"Old Six Mile Suggested As Name Of New Group" May 1981 Georgia Engelke - Speaker Old Six Mile Historical Society has been proposed as the name of a new organization being formed in Granite City. A meeting is planned Monday, May 18 at the town hall, 2060 Delmar Avenue, to complete organization procedure. Officers will be elected. When the Rev. David Badgley, a Baptist minister, and some others explored the American Bottoms in 1799, he described this region as the Land of Goshen, the land of milk and honey. In 1800 Ephriam Conner crossed the frontier to establish a home in this Land of Goshen and James Gillham and his family crossed the prairie along the bluffs and settled at the head of a long lake. The following year, 1801, Patrick Hanniberry and the Wiggins family settled near Horseshoe Lake. This settlement became known as Six Mile; it was six miles from St. Louis. Later a hotel called the Six Mile House was built near this settlement, again indicating its distance from St. Louis on the National Road. Six Mile included what is called Venice today, since the Great Wagon Road terminated at the ferry landing on the banks of the Mississippi. It also included all of the present Quad-City, incorporated and unincorporated, area. When Madison County was organized on September 14, 1812, the county was divided into four precincts or townships. They were Shoalcreek in the east, Goshen in the center; Wood River in the northwest; and Six Mile in the southwest. Six Mile Township began at the southwest corner of the county on the Mississippi River, thence east along the county line to Cahokia Creek, and up the same to the mouth of Long Lake. It went up Long Lake to the road leading from Samuel Gillham's ferry (head Chouteau Island), thence south along the bank of the river including all islands to the place of beginning. In 1876 there was redistricting of the townships in Madison County. Nameoki became Township 3, Range 9; Chouteau Township became Township 4, Rage 9 and 10, Venice was Township 3, Range 10. Six Mile, like Goshen, had become a historical name that should be preserved, a spokesman said. |