Saline Creek Pioneer & Village Museum
Saline Creek Pioneer and Village Museum
Located on the south edge of Harrisburg, you will find an entire pioneer village. It represents a village depicting the era of 1800 - 1840. Within the settlement is a blockhouse, a Quaker church, a post office, a saddlebag cabin and a very unique barn with a threshing floor, a school and a jail. The museum is located on the original site of the Saline County Poor Farm. The Poor Farm (Pauper Farm) was built in 1877 with an addition in 1904. In 1819, the Illinois General Assembly elected a bill that required county commissioners to appoint overseers to the poor for each township.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Saline Creek Pioneer Village offers a variety of historical treasures. The museum contains Robert Ingersol’s (famed attorney who served as Attorney General of Illinois) desk, a letter from William Jennings Bryan and an 1853 newspaper that has an article about the Trail of Tears. The Pauper cemetery is adjacent to the site and contains markers with records dating bak to 1849. The poor as well as murder victims and unknown vagrants were buried here. There are 263 burials including 60 children.
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