In 1847 two lots were bought from Isaac Smalley of $15 each, price said to be high for town lots. The dwelling and storehouse now owned by Johnson Jenkins were then built on the lots and soon after the store building was completed. Business was opened in the firm’s name of Enoch & Foster. Uncle Aaron Foster, as he was familiarly called, was one of the early settlers of Mackinaw on a farm near Pleasant Hill.

          In the year 1840 Isaac Smalley started about the first general nursery in McLean County at Pleasant Hill, and sold and delivered fruit trees over the county for several years.

          The first sawmill in Lexington township was built by John Patton in 1836. It was a water mill and stood on the Mackinaw one and a half miles south of Pleasant Hill.

          In 1847 Rant Jenkins moved his horse-power sawmill to Pleasant Hill and sawed lumber for two or three years. Several houses were then built; the shingles to cover them were split out with a froe and shaved with a drawing-knife on a wooden horse called shavinghorse. Enoch & Foster’s store at the time was the only one this side of Bloomington; but a few goods were sold by Dr. A. Goddard on his farm one-half mile west of Lexington.

          In 1848 Dr. Goddard built a store on the east side of the park in Lexington, near the place where E. H. Hyneman’s barn now stands. He bought a stock of new goods, besides moving what he had at the farm and opened a business there this being the first general store started in Lexington. At about the same date there was a house moved from Clarksville to Pleasant Hill and fitted up for a store on the corner of a lost south-east across the street from Enoch & Foster’s store. George Webster bought the building and brought a stock of goods from Paris, Ill., and fired up in business in opposition to Enoch & Foster. It was not long , however, until they thought two stores in the same town was one too many for health and prosperity, so they bought out Webster, goods, peddling wagon and whole outfit, and hired his clerk, Mr. John Lowry, to run the wagon to Cheney’s Grove and sell and deliver goods. There was no store near Cheney’s Grove at that time and the people there were supplied with most of their goods from the Pleasant Hill store for two years. A trip was made with the wagon around the grove every two weeks. Mr. Lowry built up a fine trade there and sold and delivered goods for one year. His general stopping place over night was at Uncle Abe Stansbery’s, his daughter, Miss Stansbury, being a favorite customer, and at the end of the year a lady’s name was changed and a wagon stopped. I then took the wagon and ran it the next year, found some of the most hospitable and friendly people on earth. I sold them lots of goods and had a general nice time.

          From Mackinaw Timber to Cheney’s Grove there was a very dim trail or road to follow and not a house in sight and nothing to break the long, lonely, monotonous trip across a wide, bleak prairie but the scampering wolves and deer together with the squaking wild geese, ducks and cranes as they were scared up from the ponds and sloughs, sometimes in flocks of hundreds or thousands.

          The Pleasant Hill store was now doing a large business with customers coming from Indian Grove, from the head of Mackinaw, Money Creek and from many miles around. Goods were mostly sold on one year’s credit -- sometimes the year was a little long at one end.

          Goods were mostly hauled from Peoria and Pekin. Very often loaded wagons would get stuck in a slough, sometimes two or more in the same slough. I was once stuck in a big slough two miles west of Money Creek, got the horses up and out, and no hitching post being in sight, got on one horse and leading the others two miles found a man with four oxen who came and helped me out of trouble. The wagon was in the middle of a big, wide slough, down to the hubs in mud and water. He hitched "Buck" and "Berry," "tom" and "Jerry" to the wagon, applied the whip and it was soon safely out. Another time I was stuck in Sugar Creek between Bloomington and Normal. In those days teamsters had lots of business in that line.

          Some of Pleasant Hill’s early merchants and business men were Isaac Smalley, Enoch & Foster, George Webster, H. W. Underhill, Claggett & Mahan, G. M. Fox, W. D. Johnson, George Patton, Combs & Soule, Milton Smith, Samuel Paul, Harrison Foster, Joseph Enoch, Jacob Brown, Patton Wilson, Scott Arnold, G. W. Edwards and Jacob Wright, who was blacksmith and died with cholera in 1854. He was working in his shop at night and the next morning was buried at early sunrise.

