Mount Pulaski Zion Lutheran students visit local historic sites
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[May
18, 2013]
MOUNT PULASKI -- Mount Pulaski
Zion Lutheran second- and third-grade classes recently visited the
Mount Pulaski Township Historical Museum. They learned that one of
the town's three founders, George Washington Turley, named the town
after Gen. Casimir Pulaski.
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Turley's father had been a Colonial soldier and often told his son
about the heroic exploits of Gen. Pulaski and his brave
horsemen. Pulaski swooped in with his Polish cavalry regiment to
help prevent the British from annihilating Gen. Washington's army,
which was scurrying to retreat to Philadelphia after losing the
battle of Brandywine Creek on Sept. 11, 1777. The USS Casimir
Pulaski SSBN-633 was commissioned in 1964 and patrolled the open
seas for 30 years. In 2009 the U.S. Congress unanimously authorized
honorary American citizenship to be bestowed upon Gen. Pulaski,
which has been proclaimed for only six others since 1776. The bill
was signed into law by President Barack Obama.
At the museum, Zion parent Dayton Keyes lifted an Illinois
Central Railroad tank car hub, over 200 pounds, that was blown about
one-half mile by the 1958 explosion that killed two trainmen and
injured over 50 Mount Pulaskians, destroyed two churches and several
homes, and required the Illinois National Guard to patrol the
streets due to shattered windows throughout the business
district. This occurred about 4 o'clock on a lazy Sunday afternoon
when all churches, stores and schools were closed.
Visitors to the Mount Pulaski Township Historical Museum can
learn more about this worldwide newsmaker. They can also see photos
and artifacts and read about families, businesses, schools, music,
sports and churches in the vicinity since 1836.
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In addition, the museum has oodles of information on lawyer
Abraham Lincoln and on Vaughn De Leath, who has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The students also visited the Mount Pulaski Courthouse, a state
historic site. Here they learned that lawyers Abraham Lincoln, Judge
David Davis and others rode on horseback on the 450-mile Illinois
8th Judicial Circuit to the Mount Pulaski Logan County seat venue
from the spring term of 1848 through the fall term of 1855.
Mr. Lincoln would visit and exchange stories with his fellow
lawyers and townspeople at the Mount Pulaski House Hotel across the
street, but would then retire to more friendly surroundings --
better food and accommodations -- down the hill with the families of
Jabez Capps or Thomas Lushbaugh, both of whose families he knew well
when they previously lived in Springfield.
[Text from file received from Phil
Bertoni] |