Quincy’s founding father: A pioneer, senator, governor, and anti-slavery politician

QUINCY (WGEM) - Many know John Wood as a pioneer, a senator, the 12th governor of Illinois, and a founding father of Quincy and Adams County, but in his lifetime, the trailblazer considered his fight against slavery’s expansion into Illinois as his greatest accomplishment.

Quincy and Adams County Historical Society Executive Director Rob Mellon describes Wood’s story as “an American story.”

Originally from New York state, Wood made his way across the country well before the age of 30.

Wood took interest in what was called the Military Tract, which was a large piece of land between Illinois and the Mississippi River given as pension lands for veterans.

Wood farmed around the New Canton area before coming upon a bluffs overlooking the river.

He eventually purchased the land and came to “the Bluffs” permanently in 1822. At the same time, the Mississippi River separated a free state from a slave state.

“The abolitionist movement hadn’t really developed yet. It was just developing at the time, and he’s at the forefront of that, at least in the county,” Mellon said.

Mellon said Wood was a part of Illinois’ first anti-slavery society. At the time, the southern dominated state legislature opposed the presence of free blacks and began passing anti-black laws.

From the spring of 1823 until the 1824 election, Wood joined the fight to stop the legislature from legalizing slavery.

“What they would have had to of done at the time is re-write the Illinois constitution,” Mellon said. “That’s really what was happening. The vote was about rewriting the Illinois constitution. It failed. Illinois remained a free state.”

On the eve of the election, Wood and nearly 50 others rode south to Pike County, the nearest polling place.

The ratio across the state was 57 to 43, but in Western Illinois where Wood fought, the margin against slavery was 90 to 10. Inking the trailblazer’s legacy into anti-slavery history.

“He’s always anti-slavery,” Mellon said. “I would put him in the same category as say an Abraham Lincoln. He’s not an abolitionist, but he’s an anti-slavery politician is what I’d say.”

Wood went on to become the 12th governor of Illinois after the death of Gov. William Henry Bissell. He also was elected seven times as mayor of Quincy, was a member of the Illinois State Senate from 1850 to 1854, and served as Illinois’ Lt. governor from 1857 to 1860.