1856-1860: Yankee Ridge and the National Crisis

The Chapin-McNeil family moved to Philo, IL in the mid 1850s. They were part of a larger group of New Englanders who had moved to the area to settle. Many of them were educated and took part in the effort to develop a school. With their distinctive New Endland accents identifying them, locals took to calling the early school "Yankee Ridge", a name that has a continuing legacy in Champaign County schools up to the present day (Our Village History).

The Chapin-McNeil family arrived in Champaign County during a period of technological and social shift. The railroad was constructed in southern Champaign County in 1856 (Village of Philo). With the advent of both freight and passenger travel to and from Champaign County, the possibility of an exchange of goods, ideas, and political dissidence was inevitable.

Correspondence and Loneliness

Quite often in the 19th century, keeping regular correspondence with one's family was seen as a familial obligation. There are several occasions throughout the Chapin-McNeil correspondance where the women express embarassment and even shame at neglecting to write their family members for extended periods of time, with some gaps in communication spanning up to a full calendar year. Mary (Chapin) Burt surmised in a letter dated December 30th, 1860 that her family had taken "'mortal offence' and dropped all correspondance." A preoccupation with family life, homesteading, illnesses, a lack of writing supplies, and simply being unable to find the energy to write all contributed to these extended silent periods.

For Mary in particular, the choice between the wellbeing of the homestead & her children and her own personal social life was an easy one, but it came at a great personal cost. Mary frequently indicated periods of what could be described as major depression, anxiety, and hopelessness. There is a common thread between Mary's solitary life on the homestead and the many women who would be separated long-term from their husbands during the impending Civil War that is impossible to ignore. Little scholarship has been done on the mental health of women on the homefront during the Civil War and years leading up to it, but it would be well worth the endeavor as evidenced by Mary's heartbreaking testimony.

Navigating Political Unrest in the Antebellum North

However, as the family were establishing themselves in their new home, the United States was politically fracturing. On May 22nd of that year the famous Massachussetts Senator Charles Sumner was viciously beaten by a South Carolinian congressman Preston Brooks. Further west in Missouri the argument over the expansion of slavery had turned into a small scale Civil War known as "Bleeding Kansas." It was a period of national crisis as the United States slowly and inexorably moved towards the most devastating conflict in its history.

Illinois at the time was in many ways a 'swing state.' In 1856, Illinois voted for Democratic Presidential candidate James Buchanan. Famously, Illinois also hosted the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates over who should be selected by the state legislature to serve as the next U.S. Senator. Democrat Stephen Douglas was eventually re-elected over the up-and-coming Abraham Lincoln. However, events at the national level during this crucial period would push the state of Illinois towards the direction of the Republican Party; the hotly debated issue of permitting the enslaving of Africans and their descendants would be the deciding factor in Illinois' Republican push. Abraham Lincoln would go on to win Champaign County during the 1860 Presidential Election.