See other formats

Full text of "History of Jefferson County, Illinois"

L 1 B RAR.Y 

OF THL 
U N 1 VER5ITY 
Of ILLINOIS 

977.3793 



lUiioit lutorjcal Survej 



HISTORY 



OF 



JEFFERSON COUNTY, 



ILLaINOIS. 



ehditeid sy "wilxjI.a.:m: heitR/^t i=ER.i^iiNr. 



ILLUSO^RA^EXD 



CHICAGO: 

GLOBE PUBLISHING CO., HISTORICAL PUBLISHERS, 

183 Lake Street. 

1883. 








PREFACE 



^r^HE history of Jefferson County, after months of persibtent toil and research, is now 
completed, and it is believed that no subject of universal public importance or interest 
has been omitted, save where protracted effort failed to secure reliable results. We are well 
aware of our inability to furnish a perfect history from meager public documents and num- 
berless conflicting traditions, but claim to have prepared a work fully up to the standard 
of our promises. Through the courtesy and assistance generously afforded by the residents 
of the county, we have been enabled to trace out and put on record the greater portion of 
the important events that have transpired in Jefferson up to the present time. And we feel 
assured that all thoughtful people in the county, now and in future, will recognize and 
appreciate the importance of the work and its permanent value. A dry statement of events 
has, as far as possible, been avoided, and incidents and anecdotes have been interwoven 
with facts and statistics, forming a narrative at once instructive and entertaining. 

We are indebted to George M. Haynes, Esq., for his very able history of the Bench 
and Bar; to Dr. A. Clark Johnson for the history of Mount Vernon, and to other prominent 
citizens for interesting and important facts and data in the compilation of the work. 

THE PUBLISHERS. 
November, 1883. 



r 

987535 



CONTENTS, 



PART I. 



Northwest Territory 

Early History of Illinois.. 



PAGE. 

1 



101 



PAKT II. 

GENERAL HISTORY. 
CHAPTER I.— Introductory— Geology and Its Practical 
Value— How Thoroughly to Educate the Farmers- 
Why They Should Understand the Geological Forma- 
tions of the Land They Till— Age of the Earth Ac- 
cording to the Research of the Geologists— Local Ge- 
ology—Configuration—Soils and Timber— Minerals 
and Mineral Springs— Building Materials, etc 

CHAPTER II.— The Pre-historic Races— Mound-Iiuilders- 
Their Occupation of the Country— Relics Left by 
Them— The Indians— Speculations as to Their Origin 
—Ultimate Extinction of the Race— Something of the 
Tribes of Southern Illinois— What Became of Them— 
Local Traditions and Incidents — The Black Hawk 
War, etc., etc HO 

CHAPTER III.— Settlement of the County by White Peo- 
ple—Who the Pioneers Were, and Where They Came 
From- Andrew Jloore— His Murder by the Indians- 
Moore's Prairie, and the People Who Settled It- The 
Wilkeys, Crenshaws, Atchisons, etc.— Settlement at 
Mount Vernon— Other Pioneers — Hardships, Trials, 
Privations, Manners, Customs, etc., etc 121 

CHAPTER IV.— Illinois a County of Virginia— John Todd, 
the First Civil Governor— Organization of Jefferson 
County— The Legislative Act Creating It— Location of 
the Seat of .lustice— First Officials— The Courts— Pub- 
lic Buildings— Census— The County Divided Into Dis- 
tricts—County Officers— J. R. Satterfield— Township 
Organization, etc 1^0 

CHAPTER v.— Some of the Pioneer Families of the County 
—The Caseys— Their Emigration to .America- How 
They Served in the Revolution— Facts and Incidents 
of Their Residence Here— The .Maxeys, .\uother Old 
Family— Their Welsh Descent— Where and When 
They Settled— The .lohnsons— They are an Old Fam- 
ily, Too— Something of Them and Their Descendants 
— Other Pioneers — Incidents, etc., etc 142 

CHAPTER VI.— The Bench and Bar— Supreme Court— Its 
Location at Mount Vernon— The Judges of the Same 
—Breeze and Scales- Other Luminaries— The .\ppel- 
late Court— Some of Its Great Lights— Circuit Court- 
Judge Tanner and Others— Early Cases Tried in the 
Courts— Marshall, Baugh, etc.— Present Members of 
the Bar, etc., etc 153 



CHAPTER VII.— Political History— Birth of the Whig and 
Democratic Organizations— Party Strife and Scramble 
for Office— Joel Pace, Finst Clerk of the County— Poli- 
ticians of the Times— Zadok Casey — His Life and 
Official Services— Gov. .\nderson — Sketch of His Pub- 
lic Career — Noah Johnston and Other Distinguished 
Characters— Senators and Representatives, etc 179 

CHAPTER VIII.— Something More About the Pioneers— 
Those Who Came In Later— Their Settlement— Game 
and W^ild .Animals- Pioneer Incidents — Mrs. Robinson 
and the Panther— Some Rattling Snake Stories— Fe- 
male Fashion and Dress — Woman's Life in the Wilder- 
ness—Hard Times, Financial Difficulties, etc 196 

CHAPTEE IX —Internal Improvements— Early Roads and 
Trails— Saline and Walnut Hill Road— The Vandalia 
Road— Other Highways and Bridges— Railroads— How 
They Grew Out of the Old Improvement .System— Jef- 
ferson County's Efforts for Railroads— St. Louis South- 
eastern—The Air Line— Projected Roads, Some of 
which will be Built, etc 203 

CHAPTER X.— Educational— Early Eflorts at Free Schools ^,--- 
— The Duncan Law — Education at Present — Statistics— 
The Press— Editor John S. Began— First Newspapers- 
Mount Vernon a Newspaper Graveyard— The Press of 
To-day— Religious History— Old-Time Christianity- 
Pioneer Ministers — Churches Organized — Rev. John 
Johnson, etc 218 

CHAPTER XL— Agriculture— Its Rank Among the 
Sciences — How to Keep the Boy.s Upon the Farm— Edu- 
cate Them To It— Progres,s of Agriculture in the County -^ 
— .Some Statistical Information- County Fairs and .Asso- 
ciations-Officials of the Same— Horticulture- Value of 
Fruit Growing— Statistics— The Forests, etc 236 

CHAPTER XII.— War History— The Revolution and the 
War of 1812— What We Gained ByThom-rTbe Mexican 
War— Jefferson County's Part in It— Her Officers and 
Soldiers— The Late Civil War— Sketches of the Regi- 
ments in which the County was Represented — Gen. 
Anderson, Col. Hicks and Other Veterans— Incidents, 



etc., etc.. 



24S 



CHAPTER Xin.— Odds and Ends— De Omnibus Rebus Et 
Quibusdam Aliis— A Brief Retrospection— Millers and 
Mills— Blacksmiths and Other Mechanics -Births, Mar- 
riages, Deaths— A Batch of Incidents— Buck Casey 
Playiug Bull Calf— Donnybrook Fights— Forest Fires— 
A Runaway Negro— Counterfeiting— The Poor Farm, 
etc., etc 264 



CONTENTS. 



PART in. 

HISTORY 01'" THE TOWNSHIPS. 

PAGE. 

CHAPTER I. — Mount Vernon Township — Description, 
Topography, etc.— Early Settlement— Old Surveys and 
Land Entries — A Closer Acquaintance With the Pio- 
neers—Who They Were and Where They Located — 
Their Good Traits and Peculiarities— The Selecting of a 
Site for a Town— .Mount Vernon Chosen as the County 
Seat, ete 275 

CHAPTEE II.— City of Mount Vernon— The Laying-out and 
Beginning of the Town— .Sale of Lots— Erection of Pub- 
lic Buildings— The First Court House— Stray Pound, 
Gaol and Clerk's Office — Stick Chimneys, Court House 
Lock, etc.— The Pioneers aud First Settlers in the Town 
— Their Genealogical Trees, etc 283 

CHAPTER III.— City of Mount Vernon— IVIore About Ita 
Early Citizens — Some Pen Photographs— The Second 
Court House— Mount Vernon From 1824 to 1830— A Few 
of the ( lid Houses— Relics of a By-gone Period— More 
Township Items, and a Triple Weddiug— Later Settlers 
—County Roads— The First Churches Outside of Town, 
etc., etc 290 

CHAPTER IV.— City of Mount Vernon— The Decade From 
1830 to 1840- Growth of the Town— New Buildings and 
New Business— A Look Beyond the Town- Brief Retro- 
spect— .\nother Court House — .Some of the Business 
Men and What They Did— Still Another Court House— 
The .Jail— Organization of Mount Vernon Township- 



Officials, etc.. 



CHAPTER v.— Mount Vernon— Its Religious History— The 
Methodists, the Pioneers of Christianity iu the Couuty 
—A List of Ministers— The First Church— Presbyterian 
Church— Baptists— Catholics and Other Denominations 
—Churches of the Township— Schools In and Out of the 
City, etc., etc 3[q 

CHAPTER VI.— Mount Vernon- Town Surveys aud .Addi- 
tions-" More Than Any Man Can Number "—Casey's 
Addition— Green's, Strattan's and Several Others— The 
Number of Acres Covered by the City— Municipal Gov- 
ernment—City Officials, etc., etc 326 

CHAPTER VII.— Mount Vernon— Temperance Movements 
—Their Good Work in the Community— Village of East 
Mount Veruon-Mystic Orders-Masons, Odd Fellows, 
etc.— Miscellaneous— Which Comprises Fires, Fire De- 
partment, and Many Other Local Items-Births, Deaths 
^^- "" 335 

CHAPTER Vlll.-Shiloh Township-General Description 
—Topography and Boundaries— Early Settlement— Pio- 
neer Hardships and Privations-Mills, etc.— An Incident 
—Births, Deaths and Marriages— Roads and Bridges- 
Stock-raising— Schools and Churches— Woodlawn Vil- 
lage, etc., etc g^ 

CHAPTER IX.— Pendleton and Moore's Prairie Townships 
—General Description and Topography— The First Set- 
tlers-Moore's Prairie a Historical Spot-Pioneer Hard- 
ships aud DilHculties-Early Industries and Customs- 
Township Officers-Churches and Schools-Lynchburg 
-Belle Rive and Opdyke-TheirfJrowth, Business etc 
etc ' „., 



CHAPTER x:— Rome Township— Topographical and Phys- 
ical Features — Occupation by White People — Who the 
Pioneers Were— The Maxwells and Others— Hardships 
and Trials — Mills and Other Improvements— Township 
Officers — Schools and Churches — Village of Rome — 
Growth, Improvement, etc 360 

CHAPTER XL— Spring Garden Township— General De- 
scription and Topography— Settlement of the Whites— 
Their Early Trials and Tribulations — Roads, Mills, etc., 
etc. — .Schools and Churches — Township Officials — Spring 
Garden Village — Its Growth, Development, etc., etc 365 

CHAPTERXII.—WebberTownship— Introduction and De- 
scription — Boundaries, Topography, etc. — Early Settle- 
ment — Pioneer Life and Trials — Pigeon Post Office — A 
Law Suit — Township Officials — Schools and Churches — 
Marlow, Bluford, etc.. etc 372 

CHAPTER XIII —Elk Prairie Township— Topography and 
Physical Features— Coming of the ' Pale Faces— Inci- 
dents of their Settlement — Hard Times, etc. — Roads, 
Jlills and Bridges — Schools and Schoolhouses — Churches, 

etc. — Township Officials — Villages, etc., etc 376 

CHAPTER XIV.— Farrington Township— General Topog- 
raphy, Boundaries, etc. — Settlement of White People — 
Early Industries — Schools and Churches — Township 

Officers— Villages — Stock-raising, etc 380 

CHAPTER XV.— Grand Prairie Township— Boundaries and 
Topography — Early Settlement, Hardships of the People, 
etc.— First Mills and Roads— Birth, Death and Marriage 
— An Incident — First Voting Place — Township Officials, 

etc. — Schools and Schoolhouses — Churches, etc., etc 387 

CHAPTER XVI.— McC'lellan Township— Introduction and 
Description — Topography — Early Settlement— Trials, 
Hardships and Good Times— Pioneer Improvements- 
Roads, Bridges and Mills — Education, Schoolhouses and 
Teachers- Early Churches— Township Officials, etc., etc. 391 
CHAPTER XV II.— Field Township— Topographical, Geo- 
graphical, Physical, etc —Settlement by White I'eople — 
Life on the Border— Educational Facilities— Churches 
and Church Buildings— An Incident— Township Officers 

— Summary, etc., etc 396 

CH.VPTEB XVIII.— Casner Township— Topography and 
Physical Features— Early Settlement— Rough Fare of 
the Pioneers— Schools and Churches— List of Township 
Officers— Politics, etc. — Roachville Village, the Chicago 

of the County, etc., etc 399 

CHAPTER XIX.— Dodds Township— Description and Topog- 
raphy — Coming of the Whites — Early Facts and Inci- 
dents—The Main Settlement— Roads— First Mills, etc.— 
Early .'^(jhools — Mode of Paying the Teachers — First 

Preachers and Churches — Township Officers, etc., etc 405 

CHAPTER XX.— Blissville Township— Description and To- 

pograi>hy — Knob Prairie — Settlement — How the People 

Lived — Name of Township, aud Its List of Officials— 

.yPoads, Bridges, etc. — The Village of Williamsburg — 

Churches and Schools — Retrospectiou, etc , etc 411 

CHAPTER XXI.— Bald Hill Township-Its Geographical 
and Physical Features— Advent of the Pioneers— Their 
Trials, Tribulations, etc.— Mills and Roads — Organiza- 
tion of the Township, and the List of Officials — Schools, 
Churches, etc., etc 416 



CONTENTS. 



PAKT IV. 

BIOGRAPHIC.iL. 

PAGE. 

Mount VernoD — City aud Township 3 

Pendleton Townsliip , 45 

Shiloh Township .'. 68 

Webber Township 73 

Rome Township 78 

Dodds Township 87 

Blissville Township 93 

Spring Garden Townsliip 102 

Grand Prairie Township Ill 

Field Township 119 

Moore's Prairie Township 123 

Casner Township 130 

Farrington Township 135 

Elk Prairie Township 138 

McClellan Township 144 



PAGE. 

Bald Hill Township 147 

Sketch of C. T. Stratton 149 

PORTRAITS. 

Anderson, W. B 259 

Baldridge, J. C 116 

Bruce, M. D 133 

Carpenter, S. W 169 

Dees, J. A 187 

Garrison, W. J 205 

Gilbert, Eli 223 

Hails J. W 241 

Hicks, S. G 151 

Holland, T. G 395 

Jones, G. D 313 

Moss, J. R ;. 331 

Norris, 0. P : 349 

Plummer, H. S .^ 277 




.. n 



v\ V 



APP'JilN'DIX. 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



INCLUDING A BRIEF 



HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



GEOGEAPHIOAL POSITION. 

"TTTHEN the Northwestern Territory 
VV was ceded to the United States by 
Virginia in 1784, it embraced only the terri- 
tory lying between the Oiiio and the Missis- 
sippi Rivers, and north to the northern lim- 
its of the United States. It coincided with 
the area now embraced in the States ofOhio, 
Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and 
that portion of Minnesota lying on the east 
side of the Mississippi River. The United 
States itself at that period extended no 
farther west than the Mississippi River; 
but by the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, 
the western boundary of the United States 
was extended to the Rocky Mountains and 
the Northern Pacific Ocean. The new 
territory thus added to the National do- 
main, and subsequently opened to settle- 
ment, has been called the " New North- 
west," in contradistinction from the old 
" Northwestern Territory." 

In comparison with the old Northwest 
this is a territory of vast magnitude. It 
includes an area of 1,887.850 square miles; 
being greater in extent than the united 
areas of all the Middle and Southern States, 
including Texas. Out of this magnificent 



territory have been erected eleven sovereign 
States and eight Territories, with an aggre- 
gate population, at the present time, of 
13,000,000 inhabitants, or nearly one-third 
of the entire population of the United 
States. 

Its lakes are fresh-water seas, and the 
larger rivers of the continent flow for a. 
thousand miles through its rich alluvial val- 
leys and far-stretching prairies, more acres 
of which are arable and productive of the 
highest percentage of the cereals than of 
any other area of like extent on the globe. 

For the last twenty years the increase of 
population in the Northwest has been about 
as three to one in any other portion of the 
United States. 

EARLY EXPLORATIONS. 

In the year 1.541, De Soto first saw the 
Great West in the New World. He, how- 
ever, penetrated no farther north than the 
35th parallel of latitude. The expedition 
resulted in his death and that of more than 
half his army, the remainder of whom 
found their way to Cuba, thence to Spain, 
in a famished and demoralized condition. 
De Soto founded no settlements, produced 
no results, and left no traces, unless it were 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



that lie awakened the hostility of the red 
man atrainst the white man, and disheart- 
ened such as might desire to follow up the 
career of discovery for better purposes. 
The French nation were eager and ready to 
seize upon any news from this extensive 
domain, and were the first to profit by De 
Soto's defeat. Yet it was more than a 
century before any adventurer took advan- 
tage of these discoveries. 

In 1616, four years before the pilgrims 
" moored their bark on the wild New Eng- 
land shore," Le Caron, a French Franciscan, 
had penetrated through the Iroquois and 
and Wyandots (Hurons) to the streams 
which run into Lake Huron; and in 1634, 
two Jesuit missionaries founded the first 
mission among the lake tribes. It was just 
one hundred years from the discovery of 
the Mississippi by De Soto (1541) until the 
Canadian envoys met the savage nations of 
the Northwest at the Falls of St. Mary, be- 
low the outlet of Lake Su'ierior. This 
visit led to no permanent result, yet it was 
not until 1659 that any of the adventurous 
fur traders attempted to spend a winter in 
the frozen wilds about the great lakes, nor 
was it until 1660 that a station was estab- 
lished upon their borders by Mesnard, who 
perished in the woods a few months after. 
In 1665, Claude Allouez built the earliest 
lasting habitation of the white man among 
the Indians of the Northwest. In 1668, 
Claude Dablon and James Marquette 
founded the mission of Sault Ste. Marie at 
the Falls of St. Mary, and two years after- 
ward, Nicholas Perrot, as agent for M. 
Talon, Governor General of Canada, ex- 
plored Lake Illinois (Michigan) as far 
south as the present City of Chicago, and 
invited the Indian nations to meet him at 



a grand council at Sault Ste. Marie the 
following spring, where they were taken 
under the protection of the king, and formal 
possession was taken of the Northwest. 
This same vear Marquette established a 
mission at Point St. Ignatius, where was 
founded tiie old town of town of Michilli- 
mackinac. 

During M. Talon's explorations and Mar- 
quette's residence at St. Ignatius, they 
learned of a great river away to the west, 
and fancied — as all others did then — that 
upon its fertile banks whole tribes of God's 
children resided, to whom the sound of the 
Gospel had never come. Filled with a 
wish to go and preach to them, and in com- 
pliance with a request of M. Talon, who 
earnestly desired to extend the domain of 
his king, and to ascertain whether the 
river flowed into the Gulf of Mexico or the 
Pacific Ocean. Marquette with Joliet, as 
commander of the expedition, prepared for 
the undertaking. 

On the 13th of May, 1673, the explorers, 
accompanied by five assistant French Can- 
adians, set out from Mackinaw on their 
daring voyage of discovery. The Indians, 
who gathered to witness their departure, 
were astonished at the boldness of the 
undertaking, and endeavored to dissuade 
them from their purpose by representing 
the tribes on the Mississippi as exceedingly 
savage and cruel, and the river itself as 
full of all sorts of frightful monsters ready 
to swallow them and their canoes together. 
But, nothing daunted by these terrific de- 
scriptions, Marquette told them he was 
willing not only to encounter all the per- 
ils of the unknown region they were about 
to explore, but to lay down his life in a 
cause in which the salvation of souls was 



THE ^'ORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



involved; and having prayed together they 
separated. Coasting along the northern 
shore of Lake Michigan, the adventurers 
entered Green Bay, and passed thence up 
the Fox River and Lake "Winnebago to a 
village of the Miamis and Kickapoos. 
Here Marquette was delighted to tind a 
beautiful cross planted in the middle of the 
town, ornamented with white skins, red gir- 
dles and bows and arrows, which these 
good people had offered to the great Man- 
itou, or God, to thank him for the pity lie 
had bestowed on them during the winter in 
giving them an abundant " chase." This 
was the farthest outpost to which Dablon and 
Allouez had extended their missionary la- 
bors the year previous. Here Marquette 
drank mineral waters and was instructed in 
the secret of a root which cures the bite of 
the venomous rattlesnake. He assembled 
the chiefs and old men of the village, and, 
pointing to Joliet, said: " My friend is an 
envoy of France, to discover new coun- 
tries, and lam an ambassador from God to 
enlighten them with the truths of the Gos- 
pel." Two Miami guides were here fur- 
nished to condnct them to the Wisconsin 
River, and they set out from the Lulian 
village on the 10th of June, amidst a great 
crowd of natives who had assembled to 
witness their departure into a region where 
no white man had ever yet ventured. Tlie 
euides, havins: conducted them across the 
portage, returned. The explorers launclied 
their canoes upon the Wisconsin which 
they descended to the Mississippi and pro- 
ceeded down its unknown waters. What 
emotions must have swelled their breasts 
as they struck out into the broadening cur- 
rent and became conscious that they were 
now upon the bosom of the Father of Wa- 



ters. The mystery was about to be liftea 
from the long-sought river. The scenery 
in that locality is beautiful, and on that 
delightful seventeenth of June must have 
been clad in all its primeval loveliness as it 
had been adorned by the hand of Nature. 
Drifting rapidly, it is said that the bold 
bluffs on either hand " reminded them of 
the castled shores of their own beautiful 
rivers of France." By-and-by, as they 
drifted along, great herds of buffalo ap- 
peared on the banks. On going to the 
heads of the valley they could see a coun- 
try of the greatest beauty and fertility, ap- 
parently destitute of inhabitiints yet pre- 
senting the appearance of extensive man- 
ors, under the fastidious cultivation of 
lordly proprietors. 

On June 25th, they went ashore and found 
some fresh traces of men upon the sand, 
and a path which led to the prairie. The 
men remained in the boat, and Marquette 
and Joliet followed the path till they dis- 
covered a village on the banks of a river, 
and two other villages on a hill, within a 
half league of the first, inhabited by Indians. 
They were received most hospitably by 
these natives, who had never before seen a 
white person. After remaining a few days 
they re-embarked and descended the river 
to about latitude 33°, wliere they found a 
village of the Arkansas, and being satisfied 
that the river flowed into the Gulf of 
Mexico, turned their course up the river, 
and ascending the stream to the month of 
the Illinois, rowed up that stream to its 
source, and procured guides from that 
point to the lakes. " No where on this 
journey," says Marquette, " did we see such 
grounds, meadows, woods, stags, buffaloes, 
deer, wildcats, bustards, swans, ducks, par- 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



roquets, and even beavers, as on the Illinois 
River." The party, witliout loss or injury, 
reached Green Bay in September, and re- 
ported their discovery — one of the most 
important of the age, but of which no 
record was preserved save Marquette's, 
Joliet losing his by the upsetting of his 
canoe on his way to Quebec. Afterward 
Marquette returned to the Illinois Indians 
by their request, and ministered to them 
until 1675. On the 18th of May, in that 
year, as he was passing the mouth of a 
stream — going with his boatmen up Lake 
Michigan — he asked to land at its mouth 
and celebrate mass. Leaving his men with 
the canoe, he retired a shore distance and 
began his devotions. As much time passed 
and he did not return, his men went in 
search of him, and found him upon his 
knees, dead. He had peacefully passed 
away while at prayer. He was buried at 
this spot. Charlevoix, who visited the 
place fifty years after, found the waters had 
retreated from the grave, leaving the be- 
loved missionary to repose in peace. The 
river has since been called Marquette. 

While Marquette and his companions 
were pursuing their labors in the West, 
two men, differing widely from him and 
each other, were preparing to follow in his 
footsteps and perfect the discoveries so well 
begun by him. These were Robert de La 
Salle and Louis Hennepin. 

After La Salle's return from the discovery 
of the Ohio River (see the narrative else- 
where), he established himself again among 
the French trading posts in Canada. Here 
he mused long upon the pet project of 
those ages — a short way to China and the 
East, and was busily planning an expedi- 
tion up the great lakes, and so across 



the continent to the Pacific, when Mar- 
quette returned from the Mississippi. At 
once the vigorous mind of La Salle received 
from his and his companions' stories the 
idea that by following the Great River 
northward, or by turning up some of the 
numerous western tributaries, the object 
could easily be gained. He applied to 
Frontenac, Governor General of Canada, 
and laid before him the plan, dim but 
gigantic. Frontenac entered warmly into 
his plans, and saw that La Salle's idea to 
connect the great lakes by a chain of forts 
with the Gulf of Mexico would bind the 
country so wonderfully together, give un- 
measured power to France, and glory to 
himself, under whose administration he 
earnestly hoped all would be realized. 

La Salle now repaired to France, laid his 
plans before the King, who warmly ap- 
proved of them, and made him a Chevalier. 
He also received from all the noblemen the 
warmest wishes for his success. The Chev- 
alier returned to (Janada, and busily en- 
tered upon his work. He at once rebuilt 
Fort Frontenac and constructed the first 
ship to sail on these fresh-water seas. On 
the 7th of August, 1679, having been joined 
by Hennepin, he began his voyage in the 
Grifiin up Lake Erie. He passed over 
this lake, through the straits beyond, up 
Lake St. Clair and into Huron. In this 
lake they encountered heavy storms. They 
were some time at Michillimackinac, where 
La Salle founded a fort, and passed on to 
Green Bay, the " Baie des Puans " of the 
French, where he found a large quantity of 
furs collected for him. He loaded the 
Griflin with these, and placing her under 
the care of a pilot and fourteen sailors, 
started her on her return voj-age. The ves- 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



sel was never afterward heard of. He re- 
mained about, these parts nntil early In the 
winter, when, hearing nothing from tlie 
Griffin, he collected all his men — thirty 
working men and three nionks^ — and 
started again upon his great undertaking. 

By a short portage they passed to the Il- 
linois or Kankakee, called by the Indians, 
" Theakeke," loolf, because of the tribes of 
Indians called by that name, commonly 
known as the Mahingans, dwelling there. 
The French pronounced it Kialcikl, which 
became corrupted to Kankakee. " Falling 
down the said river by easy journeys, the 
better to observe the country," about the 
last of December they reached a village of 
the Illinois Indians, containing some five 
hundred cabins, but at that moment no in- 
habitants. The Seur de La Salle being in 
want of some breadstuffs, took advantage 
of the absence of the Indians to help him- 
self to a sufficiency of maize, large quanti- 
ties of which he found concealed in holes 
under the wigwams. This village was sit- 
uated near the present village of Utica in 
La Salle County, Illinois. The corn being 
securely stored, the voyagers again betook 
themselves to the stream, and toward even- 
ing on the 4th day of January, 1680, they 
came into a lake, which must have been 
the lake of Peoria. Tiiis was called by the 
Indians Pim-i-te-wi, that is a place where 
th&re are many fat beasts. Here the na- 
tives were met with in large numbers, but 
they were gentle and kind, and having 
spent some time with them, La Salle deter- 
mined to erect another fort in that place, 
for he had heard rumors that some of the 
adjoining tribes were trying to disturb the 
good feeling which existed, and some of 
his men were disposed to complain, owing 



to the hardships and perils of the travel. 
He called this fort '■' Crevecmur" {hvcikew- 
lieart), a name expressive of the very nat- 
ural sorrow and anxiety which the pretty 
certain loss of his ship. Griffin, and his con- 
sequent impoverishment, the danger of 
hostility on the part of the Indians, and of 
mutiny among his own men, might well 
cause him. His fears were not entirely 
groundless. Atone time poison was placed 
in his food, but fortunately was discovered. 

AVhile building this fort, the winter 
wore away, the prairies began to look 
green, and La Salle, despairing of any rein- 
forcements, concluded to return to Canada, 
raise new means and new men, and embark 
anew in the enterprise. For this purpose 
he made Hennepin the leader of a party to 
explore the head waters of the Mississi]ipi, 
and he set out on his journej'. This jour- 
ney was accomplished with the aid of a 
few persons, and was successfully made, 
though over an almost unknown route, and 
in a bad season of the year. He safely 
reached Canada, and set out again for the 
object of his search. 

Hennepin and his party loft Fort Creve- 
cceur on the last of Febriuiry, 1680. When 
La Salle reached this place on his return ex- 
pedition, he found the fort entirely desert- 
ed, and he was obliged to return again to 
Canada. He embarked the third time, 
and succeeded. Seven days after leaving 
the fort, Hennepin reached the Mississippi, 
and paddling up the icy stream as best he 
could, reached no higher than the Wis- 
consin River by the 11th of April. Here 
he and his followers were taken prisoners 
by a band of Northern Indians, who treat- 
ed them with great kindness. Hennepin's 
comrades were Anthony Auguel and Mi- 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



chael Ako. On this voyage they found sev- 
eral beautiful lakes, and " saw some charm- 
ing prairies." Their captors were the 
Isaute or Sauteurs, Chippewas, a tribe of 
the Sioux nation, who took them up the 
river until about the first of May, when 
they reached some falls, which Hen- 
nepin christened Falls of St. Anthony 
in honor of his patron saint. Here they 
took the land, and traveling nearly two 
hundred miles to the northwest, brought 
them to their villages. Here they were 
kept about three niontlis, were treated kind- 
ly by their captors, and at the end of that 
time, were met by a band of Frenchmen, 
headed by one Seur de Luth, who, in pur- 
suit of tiade and game, had penetrated thus 
far by the route of Lake Superior; and 
with these fellow-countrymen Hennepin and 
his companions were allowed to return to 
the borders of civilized life in November, 
16S0, just after La Salle had returned 
to the wilderness on his second trip. Hen- 
nepin soon after went to France, where 
he published an account of his adven- 
tures. ( 

The Mississippi was first discovered by 
De Soto in April, 15-41, in his vain endeav- 
or to find gold and precious gems. In the 
following spring, De Soto, weary with hope 
long deferred, and worn out with his wan- 
derings, fell a victim to disease, and on 
the 21st of May, died. His followers, re- 
duced by fatigue and disease to less than 
three hundred men, wandered about the 
country nearly a year, in the vain endeavor 
to rescue themselves by land, and finallv 
constructed seven small vessels, called brig- 
antines, in which they embarked, and de- 
scending the river, supposing it would 
lead them to the sea, in July they came to 



the sea (Gulf of Mexico), and by Septem- 
ber reached the Island of Cuba. 

They were the first to see the great out- 
let of the Mississippi; but, being so weary 
and discouraged, made no attempt to claim 
the country, and hardly had an intelligent 
idea of what they had passed through. 

To La Salle, the intrepid explorer, belongs 
the honor of giving the first account of 
the mouths of the river. His great desire 
was to possess this entire country for his 
king, and in January, 16S2, he and his 
band of explorers left the shores of Lake 
Michigan on their third attempt, crossed 
the portage, passed down the Illinois Riv- 
er, and on the 6th of February, reached the 
banks of the Mississippi. 

On the 13th they commenced their down- 
ward course, which they pursued with but 
one interruption, until upon the 6th of 
March they discovered the three great pas- 
sages by which the river discharges its 
waters into the gulf. La Salle thus narrates 
the event: 

" "We landed on the bank of the most 
western channel, about three leagues (nine 
miles) from its mouth. On the seventh, 
M. de La Salle went to reconnoiter the shores 
of the neighboring sea, and M. de Tonti 
meanwhile examined the great middle chan- 
nel. They found the main outlets beau- 
tiful, large and deep. On the Sth we reas- 
cended the rivei, a little above its conflu- 
ence with the sea, to find a dry place be- 
yond the reach of inundations. The el- 
evation of the Xorth Pole was here about 
twenty-seven degrees. Here we prepared 
a column and a cross, and to the column 
were affixed the arms of France with this 
inscription: 

Louis LeGrand. Roi De France et de Xavarre, 
regne; Le neuvieme .\vril 1682. 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



The wliolc party, under arras, clmiited 
the Te Deum, and then, aftei- a salute and 
cries of-' Vive le Boi," tlie column was 
erected by M. de La Salle, who, standing 
near it, proclaimed in a loud voice the au- 
thority of the King of France. La Salle 
returned and laid the foundations of the 
Mississippi settlements in Illinois, thence 
he proceeded to France, where another ex- 
pedition was fitted out, of which he was 
commander, and in two succeeding voy- 
ages failed to find the outlet of the river 
by sailing along the shore of the gulf. On 
his third voyage he was killed, through 
the treachery of his followers, and the ob- 
ject of his expeditions was not accom- 
plished until 1699, when D'Iberville, un- 
der the authority of the crown, discovered, 
on the second of March, by way of the sea, 
the mouth of the " Hidden River." This 
majestic stream was called by the natives 
" J\£alf)otichia,^^ and by the Spaniards, " Za 
Palissade, " from the great number of 
trees about its mouth. After traversing the 
several outlets, and satisfying himself as to 
its certainty, he erected a fort near its 
western outlet and returned to France. 

An avenue of trade was now opened out, 
which was fully improved. In 1718, New 
Orleans was laid out and settled b}' some 
European colonists. In 1762, the colony 
was made over to Spain, to be regained by 
France under the consulate of Napoleon. 
In 1803, it was purchased by the United 
States for the sum of fifteen million dollars, 
and the territory of Louisiana and com- 
merce of the Mississippi River came under 
the charge of the United States. Although 
La Salle's labors ended in defeat and death, 
he had not workeil and suflered in vain. 
He had thrown open to France and the 



world an immense and most valuable coun- 
try; had established several ports, and laid 
the foundations of more than one settle- 
ment there. " Peoria, Kaskaskia and Ca- 
hokia, are to this day monuments of La 
Salle's labors; for, though he had founded 
neither of them (unless Peoria, which was 
built nearly upon the site of Fort Creve- 
coeur,) it was by those whom he led into the 
West that these places were peopled and 
civilized. He was, if not the discoverer, 
the first settler of the Mississippi Valley, 
and as such deserves to be known and 
honored." 

The French early improved the opening 
made for them. Before the year 1698, the 
Rev. Father Gravier began a mission among 
the Illinois, and founded Kaskaskia. For 
some time this was merely a missionary 
station, where none but natives resided, it 
being one of three such villages, the other 
two being Cahokia and Peoria. What is 
known of these missions is learned from a 
letter written by Father Grabriel Marest, 
dated "Aux Cascaskias, autrement dit de 
I'Immaculate Conception de la Sainte 
Vierge, le 9 Novembre, 1712." Soon after 
the founding of Kaskaskia, the missionary, 
Pinet, gathered a flock at Cahokia, while 
Peoria arose near the ruins of Fort Creve- 
coeur. This must have been about a year 
1700. The post at Vincennes on the 
Oubache river, (pronounced Wa-ba, mean- 
ing summer cloud moving swiftly) was es- 
tablished in 1702, according to the best 
authorities.* It is altogether probable that 

* There ia consideraUe dispute about this date, 
some asserting^ it was foundi'd uh late aa 1742. When 
the new court house at Vincennes was erected, all 
authorities on the subject were carefully examined, 
and 1702 fixed upon as the correct date. It was ac- 
cordingly engraved on the corner-stone of the court 
house. 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



on La Salle's last trip he established the 
stations at Kaskaskia and Cahokia. In 
July, 1701, the fonndations of Fort Pon- 
chartrain were laid by De la Motte Cadillac 
on the Detroit River. These stations, with 
those established further north, were the 
earliest attempts to occupy the Northwest 
Territory. At the same time efforts were 
being made to occupy the Southwest, which 
finally culminated in the settlement and 
founding of the City of New Orleans by a 
colony from England in 1718. This was 
mainly accomplished through the efforts of 
the famous Mississippi Company, estab- 
lished by the notorious John Law, who so 
quickly arose into prominence in France, 
and who with his scheme so quickly and so 
ignominionsly passed away. 

From the time of the founding of these 
stations for fifty years the French nation 
were engrossed with the settlement of the 
lower Mississippi, and the war with the 
Chicasaws, who had, in revenge for repeated 
injuries, cutoff the entire colony at Natchez. 
Although the company did little for Louis- 
iana, as the entire West was then called, 
yet it opened the trade through the Missis- 
sippi River, and started the raising of 
grains indigenous to that climate. Until 
the year 1750, but little is known of the 
settlements in the Northwest, as it wjis not 
until this time that the attention of the 
English was called to the occupation of 
this portion of the New World, which they 
then supposed they owned. Vivier, a mis- 
sionary among the Illinois, writing from 
"Anx Illinois," six leagues from Fort 
Chartres, June 8, 1750, says: "We have 
here whites, negroes and Indians, to say 
nothing of cross-breeds. There are five 
French villages, and three villages of the 



natives, within a space of twenty-one 
leagues situated between the Mississippi 
and another river called the Karkadaid 
(Kaskaskias). In the five French villages 
are, perhaps, eleven hundred whites, three 
hundred blacks and some sixty red slaves 
or savages. The three Illinois towns do 
not contain more than eight hundred souls 
all told. Most of the French till the soil ; 
they raise wheat, cattle, pigs and horses, 
and live like princes. Three times as much 
is produced as can be consumed ; and great 
quantities of grain and flour are sent to 
New Orleans." This city was now the 
seaport town of the Northwest, and save 
in the extreme northern part, where only 
furs and copper ore were found, almost all 
the products of the country found their 
way to France by the mouth of the Father 
of Waters. In another letter, dated No- 
vember 7, 1750, this same priest says: 
" For fifteen leagues above the mouth of 
the Mississippi one sees no dwellings, the 
ground beins; too low to be habitable. 
Thence to New Orleans, the lands are only 
partially occupied. New Orleans contains 
black, white and red, not more, I think, 
than twelve hundred persons. To this 
point come all lumber, bricks, salt-beef, 
tallow, tar, skins and bear's grease ; and 
above all, pork and flour from the Illinois. 
These things create some commerce, as 
forty vessels and more have come hither 
this year. Above New Orleans, plantations 
are again met with ; the most considerable 
is a colony of Germans, some ten leagues 
up the river. At Point Coupee, thirty-five 
leagues above the German settlement, is a 
fort. Along here, within five or six leagues, 
are not less than sixty habitations. Fifty 
leagues farther up is the Natchez post, 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



9 



where we have a garrison, who are kept 
prisoners through fear of tlie Cliicasaws. 
Here and at point Coupee, tliey raise excel- 
lent tobacco. Another hundred leagues 
brings us to the Arkansas, where we have 
also a fort and a garrison for the benefit of 
the river traders. * * * From the Ar- 
kansas to the Illinois, nearly five hundred 
leagues, there is not a settlement. There 
should be, however, a fort at the Oubache 
(Ohio), the only path by which the English 
can reach the Mississippi. In the Illinois 
country are numberless mines, but no one 
to work them as they deserve." Father 
Marest, writing from the post at Yincennes, 
in 1812, makes the same observation. Vi- 
vier also says: " Some individuals dig 
lead near the surface and supply the Ind- 
ians and Canada. Two Sjianiards now here, 
who claim to be adepts, say that our mines 
are like those of Mexico, and that if we 
would dig deeper, we should find silver un- 
der the lead ; and at any rate the lead is 
excellent. There is also in this country, 
beyond doubt, copper ore, as from time to 
time large pieces are found in the streams." 
At the close of the year 1750, the French 
occupied, in addition to the lower Missis- 
sippi posts and those in Illinois, one at 
Du Quesne, one at the Maumee in the 
country of the Miamis, and one at Sandus- 
ky, in what may be termed the Ohio Val- 
ley. In the northern part of the North- 
west they had stations at St. Joseph's on 
the St. Joseph's of Lake Michigan, at Fort 
Ponchartrain (Detroit), at Michillimack- 
anac or Massillimacanac, Fox Kiver of 
Green Bay, and at Sault Ste. Marie. The 
fondest dreams of La Salle were now fully 
realized. The French alone were possess- 
ors of this vast realm, basing tiieir claim 



on discovery and settlement. Another na- 
tion, however, was now turning its atten- 
tion to this extensive country, and hearing 
of its wealth, began to lay plans for oc- 
cupying it and for securing the great 
profits arising therefrom. 

The French, however, had another claim 
to tliis country, namely, the 

DISCOVEET OF THE OHIO. 

This " Beautiful " river was discovered 
by Robert Cavalier de La Salle in 1669, four 
years before the discovery of the Missis- 
sippi by Joliet and Marquette. 

While La Salle was at his trading post 
on the St. Lawrence, he found leisure to 
study nine Indian dialects, the chief of 
which was the Iroquois. He not only de- 
sired to tacilitate his intercourse in trade, 
but he longed to travel and explore the un- 
known regions of the West. An incident 
soon occurred which decided him to fit out 
an exploring expedition. 

While conversing with some Senecas, he 
learned of a river called the Ohio, which 
rose in their country and flowed to the sea, 
but at such a distance that it required 
eight months to reach its mouth. In this 
statement the Mississippi and its tributa- 
ries were considered as one stream. La 
Salle, believiVi'g, as most of the French at 
that period did, that the great rivers flow- 
ing west emptied into the Sea of Califor- 
nia, was anxious to embark in the enter- 
prise of discovering a route across the con- 
tinent to the commerce of China and 
Japan. 

He repaired at once to Quebec to obtain 
the approval of the Governor. His elo- 
quent appeal prevailed. The Governor 
and the Inteudant, Talon, issued letters 



10 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



patent autliorizing the enterprise, but made 
no provision to defray tlie expenses. At 
this juncture the seminary of St. Sulpice 
decided to send out missionaries in connec- 
tion with the expedition, and La Salle offer- 
ing to sell his improvements at La Chine to 
raise money, the offer was accepted by the 
Superior, and two thousand eight hundred 
dollars were raised, with which La Salle 
purchased four canoes and the necessary 
nipplies for the outfit. 

On the 6th of July, 1669, the party, num- 
bering twenty-four persons, embarked in 
seven canoes on the St. Lawrence; two ad- 
ditional canoes carried the Indian guides. 
In three days they were gliding over the 
bosom of Lake Ontario. Their guides con- 
ducted them directly to the Seneca village 
on the bank of the Genesee, in the vicinity 
of the present City of Rochester, New 
York. Here they expected to procure 
guides to conduct them to the Ohio, but in 
this they were disappointed. 

The Indians seemed unfriendly to the 
enterprise. La Salle suspected that the 
Jesuits had prejudiced their minds 
against his plans. After waiting a month 
in the hope of gaining their object, they 
met an Indian from the Iroquois colony at 
the head of Lake Ontario, who assured 
them that they could there find guides, and 
offered to conduct them thence. 

On their way they passed the mouth of 
the Niagara River, wlien'they heard for the 
first time the distant thunder of the cata- 
ract. Arriving among the Iroquois, tiiey 
met with a tViendly reception, and learned 
from a Shawanee prisoner that they could 
reach the Ohio in six weeks. Delighted 
with the unexpected good fortune, they 
made ready to resume their journey; but 



just as they were about to start they heard 
of the arrival of two Frenchmen in a neigh- 
boring village. One of them proved to be 
Louis Joliet, afterward famous as an ex- 
plorer in the West. He had beeu sent by 
tlie Canadian Government to explore the 
copper mines on Lake Superior, but had 
failed, and was on his way back to Quebec. 
He gave the missionaries a map of the 
country he had explored in the lake region, 
together with an account of tiie condition 
of the Indians in that quarter. This in- 
duced the priests to determine on leaving 
the expedition and going to Lake Superior. 
La Salle warned tliem that the Jesuits were 
probably occupying that field, and that 
they would meet with a cold reception. 
Nevertheless they persisted in their pur- 
pose, and after worship on the lake shore 
parted from La Salle. On arriving at Lake 
Superior, they found, as La Salle had pre- 
dicted, the Jesuit Fathers, Marquette and 
Dablon, occupying the field. 

These zealous disciples of Loyola in- 
formed them that they wanted no assistance 
from St. Sulpice, nor from those who made 
him their patron saint; and thus repulsed, 
they returned to Montreal the following 
June without having made a single discov- 
ery or converted a single Indian. 

After parting with the priests, La Salle 
went to the chief Iroquois village at Onon- 
daga, where he obtained guides, and passing 
thence to a tributary of the Ohio south of 
Lake Erie, he descended the latter as far as 
the falls at Louisville. Thus was the Ohio 
discovered by La Salle, the persevering and 
successful French explorer of the West, in 
1669. 

The account of the latter part of his 
journey is found in an anonymous paper, 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



11 



which purports to liave been taken from the 
lips of La Salle himself during a subsequent 
visit to Paris. In a letter written to Count 
Frontenac in 1667, shortly after the discov- 
ery, he himself says that he discovered the 
Ohio and descended it to the falls. This 
was regarded as an indisputable fact by the 
French authorities, who claimed the Ohio 
Valley upon another ground. When Wash- 
ington was sent by the colony of Virginia 
in 1753, to demand of Gordeur de St. Pierre 
why the French had built a fort on the Mo- 
nongahela, the haughty commandant at 
Quebec replied : " We claim the country on 
the Ohio by virtue of the discoveries of 
La Salle, and will not give it up to the Eng- 
lish. Our orders are to make prisoners of 
every Englishman found trading in the 
Ohio Valley.." 

