(1) A Glimpse of the Comer Farm in 1850s Johnson County Illinois

Now, if you had journeyed down to Johnson County, Illinois, just after the middle of the century, you might have heard tell of the Comer place. Old man Moses Epps Comer (VA 1814– IL 1871) had brought his family up from Tennessee, following that call for good, fertile soil. And fertile it surely was.

The family had settled in District No. 2, amongst the neighbors like the Davisons and the Cummings. This county was a right handsome spot, with its rolling hills and rich earth, a real farmer's dream. Most folk you’d meet there were simple, honest settlers, having come from Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Carolinas, all looking to make a life on the land. By that year of 1850, the whole county held near about 4,500 souls, all of them pulling together.

The farm was the main enterprise, of course. Folks here lived by the plow and the livestock, sending their crops and cattle up to Vienna, the county seat, or loading them onto flatboats down on the mighty Ohio River—that was the highway for all the trade in those days.

Lee Roy Comer, a brown haired boy at just six years old, understood his world not by years but by seasons. The world was the patch of land his family farmed, a pocket carved out of the vast, wooded landscape of Johnson County. In 1850, this southern Illinois land, affectionately called "Egypt" by its residents, was a place of hard work and quiet rhythms. Lee Roy’s days were marked by the sun on his face, the feel of rich, dark earth between his fingers, and the constant sounds of the farm: the clatter of a chicken, the deep grunting of the pigs that roamed the nearby woods, and the rhythmic creak of the family's log house. Life was simple and focused on survival, with the main crops of corn, wheat, and potatoes serving as both food for the family and goods to trade.

The Comer family’s existence was not entirely isolated, though the nearest town, Vienna, felt like a journey to a different world. It was a rare treat, maybe once a month, when Lee Roy would get to go with his father, pulled along in a simple oxcart over a rough, dirt path. The trip was a chance to see new faces and hear the news. The town itself was a hub of activity with a general store that smelled of salt pork and coffee, a blacksmith's shop ringing with the sound of hammer on steel, and a few other simple dwellings. It was in Vienna that his family would trade their surplus of corn and hogs for essential goods they couldn't make themselves, like sugar, salt, and new tools for the farm.

As the year turned toward autumn, the world felt a little bigger. The federal census was being taken, with a government man riding out to each homestead to ask about the family. For Lee Roy, this was a strange and exciting event, a moment when their small world on the farm was counted and recorded as a part of something larger. He couldn't have known that this moment would be a key to the future, a marker that would one day help his descendants piece together the story of their family. For now, he just knew that he was a small boy in a big forest, and he had a job to do: helping his family clear more ground so they could plant more corn for the coming years. His family's future, and the future of Johnson County itself, was in the soil beneath his feet.

Young Lee Roy and the Family Roster

On the Comer farm in that summer of 1850, the census-taker found a busy house. The head of it was Moses, but we’re looking for his young boy, Lee Roy.

Little Lee Roy was just a lad of six years old then, a boy born in Tennessee but growing up with the deep roots of Illinois dirt between his toes. He was seven years old, give or take, when they took the tally.

He was the fourth son, mind you, with three older brothers to look up to and learn from:

There was Willis N, the eldest, already a big boy of thirteen.

Next came John F, at the age of ten.

And William A, who was a sturdy eight years old.

Lee Roy had his hands full with the older boys, but he also had two little sisters to watch over, too. There was Mary A, a sweet little thing of five, and the youngest, Nancy Panthea, who was just a toddler of three.

The Promise of Progress

Their family's story was part of a larger one. The population of Johnson County had swelled, from barely 1,600 people to over 4,000 in just two decades, all seeking a new life on the rolling hills. Most came from Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Carolinas, bringing with them a shared Southern way of life and a strong Democratic leaning. Lee was too young to understand the political tensions that ran just beneath the surface—the deep-seated hostility toward free Black people and the quiet presence of pro-slavery sentiments, even in a free state.

The Comers, like all the rest, worked hard, putting in the sweat to make their farm prosper. But the air was thick with talk of progress, too. As the decade wore on, folks heard the whistle of the train coming closer. The Illinois Central Railroad was pushing through in the late 1850s, and every soul knew that iron horse would bring new buyers, new goods, and a whole heap of opportunity right to their doorstep.

So, in the year 1850, young Lee Roy was but a six-year-old child, a son of a farmer, living a hard but hopeful life, ready to grow up with a family and a county that was rooted, settled, and looking forward to the great changes the future was sure to bring.