Scope and Contents:
This collection includes several sources for Sullivan and Moultrie County history.
The earliest source is a volume of records covering the period from 1834 to 1861, which R. Eden Martin transcribed and printed in The Whitley Point Record Book: The Justice of the Peace Docket Book, Estray List and County Store Record of the Earliest Settlement in Moultrie County, Illinois (1996)[977.367503 W59]. The collection also includes a bound photocopy of the original volume.
In addition, the collection includes two manuscript record books kept by I. J. [Ivory John] Martin (1859-1953), R. Eden Martin's grandfather. The first is a record book listing federal, state, and local officials in Sullivan and Moultrie County, with notes on their service, mayoral administrations, and personal lives. The first page of this "Common Place Book" provides a table of contents for the material on pages 10-91.
The second book kept by I. J. Martin begins with a page that provides an index to entries or headings on 26 subsequent pages.
The collection also includes I. J. Martin's copy of the Revised Ordinances of the City of Sullivan, Illinois, 1892, Published by Authority of the City Council (Sullivan: Morning Herald Print, 1892) [1], 3-84, [85-90], six pages of which he annotated.
I. J. Martin's writings are in part transcribed on R. Eden Martin's website, www.edenmartin.com, under the heading "Common Place Book, Moultrie County History," which is dated 1927.
In addition, that website includes "Glimpses of Life in Sullivan, Illinois during the Civil War and until 1869," R. Eden Martin's transcription of another record book in the collection, the "Minutes of the Board of Trustees of the Town of Sullivan, Illinois, 1861-1869." This book, now disbound, contains entries on 96 pages.
R. Eden Martin gave these materials to the Library in 1996-97. See also his compilation, Fragments of Martin Family History: Ivory John Martin, 1859-1953; Robert Walter Martin, 1895-1970 (1990)[929.20973 M363f], and his editions of I. J. Martin, Notes on the History of Moultrie County and Sullivan Illinois (1990)[977.3675 M364n]; Ivory and Rose, A Year's Courtship: The Correspondence of Ivory J. Martin and Rose Eden, Sullivan, Illinois, 1885-1886 (1997)[816 M364L], and Walter Eden, Memoirs of a "Boy Mayor": Recollections of Sullivan, Illinois from the Civil War to 1909 (1999)[977.3675 Ed282m]. In additiion, see R. Eden Martin, ed., John R. Eden, 1826-1909: A Compendium of Materials (xiii, 605 pages, 2012), and R. Eden Martin, More Fragments of Martin Family History (360 pages, 2014), the concluding chapter of which is on Martin's "Recollections of Childhood."
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