ENGLISH EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. 

When the new year of 1750 broke in up- 
on the Father of Waters and the Great 
Northwest, all was still wild save at the 
French posts already described. In 1749, 
when tiie English tirst began to think seri- 
ously about sending men into the West, 
the greater portion of the States of Indi- 
ana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, 
and ilinnesota were j'et under the domin- 
ion of the red men. The English knew, 
however, pretty conclusively of the nature 
of the wealth of these wilds. As early as 
1710, Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, 
had commenced movements to secure the 
country west of the Alleghanies to the 
English crown. In Pennsylvania, Gover- 
nor Keith and James Logan, seer .tary of 
the province, from 1719 to 1731, represent- 
ed to the powers of England the necessity 
of securing the Western lands. Nothina: 



was done, however, by that power save to 
take some di]>lomatic steps to secure the 
claims of Britain to this unexplored wilder- 
ness. 

England had from the outset claimed 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, on the 
ground that the discovery of tlie seacoast 
and its possession was a discovery and pos- 
session of the country, and, as is well known, 
her grants to the colonies extended "from 
sea to sea." This was not all her claim. 
She had purchased from the Indian tribes 
large tracts of laud. This latter was also a 
strong argument. As early as 16S4, Lord 
Howard, Governor of Virginia, held a trea- 
ty with the six nations. These were the 
great Northern Confederacy, and comprised 
at first the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, 
Cayugas, and Senecas. Afterward the Tus- 
caroras were taken into the confederacy, 
and it became known as the Six Nations. 
They came under the protection of the 
mother country, and again in 1701, they 
repeated the agreement, and in September, 
1726, a formal deed was drawn up and 
signed by the chiefs. The validity of this 
claim has often been disputed, but never 
successfully. In 1744, a purchase was made 
at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, of certain lands 
within the "Colony of Virginia," for which 
the Indians received £200 in gold and a 
like sum in goods, with a promise that, as 
settlements increased, more should be paid. 
The Commissioners from Virginia were 
Colonel Thomas Lee and Colonel William 
Beverley. As settlements extended, the 
promise of more pay was called to mind, 
and Mr. Conrad Weiserwas sent across the 
mountains with presents to appease the 
savages. Col. Lee, and some Viririnians 
accompanied him with the intention of 



12 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



sounding- the Indians upon their feeh'ngs 
regarding the English. They were not 
satisfied with their treatment, and plainly 
told the Commissioners why. The English 
did not desire the cultivation of the country, 
but the monopoly of the Indian trade. In 

1748, the Oliio Company was formed, and 
petitioned the king for a grant of land 
bej-ond the Alleghenies. This was granted, 
and the government of Virginia was or- 
dered to grant to them a half million acres, 
two hundred thousand of which were to be 
located at once. Upon the 12th of June, 

1749, 800,000 acres from the line of Canada 
north and west was made to the Loyal 
Company, and on the 29th of October, 

1751, 100,000 acres were given to the 
Greenbriar Company. All this time the 
French were not idle. They saw that, 
should the British gain a foothold in the 
West, especially upon the Ohio, they 
might not only prevent the French set- 
tling upon it, but in time would come to 
the lower posts and so gain possession of 
the whole country. Upon the 10th of May, 
1774, Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada and 
the French possessions, well knowing the 
consequences that must arise from allow- 
ing the English to build trading posts in 
the Northwest, seized some of their frontier 
posts, and to further secure the claim of the 
French to the West, he, in 1749, sent Louis 
Celeron with a party of soldiers to plant 
along the Ohio River, in the mounds and 
at the mouths of its principal tributaries, 
plates of lead, on which were inscribed the 
claims of France. These were heard of in 

1752, and within the memory of residents 
now living along the "Oyo," as the beauti- 
ful river was called by the French. One 
of these plates was found with the inscrip- 



tion partly defaced. It bears date August 
16, 1749, and a copy of the inscription with 
particular account of the discovery of the 
plate, was sent by DeWitt Clinton to the 
American Antiquarian Society, among 
whose journals it may now be found.* 
These measures did not, however, deter the 
English from going on with their explora- 
tions, and though neither party resorted to 
arms, yet the conflict was gathering, and it 
was only a question of time when the storm 
would burst upon the frontier settlements. 
In 1750, Christopher Gist was sent by the 
Ohio Company to examine its lands. He 
went to a village of the Twigtwees, on the 
Miami, about one hundred and fifty miles 
above its mouth. He afterward spoke of it 
as very populous. From there he went 
down the Ohio River nearly to the falls at 
the present City of Louisville, and in 
November he commenced a survey of the 
company's lands. During the winter. 
General Andrew Lewis performed a similar 
work for the Greenbriar Company. Mean- 
while the French were bus}' in preparing 
their forts for defense, and in opening 
roads, and also sent a small party of soldiers 
to keep the Ohio clear. This party, having 
heard of the Englisli post on the Miami 

* The following is a translation of the inscription on 
the plate: " In the year 1749, reign of Louis XV., 
King of Prance, we, Celeron, commandant of a de- 
tachment by Monsieur the Marquis of Uallisoniere, 
commander-in-chief of New France, to establish tran- 
quility in certain Indian villages of these cantons, 
have buried this plate at the confluence of the 
Toradakoin, this twenty-ninth of July, near the river 
Ohio, otherwise Beautiful River, as a monument of 
renewal of possession which we have taken of the 
said river, and all its tributaries; inasmuch as the 
preceding Kings of France have enjoyed it, and 
maintained it by their anns and treaties; esp cially 
by those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix La Chapelle." 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



13 



River, early in 1652, assisted by the 
Ottawas and Chipp(!\vas, attacked it, and, 
after a severe battle, in which fuurteen of 
the natives were killed and others wounded, 
captured the garrison. (They were prob- 
ably garrisoned in a block house). The 
traders were carried away to Canada, and 
one account says several were burned. This 
fort or post was called by the English 
Pickawillany. A memorial of the king's 
ministers refers to it as " Pickawillanes, in 
the center of the territory between the Ohio 
and the Wabash. The name is probably 
some variation of Pickaway or Picqna, in 
1773, written by Rev. David Jones, Pick- 
aweke." 

This was the first blood shed between the 
French and English, and occurred near the 
present City of Piqua, Ohio, or at least at 
a point about forty-seven miles north of 
Dayton. Each nation became now more 
interested in the progress of events in the 
Northwest. The English determined to 
purchase from the Indians a title to the 
lands they wished to occupy, and Messrs. 
Fry (afterward Commander-in-chief over 
Washington at the commencement of the 
French War of 1775-1763), Lomax and 
Patton were sent in the spring of 1752 to 
hold a conference witli the natives at Logs- 
town to learn what they objected to in the 
treaty of Lancaster already noticed and to 
settle all difficulties. On the 9th of June, 
these Commissioners met the red men at 
Logstown, a little village on the north 
bank of the Ohio, about seventeen miles 
below the site of Pittsburgh. Here had 
been a trading point for many years, but it 
was abandoned by the Indians in 1750. At 
first the Indians declined to recognize the 
treaty of Lancaster, but, the Commission- 



ers taking aside Montour, the interpreter, 
who was a son of the famous Catharine Mon- 
tour, and a chief among the Six Nations, 
induced him to use his influence in their 
favor. This he did, and upon the 13th of 
June they all united in signing a deed, con- 
firming the Lancaster treaty in its full ex- 
tent, consenting to asettleinent of the south, 
east of the Ohio, and guaranteeing that it 
should not be disturbed by them. These 
were the means used to obtain the first 
treaty with the Indians in the Ohio Valley. 

Meanwhile the powers beyond the sea 
were trying to out-maneuver each other, 
and were professing to be at peace. The 
English generally outwitted the Indians, 
and failed in many instances to fulfill their 
contracts. They thereby gained the ill- 
will of the red men, and further increased 
the feeling by failing to provide them with 
arms and ammunition. Said an old chief, 
at Easton, in 1758: "The Indians on the 
Ohio left you because of your own fault. 
When we heard the French were coming, 
we asked you for help and arms, but we did 
not get them. The French came, they 
treated us kindly, and gained our affections. 
The Governor of Virginia settled on our 
lands for his own benefit, and, when we 
wanted help, forsook us." 

At the beginning of 1653, the English 
thought they had secured by title the lands 
in the West, but the French had quietly 
gathered cannon and military stores to be 
in readiness for tlie expected blow. The 
English made other attempts to ratify these 
existing treaties, but not until the b nnmer 
could the Indians be gathered together to 
discuss the plans of the French. They had 
sent messages to the French, warning them 
away; but they replied that they intended 



14 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



to complete the chain of forts already be- 
gun, and would not abandon the field. 

Soon after this, no satisfaction being ob- 
tained from the Ohio regarding the posi- 
tions and purposes of the French, Governor 
Dinwiddie of Virginia determined to send 
to them another messenger and learn from 
them, if possible, their intentions. For 
this purpose he selected a young man, a 
surveyor, who, at the early age of nineteen, 
had received the rank of major, and who 
was thoroughly posted regarding frontier 
life. This personage was no other than the 
illustrious George Washington, who then 
held considerable interest in Western lands. 
He was at this time just twenty-two years 
of age. Taking Gist as his guide, the two, 
accompanied by four servitors, set out on 
their perilous march. They left Will's 
Creek on the 10th of November, 1753, and 
on the 22d reached the Monongahela, about 
ten miles above the fork. From there they 
went to Logstown, where Washington had 
a long conference with the chiefs of the Six 
Nations. From them he learned the con- 
dition of the French, and also heard of 
their determination not to come down the 
river till the following spring. The Indi- 
ans were non-committal, as they were afraid 
to turn either way, and, as far as they 
could, desired to remain neutral. Wash- 
ington, finding nothing could be done 
with them, went on to Venango, an old 
Indian town at the mouth of Frencii Creek. 
Here the French had a fort, called Fort 
Machault. Through the rum and flattery 
of the French, he nearly lost all his Indian 
followers. Finding nothing of importance 
here, he pursued his way amid great priva- 
tions, and on tiie 11th of December reached 
the fort at the head of French Creek. Here 



he delivered Governor Dinwiddle's letter, 
received his answer, took his observations, 
and on the 16th set out upon his return 
journey with no one but Gist, his guide, 
and a few Indians who still remained true 
to him, notwithstanding the endeavors of 
the French to retain them. Their home- 
ward journey was one of great peril and 
sufi'ering from the cold, yet they reached 
home in safety on the 6th of January, 
1754. 

From the letter of St. Pierre, commander 
of the French fort, sent by Washington to 
Governor Dinwiddie, it was learned that 
the French would not give up without a 
struggle. Active preparations were at 
once made in all the English colonies for 
the coming conflict, while the French fin- 
ished the fort at Venango and strengthened 
their lines of fortifications, and gathered 
their forces to be in readiness. 

The Old Dominion was all alive. Vir- 
o-inia was the center of great activities; vo - 
unteers were called for, and from all the 
neighboring colonies men rallied to the 
conflict, and everywhere along the Potomac 
men were enlisting under the governor's 
proclamation — which promised two hun- 
dred thousand acres on the Ohio. Along 
this river they were gathering as far as 
Will's Creek, and far beyond this point, 
whither Trent had come for assistance for 
his little band of forty-one men, who were 
working away in hunger and want, to for- 
tify that point at the fork of the Ohio, to 
which both parties were looking with deep 
interest. 

"The first birds of spring filled the air 
with their song; the swift river rolled by 
the Allegheny iiillsides, swollen by the 
melting snows of spring and the April 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



15 



showers. The leaves were appearing; a 
few Indian scouts were seen, but no enemy 
seemed near at hand; and all was so quiet, 
that Frazier, an old Indian scout and trader, 
who had been left by Trent in command, 
ventured to his home at the mouth of 
Turtle Creek, ten miles up the Monongaliela. 
But, though all was so quiet in that wilder- 
ness, keen eyes had seen the low intrench- 
me it rising at the fork, and swift feet had 
borne the news of it up the river; and upon 
the morning of the 17th of April, Ensign 
Ward, who then had charge of it, saw upon 
the Allegheny a sight that made his heart 
sink — sixty batteaux and three hundred 
canoes filled with men, and laden deep with 
cannon and stores. * * * That evening 
Jie supped with his captor, Oontrecojur, and 
the next day he was bowed off bj' the 
Frenchman, and with his men and tools, 
marched up the Monongaliela." 

The French and Indian war had begun. 
The treaty of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748, had 
left the boundaries between the French and 
English possessions unsettled, and the 
events already narrated show the French 
were determined to hold the country wa- 
tered by the Mississippi and its tributaries; 
while the English laid claims to the country 
by virtue of the discoveries of the Cabots, 
and claimed all the country from New- 
foundland to Florida, extending from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific. The first decisive 
blow had now been struck, and the first 
attempt of the English, through the Ohio 
Company, to occupy these lands, had re- 
sulted disastrously to them. The French 
and Indians immediately completed the 
fortifications begun at the Fork, which they 
had so easily captured, and when completed 
gave to the fort the name of Du Quesne. 



Washington was at Will's Creek when the 
news of the capture of the fort arrived. He 
at once departed to recapture it. On his 
way he entrenched himself at a place called 
the " Meadows," where he erected a fort 
called by him Fort Necessity. From there 
he surprised and captured a force of French 
and Indians marching against him, but was 
soon after attacked in his fort by a much 
superior force, and was obliged to yield on 
the morning of July 4th. He was allowed 
to return to Virginia. 

The English Government immediately 
filanned four campaigns; one against Fort 
Du Quesne; one against Nova Scotia; one 
against Fort Niagara, and one against 
Crown Point. These occurred dnrinsr 
1755-6, and were not successful in driving 
the French from their possessions. The 
expedition against Fort Du Quesne was led 
by the famous General Braddock, who, re- 
fusing to listen to the advice of Washington 
and those acquainted with Indian warfare, 
suflered such an inglorious defeat. This 
occurred on the morning of July 9tli, and 
is generally known as the battle of Monon- 
galiela, or " Braddock's Defeat." The war 
continued -with various vicissitudes through 
the years 1756-7; when, at the commence- 
of 1758 in accordance with the plans of 
William Pitt, then Secretary of State, 
afterward Lord Chatham, active prepara- 
tions were made to carry on the war. 
Three expeditions were j)lanned for this 
year: one, under General Amherst, against 
Louisburg; another, under Abercrombie, 
against Fort Ticonderoga; and a third, un- 
der General Forbes, against Fort Du 
Quesne. On the 26th of July, Louisburg 
surrendered after a desperate resistance of 
more than forty days, and the eastern part 



JC 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



of the Canadian possessions fell into the 
hands of tlie British. Abercrombie cap- 
tured Fort Frontenac, and when the ex- 
pedition against Fort Du Quesne, of which 
Washington had the active command, ar- 
rived there, it was found in flames and de- 
serted. The English at once took posses- 
sion, rebuilt the fort, and in lionor of tlieir 
illustrious statesman, clianged the name to 
Fort Pitt. 

The great object of the campaign of 
1759, was the reduction of Canada. Gen- 
eral Wolfe was to lay siege to Quebec; Am- 
herst was to reduce Ticonderoga and Crown 
Point, and General Prideaux was to cap- 
ture Niagara. This latter place was taken 
in July, but the gallant Prideaux lost his 
life in the attempt. Amherst captured 
Ticonderoga and Crown Point without a 
blow; and Wolfe, after making the memor- 
able ascent to the plains of Abraham, on 
September 13th, defeated Montcalm, and 
on the 18th, the city capitulated. In this 
engagement Montcalm and Wolfe both 
lost their lives. De Levi, Montcalm's suc- 
cessor, marched to Sillery, three miles 
above the city, with the purpose of defeat- 
ing the English, and there, on the 2Sth of 
the following April, was fought one of the 
bloodiest battles of the French and Indian 
war. It resulted in the defeat of the 
French, and the fall of the city of Montreal. 
The Governor signed a capitulation, by 
which the whole of Canada was surrendered 
to the English. This practically conclu- 
ded the war, but it was not until 1763 that 
the treaties of peace between France and 
England were signed. This was done on 
the 10th of February of that year, and un- 
der its provisions all tiie country east of 
the Mississippi and north of the Iberville 



river, in Louisiana, were ceded to England. 
At the same time Spain ceded Florida to 
Great Britain. 

On the 13th of September, 1760, Major 
Kobert Rogers was sent from Montreal to 
take charge of Detroit, the only remaining 
French post in the territory. He arrived 
thereon the 19th of November, and sum- 
moned the place to surrender. At first the 
commander of the post, Beletre, refused, 
but on the 29th, hearing of the continued 
defeat of the French arms, suri-endered. 
Rogers remained there until December 23d, 
under the personal protection of the cele- 
brated chief, Pontiac, to whom, no doubt, 
he owed his safety. Pontiac had come here 
to inquire the purposes of the English in 
taking possession of the country. He was 
assured that they came simply to trade 
with the natives, and did not desire their 
country. This answer conciliated the sav- 
ages, and did much to insure the safety of 
Rogers and his party during their stay, 
and while on their journey home. 

Rogers set out for Fort Pitt on Decem- 
ber 23d, and was just one month on the 
way. His route was from Detroit to Mau- 
mee, thence across the present State of 
Ohio directly to the fort. This was the 
common trail of the Indians in their jour- 
neys from Sandusky to the Fork of the 
Ohio. It went from Fort Sandusky, where 
Sandusky city now is, crossed the Huron 
river, then called Bald Eagle Creek, to "Mo- 
hickon John's Town" Creek, on Mohikon 
Creek, the northern branch of White 
Woman's river, and then crossed to Bea- 
ver's town, a Delaware town on what is 
now Sandy Creek. At Beaver's town were 
probably one hundred and fifty warriors, 
and not less than three thousand acres of 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



17 



cleared land. From there the track went 
up Sandy Creek to and across Big Beaver, 
and up the Ohio toLogstown, thence on to 
the fork. 

The Northwest Territory was now en- 
tirely under the English rule. New settle- 
ments began to be rapidly made, and the 
promise of a large trade was speedily mani- 
fested. Had the British carried out their 
promises with the natives, none of those 
savage butcheries would have been perpe- 
trated, and the country would have been 
spared their recital. 

The renowned chief, Pontiac, was one of 
the leading spirits in these atrocities. We 
will now pause in our narrative, and notice 
the leading events in his life. The earliest 
authentic information regarding this noted 
Indian chief, is learned from an account of 
an Indian trader named Alexander Henry, 
who, in the spring of 1761, penetrated his 
domains as far as Missillimacnac. Ponti- 
ac was then a great friend of the French, 
but a bitter foe of the English, whom he 
considered as encroaching on his hunting 
grounds. Henry was obliged to disguise 
himself as a Canadian to insure safety, but 
was discovered by Pontiac, who bitterly 
reproached him, and the English for their 
attempted subjugation of the West. He 
declared that no treaty had been made 
with them; no presents sent them, and 
that he would resent any possession of the , 
West by that nation. He was at the time 
about fifty years of age, tall and dignified, 
and was civil and military ruler of the Ot- 
tawas, Ojibwas and Pottawatomies. 

The Indians, from Lake Micliigan to the 
borders of North Carolina, were united in 
this feeling, and at the time of the treaty 
of Paris, ratified February 10, 1763, a gen- 



eral conspiracy was formed to fall suddenly 
upon the frontier British posts, and with 
one blow strike every man dead. Pontiac 
was the marked leader in all this, and was 
the commander of the Chippewas, Otta- 
was, Wyandots, Miamis, Shawanese, Dela- 
wares and Mingoes, who had, for the time, 
laid aside their local quarrels to unite in 
this enterprise. 

The blow came, as near as can be ascer- 
tained, on May 7, 1763. Nine British 
posts fell, and the Indians drank, " scooped 
up in the hollow of joined hands," the 
blood of many a Briton. 

Pontiac's immediate field of action, was 
the garrison at Detroit. Here, however, 
the plans were frustrated by an Indian 
woman disclosing the plot the evening pre- 
vious to his arrival. Everything was car- 
ried out, however, according to Pontiac's 
plans until the moment of action, wlien 
Major Gladwyn, the commander of the 
post, stepping to one of the Indian chiefs, 
suddenly drew aside his blanket and dis- 
closed the concealed musket. Pontiac 
though a brave man, turned pale and 
trembled. He saw his plan was known 
and that the garrison were prepared. He 
endeavored to exculpate himself from any 
such intentions; but the guilt was evident, 
and he and his followers were dismissed 
with a severe re]3riniand, and warned never 
to again enter the walls of the post. 

Pontiac at once laid siege to the fort, 
and until the treaty of peace between the 
British and the Western Indians, conclud- 
ed in August, 1764, continued to harass 
and besiege the fortress. He organized a 
regular commissariat department, issued 
bills of credit written out on bark, which to 
his credit, it may be stated, were punctu- 



18 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



ally redeemed. At the conclusion of the 
treaty, in which it seems he took no part, 
he went farther south, living many years 
among the Illinois. 

He had given up all hope of saving his 
country and race. After a time he endeav- 
ored to unite the Illinois tribe and those 
about St. Louis in a war with the whites. 
His eftbrts were fruitless, and only ended 
in a quarrel between himself and some 
Kaskaskialndians, oneof whom soon after- 
ward killed him. His death was, however, 
avenged by the northern Indians, who 
nearly exterminated the Illinois in the 
wars which followed. 

Had it not been for the treachery of a 
few of his followers, his plan for the ex- 
termination of the whites, a masterly 
one, would undoubtedly have been carried 

out. 

It was in the spring of the year follow- 
in o- Rogers' visit that Alexander Henry 
went to Missillimacnac, and everywhere 
found the strongest feelings against the 
English who had not carried out their 
promises, and were doing nothing to con- 
ciliate the natives. Here he met the chief, 
Pontiac, who after conveying to him in a 
speech the idea that their French father 
would awake soon and utterly destroy his 
enemies, said: "Englishman, although 
you have conquered the French, you have 
not yet conquered us ! "We are not your 
slaves! These lakes, these woods, these 
mountains, were left us by our ancestors. 
They are our inheritance, and we will part 
with them to none. Your nation supposes 
that we, like the white people, can not live 
without bread and pork and beef. But you 
ought to know that He, the Great Spirit and 
Master of Life, has provided food for us 



upon these broad lakes and in these moun- 
tains." 

He then spoke of the fact that no 
treaty had been made with them, no 
presents sent then], and that he and his 
people were yet for war. Such were 
the feelings of the Northwestern Indians 
immediately after the English took posses- 
sion of their country. These feelings were 
no doubt encouraged by the Canadians and 
French, who hoped that yet the French 
arms might prevail. The treaty of Paris, 
however, gave to the English the right to 
this vast domain, aud active preparations 
were going on to occupy it and enjoy its 
trade and emoluments. 

In 1762, France, by a secret treaty, ceded 
Louisiana to Spain, to prevent it falling 
into the hands of the English, who were 
becoming masters of the entire "West. The 
next year the treaty of Paris, signed at 
Fontainbleau, gave to the English the do- 
main of the country in q\;estion. Twenty 
years after, by the treaty of peace between 
the United States and England, that part 
of Canada lying south and west of the 
Great Lakes, comprehending a large terri- 
tory which is the subject of these sketches, 
was acknowledged to be a portion of the 
United States; and twenty years still later, 
in 1803, Louisiana was ceded by Spain 
back to France, and by France sold to the 
United States. 

In the half century, from the building 
of the Fort of Crevecoeur by La Salle, in 
1680, lip to the erection of Fort Chatres, 
many French settlements had been made in 
that quarter. These have already been 
noticed, being those at St. Vincent (Vin- 
cennes). Kohokia or Cahokia, Kaskaskia 
and Prairie du Rocher, on the American 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



lU 



Bottom, a large tract of rich alluvial soil 
in Illinois, on the Mississippi, opposite the 
site of St. Louis. 

By the treaty of Paris, the i-egions east 
of the Mississippi, including all these and 
other towns of the Northwest, were given 
over to England, but they do not appear to 
have been taken possession of until 1765. 
when Captain Stirling, in the name of the 
Majesty of England, established himself at 
Fort Chartres bearing with him the procla- 
mation of General Gage, dated December 
30, 1764, which promised religious freedom 
to all Catholics who worshipped here, and 
a right to leave the country with their 
effects if they wished, or to remain with 
the privileges of Englishmen. It was 
shortly after the occupancy of the West by 
the British that the war with Pontiac 
opened. It is already noticed in the sketch 
of that chieftain. By it many a Briton lost 
his life, and many a frontier settlement in 
its infancy ceased to exist. This was not 
ended until the year 1764, when, failing to 
capture Detroit, Niagara and Fort Pitt, 
his confederacy became disheartened, and, 
receiving no aid from the Frencli, Pontiac 
abandoned the enterprise and departed to 
the Illinois, among whom he afterward 
lost his life. 

As soon as these difficulties were defi- 
niteh' settled, settlers began rapidly to sur- 
vey the country, and prepare for occupa- 
tion. During the year 1770, a number of 
persons from Yirginia and other British 
provinces explored and marked out nearly 
all the valuable lands on the Monongahela 
and along the banks of the Ohio, as far as 
the Little Kanawha. This was followed by 
another exploring expedition, in which 
George Washington was a party. The 



latter, accompanied b}' Dr. Craik, Capt. 
Crawford and others, on the 20th of Octo- 
ber, 1770, descended the Ohio from Pitts- 
burgh to the mouth of the Kanawha ; as- 
cended that stream about fourteen miles, 
marked out several large tracts of land, 
shot several buffalo, which were then abun- 
dant in the Ohio valley, and returned to 
the fort. 

Pittsburgh was at this time a trading 
post, about which was clustered a village 
of some twenty houses, inhabited by In- 
dian traders. This same year, Capt. Pitt- 
man visited Kaskaskia and its neighbor- 
ing villages. He found there about sixtj'- 
five resident families, and at Cahokia only 
forty-five dwellings. At Fort Chartres was 
another small settlement, and at Detroit 
the garrison were quite prosperous and 
strong. For a year or two settlers con- 
tinued to locate near some of these posts, 
generally Fort Pitt or Detroit, owing to 
the fears of the Indians, who still main- 
tained some feelings of hatred to the Eng- 
lish. The trade from the posts was quite 
good, and from those in Illinois large quan- 
tities of pork and flour found their way to 
the New Orleans market. At this time 
the policy of the British Government was 
strongly opposed to the extension of the 
colonies west. In 1763, the King of Eng- 
land forbade, by royal proclamation, his 
colonial subjects from making a settle- 
ment beyond the sources of the rivers 
which fall into the Atlantic Ocean. At the 
instance of the Board of Trade, measures 
were taken to prevent the settlement with- 
out the limits prescribed, and to retain the 
commerce within easy reach of Great 
Britain. 

The commander-in-chief of the king's 



20 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



forces wrote in 1769 : '" In the course of a 
few years necessity will compel the colo- 
nists, should they extend their settlements 
west, to provide manufactures of some kind 
for tlieniselves, and when all connection 
upheld by commerce with the mother coun- 
try ceases, an independency in their gov- 
ernment will soon follow." 

In accordance with this policy, Gov. 
Gaze issued a proclamation in 1772, com- 
manding the inhabitants of Vincennes to 
abandon their settlements and join some 
of the Eastern English colonies. To this 
they strenuously objected, giving good 
reasons therefor, and were allowed to re- 
main. Tlie strong opposition to this pol- 
icy of Great Britain led to its change, and 
to such a course as to gain the attachment 
of the French population. In December, 
1773, influential citizens of Quebec peti- 
tioned the king for an extension of the 
boundary lines of that province, which was 
granted, and Parliament passed an act on 
June 2, 1774, extending tlie boundary so 
as to include the territory lying within the 
present states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois 
and Micliigan. 

In consequence of the liberal policy pur- 
sued by the British Government toward 
the French settlers in the West, they were 
disposed to favor that nation in the war 
which soon followed with the colonies; but 
the early alliance between France and 
America soon brought them to the side of 
the war for independence. 

In 1774, Gov. Dunmore, of Virginia, 
began to encourage emigration to the 
"Western lands. He appointed magistrates 
at Fort Pitt, under the pretense that the 
fort was under tlie government of that 
commonwealth. One of these justices, 



John Connelly-, who possessed a tract of 
land in the Ohio Valley, gathered a force 
of men and garrisoned the fort, calling it 
Fort Dunmore. This and other parties 
were formed to select sites for settlements, 
and often came in conflict with the Imlians, 
who yet claimed portions of the valley, and 
several battles followed. These ended in 
the famous battle of Kanawha, in July, 
where the Indians were defeated and driv- 
en across the Ohio. 

During the years 1775 and 1776, by the 
operations of land companies and the per- 
severance of individuals, several settle- 
ments were firmly established between the 
Alleghenies and the Ohio Piver, and west- 
ern land speculators were busy in Illinois 
and on the Wabash. At a council held in 
Krtskaskia, on July 5, 1773, an association 
of English traders, calling themselves the 
" Illinois Land Company," obtained from 
ten chiefs of the Kaskaskia, Cahokia and 
Peoria tribes two large tracts of land lying 
on the east side of the Mississippi River 
south of the Illinois. In 1775, a merchant 
from the Illinois country, named Viviat, 
came to Post Vincennes as the agent of the 
association called the " Wabash Land Com- 
pany." On the Stli of October he obtained 
from eleven Piankeshaw chiefs, a deed for 
37,497,600 acres of land. This deed was 
signed by the grantors, attested by a num- 
ber of the inhabitants of Vincennes, and 
afterward recorded in the oflice of a notary 
public at Kaskaskia. This and other land 
companies had extensive schemes for the 
colonization of the West; but all were frus- 
trated by the breaking out of the Revolu- 
tion. On the 20th of April, 1780, the two 
companies named consolidated under the 
name of the " United Illinois and Wabash 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



21 



Land Company." They afterward made 
strenuous efforts to have these grants sanc- 
tioned by Congress, but all signally failed. 

When the War of the Eevolution com- 
menced, Kentucky was an unorganized 
countrj', thougii there were several settle- 
ments within her borders. 

In Hutchins' Topography of Virginia, 
it is stated that at that time " Kaskaskia 
contained 80 houses, and nearly 1,000 
white and black inhabitants — the whites 
being a little the more numerous. Caho- 
kia contains 50 houses and 300 white in- 
habitants and SO negroes. There were 
east of the Mississijipi River, about the 
year 1771 " — when these observations were 
made — " 300 white men capable of bearing 
arms, and 230 negroes." 

From 1775 until the expedition of Clark, 
nothing is recorded and nothing known of 
these settlements, save what is contained 
in a report made by a committee to Con- 
gress in June, 177S. From it the follow- 
ing extract is made: 

"Near the mouth of the River Kaskas- 
kia, there is a village which appears to 
have contained nearly eighty families from 
the beginning of the late revolution. 
There are twelve families in a small village 
at la Prairie du Rochers, and near fifty 
families at the Kahokia Village. There 
are also four or five families at Fort Char- 
tres and St. Phillips, which is five miles 
farther up the river." 

St. Louis had been settled in February, 
176'1, and at this time contained, including 
its neishborinn; towns, over six hundred 
whites and one hundred and fifty negroes. 
It must be remembered that all the coun- 
try west of the Mississijipi was now under 
French rule, and remained so until ceded 



again to S]iaiu, its original owner, who 
afterwards sold it and the country inchub 
ing New Orleans to the United States. 
At Detroit there were, according to Capt. 
Carver, who was in the northwest from 
1766 to 1768, more than one hundred houses 
and the river was settled for more than 
twenty miles, although poorly cultivated — 
the people being engaged in the Indian 
trade. This old town has a history, which 
we will here relate. 

It is the oldest town in the Northwest,^ 
having been founded by Antoine Lade- 
motte Cadillac, in 1701. It was laid out 
in the form of an oblong square, of two 
acres in length and an acre and a half in 
width. As described by A. D. Frazer, who 
first visited it and became a permanent 
resident of the place, in 1778, it com]irised 
within its limits that space between Mr. 
Palmer's store (Conant Block) and Capt. 
Perkins' house (near the Arsenal building), 
and extended back as far as the public 
barn, and was bordered in front by the 
Detroit River. It was surrounded by oak 
and cedar pickets, about fifteen feet long, set 
in the ground, and had four gates-east, west, 
north and south. Over the first three of 
these gates were block houses provided with 
four guns apiece, each a six pounder. Two 
six-gun batteries were planted fronting the 
river, and in a parallel direction with the 
V)lock houses. There were four streets 
running east and west, the main street be- 
ing twenty feet wide and the rest fifteen 
feet, while the four streets crossing these at 
right angles were from ten to fifteen feet 
in width. 

At the date spoken of by Mr. Frazer, 
there was no fort within the enclosure, but 
a citadel on the ground corresponding to 



22 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



the present northwest corner of Jefferson 
Avenue and "Wayne Street. The citadel 
was inclosed by pickets, and within it were 
erected barracks of wood, two stories higli, 
sufficient to contain ten officers, and also 
barracks sufficient to contain four hundred 
men, and a provision store built of brick. 
The citadel also contained a liospital and 
a guard-house. The old town of Detroit, 
in 1778, contained about sixty houses, 
most of thera one story, with a few a story 
and a half in height. They were all of 
logs, some hewn and some round. There 
was one building of splendid appearance, 
called the " King's Palace," two stories 
high, which stood near the east gate. It 
was built for Governor Hamilton, the first 
governor commissioned by the British. 
There were two guard-houses, one near tlie 
west gate and the other near the Govern- 
ment House. Each of the guards con- 
sisted of twenty-four men and a subaltern, 
who mounted regnlarl}' every morning be- 
tween nine and ten o'clock. Each fur- 
niilied four sentinels, who were relieved 
every two hours. There was also an offi- 
cer of the day, who performed strict duty. 
Each of the gates was shut rea-nlarlv at 
sunset ; even wicket gates were shut at 
nine o'clock, and all the keys were deliv- 
ered into the hands of the commanding 
officer. They were opened in the morning 
at sunrise. No Indian or squaw was per- 
mitted to enter town with any weapon, 
such as a tomahawk or a knife. It was a 
standing order that the Indians should de- 
liver their arms and instruments of everv 
kind before they were permitted to pass 
the sentinel, and they were restored to 
thera on their return. No more than 
twenty-five Indians were allowed to enter 



the town at any one time, and they were 
admitted only at the east and west gates. 
At sundown the drums beat, and all the 
Indians were required to leave town in- 
stantly. . There was a council house near 
tlie water side for the purpose of holding 
council with the Indians. The population 
of the town was about sixty families, in all 
about two iiundred males and one hundred 
females. This town was destroyed by fire, 
all except one dwelling, in 1805. After 
which the present " new " town was laid 
out. 

On the breaking out of the Kevolution. 
the British held every post of importance 
in tlie West. Kentucky was formed as a 
component part of Virginia, and the sturdy 
pioneers of the West, alive to their inter- 
ests, and recognizing the great benefits of 
obtaining the control of the trade in this 
part of the Xew World, held steadily to 
their purposes, and those within the com- 
monwealth of Kentucky proceeded to ex- 
ercise their civil privileges, by electing 
John Todd and Ricliard Calloway, burgess- 
es to represent them in the Assembly of 
the parent state. Early in 8eptember of 
that year (1T77) the first court was held in 
Harrodsburg, and Col. Bowman, afterward 
major, who had arrived in August, was 
made the commander of a militia organiza- 
tion which had been commenced the March 
previous. Thus the tree of loyalty was 
o-rowing. Tiie ciiief spirit in this far-out 
colony, who had represented her the year 
previous east of the mountains, was now 
meditating a move unequaied in its bold- 
ness. He had been watciiing the move- 
ments of the British throughout the North- 
west, and understood their whole plan. 
He saw it was through their possession of 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



23 



tlie posts at Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, 
and other places, which would give them 
constant and easy access to the various In- 
dian tribes in the Northwest, that the Brit- 
ish intended to penetrate the country from 
the north and south, and annihilate the 
frontier fortresses. This moving, energetic 
man was Colonel, afterward General, 
George Rogers Clark. He knew the In- 
dians were not unanimously in accord with 
the English, and he was convinced that, 
could the British be defeated and expelled 
from the Northwest, the natives might be 
easily awed into neutrality ; and by spies 
sent for the purpose, he satisfied himself 
that the enterprise against the Illinois set- 
tlements might easily succeed. Having 
convinced himself of the certainty of the 
jiroject, he repaired to the Capital of Vir- 
ginia, which place he reached on November 
5tli. AVhile he was on his way, fortunately, 
on October 17th, Bnrgoyiie had been de- 
feated, and the spirits of the colonists 
greatly encouraged thereby. Patrick Henry 
was Governor of Virginia, and at once 
entered heartily into Clark's plans. The 
same plan had before been agitated in the 
Colonial Assemblies, but there was no one 
until Clark came who was sufficiently 
acquainted with the condition of affairs at 
the scene of action to be able to guide them. 
Clark, having satisfied the Virginia lead- 
ers of the feasibility of his plan, received, 
on the 2d of January, two sets of instruc- 
tions — one secret, the other open — the lat- 
ter authorized him to proceed to enlist 
seven companies to go to Kentuckj-, sub- 
ject to his orders, and to serve three months 
from their arrival in the West. The secret 
order authorized him to arm these troops, 
to procure his powder and lead of General 



Hand at Pittsburgh, and to proceed at 
once to subjugate the country. 

With these instructions Clark repaired 
to Pittsburgh, choosing rather to raise his 
men west of the mountains, as he well 
knew all were needed in the colonies in 
the conflict there. He sent Col. W. B. 
Smith to Holston for the same purpose, 
but neither succeeded in raising the re- 
quired number of men. The settlers in 
these parts were afraid to leave their own 
firesides exposed to a vigilant foe, and but 
few coidd be induced to join the proposed 
expedition. With three companies and 
several private volunteers, Clark at length 
commenced his descent of the Ohio, which 
he navigated as far as the Falls, where he 
took possession of and fortified Corn Isl- 
and, a small island between the present 
cities of Louisville, Kentucky, and New 
Albany, Indiana. Remains of this forti- 
fication may yet be found. At this place 
he appointed Col. Bowman to meet him 
with such recruits as had reached Ken- 
tucky by the southern route, and as many 
as could be spared from the station. Here 
he announced to the men their real desti- 
nation. Having completed his arrange- 
ments, and chosen his party, he left a small 
garrison upon the island, and on the 24111 
of June, during a total eclipse of the sun, 
which to them augured no good, and which 
fixes beyond dispute the date of starting. 
he with his chosen band, fell down the 
river. His plan was to go by water as far 
as Fort Massac or Massacre, and thence 
march direct to Kaskaskia. Here he in- 
tended to surprise the garrison, and after 
its capture go to Cahokia, then to Vincen- 
nes, and lastly to Detroit. Should he fail, 
he intended to march directly to the Miss- 



24 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



issippi River and cross it into the Spanish 
country. Before his start lie received two 
good items of information ; one that tlie 
alliance had been formed between Fi-ance 
and the United States ; and the other that 
the Indians throughont the Illinois conntry 
and the inhabitants, at the various frontier 
posts, had been led to believe by the Brit- 
ish that the " Long Knives" or Virginians, 
were the most fierce, bloodthirsty and cruel 
savages that ever scalped a foe. With this 
impression on their minds, Clark saw that 
proper management would cause them to 
submit at once from fear, if surprised, and 
then from gratitude would become friendly 
if treated with unexpected leniency. 

The march toKaskaskia was accomplish- 
ed through a hot July sun, and the town 
reached on the evening of July 4. Recap- 
tured ■ the fort near the village, and soon 
after the village itself by surprise, and with- 
out the loss of a single man or by killing 
any of the enemy. After sufficiently work- 
ing upon the fears of the natives, Clark 
told them they were at perfect liberty to 
worship as they pleased, and to take which- 
ever side of the great conflict they would, 
also, he would protect them from any bar- 
barity from British or Indian foe. This 
had the desired effect, and the inhabitants, 
so unexpectedly and so gratefully surprised 
by the unlooked-for turn of affairs, at once 
swore allegiance to the American arms, and 
when Clark desired to go to Cahokia on 
the 6th of July, they accompanied him, 
and through their influence the inhabitants 
of the place surrendered, and gladly placed 
themselves under his protection. Thus 
the two important posts in Illinois passed 
from the hands of the English into the pos- 
session of Virginia. 



In the person of the priest at Kaskaskia, 
M. Gibault, Clark found a powerful ally 
and generous- friend. Clark saw that, to 
retain possession of the ^furthwest and 
treat successfully with the Indians within 
its boundaries, he must establish a govern- 
ment for the colonies he had taken. St. 
Yincent, the next important post to De- 
troit, remained yet to be taken before the 
Mississippi Valle}- was conquered. M. Gib- 
ault told him that he would alone, by per- 
suasion, lead Vincennes to throw off its 
connection with England. Clark gladly 
accepted his offer, and on the 14th of July, 
in company with a fellow-townsman, M. 
Gibault started on his mission of peace 
and on the 1st of August returned with the 
cheerful intelligence that the post on the 
"Oubache" had taken the oath of allegi- 
ance to the Old Dominion. During this 
interval, Clark established his courts, placed 
garrisons at Kaskaskia and Cahokia, suc- 
cessfully re-enlisted his men, sent word to 
have a fort, which proved the germ of Louis- 
ville, erected at the Falls of the Ohio, and 
dispatched M. Rocheblave, who had been 
commander at Kaskaskia, as a prisoner of 
war to Richmond. In October the County 
of Illinois was established by the Legis- 
lature of Yirginia, John Todd appointed 
Lieutenant Colonel and Civil Governor, 
and in November General Clark and his 
men received the thanks of the Old Do- 
minion through their Legislature. 

In a speech a few days afterward, Clark 
made known fully to the natives his plans, 
and at its close all came forward and swore 
allesiance to the Long Knives. While he 
was doing this Governor Hamilton, having 
made his various arrangements, had left 
Detroit and moved down the Wabash to 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



25 



Yincennes intending to operate from tliat 
point in reducing the Illinois posts, and 
then proceed on down to -Kentucky and 
drive the rebels from the West. Gen. 
Clark had, on the return of M. Gibault, 
dispatched Captain Helm, of Fauquier 
County, Virginia, with an attendant named 
Henry, across the Illinois prairies to com- 
mand the fort. Hamilton knew nothing 
of the capitulation of the post, and was 
greatly surprised on his arrival to be con- 
fronted by Capt. Helm, who, standing at 
the entrance of the fort by a loaded cannon 
ready to fire upon his assailants, demanded 
upon what terms Hamilton demanded pos- 
session of the fort. Being granted the 
rights of a prisoner of war, he surrendered 
to the British General, who could scarcely 
believe his eyes when he saw the force in 
the garrison. 

Hamilton, not realizing the character of 
the men with wliona he was contending, 
gave up his intended campaign for tiie 
winter, sent his four hundred Indian war- 
riors to prevent troops from coming down 
tiie Ohio, and to annoy the Americans in 
all ways, and sat quietly down to pass the 
winter. Information of all these proceed- 
ings having reached Clark, he saw that 
immediate and decisive action was neces- 
sary, and that unless he captured Hamil- 
ton, Hamilton would capture him. Clark 
received the news on the 29th of January, 
1779, and on February 4th, having suffi- 
ciently garrisoned Kuskaskia and Cahokia, 
he sent down the Mississippi a " battoe,'' 
as Major Bowman writes it, in order to as- 
cend the Ohio and AVabash, and operate 
with the land forces gathering for the 
fray. 

On the next day, Clark, with his little 



force of one hundred and twenty men, set 
out for the post, and after incredible hard 
marching through much mud, the gi'ound 
being thawed by the incessant spring rains, 
on the 23nd reached the fort, and being 
joined by his " battoe," at once commenced 
the attack on the post. The aim of the 
American backwoodsmen was unerring, 
and on the 24th the garrison surrendered 
to the intrepid boldness of Clark. The 
French were treated with great kindness, 
and gladly renewed their allegiance to Vir- 
ginia. Hamilton was sent as a prisoner to 
Virginia, where he was kept in close con- 
finement. During his command of the 
British frontier posts, he had offered prizes 
to the Indians for all the scalps of Ameri- 
cans they would bring to liim, and had 
earned in consequence thereof, the tttle 
"Hair-buyer General," by which he was 
ever afterward known. 

Detroit was now without doubt within 
easy reach of the enterprising Virginian, 
could he but raise the necessary force. 
Governor Henry being apprised of this, 
promised him the needed reinforcement, 
and Clark concluded to wait until he could 
capture and sufficiently garrison the posts. 
Had Clark failed in this bold undertaking, 
and Hamilton succeeded in uniting the 
western Indians for the next spring's cam- 
paign, the "West would indeed have been 
swept from the Mississippi to the Allegheny 
Mountains, and the great blow struck, 
which had been contemplated from the 
commencement, by the British. 

" But for this small army of dripping, 
but fearless Virginians, the union of all 
the tribes from Georgia to Maine against 
the colonies might have been effected, and 
the whole current of our history changed." 



