JACKSONVILLE, one of the oldest and most beautiful cities of Illinois, U.S.A., on Mauvaiseterre creek, 9om. N. of Saint Louis ; the county seat of Morgan county. It is on Federal high way 36, and is served by the Burlington, the Chicago and Alton, the Jacksonville and Havana, and the Wabash railways. The population was 15,713 in 1920 (86% native white), and was by the Federal census of 1930. The distinctive manufactures are Ferris wheels and steel bridges. There are also railroad shops, woollen and planing mills and other factories. The aggregate output in 1925 was valued at $7,039,464. Jacksonville is the seat of Illinois college (Presbyterian), founded in 1829 through the efforts of the Rev. John Millot Ellis (1793-1855), of the American
Home Missionary Society, and of the "Yale Band," seven young graduates of Yale who were devoting themselves to promoting higher education in the growing West ; the Illinois Women's col lege (Methodist Episcopal) chartered in 1847; a State hospital for the insane, opened in 1851; the State school for the deaf (established in 1839, opened the first charitable institution of the State; and the State school for the blind (1849). Jackson ville was laid out as the county seat in 1825, and named after Andrew Jackson. It was chartered as a city in 1867.