Hammond Families of Illinois

As the Western Reserve of Connecticut (now northern Ohio) became more settled in 1810-1840, there were new lands available to adventurers and settlers in Indiana, Illinois, and even across the Mississippi in the new Louisiana territories, extending to the Pacific Ocean. By the 1840s, the native Indian threat in lands east of the Mississippi were negligible. The rivers became a more important aid to movement with the advent of steamboats after 1815. Some early settlers moved from the Wester Reserve overland with their herds and their horses, but roads were only paths through the wilderness. Rivers became the safer and preferred route of migration.

There were now steamboats on the Ohio River, connecting with the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, which could transport settlers to the Peoria area near Knox Co., Ill. Since several of Jason Hammond's family had moved there, Royal Hammond, Ward K. Hammond, and John Burt (Lucinda Hammond's widower) and children, prepared to move there. Calvin Hammond had died in 1826, and was buried in a rural cemetery near Hammond's Corner^4.1. His daughter, Lucinda Hammond Burt, died in 1840 and his son, Lewis, in 1821 at age seventeen. Therefore the families of Calvin and Roxanna Hammond were all moving to Knox Co., Ill. Roxanna Field Hammond, Calvin's widow since 1826, lived and moved with Royal Hammond, her son.

Ward K. Hammond and family left Bath, Ohio, ca. 1841, but lived at least two years in Delaware, Ohio, before continuing to Knox Co., Ill., in 1844.

The descendants of Jason Hammond were early settlers in Knox Co., including his son Theodore, who had come to the Western Reserve with Calvin Hammond and his family in 1814. Theodore and his brothers were prominent in the early history of Knox Co., around Galesburg, Illinois.

Horatio Hammond, youngest son of Jason and Rachel Hammond, was seven years older than his cousin Ward K. Hammond. It was he who had the short version of the New England Hammond Genealogy^4.2published in 1866. Orson W. Hammond, of West Tenn., secured a copy of this Galesburg publication by 1892, according to his daughter, Emma Mai. A more complete book[15] of Hammond history and genealogy was published in New England in 1904.