20 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



At this time some fears were entertained 
by the Colonial Governments that the In- 
dians in the North and Northwest were in- 
clinino: to the British, and under the in- 
structions of Washington, now Commander- 
in-Chief of the Colonial army, and so 
bravely fighting for American independ- 
ence, armed forces were sent against the 
Six Nations, and upon the Ohio frontier, 
Col. Bowman, acting under the same gen- 
eral's orders, marched against Indians 
within the present limits of that State. 
These expeilitions were in the main suc- 
cessful, and the Indians were compelled to 
sue for peace. 

During the same year (1779) the famous 
'Land Laws " of Virginia were passed. 
The passage of these laws was of more con- 
sequence to the pioneers of Kentucky and 
the Northwest than the gaining of a few 
Indian conflicts. These laws confirmed in 
main all grants made, and guaranteed to all 
actual settlers their rights and privileges. 
After providing for the settlers, the laws 
provided for selling the balance of the pub- 
lic lands at forty cents per acre. To carry 
the Land Laws into effect, the Legislature 
sent four "Virginians westward to attend to 
the various claims, over many of which 
great confusion prevailed concerning their 
validity. These gentlemen opened their 
court on October 13, 1779, at St. Asaphs, 
and continued until April 26, 1780, when 
they adjourned, having decided three thou- 
sand claims. They were succeeded by the 
surveyor, who came in the person of Mr. 
George May, and assumed his duties on 
the 10th day of the month whose name he 
bore. With the opening of the next year 
(1780) the troubles concerning the naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi commenced. The 



Spanish Government exacted such measures 
in relation to its trade as to cause the over- 
tures made to the United States to be re- 
jected. The American Government con- 
sidered they had a right to navigate its 
channel. To enforce their claims, a foi't 
was erected below the mouth of the Ohio 
on the Kentucky side of the river. Tiie 
settlements in Kentucky were being ra])idly 
filled by emigrants. It was during this 
year that the first seminary of learning was 
established in the West in this young and 
enterprising Commonwealth. 

The settlers here did not look upon the 
building of this fort in a friendly manner, 
as it aroused the hostility of the Indians. 
Spain had been friendly to the Colonies 
during their struggle for independence, 
and though for a while this friendship ap- 
peared in danger trom the refusal of the 
free navigation of the river, yet it was 
finally settled to the satisfaction of both 
nations. 

The winter of 1779-80 was one of the 
most unusually severe ones ever experienced 
in the West. The Indians always referred 
to it'as the " Great Cold." Numbers of wild 
animals perished, and not a few pioneers 
lost their lives. The following summer a 
party of Canadians and Indians attacked 
St. Louis, and attempted to take possession 
of it in consequence of the friendly dispo- 
sition of Spain to the revolting Colonies. 
They met with such a determined resist- 
ance on the part of the inhabitants, even 
the women taking part in the battle, that 
they were compelled to abandon the con- 
test. They also made an attack on the 
settlements in Kentucky, but, becoming 
alarmed in some unaccountable manner, 
they fled the country in great haste. 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



About this time arose the question in 
the Colonial Congress concerning the west- 
ern lands claimed by Virginia, New York, 
Massachusetts and Connecticut. The agi- 
tation concerning this subject finally led 
New York, on the 19th of Februar}', 1780, 
to pass a law giving to the delegates of 
that State in Congress the power to cede 
her western lands for the benefit of the 
United States. This law was laid before 
Congress during the next month, but no 
steps were taken concerning it until Sep- 
tember <5th, when a resolution passed that 
body calling upon the States claiming west- 
ern lands to release their claims in favor of 
the whole body. This basis formed the 
union, and was the first after all of those 
legislative measures which resulted in the 
creation of the States of Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minne- 
sota. In December of the same year, the 
plan of conquering Detroit again arose. 
The conquest might have easily been 
effected by Clark had the necessary aid 
been furnished him. Nothing decisive was 
done, yet the heads of the Government 
knew that the safety of the Northwest from 
British invasion lay in the capture and 
retention of that important post, the only 
unconquered one in the territory. 

Before the close of the year, Kentucky 
was divided into the Counties of Lincoln, 
Faj'ctte and Jefferson, and the act estab- 
lishing the Town of Louisville was passed. 
This same year is also noted in the annals 
of American history as the year in which 
occurred Arnold's treason to the United 
States. 

Virginia, in accordance with the resolu- 
tion of Congress, on the 2d day of January, 
1781, agreed to yield her western lands to 



the United States upon certain conditions, 
which Congress would not accede to, and 
the act of Cession, on the part of the Old 
Dominion, failed, nor was anything fur- 
ther done until 1783. During all that 
time the Colonies were busily engaged in 
the struggle with the mother country, and 
in consequence thereof but little heed was 
given to the western settlements. Upon 
the 16th of April, 1781, the first birth 
north of the Ohio River of American par- 
entage occurred, being that of Mary Heck- 
ewelder, daughter of the widely known 
Moravian missionary, whose band of Chris- 
tian Indians suffered in after years a hor- 
rible massacre by the hands of the frontier 
settlers, who had been exasperated by the 
murder of several of their neighbors, and 
in their rage committed, without regard to 
luurianity, a deed which forever afterward 
cast a shade of shame upon their lives. 
For this and kindred outrages on the part 
of the whites, the Indians committed many 
deeds of cruelty which darken the years of 
1771 and 1772 in the history of the North- 
west. 

During the year 1782 a number of bat- 
tles among the Indians and frontiersmen 
occurred, and between the Moravian Indi- 
ans and the Wyandots. In these, horrible 
acts of cruelty were practiced on the cap- 
tives, many of such dark deeds transpiring 
under the leadership of the notorious front- 
ier outlaw, Simon Girty, whose name, as 
well as those of his brothers, was a terror 
to women and children. These occurred 
chiefly in the Ohio valleys. Contempo- 
rary with them were several enefairemcnts 
in Kentucky, in which the famous Daniel 
Boone engaged, and who often, by his 
skill and knowledge of Indian warfare, 



28 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



saved the outposts from cruel destrnctiou. 
By the close of the year victory had 
perched upon the American banner, and 
on the 30th of November, provisional arti- 
cles of peace had been arranged between 
the Commissioners of England, and her 
unconquerable Colonies. Coriiwallis had 
been defeated on the 19th of October pre- 
ceding, and the liberty of America was as- 
sured. On the 19th of April following, 
the anniversary of the battle of Lexington, 
peace was proclaimed to the army of the 
United States, and on the 3d of the next 
September, the definite treaty which ended 
our revolutionary struggle, was concluded. 
By the terms of that treaty, the bounda- 
ries of the West were as follows: On the 
north the line was to extend along the cen- 
ter of the Great Lakes; fi-om the western 
point of Lake Superior to Long Lake; 
thence to the Lake of the "Woods; thence 
to the head of the Mississippi River, down 
its center to the 31st parallel of latitude, 
then on that line east to the head of the 
Appalachicola River; down its center to 
its junction with the Flint; thence straight 
to the head of St. Mary's River, and thence 
down along its center to the Atlantic 
Ocean. 

Following the cessation of hostilities 
with England, several posts were still occu- 
pied by the British in the North and West. 
Among these was Detroit, still in the hands 
of the enemy. Numerous engagements 
with the Indians throughout Ohio and In- 
diana occurred, upon whose lands adventur- 
ous whites would settle ere the title had 
been acquired by the proper treaty. 

To remedy this latter evil. Congress ap- 
pointed commissioners to treat with the 
natives and purchase their lands, and pro- 



hibited the settlement of the territory until 
this could be done. Before the close of the 
year another attempt was made to capture 
Detroit, which was, however, not pushed, 
and Virginia, no longer feeling the interest 
in the Northwest she had formerly done, 
withdrew her troops, having on the 20th of 
December preceding authorized the whole 
of her possessions to be deeded to the 
United States. This was done on the 1st 
of March following, and the Northwest 
Territory passed from the control of the 
Old Dominion. To Gen. Clark and his 
soldiers, however, she gave a tract of one 
hundred and fifty thousand acres of land, 
to be situated anywhere north of the Ohio 
wherever they chose to locate them. They 
selected the region opposite the falls of 
the Ohio, where is now the dilapidated 
village of Clarksville, about midway be- 
tween the Cities of New Albany and JeflFer- 
sonville, Indiana. 

While the frontier remained thus, and 
Gen. Haldimand at Detroit refused to 
evacuate, alleging that he had no orders 
from his King to do so, settlers were rap- 
idly irathering about the inland forts. In 
the spring of 1784, Pittsburgh was regu- 
larlv laid out, and from the journal of Ar- 
thur Lee, who passed through the town 
soon after on his way to the Indian council 
at Fort Mcintosh, we suppose it was not 
very prepossessing in appearance. He 

says: 

" Pittsburgh is inhabited almost entirely 
by Scots and Irish, who live in paltry log 
houses, and are as dirty as if in the north 
of Ireland or even Scotland. There is a 
great deal of trade carried on, the goods 
being brought at the vast expense of forty- 
five shillings per pound from Philadelphia 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



iuid Baltimore. They take in the shops 
Hour, wheat, skins and money. There are 
in tlie town four attorneys, two doctors, 
and not a priest of any persuasion, nor 
clnirch nor chapeh" 

Kentucky at this time contained tliirt}- 
thousand inhabitants, and was beginning to 
discuss measures for a separation from 
Virginia. A land office was opened at 
Louisville, and measures were adopted to 
take defensive precaution against the In- 
dians who were yet, in some instances, in- 
cited to deeds of violence by the British. 
Before the close of this year, 1784, the 
military claimants of land began to 
occupy them, although no entries were 
recorded until ITS 7. 

The Indian title to the Northwest was 
not yet extinguished. They held large 
tracts of lands, and in order to prevent 
bloodshed Congress adopted means for 
treaties with the original owners and pro- 
vided for the surveys of the lands gained 
thereby, as well as for those north of the 
Ohio, now in its possession. On January 
31, 17S6, a treaty was made with the "Wa- 
bash Indians. The treaty of Fort Stanwix 
had been made in 17Si. That at Fort Mc- 
intosh in 1785, and through these much 
land was gained. The Wabash Indians, 
however, afterward refused to comply with 
the provisions of the treaty made with 
them, and in order to compel their adhe- 
rence to its provisions, force was used. 
During the year 1786, the free navigation 
of the Mississippi came up in Congress, 
and caused various discussions, wliich re- 
sulted in no definite action, only serving to 
excite speculation in regard to the western 
lands. Congress had promised bounties 
of land to the soldiers of the Revolution, 



but owing to the unsettled condition of 
affairs along the Mississip])i respecting its 
navigation, and the trade of the Northwest, 
that body had, in 1783, declared its inabil- 
ity to fulfill these promises until a treaty 
could be concluded between the two Gov- 
ernments. Before the close of the year 
17S6, however, it was able, through the 
treaties with the Indians, to allow some 
grants and the settlement thereon, and on 
the 14th of September, Connecticut ceded 
to the General Government the tract of 
land known as the " Connecticut Reserve," 
and before the close of the following year 
a large tract of land north of the Ohio was 
sold to a company, who at once took meas- 
ures to settle it. By the provisions of this 
grant, the company were to pay the United 
States one dollar per acre, subject to a de- 
duction of one-third for bad lands and other 
coutingencies. They received 750,000 acres, 
bounded on the south by the Ohio, on the 
east by the seventh range of townships, on 
the west by the sixteenth range, and on the 
north by a line so drawn as to make the 
grant complete without the reservations. 
In addition to this. Congress afterward 
granted 100,000 acres to actual settlers, and 
214,285 acres as army bounties under the 
resolutions of 1789 and 1790. 

While Dr. Cutler, one of the agents of 
the company, was pressing its claims before 
Congress, that body was bringing into form 
an ordinance for the political and social or- 
o^anization of this Territory. When the 
cession was made by Virginia, in 1784, a 
plan was offered, but rejected. A motion 
had been made to strike from the proposed 
plan the prohibition of slavery, which pre- 
vailed. The plan was then discussed and 
altered, and finally passed unanimously, 



30 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



with tlie exception of South Carolina. By 
this proposition, the Territory' was to have 
been divided into states by parallels and 
meridian lines. This, it was thought, would 
make ten states, which were to have been 
named as follows — beginning at the north- 
west corner and going southwardly : Savly- 
nia, Michigauia, Chersonesus, Assenisipia, 
Metropotamia, Illenoia, Saratoga, Wash- 
ington, Polypotamia and Pelisipia. 

There was a more serious objection to 
this plan than its category of names, — the 
boundaries. The root of the difficulty was 
in the resolution of Congress passed in 
October, 1780, which fixed the boundaries 
of the ceded lauds to be from one hundred 
to one hundred and fiftv miles square. 
These resolutions being presented to the 
Legislatures of Virginia and Massachusetts, 
they desired a change, and in July, 1786, 
the subject was taken up in Congress, and 
changed to favor a division into not more 
than five states, and not less than three. 
Tliis was approved by the State Legislature 
of Virginia. The subject of the Govern- 
ment was again taken up by Congress in 
1786, and discussed tln-oughout that year 
and until July, 17S7, when the famous 
"Compact of 1787" was passed, and the 
foundation of the government of the North- 
west laid. This compact is fully discussed 
and explained in the history of Illinois in 
tills book, and to it the reader is referred. 

The passage of tliis act and the grant to 
the New England Company was soon fol- 
lowed by an application to the Government 
by John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, 
for a grant of the laud between tlie Miamis. 
This gentleman had visited these lands 
soon after the treaty of 1786, and, being 
greatly pleased with them oflered similar 



terms to those given to the New England 
Company. The petition was referred to the 
Treasury Board with power to act, and a 
contract was concluded the following year. 
During the autumn the directors of the 
Xew England Company were preparing to 
occupy their grant the following spring, 
and upon the 23d of November made ar- 
rangements for a party of forty-seven men, 
under tlie superintendency of Gen. Rufus 
Putnam, to set forward. Six boat-builders 
were to leave at once, and on the first of 
January the surveyors and their assistants, 
twenty-six in number, were to meet at Hart- 
ford and proceed on their journey westward; 
the remainder to follow as soon as possible. 
Congress, in the mean time, upon the 3d of 
October, had ordered seven hundred troops 
for defense of the western settlers, and to 
prevent unauthorized intrusions; and two 
days later appointed Arthur St. Clair Gov- 
ernor of the Territory of the Northwest. 

AilEEICAlJ SETTLEMENTS. 

The civil organization of the N"orthwest 
Territory was now complete, and notwith- 
standing the uncertainty of Indian affairs, 
settlers from the East began to come into 
the country rapidly. The New England 
Company sent their men during the winter 
of 1787-8 pressing on over the AUeghenies 
by the old Indian path whicli had been 
opened into Braddock's road and which has 
since been made a national turnpike from 
Cumberland westward. Through the weary 
winter days they toiled on, and by April 
were all gathered on the Yohiogany, where 
boats had been built, and at once started 
for the Muskingum. Here they arrived on 
the 7th of that mouth, and unless the Mo- 
ravian missionaries be regarded as the pio- 



THE NORTHWEST TEKRITOKY. 



31 



iieers of Oliio, this little band can justly 
claim that lienor. 

General St. Clair, the appointed Gover- 
nor of tlie N^ortliwest, not having yet ar- 
rived, a set of laws were passed, written out, 
and published by being nailed to a tree in 
the embryo town, and Jonathan Meigs 
appointed to administer them. 

Washington in writing of this, the first 
American settlement in the Northwest, 
said: "No colony in America was ever 
settled under such favorable auspices as 
that which has just commenced at Muskin- 
gum. Information, property and strength 
will be its characteristics. I know many 
of its settlers personally, and there never 
were men better calculated to promote the 
welfare of such a conun unity." 

On the 2d of July a meeting of the di- 
rectors and agents was held on the banks 
of the Muskingum, " for the purpose ot 
naming the new-born city and its squares." 
As yet the settlement was known as the 
"Muskingum," but that was now changed 
to the name Marietta, in honor of Marie 
Antoinette. The square upon which the 
block-houses stood was called "Camjyus 
Martina;^'' square number 19, ^^Capito- 
liutn;'''' square number 61, ^'•Ceciliaf and 
the great rough road through the covert 
way, "Sacra Via." Two days after, an 
oration was delivered by James M. Var- 
num, who with S. H. Parsons and John 
Armstrong had been appointed to the 
judicial bench of the Territory on the 16th 
of October, 1787. On July 9, Gov. St. 
Clair arrived, and the Colony began to as- 
si-.me form. The act of 1787 provided two 
distinct grades of government for the 
Northwest, under the first of which the 
whole power was invested in the hands of 



a governor and three district judges. This 
was immediately' formed upon the gover- 
nor's arrival, and the first laws of the Colony 
passed on the 25th of July. These provid- 
ed for the organization of the militia, and 
on the next day appeared the Governor's 
proclamation, erecting all that country that 
had been ceded by the Indians east of the 
Scioto River into the County of Washing- 
ton. From that time forward, notwith- 
standing the doubts yet existing as to the 
Indians, all Marietta pi-ospered, and on 
the 2d of September the first court of the 
Territory was held with imposing cere- 
monies. 

The emigration westward at this time 
was very great. The commander at Fort 
Harmar, at the mouth of the Muskingum, 
reported four thousand five hundred per- 
sons as having passed that post between 
February and June, 1788 — many of whom 
would have purchased of the "Associates," 
as the New England Company was called, . 
had they been ready to receive them. 

On the 26th of November, 1787, Symmes 
issued a pamphlet stating the terms of liis 
contract and the plan of sale he intended to 
adopt. In January, 1788, Matthias Den- 
man, of New Jersey, took an active inter- 
est in Symmes' purciiase, and located 
among other tracts the sections upon which 
Cincinnati has been built. Retaining one- 
third of this locality, he sold the other 
two-thirds to Robert Patterson and John 
Filson, and tlie three, about August, com- 
menced to lay out a town on the spot, 
which was designated as being opposite 
Licking River, to the mouth of which they 
proposed to have a road cut from Lexing- 
ton. The naming of the town is thus nar- 
rated in the "Western Annals": "Mr. 



3-2 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



Filson, who had been a schoolmaster, was 
appointed to name the town, and in respect 
to its situation, and as if with a prophetic 
perception of the mixed races that were to 
inhabit it in after da^-s, he named it Lo- 
santiville, whicli being interpreted, means: 
ville, the town; anti, against or opposite 
to; OS, the mouth; Z. of Licking." 

Meanwhile, in July, Sjmmes got thirty 
persons and eight four-horse teams under 
way for the West. These reached Lime- 
stone (now Maysville)in September, where 
were several persons from Redstone. Here 
Mr. Symmes tried to found a settlement, 
but the great freshet of 1789 caused the 
"Point," as it was and is yet called, to be 
fifteen feet under water, and the settlement 
to be abandoned. The little band of settlers 
removed to the mouth of the Miami. 
Before Symmes and his colony left the 
"Point," two settlements had been made 
on his purchase. The first was by Mr. 
Stiltes, the original projector of the whole 
plan, who, with a colony of Redstone peo- 
ple, had located at the mouth of the 
Miami, whither Symmes went with his 
Maysville colony. Here a clearing had 
been made by the Indians owing to the 
great fertility of the soil. Mr. Stiltes with 
his colony came to this place on the ISth 
of November, ITSS, with twenty-six per- 
sons, and, building a blockhouse, prepared 
to remain through the winter. They 
named the settlement Columbia. Here 
they were kindly treated by the Indians, 
but suffered greatly from the flood of 1789. 

On the 4th of March, 17S9, the Consti- 
tution of the United States went into op- 
eration, and on April 30th, George Wash- 
ington was inaugurated President of the 
American people, and during the next 



summer, an Indian war was commenced 
by the tribes north of the Ohio. The 
President at first used pacific means; but 
these failing, he sent General Harmar 
against the hostile tribes. He destroyed 
several villages, but was defeated in two 
battles, near the present City of Fort 
Wayne, Indiana. From this time till the 
close of 1795, the principal events were 
the wars with the various Indian tribes. 
In 1796, General St. Clair was appointed 
in command, and marched against the In- 
dians; but while he was encamped on a 
stream, the St. Mary, a branch of the 
Maumee, he was attacked and defeated 
with the loss of six hundred men. 

General Wayne was now sent against the 
savages. In August, 1794, he met them 
near the rapids of the Maumee, and gained 
a complete victory. This success, followed 
by vigorous measures, compelled the Indi- 
ans to sue for peace, and on the 30th of 
July, the following year, the treaty of 
Greenville was signed by the principal 
chiefs, by which a large tract of country 
was ceded to the United States. 

Before proceeding in our narrative, we 
will pause to notice Fort Washington, 
erected in the early part of this war on 
the site of Cincinnati. Nearly all of the 
great cities of the Northwest, and indeed 
of the whole country, have had their nuclei 
in those rude pioneer structures, known as 
forts or stockades. Thus Forts Dearborn, 
Washington, Ponchartrain, mark the orig- 
inal sites of the now proud cities of Chi- 
cago. Cincinnati and Detroit. So of most 
of the flourishing cities east and west of 
the Mississippi. Fort Washington erected 
by Dough t}' in 1790, was a rude but highly 
interesting structure. It was composed of 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



33 



a number of strongly- built hewed log cab- 



ins. 



Those designed for soldiers' barracks 



were a story and a half high, wliile those 
composing the officers' quarters were more 
imposing and more conveniently arranged 
and furnislied. The whole were so placed 
as to form a hollow square, enclosing about 
an acre of ground, with a block house at 
each of the four angles. 

The logs for the construction of this 
fort were cut from the ground upon whicli 
it was erected. It stood between Tliird 
and Fourth Streets of the present city 
(Cincinnati) extending east of Eastern 
Row, now Broadway, which was then a 
narrow alley, and the eastern boundary of 
the town as it was originally laid out. On 
the bank of the river, immediately in front 
of the fort, was an appendage of the fort, 
called the Artificer's Yard. It contained 
about two acres of ground, enclosed by 
small contiguous buildings, occupied by 
workshops and quarters of laborers. 
Within this enclosure there was a large 
two-story frame house, familiarly called 
the " Fellow House," built for the accom- 
modation of the Quartermaster General. 
For many years this was the best finished 
and most commodious edifice in the Queen 
City. Fort Washington was for some time 
the headquarters of both the civil and mil- 
itary governments of the Northwestern 
Territory. 

Following the consummation of the 
treaty, various gigantic land speculations 
were entered into by different persons, who 
hoped to obtain from the Indians in Mich- 
igan and northern Indiana, large tracts of 
lands. These were generally discovered 
in time to prevent the outrageous schemes 
from being carried out, and from involving 



the settlers in war. On October 27, 1795, 
the treaty between the United States and 
Spain was signed, whereby the free navi- 
gation of the jyiississippi was secured. 

No sooner had the treaty of 1795 beau 
ratified, than settlements began to pour 
rapidly into the West. The great event 
of the year 1796 was the occupation of 
tluit part of the Northwest including 
Michigan, which was this year, under the 
provisions of the treaty, evacuated by the 
British forces. The United States, owing 
to certain conditions, did not feel justified 
in addressing the authorities in Canada 
in relation to Detroit and other frontier 
posts. When at last the British author- 
ities were called to give them up, they 
at once complied, and General Wayne, 
who had done so much to preserve the 
frontier settlements, and who, before 
the year's close, sickened and died near 
Erie, transferred his headquarters to the 
neighborhood of the lakes, where a coun- 
ty named after him was formed, which 
included the northwest of Ohio, all of 
Michigan, and the northeast of Indiana. 
During this same year settlements were 
formed at the present City of Chillicothe, 
along the Miami from MiddJetown to Piqua, 
wliile in the more distant West, settlers 
and speculators began to appear in great 
numbers. In Sc])tember, the City of 
Cleveland was laid out, and during the 
summer and autumn, Samuel Jackson 
and Jonathan Sharpless erected the first 
manufactory of paper — the " Redstone 
Paper Mill " — in the West. St. Louis con- 
tained some seventy houses, and Detroit 
over three hundred, and along the river, 
contiguous to it, were more than three 
thousand inhabitants, mostly French Can- 



34 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



adifins, lndi;iiis and lialf-breeds, scarcely 
any Americans venturing yet into that 
part of tlie Nortiivvest. 

Tiie election of representatives for the 
Territory had taken place, and on the 4th 
of February, 1799, they convened at Lo- 
santiville — now known as Cincinnati, hav- 
ing been named so by Gov. St. Clair, and 
considered the capital of the Territory — to 
nominate pei'sons from whom the mem- 
bers of the legislature were to be chosen 
in accordance with a previous ordinance. 
These nominations being made, the Assem- 
bly adjourned until the 16th of the follow- 
ing September. From those named, the 
President selected as members of the 
council, Henry Vandenburg, of Vincennes, 
Robert Oliver, of Marietta, James Findlay 
and Jacob Burnett, of Cincinnati, and 
David Vance, of Vanceville. On the 16th 
of September the Territorial Legislature 
met, and on the 24th the two houses were 
duly organized, Henry Vandenburg being 
elected President of the Council. 

The message of Gov. St. Clair was ad- 
dressed to the Legislature September 20h, 
and on October 13th that body elected as 
a delegate to Congress, Gen. "Wm. Henry 
Harrison, who received eleven of the votes 
cast, being a majority of one over his op- 
])onent, Arthur St. Clair, son of Gen. St. 
Clair. 

The whole number of acts passed at this 
session, and approved by the Governor, 
were thirty-seven — eleven others were 
passed, but received his veto. The most 
important of those passed, related to the 
militia, to the administration, and to taxa- 
tion. On the 19th of December, this pro- 
tracted session of the first Legislature in 
the AVest was closed, and on the 30th 



of December, the President nominated 
Charles "Willing Bryd to the office of Sec- 
retary of the Territory vice Wm. Henry 
Harrison, elected to Congress. The Sen- 
ate confirmed his nomination the next day. 

DIVISION OF THE NORTHWEST TEEKITORT. 

The increased emigration to the jS^orth- 
west, the extent of the domain, and the lu- 
convenient modes of travel, made it very 
difficult to conduct the ordinary operations 
of government, and rendered the efficient 
action of courts almost impossible. To 
remedy this, it was deemed advisable to 
divide the territory for civil purposes. 
Congress, in 1800, appointed a committee 
to examine the question and report some 
means for its solution. This committee, 
on the 3d of March, reported that: 

" In the three western countries, there 
has been but one court having cognizance 
of crimes, in five years, and the immunity 
which offenders experience attracts, as to 
an asylum, the most vile and abandoned 
criminals, and at the same time deters 
useful citizens from making settlements in 
such society. The extreme necessity of 
judiciary attention and assistance is ex- 
perienced in civil as well as in criminal 
cases. * * * * To minister a remedy 
to these and other evils, it occurs to this 
committee that it is expedient that a divis- 
ion of said territory into two distinct and 
separate governments should be made: and 
that such division be made by a line be- 
ginnino' at the mouth of the Great Miami 
River, running directly north until it in- 
tersects tlie boundary between the United 
States and Canada." 

The report was accepted by Congress, 
and, in accordance with its suggestions, 
that body passed an act extinguishing the 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



Northwest Territory, which act was ap- 
proved May 7tli. Among its provisions 
were these: 

"That from and after Jnly -itli next, all 
that part of the territory of tiie United 
States, northwest of the Ohio River, which 
lies to the westward of a line beginning at 
a foiiit on the Ohio, opposite to the month 
of the Kentncky River, and running thence 
to Fort Recovery, and tlience north until 
it shall intersect the territorial line be- 
tween the United States and Canada, shall, 
for the purpose of temporary government, 
constituteaseparate territory, and be called 
the Indiana Territory." 

After providing for the exercise' of the 
civil and criminal powers of the Territories, 
and other provisions, the act further pro- 
vides: 

" That until it shall otherwise be ordered 
by the Legislatures of the said Territories, 
respectively, Chillicothe on the Scioto 
River shall be the seat of government of 
the Territory of the United States north- 
west of the Ohio River; and that St. Vin- 
cennes on the "Wabash River shall be the 
seat of government for the Indiana Terri- 
tory." 

Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison was appoint- 
ed Governor of the Indiana Territory, and 
entered upon his duties about a year later. 
Connecticut also about this time released 
her claims to the reserve, and in March a 
law was passed accepting this cession. 
Settlements had been made upon thirty- 
five of the townships in the reserve, mills 
had been built, and seven hundred miles of 
road cut in various directions. On the 3d 
of November, the General Assembly met 
at Chillicothe. Near the close of the year, 
the first missionary of the Connecticut 



Reserve came, who found no township con- 
taining more than eleven families. It was 
upon the first of October that the secret 
treaty had been made between Napoleon 
and the King of S))ain, whereby the latter 
agreed to cede to France the province of 
Louisiana. 

In January, 1802, the assembly of the 
Northwestern Territory chartered the 
college at Athens. From the earliest 
dawn of the western colonies, education 
was promptly provided for, and as early as 
17S7, newspapers were issued from Pitts- 
burgh and Kentucky, and largely read 
throughout the frontier settlements. Be- 
fore the close of this year, the Congress of 
the United States granted to the citizens 
of the Northwestern Territory, the forma- 
tion of a State government. One of the 
provisions of the "compact of 1787 " pro- 
vided that whenever the number of inhab- 
itants within prescribed limits exceeded 
45,0(10, they should be entitled to a sepa- 
rate governuiont. The prescribed limits 
of Ohio contained, from a census taken to 
ascertain the legality of the act, more than 
that number, and on the 30th of April, 
1S02, Congress passed the act defining its 
limits, and on the 2()th of November the 
Constitution of the new State of Ohio, so 
named from the beautiful river formins 
its southern boundary, came into existence. 
The exact limits of Lake Michigan were 
not then known, but the territory now 
included within the State of Michigan was 
wholly within the territory of Indiana. 

General Harrison, while residing at 
Vincennes, made several treaties with the 
Indians, thereby gaining large tracts of 
lands. The next year is memorable in the 
history of the West for the purchase of 



36 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



Louisiana from France by the United 
States I'or $15,000,000. Thus by a peace- 
ful mode, the domaiu of the United States 
was extended over a large tract of country 
west of the Mississippi, and was for a time 
under the jurisdiction of the Northwest 
government, and as has been mentioned 
in tlie early part of this narrative, was 
called the "New Northwest." The limits 
of this history will not allow a description 
of its territory. The same year large 
grants of land were obtained from the 
Indians, and the House of Representatives 
of the new State of Ohio signed a bill 
respecting the college township in the 
district of Cincinnati. 

Before the close of the year, General 
Harrison obtained additional grants of 
lands from the various Indian nations in 
Indiana and the present limits of Illinois, 
and on the 18th of August, ISOi, a treaty 
at St. Louis, whereby over 51,000,000 acres 
of lands were obtained from the aborigines. 
Measures were also taken to learn the con- 
dition qf affairs in and about Detroit. 

C. Joiiette, the Indian agent in Miclii- 
gan, still a part of Indiana Territory, re- 
ported as follows upon the condition of 
matters at tliat post: 

"The Town of Detroit.— The charter, 
which is for fifteen miles square, was 
granted in the time of Louis XIV of 
France, and is now, from the best infor- 
mation I have been able to get, at Quebec. 
Of those two hundred and twenty-five 
acres, only four are occupied by the town 
and Fort Lenault. The remainder is a 
common, except twenty-four acres, which 
were added twenty years ago to a farm 
belonsinsr to Wm. Macomb. * * * * 
A stockade encloses the town, fort and cit- 



adel. The pickets, as well as the public 
houses, are in a state of gradual decay. 
The streets are narrow, straight and regu- 
lar, and intersect each other at right angles. 
The houses are for the most part low and 
inelegant." 

During this year Congress granted a 
township of land for the sup])ort of a col- 
lege, and began to ofl'er inducements for 
settlers in these wilds, and the country 
now comprising the State of Michig;in 
began to fill rapidly with settlers along its 
southern borders. This same year, also, a 
law was passed organizing the Southwest 
Territory, dividing it into two portions, 
the Territory of New Orleans, which city 
was made the seat of government, and the 
District of Louisiana, whidh was annexed 
to the domain of Gen. Harrison. 

On the nth of January, 1805, tlie Terri- 
tory of Michigan was formed. Wm. Hull 
was appointed governor with headquarters 
at Detroit, the change to take effect on 
June 30th. On the 11th of that month, a 
fire occurred at Detroit, which destroyed 
almost every building in the place. When 
the officers of the new Territory reached the 
post, they found it in ruins, and the inhab- 
itants scattered throughout the country. 
Rebuilding, however, soon commenced, and 
ere long the town contained more houses 
than before the fire, and many of them 
much better built. 

While this was being done, Indiana had 
passed to the second grade of governrnent, 
and through her General Assembly had 
obtained large tracts of land from the 
Indian tribes. To all this the celebrated 
Indian, Tecumthe or Tecumseh, vigorously 
protested, and it was the main cause of his 
attempts to unite the various Indian tribes 



THE iXOKTHWEST TERRITORY. 



37 



in a conflict with the settlers. To obtain a 
full account of tiiese attempts, the workings 
of the British, and the signal failure, culmi- 
nating in the death of Tecumseh at the 
battle of the Thames, and tlie close of the 
war of 1812 in the Xortlnvest, we will step 
aside in our story, and relate the principal 
events of his life, and his connection with 
this Conflict. 

TECDMSEH, AND THE WAR (iF 1812. 

This famous Indian chief was born about 
the year 1768, not far from the site of the 
present City of Piqun. Ohio. His father, 
Puckeshinwa, was a member of the Kisopok 
tribe of the Shawanoese nation, and his moth- 
er, Methontaske, was a member of the Tur- 
tle tribe of the same people. They removed 
from Florida about the middle of the last 
century to the birthplace of Tecumseh. In 
1 774, his father, who had risen to be chief, 
was slain at the battle of Point Pleasant, 
and not long after, Tecumseh, by his brav- 
ery, became the leader of his tribe. In 
1795 he was declared chief, and then lived 
at Deer Creek, near the site of the present 
City of Urbana. He remained here about 
one year, when he returned to Piqua, and 
in 1798, he went to White River, Indiana. 
In 1805, he and his brother, Laulewasikan 
(Open Door), who had announced himself 
as a prophet, went to a tract of land on the 
Wabash River, given them by the Potta- 
watomies and Kickapoos. From this date 
the chief comes into prominence. He was 
now about thirty-seven vears of age, was 
five feet and ten inches in height, was stout- 
ly built, and possessed of enormous powers 
of endurance. His countenance was natu- 
rally pleasing, and he was, in general, de- 
void of those savage attributes possessed 



by most Indians. It is stated he could 
read and write, and had a conlidential sec- 
retary and adviser, named Billy Caldwell, 
a half-breed, who afterward became chief 
of the Pottawatomies. He occupied the 
first house built on the site of Cliicago. At 
this time, Tecumseh entered upon the great 
work of his life. He had long objected to 
the grants of land made by the Indians to 
the whites, and determined to unite all the 
Indian tribes into a league, in order that nO' 
treaties or grants of land could be made 
save by the consent of this confederation. 

He traveled constantly, going from north 
to south; from the south to tlie north, 
everywhere urging the Indians to this step. 
He was a matchless orator, and his burning 
words had their effect. 

Gen. Harrison, then Governor of Indiana, 
by watching the movement of the Indians, 
became convinced that a grand conspiracy 
was forming, and made preparations to de- 
fend the settlements. Tecumseii's plan was 
similar to Pontiac's, elsewliere described, 
and to the cunning artifice of that chieftain 
was added his own sagacity. 

During the vear 1809, Tecumseh and the 
prophet were actively preparing for the 
work. In that year. Gen. Harrison entered 
into a treaty with the Delawares, Kickapoos, 
Pottawatomies, Miamis, Eel River Indians 
and Weas, in which these tribes ceded to 
the whites certain lands upon the Wabash, 
to all of which Tecumseh entered a bitter 
protest, averring as one principal reason that 
he did not want the Indians to give up any 
lands north and west of the Ohio River. 

Tecumseh, in August, 1810. visited the 
General at Vineennes and held a council 
relating to the grievances of the Indians. 
Becoming unduly angry at this conference 



38 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



he was dismissed from the village, aad 
soon after departed to incite the Southern 
Indian tribes to the conflict. 

Gen. Harrison determined to move upon 
the chief's headquarters at Tippecanoe, and 
for tliis purpose went about sixtv-five miles 
up the Wabasii, where he built Fort Harri- 
son. From tliis place he went to the 
prophet's town, wliere he informed the 
Indians he had no hostile intentions, 
provided they were true to the existing 
treaties. He encamped near the village 
early in October, and on the morning of 
November 7th, he was attacked by a large 
force of the Indians, and the famous battle 
of Tippecanoe occurred. The Indians were 
routed and their town broken up. Tecum- 
seh returning not long after, was erreatly 
exasperated at his brother, the prophet, 
even threatening to kill him for rashly 
precipitating the war, and foiling his 
(Tecumseh's) plans. 

Tecumseh sent word to General Harri- 
son that he was now returned from the 
South, and was ready to visit the President, 
as had at one time previously been proposed. 
Gen. Harrison informed him he could not 
go as a chief, which method Tecumseh 
desired, and the visit was never made. 

In June of the following year, he visited 
the Indian agent at Fort Wayne. Here he 
disavowed any intention to 'make a war 
against the United States, and reproached 
Gen. Harrison for marching against his 
people. The agent replied to this ; Tecum- 
seh listened with a cold indifference, and 
after making a few general remarks, with 
a haughty air drew his blanket about him, 
left the council house, and departed for 
Fort Maiden, in up])er Canada, where he 
joined the British standard. 



He remained tinder this Government, 
doing effective work for the Grown while 
engaged in the war of 1812 which now 
opened. He was, however, always humane 
in his treatment of the prisoners, never 
allowing his warriors to ruthlessly mutilate 
the bodies of those slain, or wantonly 
murder the captive. 

In the summer of 1813, Perry's victory 
on Lake Erie occurred, and shortly after 
active preparations were made to capture 
Maiden. On the 27th of September, the 
American army, under Gen. Harrison, set 
sail for the shores of Canada, and in a few 
hours stood around the ruins of Maiden, 
from which the British army, under Proc- 
tor, had retreated to Sandwich, intending 
to make its way to the heart of Canada by 
the Valley of the Thames. On the 29th 
Gen. Harrison was at Sandwich, and Gen. 
McArthur took possession of Detroit and 
the Teri-itory of Michigan. 

On the 2d of October, the Americans 
began their pursuit of Proctor, whom they 
overtook on the 5th, and the battle of the 
Thames followed. Early in the engage- 
ment, Tecumseh who was at the head of the 
column of Indians was slain, and they, no 
longer hearing the voice of their chieftain, 
fled. The victory was decisive, and prac- 
tically closed the war in the Northwest. 

Just who killed the great chief has been 
a matter of much dispute ; but the weight 
of o])inion awards the act to Col. Ricliard 
M. Johnson, who fired at him with a pistol, 
the shot proving fatal. 

In 1805 occurred Burr's Insurrection. 
He took possession of a l)eautiful ishind in 
the Ohio, after the killing of Hamilton, 
and is charged bj- many with attempting 
to set up an independent government. His 



THE KORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



39 



plans were frustrated by the general gov- 
ernment, his property confiscated and he 
was compelled to flee the country for safety. 
In January, 1807, Governor Hull, of 
Michigan Territory, made a treaty with 
the Indians, whereby all that peninsula 
was ceded to the United States. Before 
the close of the year, a stockade was built 
about Detroit. It was also during this year 
that Indiana and Illinois endeavored to 
obtain the repeal of that section of the 
compact of ITS", whereby slavery was ex- 
cluded from the Northwest Territory. 
These attempts, however, all signally failed. 
In 1809 it was deemed advisable to di- 
vide the Indiana Territory. This was done, 
and the Territory of Illinois was formed 
from the western part, the seat of govern- 
ment being fixed at Kaskasia. The next 
year, the intentions of Tecumseh mani- 
fested themselves in open hostilities, and 
then began tlie events already narrated. 

While this war was in progress, emigra- 
tion to the West went on with surprising 
rapidity. In 1811, under Mr. Eooseveltof 
New York, the first steamboat trip jwas 
made on the Ohio, much to the astonish- 
ment of the natives, many of whom fled in 
terror at the appearance of the " monster." 
It arrived at Louisville on the tenth day of 
October. At the close of the first week of 
January, 1812, it arrived at Natchez, after 
being nearly overwhelmed in the great 
earthquake which occurred, while on its 
downward trip. 

The battle of the Thames was foujjht on 
October 6th, 1813. It eS'ectually closed hos- 
tilities in the Northwest, although peace 
was not fully restored until July 22d, 1814, 
when a treaty was formed at Greenville, 
under the direction of General Harrison, 



between the United States and the Indian 
tribes, in which it was stipulated that the 
Indians shouM cease hostilities against the 
Americans if the war were continued. 
Such, happily, was not the case, and on the 
24:th of December, the treaty of Ghent was 
signed by the representatives of England, 
and the United States. This treaty was 
followed the next year by treaties with va- 
rious Indian tribes throughout the West 
and Northwest, and quiet was again re- 
stored in this part of the new world. 

On the iSth of March, 1810, Pittsburgh 
was incorporated as a cit}'. It then had a 
population of S,Ot)0 peoi)le, and was already 
noted for its manufacturing interests. On 
April 19th, Indiana Territory was allowed to 
form a State government. At that time 
there were thirteen counties organized, con- 
taining about sixty-three thousand inhabi- 
'tants. The first election of State officer? 
was held in August, when Jonathan Jenn- 
insrs was chosen Governor. The officers were 
sworn in on November 7th, and on Decem- 
ber 11th, the State was formally admitted 
into the Union. For some time the seat of 
government was at Corydon, but a more 
central location being desirable, the present 
capital, Indianapolis (City of Indiana), wa» 
laid out January 1, 1825. 

On the 28th of December, the Bank of 
Illinois, at Shawneetown, was chartered, 
with a capital of $300,000. At this period 
all banks were under the control of the 
States, and were allowed to establish 
branches at diflerent convenient ])oints. 

Until this time Chillicothe and Cincin- 
nati had in turn enjoyed the privileges of 
being the ca]iital of Ohio. But the rapid 
settlement of the northern and eastern por- 
tions of the State demanded, as in Indiana, 



40 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



a more central location, and before the close 
of the year, the site of Columbus was se- 
lected and surveyed as the future capital of 
the State. Banking had begun in Ohio as 
early as 1S08, when the first bank was 
chartered at Marietta, but here as elsewhere 
it did not bring to the State the ho|ied-for 
assistance. It and other banks were subse- 
qently unable to redeem their currency, 
and were obliged to suspend. 

In 1818, Illinois was made a State, and all 
the territory north of her northern limits 
was erected into a separate territory and 
joined to Michigan for judicial purposes. 
By the following year, navigation of the 
lakes was increasing with great rapidity 
and affording an immense source of revenue 
to the dwellers in the Northwest, but it was 
not until 1826, that the trade was extended 
to Lake Michigan, or that steamships began 
to navigate the bosom of that inland sea. 

Until the year 1832, the commencement 
of the Black Hawk War, but few liostilities 
were experienced with the Indians. Roads 
were opened, canals were dug, cities were 
built, common schools were established, 
universities were founded, many of which, 
especially the Michigan University, have 
achieved a world-wide reputation. The 
l)eople were becoming wealthy. The do- 
mains of the United States had been ex- 
tended, and had the sons of the forest been 
treated with honesty and justice, the record 
of many years would have been that of 
peace and continuous prosperity. 

BLACK HAWK AND THE BLACK HAWK 'WAR. 

This conflict, though confined to Illinois, 
is an important epoch in the Northwestern 
history, being the last war with the 
Indians in this part of the United States. 



Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiah, or Black 
Hawk, was born in the principal Sac vil- 
lage, about three miles from the junction 
of Rock River with the Mississippi, in the 
year 1767. His father's name was Py-e-sa 
or Pahaes; his gi-andfather's, Na-na-ma- 
kee, or tiie Thunderer. Blac'c Hawk early 
distinguished himself as a wari-ior, and at 
the age of fifteen was permitted to paint, 
and was ranked among the braves. About 
the year 17S3, he went on an expedition 
against the enemies of his nation, the 
Osages, one of whom he killed and scalped, 
and for this deed of Indian bravery he was 
permitted to join in the scalp dance. 
Three or four years after, he, at the head of 
two hundred braves, went on another expe- 
dition against the Osages, to avenge the 
murder of some women and cliildren 
belonging to his own tribe. Meeting an 
equal number of Osage warriors, a fierce 
battle ensued, in which the latter tribe lost 
one-half their number. The Sacs lost only 
about nineteen warriors. He next attacked 
the Cherokees for a similar cause. In a 
severe battle with them, near the present 
City of St. Louis, his father was slain, and 
Black Hawk, taking possession of the 
" Medicine Bag," at once announced him- 
self chief of the Sac nation. He had now 
conquered the Cherokees, and about the 
year 1800, at the liead of five Inindred Sacs 
and Foxes, and a hundred lowas, he waged 
war against the Osage nation and subdued 
it. For two years he battled successfully 
with other Indian tribes, all of wliom he 
conquered. 

