Shawneetown. Gallatin. City (1814, 1874) nineteen miles east of Harrisburg. Also Shawnee Township. Named from the Shawnee Tribe, the “southern people,” members of which migrated to the area from southern Ohio around 1745. Their stay in Illinois was brief, lasting fewer than twenty years. Their principle village was near the site of Old Shawneetown, established by the U.S. government in 1810 to administer the sale of public land in that part of what was then Indiana Territory. Present Shawneetown is several miles northwest of Old Shawneetown, which was largely abandoned by the 1930s because of repeated flooding from the Ohio River. Shawneetown was the seat of Gallatin County from its formation in 1812 until 1827, when it was moved to Equality. The seat was moved back to Shawneetown in 1848 (Bright, Native American Placenames; Miller, “Building Towns,” 31; Vogel, Indian Place Names in Illinois). Post office established April 1, 1811.

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From Place Names of Illinois by Edward Callary