McDonough County Genealogical Society
The story of William and Mary Keaton Pringle might have been lost to time if it weren’t for two very different discoveries. The first was the 1878 History of McDonough County, Illinois, by S. J. Clarke, which included the recollections of their daughter, Martha Pringle Russell. The second came more than 125 years later, when archaeologists uncovered evidence of the Pringle settlement during construction of a new interstate interchange west of Macomb.
William Pringle was born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, in 1784. In 1812, he married Mary Keaton in Henry County, Kentucky. According to their daughter Martha, the couple came to McDonough County in 1830. In her reminiscences, she recalled, “My father settled west of Macomb, near the old cemetery…” William soon established himself on land west of Macomb. According to the federal government’s Quincy Tract Books, in June 1835 he became the first purchaser of the southeast quarter of Section 4 in Chalmers Township. The land cost $1.25 an acre, or $200 for the 160 acres, and William paid for it in cash. He had previously filed a pre-emption claim on the land, which gave him the right to purchase it before others.
The Pringles were not listed in the 1830 federal census for McDonough County, but by 1840 William and Mary were living here with their four children and their grandson, Francis, the young son of their oldest daughter, Sarah.
William and Mary’s children were: Sarah Ann Pringle (1815–1854) married James Welch in 1835. They had one son, Francis. James died in 1839, and by 1840 Sarah and Francis were living with her parents. Sarah later married John Emons in Hancock County and then Enoch Welsh in 1854 in McDonough County, IL. She died in Gentry County, Missouri later that year. She had no other children.
