The Pekin Public Library’s program on Saturday, 11 March 2023, about tracing a house’s history in Pekin, has elicited a lot of interest. For those who were unable to attend the program, the fruit of our research on the history of the house that we featured in our program will be presented here in a series of articles, beginning today and continuing each week.
A video of the program is also available at the library’s YouTube channel.
Tell me about that house . . . .
By Jared L. Olar
Local History Specialist
In November 2022, the Pekin Public Library invited the public to submit nominations from those who were interested in learning about the history of a particular house in Pekin. One of the main purposes of this program was to demonstrate the steps in the process of researching of house history in Pekin, and to show what resources are available at the library to aid in such a project.
We received seven nominations. Using a very scientific process . . .
. . . one of them was selected.
The winner was 405 Willow St. Sara Hutchison nominated this house: “I went inside once 20+ years ago and it was obviously a really impressive house in its day. Seems like it would have an interesting story.”
In this case, appearances are not deceiving. She’s right about this house being impressive in appearance, and that it has an interesting story. In researching this address, we learned that it is one of Pekin’s more historic homes. In telling the story of that house, one will also tell some of Pekin’s own story.
To find out about this house’s history, the first step is to find it on the map.
The next step is to visit the website of the Tazewell County Assessor:
The county assessor’s website provides several pieces of important information, including two important items that will be necessary to research the sales history of the house and the land on which it sits. One is the Parcel ID, which in this case is 04-04-35-150-001. The other is the parcel’s legal description:
“SEC 35 T25N R5W BAILEYS ADDN LOTS 3 – 4 & 5 BLK 18 NW ¼”
This information is necessary to do a title search at the Tazewell County Recorder of Deeds Office, which will produce a complete record of the times that this parcel of land and any structures on it have changed hands. Title histories for property in Pekin begin as early as the establishment of Pekin as an unincorporated settlement in January of 1830 and come down to the most recent sale.
Now, the Tazewell County Assessor’s website will also provide a sales history for parcels of land in our county, but such histories only go back to 1900, and they are often list sales out of their proper chronological order. That is just what we see for the website’s sales history of 405 Willow St. Here is what the assessor’s website provides as a sales history – with a few parenthetical remarks to show dubious or confusing list entries (next week it will become evident why those entries are dubious):
1 Jan. 1900 Eugene V. Marshall (!!!)
6 March 1957 Marie Reardon (??)
23 July 1957 George Bundy (??)
25 July 1957 Lillie Bundy (??)
14 Sept. 1967 Marie Reardon
7 Feb. 1977 Lillie McCarrick
1 Oct. 1987 M. Ellan Brooks
26 May 2006 Kathleen Milkereit
According to the assessor’s website, Milkereit sold this house to the current owner for $150,000.
The current owner has supplied us with a sales history from the Recorder of Deeds Office. The history reaches much further back in time than the year when the house at 405 Willow St. was built. Since the parcel’s legal description says the house is in Bailey’s Addition, it is no surprise to find that the first legally recorded owner of this parcel was David Bailey, one of the five original plat-holders of Pekin and one of the principals in the landmark 1841 case of Bailey v. Cromwell which secured the freedom of Nance Legins-Costley (1813-1892) and her three eldest children.
Next week we will consult our old Pekin city directories to see what we can learn of who lived in this house.
