Clayville, Illinois

Clayville is a former roadside hamlet, inhabited from 1824 into the 1850s, located in Cartwright Township near Pleasant Plains, Illinois, United States. The settlement was never large but was firmly centered on a once-thriving tavern on the main road between Springfield, the state capital, and the Illinois River port of Beardstown. The Broadwell Tavern continues to stand on its original foundation today as a reminder of the once-active frontier settlement.

The Broadwell Tavern was built in 1824 by innkeeper and land developer John Broadwell as an investment in the Springfield area. The businessman sensed that the nearby county seat of Springfield would grow and its residents would need to travel in and out. On the American frontier in the 1830s, a tavern typically doubled as a logistics center. The drivers of slow-moving, horse-drawn drays needed a place to spend the night where their horses could be fed and watered. Illinois law required taverns to provide these services as condition of receiving a license to serve alcohol by the drink. Although the hospitality of the Broadwell Tavern was never luxurious, the tavern's fireplaces kept the brick tavern warm, and glass windows helped encourage the guests to get up early and resume their journeys. The tavern was built in a vernacular Federal style.

During its primary period of operations, the 1830s and early 1840s, the Sangamon River valley was connected with steamboat traffic on the Illinois River by stagecoaches. Like drays and other wagons, the stagecoaches needed places to stop for food, sleep, water, and other beverages. The tavern's first-floor kitchen and barroom may have served guests, including patrons using the second-floor sleeping rooms. Other visitors may have found space in now-vanished adjacent structures. Traffic to and from Springfield grew further after the central Illinois town was named Illinois' permanent state capital in 1837. The successful inn drew other settlers to "Clayville", which tavernkeeper Broadwell had named after a political hero, presidential candidate and Whig Party leader Henry Clay. Broadwell's admiration for Clay would have drawn him towards a fellow local admirer of the Kentucky politician, lawyer Abraham Lincoln. Legal records show that Broadwell retained Lincoln as his counsel on four separate occasions.

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