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The Village History
In
1808, the Goshen Road trail was built as a wagon road from the Goshen
settlement to the Ohio salt works. The trail crossed the state diagonally
following a route from Peter's Station to the north and west of
Glen Carbon, east to Troy, and then in a southeasterly direction
eventually ending at Shawneetown on the Ohio River. The existing
Goshen Road running from Illinois Route 159 to the intersection
of Route 143 is part of the original road. Click here
to see pictures of the Mayors of Glen Carbon since its incorporation
in 1892.
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In
1799, David Bagley, a Virginia Baptist minister passed through the
Glen Carbon area and determined that
it was a land of such expanse and luxuriant vegetation that he compared
it to the Biblical "Land of Goshen." References to this Land of
Goshen have persisted since that time. In 1801, Colonel Samuel Judy
received a military grant for 100 acres of land near the base of
the bluffs, just north of Judy's Creek and became the first permanent
settler of Madison County. The area became known as the Goshen Settlement,
and while
its boundaries were never clearly outlined, it was centered on the
Judy property at the junction of Judy Creek and present day Route
157. 
citizens
in Madison County (which included present day Sangamon and Macoupin
Counties) with 200 "heads of families" in Goshen Township. Between
1820 and 1830 the township was subdivided into five smaller townships
with Edwardsville Township encompassing approximately one third
of the original area (including Glen Carbon), and the remaining
area divided among Silver Creek, Big Prairie, Six Mile Prairie and
Wood River Townships.