“...At that time [discussing location for county seat] the only post office in this part of the county, known as VanBuren, was kept on the adjoining farm of Mathias Rhineheart....”320, pg 114

“...Of those known as old settlers who have since removed or died, I knew and can name many: James and Asa Gere, Archa Campbell, Edward Ater, M. P. Snelling, Robert Logan, T. R. Webber, James Porter, J. W. Jaquith, Penrose Stidham, Jacob Smith, Mathew Busey, Bartlett Elrodd, Joshua Taylor, John Shepherd, D. O. Brumley, T. L. Truman, James T. Roe, John Gilliland, John, Robert, Benjamin, Jseph, Samuel, and Joseph F. Brownfield, Jacob Heater, James and Waitman T. Somers, Lewis Adkins, Mathias and Martin Rhineheart, James C. Young, William Adams, James Dean, John Cantner, Dr. Winston Somers, A. G. Carle, J. D. Wilson, Stephen Boyd, Elisha Harkness, Wilson Lewis, Asahel Bruer, C. M. Vanderveer, William and Z. E. Gill, John Crabb, James Myers, James Clements, John Shepherd, John Campbell and Benjamin Childers.”320, pg 115

Mathias Rinehart's tax assessment, 1833:

4 horses-$200
8 cattle-$94
1 clock-$25
TOTAL-$319 (tax: $15.95)

The Rinehart Cemetery was originally located approximately 1/8 mile west of the corner of High Cross Road and Perkins Road

Mathias Reinhart had three brothers, and must have settled in either Chester Co, PA or MD. His son, Martin Reinhart was born in PA. His grand-daughter, Irene Rinehart, of Tulsa, OK loaned me pictures of him and two of his brothers, also of him and his wife Irene Sena Corray Reinhart.389

Grandpa Hill said that Matthias Rinehart was the first Postmaster in Champaign County, and his son, Martin Rinehart, was the first treasurer of all the schools in the county.

You will notice that Rinehart is in some places spelled Reinhart. In every case this is just the way Martin Reinhart spelled it in his notebook or on existing postal cards, one of which is copied here:

(Editor’s Note: Our profiles of early Champaign County residents concludes today with the story of Matthias Rinehart, the first postmaster in what is now Champaign County. The author’s daughter is a great-great-great-granddaughter of Rinehart.)

Some of his descendants speak of him as “The Old Dutchman.” Recent research indicates, however, that his paternal ancestry was Swiss—a discovery that was pleasing to me.

Matthias Rinehart was the first postmaster in what is now Champaign County. The post office, called Van Buren, was in his home in the west half of the southwest quarter of section 26 in Somer Township. He has been recognized as the first settler in that township.

Rinehart came to the Big Grove northeast of Urbana from Ross County, Ohio, in 1828 or 1829. He and his son-in-law, Walter Rhoades, filed on the tract of land north of the grove, in February 1830.

The post office was established shortly after that. The Big Grove settlement was then in Vermilion County, and when Champaign County was formed in 1833, Van Buren was the only post office in the new county.

With the founding of Urbana as the county seat, Van Buren apparently didn’t last long as a post office or a place name. The Rinehart home was about four miles northeast of present Urbana. The site in the southwest corner of a field a short distance south of the network of poles which form a radio range and about two miles north of Brownfield Woods on the road which runs on the east side of the woods.

Matthias Rinehart was born about 1782 in Chester County, Pa. It is believed that he was married three times. His first wife was Phoebe March, born in 1800 in Virginia. The name of his second wife is unknown. His third wife was Elizabeth March, possibly a relative of the first one or a relative by marriage.

Borrowed Name
The family moved from Pennsylvania to Ross County, Ohio, and then to the Big Grove. Other families came to Champaign County fairly early in its settlement from Ross County, although more came from Champaign County, Ohio. Our county was named for that county, and Urbana, Ill., for the Ohio county’s seat.

Matthias Rinehart was the father of 11 children. One of them, Martin, was the subject of one of the sketches of pioneers which appeared recently in The Courier.

I can add a note to that piece from “Pioneers of Champaign County,” published in 1886. One of his daughters, Elizabeth Seraphine Jackson Hill, told her husband, Henry Hill, in 1891, “Hank, Pa’s dead.” A short time later the news was received of Martin’s death “at the very time of her presentment.”

