- Goshen Settlement
The Goshen Settlement was an early American pioneer settlement in what is now
Illinois , USA, located to the east ofSt. Louis, Missouri . The settlement was located about one mile southwest of modernGlen Carbon, Illinois , at the point where Judy's Creek emerges from the bluffs into theAmerican Bottoms , on its way to theMississippi River .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 . References to this Land of Goshen have persisted since that time.In 1801, Col. Samuel Judy received a military grant for 100 acres near the base of the bluffs, just north of Judy's Creek, and became the first permanent 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 .In 1808, the
Goshen Road was built as a wagon road across Illinois, from the Goshen Settlement to the salt works nearOld Shawneetown, Illinois . The trail crossed the state diagonally following a route from Peter's Station to the north and west of Glen Carbon, east toTroy, Illinois , and then in a southeasterly direction, eventually ending at Shawneetown on theOhio River . 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 are no where close to the old settlement.External links
* [http://www.glen-carbon.il.us/TheVillage/history.htm Glen Carbon History]
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