Park Blog

It’s International Women’s Day (March 8, 2023) and a great day to celebrate all the strong and amazing women that helped Robert Allerton become the philanthropist and artist we know!

At the age of seven, Robert’s mother Pamilla Allerton died from scarlet fever. Pamilla was much beloved by Robert’s father Samuel, but a second marriage to Pamilla’s sister, Agnes, gave Robert the mother figure he had lost.

Agnes Thompson Allerton was an avid reader and philanthropist, donating hundreds of books to start the Allerton Public Library in Monticello and one in Allerton, Illinois. A lover of the decorative arts, she collected lace and textiles that were donated by Robert to the Art Institute of Chicago to create the Agnes Allerton Wing for Textiles in 1928. Agnes also instilled in Robert a love for gardening. Robert’s parents owned homes in Lake Geneva, Chicago, and in South Pasadena, California and she indulged her love of gardening on their various properties. His mother for the majority of his life, Agnes had her own bedroom at the Allerton mansion and she visited Robert often.

Another Thompson sister, Reinette Lester McCrea, also had an influence on Robert’s life. Besides her interest in gardening, art and philanthropy like Agnes, Reinette took on a leadership role in the Women’s Suffrage Movement, organizing her wealthy friends into the North Side Civic League.  In a December 3, 1911 article in the Chicago Daily Tribune, she is quoted as saying, “I became interested in suffrage by reading in the newspapers, the awful wrongs committed against girls and women in one way or another.  It seemed to me from my little experience in reform work that the situation which made  such wrongs possible could never be righted without the ballot in the hands of women – the chief reformer in this kind of work.” When Robert commissioned a copy of Germain Pilon’s Monument to Henry II and Catherine de Medici for his gardens, he commissioned a second copy for his aunt Reinette.  Upon her death in 1916, she bequeathed the statue and $5000 to the city of Lake Geneva for it to be erected “in the memory of some good women I have known at the Lake, who have done so much for Lake Geneva.” Among the names of the women listed on the monument are Agnes Thompson Allerton, her sister.

Two other women, Ellen Emmet and Anna Rathbone, were notables in Robert’s life. Ellen was ostensibly Robert’s first love. A portrait artist based in New York, their romance never came to fruition, perhaps because of distance. Included in the over 500 works Emmet painted over her career, two works hang in the Allerton mansion today, one of Robert and one of his father, Samuel.  Anna Rathbone, Robert’s godmother, was a steady source of familial connection throughout her lifetime, visiting Robert at his home in Monticello. Her portrait also hangs in the Allerton mansion today.

It is because of these women that Robert Allerton lived the creative and philanthropic life that he did.  Happy International Women’s Day to all women!

MONTICELLO — The path toward the development of the Allerton Park & Retreat Center began when Samuel Allerton began purchasing acreage in Piatt County more than 150 years ago, but the land has a much longer history — and prehistory — than that.

As a matter of fact, human use of the land that now makes up Allerton goes back at least 10,500 years, according to University of Illinois archaeologist Brian Adams, an associate scientist at the university’s Illinois State Archaeological Survey.

“Really, the whole range of documented pre-history for the State of Illinois is represented at the park. We had people coming here as hunters and gatherers; up through farming communities,” Adams said at a Piatt County Historical and Genealogical Society talk on Sept. 6. “People have been coming to the park a really long time.”

Over the past five decades, researchers have found not only arrowheads dating to approximately 8,500 B.C. but a group of mounds that are still located within the 1,500 acres of woods that make up the now University of Illinois-owned park. In the past 50-plus years, researchers have found 43 archaeological sites at Allerton, 30 that came before European contact, along with at least nine Euro-American sites.

Even more amazing, said Adams, is that, unlike many sites, the ones at Allerton have not been plowed and were relatively undisturbed, giving archaeologists at least a small picture of habitation through the millennia.

Although three of the mounds at the park have been looted, Adams, an associate scientist with the U of I’s Illinois State Archaeological Survey, said it was “incredible that most have not been disturbed.”

Another factor helping in their preservation is that they are low mounds and difficult to see from the Allerton trail that runs by them, especially when there are leaves on surrounding trees and the groundcover is thick.

Experts are unsure which Native American group  constructed the mounds. Adams terms them as “precontact” — prior to interaction with Euro-Americans from the east — and estimates they were likely constructed during Late Woodland period, which spanned from 350 to 1200 A.D.

He added that, although there are historical accounts of Potawatomi and Kickapoo peoples residing in the area when Euro-American settlers arrived, there have been no sites identified with those tribes at this point.

Surveys since the 1990s have found several other sites at the park, but “most of them are just small scatters of stone chipping debris and fire cracked rock,” Adams added, noting that “most of those are difficult to date.”

