of Illinois (Territorial) Militia, under the command of Captain Absolem Cox, at Kaskaskia on September 3, 1812. The residency of James Steele was recorded in the first Illinois State Census in 1818 and the 1820 U.S. Census as living in Pope County, Illinois, now present-day Hardin County, Illinois. At the time the state and federal censuses were conducted, Steele was a criminal member of the Sturdivant Gang of counterfeiters which operated in the Rosiclare area of Hardin County from the 1810s to 1820s.