WOODSIDE - Taken alphabetically, Woodside is the last in the list of the townships. It lies in the heart of the county and comprises government township 15 north, range 5 west, excepting a small strip on the north included in Capital township. It was organized in 1861, and is bounded on the north by Springfield and Capital, east by Rochester, south by Ball and west by Curran. The township was originally about two thirds prairie, the remainder being timber and openings. It is watered in the eastern part by Sugar creek and its tributaries and in the southwestern by Lick creek. Its territory is crossed by four railroads, which converge in the city of Springfield. Woodside is an important manufacturing as well as agricultural township, and at Iles Junction, two miles south of the center of the city, are two coal shafts, where coal is milled extensively. The first of these was sunk by Jacob G. Loose about the year 1866.

Population of the township - 2,565.

The settlement of Woodside township was contemporaneous with that of Springfield. In the spring of 1819 Zachariah Peter, a native of Virginia and one of the first county commissioners, located a claim on section 27, in the southern part of the township. He appears to have married the widow (a second wife) of John Kelley and to have died in Springfield, August 5, 1864. In 1819 Joseph Inslee also came, and built a cabin on the same section with Mr. Peter. Jesse Southwick, Samuel Little and Thomas Cloyd arrived in 1820. Nicholas Pyle, Joseph Withrow, Washington Iles and Japhet A. Ball settled here in 1825. These were all, or nearly all, permanent settlers. In 1830 George Bryan, a Revolutionary soldier, came hither from Kentucky with some of his children. He died November 22, 1845, in his eighty-eighth year, and was buried near Woodside Station.