Historical Court Records
The McHenry County Circuit Clerk holds records dating back to the 1850’s. Some of these records include immigration and naturalization records prior to 1929, when the County Courts stopped granting naturalizations and the task was given entirely to the Federal Courts.
The original immigration and naturalization documents, and some other older court records from the 1800’s, are house at the Illinois Regional Archives Depository at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb (IRAD). The Local Government Records collection is part of the Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD) system administered by the Illinois State Archives. The University libraries at NIU serves as one of seven regional depositories throughout Illinois involved in preserving local public records and making them available to researchers. These records are older documents used by historians, genealogists, and local government officials.
Types of records available vary from county to county and may include: birth, marriage, death, naturalization, probate and deed records and some can be found online through the Illinois State Archives website. IRAD will also accept search requests by mail at Government Publications/IRAD, Founders Memorial Library Room 245B, Northern IL University, DeKalb, IL 60115.
Abraham Lincoln in McHenry County
In 2006, as part of an ongoing historical preservation initiative to catalog all cases handled by Abraham Lincoln as an attorney in Illinois, it was discovered that Abraham Lincoln had handled the appeal on a case originating in McHenry County.
It was an 1846 case where Eli Henderson, one of the earliest settlers of Algonquin, was sued by two of his business partners. The trial took place at the McHenry County Courthouse on the Woodstock Square, and Henderson ultimately lost the case at the county level.
Henderson decided to appeal the decision directly to the Illinois Supreme Court. To handle the high-profile appearance, he hired a rising attorney from Springfield, Abraham Lincoln, who had just been elected to the U. S. Congress a few months prior.
Despite Lincoln’s growing legal reputation and efforts, he was ultimately unsuccessful in convincing the IL Supreme Court to overturn McHenry County’s original ruling.