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Washington
Park has four acres right in the heart of Quincy's district
located on 5th Street between Maine and Hampshire Streets. It
boasts of being the first park in the city of Quincy and a place
of many historical events throughout the years, one of which
was one of the famous Lincoln Douglas Debate of 1858. Picnic
benches are available to relax on after you take a leisurely
stroll through the park. You will find a fountain in the center
of the park that makes for a beautiful scene, along with a band
stand. On Tuesdays and Saturdays, during the summer months,
the park is active with the Farmers Market. People from the
area come to sell their produce and wares. The first weekend
in May you'll find Washington Park buzzing with Dogwood activities.
The park serves as the central point of activities during the
last weekend of May for the Gus Macker 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament.
Throughout the summer hundreds of music lovers gather for Blues
in the District.
Lincoln-Douglas Debate Monument in Washington Park
Photo by
Mike Provine
 The
first name given to the park or square on April 30, 1825, was
John's Square, or John's Prairie, to complete the name of President
John Quincy Adams. Block 12 was reserved for a public square
by the commissioners, and in the plat of the original Quincy
was known as Public Square. Other early squares or public parks
were Jefferson Square, first known as Vermont Square, and Franklin
Square, first known as Market Square. In
late 1840 the city council, angered because of the habit of
farmers stopping off in the park with their cattle on the way
to Pomeroy's slaughter house at Third and Hampshire, decided
to erect a fence around the square. The council advertised for
350 mulberry posts and clear black walnut and pine planks for
fencing to be delivered by the first week of January, 1841.
This fence and various successors or iron and stone, would remain
until 1885 and would be a sources of irritation and contention
between the city and county residents.
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Click
for large version
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This
opposition was so strong that in 1841 when John Wood,
at his own expense, transplanted to the center of the
square, a large elm tree a foot in diameter, vandals destroyed
it at once. The city council, looking for a symbol for
a city seal, ordered the elm tree and flag staff on the
square adopted as the seal of the city, and this device,
showing John Wood standing alongside a dead tree, was
used as the Quincy Seal for some time.
The
square was the scene of many a large gathering including
the sixth
Lincoln-Douglas debate on October 13, 1858 when the
Whig reported some 20,000 persons were in the area. Abraham
Lincoln debated Steven A. Douglas at seven sites across
the state for an Illinois seat in the United States Senate.
Click
here for a photographic tour of the debate sites.
Click
here for a transcipt of the debate.
In
1840 an attempt was made to use the public square for
the market building, and later the site of the county
court house. During the winter of 1839-40 a number of
Mormons, on their way to Missouri to Commerce or Nauvoo,
Illinois, pitched their tents in the square.
Governor
Yates spoke in Washinton Park on February 23, 1864, to
some four or five thousand, and when U.S. President Grant
died, a memorial service was held in the park with many
attending.
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The
Western Illinois Sanitary Fair with large temporary buildings,
was held in the square for six days starting October 11, 1864,
with $30,000 raised to aid needy soldier families. After the
buildings were razed the Whig reported that the earthworks protecting
the buildings had been removed although this was bad for "climbing
cows". The previous year the Whig had told of the city
fathers letting down the bars for the Fourth of July celebration
to accommodate the public and the next day a small herd of cows
was pastured there.
With
the close of the Civil War the first of many improvements was
made, with gravel walks, and a large evergreen planted in the
center, surrounded by a circular walk from which radiated other
walks. The diagonal walks actually came about from citizens
driving horse through the square to avoid ravines that intersected
the area west of there. The ravines in downtown Quincy were
so bad that one man had a house with three stories underground
level on the south side of Maine Street between Sixths and Seventh
near the home of Mayor Thomas Redmond.
Turnstiles
at the corners and a hitching rack surrounded the square for
many years. There was a public well on the northwest corner
of the park and in more recent years a public drinking fountain
with tin cups in the northeast corner.
The
first known band concert in the square was played by the Louis
Kuehn band on July 4, 1874 and the program included the Washington
Park March by Kuehn. A wooden pavilion or pagoda was erected
two years earlier and the present stand was put up in 1918.
On
July 10, 1880, the Quincy Herald reported a movement for Saturday
afternoon band concerts for ladies and children with men barred
from the park.
The
fountain and brick sidewalks were added in 1875 and in 1881
six electric lights were installed, replaces by ornamental electrolier
types in 1911. The statue of Governor John Wood by Cornelios
G. Volk was dedicated in the park on July 4, 1883. Volk, a friend
of Stephen A. Douglas, also did the Soldier's Monument in Woodland
Cemetery.
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History transcribed from Historical Sketches of Quincy Illinois,
by Carl Landrum
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