Seneca History

Seneca was first settled by Jeremiah Crotty, an entrepreneur and contractor who helped build the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Crotty built the first residence in 1850 and established the town in 1854 with a post office in his name. Residents retained the name until 1865, when they incorporated the town with the name of Seneca—probably a nod to mid-nineteenth century interest in classicism.

Village growth was not without its disasters. Seneca’s first bridge across the Illinois River, built in 1866, eventually collapsed and was replaced in 1877 by a “fine Iron Bridge.” A fire consumed much of the village in 1879, eight years after the great Chicago fire; yet in 1886, Seneca had grown to a population of almost 1,500.

After a period of prosperity between 1870 and 1890, however, Seneca’s population dwindled to fewer than 1,000. The busy canal had lost its traffic to the railroads; the pattern was repeated in the 1920s when Highway 6 put an end to the electric interurban railroad. Two coal mines bolstered Seneca’s economy in the first two decades of the 20th century, but until World War II, the village was typical of small rural Midwestern towns.

The wartime need for new shipyard facilities coincided with some unique geological characteristics at Seneca’s location on the Illinois River, characteristics favorable for building what would become known as the “shipyard on the prairie.” So, in 1942, the new Seneca shipyard launched (with the traditional bottle of champagne) its first LST, one of the Landing Ship Tanks (LST) that would carry troops into battle. The LSTs left Seneca, sailed down the Illinois to the Mississippi, and then entered the Gulf of Mexico. The ships took troops and supplies to Iwo Jima, Dutch New Guinea, southern Italy, and the Normandy coast. The shipyard built 157 LSTs, launching the last one in June 1945. At the shipyard’s peak, 11,000 people worked there, living in Seneca and nearby towns in temporary housing. For their dedication and skill, workers at the Seneca shipyard helped the shipyard earn five Army-Navy “E” awards.

Seneca took in stride the loss of the shipyard. Businesses rebounded after a brief slump, and in the long term, the village profited from improved infrastructure and its brief contact with a wider world of commerce and cultures. Today, the village is home to a little over 2,000 persons, more than 50 business establishments, a river resort, and, in anachronistic contrast to high-yield farmland from village to horizon, a nuclear power plant. Median household income is approximately $10,000 above the national. Seneca maintains a grade and high school and a “circuit breaker” school for special needs students. The village has one Catholic and four Protestant churches. Ethnic makeup of residents still reflects central Illinois history: 22 percent are of German ancestry; 19 percent are Irish, and nine percent are Norwegian.

Yet, no small town is truly “typical.” In Seneca’s history as part of seventeenth-century Illinois River exploration, a tragic murder took place. The Rev. Gabriel De La Ribourde, an elderly Franciscan chaplain, was clubbed to death at his prayers on the river bank by Kickapoo Indians while Henri Tonti and his fellow explorers repaired a canoe. Today a marker at Seneca’s St. Patrick’s Church commemorates Illinois’ first (perhaps only) religious martyr.