By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com
Greg Pasley is not unlike the pioneers who settled in East Central Illinois in the 19th century.
Those men and women who relocated to the area in the 1800s were in search of something, perhaps a better life or a fresh start or the adventure of the unknown.
Pasley, who returned to his hometown 13 years ago, can relate. He, too, is searching for something and that starts with the adventure of the unknown.
He has been researching and documenting the history of a village which was first known as Middletown before the name was changed to Mahomet.
Pasley has dedicated what he calls “unfathomable hours,” to his labor of love.
“Some days, I spend 14 hours on it and there’s hardly any day I don’t spend at least two hours on it,” Pasley said. “That’s what I do.
“It’s my entertainment and recreation.”
He has published three books in a series entitled, “Diggin Up Bones,” and a fourth book is scheduled to be released later this week or next week.
“I’m already about one-third done with a fifth book and hope to have it out next year,” Pasley said.
A 1968 Mahomet-Seymour graduate, Pasley envisions a sixth book, but expects that will conclude the series.
“Enough will be told by the sixth book so that it will be a pretty solid collection of our history,” he said. “These things will be looked at well beyond my time on this planet.”
At the outset, Pasley wasn’t planning on becoming the community historian. He had a much smaller scope.
“I started doing family genealogy,” he said. “Every name I looked up interfaced with Mahomet.
“In my search to find out what my ancestors were doing, I looked for articles and the more I looked, the more information on Mahomet I gathered.”
He was introduced to another long-time Mahomet resident, Bill Dale – with whom he shares a great grandfather – and credited Dale with the desire to push ahead.
“He peaked my interest and encouraged me to go into greater detail,” said Pasley, who has confirmation of at least one of his family members living in the village each year since 1848.
His family’s longevity locally is not the longest. The Dale family can trace its origins to 1832.
Currently, Pasley said, “there are eight of us, counting cousins, but I am the last Pasley.”
After family, the first project Pasley undertook was to gather information on the village’s founder, Daniel Porter.
“There wasn’t anything there, and I said that couldn’t be,” Pasley said. “Then I started finding pieces and parts and that led to a story about how the village was formed.
“Because of that, I discovered the naming of Mahomet and how and why it happened.”
Pasley discovered that finding complete information on someone who lived more than 175 years ago is – in many cases – virtually impossible.
“As you try to fill in the blanks, that leads to more questions, and the more questions you get, the more you want to know,” Pasley said, “But it’s fun. If it wasn’t, I don’t know if I would keep doing it.”
As for Porter, Pasley was able to track him as he continued westward after about 16 years in Middletown and wound up near Macomb – in Blandinsville (which now has fewer than 650 residents) – but though he has a confirmed date of death, has been unable to determine a burial site for either Porter – who became a minister – or his wife.
While scouring newspaper archives and countless reels of microfilm, Pasley has gathered a plethora of information.
“I have a few things no one else knows,” he said.
Pasley also feels a personal connection to some of the history.
“My house is 300 feet from State Street and to know that (Abraham) Lincoln traveled right there, well I love that,” Pasley said.
While Pasley has unearthed and confirmed thousands of details and tidbits about Mahomet, on occasion he is able to dispel rumors which have been circulated for so long that they are accepted as fact.
One such myth which he said can be laid to rest is about what was supposedly a popular gathering spot on the village’s east side.
“I spent a zillion hours researching the Nine Gal Tavern,” Pasley said. “I am convinced it was never called Nine Gal Tavern.
“It was called the Ohio House. There’s only one person – Thomas Davidson – that it’s attributed to and you can’t find it mentioned anywhere else.
“I think it was a fancy of his imagination and then it got picked up and that’s all it took.”
The location of the establishment known more accurately as the Ohio House is on East Oak Street, slightly west of where First School is currently located.
Pasley exhausted the possibilities in trying to confirm what he now considers a tall tale. He searched Lincoln’s papers as well.
“He kept fairly good records,” Pasley said, “and there is no record of Nine Gal.
“There’s a record of him stopping west of town at Rea’s Tavern.”
Among the topics to be addressed in Pasley’s soon-to-be-released book are listings of village doctors, the history of houses along Division Street when it was referred to as Silk Stocking Row and blacksmiths.
“Several of the houses, I have now and then pictures,” he said, “what it looked like in 1900 and what it looks like now.”
With few exceptions, Pasley’s books focus on the village in years prior to his birth.
“I try to stay as far back (in time) as I can,” Pasley said, “and not venture past 1950.
“I’m assuming people know a little more about the more recent history. There’s not as much mystery.”
Few people were aware that in 1838 there was an oyster bar in town.
“It was one of our first businesses,” Pasley said.
Or that a former state senator is buried at Middletown Cemetery.
“Robert Brown was raised here,” Pasley said, “and was a Captain in the Civil War. He became a senator in Missouri.”
The first newspaper in the village hit the streets in 1878 and was known as the Mahomet Magnet, but was soon changed to the Sucker State, according to Pasley’s research. That community paper known as The Sucker State lasted nearly a century, until 1974.
Pasley has learned to view his hometown in a different perspective than he had as a child.
“I never thought of our little town being historical for any reason,” he said.
He learned that belief was inaccurate.
“We’ve shown up in national newspapers for things that happened here,” Pasley said.
A fire in 1876 that destroyed much of Main Street made headlines across the country, and a local druggist (Andrew A. Llewellyn) was eventually charged with arson and fraud, but the case was dismissed.
Pasley’s books have not only provided historical data, but also anecdotal stories.
In the upcoming Volume IV of Diggin’ Up Bones, Pasley said, “there’s a little less storytelling and more factual and detailed accounts.”
He hasn’t grown tired of his venture.
“At times it has gotten tedious until I find a mystery I want to solve,” he said. “The search for that unknown is what motivates me, finding out the where, how and who.”
Pasley’s first book in his Diggin’ Up Bones series was printed in 2014. At times, he has quoted the works of another long-time Mahomet resident, Isabelle Purnell, who published a 464-page book called “The Unofficial History of Mahomet, Illinois,” in 2000.
“It’s unbelievable what she found out without the aid of a computer system,” Pasley said. “She had to dig it up.
“I can’t imagine the hours she spent on it. I owe a lot to her.”
Not all of Pasley’s research will show up in one of his books.
He spent parts of four years chronicling Mahomet’s oldest cemetery (Bryant Cemetery, which dates back to 1832) and recently donated his 200-plus-page findings to the Township for safekeeping. He had records on about 230 burials at the site.
Two other Mahomet cemeteries (Middletown and Riverside) were started between the late 1840s and early 1850s. Burials are still taking place at Riverside.
A little family project has been transformed into a massive community effort.
“I found interesting stories on my mom’s side and I was hooked,” Pasley said. “I got into it big-time.”
