Burton Township, McHenry County, Illinois

Burton Township is the smallest in area in McHenry County, Illinois. As of the 2010 census, its population was 5,003 and it contained 1,758 housing units.[2]

Burton Township
Township
Location in McHenry County
CountryUnited States
StateIllinois
CountyMcHenry
EstablishedNovember 6, 1849
Area
 • Total10.87 sq mi (28.2 km2)
 • Land10.79 sq mi (27.9 km2)
 • Water0.08 sq mi (0.2 km2)  0.74%
Population
 (2010)
 • Estimate 
(2016)[1]
4,896
 • Density463.5/sq mi (179.0/km2)
Time zoneUTC-6 (CST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC-5 (CDT)
FIPS code17-111-10032
Websitehttp://www.burtontwp.com/

Burton Township was first settled by Englishmen in 1836, and the name English Prairie was given it. Later settlers called the township Benton, but upon it being learned that there was already a post office and township of Benton in Illinois, the name was changed to Burton on December 28, 1850. The reason Burton Township is so uncommonly small is because its first residents decided to break away from Richmond Township to its west. The reason for this was a "Hatfields vs. McCoys" type of feud in the 1840s over alleged township mismanagement and higher taxes in Richmond.

The Burton settlers opted out and even tried to have adjoining Lake County absorb them into its eastern neighbor, Antioch Township, but Antioch Township had just consolidated Cooper Township into itself, and since Burton Township was situated in another county, a special law needed to be passed in Springfield to affect that change. [Curiously, Abraham Lincoln successfully represented the disgruntled residents of what would become Niantic Township Niantic Township, Macon County, Illinois to join downstate Macon County to escape the higher taxation of Shelby and Sangamon Counties in the late 1830s. Lincoln's fee was set at 7 and 1/2 percent of each landholder's tax saving for the first three years .... a fee gratefully paid by nearly all of the township's 'secessionists.' This episode was used by various Southern orators and newspapers, and their Northern sympathizers, to show Lincoln's inconsistency and hypocrisy in demanding that the Southern States could not secede from the Union after Fort Sumter, when he himself had argued that the Niantic settlers could "pick up and leave the rottenness of Shelby and Sangamon Counties as they saw fit, a God-given right of self-determination." ]

Geography

According to the 2010 census, the township has a total area of 10.87 square miles (28.2 km2), of which 10.79 square miles (27.9 km2) (or 99.26%) is land and 0.08 square miles (0.21 km2) (or 0.74%) is water.[2]

Demographics
Historical population
CensusPop.%±
2016 (est.)4,896[1]
U.S. Decennial Census[3]

References
  1. "Population and Housing Unit Estimates". Retrieved June 9, 2017.
  2. "Population, Housing Units, Area, and Density: 2010 - County -- County Subdivision and Place -- 2010 Census Summary File 1". United States Census. Archived from the original on 2020-02-12. Retrieved 2013-05-28.
  3. "Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov. Retrieved June 4, 2016.


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