Mount Pulaski Zion Lutheran students visit local historic sites

[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.

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. 

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]