Randolph County, Ill. Papers, 1692-1905 | Illinois History and Lincoln Collections

This collection contains copies of early government records and other manuscripts for Randolph County, Illinois. Materials include county court records, parish records, Kaskaskia manuscripts, inventories, calendars, and indexes of records, and journal articles about documents in the collection.

Randolph County includes the Village of Kaskaskia, which was the capital of the Illinois Territory from 1809-1818 and the first capital of the State of Illinois from 1818-1820. Kaskaskia also acted as a center of government for the region during its occupation by the French. The county is also the home of Fort de Chartres and Fort Kaskaskia, which were constructed by the French during the 1720s before being turned over to the British after the French and Indian War. The forts were eventually captured by George Rogers Clark during the American Revolution.

The collection consists of four series: Microfilm records, Randolph County government documents, Kaskaskia manuscript transcripts and calendars, and Other records.

The Microfilm records series contains records of the Circuit Court and Recorder, 1718-1870, County Clerk, Kaskaskia record books, Randolph County Circuit Court, 1739-1849, and the parishes of the Church of St. Joseph and the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady of the Kaskaskias, 1692-1799. Among these records are rulings made by different court bodies; private, public, and commercial manuscripts form Kaskaskia; execution and judgement dockets; deed, marriage, and probate records; estate papers; case documents; and other miscellaneous records.

The Randolph County government documents series includes an abstract of marriage contracts, calendars, and inventories of records. The Kaskaskia manuscript transcripts and calendars contain copies of documents and indexes for 18^th century records. The Other records series includes inventories and reports written about the materials in the collection and published in academic journals.

Original documents were received on loan from the Randolph County Commission by the Illinois Historical Survey, predecessor to the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections, who created the transcripts and calendars found in this collection from 1905-1906. The microfilm records were created by the Illinois State Archives in 1952 and the University of Illinois in 1960.