Germantown, Illinois

Early Settlers

James Bankson, Jonathon Hill, and James Hooper built the first settlement in the Germantown area during 1814. German settlers eventually filtered to the area from Saint Louis after hearing accounts of Illinois' beautiful farmland. Although they were forced to deal with swampy, flooded land full of disease carrying mosquitoes and disease, the German settlers sought to live near creeks and timberlands similar to those in their home country of Germany.

A log cabin schoolhouse was built in 1827 to educate the young settlers. Then in 1837, Catholic Germans purchased land from Milton White to build a church. To pay off their debts, the Germans platted the land into town lots and sold them at an auction. The Germans originally named their settlement Hanover, but the name was later changed to Germantown to honor all the settlement's German settlers besides those from Hanover, Germany.

Mr. Schanton built the first building in the newly platted Hanover and began operating a store. A log house was used for a church until 1841 when the settlers built a church and school. The community quickly outgrew the new church and school so new buildings were again erected in 1854. Germantown was organized into a township during 1873. German immigrants continued to flood into the township, and the town's economy and population was further boosted with the arrival of the Louisville, Evansville, and St. Louis Railroad in 1895.

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