It Support in Altamont, IL

Legend says Griffin Tipsword came to live with the Kickapoo Indians, who were indifferent to the coming of a Caucasian man. Tipsword was white by birth and Native American by adoption. He was a pioneer, a missionary preacher, hunter and medicine man among the Native Americans. Tipsword’s family name was Sowards. He called himself Tipsword after coming to Illinois. Tipsword was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, first fighting at Ramsour’s Mill in the Carolinas. Griffin died in 1845 and was buried on the banks of Wolff Creek (Tipsword family cemetery, Effingham), leaving three sons, John, Isaac, and Thomas, who left many descendants in the area.

Altamont, the “City of Plain”, was laid out in Mound Township, considered the richest and best township in Effingham County – being mostly prairies and farm ground – slightly rolling along Big Creek, Coon Creek, and Second Creek. Mound Township was settled early by German immigrants from the Rhine by way of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The name “Altamont”, like “Mound Township”, was bestowed by J.W. Conlogue because of the elevation or “mound” to the northwest. The first part of the word means altitude, the second mount or mound. Conlogue was a romantic, naming his town from Latin.