          Early M. E. ministers were Rev. Maynard, Rev. Pinkard, Rev. Webster, Steven Begg, Wm. Cummings, Wm. Royal, R. N. Morse, Frank Smith, S. B. Smith, R. G. Pearce, Wm. Low, Wm. Calhoun. Presbyterian: Luther Dodd, John Dale, John Eliott, Robert Creswell. U. B. ministers: Andrew Wimsett, John Zook, Rev. Stoddard, and Rev. Shuey. School teachers were J. B. Thompson, Deliliah Denham, Isaac Smalley, Edward Brown, A. J. Flesher, Mrs. Catlett, W. R. Mahan, Miss Virginia Hayden, C. D. Lucus, David Whitmire, Mrs. Ranson, Miss Mary E. Royal, D. G. Turner, Miss Lucy Summer, Jefferson Smith, Augustus Burton, John Dale, Miss Martha Dale, J. W. Phillips, J. W. Johnson, Miss Elenor Johnston, Ira Batterton, W. L. Craig, S. S. Allen. The first board of trustees were Jacob Spawr and Milton Smith. Treasurer, W. R. Mahan, Sr.

          The teachers usually read the rules to be obeyed by the pupils on the morning of the first day of school and often two or more rods were bought in and left standing in the corner of a schoolroom as a warning that the rules must be obeyed. Some teachers were experts in the application of the rod. The early physicians were Doctors Burns, Mahan, Yoman and Waters; all were said to be good doctors and with a liberal supply of calomel and quinine were ready to cure or knock out any case of sickness. The early carpenters were Wm. Mahan, George Hunt, Joseph Patton, Samuel Shurtleff, David Reder, Newton Dening, Nicholas Jeshwin, G. W. Edwards, Joe Cummings. Wm. Mahan was contractor and boss carpenter. It was said give him a hand saw, hatchet and jack plain he could build a fine house.

          McLean County was divided into three districts, each sending a representative called commissioner to transact business as supervisors; Milton Smith, Hiram Buck and A. J. Meriman were the commissioners for twelve years and William Thomas of Bloomington was the county assessor and treasurer for thirteen years before township organization.

          Pleasant Hill had a great boom from 1850 to 1854, and was the business center and general trading point for many miles around. In 1850 Combs & Soule, two Yankees, as they were called, from away down East, built a stream sawmill in Pleasant Hill which was the first of the kind in Lexington township. The Hon. James S. Ewing of Bloomington helped to haul the machinery from Peoria. Soon after the mill was in operation carpenters were all busy building houses in Pleasant Hill. Joseph Patton built the largest cabinet shop or furniture store there was at that time in McLean County; it was two and one half stories high and nearly 100 feet long. Absalom Bills and Newton Dening each erected a wagon and carriage shop, making and selling wagons and buggies. Scott Arnold had a mill, carding wool. George Bradford was busy in his boots and shoe shop pegging away at boots and shoes. Jacob Brown, Patton Wilson and Jacob Wright were all busy in their shops pounding red iron and shoeing horses. Pleasant Hill at that time had a number of all in full blast doing a large business. Isaac Smalley built a new house for seminary purposes, or select school, the one now owned and occupied by Capt. H. Lawrence.

          Isaac Smalley and others tried to get the C. & A. Railroad to run through Pleasant Hill, and it was thought at the time there was a fair prospect of success. Also there was a new county talked of with a clip off McLean County and others, and it was said Pleasant Hill would be near the center with prospect of being a county seat. Anticipations were up and the Pleasant Hill fever ran high. But soon there was a great change. Something was heard in the summer of 1854 -- the iron horse cam whistling and rumbling with its loaded cars of merchandise into Lexington and knocked and scared the life clear out of Pleasant Hill. Business was paralyzed and prostrated, everything for sale; stores were closed out; a large number of houses sold and moved on farms.

          The principal store that a number of Pleasant Hill’s early merchants sold goods in is now doing service as a barn on D. L. Ralston’s farm two and a half miles north of Pleasant Hill; and the two story house built by Harrison Foster for a store and Sons of Temperance hall is a dwelling house on A. V. Pierson’s farm recently purchased from Henry Brown.

          The first passenger train into Lexington came up from Bloomington on July 4, 1854.

          Many of the older citizens of Pleasant Hill have passed away but they have left an influence that still lives. Many of their sons and been called to the ministry and are now occupying places of prominence in the church; while among us are many good citizens who had early training there. A number also answered the call in defense of their country in the Civil War. One hundred and fifty-six young men volunteered from Pleasant hill, about forty of whom were from district number four. Nicholas Jeshwin of Pleasant Hill was one of four in McLean County who received a government medal for distinguished bravery on the battlefield. The Hill once called "Pleasant" is still visible, and Johnson Jenkins is still trying to hold the fort.

Source: Lexington Unit Journal -- April 12, 1906 Article by Joseph Enoch