Black Hawk does not at any time seem 
to have been friendly to the Americans. 
When on a visit to St. Louis to see his 
" Spanish Father," he declined to see any 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



41 



of the Americans, alleging as a reason, lie 
did not want two fathers. 

The treaty at St. Louis was consummated 
in 1804. The next year the United States 
Government erected a fort near the head of 
the Des Moines Rapids, called Fort Ed- 
wards. This seemed to enrage Black Hawk, 
who at once determined to capture Fort 
Madison, standing on the west side of the 
Mississippi above the mouth of the Des 
JMoines Eiver. The fort was garrisoned by 
ahout fifty men. Here lie was defeated. 
The difficulties with the British Govern- 
ment arose about this time, and the War 
of 1812 followed. That government, ex- 
tending aid to the AVestern Indians, by 
giving them arms and ammunition, in- 
duced them to remain hostile to the Amer- 
icans. In August, 1S12, Black Hawk, at 
the head of about five hundred braves, 
started to join the British forces at Detroit, 
passing on his way the site of Chicago, 
where the famous Fort Dearborn Massacre 
liad a few days before occurred. Of his con- 
nection with the British Government but 
little is known. In 1813, he with his little 
band descended the Mississippi, and attack- 
ing some United States troops at Fort 
Howard, was defeated. 

In the early part of 1815, the Indian 
tribes west of the Mississippi were notified 
that peace had been declared between the 
United States and England, and nearly all 
hostilities had ceased. Black Hawk did 
not sign any treaty, however, until May of 
the following year. He then recognized 
the validity of the treaty at St. Louis in 
1804. From the time of signing this treaty 
in 1816, until the 1 reaking out of the war 
in 1832, he and his band passed their time 
in the common pursuits of Indian life. 



Ten years before the commencement of 
this war, the Sac and Fox Indians were 
urged to join the lowas on the west bank 
of the Father of Waters. All were agreed, 
save the band known as the British Band, 
of which Black Hawk was leader. He 
strenuously objected to the removal, and 
was induced to comply only after being 
threatened with the power of the Govern- 
ment. This and various actions on the 
part of the white settlers provoked Black 
Hawk and his band to attempt the cap- 
ture of his native village now occupied by 
the whites. The war followed. He and 
his actions were undoubtedly misunder- 
stood, and had his wishes been acquiesced 
in at the beginning of the struggle, much 
bloodshed would have been prevented. 

Black Hawk was chief now of the Sac 
and Fox nations, and a noted warrior. He 
and his tribe inhabited a village on Rock 
River, nearly three miles above its conflu- 
ence with the Mississippi, where the tribe 
had lived many generations. When that 
portion of Illinois was reserved to them, 
they remained in peaceable possession of 
their reservation, spending their time in the 
eni'oyment of Indian life. Tlie tine situa- 
tion of their village and the quality of their 
lands incited the more lawless white set- 
tlers, who from time to time began to 
encroach upon the red men's domain. 
From one pretext to another, and from one 
step to another, the crafty white men 
gained a foothold, until through whisky 
and artifice they obtained deeds from many 
of the Indians for their possessions. The 
Indians were finally induced to cross over 
the Father of Waters and locate among 
the lowas. Black Hawk was strenuously 
opposed to all this, but as the authorities 



42 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



of Illinois and the United States tlionght 
this the best move, he was forced to comply. 
Moreover other tribes joined the whites 
and ui'ged the removal. Black Hawk 
would not agree to the terms of the treaty 
made with his nation for their lands, and 
as soon as the military, called to enforce 
his removal, had retired, he returned to 
the Illinois side of the river. A large force 
was at once raised and marched against 
him. On the evening of May 14, 1832, 
the first engagement occurred between a 
band from this army and Black Hawk's 
biuid, in which the former were defeated. 

This attack and its result aroused the 
whites. A large force of men was raised, 
and Gen. Scott hastened from the seaboard, 
by way of the lakes, with United States 
troops and artillery to aid in the subjuga- 
tion of the Indians. On the 24th of June, 
Black Hawk, with 200 warriors, was re- 
pulsed by Major Dcniont between Kock 
River and Galena. The American army 
continued to move up Rock River toward 
tlie main body of the Indians, and on the 
21st of July came upon Black Hawk and 
his band, and defeated them near the Blue 
Mounds. 

Before this action. Gen, Henry, in com- 
mand, sent word to the main army by 
whom he was immediately rejoined, and 
the whole crossed the Wisconsin in pursuit 
of Black Hawk and his band who were 
fleeing to the Mississippi. They were 
overtaken on the 2d of August, and in the 
battle which followed the power of the 
Indian chief was completeh' broken. He 
fled, but was seized by the Winnebagoes 
and delivered to the whites. 

On the 21st of September, 1832, Gen. 
Scott and Gov. Reynolds concluded a treaty 



with the Winnebagoes, Sacs and Foxes, by 
which they ceded to the United States a 
vast tract of country, and agreed to remain 
peaceable with the whites. For the faith- 
ful performance of the provisions of this 
treaty on the part of the Indians, it was 
stipulated that Black Hawk, his two sons, 
the prophet Wabokieshiek, and six other 
chiefs of the hostile bands should be re- 
tained as hostages during the pleasure of 
the President. They were confined at Fort 
Barracks and put in irons. 

The next spring, by order of the Secre- 
tary of War, they were taken to Washing- 
ton. From there they were removed to 
Fortress Monroe, " there to remain until 
the conduct of their nation was such as to 
justify their being set at liberty." They 
were retained here until the 4th of June, 
when the authorities directed them to be 
taken to the principal cities so that they 
might see the folly of contending against 
the white people. Everywhere they were 
observed by thousands, the name of the 
old chief being extensively known. By the 
middle of August they reached Fort Arm- 
strong on Rock Island, where Black Hawk 
was soon after released to go to his country- 
men. As he passed the site of his birth- 
place, now the home of the white man, he 
was deeply moved. His village where he 
M-as born, where he had so happily lived, 
and where he had hoped to die, was now 
another's dwelling place, and he was a 
wanderer. 

On the next day after his release, he 
went at once to his tribe and his lodge. 
His wife was yet living, and with her he 
passed the remainder of his days. To his 
credit it may be said that Black Hawk 
always remained true to his wife, and 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



43 



served her with a devotion uncommon 
among the Indians, living with her upward 
of forty years. 

Black Hawk now passed his time hunt- 
ing and fishing. A deep melancholy hail 
settled over him from which he could not 
be freed. At all times when he visited the 
whites he was received with marked atten- 
tion. He was an honored guest at the old 
settlers' reunion in Lee County, Illinois, at 
some of their meetings, and received many 
tokens of esteem. In September, 18 3S, 
while on iiis way to Rock Island to receive 
his annuity from the Government, he con- 
tracted a severe cold which resulted in a 
fatal attack of bilious fever which termina- 
ted his life on October 3d. His faithful 
wife, who was devotedly attached to him, 
mourned deeply during his sickness. 
After his death he was dressed in the uni- 
form presented to him by the President 
while in Washington. He was buried in 
a grave six feet in depth, situated upon a 
beautiful eminence. " The body was placed 
in the middle of the grave, in a sitting 
posture, upon a seat constructed for the 
purpose. On his left side, the cane, given 
him by Henry Clay, was placed upright, 
with his right hand resting upon it. Many 
of the old warrior's trophies were placed in 
the grave, and some Indian garments, to- 
gether with his favorite weapons. 

No sooner was the Black Hawk war con- 
cluded than settlers began rapidly to 
pour into the northern parts of Illinois, and 
into Wisconsin, now free from Indian 
depredations. Chicago, from a trading 
post, had grown to a commercial center, 
and was rapidly coming into prominence. 
In 1835, the formation of a State Govern- 
ment in Michigan was discussed, but did 



not take acti ve form until two years later, 
when the State became a part of the Federal 
Union. 

The main attraction to that portion of 
the Northwest lying west of Lake Michi- 
gan, now included in the State of Wiscon- 
sin, was its alluvial wealth. Copper ore 
was found about Lake Superior. For some 
time this region was attached to Michigan 
for judiciary purposes, but in 1836 was 
made a Territory, then including Minnesota 
and Iowa. The latter State was detaihed 
two years later. In 1848, Wisconsin was 
admitted as a State, Madison being made 
the capital. We have now traced the vari- 
ous divisions of the Northwest Territory 
(save a little in Minnesota) from the time 
it was a unit comprising this vast territory, 
until circumstances compelled its present 
division. 

OTHEE INDIAN TROUBLES. 

Before leaving this part of the narrative, 
we will narrate briefly the Indian troubles 
in Minnesota and elsewhere by the Sioux 
Indians. 

In August, 1862, the Sioux Indians liv- 
ing on the western borders of Minnesota 
fell upon the unsuspecting settlers, and in 
a few hours massacred ten or twelve hun- 
dred persons. A distressful panic was 
the immediate result, full}' thirty thou- 
sand persons fleeing from their homes to 
districts supposed to be better protected. 
The military authorities at once took active 
measures to punisli the savages, and a large 
number were killed and captured. About 
a year after. Little Crow, the chief, was 
killed by a Mr. Lampson near Scattered 
Lake. Of those captured thirty were hung 
at Mankato, and the remainder, through 



44 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



fears of inob violence, were removed to 
Camp McClellan, on the outskirts of the 
City of Davenport. It was here that Big 
Eaijle came into prominence and secured 
his release by the following order: 

" Special Order, No. 430. "War Department, 
"Adjutant Gener.^l's Office, 

" WAsniNGTON, Deo. 3, 1864. 
" Big- Eagle, an Indian now in confinement at 
Davenport, Iowa, will, upon the receipt of this order, 
be immediately released from confinement and set at 
liberty. 

" By order of the President of the United States. 
" Official: " E. D. Townsend, 

Ass't Adj't Gen. 
" Capt. James Vanderventer, 

Coin'i/ Sub. Vols. 
"Through Com'g Gen'l, Washington, D. C." 

Another Indian who figures more promi- 
nently than Big Eagle, and wiio was more 
cowardly in his nature, with his band of 
Modoc Indians, is noted in the annals of 
the New T^orthwest: we refer to Captain 
Jack. This distinguished Indian, noted for 
his cowardly murder of Gen. Canby, was a 
cliief of a Modoc tribe of Indians inhabiting 
the border lands between California and 
Oregon. This region of country comprises 
what is known as the " Lava Beds," a tract 
of land described as utterly impenetrable, 
save by those savages who had made it 
their home. 

The Modocs are known as an exceedingly 
f erce and treacherous race. Tliey had, ac- 
cording to their own traditions, resided 
here for many generations, and at one time 
were exceedingly numerous and powerful. 
A famine carried off nearly half their num- 
bers, and disease, indolence and the vices 
of the white man have reduced them to a 
poor, weak and insignificant tribe. 

Soon after the settlement of California 
and Oregon, complaints began to be heard 



of massacres of emigrant trains passing 
through the Modoc country'. In ISiT, an 
emigrant train, comprising eighteen souls, 
was entirely destroyed at a place since 
known as " Bloody Point." These occur- 
rences caused the United States Govern- 
ment to appoint a peace commission, who, 
after repeated attempts, in 1864, made a 
treaty with the Modocs, Snakes and Kla- 
maths, in which it was agreed on their part 
to remove to a reservation set apart for 
them in the southern part of Oregon. 

With the exception of Captain Jack and 
a band of his followers, who remained at 
Clear Lake, about six miles from Klamath, 
all the Indians complied. The Modocs 
who went to the reservation were under 
chief Schonchin. Captain Jack remained 
at the lake without disturbance until 1S69, 
when he was also induced to remove to the 
reservation. The Modocs and the Klamaths 
soon became involved in a quarrel, and 
Captain Jack and his band returned to the 
Lava Beds. 

Several attempts were made by the In- 
dian Commissioners to induce them to re- 
turn to the reservation, and finally becom- 
ing involved in a difiicultj' with the com- 
missioner and his tnilitary escort, a fight 
ensued, in which the chief and his band 
were routed. They were greatly enraged 
and on their retreat, before the day closed, 
killed eleven inofiTensive whites. 

The nation was aroused and immediate 
action demanded. A commission was at 
once appointed by the Government to see 
what could be done. It comprised the fol- 
lowing persons: Gen. E. K. S. Canby, 
Rev. Dr. E. Thomas, a leading Methodist 
divine of California; Mr. A. B. Meachain, 
Judge Rosborough, of California, and a Mr. 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



45 



Dyer, of Oregon. After several interviews, 
in which the savages were always aggres- 
sive, often appearing with scalps in their 
belts, Bogus Charley came to the commis- 
sion on the evening of April 10, 1873, and 
informed them that Capt. Jack and his 
band would have a " talk " to-morrow at a 
place near Clear Lake, about three miles 
distant. Here the Commissioners, accom- 
panied by Charley, Riddle, the interpreter, 
and Boston Charley, repaired. After the 
usual greeting the council proceedings com- 
menced. On behalf of the Indians there 
were present: Capt. Jack, Black Jim, Schac 
Nasty Jim, Ellen's Man, and Hooker Jim. 
They had no guns, but carried pistols. 
After short speeches by Mr. Meacham, Gen. 
Canby and Dr. Thomas, Chief Schonchin 
arose to speak. He had scarcely proceeded 
when, as if by a preconcerted arrangement, 
Capt. Jack drew his pistol and shot Gen. 
Canby dead. In less than a minute a dozen 
shots were fired by the savages, and the 
massacre completed. Mr. Meacham was 
shot by Schonchin, and Dr. Thomas by 
Boston Charley. Mr. Dyer barely escaped, 
being fired at twice. Riddle, the interpre- 
ter, and his squaw escaped. The troops 
rushed to the spot where they found Gen. 
Canby and Dr. Thomas dead, and Mr. 
Meacham badly wounded. The savages 
had escaped to their impenetrable fastnesses 
and could not be pursued. 

The whole country was aroused by this 
brutal massacre; but it was not until the 
following May that the murderers were 
brought to justice. At that time Boston 
Charley gave himself up, and oft'ered to 
guide the troops to Capt. Jack's stronghold. 
This led to the capture of his entire gang, 
a number of whom were murdered by Ore- 



gon volunteers while on their way to trial. 
The remaining Indians were held as pris- 
oners until July, when their trial occurred, 
which led to the conviction of Capt. Jack, 
Schonchin, Boston Charley, Hooker Jim, 
Broncho, alias One- Eyed Jim, and Slotuck, 
who were sentenced to be hanged. These 
sentences were approved by the President, 
save in the case of Slotuck and Broncho 
whose sentences were commuted to impris- 
onment for life. The others were executed 
at Fort Klamath, October 3, 1873. 

These closed the Indian troubles for a 
time in the Northwest, and for several years 
the borders of civilization remained in peace. 
Thej' were again involved in a conflict with 
the savages about the country of the Black 
Hills, in which war the gallant Gen. Custer 
lost his life. Just now the borders of Ore- 
gon and California are again in fear of hos- 
tilities; but as the Government has learned 
how to deal with the Indians, they will be 
of short duration. The red man is fast 
passing away before the march of the white 
man, and a few more generations will read 
of the Indians as one of the nations of the 
past. 

The Northwest abounds in memorable 
places. We have generally noticed them 
in the narrative, but our space forbids 
their description in detail, save of the most 
important places. Detroit, Cincinnati, 
Vincennes, Kaskaskia and their kindred 
towns have all been described. But ere 
we leave the narrative we will present our 
readers with an account of the Kinzie 
house, the old landmark of Chicago, and 
the discovery of the source of the Missis- 
sippi River, each of which may well find a 
place in the annals of the Northwest. 

Mr. John Kinzie, of the Kinzie house, 



4(' 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



established a trading house at Fort Dear- 
born in 1804. Tiie stockade had been 
erected the year previous, and named Fort 
Dearborn in honor of the Secretary of War. 
It had a block house at each of the two 
angles, on the southern side a sallyport, a 
covered way on the north side, that led 
down to the river, for the double purpose 
of providing means of escape, and of pro- 
curing water in the event of a siege. 

Fort Dearborn stood on the south bank 
of the Chicago Eiver, about half a mile 
from its mouth. Wiien Major Whistler 
built it, his soldiers hauled all the timber, 
for he had no oxen, and so economically 
did he work that tiie fort cost the Govern- 
ment only fifty dollars. For a while the 
garrison could get no grain, and Whistler 
and his men subsisted on acorns. Now 
Chicago is the greatest grain center in the 
world. 

Mr. Kinzie bought the hut of the first 
settler, Jean Baptiste Point au Sable, on 
the site of whicli he erected his mansion. 
Within an inclosure in front he planted 
some Lombardy poplars, and in the rear he 
soon had a fine garden and growing orchard. 

In 1812 the Kinzie house and its sur- 
roundings became the theater of stirring 
events. The garrison of Fort Dearborn 
consisted of fifty-four men, under the 
charge of Capt. Nathan Heald, assisted by 
Lieutenant Lenai T. Helm (son-in-law to 
Mrs. Kinzie), and ensign Ronan. The sur- 
geon was Dr. Voorhees. Tlie only resi- 
dents at the post at that time were the 
wives of Capt. Heald and Lieutenant Helm 
and a few of the soldiers, Mr. Kinzie and 
his family, and a few Canadian voyageurs 
with their wives and children. The sol- 
diers and Mr. Kinzie were on the most 



friendly terms with the Pottawatoraies and 
the Winnebagoes, the principal tribes 
around them, but they could not win them 
from their attachment to the British. 

After the battle of Tippecanoe it was 
observed that some of the leading cliiefs 
became sullen, for some of their people 
had perished in that conflict with Ameri- 
can troops. 

One evening in April 1812, Mr. Kinzie 
sat playing his violin and his children 
were dancing to the music, when Mrs. 
Kinzie came rushing into the house pale 
with terror, exclaiming, "The Indians! the 
Indians!" "What?' Where?" eagerly 
inquired Mr. Kinzie. "Up at Lee's, kill- 
ing and scalping," answered the frightened 
mother, who, when the alarm was given, 
was attending Mrs. Burns, a newly-made 
mother, living not far ofl". Mr. Kinzie 
and his family crossed the river in boats, 
and took refuge in the fort, to which place 
Mrs. Burns and her infant, not a day old, 
were conveyed in safety to the shelter of 
the guns of Fort Dearborn, and tiie rest of 
the white inhabitants fled. The Indians were 
a scalping party of Winnebagoes, who hov- 
ered around the fort some days, when they 
disappeared, and for several weeks the in- 
habitants were not disturbed by alarms. 

Chicago was then so deep in the wilder- 
ness, that the news of the declaration of 
war against Great Britain, made on the 
19th of June, 1812, did not reach the com- 
mander of the garrison at Fort Dearborn 
till the 7th of August. Now the last mail 
train will carry a man from New York to 
Chicago in twenty-seven hours, and huch a 
declaration might be sent, every word, by 
the telegraph in less than the same number 
of minutes. 



THE XOKXHWEST TEURITORY. 



47 



PEESENT CONDITION OF THE NORTHWEST. 

Preceding chapters have brought us to 
the close of the Black Hawk war, and we 
now turn to the contemplation of the growth 
and prosperity' of the northwest under the 
smile of peace and the blessings of our 
civilization. The pioneers of this region 
date events back to the deep snow of 1831, 
no one arriving here since that date taking 
first honors. Tiie inciting cause of the 
immigration which overflowed the prairies 
early in the '30s was the reports of the 
marvelous beauty and fertility of the re- 
gion distributed through the East by those 
who had participated in the Black Hawk 
campaign with Gen. Scott. Chicago and 
Milwaukee then had a few hundred inhab- 
itants, and Gurdon S. Hubbard's trail from 
the former city to Kaskaskia led almost 
through a wilderness. Vegetables and 
clothing were largely distributed through 
the regions adjoining the lakes by steam- 
ers from the Ohio towns. There are men 
now living in Illinois who came to the 
State when barely an acre was in cultiva- 
tion, and a man now prominent in tlie bus- 
iness circles of Chicago looked over the 
swampy, cheerless site of that metropolis in 
1818 and went southward into civilization. 
Emigrants from Pennsylvania in 1830 
left behind them but one small railway in 
the coal regions thirty miles in length, 
and made their way to the Northwest 
mostly with ox teams, finding in Northern 
Illinois petty settlements scores of miles 
apart, although the southern portion of 
the state was fairly dotted with farms. The 
water courses of the lakes and rivers fur- 
nished transportation to the second great 
army of immigrants, and about 1850 rail- 
roads were pushed to that extent that the 



crisis of 1837 was precipitated upon us, from 
the efiects of which the Western country 
had not fully recovered at the outbreak of 
the war. Hostilities found the colonists 
of the prairies fully alive to the demands 
of tlie occasion, and the honor of recruit- 
ing the vast armies of the Union fell largely 
to Gov. Yates, of Illinois, and Gov. i\Ior- 
ton, of Indiana. To recount the share of 
the glories of the campaign won by our 
Western troops is a needless task, e.xcept 
to mention the fact that Illinois gave to 
the nation the President who saved it, and 
sent out at the head of one of its resfimeuts 
the general who led its armies to the final 
victory at Appomattox. Tiie struggle, on 
the whole, had a marked effect for the bet- 
ter on the new Northwest, jjivino; it an im- 
petns which twenty years of peace would 
not have produced. In a large degree this 
prosperity was an inflated one, aud with 
the rest of the Union we have since been 
compelled to atone therefor. Agriculture, 
still the leading feature in our industries, 
has been quite prosperous through all these 
years, and the farmers have cleared away 
many incumbrances resting over them from 
the period of fictitious values. The pop- 
ulation has steadily increased, the arts and 
sciences are gaining a stronger foothold, 
tiie trade area of the rej^iou is becoming 
daily more extended, and we have been 
largely e.xerapt from the financial calam- 
ities. 

At the present period there are no great 
schemes broached for the Northwest, no 
propositions for government subsidies or 
national works of improvement, but the 
capital of the world is attracted hither for 
the purchase of our products or the expan- 
sion of our capacity for serving the nation 



48 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



at large. A new era i8 dawning as to 
transportation, and we bid fair to deal al- 
most exclusively with the increasing and 
expanding lines of steel rail running 
through every few miles of territory on the 
prairies. The lake marine will no doubt 
continue to be useful in the warmer season, 
and to serve as a regulator of freight rates; 
but experienced navigators forecast tlie 
decay of the system in moving to the sea- 
board the enormous crops of the "West. 
Within the past few years it has become 
quite common to see direct shipments to 
Europe and the, "West Indies going through 
from the second-class towns along the 
Mississippi and Missouri. 

As to popular education, the standard 
has of late risen very greatly, and our 
schools would be creditable to any section 
of the Union. 

More and more as the events of the war 
pass into obscuritj' will the fate of the 
Northwest be linked with that of the 
Southwest. 

Our public men continue to wield the 
full share of influence pertaining to their 
rank in the national autonomy, and seem 
not to forget that for the past sixteen years 
they and tlieir constituents have dictated 
the principles which should govern tlie 
country. 

In a work like this, destined to lie on 
the shelves of the library for generations, 
and not doomed to daily destruction like a 
newspaper, one can not indulge in the 
same glowing predictions, the sanguine 
statements of actualities that till the col- 
vimns of ephemeral publications. Time 
may bring grief to the pet projects of a 
writer, and explode castles erected on a 
pedestal of facts. Yet there are unmistaka- 



ble indications before us of the same radical 
change in our great Northwest which char- 
acterizes its history for the past thirty 
years. Our domain has a sort of natural 
geographical border, save where it melts 
away to the soutiiward in the cattle raising 
districts of the Southwest. 

Our prime interest will for some years 
doubtless be the growth of the food of the 
world, in which branch it has already out- 
stripped all competitors, and our great rival 
in tliis duty will naturally be tlie fertile 
plains of Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado, 
to say nothing of the new enipire so rapid- 
ly growing up in Texas. Over these regions 
there is a continued progress in agriculture 
and in railway building, and we must look 
to our laurels. Intelligent observers of 
events are fully aware of the strides 
made in the way of shipments of fresh 
meats to Europe, many of these ocean car- 
o-oes being actually slaughtered in the West 
and transported on ice to the wharves of the 
seaboard cities. That this new enterprise 
will continue tliere is no reason to doubt. 
There are in Chicago several factories for 
the canning of prepared meats for European 
consumption, and the orders for this class 
of goods are already immense. English 
capital is becoming daily more and more 
and more dissatisfied with railway loans 
and investments, and is gradually seeking 
mammoth outlays in lands and live stock. 
The stock yards in Chicago, Indianapolis 
and East St. Louis are yearly increasing 
their facilities, and their plant steadily 
o-rows more valuable. Importations of 
blooded animals from the progressive coun- 
tries of Europe are destined to greatly im- 
prove the quality of our beef and mutton. 
Nowhere is there to be seen a more enticing 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



49 



display in this line than at our state and 
county fairs, and the interest in the matter 
is on the increase. 

To attempt to give statistics of our grain 
production would be useless, so far have we 
surpassed ourselves in the quantity and 
quality of our product. We are too liable 
to forget that we are giving tlie world its 
first article of necessity — its food supply. 
An opportunity to learn this fact so it nev- 
er can be forgotten was afforded at Chicago 
at the outbreak of the great panic of 1873, 
when Canadian purchasers, fearing the pros- 
tration of business miijht bring: about an 
anarchical condition of affairs, went to that 
city with coin in bulk and foreign drafts to 
secure their supplies in their own currency 
at first hands. It may be justly claimed by 
the agricultural community that their com- 
bined etforts gave the nation its first impe- 
tus toward a restoration of its crippled 
industries, and their labor brought the gold 
premium to a lower depth than the govern- 
ment was able to reacii by its most intense 
etforts of legislation and compulsion. The 
hundreds of millions about to be disbursed 
for farm products have already, by the an- 
ticipation common to all commercial nations, 
set the wheels in motion, and will relieve 
us from the perils so long shadowing our 
cfi'orts to return to a health}' tone. 

Manufacturing has attained in the chief 
cities a foothold which bids fair to render 
tliu Northwest independent of the outside 
world. Nearly our whole region has a dis- 
tribution of coal measures which will in 
time support the manufactures necessary to 
our comfort and prosperity. As to trans- 
portation, the chief factor in the production 
of all articles except food, no section is so 
magnificently endowed, and. our facilities 



are yearly increasing beyond tiiosc ot any 
other region. 

The ]ieriod from a central point of the 
war to the outbreak of the panic was 
marked by a tremendous growth in oui- 
railway lines, but the depression of the 
times caused almost a total suspension of 
ojierations. Now that prosperity is return- 
ing to our stricken country we witness its 
anticipation by the railroad interest in a 
series of projects, extensions, and leases 
which bid fair to largely increase our 
transportation facilities. The ])rocess of 
foreclosure and sale of incumbered lines is 
another matter to be considered. In the 
case of the Illinois Central road, which 
formerly transferred to other lines at Cairo 
the vast burden of freight destined for the 
Gulf region, we now see the incorjioration 
of the tracts connecting through to New 
Orleans, every mile co-ojaerating in turninn- 
toward the northwestern metropolis the 
weight of the interstate commerce of a 
thousand miles or more of fertile planta- 
tions. Three competing routes to Texas 
have established in Chicago their genera! 
freight and passenger agencies. Four or 
five lines compete for all Pacific freights 
to a point as iar as the interior of Nebraska. 
Half a dozen or more splendid bridge 
structures have been thrown across the 
Missouri and Mississippi Rivers by the 
railways. The Chicago and Northwestern 
line has become an aggregation of over 
two thousand miles of rail, and the Chicago, 
Milwaukee and St. Paul is its close rival in 
extent and importance. The three lines 
running to Cairo via Vincennes form a 
through route for all traffic with the States 
to the southward. The trunk lines being 
nuiinly in operation, the progress made in 



50 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 



the way of shortening tracks, making air- 
line branches, and running extensions does 
not show to the advantage it deserves, as 
this process is constantly adding new facili- 
ties to the established order of things. The 
panic reduced the price of steel to a point 
where the railways could hardly afford to 
use iron rails, and all our northwestern 
lines report large relays of Bessemer track. 
The immense crops now being moved have 
given a great rise to the value of railway 
stocks, and their transportation must result 
in heavy pecuniary advantages. 

Few are aware of the importance of the 
wholesale and jobbing trade of Chicago. 
In boots and shoes and in clothing, twenty 
or more great firms from the East have 
placed here their distributing agents or 
their factories ; and in groceries Chicago 
supplies the entire Northwest at rates 



presenting advantages over New York. 

Chicago has stepped in between New 
York and the rural brinks as a financial 
center, and scarcely a banking institution 
in the grain or cattle regions but keeps its 
reserve funds in the vaults of our com- 
mercial institutions. Accumulating here 
throughout the spring and summer months, 
they are summoned home at pleasure to 
move the products of the prairies. This 
process greatly strengthens the northwest 
in its financial operations, leaving home 
capital to supplement local operations on 
behalf of home interests. 

It is impossible to forecast the destiny 
of this grand and growing section of the 
Union. Figures and predictions made at 
this date might seem ten years hence so 
ludicrously small as to excite only derision. 




EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



The name of this beantiful Prairie State 
is derived Iruni Illini, a Delaware word 
signilyiiig Superior Men. It has a French 
termination, and is a symbol of how the 
two races — the French and the Indians — 
were intermixed during tlie early history 
of the country. 

The appellation was no doubt well ap- 
jilied to the primitive inhabitants of the 
t-oil whose prowess in savage warfare long 
withstood the combined attacks of the 
fierce Iroquois on the one side, and the no 
less savage and relentless Sacs and Foxes 
on the other. The Illinois were once a 
powerful confederacy, occupying the most 
beautiful and fertile region in the trreat 
Valley of the Mississippi, which their en- 
emies coveted, and struggled long and 
hard to wrest from them. Ey the fortunes 
of war, they were diminished in numbers, 
and finally destroyed. " Starved Eock," 
on the Illinois Hiver, according to tradi- 
tion, commemorates their last tragedy, 
where, it is said, the entire tribe starved 
rather than surrennei-. 

EARLT DISCOVEKIES. 

The first European discoveries in Illi- 
nois date back over two hundred years. 
They are a part of that movement which, 
from the beginning to the middle of the 
seventeenth century, brought the French 



Canadian missionaries and fur traders into 
the Valley of the Mississippi, and whicli 
at a later period establislied the civil and 
ecclesiastical authority of France, from the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexi- 
co, and from the foot-hills of the Alleghe- 
nies to the Rocky Mountains. 

The great river of the West liad been 
discovered by i)e Soto, the Spanish con- 
queror of Florida, three quarters of a cent- 
ury before the French founded Quebec in 
16(18, but the Spanish left the country a 
wilderness, without further exploration or 
settlement within its borders, in which con- 
dition it remained until the Mississip])i 
was discovered by the agents of the French 
Canadian government, Joliet and Mar- 
quette, in 1(J73. These renowned explor- 
ers were not the first white visitors to Illi- 
nois In 1(371 — two years in advance of 
them — came Nicholas Perrot to Chicago. 
lie had been sent by Talon as an agent of 
tiie Canadian government to call a great 
peace convention of Western Indians at 
Green Pay, ])reparatory to the movement 
for the discover}' of the Mississippi. It 
was deemed a good stroke of policy to se- 
cure, as far as possible, the friendship and 
co-operation of the Indians, far and near, 
before venturing ujjon an enterprise which 
their hostility might render disastrous, and 
which their friendship and assistance would 



52 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



do so much to make successful; and to this 
end Perrot was sent to call together in 
council, the tribes throughout the North- 
west, and to promise them the -commerce 
and protection of the French government. 
He accordingly arrived at Green Bay in 
1671, and procuring an escort of Pottawat- 
omies, proceeded in a bark canoe upon a 
visit to the Miamis, at Chicago. Perrot 
was therefore the first European to set foot 
upon the soil of Illinois. 

Still there were others before Marquette. 
In 1672, the Jesuit missionaries. Fathers 
Claude Allouez and Claude Dablon, bore 
the standard of the Cross from their mis- 
sion at Green Bay through western Wis- 
consin and northern Illinois, visiting the 
Foxes on Fox River, and the Masqiiotines 
and Kickapoos at the mouth of the Mil- 
waukee. These missionaries penetrated on 
the route afterwards followed by Marquette 
as far as the Ivickapoo village at the head 
of Lake Winnebago, where Marquette, in 
his journey, secured guides aorcss the 
portage to the Wisconsin. 

The oft repeated story of Marquette and 
Joliet is well known. They were the 
agents employed by the Canadian govern- 
ment to discover the Mississippi. Mar- 
quette was a native of France, born in 
1637, a Jesuit priest by education, and a 
man of simple faith and of great zeal and 
devotion in extending the Roman Catholic 
religion among the Indians. Arrivino- in 
Canada in 1666, he was sent as a mission- 
ary to the far Northwest, and, in 1668, 
founded a mission at Sault Ste. Marie. The 
following year he moved to La Pointe, in 
Lake Superior, where he instructed a branch 
of the Hurons till 1670, when he removed 
south and founded the mission at St. Ignace, 



on the Straits of Mackinaw. Here he re- 
mained, devoting a portion of his time to 
the study of the Illinois laiijjuau;e under a 
native teacher who had accompanied him 
to the mission from La Pointe, till he was 
joined by Joliet in the spring of 1673. 
By the way of Green Bay and the Fox and 
Wisconsin Rivers, they entered the Mis- 
sissippi, which they explored to the mouth 
of the Arkansas, and returned by the way 
of the Illinois and Chicago Rivers to Lake 
Michigan. 

On his way up the Illinois, Marquette 
visited the great village of the Kaskaskias, 
near what is now Utica, in the county of 
La Salle. The following year he returned 
and established among them the mission 
of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, which 
was the first Jesuit mission founded in 
Illinois and in the Mississippi Valley. The 
intervening winter he had spent in a hut 
which his companions erected on the Chi- 
cago River, a few leagues from its mouth. 
The founding of this mission was the last 
act of Marquette's life. He died in Mich- 
igan, on his way back to Green Bay, May 
IS, 1675. 

FIRST FRENCH OCCUPATIOX. 

The first French occupation of the terri- 
tory now embraced in Illinois was effected 
by La Salle in 16S0, seven years after, the 
time of Marquette and Joliet. La Salle, 
having constructed a vessel, the " Griftin," 
above the falls of Niagara, which he sailed 
to Green Bay, and having passed thence in 
canoes to the mouth of the St. Joseph 
River, by which and the Kankakee he 
reached the Illinois, in January, 16S0, 
erected Fort Crivecmur, at the lower end 
of Peoria Lake, where tlie citj- of Peoria 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



53 



is now situated. The place where this an- 
cient fort stood may still be seen just below 
the outlet of Peoria Lake. It was destined, 
however, to a temporary existence. From 
this point. La Salle determined to descend 
t!ie Mississippi to its mouth, but did not 
accomplish this purpose till two years later 
— in 1GS2. Hetuniing to Fort Frontenac 
for the purpose of getting materials with 
which to rig his vessel, he left the fort in 
charge of Toiiti, his lieutenant, who during 
his absence was driven off by the Iro(jUois 
Lidians. These savages had made a raid up- 
on the settlement of the Illinois, and had left 
nothing in tlieir track but ruin and desola- 
tion. Mr. Davidson, in his History of 
Illinois, gives the following graphic account 
of the picture that met the eyes of La Salle 
and his companions on their return: 

" At the great town of the Illinois they 
were appalled at the scene which ojjencd to 
their view. No hunter appeared to break 
its death-like silence with a salutatory 
whoop of welcome. The plain on which 
the town had stood was now strewed with 
charred fragments of lodges, which had so 
recently swarmed with savage life and hi- 
larity. To render more hideous the ]>icture 
of desolation, large numbers of skulls had 
been placed on the upper extremities of 
lodge- poles which had escaped the devour- 
ing flames. In the midst of these horrors 
was the rude fort of tlie spoilers, rendered 
friglitfnl bv the same ghastlv relics. A 
near approach showed that the graves had 
been robbed of their bodies, and swarms of 
buzzards were discovered glutting tiieir 
loathsome stomachs on the reeking corrup- 
tion. To complete the work of destruction, 
the growing corn of the villa^'e liad been 
2Ut down and burned, while the pits con- 



taining the products of previous years, had 
been rifled and their contents scattered with 
wanton waste. It was evident the suspected 
blow of the Iroquois had fallen with relent- 
less fury." 

Tonti had escaped. La Salle knew not 
whither. Passing down the lake in searcli 
of him and his men. La Salle discovered 
that the fort had been destroyed, but the 
vessel which he had partly constructed was 
still on the stocks, and but slightly in- 
jured. After further fruitless search, failing 
to find Tonti, he fastened to a tree a painting 
representing himself and part}' sitting in a 
canoe and bearing a pipe of peace, and to 
the painting attached a letter addressed to 
Tonti, 

Tonti had escaped, and after untold pri- 
vations, taken shelter among the Potta- 
wattomies near Green Bay. These were 
friendly to the French. One of their old 
chiefs used to say, "There were but three 
great captains in the world, himself, Tonti 
and La Salle." 

GENIUS OF LA SALLE. 

"We must now return to La Salle, wliose 
exploits stand out in such bold relief. He 
was born in Houen, France, in 1643. His 
father was wealthy but he renounced his 
patrimony on entering a college of the 
Jesuits, from which he separated and came 
to Canada a poor man in 1666. The priests 
of St. Sulpice, among whom he had a 
brother, were then the proprietors of Mon- 
treal, the nucleus of which was a seminary 
or convent founded by that order. The 
Superior granted to La Salle a large tract 
of land at La Chine, where he established 
himself in the fur trade. He was a man 
of daring genius, and outstripped all his 



54 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



competitors in exploits of travel and com- 
merce with the Indians. In 1669, he vis- 
ited the headt[iiarters of the great Iroquois 
confederacy, at Onondaga, in the heart of 
New York, and obtaining guides, explored 
the Ohio River to the falls at Louisville. 

In order to understand the genius of 
La Salle, it must be remembered that for 
many years prior to his time the mission- 
aries and traders were obliged to make 
their way to the Northwest by the Ottawa 
Eiver (of Canada) on account of the fierce 
hostility of the Iroquois along the lower 
lakes and Niagara Eiver, which entirely 
closed this latter route to the UpperLakes. 
They carried on their commerce chiefly by 
canoes, paddling them through the Ottawa 
to Lake Ni]>issing, carrying them across 
the portage to French River, and descend- 
ing that to Lake Huron. This being the 
route by which they reached the Northwest 
accounts for the fact that all the earliest 
Jesuit missions were established in the 
neio-hborhood of the Upper Lakes. La Salle 
conceived the grand idea of opening the 
route by Niagara River and the Lower 
Lakes to Canadian commerce by sail vessels 
connecting it with the navigation of the 
Mississippi, and thus opening a magnificent 
water communication from the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. This 
trulv grand and comprehensive purpose 
seems to have animated him in all his 
wonderful achievements and the matchless 
difficulties and hardships he surmounted. 
As the first step in the accomjilisliment of 
this object he established himself on Lake 
Ontario, and built and garrisoned Fort 
Frontenac, the site of the present city of 
Kingston, Canada. Here he obtained a 
o-rant of land from the French crown, and 



a body of troops by Mjhich he beat back the 
invading Iroquois and cleared the passage 
to Niagara Falls. Having by this m;isterly 
stroke made it safe to attempt a hitherto 
untried expedition, his next step, as we 
have seen, was to advance to the Falls with 
all his outfit for building a ship with which 
to sail the lakes. He was successful in 
this undertaking, though his ultimate pur- 
pose was defeated by a strange combination 
of untoward circumstances. The Jesuits 
evidently hated La Salle and plotted against 
him, because he had abandoned them and 
co-operated with a rival order. The fur 
traders were also jealous of his superior 
success in opening new channels of com- 
merce. At La Chine he had taken the trade 
of Lake Ontario, which but for his presence 
there would have gone to Quebec. While 
they were plodding with their bark canoes 
through the Ottawa he was constructing 
sailing vessels to command the trade of the 
lakes and the Mississippi. These great 
plans excited the jealousy and envy of the 
small traders, introduced treason and revolt 
into the ranks of his own companions, and 
finally led to the foul assassination by which 
his great achievements were prematurely 
ended. 

In 16S2, La Salle, having completed his 
vessel at Peoria, descended the Mississippi 
to its confluence with the Gulf of Mexico. 
Erecting a standard on which he inscribed 
the arms of France, he took formal posses- 
sion of the whole valley of the mighty 
river, in the name of Louis XIV, then 
reigning, in honor of whom he named the 
country' Lotjisi.^NA. 

La Salle then went to France, was ap- 
pointed Governor, and returned with a 
fleet and immigrants, for the purpose of 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



planting a colony in Illinois. Thej' arrived 
in due time in the Gulf of Mexico, but 
failing to find the month of the Mississippi, 
up which La Salle intended to sail, his 
supply ship, with the immigrants, was 
driven ashore and wrecked on Matagorda 
Bay. With the fragments of the vessel he 
constructed a stockade and rude huts on 
the shore for the jirotection of the immi- 
grants, calling the post Fort St. Louis. 
He then made a trip into New Mexico, in 
search of silver mines, but, meeting with 
disappointment, returned to find his little 
colony reduced to forty souls. He then 
resolved to travel on foot to Illinois, and, 
starting with his companions, had reached 
the valley of the Colorado, near the month 
of Trinity river, when he was shot by one 
of his men. This occurred on the 19th of 
March, 1687. 

Dr. J. W. Foster remarks of him : 
" Thus fell, not far from the banks of the 
Trinity, Robert Cavalier de la Salle, one 
of the grandest characters that ever figured 
in American history — a man capable of 
originating the vastest schemes, and en- 
dowed with a will and a" judgment capable 
of carrying them to successful results. Had 
ample facilities been placed by the King 
of France at his disposal, the result of the 
colonization of this continent might have 
been far different from what we now 
behold." 

JIARLY SETTLEMENTS. 

A temjiorary settlement was made at 
Fort St. Louis, or the old Kaskaskia village, 
on the Illinois River, in what is now La 
Salle County, in 1682. In 1690, this was 
removed, with the mission connected with 
it, to Kaskaskia, on the river of that name. 



emptying into the lower Mississippi in St. 
Clair County. Cahokia was settled about 
the same time, or at least, both of these 
settlements began in the year 1690, though 
it is now pretty well settled that Cahokia 
is the older place, and ranks as the oldest 
permanent settlement in Illinois, as well as 
in the Mississippi Valley. The reason for 
the removal of the old Kaskaskia settle- 
ment and mission, was probably because 
the dangerous and difficult route by Lake 
Michigan and the Chicago portage had been 
almost abandoned, and travelers and traders 
passed down and up the Mississippi by the 
Fox and Wisconsin River route. The}' re- 
moved to the vicinity of the Mississippi in 
order to be in the line of travel from Can- 
ada to Louisiana, that is, the lower part of 
it, for it was all Louisiana then south of 
the lakes. 

During the period of French rule in 
Louisiana, the population probably never 
exceeded ten thousand, including whites 
and blacks. Within that portion of it now 
included in Indiana, trading posts were es- 
tablished at the principal Miami villages 
which stood on the head waters of the 
Maumee, the Wea villages situated at 
Ouiatenon, on the Wabash, and the Pian- 
keshaw villages at Post Vincennes; all of 
which were probably visited by French 
traders and missionaries before the close of 
the seventeenth century. 

In the vast territory claimed by the 
French, many settlements of considerable 
importance had sprung up. Biloxi, on 
Mobile Bay, had been founded by D'lber- 
ville, in 1699; Antoine de Lamotte Cadillac 
had founded Detroit in 1701; and New 
Orleans had been founded by Bienville, 
under the auspices of the Mississippi Com- 



56 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



pany, in 1718. In Illinois also, considera- 
ble settlements had been made, so that in 
1730 they embraced one hundred and forty 
French families, about six hundred "con- 
verted Indians," and many traders and 
voyageiirs. In that portion of the country, 
on the east side of the Mississippi, there 
were five distinct settlements, with their 
respective villages, viz.: Cahokia, near the 
mouth of Cahokia Creek and about five 
miles below the present city of St. Louis; 
St. Philip, about forty-five miles below Ca- 
hokia, and four miles above Fort Chartres; 
Fort Chartres, twelve miles above Kaskas- 
kia; Kaskaskia, situated on the Kaskaskia 
River, five miles above its confluence with 
the Mississippi-, and Prairie du Rocher, 
near Fort Chartres. To these must be add- 
ed St. Genevieve and St. Louis, on the west 
side of the Mississippi. These with the 
exception of St. Louis, are among the oldest 
French towns in the Mississippi Valley. 
Kaskaskia, in its best days, was a town of 
some two or three thousand inliabitants. 
After it passed from the crown of France 
its population for many years did not ex- 
ceed fifteen hundred. Under British rule, 
in 1773, the population had decreased to 
four hundred and fifty. As earl}' as 1721 
the Jesuits had established a college and a 
monastery in Kaskaskia. 

