Its name comes from General William Woodford, an officer of the American Revolutionary War who served at the brutal military encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

The matter was solved in 1778 when Virginia amalgamated lands in the region into a massive county called Illinois, borrowing the name of a native people.

The first settlers encountered a few Indians ... and in 1832 were involved to some extent in the Black Hawk War, but the active operations were further north than Woodford County.

Windows were covered with oiled papers; doors and floors were constructed of rough boards split from trees and held together with wooden pegs.

Construction of the cabins was primitive, with the floor plan generally involving a single room heated with a fireplace.

A common staple of pioneer life was waffles, baked from batter in a folding iron mold three or four feet long.

Prior to 1831 all preparation of wool had to be done by hand at home, with the raw fiber "carded" between pairs of thin, metal spiked boards about 4 inches wide and a foot long.

[13] A sexual division of labor was practiced, with women engaged in home manufactures and food preparation while men were occupied with agriculture, hunting, and construction.

Since a great percentage of the land of Woodford County was tillable, farming was the principal occupation of the early settlers.

"It was heavy and dangerous work, and the raising of a large barn required the united energies of a whole community," one settler recalled.

One branch of the so-called Underground Railroad along which escaped slaves furtively avoided their potential captors ran directly through Woodford County.

Wanted posters offering rewards of $50, $100, and sometimes more for specific runaway slaves were placed by slaveowners, attracting bounty hunters.

There was such a strong sentiment against the [slave] traffic that conductors and stations were found in sufficient number to carry on the work successfully.

[17]Church deacons named Mr. Dutton and Parker Morse were credited by Moore as leaders of the local anti-slavery effort.

Despite the fact that these and other active conductors in the Underground Railroad were known to the community, popular sentiment against slavery was such that there was "very little molestation for a long time" in Woodford County.

Only one instance of an arrest of a Woodford County conductor is recorded by Roy Moore in his 1910 history, and that ultimately resulted in the quashing of the indictment.

[21] Competition for the honor (and related business opportunities) was fierce leading up to the June 1843 decision of the county commissioners to tap Metamora (then known as Hanover) as the new seat.

[25] Other claimants arose attempting to wrest the county seat from Metamora, including Eureka, El Paso, and Roanoke.

A dubious recount in a third election held in November 1873 again overturned an apparent result to move the Woodford County seat to Roanoke.

[26] An impressive new courthouse building was quickly constructed in Eureka, cementing that town's status as legal and governmental center of Woodford County.

[28] Woodford County's volunteers – and later on conscripts – were dispersed among a wide range of units, making a universal summary of their wartime experience impossible.

This unit also participated in the last phase of the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg in Warren County, Mississippi, a protracted battle which led to the surrender of over 29,000 Confederate troops.

After the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863, the unit spent the duration guarding railroad lines, being discharged in October of that year.

Disaster struck in April 1864 near Alexandria, Louisiana, when the unit was isolated and crushed in a cavalry support operation at the Battle of Sabine Cross-roads.

[31] Woodford County men served in numbers in Company A, 86th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, suffering losses in Kentucky at the Battle of Perryville in October 1862, and participating in Sherman's March to the Sea.

[32][33] A leading community institution of Woodford County for more than 150 years is Eureka College, a liberal arts school affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Fisher was employed to teach school for ten months, with a number of local worthies, including many active in the Church of Christ, guaranteeing payment of his salary.

Owing to the presence of a charismatic local religious leader, the Church of Christ showed great growth during this period, adding 100 adherents in 1848, with other supporters in neighboring counties.

Demand grew for transformation of the school into a seminary with room and board for students from other localities, with instructional costs to be covered through collection of tuition.

In September 1849, the school was rechristened Walnut Grove Seminary and relaunched with A.S. Fisher as principal, assisted by a young woman "of superior ability and tact as a teacher."