PIONEERS OF THE PAST_#18
It would be easy for Margaret Reno Vance to fade into the early history of
McDonough County, but she was truly one of the county’s founding mothers.
Margaret and her husband, James Vance, arrived in the area in the 1820s
when both were already in their 60s — an age when most settlers of the time
would have avoided the hardships of frontier life. Instead, they chose to leave
Tennessee and help build a new community in what was then an unsettled
wilderness. Their descendants still live in McDonough County today.

Margaret was born in 1762, likely in either Pennsylvania or Tennessee, to John
Reno and Susannah Thorn. At just 19 years old, she married James Vance in
White County, Tennessee, in 1782. Together they raised a large family of 12 or
13 children. Family tradition says Margaret and James traveled to Illinois by ox
team with her nephew, Jonathan Reno, arriving a year before McDonough
County was oƯicially created in 1825.

The journey west would have been diƯicult for anyone, but especially for a
couple their age traveling with family members and possessions into a region
with few roads, homes, or comforts. Margaret’s role in keeping the family
together through those years of migration and settlement was essential. Like
many pioneer women, her work often went unrecorded, yet it was critical to
the family’s survival and success. She spent decades raising children,
supporting the westward move, and helping to establish a permanent home
on the frontier.

Several of the Vance children settled in McDonough County with their parents,
including Mary “Polly”, Agnes “Nancy,” John, William, Martha, and James Jr.
Margaret and James quickly became part of the county’s earliest civic life.
Their youngest daughter, Martha Ramsey Vance, married John Wilson on
October 29, 1828, becoming the first bride to be married in McDonough
County. James Sr. later served as a Justice of the Peace and performed many
of the county’s earliest marriages before his death in 1835.

Even in old age, Margaret remained the center of her family. In 1840, at the age
of 78, she was listed as head of a household that likely included her
unmarried daughters Mary “Polly” and Agnes “Nancy.” By 1850, Margaret was
88 years old and living with her youngest son, James. Polly and Nancy, both in
their 60s, are listed as living at James’s.

Today, east of Industry along the Vermont blacktop, the quiet Vance Cemetery
rests among the rich farm fields of McDonough County. More than a dozen
descendants of James and Margaret Reno Vance are buried there — a lasting
reminder of one family’s sacrifices and contributions to the founding of the
county.

Pioneers of the Past is furnished by Julie L. Terstriep, of the McDonough County
Genealogical Society, facebook.com/mcdcgs. For more Pioneers of the Past, go to
https://www.mcdcgs.com/pioneers-of-the-past/