Other finds — including arrowheads — have been dated between 8,500 B.C. and 1200 A.D.

Research started in the 1960s

The proposed Oakley Dam/Reservoir project prompted one of the first official archaeological surveys at Allerton in 1965. Along the route the project would have flooded, Charlton Holland found evidence of 81 prehistoric sites, two within the Allerton Park borders.

Research at the park resumed in the late 1990s, and now 43 archaeological sites have been recorded. The mound site, named “Samuel’s Mounds” after the Allerton patriarch, was found during the 1965 search, but in 2015 the number expanded from three to 10 after aerial LiDAR images were obtained.

It is not a major surprise people have used the land for so many centuries, said Adams.

“Allerton Park would have fallen into the (Illini group’s) area. They would have come out to hunt buffalo or collect nuts in the fall, but to date we have not found evidence of them (Illini groups) in the park,” Adams said.

The final in a string of treaties led to forced removal of Native Americans in Illinois by about 1832, including a forced march of those from the Potawatomi nation traveling through Piatt County on what was later dubbed the “Trail of Death.”

Pioneer Cemeteries

Adams also discussed two pioneer cemeteries found on Allerton land. The oldest came from early settler John West, who moved to Piatt County around 1835. The so-called “West Family Pioneer Cemetery,” located on the south side of the river, was surveyed in both 1962 and 1985 with 20 grave markers found.

Parkland College followed that up with a project in 2019 that cleaned stones, took photos, and created a map of the cemetery.

“This was a way for them to properly document a pioneer cemetery correctly,” Adams said.

The Sheppard Family Pioneer Cemetery, located close to the Sun Singer statue, contains seven stones, already three less than earlier records. Restoration work has been done, and a 3-D scan of one marker helped identify the grave of early settler William Hutchison, the husband of Rebecca Peck. Hutchison died of pneumonia in 1947.

Plenty of work to do

Adams said there is more work to be done by researchers as time and dollars allow at Allerton. His wish list includes:

— Identifying some “contact period Native American sites that could include Potawatomi and Kickapoo through systematic surveys down both sides of the river.”

— Locate early farmsteads, possibly the one settled by John West in the 1830s.

“We know from (historian) Emma Piatt’s account where John West settled, and we can go to the government records to find out where he bought property. So we have a pretty good idea where his farmstead was; it was not far from the West Family Cemetery.”

— Continue work at the Sheppard Family Pioneer Cemetery: Finding missing stones, clean grave markers, and other restoration measures.

Adams’ talk can be viewed on the Piatt County Historical and Genealogical Society’s YouTube site.

The Visitor Center at Allerton Park and Retreat Center opened on Monday, March 20, 2023 thanks to support from the McCraw family. Originally Robert Allerton’s garden shed, the building located across from the Greenhouse Café was renovated to office space in 2005, and has now been updated to serve as the Visitor Center, located at 515 Old Timber Road, Monticello.

Visitor Center hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. The Gift Shop is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays.

Power chairs can be reserved (at least 48 hours in advance, please!). Get info and the reservation form here.

The space provides just under 1,000 square feet dedicated to informative and interactive elements to enhance visitors’ discovery of all things Allerton. Funding for the renovation, along with an endowment to provide salary support for a Visitor Center Attendant, was donated by Tom and Jessica McCraw of Fort Worth, TX, and their family members. Although Tom and his brothers, Jim, David, and John, currently live in various other states, the family has been interested in and visiting Allerton ever since growing up in Monticello.

“All of us were involved in the Boy Scouts and camped at Allerton, and we remember hiking the Sun Singer and Fu Dog trails, 20-mile hikes that started and ended in Allerton,” Tom said. “Even though we are pretty scattered at this point, we still love to visit the Park when we’re back in Central Illinois.

“The McCraw Family Visitor Center provides a proper welcome to the Park, which has been lacking for years,” noted Allerton Director Derek Peterson. “Our goal was to add enough information to provide knowledge, but also inspire ongoing exploration and discovery of the grounds. Part of the allure of Allerton is the question – ‘what’s around that corner?’ We want to answer those questions, but also point out more corners to explore.”

In addition to their own memories exploring the Park, the McCraw family’s connection to Allerton goes beyond camping and hiking. Their father, Erwin Arkell McCraw, was the farm advisor at the National Bank of Monticello for many years, where he helped manage the Allerton farms. While this historic connection was important in the family’s decision to support the Park, Tom notes that recent improvements and a sustainable vision for the future were equally important.

“Derek and his crew have done a wonderful job creating beautiful gardens, displaying the sculptures, and doing much-needed restoration,” McCraw said. “One thing that we thought was missing was a dedicated Visitors’ Center to answer questions and give information to all of the visitors. We wanted to help remedy that. We’re honored that we can help make Allerton even better.”