Clayville, Illinois

Clayville is a former roadside hamlet, inhabited from 1824 into the 1850s, located in Cartwright Township near Pleasant Plains, Illinois, United States.

The settlement was never large but was firmly centered on a once-thriving tavern on the main road between the state capital of Springfield and the Illinois River port of Beardstown.

Illinois law required taverns to provide these services as condition of receiving a license to serve alcohol by the drink.

The successful inn drew other settlers to "Clayville", which tavernkeeper Broadwell had named after a political hero, presidential candidate and Whig Party leader Henry Clay.

The stagecoach road was eventually paved for motor vehicle traffic in the early 1900s, becoming Illinois Route 125, but this did not restore the failed tavern to life.

The tavern's jobs had disappeared and the center of local settlement in the township became the nearby rural town of Pleasant Plains.