Promoting and Preserving Central Illinois History: From the Web to the Stacks

To the editor:

For almost twenty years I have published research-based, collaborative websites/pages about central Illinois history, and I have promoted them through local news media, email, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I design webpages so that I can print and bind them as books that I donate to libraries. I have undertaken these projects as a public service, and most of them have been done in retirement as a fun-work hobby.

My webpages are designed with layouts that assimilate visuals and writing in appealing, readable ways and that capture that layout when printed for binding. Frankly, this process is a bit complex, and few people meld genre using my methods. To do this work, I use legacy html and graphics editing programs, software that converts html code to PDF for printing with laser color printers, and commercial binding services. At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I note that this work has an artistic dimension.

Websites/pages have the advantage of allowing for expansion and other refinements/revisions through research and collaboration over time that conventional books do not offer, and websites/pages allow for far more extensive use of visuals than conventional books. My webpage books feature colorful visuals, including maps, photos, and real-picture postcards, that would make publication in conventional books prohibitively expensive. Yet, like conventional, mass-produced books, my webpage books have the advantage of preserving history in libraries for future readers, including students, researchers, and the casually curious. Websites/pages alone do not have that advantage: they do not have an indefinite life. In accessing the links below, you may want to use the back arrow, when possible, to exit their sites so that you do not also exit this message.

My original website/page-book project is about my hometown--Lincoln, Illinois--the first Lincoln namesake town: http://
findinglincolnillinois.com/.  In 2004 that project received the Best Website of the Year award from the Illinois State Historical Society: http://finding
lincolnillinois.com/ishsaward.html.  In 2005 I published an article about the Lincoln website in a peer-reviewed journal in the field of technical communication--then my primary field as a university professor: https://journals.sagepub.com/
doi/10.2190/KAW0-NQGT-
0175-PT7E.  My bibliography at WorldCat.com lists several bound webpages from findinglincolnillinois.com held in various libraries: https://www.
worldcat.org/searchqt=worldcat_org_
all&q=D.+
Leigh+Henson.

Recently my main history website/page-book project has been about Elkhart, and below are some related developments since I published this site two years ago this month. This Elkhart project is my last one of this kind because I am now focused on researching and writing a conventional book on Abraham Lincoln's rhetorical development--the most challenging academic project I have ever undertaken. I know, I know--time is not on my side, but researching and writing are in my blood, and I can't go fishing or hiking every day. In "Andrea del Sarto" Robert Browning's character said it this way:

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?

April 2020: Publication Award of Certificate of Excellence from the Illinois State Historical Society: http://finding
lincolnillinois.com/johndeangillett
empire-2.html#ISHS2020Award. 

June 2020: Ms. Nanchen Scully’s photos and information about her work to salvage, restore, and repurpose premium interior features of the second Oglehurst mansion just before its controlled, fire-drill incineration: http://findinglincolnillinois.
com/johndeangillettempire-2.html#
oglehurstsalvage. 

March 2021: Information about the first settlements at Ekhart, including an annotated map created with information provided by Ms. Gillette Ransom. She is an Elkhart historian, civic leader, descendant of John Dean Gillett ("the Cattle King of America") and Lemira Parke Gillett, and a farmer/rancher following in the Gillett patriarch's bootsteps on Elkhart Hill. The map features the alignment of the historic Edwards Trace across the lower western region of Elkhart Hill, plus sites relating to the pioneer Latham family settlements, the location of the first Oglehurst mansion of three-time Illinois Governor and Mrs. Richard J. Oglesby (Emma Gillett Keays Oglesby--oldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Dean Gillett), and an obscure historical marker erected with an inscription by the legendary Ms. Jessie Dean Gillett, who followed in her father's farming/ranching bootsteps on Elkhart Hill. This map is the only visual record of the Edwards Trace alignment at Elkhart that is readily available to the public. Access and scroll to the map: http://findinglincoln
illinois.com/johndeangillettempire-2.html#2. 

March 2021: Sarah and Ben McCutcheon’s rare photos and information about Grace Lands, the fabled rural Elkhart estate of John Parke Gillett, the only son of John Dean Gillett and Lemira Parke Gillett. John Parke Gillett died tragically at the age of 40 from alcoholism: http://findinglincolnillinois.com/
johndeangillettempire2.html#GraceLands.  William Maxwell, famous New Yorker magazine fiction editor, award-winning author, and celebrated native of Lincoln, Illinois, wrote that his maternal grandfather/attorney Edward Blinn managed Grace Lands for John Parke Gillett’s widow, Inez. Grace Lands was Mr. Blinn’s cherished retreat. He took a ferret to Grace Lands to reduce its rat population, and during one of those retreats, the ferret bit Mr. Blinn as he slept. As a result, he died in Lincoln from blood poisoning: http://findinglincoln
illinois.com/johndeangillettempire-2.html#18. 

March 2021: Sarah and Ben McCutcheon’s photos of the controlled, fire-drill incineration of the second Oglehurst mansion: http://finding
lincolnillinois.com/johndeangillett
empire-2.html#oglehurstburning. 

Link to my photo album of Elkhart Cemetery. This link is in the Gillett-Oglesby webpage book:  https://photos
.app.goo.gl/Dbp7SCbTGFeaLywT7. 

Feel free to forward this message as you wish. Stay online--and stay safe.

Yours,
D. Leigh Henson
Professor emeritus of English

[Posted March 22, 2021]