Fort Chartres was first built under the 
direction of the Mississippi Company, in 
1718, by M. deBoisbraint, a military officer, 
under command of Bienville. It stood on 
the east bank of the Mississippi, about 
eighteen miles below Kaskaskia, and was 
for some time the headquarters of the mil- 
itary commandants of the district of Illinois. 

In the Centennial Oration of Dr. Fowler, 
delivered at Philadelphia, by appointment 



of Gov. Beveridge, we find some interesting 
facts with regard to the State of Illinois, 
which we appropriate in this history: 

In 1682 Illinois became a possession of 
the French crown, a dependency of Canada, 
and a part of Louisiana. In 1765 the Eng- 
lish flag was run up on old Fort Chartres, 
and Illinois was counted among the treas- 
ures of Great Britain. 

In 1779 it was taken from the English 
by Col. George Rogers Clark. This man 
was resolute in nature, wise in council, 
prudent in policy, bold in action, and heroic 
in danger. Few men who have figured in 
the history of America are more deserving 
than this colonel. Kothing short of first- 
class ability could have rescued Vincennes 
and all Illinois from the English. And it 
is not possible to over-estimate the influence 
of this achievement upon the republic. In 
1779 Illinois became a part of Virginia. It 
was soon known as Illinois County. In 
1784 Virginia ceded all this territory to the 
general government, to be cut into States, 
to be republican in form, with " the same 
right of sovereignty, freedom, and inde- 
pendence as the other States." 

In 1787 it was the object of the wisest 
and ablest legislation found in any merely 
human records. No man can study the 
secret history of 

THE "compact of 1787," 

and not feel that Providence was guiding 
with sleepless eye these unborn States. The 
ordinance that on July 13, 1787, finally be- 
came the incorporating act, has a most 
marvelous history. Jefferson had vainly 
tried to secure a system of government for 
the northwestern territory. He was an 
emancipationist of that day, and favored the 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



exclusion of slavery frmn the territory Vir- 
ginia bad ceded to the general government; 
but tlie South voted him down as often as 
it came np. lu 1787, as late as July 10 tb, 
an organizing act without the anti-slavery 
clause was pending. This concession to the 
South was expected to carry it. Congress 
was in session in Xew York City. On July 
5th, Rev. Dr. Mannasseh Cutler, oi Massa- 
chusetts, came into Xew York to lobby on 
the northwestern territory. Everything 
seemed to fall into his hands. Events were 
ripe. 

The state of the public credit, the growing 
of Southern prejudice, the basis of his mis- 
sion, his personal character, all combined to 
complete one of those sudden and marvelous 
revolutions of public sentiment that once in 
five or ten centuries are seen to sweep over 
a country like the breath of the Almighty. 
Cutler was a graduate of Yale — received his 
A. M. from Harvard, and his D. D. from 
Yale. He had studied and taken degrees 
in the three learned professions, medicine, 
law, and divinity. He had thus America's 
best indorsement. He had published a 
scientific examination of the plants of JSTew 
England. His name stood second only to 
tliat of Franklin as a scientist in America. 
He was aci:>urtly gentleman of the old style, 
a man of commanding presence, and of 
inviting face. The Southern members said 
they had never seen such a gentleman in the 
North. He came representing a company 
that desired to purchase a tract of land now 
included in Ohio, for the purpose of plant- 
ing a colony. It was a S]iecnlation. Gov- 
ernment mone}' was worth eighteen cents 
on the dollar. This Massachusetts companv 
had collected enough to purchase 1,-500,000 
acres of land. Other speculators in Xew 



York made Dr. Cutler their agent (lobbyist). 
On the 12th he represented a demand for 
5,500,000 acres. Thi? would reduce the 
national debt. Jeiferson and Virginia were 
regarded as authority concerning the land 
Virginia had just ceded. Jefferson's policy 
wanted to provide for the public credit, and 
this was a good opportunity to do some- 
thing. 

Massachusetts then owned the Territory 
of Maine, which she was crort'ding on the 
market. She was opposed to opening the 
northwestern region. This fired the zeal of 
Virginia. The South caught the inspiration, 
and all exalted Dr. Cutler. The English 
minister invited him to dine with some of 
the Southern gentlemen. He was the cen- 
ter of interest. 

The entire South rallied round him, 
Massachusetts could not vote against him, 
because many of the constituents of her 
members were interested personally in the 
western speculation. Thus Cutler, making 
friends with the South, and, doubtless, using 
all the arts of the lobby, was enabled to 
command the situation. True to deeper 
convictions, he dictated one of tlie most 
compact and finished documents of wise 
statesmanship that has ever adorned any 
human law book. He borrowetl from Jef- 
ferson the term "Articles of Compact," 
which, preceding the Federal constitution, 
rose into the most sacred character. He 
then followed very closely the constitution 
of Massachusetts, adopted three years be- 
fore. Its most marked points were: 

1. The exclusion of slavery from the ter- 
ritory forever. 

2. Provision for public schools, giving 
one township for a seminary, and every sec- 
tion numbered 16 in each township; that 



58 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



is, one thirty-sixth of all the land, for public 
schools. 

3. A provision prohibiting the adop- 
tion of any constitution or the enactment 
of any law that should nullify pre-existing 
contracts. 

Be it forever remembered that this com- 
pact declared that " Religion, morality and 
knowledge bein2 necessary to good govern- 
ment and the happiness of mankind, 
schools and the means of education shall 
always be encouraged." 

Dr. Cutler planted himself on this plat- 
form and would not yield. Giving his 
unqualified declaration that it was that or 
nothing — that unless they could make the 
land desirable they did not want it — he 
took his horse and buggy, and started for 
the constitutional convention in Phila- 
delphia. On July 13, 1787, the bill was 
put upon its passage, and was unanimousl}' 
adopted, every Southern member voting 
for it, and only one man, Mr. Yates, of 
New York, voting against it. But as the 
States voted as States, Yates lost his vote, 
and the compact was put beyond repeal. 

Thus the great States of Ohio, Indiana, 
[llinois, Michigan and Wisconsin — -a vast 
empire, the heart of the great valley — -were 
consecrated to freedom, intelligence and 
honesty. Thus the great heart of the na- 
tion was prepared for a year and a da}' and 
an hour. In the light of these eighty-nine 
years I affirm that this act was the salva- 
tion of the republic and the destruction of 
slavery. Soon the South saw their great 
blunder, and tried to repeal the compact. 
In 1S03, Congress referred it to a commit- 
tee of which John Randolph was chairman. 
He reported that this ordinance was a com- 
pact, and opposed repeal. Thus it stood a 



rock, in the way of the on-rushing sea of 
slavery. 

With all this timely aid, it was, after 
all, a most desperate and protracted strug- 
gle to keep the soil of Illinois sacred to 
freedom. It was the natural battle-field 
for the irrepressible conflict. In the 
southern end of the State, slavery preceded 
the compact. It existed among the old 
French settlers, and was hard to eradicate. 
The southern part of the State was settled 
from the slave States, and this population 
brought their laws, customs and institu- 
tions with them. A stream of population 
from the North poured into the northern 
part of the State. These sections misun- 
derstood and hated each other perfectly. 
The Southerners regarded the Yankees as 
a skinning, tricky, penurious race of ped- 
dlers, filling the country with tinware, 
brass clocks and wooden nutmegs. The 
Northerner thought of the Southerner as a 
lean, lank, lazy creature, burrowing in a 
hut, and rioting in whisky, dirt and igno- 
rance. These causes aided in making the 
struggle long and bitter. So strong was 
the sympathy with slavery, that in spite 
of the ordinance of 1787, and in spite of 
the deed of cession, it was determined to 
allow the old French settlers to retain their 
slaves. Planters from the slave States 
mio'ht bring their slaves, if they would 
o-ive them a chance to choose freedom or 
years of service and bondage for their chil- 
dren till they should become thirty years 
of age. If they chose freedom they must 
leave the State in sixty days or be sold as 
fuffitives. Servants were whipped for of- 
fenses for which white men are fined. 
Each lash paid forty cents of the fine. A 
negro ten miles from home without a pass 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



59 



was whipped. These famous hiws were 
imported t'roin the shive States just as thcj- 
imported laws for tiie inspection of flax 
and wool when there was neither in the 
State. 

These Black Laws are now wiped out. 
A vigorous effort was made to protect 
slavery in the State Constitution of 1817. 
It barely failed. It was renewed in 1825, 
when a convention was asked to make a 
new constitution. After a hard fight the 
convention was defeated. But slaves did 
not disappear from the census of the State 
until 1850. There were mobs and mur- 
ders in the interest of slavery. Lovejoy 
was added to the list of martj'rs — a sort of 
first fruits of that long life of immortal 
heroes who saw freedom as the one supreme 
desire of their souls, and were so enam- 
ored of her, that they preferred to die 
rather than survive her. 

The population of 12,282 that occupied 
the Territory in A. D. 1800, increased to 
45.000 in A. D. 1818, when the State Con- 
stitution was adopted, and Illinois took 
her place in the Union, with a star on the 
flag and two votes in the Senate. 

Shadrach Bond was the first Governor, 
and in his first message he recommended 
the construction of the Illinois and Michi- 
gan Canal. 

The simple economy in those days is 
seen in the fact the entire liill for station- 
ery for tlie first Legislature was only 
$13.50. Yet this simple body actually 
enacted a very superior code. 

There was no money in the Territory 
before the war of 1812. Deer skins and 
coon skins were the circulating medium. 
In 1821, the Legislature ordained a State 
Bank on the credit of the State. It issued 



notes in the likeness of bank bills. These 
notes were made a legal tender for every 
thing, and the bank was ordered to loan to 
the people $100 on personal security, and 
more on mortgages. They actually passed 
a resolution requesting the Secretary of 
the Treasury of the United States to re- 
ceive these notes for land. The old French 
Lieutenant Governor, Col. Menard, put the 
resolution as follows: "Gentlemen of the 
Senate: It is moved and seconded dat de 
notes of dis hank be made land office 
money. All in favor of dat motion say aye; 
all against it say no. It is decided in de af- 
firmative. Now, gentlemen, I bet you one 
hundred dollar he never be land-office 
money!" Hard sense, like hard money, 
is always above par. 

This old Frenchman presents a fine fig- 
ure up against the dark background of 
most of his nation. They made no prog- 
ress. They clung to their earliest and 
simplest implements. They never wore 
hats or caps. They pulled their blankets 
over their heads in the winter like the In- 
dians, with whom they freely intermin- 
gled. 

Demagogism had an early development. 
One John Grammar (only in name), elected 
to the Territorial and State Legislatures of 
1816 and 1836, invented the policy of op- 
l)osing every new thing, saying, " If it 
succeeds, no one will ask who voted against 
it. If it proves a failure, he could quote 
its record." In sharp contrast with Gram- 
mar was the character of D. P. Cook, after 
whom the county containing Chicago was 
named. Sucli was his transparent integri- 
ty and remarkable ability that his vvill was 
almost the law of the State. In Congress, 
a young man, and from a poor State, he was 



60 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



made Chairman of the Ways and Means 
Committee. He was pre-eminent for 
standing by his committee, regardless of 
consequences. It was liis integrity that 
elected John Qiiinc}' Adams to the Presi- 
dency. There were four candidates in 
1824, Jackson, Clay, Crawford, and John 
Quincy Adams. There being no choice by 
tliepeiple, the election was thrown into the 
House. It was so balanced that it turned 
on his vote, and that he cast for Adams, 
electing him ; then went home to face the 
wrath of the Jackson party in Illinois. It 
cost him all but character and greatness. 
It is a sufff^estive comment on the times, 
that there was no legal interest till 1830. 
It often reached 150 per cent., usually 50 
percent. Then it was reduced to 12, and 
now to 10 per cent. 

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE PEAIEIE STATE. 

In area the State has 55,410 square miles 
of territory. It is about 150 miles wide 
and 400 miles long, stretcliing in latitude 
from Maine to Xorth Carolina. It embraces 
wide variety of climate. It is tempered on 
the north b}- the great inland, saltless, tide- 
less sea, which keeps the thermometer from 
either extreme. Being a table land, from 
600 to 1,200 feet above the level of the sea, 
one is prepared to find on the health maps, 
prepared by the general government, an al- 
most clean and perfect record. In freedom 
from fever and malarial diseases and con- 
sumptions, the three deadly enemies of the 
American Saxon, Illinois, as a State, stands 
without a superior. She furnishes one of 
the essential conditions of a great people — 
sound bodies. I suspect that this fact lies 
back of that old Delaware word, Illini, su- 
perior men. 



The great battles of history that have 
been determinative of dynasties and desti- 
nies have been strategical battles, chiefly 
the question of position. Thermopylae has 
been the war-cry of freemen for twenty-four 
centuries. It only tells how much there 
may be in position. All this advantage 
belongs to Illinois. It is in the heart of 
the greatest valley in the world, the vast 
region between the mountains — a valley 
that could feed mankind for one thousand 
years. It is well on toward the center of 
the continent. It is in the great temperate 
belt, in which have been found nearly all 
the aggressive civilizations of history. It 
has sixty-five miles of frontage on the head 
of the lake. With the Mississippi forming 
the western and southern boundarv, with 
the Ohio running along the southeastern 
line, with the Illinois river and canal divid- 
ing the State diagonally from the lake to 
'the lower Mississippi, and with the Rock 
and Wabash rivers, furnishing altogether 
2,000 miles of water front, connecting with, 
and running through, in all about 12,000 
miles of navigable water. 

But this is not all. These waters are 
made most available by the fact that the 
lake and the State lie on the ridge running 
into the great valley from the east. Within 
cannon-shot of the lake, the water runs 
awav from the lake to the gulf. The lake 
now empties at both ends, one into the At- 
lantic and one into the gulf of Mexico. 
The lake thus seems to hang over the land. 
This makes the dockage most serviceable; 
there are no steep banks to damage it. 
Both lake and river are made for use. 

The climate varies from Portland to 
Pichmond; it favors every product of the 
continent, including the tropics, with less 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



r^i 



tliaii lialf a dozen exceptions. It produces 
every great nutriment of the world except 
bananas and rice. It is liardly too much 
to say that it is the most productive spot 
known to civilization. With the soil full 
of bread and the earth lull of minerals; 
with an upper surface of food and an un- 
der layer of fuel; with perfect natural drain- 
age, and abundant springs and streanis and 
navigable rivers; halfway between the for- 
ests of the north and the fruits of the south ; 
witliin a day's ride of the great deposits of 
iron, coal, copper, lead and zinc; eontain- 
ing and controlling the great grain, cattle, 
pork and lumber markets of the world, it 
is not strange that Illinois has the advan- 
tage of jjosition. 

This advantage has been supplemented 
by the character of the population. In the 
early days when Illinois was first admitted 
to the union, her population were chietly 
from Kentucky and Virginia. But, in the 
conflict of ideas concerning slavery, a 
strong tide of emigration came in from the 
East, and soon changed this composition. 
In 1870 her non-native population were 
from colder soils. Xew York furnished 
133,290; Ohio gave 102,623; Pennsylvania 
sent on 98,352; the en ti^-e South gave us 
only 20f!,T34. In all her cities, and in all 
her German and Scandinavian and other 
foreign colonies, Illinois has only about 
one-fifth of her people of foreign birth. 

PROGRESS OF DEVELOPMENT. 

One of the greatest elements in the 
early development of Illinois is the Illi- 
nois and Michigan Canal, connectinar the 
Illinois and Mississip])i Rivers with the 
lakes. It was of the utmost importance to 
the Suite. It was i. con mended by Gov. 



Bond, the first governor, in his first mes- 
sage. In 1821, the Legislature appropri- 
ated $10,000 for surveying the route. Two 
bright young engineers surveyed it, and 
estimated the cost at §600,000 or STOU.OOO. 
It finally cost §8,000,000. In 1825, a4aw 
was passed to incorporate the Canal Com- 
pany, but no stock was sold. In 1826, 
upon the solicitation of Cook, Congress 
gave 800,000 acres of land on the line of 
the work. In 1828, another law — commis- 
sioners appointed, and work commenced 
with new survey and new estimates. lu 
1834-35, George Farquhar made an able 
report on the whole matter. This was, 
doubtless, the ablest report ever made to a 
western legislature, and it became the 
model for subsequent reports and action. 
From this, the work went on till it was 
finished in 1848. It cost the State a large 
amount of money; but it gave to the in- 
dustries of the State an impetus that 
pushed it up into the first rank of great- 
ness. It was not built as a speculation any 
more than a doctor is emploj'ed on a specu- 
lation. But it has paid into the treasury 
of the State an average annual not sum of 
over $111,000. 

Pending the construction of the canal, 
the land and town-lot fever broke out in 
the State, in 1834-35. It took on the 
malignant type in Chicago, lifting the 
town up into a city. The disease spread 
over the entire State and adjoining States. 
It was epidemic. It cut up men's farms 
without regard to locality, and cut up the 
purses of the purchasers without regard to 
consequences. It is estimated that build- 
ins lots enough were sold in Indiana alone 
to accommodate every citizen then in the 
United States. 



C'i 



EAIJLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



Towns and cities were exported to the 
Eastern market by the ship-load. There 
was no hick of bnvers. Every np-siiip 
came freif^iiteil with speculators and their 
nione}'. 

This distempter seized upon the Legis- 
lature in 1836-37, and left not one to teil 
the tale. They enacted a system of inter- 
nal improvement without a parallel in the 
gi-andeur of its conception. They ordered 
the construction of 1,300 miles of railroad, 
crossing the State in all directions. This 
was surpassed by the river and canal im- 
provements. There were a few counties 
not touched by either railroad or river or 
canal, and those were to be comforted and 
compensated by the free distribution of 
$200,000 among them. To inflate this 
balloon beyond credence, it was ordered 
that work should be commenced on both 
ends of each of these railroads and rivers, 
and at each river crossing, all at the same 
time. The appropriations for these vast 
improvements were over $12,000,000, and 
commissioners were appointed to borrow 
the money on the credit of the State. Re- 
member that all this was in the early days 
of railroading, when railroads were luxu- 
ries; that the State had whole counties 
with scarcely a cabin; and that the popu- 
lation of the State was less than 400,000, 
and yon can form some idea of the vigor 
with which these brave men undertook tha 
work of making a great State. In the 
light of history I am compelled to say that 
this was only a premature throb of the 
power that actually slumbered in the soil 
of the State. It was Hercules in the cra- 
dle. 

At this juncture the State Bank loaned 
its funds largely to Godfrey Gilman & Co. 



and to other leading houses, for the pur- 
pose of drawing trade from St. Louis to 
Alton. Soon they failed and took down 
the bank with them. 

In 1840, all hope seemed gone. A pop- 
ulation of 480,000 were loaded with a debt 
of $14,000,000. It had only six small 
cities, really only towns, namely: Chicago, 
Alton, Springfield, Quincy, Galena, Nau- 
voo. This debt was to be cared for when 
there was not a dollar in the treasury, and 
when the State had borrowed itself out of 
all credit, and when there was not good 
money enough in the hands of all the peo- 
ple to pay the interest of the debt for a 
single year. Yet, in the presence of all 
these difficulties, the young State steadily 
refused to repudiate. Gov. Ford took hold 
of the problem and solved it, bringing the 
State througli in triumph. 

Having touched lightly upon some of the 
more distinctive points in the history of 
the development of Illinois, let us next 
briefly consider the 

MATERIAL RESOURCES OF THE STATE. 

It is a garden four hundred miles long 
and one hundred and fifty miles wide. Its 
soil is chiefly a bla^ck sandy loam, from six 
inches to sixty feet thick. On the Ameri- 
can bottoms it has been cultivated for one 
hundred and fifty years without renewal. 

About the old French towns it has yield- 
ed corn for a century and a half without 
rest or help. It produces nearly every- 
thing green in the temjierate and tropical 
zones. She leads all other States in the 
number of acres actually under plow. Her 
products from 25,000,000 of acres are in- 
calculable. Her mineral wealth is scarce- 
ly second to hev agricultural power. She 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



63 



has coal, iron, lead, copper, zinc, many va- 
rieties of bnikliTiw stone, fire clay, cnma 
clay, common brick clay, sand of all kinds, 
gravel, mineral paint — everything needed 
for a high civilization. Left to herself, 
she has the elements of all greatness. The 
single item of coal is too vast for an appre- 
ciative handling in figures. We can han- 
dle it in oreneral terms like alsjebraical 
signs, but long before we get up into the 
millions and billions the human mind 
drops down from comprehension to mere 
symbolic apprehension. 

When I tell you that nearly four-fifths 
of the entire State is underlaid with a de- 
posit of coal more than forty feet thick on 
the average (now estimated by recent sur- 
veys, at seventy feet thick), you can get 
some idea of its amount, as you do of the 
amount of the national debt. There it is! 
41,000 square miles — one vast mine into 
which you could put any of the States; in 
which yon could bury scores of European 
and ancient empires, and have room all 
round to work without knowing that they 
had been sepulchered there. 

Put this vast coal-bed down by the other 
great coal deposits of the world, and its 
importance becomes manifest. Great Brit- 
ain has 12,000 square miles of coal ; Spain, 
3,000; France, 1719; Belgium, 578; Illinois 
about twice as many square miles as all 
combined. Virginia has 20,000 square 
miles; Pennsylvania. ir),O00; Oliio, 12.000. 
Illinois has 41,000 square miles. One- 
seventh of all the known coal on this con- 
tinent is in Illinois. 

Could we sell the coal in this single State 
for one-seventh of one cent a ton, it would 
pay the national debt. Converted into 
power, even with the wastage in our com- 



mon engines, it would do more work than 
could be done by the entire race, beginning 
at Adam's wedding and working ten hours 
a day through all the centuries till the pres- 
ent time, and right on into the ftiture at 
the same rate for the next 000,000 years. 

Great Britain uses enough mechanical 
power to-day to give to each man, woman, 
and child in the kingdom, the help and ser- 
vice of nineteen untiring servants. No 
wonder she has leisure and luxuries. No 
wonder the home of the common artisan 
has in it more luxuries than could be found 
in the palace of good old King Arthur. 
Think if you can conceive of it, of the vast 
army of servants that slumber in the soil of 
Illinois, impatientlj' awaiting the call of 
Genius to come forth to minister to our 
comfort. 

At the present rate of consumption Eng- 
land's coal supply will be exhausted in 
250 years. When this is gone she must 
transfer her dominion either to the Indies, 
or to British America, which I would not 
resist; or to some other people, which I 
would regret as a loss to civilization. 

COAL IS KING. 

At the same rate of consumption (which 
far exceeds our own), the deposit of coal in 
Illinois will last 120,000 years. And her 
kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom. 

Let us turn now from this reserve power 
to the annual lyrodncAs of the State. We 
shall not be humiliated in this field. Here 
we strike the secret of our national credit. 
Nature provides a market in the constant 
appetite of the race. Men must eat,- and if 
we can furnish the provisions we can com- 
mand the treasure. All that a man hath 
will he ifive for iiis life. 



64 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



According to the last census Illinois pro- 
duced 30,000.000 of bushels of wheat. That 
is more wheat than was raised hy any 
other State in tlie union. She raised in 
1875, 130,000.000 of bushels of corn— twice 
as much as any other State, and one- sixth 
of all tlie corn raised in the United States. 
She harvested 2,747,000 tons of hay, nearly 
one-tenth of all the haj' in the republic. 
It is not generally appreciated, but it is 
true that the hay crop of the country is 
wortli more than the cotton crop. Tlie liay 
of Illinois equals the cotton of Louisiana. 
Go to Charleston, S. C, and see them ped- 
dling handfuls of hay or grass, almost as a 
curiosity, as we regard Chinese gods or the 
cryolite of Greenland; drink your coffee and 
coiid'Cnsed 7nilk; and walk back from the 
coast for many a league through the sand 
and burs till you get up into the better at- 
mosphere of the mountains, without seeing 
a waving meadow or a grazing herd; then 
you will begin to appreciate the meadows 
of the Prairie State, where the grass often 
grows sixteen feet high. 

The value of her farm implements is 
$211,000,000, and the value of her live 
stock is only second to the great State of 
New York. In 1875 she had 25,000,000 
hogs, and packed 2,113,8-45, about one-half 
of all that were packed in the United States. 
This is no insignificant item. Pork is a 
growing demand of the old world. Since 
the laborers of Europe have gotten a taste 
of our bacon, and we have learned how to 
pack it dry in boxes, like dry goods, the 
world has become the market. 

The hog is on the march into the future. 
His nose is ordained to uncover the secrets 
of dominion, and his feet shall be guided 
by the star of empire. 



Illinois marketed $57,000,000 worth of 
slaughtered animals — more than any other 
State, and a seventh of all the States. 

Be patient with me, and pardon my 
pride, and I will give you a list of some of 
the things in wliich Illinois excels all other 
States. 

Depth and richness of soil ; per cent, of 
good ground; acres of improved land; large 
farms — some farms contain from 40,000 to 
60,000 acres of cultivated land. 40,000 acres 
of corn on a single farm; number of farm- 
ers; amount of wheat, corn, oats and honey 
produced; value of animals for slaughter; 
number of hogs; amount of pork; number 
of horses — three times as many as Ken- 
tucky, the horse State. 

Illinois excels all other States in miles 
of railroads and in miles of postal service, 
and in money orders sold per annum, and 
in the amount of lumber sold in her mar- 
kets. 

Illinois is only second in many important 
matters. This sample list comprises a few 
of the moreimjiortant: Permanent school 
fund (good for a young State); total in- 
come for educational purposes; number of 
publishers of books, maps, papers, etc.; 
value of farm products and implements, 
and of live stock; in tons of coal mined. 

The shipping of Illinois is only second 
to New York. Out of one port during the 
business hours of the season of navigation 
she sends forth a vessel every ten minutes. 
This does not include canal boats, which 
go one every five minutes. No wonder she 
is only second in number of bankers and 
brokers or in physicians and surgeons. 

She is third in coUeixes, teachers and 
schools; C'lttle, lead, hay, flax, sorghum and 
beeswax. 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



65 



She is fourth in population, in children 
enrolled in public schools, in law schools, 
in butter, potatoes and carriages. 

She is fifth in value of real and personal 
property, in theological seminaries and 
colleges exclusively for women, in milk 
sold, and in boots and shoes manufactured, 
and in book-binding. 

She is only seventh in the production 
of wood, while she is the twelfth in area. 
Surely that is well done for the Prairie 
State. She now has much more wood and 
growing timber than she had thirty years 
ago. 

A few leading industries will justify 
emphasis. She manufactures $205,000,000 
worth of goods, which places her well up 
toward New York and Pennsylvania. The 
number of her manufacturing establish- 
ments increased from 1860 to 1870, 300 
percent; capital employed increased 350 
per cent, and tiie amount of product in- 
creased 400 percent She issued 5,500,000 
copies of commercial and financial news- 
papers — only second to New York. She 
has 6,759 miles of railroad, thus leading all 
other States, worth $636,458,000, using 
3,245 engines, and 67,712 cars, making a 
train long enough to cover one- tenth of the 
entire roads of the State. Her stations are 
only five miles apart More than two- 
thirds of her land is within five miles of a 
railroad, and less than two per cent is 
more than fifteen miles away. 

The State has a large financial interest 
in the Illinois Central railroad. The road 
was incorporated in 1850, and the State 
gave each alternate section for six miles on 
each side, and doubled the price of the re- 
maining land, so keeping herself good. 
The road received 2,595,000 acres of land, 



and pays to the State one-seventh of the 
gross receipts. Add to this the annual 
receipts from the canal, $111,000, and a 
large per cent, of the State tax is provided 
for. 

THE RELIGION AND MORALS 

of tlie State keep step with her productions 
and growth. She was born of the mission- 
ary spirit. It was a minister who secured 
for her the ordinance of 1787, by which she 
has been saved from slavery, ignorance, 
and dishonesty. Rev. Mr. Wiley, pastor 
of a Scotch congregation in Randolph 
County, petitioned the Constitutional 
Convention of 1818 to recognize Jesus 
Christ as king, and the scriptures as the 
only necessary guide and book of law. The 
convention did not act in the case, and the 
old covenanters refused to accept citizen- 
ship. They never voted until 1824, when 
the slavery question was submitted to the 
people; then they all voted against it and 
cast the determining votes. (Conscience 
has predominated whenever a great moral 
question has been submitted to the people. 

But little mob violence has ever been felt 
in the State. In 1817 regulators disposed 
of a band of horse-thieves that infested the 
Territory. The Mormon indignities finallv 
awoke the same spirit. Alton was also the 
scene of a pro-slavery mob, in which Love- 
joy was added to the list of martyrs. The 
moral sense of the people makes the law 
sui)reme, and gives to the State unruffled 
peace. 

"With $22,300,000 in church property, 
and 4,298 church organizations, the State 
has that divine police, the sleepless patrol 
of moral ideas, that alone is able to secure 
perfect safety. Conscience takes the knife 



tiG 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



from the assassin's hand and tlie bludgeon 
from the grasp of the highwayman. We 
sleep in safety, not because we are behind 
bolts and bars — these only fence against 
the innocent; not because a lone officer 
drowses on a distant corner of a street; 
not becanse a sheriff may call his posse 
from a remote part of the county; bnt 
because conscience guards the very portals 
of the air and stirs in the deepest re- 
cesses of the public mind. This spirit 
issues within the State 9,500,000 copies 
of religious papers annually, and receives 
still more from without. Thns the crime 
of the State is only one fourth that of New 
York and one half that of Pennsylvania. 

Illinois never had but one duel between 
her own citizens. In Belleville, in 1820, 
Alphonso Stewart and William Bennett 
arranged to vindicate injured honor. The 
seconds agreed to make it a sham, and 
make them shoot blanks. Stewart was in 
the secret. Bennett mistrusted something, 
and unobserved, slipped a bullet into his 
gun and killed Stewart. He then fled the 
State. After two years he was caught, 
tried, convicted, and, in spite of friends 
and political aid, was hung. This fixed 
the code of honor on a Christian basis, and 
terminated its use in Illinois. 

The early preachers were ignorant men, 
who were accounted eloquent according to 
the strength of their voices. But they set 
the stvle for all public speakers. Lawyers 
and political speakers followed this rule. 
Gov. Ford says : " Nevertheless, these first 
preachers were of incalculable benefit to 
the country. They inculcated justice and 
morality. To them are we indebted for 
the first Christian character of the Protest- 
ant portion of the people." 



In education Illinois surpasses her ma- 
terial resources. The ordinance of 1787 
consecrated one thirty-sixth of her soil to 
common schools, and the law of 1818, the 
first law that went upon her statutes, gave 
three per cent of all the rest to 

EDUCATION. 

The old compact secures this interest 
forever, and by its yoking morality and 
intelligence it precludes the legal interfer- 
ence with the Bible in the public schools. 
With such a start it is natural that we 
should have 11,050 schools, and that our 
illiteracy should be less than New York or 
Pennsylvania, and only about one half of 
Massachusetts. We are not to blame for 
not having more than one half as many 
idiots as the great States. These public 
schools soon made colleges inevitable. 
The first college, still flourishing, was 
started in Lebanon in 1828, by the M. E. 
church, and named after Bishop McKen- 
dree. Illinois College, at Jacksonville, 
supported by the Presbyterians, followed 
in 1830. In 1832 the Baptists built Shurt- 
leff" College, at Alton. Then the Presby- 
terians built Knox College, at Galesburg, 
in 1838, and the Episcopalians built Jubilee 
College, at Peoria, in 1847. After these 
earlv years, colleges have rained down. A 
settler could hardly encamp on the prairie 
but a college would spring up by his wagon. 
The State now has one very well endowed 
and equipped university, namely, the 
Northwestern University, at Evanston, 
with six colleges, ninety instructors, over 
1,000 students, and $1,500,000 endowment. 

Kev. J. M. Peck was the first educated 
Protestant minister in the State. He 
settled at Rock Spring, in St. Clair County, 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



1820. and left his impress on the State. 
Before 183" onh' party papers were piib- 
lislied, but Mr. Peck published a Gazetteer 
of Illinois. Soon after John Russell, of 
Blutfdale, published essays and tales show- 
iu<( genius. Judge James Hall published 
The Illinois Monthly Magazine with great 
ability, and an annual called The Western 
Sourenir, which gave him an enviable 
fame all over the United States. From 
these beginnings, Illinois has gone on till 
she has more volumes in public libraries 
even than Massachusetts, and of the 44,- 
500,000 volumes in all the public libraries 
of the United States, she has one thirteenth. 
In newspapers she stands fourth. Her 
increase is marvelous. 

This brings us to a record unsurpassed 
in the history of any age. 

THE WAR RECORD OF ILLINOIS. 

I hardly know where to begin, or how to 
advance, or what to say. I can at best give 
you only a broken synopsis of her deeds, 
and you must put them in the order ol 
glory for yourself. Her sons have always 
been foremost on fields of danger. In 
1832-33, at the call of Gov. Reynolds, her 
sons drove Blackhawk over the Mississippi. 

When the Mexican war came, in May, 
1846, 8,370 men offered themselves when 
only 3,720 could be accepted. The fields 
of Buena Vista and Vera Cruz, and the 
storming of Cerro Gordo, will carry the 
glory of Illinois soldiers long after the 
causes that led to that war have been 
forgotten. But it was reserved till our day 
for her sons to find a field and cause and 
foemen that could fitly illustrate their spirit 
and heroism. Illinois put into her own 
regiments for the United States government 



256.000 men, and into the army through 
otiier States enough to swell the number to 
290,000. This far exceeds all the soldiers 
of the Federal government in all the war 
of the Revolution. Her total years of 
service were over 600,000. She enrolled 
men from eighteen to forty-five years of 
age when the law of Congress in 1S(!4 — 
the test time — only asked for those from 
twenty to forty-five. Iler enrollment was 
otherwise excessive. Her people wanted to 
go, and did not take the pains to correct 
the enrollment. Thus the basis of fixing 
the quota was too great, and then the quota 
itself, at least in the trying time, was far 
above any other State. 

Thus the demand on some counties, as 
Monroe, for example, took every able-bod- 
ied man in the county, and then did not 
have enough to fill the qnota. Moreover, 
Illinois sent 20,844 men for ninety or one 
hundred da^'s, for whom no credit was 
asked. When Mr. Lincoln's attention was 
called to the inequality of the quota com- 
pared with other States, he replied : " The 
country needs the sacrifice. We must put 
the whip on the free horse." In spite of 
all these disadvantages Illinois gave to the 
country 73,000 years of service above all 
calls. AVith one thirteenth of the popula- 
tion of the loyal States, she sent regularly 
one tenth of all the soldiers, and in the 
peril of the closing calls, when patriots 
were few and weary, she then sent one 
eighth of all that were called for by her 
loved and honored son in the White House. 
Her mothers and daughters went into the 
fields to raise the grain and keep the 
children together, while the fathers and 
older sons went to the harvest fields of the 
world. I knew a father and four sons who 



68 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



agreed that one of them must stay at home ; 
and they pulled straws from a stack to see 
who might go. The father was left. The 
next day he came into the camp, saying : 
" Mother says she can get the crops in, and 
I am soins, too." 1 know large Methodist 
churches from which every male member 
went to the army. Do you want to know 
what these heroes from Illinois did in the 
field ? Ask any soldier with a good record 
of his own, who is able to judge, and 
he will tell you that the Illinois men went 
in to win. It is common history that the 
greater victories were won in the West. 
"When everything else looked dark Illinois 
was irainins victories all down the river, 
and dividing the Confederacy. Sherman 
took with him on his great march forty- 
five regiments of Illinois infantry, three 
companies of artillery, and one company of 
cavalry. He could not avoid 

GOING TO THE SEA. 

If he had been killed, I doubt not the 
men would have gone right on. Lincoln 
answered all rumors of Sherman's defeat 
with, "It is impossible; there is a mighty 
sight of fight in 100,000 Western men." 
Illinois soldiers brought home 300 battle- 
flags. The first United States flag that 
floated over Richmond, was an Illinois flag. 
She sent messengers and nurses to every 
field and hospital, to care for her sick and 
wounded sons. She said, " these suffering 
ones are mj' sons, and I will care for tiieni." 

When individuals had given all, then 
cities and towns came forward with their 
credit to the extent of many millions, to 
aid these men and their families. 

Illinois gave the country the great 
general of the war — Ulysses S. Grant — • 



since honored with two terms of the Presi- 
dency of the United States. 

One other name from Illinois comes up 
in all minds, embalmed in all hearts, that 
must have the supreme place in this story 
of our glory and of our nation's honor; 
that name is Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois. 

The analysis of Mr. Lincoln's character 
is difilcult on account of its symmetry. 

In this age we look with admiration at 
his uncompromising honesty. And well 
we may, for this saved us. Thousands 
throughout tlie length and breadth of our 
country, who knew him only as " Honest 
Old Abe," voted for him on that account; 
and wisely did tiiey choose, for no other 
man could have carried us through the 
fearful night of the war. When his plans 
were too vast for our comprehension, and 
his faith in the cause too sublime for our 
participation; when it was all night about 
us, and all dread before us, and all sad and 
desolate behind us; when not one ray 
shone upon our cause; when traitors were 
haughty and exultant at the South, and 
tierce and blasphemous at the North; when 
tiie loj'al men here seemed almost in the 
minority; when the stoutest heart quailed, 
the bravest cheek paled, when generals 
were defeating each other for place, and 
contractors were leeching out the very 
heart's blood of the prostrate republic; 
when every thing else had failed us, we 
looked at this calm, patient man, standing 
like a rock in the storm, and said: "Mr. 
Lincoln is honest, and we can trust him 
still." Holding to this single point with 
the energy of faith and despair we held 
togetlier, and, under God, he brought us 
through to victory. 

His practical wisdom made him the 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



wonder of all lands. With such certainty 
did Mr. Lincoln follow causes to their 
ultimate effects, tliat his foresight of con - 
tijigencies seemed almost prophetic. 

He is radiant with all the great virtues, 
and his memory shall shed a glory upon 
this age, that shall fill the eyes of men as 
they look into history. Other men have 
excelled him in some point, but, taken at 
all points, all in all, he stands head and 
shoulders above every other man of 6,000 
years. An administrator, he saved the na- 
tion in the perils of unparalleled civil war. 
A statesman, he justified his measures by 
their success. A philanthropist, he gave 
liberty to one race and salvation to another. 
A moralist, he bowed Irom the summit of 
human power to the foot of the Cross, and 
became a Christian. A mediator, he exer- 
cised mercy under the most absolute abey- 
ance to law. A leader, he was no partisan. 
A commander, he was untainted with 
blood. A ruler in desperate times, he was 
unsullied with crime. A man, he has left 
no word of passion, no thought of malice, 
no trick of craft, no act of jealousy, no ])ur- 
pose of selfish ambition. Thus perfected, 
without a model and without a peer, he 
was dropped into these troubled years to 
adorn and embellish all that is good and 
all that is great in our humanity, and to 
present to all coming time the representa- 
tive of the divine idea ot free government. 

It is not too much to say that away 
down in the future, when the re])ul>lic has 
fallen from its niche in the wall of time; 
when the great war itself shall have faded 
out in the distance like a mist on the hori- 
zon; when the Anglo Saxon language shall 
be spoken only by the tongue of the stran- 
ger; then the generations looking this way 



shall see the great president as the supreme 
figure in this vortex of history. 



CHICAGO. 



It is impossible in our brief space to give 
more than a meager sketch of such a city 
as Chicago, which is in itself the greatest 
marvel of the Prairie State. This mysteri- 
ous, majestic, mighty city, born first of 
water, and next of fire; sown in weakness, 
and raised in power; planted among the 
willows of the n:arsh, and crowned with 
the glory of the mountains, sleeping on the 
bosom of the prairie, and i-ocked on the 
bosojn of the sea; the youngest city of the 
world, and still the eye of the prairie, as 
Damascus, the oldest city of the world, is 
the eye of the desert. With a commerce 
far exceeding that of Corinth on her 
isthmus, in the highway to the East; with 
the defenses of a continent piled around her 
by the thousand miles, making her far safer 
than Home on the banks of the Tiber; with 
schools eclipsing Alexandria and Athens; 
with liberties more conspicuous than those 
of the old republics; witli a heroism ecpial 
to the first Carthage, and with a sanctity 
scarcely second to that of Jerusalem — set 
your thoughts on all this, lifted into the 
eyes of all men by the miracle of its growth, 
illuminated by the flame of its fall, and 
transfigured by the divinity of its resurrec- 
tion, and you will feel, as I do, the utter 
impossibility of compassing this subject as 
it deserves. Some impression of her im- 
portance is received from the shock her 
burning gave to the civilized world. 

When the doubt of her calamity was 
removed, and the horrid fact was accepted, 
there went a shudder over all cities, and a 
quiver over all lands. There was scarcely 



70 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



a town in the civilized world that did not 
shake on the brink of this opening chasm. 
The flames of our homes reddened all skies. 
The city was set upon a hill, and could not 
be hid. All ejes were turned upon it. To 
have struggled and suffered amid the scenes 
of its fall is as distinguishing as to have 
fought at Tliermopjlffi, or Salamis, or 
Hastings, or Waterloo, or Bunker Hill. 

Its calamity amazed the world, because 
it was felt to be the common property of 
mankind. 

The early history of the city is full of 
interest, just as the early history of such a 
mau as Washington or Lincoln becomes 
public property, and is cherished by every 
patriot. 

Starting with 560 acres in 1833, it em- 
braced and occupied 23,000 acres in 1869, 
and having now a population of more tlian 
600,000, it commands general attention. 

The first settler — Jean Baptiste Pointe 
au Sable, a mulatto from the West Indies 
— came and began trade with the Indians 
in 1796. John Kinzie became his success- 
or in ISO-t, m which year Fort Dearborn 
was erected. 

A mere trading-post was kept here from 
that time till about the time of the Black- 
hawk war, in 1832. It was not the city. 
It was merely a cock crowing at midnight. 
The morning was not yet. In 1833 the 
settlement about the fort was incorporated 
as a town. The voters were divided on the 
propriety of such corporation, twelve voting 
for it and one against it. Four years later 
it was incorporated as a city, and embraced 
560 acres. 

The produce handled in this city is an 
indication of its power. Grain and flour 
were imported from the East till as late as 



1837. The first exportation by way of 
e.x;periment was in 1839. Exports exceeded 
imports first in 1812. The Board of Trade 
was organized in 1818, but it was so weak 
that it needed nursing till 1855. Grain 
was purchased by the wagon-load in the 
street. 

I remember sitting with my father on a 
load of wheat, in the long line of wagons 
along Lake street, while the buyers came 
and untied the bags, and examined the 
grain, and made their bids. That manner 
of business had to cease with the day of 
small things. One tenth of all the wheat 
in the United States is handled in Chicago. 
Even as long ago as 1853 the receipts of 
grain in Chicago exceeded those of the 
goodly city of St. Louis, and in 1851 the 
exports of grain from Chicago exceeded 
those of N"ew York and doubled those of 
St. Petersburg, Archangel, or Odessa, the 
largest grain markets in Europe. 

The manufacturing interests of the city 
are not contemptible. In 1873 manufac- 
tories employed 15,000 operatives; in 1876, 
60,000. The manuftictured product in 
1875 was worth $177,000,000. 

No estimate of the size and power of 
Chicago would be adequate that did not 
put large emphasis on the railroads. Be- 
fore they came thundering along our 
streets, canals were the hope of our coun- 
try. But who ever thinks now of traveling 
by canal packets? In June, 1852, there 
were only forty miles of railroad connected 
with the city. The old Galena division of 
the Northwestern ran out to Elgin. But 
now, who can count the trains and measure 
the roads that seek a terminus or connection 
in this city? The lake stretches away to 
the north, gathering into this center all 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



the harvests that might otherwise pass to 
the north of us. If you will take a map 
and kx)k at the adjustment of railroads, 
you will see, first, that Chicago is the great 
railroad center of the world, as New York 
is the commercial city of this continent; 
and, second, that the railroad lines form 
the iron spokes of a great wheel whose hub 
is this city. The lake furnishes the only 
break in the spokes, and this seems simply 
to have pushed a few spokes together on 
each shore. See the eighteen trunk lines, 
exclusive of eastern connections. 

