When the first Illinois constitution was drafted at Kaskaskia, the delegates included a provision for a twenty-year location of a new seat of government. In March 1819 the First Illinois General Assembly authorized five commissioners to locate a site for the new town on or near the intersection of the longitudinal third principal meridian and the Kaskaskia River. The commissioners selected a place called Reeve’s Bluff, a corruption of the name of settler Charles Reavis. The June 16, 1819, "Illinois Intelligencer" newspaper at Kaskaskia announced the selection of the town site had been made, and the town would be called Vandalia.
Surveyor William Greenup had suggested the name, connoting the dales and hills of the site and also the vanguard of progress that would take place at a state capital. The name already existed: it was a poetic name for the Andalusia region of Spain (mentioned in "Don Quixote") and also the name for a proposed fourteenth British colony, which would’ve included the present West Virginia.
The state auction of Vandalia lots took place on September 6, 1819, and the town was well established by the time the Second General Assembly convened in December 1820.
Ten general assemblies and several sessions of the supreme and federal courts met at Vandalia, using three different buildings, the last of which is our local pride and joy. The National Road eventually reached Vandalia and terminated there. Springfield was designated the permanent seat of government on July 4, 1839. Some of my ancestors settled in the vicinity when Vandalia was capital, a fact that was one inspiration for my 1992 book on Vandalia's era as seat of government.
A wonderful new book about the town's history has been written, compiled, and produced for the bicentennial!
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