The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
John McKinney was the first permanent, successful settler in Biggsville Township.
He was born in Lincoln County, Kentucky in 1801 and at the age of 19 years left and went to Ohio where he became assistant clerk in the office of his uncle John Riley, clerk of the Supreme Court of that state and also of the Court of Common Pleas.
He afterward studied law under the Hon. John Pope, once senator of that state, representative in Congress and the first territorial governor of Arkansas. Finding the bar crowded with you aspirants and without patrimony, Mr. McKinney turn to farming.
He liked the West so first came on a prospecting tour and in the spring of 1832 emigrated with his wife and two children into then Warren County, Ill.
1882 History of Henderson County