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Early Citings
of Imans/Eymans in Illinois.
Abraham Eyman,
of St. Clair/Belleville may have
been the first of Eymans to move
to the Illinois Territory. He
seems to have visited in 1796,
staked out land at American
Bottom, and returned with family
the next year. Bought lands in
New Design, and subsequently
migrated to Belleville prairie
where he was one of the first
settlers near Turkey Hill, along
with his brother-in-law Stookey,
neighbors Teter, Primm, and
Millers. Abraham is listed in
many St. Clair historical records
and was elected to the second
House of Representatives for the
new state of Illinois. He died a
very old man, likely pleased with
the attention of being one of the
last surviving founders of the
area. There's a great deal of
confusion in family circles about
where Abraham came from, though
it's likely that he was a
country boy from Upper Paxtang.
The old German must have had some
cross-cultural gifts, for he gave
most of his kids in marriage to
off-spring of the flinty Joseph
McClintock. Other Eymans are said
to have been involved in the
ill-fated Badgley migration from
Hardy County of West Virginia to
New Design before the turn of the
century, but no names of
participants have been
identified.
The names of
Christopher Eyman, (St.
Clair/Belleville) and Henry
Eyman, (St. Clair/Belleville)
also appear in various early records for the area.
Illinois Trails, for instance,
(http://iltrails.org/monroe/hist002.htm)
citing "The History of Randolph,
Monroe and Perry Counties", lists
a Henry and a Christopher Iman as
early owners of stock 1816-18. Both of these names also
appeared in the two censuses
(county & federal) taken for
1820 as well, though it appears
that these may be the same
household (record #213 in state
census records). That two
similarly structures households
provided different names of the
"head of household" is suggested
by a census audit which seems to
have resolved the issue toward
defining this as the household of
a Henry Eyman. See the related file called
"Early Illinois Census Findings" for a fuller
discussion census data.
It's possible
that both of these names were in
the same 1820 household. A Henry,
thought to have been born 1790 in
Hardy, would not have been one of
the elderly couple reported to be
in the household, though Henry's
father and mother, Christian and
Catherine, thought to have left
Hardy by 1815 or so, may have
been among the 264 males and 165
females over the age of 45 in St.
Clair that year. While most descendants know
the Hardy Imans as "Christian" and Catherine,
tax findings, and sometimes property titles,
are found in the name of "Christopher".
The son Henry, born near 1790 , married
a Catherine Elizabeth Sites in Hardy in
1811. I believe that it's this same Henry
Eyman who showed in the 1850 census for
Mordock precinct of Monroe, but by 1860
had migrated toward Bond County.
Sorting out
and clarifying this secondary
Eyman household in the St. Clair is a personal
preoccuption since I believe my own ancestry
arose from this household. A
Christian Iman, born 1799 or so
in Hardy is though to have
migrated from there with his
father of the same name.
Christian the younger married a
Mary Whiteside in 1828. This poor
couple died of a cholera episode
in 1850, with fragments of the
family left to be raised in the
Henry Eyman and Clark
households.
Before 1820
there may have been other Eymans
and Imans in the area. Several
citations have been found which
are not fully understood. Cahokia
Court Records 2082 & 2083 p.
54 for 1812 show a Joseph Iman
providing sworn testimony to work
events 22-23 years before (1790
or so?) in the area, Joseph is
described here as serving as a
laborer to build a lean-to
structure formed by a large
fallen tree. (If we trust this
account, we might assume that the
laborer might be 20 years of age
and thus born perhaps 1770?).
Apparently the testimony was in
support of a land claim by a
French neighbor who was appealing
for land rights based on previous
inhabitation. Courts in those
days were apparently full of
fraudulent claims of the sort.
There is no other pointer to a
person of this name.
In addition to
this unknown Iman, a Charles
Eyman is listed in St. Clair
Couty Board of Minutes Index
(p.,27) 1817-1821. So far we have
no other information about this
person.
By 1830, new
Eyman names appear in St. Clair
census records. These are primarily
recognized as the children of Abraham,
including Daniel, Abrahim Jr.,
and Jacob Eyeman. By this year,
new migrants to the Missouri area
(St. Charles MO) put relatives
Daniel and James Iman in the
neighborhood. A number of Eymans and Imans by then were
migrating northwards in Illinois,
or were heading over into
Missouri. Old store records from the
Monroe area are repleat with
charges to the accounts of "father Henry"
by sons Samuel and Absalom.
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