Well-known Illinois historian to speak at Carthage Community Center, Saturday, July 19

CARTHAGE, Ill. — Carthage Community Center will be the site for a program being presented by the Hancock County Historical Society on Saturday, July 19. Reflections on Early Life and Culture in Hancock County will be presented by well-known Illinois historian John Hallwas. The center is located at 301 E. Main.

Hallwas will provide insights about, and appreciation for, life in early Hancock County focusing on local poets who reflected the issues and struggles of nineteenth-century residents.

Three authors who produced some poems that are still interesting for us today will be emphasized:

• Thomas Gregg, the early newspaperman and historian who resided in Carthage, Warsaw, Plymouth and Hamilton
• Eliza Snow, a noted Mormon woman who lived at Nauvoo during the turbulent years of local conflict and then participated in the exodus to Utah
•  John Hay, the famous Secretary of State and Lincoln biographer who had been raised in Warsaw, and whose ballads about rural folks became nationally famous.

Hallwas has written 30 books, several plays and hundreds of articles about Illinois history and literature, including a biography of Thomas Gregg and articles about Eliza Snow and John Hay.

Retired from Western Illinois University, Hallwas lives Macomb and has interacted with a variety of western Illinois historians over the past 50 years, including several from Hancock County.