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Albion was founded soon after the end of the War of 1812 by a colony of Englishmen led by George Flower. The American settlers in Edwards County, many veterans of the War, mostly from Kentucky, viewed the English colony with great suspicion.
In 1816 a wealthy Englishman named George Flower came to America. He and another Englishman, Morris Birkbeck met and agreed to explore the western country with the idea of starting a colony of their own countrymen. After a long voyage of prospection through Ohio, Indiana, and the Illinois Territory, they were so impressed with the beauty they saw in the countryside when they reached Boultinghouse Prairie, they knew they had found the site for which they were searching. They soon bought up all the land they could afford, and eventually brought over from England more than 200 settlers, £100,000 in capital, and a carefully thought out selection of good livestock and agricultural implements: the area became known as the English Settlement.
In 1824, the county seat of Edwards County was moved from Palmyra to Albion.[3] Residents of Mount Carmel felt the county seat should be in Mount Carmel and not Albion. Four companies of militia marched from Mount Carmel toward Albion to obtain the county documents stored in the courthouse. The situation was resolved by separating Wabash County from Edwards County at the Bon Pas Creek in 1824.[4] The divided counties remain two of the smallest in Illinois.
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