Columnist

    Adding lime to Gin is delicious and will help to prevent scurvy, just ask the “limeys” aboard Royal Navy ships in the late 19th century.
    The Royal Navy battled scurvy until the 1880s when British surgeon Sir Thomas Gimlette had the bright idea to add Vitamin C to the daily rations of gin. A good sailor would surely never miss a gin ration at sea. By adding a bit of lime the sailors were tricked into taking their Vitamin C.
    This medicine turned cocktail became known as the Gimlet and has been around in many forms since it first set sail over a century ago.

    Today we are going back to 1850 and the intrepid men who ventured from Will County to El Dorado, commonly known as the gold fields of California, to search for riches and a better future.
    We know two men from Wilmington, William Goodwin and H. J. Northam, left together in March of 1850. Goodwin was a married man with children, while Northam was a 29-year-old well-to-do bachelor merchant. We don't know if these two were friends, or only had the same goal.  

    I think that there are few other topics these days that are more contentious than that of immigration. And like most other problems of our day, it is not new.
    In 1836 it was the I&M Canal that was the cause of a wave of poor immigrants to flood our County. And like today, they were the victims of discrimination. Those damn dirty Irishmen!
    The I&M Canal was started in 1836 with the goal of linking Lake Michigan to the Illinois river. It ran through thick muddy prairie soil, and hard unyielding limestone.