Pass round the circle, and view their 
numbers and extent. There is the great 
Northwestern, with all its branches, one 
branch creeping along the lake shore, and 
so reaching to the north, into the Lake 
Superior regions, away to the right, and on 
to the Northern Pacific on the left, swing- 
ini;- around Green Bay for iron and copper 
and silver, twelve months in the year, and 
reaching out for the wealth of the great 
aarricultural belt and isothermal line trav- 
ersed by the Northern Pacific. Another 
branch, not so far north, feeling for the 
heart of the Badger State. Another push- 
ing lower down the Mississippi — all these 
make many connections, and tapping all 
the vast wheat regions of Minnesota, Wis- 
consin, Iowa, and all the regions tliis side 
of sunset. There is that elegant road, the 
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, running 
out a goodly number of branches, and 
reaping the great fields this side of the 
Missouri River. I can only mention the 
Chiciigo, Alton & St. Louis, ow Illinois 
Central, described elsewhere, and the Ciii- 
ca<ro & Eock Island. Further around we 
come to the lines connecting us with all 
the Eastern cities. The Chicago, Indian- 



apolis & St. Louis, the Pittsburg, Fort 
Wayne & Chicago, the Lake Shore & 
Michigan Southern, and the Michigan 
Central and Great Western, give us many 
highways to the seaboard. Thus we reach 
the Mississippi at five points, from St. Paul 
to Cairo and the Gulf itself by two routes. 
We also reach Cincinnati and Baltimore, 
and Pittsburg and Philadelphia, and New 
York. North and south run the water 
courses of the lakes and the rivers, broken 
just enough at this point to make a pass. 
Through this, from east to west, run the 
long lines that stretch from ocean to ocean. 
This is the neck of the glass, and the 
(Tolden sands of commerce must pass into 
our hands. Altogether we have more than 
10,000 miles of railroad, directly tributary 
to this city, seeking to unload their wealth 
in our coffers. All these roads have come 
themselves by the infallible instinct of 
capital. Not a dollar was ever given by 
the city to secure one of them, and only a 
small per cent, of stock taken originally by 
her citizens, and that taken simply as an 
investment. Coming in the natural order 
of events, they will not be easily diverted. 
There is still another showing to all this. 
The connection between New York aiul 
San Francisco is by the middle route. This 
passes inevitably through Chicago. St. 
Louis wants the Southern Pacific or Kansas 
Pacific, and pushes it out through Denver, 
and so on up to Cheyenne. But before the 
road is fairly under way, the Chicago roads 
shove out to Kansas City, Tuakingeven the 
Kansas Pacific a feeder, and actually leav- 
ing St. Louis out in the cold. It is not too 
much to expect that Dakota, Montana, and 
Washington Territory will find their great 
market in Chicago. 



72 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



But these are not all. Perhaps I had 
better notice here the ten or fifteen new 
roads tliat have just entered, or are just 
entering, our city. Their names are all 
that is necessary to give. Chicago & St. 
Paul, looking up the Red River country to 
the British possessions ; the Chicago, At- 
lantic & Pacific ; the Chicago, Decatur & 
State line ; the Baltimore & Ohio ; the 
Chicago, Danville & Vincennes ; the Chi- 
cago & La Salle Railroad ; the Chicago, 
Pittsburgh & Cincinnati ; the Chicago and 
Canada Southern ; the Chicago and Illi- 
nois River Railroad. These, with their con- 
nections, and with the new connections of 
the old roads, already in process of erection, 
give to Chicago not less than 10,000 miles 
of new tributaries from the richest land on 
the continent. Thus there will be added 
to the reserve power, to the capital within 
reach of this city, not less than $1,000,000,- 
UOO. 

Add to all this transporting power the 
ships that sail one every nine minutes of 
the business hours of the season of naviga- 
tion; add, also, the canal boats that leave 
one every five minutes during the same 
time — and you will see something of the 
business of the city. 

THE COMMERCE OF THIS CITY 

has been leaping along to keep pace with 
the growth of the country around us. In 
1852, our commerce reached the hopeful 
sum of $20,000,000. In 1870 it reached 
$400,000,000. In 1871 it was pushed up 
above $i50,000,000, and in 1875 it touched 
nearly double that. 

One half of our imported goods come di- 
rectly to Chicago. Grain enough is export- 
ed directly from our docks to the old world 



to employ a semi-weekly line of steamers of 
3,000 tons capacity. This branch is not 
likely to be greatly developed. Even after 
the great Welland Canal is completed we 
shall have only fourteen feet of water. The 
ereat ocean vessels will continue to control 
the trade. 

The schools of Chicago are unsurpassed 
in America. Out of a population of 300,- 
000, there were only 186 persons between 
the ages of six and twenty-one unable to 
read. This is the best known record. 

In 1831 the mail system was condensed 
into a half-breed, who went on foot to 
Niles, Mich., once in two weeks, and 
brought back what papers and news he 
could find. As late as 1846 there was 
often only one mail a week. A post-office 
was established in Chicago in 1833, and 
the post-master nailed up old boot-legs on 
one side of his shop to serve as boxes for 
the nabobs and literary men. 

The improvements that have character- 
ized the city are as startling as the city 
itself In 1831, Mark Beaubien established 
a ferry over the river, and put himself un- 
der bonds to carry all the citizens free for 
the privilege of charging strangers. Now 
there are twenty-four large bridges and two 
tunnels. 

In 1833 the government expended $30,- 
000 on the harbor. Then commenced that 
series of maneuvers with the river that has 
made it one of the world's curiosities. It 
used to wind around in the lower end of 
the town, and make its way rippling over 
the sand into the lake at the foot of Madi- 
son street. They took it up and put it 
down where it now is. It was a narrow 
stream, so narrow that even moderately 
small crafts had to go up through the wil- 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



lows and cat's tails to the point near Lake 
street bridge, and back up one of the 
branches to get room enough in which to 
turn around. 

In 1844 the quagmires in the streets 
were first pontooned by plank roads, which 
acted in wet weather as public squirt-guns. 
Keeping you out of the mud, they com- 
promised by squirting the mud over you. 
Tlie wooden-block pavements came to Chi- 
cago in 1857. In 1840 water was delivered 
by peddlers in carts or by hand. Then a 
twenty-five horse-power engine pushed it 
through hollow or bored logs along the 
streets till 1854, when it was introduced 
into the houses by new works. The first 
fire-engine was used in 1835, and the first 
steam tire-engine in 1859. Gas was util- 
ized for lighting the city in 1850. The 
Young Men's Christian Association was 
organized in 1858, and horse railroads 
carried them to their work in 1859. The 
alarm telegraph adopted in 1864. The 
opera-house built in 1865. The city grew 
from 560 acres in 1833 to 23,000 in 1869. 
In 1834, the taxes amounted to $48.90, and 
the trustees of the town borrowed $60 more 
for opening and improving streets. In 
1835, the Legislature authorized a loan of 
$2,000, and the treasurer and street com- 
missioners resigned rather than plunge the 
town into such a gulf. 

One third of the city has been raised up 
an average of eight feet, giving good pitch 
to the 263 miles of sewerage. The water 
of the city is above all competition. It is 
received through two tunnels extending to 
a crib in the lake two miles from shore. 
The first tunnel is five feet two inches in 
diameter and two miles long, and can 
deliver 50,000,000 of gallons per day. The 



second tunnel is seven feet in diameter and 
six miles long, running four miles under 
the city, and can deliver 100,000,000 of 
gallons per day. This water is distributed 
through 410 miles of watermains. 

The three grand engineering exploits of 
the city are : First, lifting the city up on 
jack-screws, whole squares at a time, with- 
out interrupting the business, thus giving 
us good drainage ; second, running the 
tunnels under the lake, giving us the best 
water in the world ; and third, the turning 
the current of the river in its own channel, 
delivering us from the old abominations, 
and making decency possible. They re- 
dound about equally to the ci-edit of the 
engineering, to the energy of the people, 
and to the health of the city. 

That which really constitutes the city, its 
indescribable spirit, its soul, the way it 
lights up in ever}' feature in the hour of 
action, has not been touched. In meeting 
strangers, one is often surprised how some 
homely women marry so well. Their forms 
are bad, their gait uneven and awkward, 
their complexion is dull, their features 
are misshapen and mismatched, and when 
we see them there is no beauty that we 
should desire them. But when once they 
are aroused on some subject, they put on 
new proportions. They light up into great 
power. The real person comes out from 
its unseemly ambush, and captures us at 
will. They have power. They have abil- 
ity to cause things to come to pass. We 
no longer wonder why they are in such 
high demand. So it is with our city. 

There is no grand scenery except the 
two seas, one of water, the other of prairie. 
Nevertheless, there is a spirit about it, a 
push, a breadth, a power, that soon makes 



74 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



it a place never to be forsaken. One soon 
ceases to believe in impossibilities. Ba- 
laams are the only prophets that are disap- 
pointed. The bottom that has been on the 
point of falling out has been there so long 
that it has grown fast. It can not fall out. 
It has all the capital of the world itching 
to get inside the corporation. 

The two great laws that govern the 
growth and size of cities are, first, the 
amount of territory for which they are the 
disti-ibuting and receiving points ; second, 
the number of medium or moderate dealers 
that do this distributing. Monopolists 
build up themselves, not the cities. They 
neither eat, wear, nor live in proportion to 
their business. Both these laws help Chi- 



cago. 



The tide of trade is eastward — not up or 
down the map, bat across the map. The 
lake runs up a wingdam for 500 miles to 
gather in the business. Commerce can 
not ferry up there for seven months in the 
year and the facilities for seven months can 
do the work for twelve. Then the great re- 
gion west of us is nearly all good,productive 
land. Dropping south into the trail of 
St. Louis, you fall into vast deserts and 
rocky districts, useful in holding the world 
together. St. Louis and Cincinnati, instead 
of rivaling and hurting Chicago, are her 
greatest sureties of dominion. They are 
far enough away to give sea-room — farther 
off than Paris is from London — and yet 
they are near enough to prevent the spring- 
ing up of any other great city between 
them. 

St. Louis will be helped by the opening 
of the Mississippi, but also hurt. That 
will put New Orleans on her feet, and with 
a railroad runnino; over into Texas and so 



West, she will tap the streams that now 
crawl up the Texas and Missouri road. The 
current is East, not North, and a seaport at 
New Orleans can not permanently help St. 
Louis. 

Chicago is in the field almost alone, to 
handle the wealth of one fourth of the ter- 
ritory of this great republic. This strip of 
seacoast divides its margins between Port- 
land, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, 
Baltimore and Savannah or some other 
great port to be created for the South in the 
next decade. But Chicago has a dozen em- 
pires casting their treasures into her lap. 
On a bed of coal that can run all the ma- 
chinery of the world for 500 centuries; in 
a garden feed the race by the thousand 
years; at the head of the lakes that give 
her a temperature as a summer resort 
equaled by no great city in the land; with 
a climate that insures the health of her 
citizens; surrounded bj' all the great de- 
posits of natural wealth in mines and forests 
and herds, Chicago is the wonder of to-day, 
and will be the city of the future. 

MASSACEE AT FORT DEARBOEN. 

During the war of 1S12, Fort Dearborn 
became the theater of stirring events. The 
garrison consisted of fifty-four men under 
command of Captain Nathan Heald, 
assisted by Lieutenant Helm (son-in-law of 
Mrs. Kinzie) and Ensign Ronan. Dr. 
Yoorhees was surgeon. The only residents 
at the post at that time were the wives of 
Captain Heald and Lieutenant Helm, and 
a few of the soldiers, Mr. Kinzie and his 
family, and a few Canadian voya^eurs, 
with their wives and children. The sol- 
diers and Mr. Kinzie wereon most friendly 
terms with the Pottawatomies and Win- 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



75 



nebagoes, the principal tribes around them, 
but they could not win them from their 
attachment to the British. 

One evening in April, 1812, Mr. Kinzie 
sat playing on his violin and his children 
were dancing to the music, when Mrs. Kin- 
zie came rushing into the house pale with 
terror, and exclaiming: "The Indians! the 
Indians!" *' What? where? " eagerly in- 
quired Mr. Kinzie. " Up at Lee's, killing 
and scalping," answered the frightened 
mother, who, when the alarm was given, 
was attending Mrs. Barnes (just conMned) 
living not far oif. Mr. Kinzie and his 
family crossed the river and took refuge in 
the fort, to which place Mrs. Barnes and 
her infant not a day old, were safely con- 
veyed. The rest of the inhabitants took 
shelter in tlie fort. This alarm was caused 
by a scalping party of Winnebagoes, who 
hovered about the fort several days, when 
they disappeared, and for several weeks 
the inhabitants were undisturbed. 

On the 7th of August, 1812, General 
Hull, at Detroit, sent orders to Captain 
Heald to evacuate Fort Dearborn, and to 
distribute all the United States property to 
the Indians in the neighborhood — a most 
insane order. The Pottawatomie chief 
who brought the dispatch had more wisdom 
than the commanding general. He ad- 
vised Captain Heald not to make the 
distribution. Said he: "Leave the fort 
and stores as tiiey are, and let the Indians 
make distribution for themselves; and 
while they are engaged in the business, 
the white people may esca])e to Fort 
Wayne." 

Captain Heald held a council with the In- 
dians on the afternoon of the 12th, in which 
his officers refused to join, for they had been 



informed that treacherv was designed — 
that the Indians intended to murder the 
white people in the council, and then 
destroy those in the fort. Captain Heald, 
however, took the precaution to open a 
port-hole displaying a cannon pointing di- 
rectly upon the council, and by that means 
saved his life. 

Mr. Kinzie, who knew the Indians well, 
begged Captain Heald not to confide in 
their promises, nor distribute the arms and 
munitions among them, for it would only 
put power into their iiands to destroy the 
whites. Acting upon this advice, Heald 
resolved to withhold the munitions of war; 
and on the night of the 13th after the dis- 
tribution of the other property had been 
made, the powder, ball and liquors were 
thrown into the river, the muskets broken 
up and destroyed. 

Black Partridge, a friendly chief, came 
to Captain Heald and said: "Linden birds 
have been singing in my ears to-day; be 
careful on the march you are iroino' to 
take." On that night vigilant Indians had 
crept near the fort and discovered the 
destruction of their promised booty going 
on within. The next morning the powder 
was seen floating on the surface of the river. 
The savages were exasperated and made 
loud complaints and threats. 

On the following day when preparations 
were making to leave the fort, and all the 
inmates were deeply impressed with a sense 
of impending danger, Capt. Wells, an 
uncle of Mrs. Heald, was discovered upon 
the Indian trail among the sand hills on 
the borders of the lake, not far distant, 
with a band of mounted Mianiis, of whose 
tribe he was chief, having been ado]ited bv 
the famous Miami warrior, Little Turtle. 



76 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



"When news of Hull's surrender reached 
Fort Wayne, he had started with this force 
to assist Heald in defending Fort Dearborn. 
He was too late. Every means for its 
defense had been destro3'ed the night be- 
fore, and arrangements were made for leav- 
ing the fort on the morning of the 15th. 

It was a warm, bright morning in the 
middle of August. Indications were posi- 
tive that the savages intended to murder 
the white people; and when they moved 
out of the southern gate of the fort, the 
march was like a funeral procession. The 
band, feeling the solemnity of the occasion, 
struck up the Dead March in Saul. 

Capt. Wells, who had blackened his face 
with gun-powder in token of his fate, took 
the lead with his band of Miamis, followed 
by Captain Heald with his wife by his side 
on horseback. Mr. Kinzie hoped by his 
personal influence to avert the impending 
blow, and therefore accompanied them, 
leaving his family in a boat in charge of a 
friendly Indian, to be taken to his trading 
station at the site of Niles, Michigan, in 
the event of his death. 

The procession moved slowly along the 
lake shore till they reached the sand hills 
between the prairie and the beach, when 
the Pottawatomie escort, under the lead- 
ership of Blackbird, tiled to the right, 
placing those hills between them and the 
white people. Wells, with his Miamis, had 
kept in the advance. They suddenly came 
rushing back, Wells exclaiming, "They 
are about to attack us; form instantly." 
These words were quickly followed by a 
storm of bullets which came whistling 
over the little hills which the treacherous 
savages had made the covert for their mur- 
derous attack. The white troops charged 



upon the Indians, drove them back to the 
prairie, and then the battle was waged be- 
tween fifty-four soldiers, twelve civilians 
and three or four women (the cowardly 
Miamis having fled at the outset) against 
five hundred Indian warriors. The white 
people, hopeless, resolved to sell their lives 
as dearly as possible. Ensign Ronan 
wielded his weapon vigorously, even after 
falling upon his knees weak from the loss 
of blood. Capt. Wells, who was by the 
side of his niece, Mrs. Heald, when the 
conflict began, behaved with the greatest 
coolness and courage. He said to her, 
" We have not the slightest chance for life. 
We must part to meet no more in this 
world. God bless you." And then he 
dashed forward. Seeing a young warrior, 
painted like a demon, climb into a wagon 
in which were twelve children, and toma- 
hawk them all, he cried out, unmindful of 
his personal danger, " If that is your game, 
butchering women and children, I will kill 
too." He spurred his horse tow-ards the 
Indian camp, where they had left their 
squaws and papooses, hotly pursued by 
swift-footed young warriors, who sent bul- 
lets whistling after him. One of these 
killed his horse and wounded him severely 
in the leg. With a yell the young braves 
rushed to make him their prisoner and re- 
serve him for torture. He resolved not to 
be made a captive, and by the use of the 
most provoking epithets tried to induce 
them to kill him instantly. He called a 
fiery young chief a sqiuiw, when the en- 
raged warrior killed Wells instantly with 
his tomahawk, jumped upon his body, cut 
out his heart, and ate a portion of the warm 
morsel with savage delight ! 

In this fearful combat women bore a 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



conspicuous part. Mrs. Heald was an ex- 
cellent equestrian and an expert in the use 
of the rifle. Slie fought the savajres bravely, 
receiving several severe wounds. Though 
faint from the loss of blood, she managed to 
keep her saddle. A savage raised his toma- 
hawk to kill her, when she looked him full 
in the face, and with a sweet smile and in a 
gentle voice said, in his own language, 
"Surely you will not kill a squaw !" The 
arm of the savage fell, and the life of the 
heroic woman was saved. 

Mrs. Helm, the step-daughter of Mr. 
Kinzie, had an encounter with a stout In- 
dian, who attempted to tomahawk her. 
Springing to one side, she received the 
glancing blow on her shoulder, and at the 
same instant seized the savage round the 
neck with her arms and endeavored to get 
hold of his scalping knife, which hung in a 
sheath at his breast. While she was thus 
struiTgling she was drao;o;ed from her antaij- 
onist by another powerful Indian, who bore 
her, in spite of her struggles, to the margin 
of the lake and plunged her in. To her 
astonishment she was held by him so that 
she would not drown, and she soon per- 
ceived that she was in the hands of the 
friendly Black Partridge, who had saved 
her life. 

The wife of Sergeant Holt, a large and 
powerful woman, behaved as bravely as an 
Amazon. She rode a fine, high-spirited 
horse, whicli the Indians coveted, and 
several of them attacked her with the butts 
of their guns, for the purpose of dismount- 
ing her; but she used the sword which she 
had snatched from her disabled husband so 
skillfully that she foiled them; and, sud- 
denly wheeling her horse, she dashed over 
the prairie, followed by the savages shout- 



ing, "The brave woman! the brave woman! 
Don't hurt her!" They finally overtook 
her, and while she was fighting them in 
front, a ])0werful savage came up behind 
her, seized her by the neck and dragged 
her to the ground. Horse and woman 
were made captive. Mrs. Hok was a long 
time a captive among the Indians, but was 
afterward ransomed. 

In this sharp conflict two thirds of the 
white people were slain and wounded, and 
all their horses, baggage and provision 
were lost. Only twentv-eight stragsliug 
men now remained to fight five hundred 
Indians rendered furious by the sight of 
blood. They succeeded in breaking through 
the ranks of the murderers and gaining a 
slight eminence on the ])rairie near the 
Oak Woods. The Indians did not pursue, 
but gathered on their flanks, while the 
chiefs held a consultation on the sand-hills, 
and showed signs of willingness to parley. 
It would have been madness on the part of 
the whites to renew the fight; and so Capt. 
Heald went forward and met Blackbird on 
the open prairie, where terms of sur- 
render were agreed upon. It was arranged 
that the white people should give up their 
arms to Blackbird, and that the survivors 
should become prisoners of war, to be ex- 
changed for ransoms as soon as practicable. 
With this understanding captives and cap- 
tors started for the Indian camp near the 
fort, to which Mrs. Helm liad been taken 
bleeding and sufi'ering by Black Partridge, 
and had met her step-father and learned 
that her husband was safe. 

A new scene of horror was now opened 
at the Indian camp. The wounded, not 
being included in the surrender, as it was 
interpreted by the Indians, and the British 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



general, Proctor, having offered a liberal 
bounty for American scalps, delivered at 
Maiden, nearly all the wounded men were 
killed and scalped, and price of the trophies 
was afterward paid by the British govern- 
ment. 

This celebrated Indian chief, Shabbona, 
deserves more than a passing notice. Al- 
though he was not so conspicuous as 
Tecumseh or Black Hawk, yet in point of 
merit he was superior to either of them. 

Shabbona was born at an Indian village 
on the Kankakee River, now in Will County 
about the year 1775. While young he was 
made chief of the band, and went to Shab- 
bona Grove, now De Kalb County, where 
they were found in the early settlement of 
the county. 

In the war of 1812, Shabbona, with his 
warriors, joined Tecumseh, was aid to that 
great chief, and stood by his side when he 
fell at the battle of the Thames. At the 
time of the Winnebago war, in 1827, he 
visited almost every village among the Pot- 
tawatomies, and by his persuasive argu- 
ments prevented them from taking part in 
the war. By request of the citizens of 
Chicago, Shabbona, accompanied by Billy 
Caldwell (Sauganash), visited Big Foot's 
village at Geneva Lake, in order to pacify 
the warriors, as fears were entertained that 
they were about to raise the tomahawk 
against the whites. Here Shabbona was 
taken prisoner by Big Foot, and his life 
threatened, but on the following day was 
set at liberty. From that time the Indians 
(through reproach) styled him " the white 
man's friend," and many times his life was 
endangered. 

Before the Black Hawk war, Shabbona 
met in council at two different times, and 



by his influence prevented his people from 
taking part with the Sacs and Foxes. 
After the death of Black Partridge and 
Senachwine, no chief among the Pottawat- 
omies exerted so much influence as Shab- 
bona. Black Hawk, aware of this influ- 
ence, visited him at two different times, in 
order to enlist him in his cause, but was 
unsuccessful. While Black Hawk was a 
prisoner at Jefferson Barracks, he said, had 
It not been for Shabbona the whole Potta- 
watomie nation would have joined his 
standard, and he could have continued the 
war for 3'ears. 

To Shabbona many of the early settlers 
of Illinois owe the preservation of their 
lives, for it is a well-known fact, had he not 
notified the people of their danger, a large 
portion of them would have fallen victims 
to the tomahawk of savages. By saving 
the lives of whites he endangered his own, 
for the Sacs and Foxes threatened to kill 
him, and made two attempts to execute 
their threats. The}' killed Pj'peogee, his 
son, and Pyps, his nephew, and hunted him 
down as though he was a wild beast. 

Shabbona had a reservation of two sec- 
tions of land at his Grove, but by leaving 
it and going West for a short time, the 
Government declared tlie reservation for- 
feited, and sold it the same as other vacant 
land. On Shabbona's return, and finding 
his possessions gone, he was very sad and 
broken down in spirit, and left the Grove 
forever. The citizens of Ottawa raised 
money and bought him a tract of land on 
the Illinois Kiver, iibove Seneca, in Grundy 
County, on which they built a house, and 
supplied him with means to live on. He 
lived here until his death, which occurred 
on the 17th of July, 1859, in the eighty- 



EARLY HISTORY OF ILLINOIS. 



79 



fourth year of liis age, and was buried with 
creat pomp in tlie cemetery at Morris. 
His squaw, Pokanoka, was drowned in 
Mazon Creek, Grundy County, on the 
30th of November, 1864, and was buried 
by his side. 

In 1861 subscriptions were taken up in 



many of the river towns, to erect a monu- 
ment over tlie remains of Shabbona, but 
the war breaking out, the enterprise was 
abandoned. Only a plain marble slab 
marks the resting-place of this friend of the 
white man. 




PAKT II. 






V 



ISTORY*OF*JEFFERSON*COUNTY. 



PART II. 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, 



CHAPTER I.* 



INTRODUCTORY— GEOLOGY AND ITS PRACTICAL VALUE— HOW THOROUGHLY TO EDUCATE THE 
FARMERS— WHY THEY SHOULD UNDERSTAND THE GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS OF THE 
LAND THEY TILL— AGE OF THE EARTH ACCORDING TO THE RESEARCH 
OF THE GEOLOGISTS— LOCAL GEOLOGY— CONFIGURATION- 
SOILS AND TIMBER— MINERALS AND MINERAL 
SPRINGS— BUILDING M VTERIALS, ETC. 



" The little fields made green 
By husbandry of many thrifty years." 

THERE is no question of such deep in- 
terest as the geological history of that 
particular portion of the country in which we 
make om- homes. The people of Southern 
Illinois are an agricultural people in their 
pursuits. Their first care is the soil and 
climate, and it is in them they may find an 
almost inexhaustible fund of knowledge, that 
will ever put money in their coffers. All 
mankind are deeply interested in the soil. 
From it comes all life, all beauty, pleasure, 
wealth and enjoyment. Of itself, it may 
not be a beautiful thing, but from it comes 
the fragrant flower, the golden fields, the 
sweet blush of the maiden's cheek, the flash 
of the lustrous eye, that is more powerful to 
subdue the heart of obdurate man than an 
army with banners. From it spring the groat, 
rich cities, whose towers, and temples, and 
minarets kiss the early morning sun, and 
whose ships, with their precious cargoes, 

* By W. H. Perrin. 



fleck every sea. In short, it is the nourish- 
ing mother whence comes our high civiliza- 
tion — the wealth of nations, the joys and ex- 
alted pleasures of life. 

The corner-stone upon which all life rests 
is the farmer, who tickles the earth, and it 
laughs with the rich harvests that so bounti- 
fully bless mankind. Who, then, should be 
so versed in the knowledge oE the soil as the 
farmer? What other information can be so 
valuable to him as the mastery of the science 
of geology, that much of it, at least, as ap- 
plies to the portion of the earth where he 
has cast his fortunes and cultivates the soil ? 
We talk of educating the farmer, and ordi- 
narily this means to send the boys to college, 
to acquire what is termed a classical educa- 
tion, and they come back, perhaps, as grad- 
uates, as incapable of telling the geological 
story of ,thoir father's farm as of describing 
the color and shape of last year's clouds. 
How much more of practical value it would 
have been to the young man had he never 
looked into the classics, and instead thereof 



102 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



had taken a few practical lessons in the local 
geology that ■would have told him the story 
of the soil around him, and enabled him to 
comprehend how it was formed, its different 
qualities and from whence it came and its 
constituent elements. The farmer grows to 
be an old man, and he will tell you he has 
learned to be a good farmer only by a long 
life of laborious experiments; and if you 
should tell him that these experiments had 
made him a scientific farmer, he would look 
with a good deal of contempt upon your sup- 
posed effort to poke ridicule at him. He has 
taught himself to regard the word " science" 
as the property only of bookworms and cranks. 
He does not realize that every step in farm- 
ing is a purely scientific operation, because 
science is made by experiments and investi- 
gations. An old farmer may examine a soil 
and tell you that it is adapted to wheat or 
corn, that it is warm, or cold and heavy, or a 
few other facts that jhis long experience has 
taught him, and to that extent he is a scien- 
tific farmer. He will tell you that his knowl- 
edge has cost him much labor, and many sore 
disappointments. Suppose that in his youth 
a well -digested chapter on the geological his- 
tory, that would have told him in the sim- 
plest terms, all about the land he was to culti- 
vate, how invaluable the lesson would have 
been, and how much in money value it would 
have proved to him. In other words, if you 
could give your boys a practical education, 
made up of a few lessons pertaining to those 
subjects that immediately concern their lives, 
how invaluable such an education might be, 
and how many men would thus be saved the 
pangs and penalties of ill-directed lives. 

The parents often spend much money in 
the education of their children, and from 
this they build gi-eat hopes upon their fut- 
ure that are often blasted, not through the 
fault, always, of the child, but through the 



error of the parent in not being able to know 
in what real, practical education consists. If 
the schools of the country, for instance, could 
devote one of the school months in each year 
to rambling over the hills and the fields, and 
gathering practical lessons in the geology 
and botany of the section of country in 
which the children were born and reared, 
how incomparably more valuable and useful 
the time thus spent would be to them in 
after life, than would the present mode of 
shutting out the sunshine of life, and spend- 
ing both life and vitality in studying meta- 
physical mathematics, or the most of the other 
text-books, that impart nothing that is worth 
the carrying home to the child's stock of 
knowledge. At all events, the chapter in 
the county's history, or in the history of any 
community or country, that tells its geolog- 
ical formation, is of first importance to all its 
people, and if properly prepared it will be- 
come a soui'ce of great interest to all, and do 
much to disseminate a better education 
among the people, and thus be a perpetual 
blessing to the community. 

The permanent effects of the soil on the 
people are as strong and certain as they are 
upon the vegetation that springs from it. It 
is a maxim in geology that the soil and its 
underlying rocks forecast unerringly to the 
trained eye the character of the people, 
the number and the quality of the civ- 
ilization of those who will, in the com- 
ing time, occupy it. Indeed, so close are the 
relations of the geology and the people that 
this law is plain and fixed, that a new coun- 
try may have its outlines of history written 
when first looked upon; and it is not, as so 
many suppose, one of those deep, abstruse 
subjects that are to be given over solely to a 
few great investigators and thinkers, and to 
the masses must forever remain a sealed book. 
Our }ouths may learn the important outlines 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



103 



of the geology of their country with no more 
difliculty than they meet in mastering the 
multiplication table or the simple rule of 
three. And we make no question that a 
youth need not possess one-half of the men- 
tal activity and shrewdness in making a fair 
geologist of himself that he would find was 
required of him to become a skillful manip- 
ulator of cards or a successful jockey. 

On the geological structure of a country 
depend the pursuits of its inhabitants, and 
the genius of its civilization. Agriculture is 
the outgrowth of a fertile soil; mining re- 
sults from mineral resources, and from nav- 
igable rivers spring navies and commerce. 
Every great branch of ^industry requires, for 
its successful development, the cultivation of 
kindred arts and sciences. Phases of life 
and modes of thought are thus induced, 
which give to different communities and 
States characters as various as the diverse 
rocks that underlie them. In like manner 
it may be shown that their moral and 
intellectual qualities depend on mater- 
ial conditions. Where the soil and sub- 
jacent rocks are profuse in the bestowal of 
wealth, man is indolent and effeminate; 
where effort is required to live, he becomes 
enlightened and virtuous. A perpetually 
mild climate and bread growing upon the 
trees will produce only ignorant savages. 
The heaviest misfortune that has so long en- 
vironed poor, persecuted Ireland has been 
her ability to produce the potato, and thus 
subsist wife and children upon a small patch 
of ground. Statistics tell us that the num- 
ber of marriages are regulated by the price 
of corn, and the true philosopher has dis- 
covered that the invention of gunpowder did 
more to civilize the world than any one thing 
in its history. 

Geology traces the history of the earth 
back through successive stages of develop- 



ment to its rudimental condition in a state 
of fusion. The sun, and the planetary sys- 
tem that revolves around it, were originally a 
common mass, that became separated in a 
gaseous state, and the loss of heat in a planet 
reduced it to an elastic state, and thus it com- 
menced to write its own history, and place 
its records upon these imperishable books, 
where the geologist may go and read the 
strange, eventful story. The earth was a 
wheeling ball of fire, and the cooling event- 
ually formed the exterior crust, and in the 
slow process of time prepared the way for 
the animal and vegetable life it now con- 
tains. In its center, the fierce flames still rage 
with undiminished energy. Volcanoes are 
outlets for these deep-seated fires, where are 
generated those tremendous forces, an illus- 
tration of which is given in the eruptions of 
Vesuvius, which has thrown a jet of lava, re- 
sembling a column of flame, 10,000 feet 
high. The amount of lava ejected at a sin- 
gle eruption fi'om one of the volcanoes of 
Iceland has been estimated at 40,HOO,000,- 
Ol)0 tons, a quantity sufficient to cover a 
large city with a mountain as high as the 
tallest Alps. Our world is yet constantly 
congealing, just as the process has been con- 
stantly going on for billions of years, and 
yet the rocky crust that rests upon this inter- 
nal fire is estimated to be only between thirty 
and forty miles in thickness. In the silent 
(Jepths of the stratified rocks are the former 
creation of plants and animals, which lived 
and died during the slow, dragging centuries 
of their formation. These fossil remains are 
fragments of history, which enable the geol- 
ogist to extend his researches far back into 
the realms of the past, and not only deter- 
mine their former modes of life, but study 
the contemporaneous history of their rocky 
beds, and group them into systems. And 
such has been the profusion of life, that the 



104 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



gi'eat limestone formations of the globe con- 
sist mostly of animal remains, cemented by 
the infusion of animal matter. A large part 
of the soil spread over the earth's surface has 
been elaborated in animal organisms. First, 
as nom'ishment, it enters into the structure 
of plants, and forms vegetable tissue; passing 
thence, as food, into the animal, it becomes 
endowed with life, and when death occurs it 
returns into the soil and imparts to it addi- 
tional elements of fertility. 

The realization of great defects in the edu- 
cation of our young farmers and of their 
losses and disappointments, and even disas- 
ters, in the pursuit of their occupation of till- 
ing the earth, that come of their neglect in 
early education and training, promjats ns 
to present a subject that many of our 
readers will consider dry and uninterest- 
ing. The views of the writer are not vis- 
ionary, or mere theories drawn from books. 
Born and reared on a farm, with nearly a 
quarter of a century's experience in tilling 
the soil, qualifies him to tell, with as much 
facility as Horace Greeley, what " he knows 
about farming." The most inportant subject 
to all mankind to-day is how to get for the 
young people the best education; how to fit 
our youths for the life struggle before them. 
Agassiz was (^nce appealed to by some New 
England horse-breeders in regard to develop- 
ing horses, and ti)ld them it was not a ques- 
tion of equestrianism, but one of rocks. To 
most men the reply would have been almost 
meaningless, yet it was full of wisdom. It 
signified that certain rock formations that un. 
derlie the soil would insure a certain growth 
of grasses and water, and the secret of the 
perfect horse lay here. 

That the reader may gather here lessons 
in the knowledge of the rocks that are spread 
out over the earth, we give in their order the 
difiierent groups and systems in the simplest 



form we can present them, as gathered from 
the geologists. We only deem it necessary 
to explain that all rocks are either igneous 
or stratified; the former meaning melted by 
fire, and the latter, sediment deposited in wa- 
ter. Their order, commencing with the lowest 
stratified rocks and ascending. are as follows: 

The Laurentian system is the lowest and 
oldest of the stratified rocks. From the efi"ects 
of great heat, it has assumed, to some extent, 
the character of the igneous rocks below, but 
still retains its original lines of stratifica- 
tion, A principal eftect of the great heat 
to which its rocks were exposed is crystal- 
lization. The Laurentian system was formerly 
believed to be destitute of organic remains, 
but recent investigations have led to the 
discovery of animals, so low in the scale of 
organization as to be regarded as the first 
appearance of sentient existence. This dis- 
coverv, as it extends the origin of life back- 
ward through 30,000 feet of strata, may be 
regarded as one of the most important ad- 
vances made in American geology. 

The Huronian system, like the one that 
precedes it, and on which it rests, is highly 
crystalline. Although fossils have not been 
found in it, yet from its position, the infer- 
ence is they once existed, and if they do not 
now, the great transforming power of heat 
has caused their obliteration. This, and 
the subjacent system, extend from Labra- 
dor southwesterly to the great lakes, and 
thence northwesterly toward the ..Lrctic 
Ocean, They derive their names from the 
St, Lawrence and Lake Htu-on, on the banks 
of which are found their principal outcrops. 
Their emergence from the ocean was the birth 
of the North American Continent. One face 
of the uplift looked toward the Atlantic and 
the other toward the Pacific, thus prefigur- 
ing the future shores of this great divison 
of the globe of which they are the germ. 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



105 



The Silurian age, compared with the more 
stable formations of subsequent times, was one 
of commotion, in which lire and water played 
a conspicuous part. Earthquakes and volca- 
noes furrowed the yielding crust with ridges, 
and thiew up islands whose craggy summits, 
here and there, stood like sentinels above 
the murky deep which dashed against their 
shores. The present diversities of climate 
did not exist, as the temperature was mostly 
due to the escape of internal heat, which 
was the same over every part of the surface. 
As the radiation of heat, in future ages, de- 
clined, the sun became the controlling power, 
and zones of climate appeared as the result 
of solar domination. Uniform thermal con- 
ditions imparted a corresponding character 
to vegetable and animal life, and one univer- 
sal fauna and flora extended from the equa- 
tor to the poles. During the Silui'ian age. 
North America, like its inhabitants, was 
mostly submarine, as proved by wave lines 
on the emergino; lands. 

The Devonian age is distinguished for the 
introduction of vertebrates, or the foui-th sub- 
kingdom of animal life, and the beginning of 
terrestrial vegetation. The latter appeared 
in two classes, the highest of the flowerless 
and the lowest of the flowering plants. The 
Lepidodendron, a noted instance of the for- 
mer, was a majestic, upland forest tree, 
which, during the coal period, grew to a 
height of eighty feet, and had a base of more 
than thi'ee feet in diameter. Its description 
is quite poetical, and is as follows: Beau- 
tiful spiral flutings, coiling in opposite direc- 
tions and crossing each other at fixed angles, 
carved the trunks and branches into rbom- 
boidal eminences, each of which was scarred 
with the mark of a falling leaf. At an alti- 
tude of sixty feet, it sent ofi" arms, each sep- 
arating into branchlets, covered with a 
needle-like foliage destitute of flowers. It 



grew, not by internal or external accretions, 
as plants of the present day, but, like the 
building of a monument, by additions to the 
top of its trunk. Mosses, rushes and other 
diminutive flowerless plants are now the only 
representatives of this cryptogamic vegeta- 
tion, which so largely predominated in the 
early botany of the globe. Floral beauty 
and fragrance were not characteristic of the 
old Devonian woods. No bird existed to 
enliven their silent groves with song; no ser- 
pent to hiss in the fenny brakes, nor beast 
to pursue, with hideous yells, its panting 
prey. 

The vertebrates consisted of fishes, of -which 
the Ganoids and Placoids were the principal 
groups. The former were the forerunners of 
the reptile, which in .many respects they 
closely resemble. They embraced a large 
number of species, many of which grew to a 
gigantic size; but, with the excejation of the 
gar and sturgeon, they have no living repre- 
sentative. The Placoids, structurally formed 
for advancement, still remain among the 
highest types of the present seas. The shark, 
a noted instance, judging from its fossil re- 
mains, must have attained 100 feet in length. 
Both groups lived in the sea, and if any 
fresh water animals existed, their remains 
have either perished or not been found. So 
numerous were the inhabitants of the ocean, 
that the Devonian has been styled the age of 
fishes. In their anatomical structure was 
foreshadowed the organization of man; rep- 
tiles, birds and mammals being the inter- 
mediate gradations. 

The Carboniferous age opened with the 
deposition of widely extended mai-ine forma- 
tions. Added to the strata previously do- 
posited, the entire thickness in the region 
of the Alleghanies, now partially elevated, 
amounted to seven miles. The most promi- 
nent feature of the Carboniferous age was the 



106 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



formation of coal. Being carbonized vege- 
table tissue, the material f ui-nished for this 
puj-pose was the vast forest accumulation pe- 
culiar to the period. The coal-iields of Eu- 
rope are estimated at 18,000 square miles, 
those of the United States at 150,000. In 
Illinois, three-fourths of the svirf ace are un- 
derlaid by beds of coal, and the State, conse- 
quently, has a greater area than any other 
member of the Union. The entire carbon- 
iferous system, including the coal beds and 
the intervening strata, in Southern Illinois, 
is 27,000 feet in thickness and in the north- 
ern part only 500 feet. 

The Reptilian age came next, and is distin- 
guished for changes in the continental bor- 
ders, which generally ran within their pres- 
ent limits. 

The Mammalian age witnessed the increaae 
of the mass of the earth above the ocean's 
level threefold, and next in regular succes- 
sion was the age of Man, which commenced 
with the present geological conditions. These 
are the order of the earth's formation, sim- 
ply given, to the time of the coming of man. 
Though the absolute time of his coming can- 
not be determined, he was doubtless an in 
habitant of the earth many thousands of 
years before he was sufficiently intelligent to 
preserve the records of his own history. 

The present age still retains, in a dimin- 
ished degi-ee of activity, the geological action 
we have briefly sketched. The oscillations of 
the earth's crust are still going on, perhaps 
as they ever have. As an evidence of this, it 
is a well-known fact that the coast of Green- 
land, on the western side, for a distance of 
600 miles, has been slowly sinking for the 
past four huadi-ed years. Thus constantly 
have the bottoms of the oceans been lifted 
above the waters and the mountains sunk and 
became the beds of the sea. In the science 
of geology, this solid old earth and its fixed 



and eternal mountains are as unstable as the 
floating waves of the water. 

Jefferson County is situated southeast of 
the intersection of the Ohio & Mississippi 
and the Illinois Central Railroads, and is 
bounded on the north by Marion County, on 
the east by Wayne and Hamilton, on the 
south by Franklin, on the west by Perry and 
Washington, and has an area of 576 square 
miles. It is estimated that at least four- fifths 
of this territory is timbered land, while only 
about one-fifth is prairie. The prairies invar- 
iably occupy the more or less elevated lands 
between the water-courses, and h&ve generally 
a considerable depth of quaternary deposits, 
sometimes underlaid with shales. It is sel- 
dom that rocks are found in the prairies, even 
by digging to some depth, though at some 
places timbered hills occur in the prairie, 
which are underlaid with solid rockj' strata, 
and rise above the level of the prairie either 
within its bounds or at its edge. Knob 
Prairie has its name from such a hill or knob. 
The timbered portion of the county is partly 
flat, but^most of it is undtilating or broken, 
in consequence of the numerous water-courses 
which traverse the county in every direction. 
It has some post-oak flats, also some wet flats 
at the edge of prairies, in which water-oak 
predominates, but more oak barrens, with a 
growth of black oak, white oak, post oak, 
hickory, etc. The timber in the creek bot- 
toms is generally quite heavy, and consists of 
swamp white oak, water oak, sugar maple, 
sycamore, black walnut, white walnut, etc. 
In the extreme southeast part of the county, 
however, are occasional trees of more south- 
ern affinity, such as the sweet gum. 

The county is well supplied with running 
water, principally by the branches of Big 
Muddy River, which head near the north line 
of the county and traverse it in a southerly 
direction, with many smaller creeks which 



HISTORY OF JEFFEKSON COUNTY. 



107 



empty into them, both from the west and 
east. The main branch of Big Muddy Kiver 
heads near the northwest corner of the coun- 
ty, some miles southeast of Centralia, while 
some other ravines near by run westward to- 
ward Crooked Creek and the Kaskaskia 
River. The Little Muddy River passes 
through the southwest corner of the county. 
In the northeast part of the county is 
Horse Greek, a tributary of the Little Wa- 
bash River, and all the branches on the east 
line of the county take their couTBe east- 
ward, toward the Little Wabash. 

The geological formation of Jefferson 
County, like those of all the adjoining coun- 
ties, are members of the coal formation. All 
over the county, with the exception of a 
limited area in the southwest corner, is found 
the same strata traced all over the county of 
Marion — a subdivision of the upper coal 
measures, including a coal seam which varies 
from six to twenty-four inches in thickness. 
At a greater depth may be found the Du 
Quoin coal bed, and the sandstones overlying 
this coal and its associated limestones, have 
been traced over a large area east of the out- 
crop of the coal, and attain a considerable 
but variable thickness, sometimes amounting 
to more than two hundred feet, and appear to 
pass across the extreme southeast corner of 
this county.* 

The Shoal Creek limestone has no great 
thickness. It varies between seven and fif- 
teen feet; but being the only prominent 
limestone between two heavy bodies of sand- 
stone, it forms a well marked horizon, and 
can be readily traced over a long distance. 
In Perry County, only a quarter of a mile 
from the Jefferson County line, on Little 
Mudd}' River, just before it enters the latter 
county, is an outcrop of evidently the same 

• Most of the local geology, and tlie facts pertaining to it, are 
conipileti (rom the official survey of the State. 



limestone. Here five feet of it are exposed, 
covered with soil. It rests on one foot of 
shales and three feet of black, laminated 
slates, which reach to the water level. Coal, 
probably fifteen inches thick, has been dug 
from the bed of the creek. From this jioint, 
the Shoal Creek limestone must pass into 
Jefferson County; but the county is mostly 
covered with heavy quaternary deposits, 
and is thinly settled, so that artificial de- 
posits are wanting. Higher up those creeks 
and in the barrens, sandstones- crop out at a 
few points. The rest of the county is occu- 
pied by the higher sandstone formation, the 
same which covers the whole of Marion 
County. Almost everywhere single layers of 
the sandstone can be found of sufficient hard- 
ness for building purposes. This formation 
being part of the coal measure system, it 
may be expected to contain some stone coal, 
but it is not rich in this mineral. It is found 
at numerous points, however, throughout 
Jefferson and Marion Counties, and it un- 
doubtedly extends much further. It is of 
considerable local importance, being used ex- 
tensively in this district, and has been opened 
at numerous points. At some places, this 
coal is quite pure and free from sulphur, but 
at others it contains much sulphuret of 
iron. 

