16481 Old Jacksonville Rd. New Berlin IL - Historic Homestead

Parcel #19-11.0-200-020 16481 Old Jacksonville Rd. New Berlin IL Legal: PT SW 1/4 NE 1/4 LYING N OF & ADJ TO ROAD & E OF & ADJ TO W LINE SW 1/4 NE 1/4 11-15-8 Taxes $3,374.26 8.52 Acres This is an early 1900s build home approximately 2800 ft.² there is a half basement on approximately 1800 ft.² in a crawlspace on approximately 1000 ft.² newer roof and facia work. Most of the windows have been updated. The utilities are amren for electricity and FS Jacksonville for propane. The house is on a septic. Garage is 20' x 30' there is a Generac 22kw generator and the home has central air and a small duct high velocity air system. Auction of Robert Brent Hitt Jr. Estate real and personal property. This auction is provides a unique opportunity to share in the memories and treasures of six generations of the Brown and Hitt families beginning with the settlement of Colonel William Brown, the great, great, great grandfather of Robert Brent Hitt, Jr. Colonel William Brown, who served in the war of 1812, came to Illinois from Kentucky in 1834 with his son, Captain James N. Brown, and other members of the family, partly because of their growing opposition to slavery. The Brown family acquired 3,000 acres of prairie in the Island Grove area and named the farm The Grove Park. Island Grove Methodist Church, which was founded in 1823, lies across from The Grove Park. The Church stands alone in the countryside and surrounded by a cemetery where many founding members are buried, including many members of the Brown and Hitt families. Several years after the Brown family acquired The Grove Park, it served as a watering spot and an encamptment site on the Potawatomi Trail of Death, the route traced by hundreds of Potawatomi Native Americans who underwent forced relocation from Indiana to Kansas during a drought in 1838. Captain Brown was the first to recognize that the best way to get the most out of good grass and good corn without robbing the land of its fertility was to stock it with good cattle. He was one of three members of a central Illinois delegation that embarked on a stock-buying trip to England in the spring of 1857. It was a harrowing trip and after losing only several cattle and a thoroughbred mare on a 60-day journey at sea, the cattle, Southdown and Cotswold sheep, and Berkshire pigs were the foundation to establish him as a successful breeder of these as well as high-bred horses. The importation of the livestock added much to the well-earned prestige of Illinois as the leading American headquarters for pure bred horses, cattle, sheep and swine. Captain Brown bred famous shorthorn cattle on a showplace farm that stretched across Sangamon and Morgan counties. Captain Brown helped create the Republican Party in Illinois; was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1840, 1842, 1846, and 1852; was the second person named to the Illinois Farmers Hall of Fame; and introduced the bill that created the state Board of Agriculture. As its first president he was responsible for organizing the Illinois State Fair. Another noteworthy event occurred on the fourth day of July, 1861. Captain James Brown, at his home 8 miles west of where Colonel Grant camped the night of July 3rd, was with friends celebrating the Fourth of July. He sent his son, William Brown, out to meet Colonel Grant and invite him and the troops to come and enjoy the rest of the day with them. By 10 o'clock, martial music was heard and soon the boys and Colonel Grant were at the homw of Captain Brown. Captain Brown gave the soldiers the freedom of the place and they enjoyed eating cherries that were ripe and looking at the short horns in the cattle barns. When he departed this life, in 1868, he left behind not a run-down, worn-out, ready-to-be abandoned farm, but instead left 3,000 acres of blue grass pasture known as Grove Park, tenanted by well-bred animals, with every acre richer than when it came into his possess