Otterville, IL

Otterville is an incorporated town in Jersey County, Illinois, United States. The 2020 census counted 87 residents. Otterville is the home of the first free integrated school in the United States, the Hamilton Primary School, located on Main Street. Silas Hamilton, a local physician, left $4,000 for the construction and operation of a building for educational and religious purposes. The through line in Otterville is the way its history and present-day settings remain visible on the same map. Otterville makes the most sense through those concrete details, with its history still visible in the settings people use today.