The slaty, fossiliferous limestone, which 
is a certain indication of the coal, has been 
noticed north of the " Limestone Branch. " 
In Jordan's Prairie, at Rome, the coal is 
struck in every well, only ten feet below the 
surface, and is probably ten inches thick. 
At the edge of the prairie southeast from 
Rome, the coal has been mined to some ex- 
tent, especially in the southwest part of Sec- 
tion 18. At that point the bed is fourteen 
inches thick, of which at least ten is good 
coal. The coal has likewise been found near 
the middle of the north line of the northeast 



108 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



quarter of Section 24 and farther east, and at 
other points in this portion of the connty. 
In all places it was from ten to twelve inches 
thick, and accompanied with shales, the cal- 
careous slate and sandstone. 

The of&cial snrvey, and a description of 
all the noteworthy discoveries in the county 
leads to the conclusion that all the coal 
which is near the surface in the county, 
with the exception of that in the south- 
west corner, belongs to one stratum, which, 
is in some places divided in two by a parting 
of shale, and which is the sarne that extends 
all over the adjoining county of Marion. 
The stratum, at a few points, exceeds one and 
a half feet in thickness of good coal, and is 
frequently thinner. Where it is thicker, it 
generally contains impure portions. It is at 
many points of a very good quality, and. as 
the country is broken, it can be profitably 
worked in numerous localities by stripping 
along the outcropping edges. It is. there- 
fore, well adapted to supply the local de- 
mand for coal throughout the county at a 
very moderate cost. The coal and accom- 
panying strata are neither horizontal nor 
dipping in one direction, but they form 
waves which follow more or less the surface 
configuration of the country. A question 
arises whether there is a lower coal bed. of 
greater thickness, at an available depth. The 
next lower coal seam is that underneath the 
Shoal Creek limestone; but this coal, where 
it is known on Little Muddy Kiver, near the 
west line of the county, is too thin to pay 
the expenses i>f deep mining. This seam 
may become of some local importance in the 
southwest comer of the county, where it can 
be worked by stripping along its outcrop on 
a limited area, but further on it is covered by 
a considerable thickness of the higher strata. 
The only remaining coal bed of good prom 
ise is, then, the one worked in the coal shaft 



at Tamaroa, on the Illinois Central Railroad, 
at a depth of about two hundred feet below 
the surface, which is the Du Quoin coal. 
Tamaroa is a little over four miles west of 
the southwest corner of the county, and it 
would seem, therefore, as if this coal bed. in 
tlie nearest part of the county, could not be 
much, if any, deeper. From the same for- 
mations, however, in the adjoining counties, 
it is believed that this coal dips rapidly 
downward from Tamaroa, and in most parts 
of Jefi"erson County lies at a considerable 
depth. It [would probably be found at the 
least depth in the southwest comer of the 
county, but even ,there it would hardly be 
reached under several hundred feet. 

The coal near the surface in this countj- is 
the same as the vein near the surface at Cen- 
tral City. If a great demand for coal should 
arise, this lower coal bed might supply it. 
Its depth, at least, would not be greater than 
that of many coal pits in other countries, 
and the only question would be as to its 
thickness, which at Tamaroa amotmts to five 
feet eight inches. 

The shales accompanying tlie coal bed con- 
tain generally much kidney-iron ore — an im- 
pure carbonate of iron in sub-globular con- 
cretions, or in flat bodies or sheets. The ag- 
gregate quantity of this ore is large, but it is 
probably ;not concentrated at any one point 
in sufficient quantity and of sufficient piurity 
to be, for the present, of practical value for 
the production of iron. Some pieces of galena 
have been found scattered over the country, 
such as occur in the drift in many other 
cotmties of the State. The water in some 
parts of the county is impregnated with salts, 
originating principally from the decomposi- 
tion of the sulphate of iron contained in 
the coal or shales, and from the action 
of the sulphate of iron thus produced 
upon the strata which it percolates. Thus. 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



109 



other and more complex combiaations of salts 
are formed, such as magnesia salts, alums, 
etc. As the coal seam is near the surface in 
many neighborhoods, wells are frequently 
sunli down to it or the accompanying strata, 
and this well-water contains thpse salts in 
variable quantities, which are often sufficient- 
ly large to prevent the use of the water for 
household purposes. Thus it is at Mount 
Yernon, at Rome, in some parts of Horse 
Prairie, especially at the Stone-Coal branch, 
and at other places. 

The strongest mineral water, probably, in 
the countj- is the springs of Dr. William Duff 
Green, in the southeastern part of the city of 
Mount Yernon. There are several of these 
springs. They issue from the side of a shal- 
low ravine, at the same level, a few feet from 
each other, from a highly ferruginous 
stratum, which is apparently the slaty shale, 
with the iron ore above the coal seam here 
changed beyond recognition by the long- con- 
tinued influence of the mineral water. These 
springs all contain a considerable quantity 
of iron combined with other salts. A re- 
markable fact is that the water of all of them 
is not quite the same. The difference con- 
sists, however, principally in the relative 
quantity of the salts. The springs evidently 
emanate from the same stratiun, but, passing 
through different pwrtions of the rock, the 
water mav come in contact with slightly dif- 
ferent mineral substances. 

The temperature of the running springs is 
the mean temperature of the earth in this 
latitude, or, what is the same, that of a deep, 
cool cellar; but one spring, which is by Dr. 
Green called " Tepid Spring," differs from 
the others in various respects. It is warmer 
than the others, at least in summer, because, 
not running as freely as they do, its water is 
stationary, and assumes the temperature of 
the air. It does not freeze in winter, which 



is, apparently, not a consequence of intrinsic 
heat, but of its saline character. Its water 
has a milky hue, because the iron salts which 
it contains begin tj decompose in the orifice 
of the spring, where they are long exposed to 
the oxidizing influence of the air, without 
being discharged. Such is the simple ex- 
planation, based on the teaching of science, 
of some facts which have been regarded as 
wonderful mysteries. Nature's works seem 
mysterious, but all conform to definite laws, 
which, when the principles are once under- 
stood, appear clear and plain as daylight. 
A small quantity of gas is devolved in the 
springs, either through the action of sulphates 
upon carbonates in the strata or perhaps al- 
together by a vegetation of a low order, 
which rapidly grows and coats the orifice of 
the springs, and. under the direct action of 
the sun's rays, exhales oxygen. Although 
originally similar, the waters of these difi'er- 
ent springs now, very probably, have a differ- 
ent medicinal effect upon the system. 

Building material is found in the county 
in large quantities. Sandstone, for founda- 
tions, the walling of wells and for all ordi- 
nary and heavy masonry, can be readily ob- 
tained in nearly all parts of the county. 
Good quarries are already known in large 
numbers, and with little labor many new 
ones might be opened in convenient loca- 
tions, as sandstones form the principal sub- 
strata of the countv. The limestone is gen- 
erally impure, siliceous or argillaceous. At 
some points it can be burnt and used for 
making mortar, and if the demand were 
suUicient better quarries might be opened, 
and a better article might be obtained. The 
fossiliferous, slaty limestone, or calcareous 
slate, is tmdoubtedly a superior fertilizer, but 
has not yet been used as such. Its wide dis- 
tribution over the county will render it valu- 
able in fnttire times. Brick mav be manu- 



110 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



factored wherever needed ; and of line timber 
of various kinds — white oak, black oak, 
post oak, black walnut, etc. — there is an ex- 
cellent supply. 



The agricultural excellence of the county, 
which is fully up to the standard of any of 
the counties in this portion of the State, will 
be treated of further along in this work. 



CHAPTEK II. 



THE PRE-HISTORIC RACES— IVIOUxND-BUILDERS— THEIR OCCUPATION OF THE COUNTRY— RELICS 

LEFT BY THEM— THE INDIANS— SPECULATIONS AS TO THEIR ORIGIN— ULTIM.1TE 

EXTINCTION OF THE RACE— SOMETHING OF THE TRIBES OF SOUTHERN 

ILLINOIS— WHAT BECAME OF THEM— LOCAL TRADITIONS AND 

INCIDENTS— THE BLACK HAWK WAR, ETC., ETC. 



"Wrapped in clouds and darkness, and defying 
historic scrutiny." 

THROUGHOUT the Ohio and Mississippi 
Valleys, as well as many portions of 
North America, and extending into South 
America, are found the remains of a former 
race of inhabitants, of whose origin and his- 
tory we have no record, and who are only 
known to us by the relics that are found in 
the tumuli which they have left. The Mound- 
Builders were a numerous people, entirely 
distinct from the North American Indians, 
and they lived so long before the latter that 
they are not known to them by tradition. 
They were evidently industrious and domes- 
tic in their habits, and the finding of large 
sea shells in the Illinois mounds, which 
must have been brought from the Gulf of 
Mexico, if not from more distant shores, proves 
that they had communication and trade with 
other tribes. Perhaps the most interesting 
fact connected with this ancient people is 
that they had a written language. This is 
proved by pome inscribed tablets that have 
been discovered in the mounds, the most im- 
portant of which belong to the Davenport 
Academy of Sciences. These tablets have 

* By W. H. Perrin. 



attracted gi-eat attention from archseologiste, 
and it is thought they will some time prove 
of great value as records of the people who 
wrote them. It is still uncertain whether the 
language was generally tinderstood by the 
Mound-Buildeis, or whether it was confined 
to a few persons of high rank. In the 
mound where two of these tablets were dis- 
covered, the bones of a child were found, par- 
tially preserved by contact with a large 
number of copper beads, and as copper was 
a rare and precious metal with them, it would 
seem that the mound in question was used 
for burial of persons of high rank. The in- 
scriptions have not been deciphered, for no 
key to them has yet been found; we are to- 
tally ignorant of the derivation of the lan- 
guage, or its aifinities with other written 
languages. 

The Mound-Builders lived while the mam- 
moth and mastodon were upon the earth, as 
is clearly proved by the carvings upon some 
of their elaborate stone pipes. From the size 
and other peculiarities of the pipes, it is in- 
ferred that smoking was not habitual with 
them, but that it was reserved as a sort of 
ceremonial observance. Our knowledge of 
the habits and customs of the Mound-Builders 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



in 



is very incomplete, but it ia sufficient to show 
that at least a part of this country was onco 
inhabited by a people who have passed away 
without leaving so much as a tradition of 
their existence, and who are only known to 
us through the silent relics which have been 
interred for centuries. A people utterly for- 
gotten, a civilization totally lost! Oblivion 
has drawn her impenetrable veil over their 
history. No printed page intelligible to us, 
or sculptm-ed monument, inform us who they 
were, whence they came or whither they 
went. In vain has science sought to pene- 
trate the gloom and solve thejiroblem locked 
in the breast of the voiceless jiast, but ev^ry 
theory advanced, every reason assigned etids 
where it began, in speculation. 

" Ye moldering relics of departed years, 
Your names have perished; not a trace remains. 

Save where the grass-grown mound its summit rears 
From the green bosom of your native plains. 
Say, do your spirits wear oblivion's chains? 

Did death forever quench your hopes and fears?" 

There are no traces of the Mound-Builders 
to be found in Jefferson County. From the 
relics they have left of their existence, it 
seems they kept near the water, as the most 
extensive mounds and earthworks are found 
in the vicinity of the lakes of the North and 
along our great rivers. Two of the largest 
mounds in the United States are located in 
Illinois and West Virginia — the great mound 
in the American Bottom ^between Alton and 
East St. Lotris, denominated the " Monarch 
of all similar structures in the United 
States," and that located near the junction 
of Grave Creek with the Ohio Kiver in West 
Virginia. Along the Illinois and Wabash 
Elvers, many of these mounds may still be 
seen, though hundreds of the smaller ones 
have been leveled with the earth by the plow- 
share. At Palestine and Hutsonville, 111., 
and at Merom, Ind., on the Wabash Eiver, 



are extensive groups. The Hutsonville group 
contains fifty-nine mounds, and vary in size 
from eighteen to fifty feet in diameter at the 
base: They were scientifically examined 3 
few years ago by Prof. Putnam, of Boston, 
who made an extended report of them to the 
Boston Historical Society. 

The Indians. — Of the Red Indians, but lit- 
tle is known of them prior to the discovery 
of the country by the Eiu'opeans. They 
were found here, but how long they had 
been in possssion historians have no definite 
means of knowing. Their origin is a ques- 
tion that has long interested archaeologists, 
and is one of the most difficult they have 
been called on to answer. Many theories 
tipon the subject are entertained, but all, 
alike, are more or less unsatisfactory. It is 
believed by some that they were an original 
race, indigenous to the Western Hemisphere. 
A more common sup])Osition, however, is that 
ttiey are a derivative race, and sjirang from 
one or more of the ancient peoples of Asia. 
In the absence of all authentic history, and 
even when tradition is wanting, any attempt 
to jjoint the particular theater of their ori- 
gin mast prove unsuccessful. For centuries 
they have lived without progi'ess, while the 
Caircasian variety of the race, under the 
transforming power of art, science and im- 
proved systems of civil polity, have made 
the most rapid advancement. 

The advent of the whites upon the shores 
of the western continent engendered in the 
red man's bosom a spark of jealousy, which, 
by the impolitic course of the former, was 
soon fanned into a blaze, and a contest was 
thereby inaugurated that sooner or later 
must end in the utter extermination of the lat- 
ter. But the struggle was long and bitter. 
Many a campaign was planned by warriors 
worthy and tit to command armies, for the 
destruction of the pale-faced invaders. 



113 



HISTORY or JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



When King Philip struck the blow which he 
hoped would forever crush the growing 
power of the white men, both sides recog- 
nized the supreme importance of the contest, 
and the courage and resources of the New 
England colonists were taxed to the utmost 
to avoid a defeat which meant destruction 
final and complete. When Tecumseh organ- 
ized the tribes of the West for a last and 
desperate effort to hold their own against 
the advancing tide of civilization, it was a 
duel to the death, and the conquerors were 
forced to pay dearly for the victory which to 
them was salvation. When the Creeks chal- 
lenged the people of the South to mortal 
combat, it required the genius of a Jackson 
and soldiers worthy of such a chief to avert 
an overwhelming calamity, and the laurels 
gathered by the heroes of Talledega, Emuck- 
fau, and Tohopeka lost little of their luster 
when with them were twined the laurels of 
Chalmette. But since the decisive battle of 
Tohopeka, March 27, 1814, there has been 
no Indian war of any considerable magni- 
tude, none certainly which threatened the 
supremacy of the whites upon the continent, 
or even seriously jeopardized the safety of the 
States or Territories where they occurred. 
The Black Hawk war, about the last 
ortranized effort, required but a few weeks 
service of raw militia to quell. Since then, 
campaigns have dwindled into mere raids, 
battles into mere skirmishes, and the mas- 
sacre of Dade's command in Florida and 
Custer's in Montana were properly regarded 
as accidents of no permanent importance. 
A dozen such, melancholy as they might be, 
would not, in the least, alarm the country, 
and Indian fighting, though not free from 
peril, now serves a useful purpose as a train- 
ing school for the young graduates of West 
Point, who might otherwise go to their 
graves at a good old age without ever having 
smelled hostile gun -powder. 



The Indians as a race are doomed by the 
inexorable laws of humanity to speedy and 
everlasting extinguishment. Accepting the 
inevitable with the stoical indifference which 
the instinct of self-preservation or the 
prompting of revenge seldom disturb, they 
excite pity rather than fear. The recent 
Apache uprising, which Gen. Crook sup- 
pressed so quickly and cheaply, is the ut- 
most the red man can now do in the way of 
warlike enterprise. Discouraged and de- 
moralized, helpless and hopeless, he sits 
down to await a swiftly approaching fate; 
and if now and then he treads the war path 
and takes a few white scalps, it is more from 
force of habit than from any expectation of 
crippling the power that is sweeping him 
and his out of existence. 

Two hundred years ago, however, the 
white man lived in America only by the red 
man's consent, and less than a hundred years 
ago the combined strenorth of the red man 
might have driven the white into the sea. 
Along our Atlantic coast are still to be seen 
the remains of the rude fortifications which 
the early settlers built to protect themselves 
from the host of enemies around; but to find 
the need of such protection now one must go 
beyond the Mississippi, beyond the Rocky 
Mountains, to a few widely scattered points 
in Arizona, New Mexico and Oregon. The 
enemy that once camped in sight of the At- 
lantic has retreated almost to the shores of 
the Pacific, and from that long retreat there 
can be no retiurning advance. East of the 
stream which he called the " Father of 
Waters," nothing is left of the Indian ex- 
cept the names he gave and the graves of his 
dead, with here and there the degraded 
remnants of a once powerful tribe dragging 
out a miserable life by the sufferance of 
their conquerors. Fifty years hence, if not 
in a much shorter period, he will live only 
in the pages of history and the brighter im- 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



113 



mortality of romantic song and story. He 
will leave nothing behind him but a memory, 
for he has done nothing and been nothing. 
He has resisted and will continue to resist 
every attempt to civilize him — every at- 
tempt to inject the white man's ideas into 
the red man's brain. He does not want and 
will not have our manners, our morals or 
our religion, clinging to his own and perish- 
ing with them. The greatest redeeming 
feature in his career, so far as that career is 
known to us, is that he has always preferred 
the worst sort of freedom to the best sort of 
slavery. Had he consented to become a 
hewer of wood and drawer of water for the 
superior race, he might, like our American- 
ized Africans, be enjoying the blessings of 
Bible and breeches, sharing the honors of 
citizenship and the delights of office, seeking 
and receiving the bids of rival political par- 
ties. Whether his choice was a wise one, 
we leave our readers to determine ; but it is 
impossible not to feel some admiration for 
the indomitable spirit that has never bowed 
its neck to the' yoke, never called any man 
"master." The Indian is a savage, but he 
never was, never will be a slave. 

If the treatment of the red man by the 
white had been uniformly or even generally 
honest and honorable, the superior race 
might contemplate the decay and disap- 
pearance of the inferior without remorse, if 
not without regret. But unfortunately that 
treatment has been, on the whole, dishonest 
and dishonorable. In a speech in New York 
City, not long before his death. Gen. Sam 
Houston, an indisputable authority in such 
matters, declared with solemn emphasis that 
"there never was an Indian war in which the 
white man was not the agressor. " The facts 
sustain an assertion which carries its own 
comment. But aggression leading to war is 
not the heaviest sin against the Indian. He 



I 



has been deceived, he has been cheated, he 
has been robbed; and the deception, cheat- 
ing and robbery has taught him that the red 
man has no rights which the white man feels 
bound to respect. Whatever else he may be, 
he is no fool, and with the dismal experience 
of more than 250 years burning his soul, is 
it any wonder that they will have none of 
our manners, our morals, or our relia'ion ? 
" My son, " said the mother of a too 
often whipped boy, " why will you not 
behave like a gentleman?" " If you did 
not treat me like a dog, I might," was 
the reply. We have treated the Indian 
like a dog and are surprised that he has de- 
veloped into a dog and not into a Christian 
citizen. There is no reason to suppose that 
the Indian is capable of a high degree of civ- 
lization, but that he is what he is may be 

i largely ascribed to white influences and ex- 
amples, and to what he has suffered from the 
whites since the first Eui-opean landed on 

j American soil. Every spark of genuine 

! manhood has been literally ground out of 
him by the heel of relentless oppression and 
outrage. He was always a barbarian, but we 
have made him a brute. He might, perhaps, 

1 have been gradually transformed into a hum- 
ble and harmless member of civilized society. 
We have made him a nuisance and a curse 
whose extermination the interests of society 
imperatively demand — and are rapidly ac- 
complshing. The crimes of the Indian have 
been blazoned in a hundred histories; his 
wrongs are written only in the records of 
that court of final appeal, before which op- 
pressors and oppressed must stand for judg- 
ment. 

But few people, and particularly the pio- 
neers of the country, will agree with any de- 
fense, bo it ever so feeble, of the Indian. 
Their hatred of him, often on general prin- 
ciples, is intense, and always was so, and 



114 



HIiSTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



the greatest wrongs have been heaped upon 
him merely because he was au Indian, utterly 
regardless of the fact that he was a human 
being. When resenting the encroachments 
of the whites upon his hunting grounds, he 
has been characterized as a fiend, a savage 
and a barabarian, and one who might be 
robbed, mistreated, and even murdered 
without any compunction. This whole broad 
land was the Indian's birthright. How he 
came to possess it is no busfinesa of ours, nor is 
it pertinent to the subject. It is our own now, 
and it is a matter of grave doubt whether we 
attained it more honorably than did the In- 
dian before us. Were our title to be chal- 
lenged by another race of people, we doubt- 
less should do as the Indians did, contest 
our rights step by step to the bitter end, and 
with all our boasted civilization and refine- 
ment, it is not improbable that we might in- 
augurate as great barbarities and cruelties 
as they did, rather than yield our homes 
and fii'esides. 

Tribes of Southern Illinois. — The Indians 
occupying Southern Illinois when first 
known to the whites were the Delawares, the 
Kickapoos, the Shawnees and the Pianke- 
shaws, with occasional fragmentary bands 
from the tribes who came to hunt. The Del- 
awares were once a powerful tribe, one of 
the most powerful of North America. They 
called themselves Lenno Lenape, wliich .sicr- 
nifies "original " or " unmixed " men. When 
first met with by Europeans, they occupied a 
district of country bounded easterly by the 
Hudson River and the Atlantic, on the west 
their territories extended to the ridge sepa- 
rating the flow of the Delaware from the other 
streams erapyting into the Susquehanna 
River and Chesapeake Bay. The Delawares 
had been a migratory people. According to 
their own traditions, many hundred years 
had elapsed since they had resided in the 



western part of the continent; thence, by 
slow emigration, they reached the Alleghany 
River, so called from a nation of giants, the 
"Allegewi," against whom they (the Del a 
wares) and the Iroquois (the latter also em- 
igrants from the West) carried on successful 
war; and still proceeding eastward, settled 
on the Delaware, Hudson, Susquehanna and 
Potomac Rivers, making the Delaware the 
center of their possessions. By the other 
Algonquin tribes, the Delawares were re- 
garded with the utmost respect and venera- 
tion. They were called " fathers," " grand- 
fathers," etc.* 

A paper addressed to Congi'ess, May 10, 
1779, establishes the territory of the Dela- 
wares subsequent to their being driven west- 
ward from their former possessions by their 
old enemies, the Ii'oquois, in the following 
described boundaries: " From the mouth of 
the Alleghany River at Fort Pitt to the Ve- 
nango, and thence up French Creek and by 
Le Boeuf (the present site of Waterford, 
Penn.) along the old road to Presque Isle 
on the east; the Ohio River, including all 
the islands in it, from Fort Pitt to the 
Oubache (W^abash), on the south; thence up 
the Oubache River to that branch. Ope-co- 
meecah (the Indian name of White River, 
Indiana), and up the same to the head 
thereof; from thence to the head- waters and 
springs of the Great Miami, or Kocky River; 
thence across to the head-waters of the most 
northeastern branches of the Scioto River; 
thence to the westermost springs of the San- 
dusky River; thence down said river, in- 
cluding the islands in it and in the little 
lake (Sandusky Bay), to Lake Erie on the 
west and northwest, and Lake Erie on the 
north." These boundaries contain the 
cessions of lands made to the Delaware na- 
tion by the Wyandots, the Hurons and the 

♦Taylor's History. 





^^-^"^MS ^^^M^/d^ 



U3RAKY 
• THE 
JNlVERSnY OF iLLINOIS 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



117 



Iroquois. The Delawareg. after Gen. Wayne's 
sici-nal victory in 1704, came to realize that 
fiu-ther contests with the American colonies 
would be worse than useless. They there- 
fore submitted to the inevitable, acknowl- 
edged the supremacy of the whites and de- 
sired to make peace with the victoi's. At the 
close of the treaty at Greenville, made in 
1795, by Gen. Wayne, Bu-kon-ge-he-las, a 
Delaware chief of great influence in his 
tribe, spoke as follows: "Father, your chil- 
di'en all well understand the sense of the 
treaty which is now concluded. We expe- 
rience daily proofs of your iacreasing kind- 
ness. I hope we may all have sense enough 
to enjoy our dawning happiness. All who 
know me, know me to be a man and a war- 
rior, and I now declare that 1 will for the 
future be as steady and true friend to the 
United States as I have, heretofore, been an 
active enemy." 

This promise of Bu-kon-ge-he-las was 
faithfully kept by his people. They evaded 
;ill the eftorts of the Shawnee prophet, 
Tooumseh, and the British, who endeavored 
to induce them by threats or bribes to vio- 
late it. They remained faithful to the 
I'nitod States during the war of 1812, and, 
with the Shawnees, furnished some voi-y 
able warriors and scouts who rendered val- 
uable services to the United States during 
the war. After the Greenville treaty, the 
great body of the Delawares removed to 
their lands on White River, Indiana, 
Vhither some of their people had preceded 
them, while a lai'ge fragment of the tribe 
crossed the Wabash into Southern Illinois. 
Now and then predatory bands coiumitted 
outrages on the scattered settlers, but on a 
siu ill scale. They continued to reside on 
White River and the Wabash and their trib 
utaries until 1819, when most of them emi- 
grated to Missoviri and located on the tract 



of land granted by . the Spanish authorities 
in 1793, jointly to them and the Shawnees. 
Others of their tribe, who remained in Illi- 
nois, finally scattered themselves among the 
Miamis, Pottawatomies and Kickapoos, and 
a few, including the Moravian converts, 
went to Canada, and their identity as part of 
a distinct tribe is lost. 

The largest part of the Delaware nation in 
182 , settled on the Kansas and Missouri 
Rivers. They numbered 1,000, were brave, 
enterprising hunters, cultivated lands and 
were friendly to the whites. In 1853, they 
sold the Government all the lands granted 
them, excepting a reservation in Kansas. 
During the late civil war, they sent to the 
United States Army 170 out of their 20U 
able-bodied men. Like their ancestors, they 
proved valiant and trustworthy soldiers. 

The Shawnese or Shawanese wore an erratic 
tribe of the Algonquin family. A tradition 
recently originated makes them primarily 
one with the Kickapoo nation. They were 
driven southward by the warlike Iroquois 
and wandered into the Carolinas and some 
of them into Florida. But toward the close 
of the sevenreenth century a large band of 
them went North and was among the tribes 
occupying Pennsylvania when it was granted 
to Penn. The Iroquois claimed sovereignty 
over the Shawnees and drove thorn to the 
West. Thoy took ])art in the conspiracy of 
Pontiac, and afterward participated in the 
campaigns^ against Gens. Harmar and St. 
Clair in Ohio. For mauy years they were 
liittor and relentless foes of the whites. 
Thoy submitted under the treaty of Gen. 
Wayne at Greenville in 1795, but in the 
war of 1812 some of tho petty tribes of the 
Shawnees joined tho British. A fragment of 
tho tribe drifted to Southern Illinois, and had 
their village at Shawneetown, which place 
now bears their name. Some of them went 



118 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



WeBt after the Greenville treaty, and a few 
years after the close of the war of 1812 
most of those remaining crossed the Father of 
Waters. In 1854, there were about 900 Shaw- 
nees in Kansas, and in 1876 there were some 
750 in the Indian Territory. 

The Kickapoos were also a tribe of the 
Algonquin family, and were found by 
the French missionaries toward the close 
of the seventeenth century on the Wis- 
consin Kiver. They were closely allied 
to the Miamis, but roved in bands over 
a large territory. They were more civ- 
ilized, industrious, energetic and cleanly 
than the neighboring tribes, and. it may also 
be added, more implacable in their hatred of 
the Americans. They were among the first 
to commence battle and the last to enter into 
treaties. Unappeasable enmity led them 
into the field against Harmar, St. Clair and 
Wayne, and a like spirit placed them first 
in all the bloody charges on the field of Tip- 
pecanoe. In the treaties of Portage des Sioux 
in 1815, Fort Harrison, 1816, and Edwards- 
ville, 1819, they ceded a large part of the 
land they claimed. Many of the tribes had 
already gone beyond the Mississippi, and 
the United States assigned them a large tract 
on the Osage. But they still retained 
their old enmity to the Americans, and when 
removed from Illinois a part of them went to 
Texas, then a province of Mexico, to get be- 
yond the jurisdiction of the United States. 
In 1822, about 1,800 had removed, leaving 
only 400 remaining in Illinois. Some few of 
these settled down to cultivate the ground, 
but more of them rambled off to hunt on the 
grounds of Southern tribes. They plun- 
dered on all sides and made constant inroads, 
killing and horse-stealing. During the years 
1810 and 1811, and prior to the emigration 
of any of them to the West, they committed 
so many thefts and 'murders on the frontier 



settlements in conjunction with the Chippe- 
was, Pottawatomies and Ottawas, that Gov 
Edwards was compelled to employ military 
force to suppress them. 

The Piankeshaws'.were a weak, petty tribe, 
and supposed to have been an offshoot of the 
Shawnees. They at one time inhabited and 
claimed the country for some distance on 
both sides of the Wabash River toward its 
mouth, and northwest to the head- waters of 
the Kaskaskia River. This comprises a brief 
sketch of the different tribes of the " noble 
red men" who inhabited Southern Illinois, 
and who doubtless have chased the deer and 
hunted the game through the woodland 
groves and prairies of Jefferson County. The 
Piankeshaws, however, seem to have been 
the Indians who held a kind of claim on this 
immediate section of the country. "But what 
iy remarkable," says Mr. Johnson, " they 
have not left a single name of prairie, town 
or stream that may remain as a monument to 
tell the world that such a tribe ever existed. ''^ 
All the Indians of Southern Illinois were 
driven back finally by stronger tribes coming 
down from the North. They lost the proud 
spirit characteristic of their race, cowered 
around the white settlements f jr protection 
and abandoned themselves to indolence and 
drunkenness. 

From the time of the first white settlements 
in this county, occasional bands of^Indians 
made incursions for hunting and tralfic. 
They carried their pelts to Shawneetown, 
Kaskaskia and St. Louis, and in return 
brought back a variety of articles which 
they bartered away among the white settlers. 
In 1819-20, the Delawares came through 
the county on their way to their We.?tern 
reservation. From some cause or other, 
they remained here a considerable time. A 
large number of them were encamped on the 
creek near where John Pearcy lives, undei a 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



119 



chief called George Owl. There were also 
some 600 encamped for a time on Horse 
Creek, some ei;^ht or ten miles from Mount 
Vernon, under Capt. Whitefeather. They 
sent loads of pelts to Shawneetown and Kas- 
kaskia, bringing back many things the set- 
tlers could not have prociu'ed elsewhere. 
They also sold hunting shirts, breeches and 
moccasins (of buck-skin) of their own make 
to the whites. Another band was encamped 
where George Bullock's meadow is now. 
The chief, it is said, had some pretty daugh- 
ters, and when, at his urgent request, Isaac 
Casey's daughters paid them a visit, the old 
chief seemed very much delighted and was 
as polite toward them as a French dancing 
master. While these Indians were encamped 
in the county, they remained on the most 
friendly terms with the settlers, and were 
polite (as an Indian could be) and extremely 
hospitable. If any of the whites visited 
them at mea) time, they were invited to eat, 
and if they refused, the Indians felt offend- 
ed; but on the contrary, if they accepted, 
they (the Indians) were highly pleased and 
all sat back and waited till their pale face 
guests were through eating. 

No murders or massacres are positively 
known to have been committed in the county 
by the Indians. The only probable mm-der 
was that of Andrew Moore, an account of 
which will be found in connection with the 
early settlement. A little panic occurred in 
1818, but resulted in nothing more than a 
considerable scare. The facts are about as 
follows; The Cherokees, who occupied the 
western part of Kentucky, made occasional 
visits to this part of Illinois. They were less 
peaceably disposed than the Illinois Indians, 
and a band of them caused the panic alluded 
to, the only instance of the kind known in 
the history of Jefferson County. Isaac 
Casey and William and Isaac Hicks had oc- 



casion to go to the Ohio River on business, 
and Abram and Clark Casey were left in 
charge of the families. Soon after they left, 
small squads of Indians came about the 
cabin, acting in a rather suspicious manner, 
greatly alarming the whites. Some time 
dm-ing the night a noise was heard, which 
their fear magnified into a probable attack 
or preparations for one, and gathsring up 
their arms, they beat a hasty retreat — " fall- 
ing back in good order" — to William Casey's 
cabin, where they spent the night — a prey to 
dismal forebodings. The night passed, how- 
ever, without any attack being made, and 
with the morning's light their courage re- 
turned. They went back home, where they 
found things undisturbed, and then enjoyed 
a hearty laugh at their needless scare. 

Few traces of the Indians now remain in 
tne county. Implements, such as stone hatch- 
ets, arrow-heads, etc. , years ago could be 
picked up in the vicinity of their old camps, 
but nothing more. Nothing like the ruins 
of an ancient village or a biuylng ground 
are known to exist save a few mounds or hil- 
locks near the fair grounds, which are sup- 
posed to be and probably are the remains of 
an Indian cemotei'y. 

Black Hawk War. — It is not inappropri- 
ate to cloao this chapter with a brief sketch 
of the Black Hawk war. Although we shall 
devote a subsequent chapter to the war and 
military history of the county, yet, while en- 
gaged with the Indians, it is well, perhaf^s, to 
"exterminate" them and be done with it. That 
is the inevitable doom awaiting them. The 
causes which led to the Black Hawk war 
reach back to and even prior to the Winne- 
bago and Sac war of 1827, and briefly stated 
by Edwards in his history of Illinois, are as 
follows: During the administration of Gov. 
Edwards, the Indians upon the Northwestern 
frontier began to be very troublesome. 



120 



HISTORY OF JEFFEUSON COU^STTY. 



The different tribes not only commenced a 
warfare among themselves, in regard to their 
respective boundaries, but they extended their 
hostilites to the white settlements. A treaty 
of peace, in which the whites acted more as 
mediators than as a party, had been signed 
at Prairie Du Chi en on the 29 th of August, 
1825, by the terms of which the boundaries 
between the Winnebagoes and Sioux, Chip- 
pewas. Sacs, Foxes and other tribes, were 
defined, but it failed to keep them quiet. 
Their depredations and murders continued 
frequent, and in the summer of 1827 their 
conduct particularly of the Winnebagoes, 
became very alarming. There is little doubt, 
however, that the whites, who at this period 
were immigrating in large niTmbers to the 
Northwest and earnestly desired their re- 
moval further westward, purposely exasper- 
ated the Indians, at the same time that they 
greatly exaggerated the hostlities committed. 
The Indians thus maddened and rendered in- 
sanely jealous of the encroachments of the 
whites and the insults and injui'ies heaped 
upon them, finally broke out into open war. 

Black Hawk, in the spring of 1831, came 
over from west of the Mississippi River with 
300 warriors of his "old guard," and ordered 
the whites to leave, committed numei'ous 
depredations and threatened more serious re- 
sults if his orders were not immediately com- 
plied with. Gens. Gaines and Duncan were 
ordered to quell the Indians, and marched to 
the scene with a hastily collected army. The 
clouds of war soon disappeared, however, by 
Black Hawk and his warriors suing for peace, 
and the former treaty of 1804 was ratified. 

This peace was not destined to remain long 
imbroken. Early in the spring of 1832, 
Black Hawk again prepared to assert his 
right to the disputed territory. He recrossed 
the Mississippi River, proceeded toward 
Rock River and began to collect an army. 



Gov. Reynolds called for troops and prompt- 
ly the State responded. Jefferson County 
furnished a full company, besides a number 
of men scattered through other companies and 
battalions. From the report of the Adjutant 
General of the State, for the Black Hawk 
and Mexican wars, we give the roster of this 
company, as follows: James Bowman, Cap- 
tain; Franklin S. Casey, First Lieutenant; 
Green Deprist, Second Lieutenant; Stephen 
G. Hicks, Eli D. Anderson, John R. Satter 
field and Littleton Daniels, Sergeants; 
George Bullock, James Bullock, Isaac S. 
Casey and Isaac Deprist, Corporals; Pri- 
vates, S. H. Anderson, G. W. Atchison, Ig- 
natius Atchison, Samuel Bullock, William 
Bingaman, Joseph Bradford, M. D. Bruce, 
P. C. Buffiington, John Baugh, S. W. Car- 
penter, Zadok Casey, John Darnall, William 
Deweeze, Gasaway Elkin, Robert Elkin, Is- 
aac Faulkenburg, William D. Gastin, Wil- 
lis B. Holder, William B. Hays, James Ham, 
Joel Harlow, John Isam, John Jenkins, 
David Kitrell, James C. Martin, Nathaniel 
Morgan, James F. Miner, John E. McBrian, 
H. B. Newby, J. R. Owens, Peter Owens, 
Wyatt Parrish, George W. Pace, James 
Rhea, Jacob Reynolds, William Thomason 
and Joseph Thomason. Killed, William 
Allen, at Kellogg's Grove, June 25, 1832; 
-lames B. Bond, James Black and Abram 
Bradford, died of disease; Robert Meek and 
Marcus Randolph wounded at Kellogg's Grove. 
The men elected their own officers and 
each man furnished his own horse and gun. 
These were to be valued when the men were 
mustered in, and paid for if lost when the 
men should be discharged. By the 15th of 
June the troops had arrived at their place of 
rendezvous and amounted to over 3,000 men. 
They were formed into three brigades, com- 
manded respectively by Gens. Posey, Alexan- 
der and Henry. The company from Jefferson 



HISTORY OF JEFFEESON COUNTY. 



131 



County took part in the battle of Kellogg's 
Grove, in which, as already stated, one man 
was killed and two others wounded. 

The war ended with the battle of August 
2, 1832, at the mouth of Bad Axe, a creek 
which empties into the Mississippi near 



Prairie Du Chien. A treaty was made in 
the following September, which ended the 
Indian troubles in this State. Black Hawk 
had been captured, and upon regaining his 
liberty ever after remained friendly to the 
whites. 



CHAPTER III.* 



SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY BY WHITE PEOPLE— WHO THE PIONEERS WERE, AND WHERE THEY 

CAME FROM— ANDREW MOORE— HIS MURDER BY THE INDIANS— MOORE'S PRAIRIE, AND 

THE PEOPLE WHO SETTLED IT— THE WILKEYS, CRENSHAWS, ATCHISONS, ETC.— 

SETTLEMENT AT MOUNT VERNON— OTHER PIONEERS— HARDSHIPS, 

TRIALS, PRIVATIONS, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, ETC., ETC. 



" the westward tide should overflow 

The mountain barriers to this unknown clime, 
To change the wilderness and barren waste. 
Where savage and the deer in turn were chased. 
And there to found in this broad valley home 
A richer, vaster empire than was ruled by ancient 
Rome." — Byera. 

T"^HB first white people, according to authen- 
tic history, who ever traversed the plains 
of Illinois or navigated its streams were the 
French. The importance which attaches to all 
that is connected with the explorations and 
discoveries of the earlj' French travelers in the 
Northwest, but increases in interest as time 
rolls on. Two hundred years or more ago, set- 
tlements were made by the French in what is 
now the State of Illinois, among which were 
Fort Chartres, Kaskaskia, Cahokia and other 
places; also at Vincennes on the east side of 
the Wabash River. Marquette, Lasalle, De 
Frontenac, Joliet, Hennepin and Tonti were 
Frenchmen whose names are familiar in the 
earl}- history of Illinois. From the 3-ear 1680 
until the close of the • Old French and Indian 
war" between France and England, Illinois 
was under French dominion. At the treaty of 

♦By W. H. Perrin. 



Paris, February 16, 1763, France relinquished 
to England all the territory she claimed east of 
the Mississippi River, from its source to Bayou 
Iberville. Less than a quarter of a century 
passed, and it was wrested from Great Britain 
by her American colonies. In 1778, Gen. 
George Rogers Clark, with a handful of the 
ragged soldiers of freedom, under commission 
from the Governor of Virginia, conquered the 
country, and the banner of the thirteen colonies 
floated in the breeze for the first time on the 
banks of the Mississippi. The conquest of 
Clark made Illinois a county of Virginia, as 
noticed in a subsequent chapter. This acquisi- 
tion of territory brought many adventurous 
individuals hither, and Southern Illinois at once 
became the center of attraction. 

There is but little doubt that Andrew Moore 
was the first white man to make a settlement 
within the present confines of Jefferson County. 
Mr. Johnson, in his pioneer sketches of the 
county, notices a settlement made in 1808-09 
in what is now Franklin County, b\- Thomas 
and Francis Jordan. They settled some eight 
or nine miles from the present towu of Frank- 
fort, and with the assistance of a company of 



122 



HISTORY OF JEFFEKSOX COUNTY. 



soldiers from the saltworks, erected two 
forts or block-houses there for their protection. 
This settlement was some fifteen or twenty 
miles from the south line of Jefferson County. 
In 1810, Andrew Moore came from the Goshen 
settlement, and located in what is now Moore's 
Prairie Township, in this count}-. The nearest 
settlement to him was the Jordan settlement, 
and that was distant, as we have said, some fif- 
teen or twenty miles. At the edge of a hickory 
grove, on the old Goshen road, he reared his 
lone cabin. It was a double cabin, and com- 
posed of round hickory poles, with a chimney 
and fire-place in the middle. Here he lived 
with his family for several years — Gov. Rey- 
nolds says until 1812 ; other authorities until 
1814—15. All the while they were alone, ex- 
cept an occasional adventurous traveler who 
chanced to pass, or a company on their waj' to 
the Saline for salt. With these exceptions, 
they saw none of their kind. Crusoe on his 
desert island was not more alone than this first 
family of Jefferson County — these lone mari- 
ners of the desert. 

Andrew Moore, from all that is known of 
him, was a pioneer of the true tj'pe. He was 
a self-exile from civilization, as it were, and bj- 
choice a roving nomad, who sought the soli- 
tudes of the pathless woods, the dreariness of 
the desert waste, in exchange for the trammels 
of civilized societj-. Of the latter he could 
not endure its restraints, and he despised its 
comforts and pleasures. He yearned for free- 
dom — freedom in its fullest sense, applied to 
all property, life and everj-thing, here and here- 
after. He had branched out into the wilder- 
ness, cut loose from his kind, and he did not 
burn the bridges behind him, because there 
were none to burn. He hunted, fished, cut 
bee trees, and cultivated a small patch in the 
waj' of a farm. He lived and moved without 
fear of the Indians, and felt as secure in his 
cabin as though it had been a fortified castle ; 
but in everything — every perilous act, every 



dangerous feat — there must be a last one. The 
pitcher went once too often to the fountain, 
and Moore finally- made his last excursion. 

Mr. Johnson thus tells the story of his tragic 
death : " Moore and his son, a boj- some eight 
or ten years of age, went one da}- on horseback 
to Jordan's settlement, to mill, expecting to re- 
turn the same evening or the next day. But 
the nest day passed without bringing the ab- 
sent ones, and after a night of fear and appre- 
hension, Mrs. Moore took her children and set 
off down the path to meet her husband. They 
plodded along until they finally reached the 
mill, when, to their great grief, thej' learned 
from Jordan that Moore and his boj- had got 
their grinding, and had started home in due 
time. The anguish of the poor woman at this 
dismal news was most distressing. She begged 
for help to look for her husband and child, and 
as many as dared leave the settlement at once 
turned out and engaged in the search. For 
several days they scoured the woods along the 
trail, but found no trace of the missing, and 
finally the search was reluctantl}- abandoned. 
Mrs. Moore, desolate and heart-broken, returned 
to her cabin, gathered together her few posses- 
sions, and removed down into the neighborhood 
of the Saline. A few years later, a brother of 
Mrs. Moore, named Bales, his son-in-law, a Mr. 
Fannin, and a Mr. Fipps. a son-in law of Mrs. 
Moore, moved up to the prairie, and Mrs. 
Moore returned with them. A hunting part}- 
some years afterward found a human skull 
stuck upon a snag or broken limb of au elm 
tree, near the creek, and but a mile or two 
south of where Moore had lived. When Mrs. 
Moore heard of this, she said that if it was her 
husband's, it would be known by his having 
lost a certain tooth from his upper jaw. Upon 
examination it was found that that tooth, and 
no other, was lacking. Fully persuaded now 
that it was the scull of her poor, unfortunate 
husband, she took it to her home, and kept it 
sacredly as long as she lived." There is a com- 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



123 



fort and a blessing in the sweet recollection of 
having once been all the world to auotber, and 
with a love such as only a true woman knows, 
Mrs. Moore preserved the ghastly reliu, cher- 
ished it and wept over it, and to her last da^-s 
seemed to take a sad and mournful pleasure in 
showing it to her friends. She fiuall_y returned 
to the old town of Equality, and died there. 

No other intelligence of Moore's fate or that 
of his son was ever received by his family or 
friends. It was the generally accepted theory 
that the Indians surprised them, killed the 
father, and to satisfy their fiendish cruelty, cut 
oS his head, placed it where it was found, and 
carried the boy away into captivity, taking the 
horses and meal with them. The body of the 
murdered man, no doubt, was devoured by wild 
animals. 

