1835
In 1835 William Holland convinced carpenter James Smith to move from Peoria to Washington. With houses starting to spring up, the town was desperately in need of a carpenter. Smith built a house at what is now the corner of High and Jefferson streets, and began his carpenter trade in Washington.
Also in this year Brazilla Allee built a two-story frame home which still stands at 115 South Main Street, which he used for a residence and as his blacksmith shop. William Spencer also used Allee's shop to build wagons.
The Baptist Church organized in 1835 in Washington, with original members consisting of the Abraham Van Meter family as well as Matthew and Martha Crane.
Dr. Gaius P. Wood arrived in 1835, teaming up with his old friend from Vermont Dr. Goodwin. Wood would practice medicine in Washington for almost thirty years, succeeded by his son Dr. Edward Wood.
In late 1835 John Lindley opened another store in town.
In December, James McClure and two other men approached the Tazewell County Board asking for a road to be staked out from Walnut Creek near what is now Eureka, through Washington, to terminate at the ferry opposite Peoria. The path of the road:
Commuting at Walnut Creek between Butcher's and Curtis', then a westerly course and through the prairie, which is designated by stakes to the half mile corner near the southeast corner of Kelso field, then west on the section line to the southwest corner of Yager's field, then in a straight line to the eastern termination of Walnut Street in the town of Washington. (This basically follows the path of the current Business Route 24.) Then with said street west to Farm Creek near the steam saw mill then southwest to intersect the old road near J.D. Yager's dwelling. Then with the old road except when it is aligned by blazing to Thomas Camlin, then with the old road to the ferry near Peoria.
1835 saw possibly the heaviest rainfall in the area's history. This summary is taken from the 1879 History of Tazewell County:
It is claimed that the greatest rainfall that has ever occurred in this country was in 1835. There was no record kept of the amount of water that fell by any of the methods in use at the present time, and all we have to judge by is the high water in the streams. The Illinois and tributaries are said to have been higher than at the breaking up of the big snow in the spring of 1831, or at any time since. The rains commenced falling in the early spring and continued throughout the early summer. There have been, perhaps, other seasons just as wet, but the streams were never so high at any other time. During this period there were many hard rains. In the early part of July a storm of rain, thunder and lightning occurred, which for severity has scarcely ever been equaled. It spread throughout the West. The great prairies, then uncultivated and undrained, were a vast lake, and fish were plenty in almost every locality. The large ponds found here and there over the prairies in an early day contained fish large enough for domestic purposes. These ponds would dry up in the summer but in springtime were well filled with water, and how the finny tribe managed to get there is a query the "old settler" cannot answer in a more satisfactory way than "they rained down when small." During this season but little in the way of crops was attempted to be raised. Hogs were fattened in the fall upon the mast, and those that were not killed for food had to subsist during the winter upon acorns; with them it was literally "root hog or die."