The Springfield Road

•August 27, 2025•

By Janet Roney

No one knows for sure the route Abraham Lincoln’s family followed when they passed through our county in March of 1830 on their way to their new home west of Decatur.

From Paradise in western Coles County, they may have passed east of the large Kickapoo Indian winter camp site on the south side of the Shelbyville Moraine, and noted the cabins of the Whitley and Waggoner families, who had only recently settled along the ancient Whitley Point Road. At some point, they would have followed the Kaskaskia-Detroit Road that led to the young village of Nelson.

Nelson had few residents when the Lincolns may have stayed there, for it was recently platted in 1829. The next night, they camped at the edge of the timber near the Selby cabin (near the CRP prairie grass field south of Lovington, east of Route 32).

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