of origin to the Consumption (economics), point of consumption according to the ...
center. The drivers of slow-moving, horse-drawn drays needed a place to spend the night where their horses could be fed and watered. Illinois law required taverns to provide these services as condition of receiving a license to serve
alcohol Alcohol may refer to: Common uses * Alcohol (chemistry), a class of compounds * Ethanol, one of several alcohols, commonly known as alcohol in everyday life ** Alcohol (drug), intoxicant found in alcoholic beverages ** Alcoholic beverage, an alco ...
by the drink. Although the hospitality of the Broadwell Tavern was never luxurious, the tavern's fireplaces kept the brick tavern warm, and glass windows helped encourage the guests to get up early and resume their journeys. The tavern was built in a vernacular Federal style, similar to English country inns. It is the oldest brick building in Sangamon County. During its primary period of operations, the 1830s and early 1840s, the
Sangamon River The Sangamon River is a principal tributary of the Illinois River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 in central Illinois in the United Sta ...
valley was connected with
steamboat A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. The term ''steamboat'' is used to refer to small steam-powered vessels worki ...
traffic on the Illinois River by
stagecoach A stagecoach (also: stage coach, stage, road coach, ) is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by ...
es. Like drays and other wagons, the stagecoaches needed places to stop for food, sleep, water, and other beverages. The tavern's first-floor
kitchen A kitchen is a room (architecture), room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a Kitchen stove, stove, a sink ...
and barroom may have served guests, including patrons using the second-floor sleeping rooms. Other visitors may have found space in now-vanished adjacent structures. Traffic to and from Springfield grew further after the central Illinois town was named Illinois' permanent
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in 1837. The successful inn drew other settlers to "Clayville", which tavernkeeper Broadwell had named after a political hero, presidential candidate and Whig Party leader
Henry Clay Henry Clay (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate, U.S. Senate and United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives. He was the seventh Spea ...
. Broadwell's admiration for Clay would have drawn him towards a fellow local admirer of the Kentucky politician, lawyer
Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...
. Legal records show that Broadwell retained Lincoln as his counsel on four separate occasions. In 1847, however, John Broadwell sold the tavern. By the 1850s, the coming of
railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...
technology to central Illinois was eliminating the need for taverns serving horse-drawn traffic. The stagecoach road was eventually paved for motor vehicle traffic in the early 1900s, becoming Illinois Route 125, but this did not restore the failed tavern to life. The tavern's jobs had disappeared and the center of local settlement in the township became the nearby rural town of Pleasant Plains. The hamlet's wooden structures vanished, leaving the abandoned brick tavern as the only survivor of the former settlement.


Ghost town

Residents of Sangamon County took steps, starting in the late 1900s, to preserve Broadwell Tavern and reconstruct adjacent wooden structures as a combined work of
historic preservation Historic preservation (US), built heritage preservation or built heritage conservation (UK) is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance. It is a philos ...
and local
open-air museum An open-air museum is a museum that exhibits collections of buildings and artifacts outdoors. It is also frequently known as a museum of buildings or a folk museum. Definition Open air is "the unconfined atmosphere ... outside buildings" ...
. After an effort to operate the tavern and museum under the auspices of Sangamon State University (a predecessor of the
University of Illinois at Springfield The University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) is a public university in Springfield, Illinois, United States. The university was established by the Illinois General Assembly in 1969 as Sangamon State University with a focus on post-graduate edu ...
) failed in 1992, the tavern was once again abandoned and allowed to deteriorate. Clayville Tavern was added to the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in May 1973. Preservation efforts, led by Pleasant Plains neighbors, resumed in 2009. "Clayville Historic Site", a purpose-organized
nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...
closely affiliated with the Pleasant Plains Historical Society, acquired the abandoned tavern and adjacent land parcels in 2010. Clayville Historic Site, as of 2015, operates an annual spring festival, summer
folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...
meet, fall festival, several car cruise-ins, and
haunted house A haunted house, spook house or ghost house in ghostlore is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were otherwise connected with the property ...
festival at the ghost townsite, and has refitted the tavern to restore the exterior and partly restore the interior to its operational appearance in the 1840s.


References

{{Sangamon County, Illinois Ghost towns in Illinois National Register of Historic Places in Sangamon County, Illinois Tourist attractions in Sangamon County, Illinois