 The following article was originally published in the Egyptian Key, Volume 1, Number 1, April 1943. The magazine was published bi-monthly in Carbondale by Will Griffith in the 1940's. JCHS is very fortunate to have a number of issues of this now rare publication. Many of the articles for the magazine were written by Barbara Burr Hubbs, an astute historian and long-time member of JCHS. The article was reprinted in the March 1999 issue of the Jackson County Historical Society's newletter The Jacksonian Ventilator.
“COME unto me; and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land." Joseph's promise to his brothers has been fulfilled countless times for those who come into Southern Illinois. No documentary proof can be cited of a christening ceremony but from usage numerous explanations have arisen. Traditions have flowered until the name of Egypt in Illinois is one spoken proudly by her sons and daughters, and admiringly by her friends. The first similitude is the migration of the Kaskaskia Indians from their homes on the Illinois River to the east bank of the Mississippi River near a river to which they gave their name. The Jesuit missionaries sought to remove their converts from the depredations of the Iroquois and the sure starvation that follows constant defensive war. The Indians and French found their new home to be a long valley made exceedingly fertile by periodic overflow of a river comparable to the Nile. The cultivation of wheat, introduced to the Indians by the Jesuit fathers, was immediately successful. Soon this narrow strip of the great Illinois country was shipping quantities of grain and flour down the river to New Orleans. Thus a granary for France in the new world was established, even as Egypt had served the nations of the ancient world. The Indian mission was moved south in the autumn of 1700. A century later Americans of English descent began to filter into the French villages and the river valley became known as the American Bottom. Some of these Americans penetrated the wilderness now Madison County and named their settlement Goshen. As the brothers of Joseph said to the Pharoah: "The famine is sore in the land of Canaan; now therefore let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen." Goshen settlement became Edwardsville. In 1808, one of the first wagon roads in the state was cut southeast to the saltworks at Equality. Over this Goshen Road rolled the tides of immigration as they crossed the Ohio River. The name of the road became identified with the country it traversed, for many settlers found homes to their liking long before they reached the road's end at Edwardsville. Then in 1818 John Comegys of Baltimore and certain residents of Kaskaskia organized a bank and land company. A great tract on the delta between the mouth of the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers was purchased for development. The commercial metropolis they visioned at this intersection of the two great natural highways of the continent was named Cairo. Thus the similarity to ancient Egypt spread south as well as north. The winter of the deep snow [1830-31] brought another similitude to add to the story. "The famine was over all the face of the earth. . . . And all countries came into Egypt for to buy corn; because the famine was so sore in all lands." Snow drifts in which many a man and horse were lost covered all central and northern Illinois. Farmers who had scarcely become settled in their new homes were forced to feed their animals until late spring. Snow covered all vegetation that might have furnished pasturage, and precious seed corn was fed sparingly to keep the stock alive. Not until June could a new crop be planted. Then a killing frost early in September destroyed all hope of a harvest. But in Southern Illinois, where settlements were older and the climate more temperate, corn was plentiful. Caravans of eight and ten wagons formed, to go south and buy bread stuff, grain for the cattle, and seed for the next crop. These pioneers were familiar with their Bibles, and a common answer to a greeting on the road became, "We are the sons of Jacob, going into Egypt to buy corn.” Southern Illinois became known as the granary of the State. The name Egypt was accepted proudly. Other Egyptian names were written on the map of Southern Illinois. The name of Thebes, an early capital of ancient Egypt, was given the village that served as seat of Alexander County until 1863. There is a hamlet and township named Delta in the same county. When towns were springing up along the newly built Illinois Central Railroad, one in Union County was named Dongola. There is a province of that name in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Karnak, site of the great temple on the Nile, lent its name to a village built for the workmen of a lumber company in Pulaski County. Carmi, center and seat of White County, bears the name of one of the very sons of Jacob who joined the migration to ancient Egypt.
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