History lost

The John Hay boyhood home in Warsaw, Illinois, couldn't be saved from the wrecking ball.

As the magnificent replica of the Mormon temple rose about the Mississippi River at Nauvoo, about twenty miles to the south in Warsaw, Illinois, the stately old brick boyhood home of John Hay came crumbling down, unceremoniously. Hay, one of Abraham Lincoln's private secretaries during the Civil War, grew up in Warsaw; nevertheless, many townspeople were unaware of the structure's impending fate until after it had been demolished.

Built in the early nineteenth century—no exact date is known—the house remained vacant for years and had fallen into severe disrepair. 1993, the elderly Gash sisters, both of rural Warsaw, bought the house from a nearby Keokuk realtor, temporarily saving it from the wrecking ball. Since then, only a new roof was added.

Warsaw is a town of rich history aside from Hay, who also served as Secretary of State under presidents William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt. Hay was instrumental in getting the Panama Canal built. Future-U.S. President Zachary Taylor commanded a fort (Edwards) near Warsaw after the War of 1812, when he was an officer in the then-very-young U.S. Army. Amos Worthen, a descendent of John Adams and the first curator of the Illinois State Historical Library and Natural History Museum, hailed from Warsaw.

John Hay was President Lincoln's private secretary and Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

Nearly the entire inner core of Warsaw has been designated an historic district by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, which once noted that "both the age and quality of [Warsaw's] buildings far surpass that of the average Illinois town."

Sadly, there is one less historic structure to see in Warsaw, although the little brick, boyhood schoolhouse yet stands beside the Warsaw Public Library.

—Mike Shepard
ISHS Correspondent, New Berlin

Collecting Illinois Amateur historian David Brady of Divernon collects history. When he's not working at Prairie Archives bookstore in Springfield or giving talks to school children on local lore, he's walking farm fields in southern Sangamon County searching for Native American artifacts or scouring old newspapers for lost history about his community. The results of Brady's ten-year search for remnants of the historic Edwards Trace in Sangamon County will be presented later this year at the Illinois History Symposium. Brady also collects autographs. His copy of the sesquicentennial volume of the Illinois Guide and Gazetteer (1968) for example, has been signed by every Illinois governor since William Stratton. The book originally belonged to Reverend William S. Warford, a chaplain of the Illinois Statehouse, which Brady acquired in 1988. The list include governors Otto Kerner, Samuel Shapiro, Richard Ogilvie, Dan Walker, Jim Thompson, William G. Stratton, Jim Edgar, and George Ryan. Brady will be looking for a new governor to sign his book later this fall.

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