A grandson of Martin remembered him “A toney old guy” who “always wore a black broadcloth suit, white stiff bosom shirt and cravat.” The daughter, Elizabeth, who was remembered as “a tiny black-eyed little old lady,” told absorbing stores about her girlhood in the Big Grove. Some of them, which I have on paper, would be worth retelling.

Journal excerpts
I have excerpts from a journal kept by Martin Rinehart in the early 1860s when he lived near Monroe, Wis.

The Fort Clark Road ran past the Matthias Rinehart farm. In 1831 the Illinois General Assembly passed an act “to locate and lay out a road from Pekin in Tazewell County to Vermilion County.” That was part of the Fort Clark Road, and Matthias was appointed one of the commissioners in the act.

He also was one of three candidates for election as the first state representative from Champaign County in 1836. Only one was to be elected from the new county. The other candidates were William B. Webber and Dr. James Lyons.

Rinehart and Webber were Democrats, while Dr. Lyons was a Whig. Many of the settlers in the Big Grove were Democrats who came from Kentucky.

Like Rinehart, Webber was a prominent early settler. Dr. Lyons was a well liked physician who had treated many victims of an outbreak of cholera, apparently with considerable success. The Democratic vote in the election was divided between Rinehart and Webber and Dr. Lyons was elected.

Rinehart died about March 13, 1864. He is buried in the old Rinehart family cemetery, on land now owned by Mr. and Mrs. C. Gleason Butzow near their home, The Maples, formerly the John Appleman home. The cemetery, where stones were broken off long ago, and graves cannot be distinguished, is pictured in a historical calendar published in 1908.

Family tree
It was described as the burial place of “100 pioneers.”

Ethel V. Taylor of Wichita, Kan., an ardent and productive genealogist, whose late husband, James H. Taylor, was a great-great-grandson of Matthias, has made a family tree containing the names of more than 250 descendants of the first postmaster.

There are photographs of Matthias and Martin Rinehart and Martin’s daughter, Elizabeth Seraphine. I am fortunate enough to have several of the copies which have water color markings to distinguish the family’s branches.

Mrs. Taylor also has compiled a 31-page list of single-space names of descendants with their dates and other information. Looking at it, you get the impression that several thousand persons can call Matthias an ancestor. Many of them still live in this area, and others are scattered across the country.

Some of the surnames of the descendants are: Hill, Marriott, Gilliland, Taylor, Stevens, Kennedy, Miller, Fulkerson, Nyman, Brownfield and Rhoades.

Some of them still farm land on which their ancestors settled in the 1830s or following years. One of those is George L. Stevens, who farms about two miles east of Urbana. A sixth generation descendant of Matthias, he looks like “the old Dutchman,” or as I would amend, “the old Switzer.”

Thinking about one early settler having so many descendants, you ponder how the pioneers have passed on much that is unseen but still helps shape the lives of countless persons living today. There were many others who cut the tall prairie grass and broke the tough sod in Champaign County and the rest of East Central Illinois and whose heritage has come down the generations as did Matthias Rinehart’s.

That gives me much to think about that I consider an appropriate part of each person’s private observance of the Bicentennial.

My pleasure on learning from Ethel Taylor that she has pretty well proved Matthias’ Swiss ancestry stems from the fact that my own paternal ancestry has been traced to the ninth century in Switzerland. None of the credit for that is mine, but Ethel deserves much credit for the digging she is still doing at the age of 82.

Her discovery means to me that my daughter, Conna, has Swiss ancestry on both sides of her family. Conna is a great-great-great-granddaughter of Matthias Rinehart. Her late mother, the former Helen Conaway, was a great-great-granddaughter.

My information on the Rineharts came chiefly from the fruits of Mrs. Taylor’s research over the years. Helen , my late first wife, had traced her Rinehart ancestry back to Matthias, and her genealogical work unlocked a trove after her death.

Other material in this story came from Clayton Daugherty of Champaign, an authority on local history, who always is on the lookout for facts he thinks I might want (he saves me a lot of hunting) and the county histories written by Joseph O. Cunningham and J. R. Stewart.

George Stevens actually made the story possible by getting me in touch with Ethel Taylor. Old Matthias’ likeness couldn’t have shown up in a more amiabe descendant.412