Such was the first attempt at a settlement in 
the county, and its tragic and melanchol}' ter- 
mination. The next attempt, and what may 
perhaps, be termed the first permanent settle- 
ment, was in 1816, by Carter Wilkey. About 
the same time or very soon after, Daniel Cren- 
shaw and Robert Cook came to the country. 
All these settled in Moore's Prairie, which re- 
ceived its name from Andrew Moore, whose 
settlement is above noticed. Crenshaw moved 
into Moore's deserted cabin, and Wilkey, who 
was single, boarded at Crenshaw's. Cook set- 
tled in the lower end of the prairie, where Mr. 
Brookins afterward lived. Wilkey was a native 
of (Georgia, but removed from that State to 
Tennessee, where he enlisted in the war of 1812. 
Being under age, his mother succeeded in get- 
ting him out of the armj' after a few months' 
service. Both he and Robert Cook were con- 
nected with a surveying party, engaged in sur- 
veying the lands in this part of the State. A 
Mr. Bcrr)- was the surveyor, and Cook was at- 
tached to his part}' as " baggage master," having 
in charge the tent, camp equipage, etc. Car- 
ter Wilkey was the "commissary" — the hunts- 
man, who furnished the game for the use of the 



party. This surveying was done in 1815, and 
the next spring Wilkey came back to stay, as 
already noted. Crenshaw repaired Moore's 
cabin, and cultivated his improvement, while 
Wilkey raised a crop during the summer of 
1816, in the prairie about a quarter of a mile 
west of Crenshaw's. In the foil. Barton Atchi- 
son came and bought Wilkey 's crop, and set- 
tled near Cook's. Next came Mrs. Wilkey — 
the mother of Carter — and her famil}', Maxey 
Wilkey — an older brother of Carter's — and his 
wife and child. They all arrived at Crenshaw's 
on the 22d of October, 1816, and spent the 
winter in one of his cabins— Crenshaw's wife 
was Mrs. Wilkcy's niece. Thus, at the close 
of the year 1816, the population of the region 
of country now embraced within the limits of 
Jefferson Couuty consisted of five families— 
the Wilkeys, Crenshaws, Cook and Atchison 
and Carter Wilkey, who, though single, was not 
" his own man" — probably less than twenty 
souls. 

A modern writer refers to the first inhabit- 
ants of the Great West as men and women of 
that " hardy race of pioneers to whom the 
perils of the wilderness are as nothing, if only 
that wilderness be free." The eulogium is scarce- 
ly less creditable to the writer than to the sub- 
jects of it. Wliile like produces like, heroic 
men and women will spring fi'om heroic ances- 
tors. And the people of the West, the pioneers 
wh6 peopled this broad domain, were as much 
heroes as though they had swayed the destinies 
of an empire, or commanded the armies of the 
world. Of the first settlers of the county, 
whom we have already mentioned, a few words 
additional are not out of place. 

Maxey Wilkey was a soldier of the war of 
1812, and served in the armies of the North 
until peace was made. He claimed to have 
been at the death of Tecumseh, who was killed 
at the battle of the Thames. This is not un- 
like the story of Washington's servant, inas- 
much as the men who saw the great warrior 



n 



184 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUJsTY. 



pass to the happy hunting-grounds are about 
as numerous as Washington's bodj- servants. 
Though it is not improbable that Mr. Wilke}- 
witnessed it, as he claims to have been in the 
battle of the Thames. The following upon the 
subject is from Johnson's sketches : '• He says 
the Indian was wounded in the thigh, fell 
from his horse, and was surrounded aud taken. 
It was believed that the prisoner was Tecum- 
seh, but he refused to speak. Gen. Harrison 
was called to the spot, recognized the chief, but 
could get no answer from him, aud left him to 
his fate. The soldiers took charge of him, and 
he soon after died. The old man tells me that 
he saw two razor strops taken off the dead In- 
dian's back, and a third from his thigh, that is, 
strips of skin about two by twelve inches in 
size." This story is not only a little " wild," 
but contradictory of i-ecognized histor}-. That 
the old soldier witnessed the circumstance he 
relates maj- not be at all untrue, but that the 
Indian was Tecumseli is most improbable. 

After the close of the war and his discharge 
from the army, Masey "V\'^ilke3- married a Miss 
Caldwell, and came to Illinois, as already stated, 
In the fall of 1816. He was a great hunter, 
and thought far more of the excitement of the 
chase than of the accumulation of worldly 
wealth, hence he remained comparativelj* poor. 
He was an extraordinary man in many respects, 
and his wife was an extraordinarj' woman. She 
was the mother of eighteen children, and in 
that respect she was more extraordinary than 
many of her pioneer lady friends. Mr. John- 
son relates the following of an interview he had 
with Wilkey a short time before his death : 
" His present homestead adjoins the lauds on 
which he settled, aud he and his aged wife live 
nearl)- alone, both, however, are stout and vig- 
orous for people of their age. The old man is 
as erect as a General, and looks about filtj' 
years of age, though upward of eighty. His 
wife, at the time of my visit, was just recover- 
ing from a severe illness. In the course of our 



conversation, he remarked, in his characteristic 
style, ' That woman, sir, that you see lying up- 
on her bunk, is the mother of eighteen children, 
twelve sons and six daughters, and six of the 
sons are still living.' He also stated that he 
was one of the little party that opened out the 
old 'Goshen Trail,' and made it a wagon-road.' 
Carter AViikey, the younger of the two Wil- 
keys, and the first one to come to the county, 
after a few years returned to Tennessee, where 
he learned the carpenter's trade. When he 
came back to Illinois, he still made his home 
with Crenshaw. A great emigration had now 
sprung up from Kentuck}- and Tennessee to the 
" Sangamo country." Emigrations to the mid- 
dle or northern part of the State were termed go- 
ing to the "Sangamo," and it was no uncommon 
sight to see a hundred wagons in a single com- 
pan\- going north. Crenshaw's was the great 
camping-place for emigrants on their way to 
the new promised land. Carter Wilkej- long 
followed the business of going to Carmi, a dis- 
tance of fortj' miles, with two or three pack- 
horses, and bringing back meal to sell to these 
" movers.'' This would seem a small business 
in this dav of railroads, as he could only bring 
two or three sacks of meal at a time, but as he 
sold it at $2 a bushel, it was a lucrative busi- 
ness for that early day. In the meantime. 
Dempsey Wood had moved into the settlement 
with four stalwart sons — John, Ben, Lawson 
and Aleck. Ben was a carpenter, and he and 
Carter Wilkey at once began to work at the 
business in partnership. They built manj of 
the first houses (we do not mean cabins) in the 
countr}-. They built the first house on Jordan's 
Prairie ; the}' built the Clerk's office in Mc- 
Leansboro, the first house erected in that town ; 
they built or helped to build the first bridge 
over Casey's Fork of Muddy Creek. They 
agreed to furnish the lumber for the bridge 
floor by a certain Saturday-, and it was Monday 
morning when they went to work. The amount 
required was 1,660 feet, 2x10 inch-stuli', and 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



125 



all had to be sawed b^' hand with a whip-saw. 
They sawed the lumber, and had it on the 
ground by 10 o'clock on Saturday morning. 

Wilkej- afterward went to Burlington, Iowa, 
where he was engaged for some time in the 
provision and grocery business, then as a drug- 
gist, and finally studied medicine under Dr. 
Hasbrook of that city. He practiced medicine 
for many }'ears, and was a ver}- active and en- 
ergetic business man. He used to trade in 
horses and cattle, and bought up and took many 
hundred of them to the southern markets. He 
was married in 1821 to Miss Brunetta Casey, a 
daughter of Isaac Casey. Of the others of the 
Wilkej' family, a daughter married Abel Allen, 
another one married Jacob Weldon, and another 
a Mr. Robinson. Dick Wilkey, as he was 
called, married a Kirkendale. 

Crenshaw sold out in 1822, and went to Ad- 
ams County, where he afterward died. He was 
a good man and got along well. iS^ot strictly 
religious, but honest and upright, free and lib- 
eral in his views, and believed in the young 
people enjoying themselves, on the principle 
that '• all work and no play makes Jack a dull 
boj'." His cabin was always open to the wan- 
dering minister of Christ, the frontier mission- 
ar}-, who received a warm welcome when he 
called, and was pressed to stay and preach to 
the neighbors, who were hastily- summoned 
from the highways and by-ways of the wilder- 
ness. The young people always found equally 
as warm a welcome when they met there for a 
backwoods frolic and dance. Crenshaw's trade 
was the making of "saddle-trees," and he used 
to make saddles, bringing his materials from 
Carmi. 

Barton Atchison was also in the war of 1812, 
and was a character in his wa}'. He was a 
man who moved ever^'thiug by his own prompt- 
ings ; he knew little or nothing of the rules of 
society and he cared less. He was an honest 
man, and as rough of speech as rough could be 
— a genuine rough diamond. He was long a 



County Commissioner, and held other offices 
to the satisftiction of the people. He was a 
great story-teller, and delighted to relate his 
adventures in the arm3' and elsewhere. Mr. 
Johnson tells the following as one of his arm3' 
stories : " The army was encamped for some 
time at a certain point, and during their stay 
there, he and a companion went out one even- 
ing to take a hunt. It soon began to snow, 
and as they wandered in the pathless woods 
they became bewildered, and night overtook 
them before thej- reached camp. To lie down 
was to freeze, and to walk on was to risk get- 
ting farther away, of rushing into unknown 
dangers, and of finally perishing in the snow. 
At length, to their great joy, they came to an 
old unoccupied cabin, and they hastened to 
take shelter beneath its friendly roof Thej' 
shook off the snow, and were about to wrap their 
mantles around them and lie down to pleasant 
dreams, otherwise roll up in their army blank- 
ets, prepare to pass the night, when Atchi- 
son bethought him that, perchance, the in- 
clemency of the weather miglit bring other 
company, either wild beast or Indian, to the 
cabin, and it prove, after all, a dangerous rest- 
ing place. So finding a part of a loft, two 
courses of boards laid on poles, thej* climbed up 
and made their beds. The wisdom of his 
suggestion \\a.s soon apparent, as in a little 
while a band of Indians came in and took 
possession of the cabin, one of whom was 
the tallest Indian they had ever seen. The 
new-comers kindled a fire, roasted a little meat 
and began a night carousal, After some time 
Atchison shifted his position in order to see a 
little better, wlieu the boards tipped up, and he 
and his companion and the loft all came clatter- 
ing down on the Indians' heads. This was too 
much for a people both cowardly and supersti- 
tious, and they fled in terror and confusion." 

Atchison, as wc have said, was an active man, 
and took considerable interest in county affiiirs. 
He raised a large family, and still has many 



126 



HISTORY OF JEFFEESON COUNTY. 



living descendants in tiie county, of whom 
mucli will be said in other chapters of this 
work. He died a few years ago at an advanced 
age, leaving many warm friends to mourn his 
deatli. At one time and another he held many 
county otBces, and in each and all he was ever 
honest and faithful. His learning, so far as the 
schoolbooks go, was limited and meager, but 
his practical education was good, and was 
gained by daily experience with men and 
things. Such were the men and the families 
who made the first settlement in this county. 
We deem no excuse necessar}- for the extended 
sketch given of these, the first settlers — the 
advance guard, as it were, of the grand army of 
emigrants who have followed, and in the years 
that have come and gone, have given to Jefler- 
son Country a population not surpassed by any 
count}- in the State. 

The next settlement made after those already 
described was made in the fall of 1816 by a 
man named Thompson. He did not remain 
long, however, and of him very little is known. 
In the winter following (1816-17), several fami- 
lies moved into the new settlement. Of these 
were Theophilus Cook, the Widow Hicks and a 
few others. Cook settled near Sloo's Point.* 

He had served in the war of 1812, and was 
a man whom everybody that knew him loved 
and honored him. His Christian character was 
pure, and so far as man can judge, without spot 
or blemish. As a husband, father, neighbor, 
friend, he lived above reproach. He left a 
familj' of five sons and six daughters, several 
of whom are still living. 

Mrs. Hicks was the widow of John Hicks, 
one of the seven men who fell in the battle of 
New Orleans January 8, 1815. Hicks was 

* Regarding the name of Sloo's Point, Mr. Johnson, in his 
sketches, says: "Almost as soon as this county was surveyed, 
Thomas Sloo of Shawneetown, came in and entered about one hun- 
dred quarter-sections of land in diflerent parts of what is now Jeffereon 
County. John T. Johnson lives on one of these quarter-sections ; on 
the southenstern part of Moore's Prairie was a long point of timl)er, 
lying on the waters of Uchshire's Creek; and Sloo had entered a 
good deal of the land in this vicinity — iienco the name. Among 
other entries, I believe, was the laud on which William Scrivner 

liVOB." 



standing by the side of Theophilus Cook when 
he received his death wound. He left three 
children, Stephen G. and two daughters. After 
the war was over. Carter Wilkey, who was a 
brother of Mrs. Hicks, visited her in Georgia, 
where she lived, and induced her to remove 
with her family to Illinois. It was a terrible 
journey to be made in winter in that early day, 
and rendered doubly so by the hostile demon- 
strations frequently' made by the faithless In- 
dians. They finally arrived, however, in safety. 
It was about this time that a man named Hodge 
moved in and settled on the place where Abra- 
ham Irvin afterward lived for many years. Mrs. 
Robinson came about the same time, as also 
Fannin, Fipps, Bales and Mrs. Moore, widow 
of Andrew Moore (whose murder by the In- 
dians has alreadj' been noticed), moved back 
to Moore's Prairje. 

The settlements so far described were made 
in that portion of Jefferson County originally 
belonging to White Count}-. The northern line 
of White Count}' then ran about four miles 
south of the present city of Mount Vernon, 
dividing Township 3 south, and extending west 
to the Third Principal Meridian, and all north 
of that line was in Edwards County. Moore's 
Prairie, where the first settlement of the county 
began, was in the northwest part of White 
County. The next settlement we shall notice 
sprang up in what was then the southwestern 
part of Edwards County, and was in the im- 
mediate vicinity of Mount Vernon. 

The circumstances which led to the second set- 
tlement were somewhat as follows : Some time 
about the spring of 1816, a man of the name 
of Black came up from Pope County, on a 
hunt, and upon his return told fabulous 
stories of the country he had seen, and es- 
pecially of a beautiful prairie where perennial 
flowers seemed to bloom, and the richest lux- 
uriance gave token of an earthly paradise. 
His "description of the fruitful lands ho had 
visited excited in his neighbors and friends a 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOiSr COINTY. 



127 



burning desire to see and learn for themselves. 
Among others to whom he related his wonder- 
ful stories were the Caseys, who lived near 
Cave-in-Rock, and thev at once determined to 
visit this fabled land. In the fall following 
the trip of Black to this section, the Caseys 
came on a tour inspection. This was the first 
sight any of the Caseys had of what is now 
Jefferson County. 

Isaac Casey and two sons, William and 
Thomas, in the autumn of 1816, started out to 
visit Black's Prairie, of which he had given so 
glowing an account. They missed it, however, 
nor did the}- strike any prairie until they came 
to the small one in which Mount Vernon was 
afterward built. They stopped at Crenshaw's, 
and he, glad to meet new-comers, as all pio- 
neers were, accompanied them in their search 
of locations. They went a few miles beyond 
where Mount Vernon is situated, and then re- 
turned to Crenshaw's and finally home. The 
following spring, Isaac Casey came back, and 
his son William, his daughter Katy, and his 
son-in-law, Isaac Hicks, came with him for the 
purpose of founding a settlement. They built 
a cabin or camp in the open prairie, and culti- 
vated a small patch of ground near where the 
Methodist Church now stands. While thus en- 
camped in the prairie, they had no trouble in 
procuring meat, as game was abundant; honey, 
too, was more abundant still. But bread was 
a serious matter, and to procure it Mr. Casej- 
and his daughter would go on horseback to 
the Wabash bottoms beyond Carmi for meal. 
He would ride one horse and lead one, while his 
daughter would ride another, and thus three 
" turns " of meal would be brought back. In 
the fall, they all returned to the Ohio River, 
where they had come from, and brought out 
tJie rest of their families, their stock and such 
other property as they possessed. William Casey 
moved into the camp or cabin above referred 
to, Isaac Casey erected his cabin near by and 
Isaac Hicks located near the place where he 



died ; other families followed soon after. Kellj' 
settled on the hill and remained there until the 
capital of the State was moved to Vandalia. 
He then moved to that place and became an 
officer in the first bank ever established there. 
An old man named H}-nes settled a little west 
of Kelly, out on the Goshen road, where for 
some years he kept a public house; afterward he 
moved up North, where he died. Further up the 
Goshen road, William Goings settled. He was 
considered a bad man ; he made millstones, 
and it was believed that he made counterfeit 
money, too. He was finally, after the settle- 
ment had increased a little more, given warn- 
ing to leave the countr}-, a warning he obeyed 
with alacrit}', and in his vacant house many 
relics of the counterfeiting business, it is said, 
were found. James and John Abbott. John 
Utesler, Mr. StuU and Archibald Harris came 
in during the latter part of the year 1817. 
They were from Orange County, Ind., and upon 
their arrival here they settled in the neighbor- 
hood above noticed. 

Zadok Casey, of whom we shall have more 
to say hereafter, came in the spring of 
1817 and settled on the place where Mr. J. 
R. Moss now lives. He reared his cabin on a 
slight elevation of land, which he called Red 
Bud Hill. Abraham Casey, his brother, came 
the next year, and settled near where Joseph 
Pace lives. A son, Clark Casej', came with him 
and settled on what is called the ' Mulberry 
Hill." Lewis Watkins settled about a mile 
south of the Atchison place, where he sold goods 
for a time. Thomas Jordan located in the 
edge of the prairie which was named for him. 
The place is now known as the McConnell 
place, and his brother William settled in the 
edge of Moore's Prairie. William Jordan, Jr., 
settled on Seven Mile Creek, and Oliver Morris 
settled near Joseph Jordan's first location. 

While these accessions were being made to 
the new settlements, another, and a quite im- 
portant one, was on the waj-. This was a Ten- 



128 



HISTORY OF JEFFEKSON COUNTY. 



nessee colony of six families, consisting of 
William Maxey, James E. Davis, James John- 
son, Nathaniel Parker, John Wilkerson and H. 
B. Maxey. They organized themselves into a 
colony, and all started from William Maxey's, 
in Tennessee, and quite a lively trip they had 
of it. Fipps, who lived in Knight's Prairie, was 
the only man they found between the Saline 
and Crenshaw's, where they stopped. They 
arrived May 9, 1818, and camped in the edge 
of Moore's Prairie. Here they raised a small 
crop in the edge of the prairie, inclosed with a 
brush fence, and in the fall they moved up to 
the other settlement — all except Parker, who 
did not relish the gloomy aspect of the country, 
and moved back to Allen County, Ky. James 
Johnson settled near the place where he died ; 
Wilkerson, where Simon King afterward lived ; 
William Maxey, at the old Maxey place, and 
II. B. Maxey in the little prairie where Ward 
now lives. James E. Davis settled where Sam 
Edwards afterward lived. In September fol- 
lowing the arrival of this colony, Edward 
Maxej- moved into the settlement. He came 
from Allen County, Ky., and settled on the 
branch, northeast of what is now Judge Satter- 
field's farm, on the present Richview road. 
About the same time, Fleming Greenwood 
came ; his son-in-law lived near what is now 
Thomas McMeen's place. James and William 
Hicks also came during the fall or winter. 
James bought Clark Casey's place on Mulberrj' 
Hill ; William was single, but afterward mar- 
ried the Widow Dodds. 

According to the historical sketches of Mr. 
Johnson, from which we have so often quoted, 
and which are considered bj- the old citizens 
generallj- to be substantially correct, the fore- 
going is believed to comprise a very full and 
complete list of the families who settled within 
the present limits of the territory of Jefferson 
prior to its organization as a distinct and in- 
dependent county. There may have been a 
few who came and remained but a short time, 



and then left, but as to permanent settlers, the 
list, perhaps, is as nearly correct as it is pos- 
sible to make now, after all these years. 

Illinois was still a Territor}- when the first 
white people came to Jefferson County. These 
early settlers were men inured to toil and 
danger. They had been reared, manj' of them, 
amid scenes of peril and savage warfare, where 
the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther, 
and the yell of the Indian were familiar music 
to their ears. Some of them had not reached 
life's meridian, but they were hopeful, cour- 
ageous and determined. They were poor in 
actual worth, but rich in possibilities, and were 
read}' to face danger and endure cold and hun- 
ger, if a home stood at the end of their journey 
beckoning them on. For the grand simplicity 
of their lives and their sturd}' virtue, these 
early settlers achieved recognition and fame, as 
Enoch Arden did — after death. It was their 
lot to plant civilization here, and in doing it 
they displayed virtues which render modern 
civilization a boast and a blessing. In their 
little space of time they made greater progress 
than ten centuries had witnessed before. The 
work thirtj' generations had left undone they 
performed, and the abyss between us of to-day 
and the pioneers of Jetferson County is wider 
and more profound than the chasm between 
1815 and the battle of Hastings. They did so 
much that it is hard to recognize the doers. 
" They builded wiser than they knew," and the 
monuments to their energy and industry still 
stand in perpetuation of their memory. 

The first settlements of the' county were made 
under difficulties, and amid hardships and dan- 
gers. As we have said, the people were poor. 
The}' had come here with a meager outfit of 
this world's goods, expecting to increase their 
stores and provide homes for their children. 
Some of their experiences in their new homes 
are thus detailed by Mr. Johnson, the faithful 
chronicler of the early history of the countj' : 

" The farms, as in most new countries, were 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



130 



mere patches, inclosed with rails or brush, and 
sometimes not inclosed at all. The houses 
were round-pole cabins, but in rare cases made 
of small logs — '• skelped down," or very slightly 
hewn, sometimes of split logs smoothed a little 
on the face. Some of the cracks in the wall 
were chinked and daubed, while some were left 
open to admit light and serve as windows. 
Some of the cabins had cracks all around that 
a dog could jump through. If the floor was 
anything else than the bare ground, it was made 
of puncheons or slabs, fastened down with 
wooden pins, or not fastened at all. * * * 
* * Shelves resting on long pins in the walls 
answered for cupboard, pantry, bureau and 
wardrobe. There were but few bedsteads in 
the county. Bed scaffolds were made on two 
rails or pieces driven into the walls, one for the 
side and one for the end, in the corner of the 
cabin, the other end of these rails being let into 
a post — the entire structure frequently having 
but one bed-post. Boards were laid across 
from the long rail to the wall, and on these the 
bed, if the happy family had any, was laid. 
The table was either made of boards nailed to 
a rough, unwieldy frame, or it was made on 
stakes driven into the (ground) floor. The well- 
to-do had a pot and a skillet ; some broiled 
their meat on the coals, and cooked their 
" Johnnj'-cake " on a board. The cook-stove 
is a modern invention, and was then unknown 
in the West. 

" Isaac and William Casej' constructed a little 
hand-mill that would grind a bushel or two a 
day, and the}- did well. But many of the first 
settlers had to beat their meal in a mortar, 
which was generally a stump with a basin 
burnt out in the top of it. The meal thus made 
was sifted through a sieve made by punching a 
piece of deer-skin full of holes with a hot 
wheel-spindle, and stretching it (the deer-skin, 
not the spindle) over a hoop. In the early 
autumn, meal vpas grated, and the bread made 



of this meal and baked in the ashes, or on a 

board, was as delicious as heart could wish. 

■»■******» 

'■ Most of the hats and caps were made of 
skins, often of the most fantastic shape. After 
the original supply of clothing was exhausted, 
the first resource was to make clothing of deer- 
skins. These in the hands of the Indians made 
excellent clothing; but our first settlers were 
not such good tanners, and the clothes did not 
do so well. The breeches soon got a tremen- 
dous knee, that was a permanent thing. When 
'' Aunt Pranky " Johnson was coming out, she 
saw a boy in Moore's Prairie dressed in buck- 
skin, and she exclaimed in the .sincerity of her 
kind heart : " Why, la me, honey, just look at 
that poor crippled boy ! " When the men or 
boys, in their buckskin suits, went out in the 
dewy grass, their breeches' legs would soon be 
dangling around their feet, nearly a foot too 
long ; and then about ten o'clock, when they 
became dry again, they crackled and rustled 
about their legs nearly a foot too short. After 
the first year or two, however, when people had 
time to raise cotton, buckskin gave way to cot- 
ton goods, the latter being died with copperas, 
the copperas being mingled with white when 
variety was desired. People made their own 
indigo. The plant they used was bruised and 
kept in soak for some time, then wrung out ; 
the fluid was churned with a basket to cut the 
indigo, then left to settle, and afterward dried 
in the sun. The article to " set " the dye was 
such as to make it an unpleasant process, and 
such as to sometimes draw the buffiilo gnats 
around one's Sunday clothes in a most provok- 
ing manner." * * » * * 

Such was the life, and such the trials of the 
first settlers of Jefl'erson County — men who 
wrought for their successors the richest and 
most enduring legacy in all the world. Most 
of them have served out tiieir day and genera- 
tion, and have passed away. Their graves, 
many of them, are unmarked and unknown, and 



130 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



their fast receding memories are unhonored 
and unsung. They deserve better than this. 
Justice demands that a meed of praise be 
awarded those great lives whose works will 
ripen, and are ripening into the noblest civili- 
zation the world has ever known. 

In a subsequent chapter we shall give ex- 
tended sketches of these pioneer families, whose 
settlements have been here noticed. Man}- of 
the men who came here in that early day were 
giants, and it is meet that they should receive 
their deserts from the pen of the historian. 
Their country's historj- demands that their 
names, their acts and their deeds shall be 



placed on record, and preserved for the gener- 
ations to come. 

It has been said that the American people 
take as natural!}- to self-government as a babe 
turns to the maternal fount for nourishment. 
The truthfulness of the remark is evidenced in 
the fact that new counties are formed when 
their area contain but a few hundred inhabit- 
ants. Thus far we have shown the number of 
families locating in Jefferson Count}- prior to 
its organization, and with which we will close 
this chapter. In a new chapter we will give 
the formation of the county, and the circum- 
stances which led to the same. 



CHAPTER lA".* 



ILLINOIS A COUNTY OF VIRGINIA— JOHN TODD, THE FIR.ST CIVIL GOVERNOR— ORGANIZATION OF 

JEFFERSON COUNTY- THE LEGISLATIVE ACT CREATING IT— LOCATION OF THE SEAT 

OF JUSTICE— FIRST OFFICIALS— THE COURTS— PUBLIC BUILDINGS— CENSUS 

—THE COUNTY DIVIDED INTO DISTRICTS— COUNTY OFFICERS— 

J. R. SATTER FIELD— TOWNSHIP ORGANIZATION, ETC. 



rr^HAT Illinois, now one of the greatest 
J- States of the Federal Union, once 
formed a county of Virginia is a fact un- 
known, perhaps, to a majority of our readers. 
In October, 1778, the General Assembly of 
Virginia jiassed an act for " establishing the 
county of Illinois, and for the more effectual 
protection and defense thereof." A clause of 
the act reads: " That all the citizens of this 
commonwealth, who are already settled, or 
shall hereafter settle on the western side of 
the Ohio and east of the l^Iississippi, shall be 
included in a distinct county, which shall be 
called Illinois County." By the provisions 
of the act, the Governor of Virginia was to 
appoint " a County Lieutenant or Comman- 
dant in Chief," who should " appoint and 

»By W. H. Perrin. 



commission so many Deputy Commandants, 
Militia officers and Commissaries," as he 
should deem expedient, for the enforcement 
of law and order. The civil officers were to 
be chosen by a majority of the people, and 
were to " exercise their several jurisdictions 
and conduct themselves agi'eeable to the laws 
which the present settlers are now accus- 
tomed to. " 

Patrick Henry, the first Governor of Vir- 
ginia after the colonies had thrown off the 
galling yoke of Britain, appointed John 
Todd the County Lieutenant Commandant of 
Illinois. At Williamsburg, the capital then 
of Virginia, and in the very mansion of the 
royal rulers of the whilom colony, Gov. 
Henry indicted his letter of appointment to 
Todd on the 12th of December, 1778. It 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



131 



occupies the fii-sfc five pages of the record 
book of John Todd's official acts while exer- 
cising authority over the connty of Illinois, 
and is in Patrick Henry's own hundwi-iting. 
This old book, a Valuable relic of the early 
history of Illinois, is now in the possession 
of the Chicago Historical Society. From its 
pages, browned by time and dimmed with 
age, some interesting facts are gleaned. The 
following, of the first civil Grovernor of Illi- 
nois, is not out of place in this connection: 

Todd was not unknown on the fi'ontier. 
Born in Pennsylvania and educated in Vir- 
ginia, he had practiced law in the latter col- 
ony for several years, when, in 1775, he re- 
moved to Kentuek}', which was then, also, a 
county of Virginia. He became very prom- 
inent in the councils of its House of Del- 
egates, or Representatives, the first legisla- 
tive body organized west of the Alleghany 
Mountains. Early in 1777, the first court in 
Kentucky convened at Harrodsburg, and 
Todd was one of the Justices. Shortly after, 
he was chosen one of the Representatives of 
Kentucky in the Legislature of Virginia, and 
proceeded to the capital to fulfill this daty. 
The following year he accompanied Gen. 
George Rogers Clark in his expedition to 
" the Illinois," and was the first man to en- 
ter Fort Gage, at Kaskaskia, when it was 
taken from the British, and was present at 
the final capture of Vincennes. 

The record book already referred to of it- 
self forms an interesting chapter in the his- 
tory of Illinois. After Gov. Henry had in- 
dicted upon its pages his letter to Todd, it 
was intrusted to a faithful messenger, who, 
on foot, carried it from tide water across the 
mountains to Fort Pitt, thence down the 
Ohio until he met with its destined recipient 
and delivered to him his credentials. It is 
supposed that Todd received it at Vincennes, 
then known to Virginians as St. Vincent, not 



long after the siu-render of that place to 
Clark on the 24th of February, 1779, and 
that he at once assumed his new duties as 
Governor, or " Lieutenant Commandant." 
This position he held until the time of his 
death, although his many duties called him 
frequently to Kentucky. In the spi'ing of 
1780, he was elected a Delegate from the 
county of Kentucky to the Legislature of 
Virginia. In November following, Kentucky 
was divided into three counties, viz., Fayette, 
Lincoln and Jefferson, and in 1781 Thomas 
Jefiferson, who, in the meantime, had become 
Governor of Virginia, [appointed Todd 
Colonel of Fayette County, and Daniel 
Boone, Lieutenant Colonel. In the summer 
of 1782. Todd visited Richmond, Va., on 
business connected with the Illinois country, 
where, it is said, he had determined to per- 
manently reside, and on his return he stopped 
over at Lexington, Ky., jmd while there 
met his untimely death. An Indian attack 
on a frontier settlement (Bryant Station) 
aroused the militia to arms, and Todd, as 
Senior Colonel, took command of the little 
army sent in pursuit of the retreating sav- 
ages. It included Boone and many other 
pioneers whose names rank high in the his- 
tory of the dark and bloody ground. At the 
Blue Licks, on the 18th of August, 1782, 
they came up with the enemy, but the head- 
long courage of those who would not heed 
the prudent counsels of Todd and Boone 
precipitated an action which proved more 
disastrous to the whites than any ever fought 
in Kentucky soil — that sanguinary theater of 
savage wai-fare. More than one-third of 
those who entered the .fight were killed out- 
right and many others wounded. Among 
the slam was Todd, who fell, like the brave 
man that he was, with his face to the foe, 
gallantly fighting at the head of his troops. 
On the brow of a small hill overlooking Blue 



132 



HISTOHY OF JEFFERSON COUXTY. 



Licks, and near the spot where he fell, still 
rejJosG the mortal remains of the first civil 
Governor of Illinois. August 18, 1882, the 
centennial of the disastrous battle of Blue 
Licks was held on the field where it was 
fought, and a resoluton adopted to erect a 
monument to the heroes that there fell in 
defense of their country. 

John Todd was a soldier and a statesman. 
He was a soldier fit to stand by the mightiest 
and give command. He was a statesman 
tried and true, and marvelously adapted to 
the times and surroundings amid which he 
lived. Just such as he was he had to be, to 
fulfill the mission to which far-seeing wis- 
dom had appointed him, and to blaze out the 
way for the C(jming hosts of civilization who 
were to people tjiis great Northwest. His 
tragic death, in the prime of life, was a cal- 
amity to the nation just struggling up from 
the tires of a mighty revolution, and a loss 
not easily repaired in that early period of our 
history. 

Upon the organization of the Northwest 
Territory, Gen. Arthur St. Clair was ap- 
pointed Governor. In the spring of 1790, 
in company with the Territorial Judges, he 
went to Cahokia, where, by proclamation, 
he organized the county of St. Clair, the 
first individual coiinty formed in what is now 
the State of Illinois, and ius seat of justice 
Was fixed at Easkaskia. Eandolph was the 
next county created in Illinois; and the date 
of its organization extends back to 1795. 
These were the only counties formed until 
after the dawning of the nineteenth century. 
At the session of the Territorial Legislature 
of 1811-12, Madison, Gallatin and Johnson 
were organized, and Edwards at the session 
of 1814. At the session of 1816, White, 
Jackson, Moni-oe, Pope and Crawford were 
organized, and at the last session of the Ter- 
ritorial Legislature Franklin, Washington, I 



Union, Bond and Wayne came into existence. 
At the first session of the Legislature after 
Illinois was admitted into the Union as a 
State. Jefiferson County was formed, under 
the following act entitled an act for foi-ming 
a separate county out of Edwards and White 
Counties, approved March 26, 1819: 

Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois 
represented in the General Assembly, That all that 
tract of country within the following boundaries, 
to wit : Beginning where the line between Ranges 
4 and 5 east intersects the base line; thence west 
with said line to .the Third Principal Jferldian; 
thence south twenty-four miles; thence east twenty- 
four miles; thence north to the place of beginning, 
shall constitute a separate county, to be called 
"Jefferson," and for the purpose of fixing the per- 
manent seat of justice therein the following persons 
are appointed Commissioners : Ambrose Maulding, 
Lewis Barker, Robert Shipley, James A. Richard- 
.son and Richard Graham, which said Commission- 
ers, or a majoritj' of them, being duly sworn before 
some Judge or Justice of the Peace in this State to 
faithfully take into view the convenience of the 
people, the situation of the settlement, with an eye 
to future population, and the eligibility of the place, 
shall meet on the 2d Jlonday of May, at the house of 
William Casey, in said county, and proceed to ex- 
amine and determine on the place for the perma- 
nent seat of justice and designate the satne; pro- 
vided: The proprietor or proprietors of the land 
shall give to the county for the purpose of erecting 
public buildings a quantity of land, not less than 
twenty acres, to be laid out in lots and sold for that 
purpose; but should the proprietor or proprietors 
I'efuse or neglect to make the donation aforesaid, 
then and in that case it shall be the duty of said 
Commissioners to fix on some other place for the 
seat of justice as convenient as may be to the in- 
habitants of said county, which place fixed and de- 
termined upon, the said Commissioners shall certify 
under their hands and seals and return the same to 
the next Commissioners' Court in the county afore- 
said, which court shall cause an entry thereof to be 
made in their book of record, and until the public 
buildings be erected the courts shall be held at the 
house of William Casey, in the said county. 

Sec 2. Be it further enacted. That the Com- 
missioners aforesaid shall receive a compensation of 
two dollars for each and every day they maj' be 
necessarily emploj'ed in fixing the aforesaid seat of 




"^CiA,^ ,1) . /g .U^^OL^ 



LIBRARY 
■ THE 
ONiVERSITY OF ',U>NO!S 



HISTOllY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY- 



135 



justice, to be paid out of the county treasury by an 
order from the Commissioners' Court. 

Sec. 3. Be it further enacted. That tlie citizens 
of Jefferson County are hereby declared entitled. 
in all respects, to the same rights and privileges 
a.s are allowed in general with the other counties 
in this State. 

Sec. 4. Be it further enacted, That the county 
of Jefferson shall vote in conjunction with White 
County for Representatives to the General Assembly 
of the State, and it shall be the duty of the Clerks 
of sai<l counties to meet at the court house in White 
County, within ten days after such elections, and 
make a certificate, signed by both Clerks, to the 
persons duly elected; and if the said Clerks shall 
fail to do the same they shall forfeit and pay the 
sura of one hundred dollars, for the use of said 
counties, to be recovered l)y action of debt in the 
countj' in which such delinquent Clerk may reside. 

Six. 5. Be it further enacted. That the county 
of Jefferson shall be and compose a part of the Sec- 
ond Judicial Circuit, and the courts shall be holdcn 
therein at such times as shall be specified l)y law. 

This was followed by a supplemental act, 
entitled " An act supplemental to an act for 
laying off a new county out of the counties of 
Edwards and ^\'hite," approved March 29, 
1819, and is as follows: 

Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, 
reprenented in the General Aasemhly, That all that 
tract or part of country lying nortli of the county 
of Jefferson and west of the county of Wayne, and 
not included within Ihelimits of the said counties of 
Jefferson and Wayne, established by the act to 
whicli this is a supplement, l)e and the same is 
liereby attaclied to and forms a part of the said 
county of Jefferson, and that tlic inliabitants there- 
of have and enjoy all the rights and privileges, as 
far as may be, that the inhabitants of the county of 
.lelferson have and enjoy. 

Sec. 3. Be it further enacted, That the county 
of Jefferson be and the same is hereby attached to 
the Fourth Judicial Circuit of the State, etc., etc. 

The county was named in honor of Thomas 
Jefferson, the third President of the United 
States, and who was inaugurated into office 
on the 4th of March, 1801. He was born at 
Shadwoll, Albemarle Co., Va., April 2, 1743, 
and died at Monticello, his country seat, July 



4, 1826, just half a century after the adop- 
tion of the Declaration of Independence, a 
document penned by his own hand, and 
which has rendered his name immortal, and 
dear to every liberty-loving citizen of the 
whole country. Jefferson's administration 
was very popular, and he was elected to a 
second term, receiving more than three- 
fourths of the votes in the electoral college. 
During his first term, the afterward noto- 
rious Aaron Burr was Vice President, and 
during the second, George Clinton was asso- 
ciated with him as Vice President. 

On the 30th of March, 1819, two other 
acts were passed by the Legislature, pertain- 
ing wholly or in part to Jefferson County. 
Tlie first authorized Lewis Watkins to admin- 
ister the required oaths to all officors com- 
missioned for the county; and the other or- 
dered an election in Wayne, Jefferson. .Clark 
and Alexander Counties, to be held on the 
fom-th Monday of April, for County Commis- 
sioners, Sheriffs and Coroners. The Coroner 
then was an important officer, as, in the ab- 
sence or inability of the Sheriff to serve, the 
Coroner acted in his stead until the Sheriff 
resumed his duties. 

In pursuance of the last-mentioned act, 
an election was held at the house of William 
Casey, which stood where the brick building 
recently known as Taylor's Commercial 
Hotel now stands. Some thirty or forty 
votes were cast; and Zadok Casey, Joseph 
Jordan and Fleming Greenwood were elected 
Commissioners, and Lewis Watkins, Sheriff. 
The Commissioners met at William Casey's 
on Monday, June 7, for the purpose of or 
ganizing the county court. Their certifi- 
cates of election were signed by Oliver Mor- 
ris and Lewis Watkins, Justices of the 
Peace, and attested by Edward Maxoy, act- 
ing Clerk of the Court; they were then duly 
sworn into office. Edward Maxey, the Clerk 

3 



136 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUXTY. 



pro tempore, resigned, and the court appoint- 
ed Joel Pace to the office of County Clerk. 
He gave bond in the sum of $1,000, with 
James Kelly and Isaac Casey as securities. 

This comjjleted the organization of the 
county, and it was now ready for business. 

The Seat of Justice. — One of the first 
matters which engaged the attention of the 
court was the location of the seat of justice 
according to the provisions of the act for the 
formation of the county. As soon as the 
court convened, the Commissioners appointed 
for that purpose presented the following re- 
port: 

According to an act of the General Assembly, 
approved March 26, 1819. appointing certain Com- 
missioners to meet on the second Monday of May. 
at the liouse of William Casey, for the purpose of 
fixing a permanent seal of justice for and in Jeffer- 
son County, the following persons met. viz. ; Lewis 
Barker. Ambrose Maulding and James A. Richard- 
son, who. after being duly sworn, have proceeded, 
determined and fixed upon the southwest quarter of 
Section 29. Range 3, of Township 2, on the land 
owned by William Casey, the town to be laid off in 
the southwest corner of said quarter, to commence 
near the timber, on a point not far distant from 
Casey's house, and thence to the foot of the de 
scent on a point on which Casey's house stands, or 
in such a manner as said County Commissioners 
shall designate. Given under our hands and seals 
this 12th day of May. 1819. 

J.A.MES A. RtCHARDSOS. 

Ambrose Maulding. 
Lewis B.a^rkek. 

This report was accompanied by the follow- 
ing paper, confirmatory of Casey having com- 
plied with the require:n3nt3 of the twenty 
acre-clause of the legislative act: 

Personally appeared before us the subscriber, 
William Casej'. and made a donation of twenty 
acres of laud, to be Liid off in town lots and sold for 
the purpose of paying for public buildings in the 
county of Jefferson, which twenty acres of land shall 
be laid off bj- the County Commissioners on the land 
designated by the Commissioners appointed by the 
State Legislature for fi.Kiug the permanent seat of 
justice for said Jefferson County. Whereof the 



said William Casey has hereunto set his hand and 
seal this 12th day of May, in the year of our Lord 
one thousand eight hundred and nineteen. 

William Casey. 

N. B. Provided such Commissioners shall lay 
off said town so as not to include said Casey's house 
and farm. 

James A. Richardson, 
[Attest] Ambrose Maulding, 

Lewis Barker. 

The report of the Commissioners was re- 
ceived, and the selection made by them be- 
cams the seat of justice of the new county, 
an honor which it has retained to the present 
day. There was, as is always the case, some 
little dissatisfaction at the selection thus 
made. Mr. Isaac Hicks wanted it near him, 
and offered a site known as " Post Oak Hill," 
which was a fraction nearer the geographical 
center of the county. Another " eligible lo- 
cation " was on the high grounds between 
Mrs. Samuel Casey's and Mrs. Dodds' resi- 
dence. But Lewis Barker, one of the Com- 
missioners, was the father-in-law of William 
Casey, and there were hints at the time that 
it was through his influence the present site 
was selected. Be that as it may, the loca- 
tion selected is a beautiful one for a town, 
and could scarcely be surpassed by any of the 
other sites offered. For their services in 
" fixing the permanent seat of justice," the 
court allowed Maulding S8, and Barker and 
Richardson §512 each. Maulding lived in 
Hog Prairie, a little this side of the present 
town of McLeansboro ; Barker owned the 
ferry at Cave-in-Kock, and Richardson lived 
in the vicinity of Carmi. Of the laying-out 
of the seat of justice, and its growth and de- 
volopment as a town, the reader is referred 
to the chapters devoted to ilount Yernon. 

The Courts. — Thus the county court was 
organized, the seat of justice established and 
the legal machinery of the newly created 
municipality put in motion. The first ses 
sion of the coui-t was taken up with the re- 



HISTORY OF JEFPEKSON COUNTY. 



137 



port of the Commissioners for locating the 
seat of justice, as already noticed; James 
Kelly and Jacob Barger applied for a writ 
to condemn a " mill seat;" license for retail- 
ing goods was fixed at $15, and the Clerk em- 
powered to issue them when called on for the 
same; the laying off a town ordered, also the 
building of a court house, etc., etc. At the 
second session of the coui-t, held June 25, 
1819, James Kelly was appointed County 
Treasurer; a list of the taxable property was 
ordered; Lewis Watkins took out tavern 
license, for which he paid a fee of $-4. At 
the third term of court, held September 6, 
among other business, the court house was 
received and the survey of the town ordered 
to be recorded. Also, W. Casey and J. Pace 
were ordered to " stake out" the town, and 
several roads ordered to be viewed and laid 
out. In this humble and unpretentious way, 
the county moved along quietly. The busi 
ness coming before the county court was of 
a general character, as above given, and 
was dispatched without much debate or 
wrangling. The last session held by this 
(the first) board, tavern keepers' rates of 
charges were fixed as follows: A single meal, 
37i cents; lodging, 12|^ cents: keeping horse 
all night, 50 cents; a single feed, 25 cents. 
The first term of the Circuit Court convened 
in the town of Mount Yernon (then compris- 
ing but four cabins) on Monday, October 28, 
1819, Hon. William Wilson as Judge and F. 
A. Hubbard, State's Attorney. Joel Pace was 
sworn as Clerk, and gave bond in the sum of 
$2,000. Lewis Watkins was Sheriff, and 
gave bond in the sum of .?10,000, with Zadok 
Casey, Joseph Jordan and John Wilkerson, 
secui'ities. But thirteen men could be found, 
outside of the officers of the court, to serve 
as grand jurors. These were as follows: 
Edward Maxey, F. McBride, J. C. Casey, 
W. Jordan, L, Johnson, A. P. Casev, John 



Wilkerson, H. P. Maxey, Isaac Casey, James 
Johnson, S. Gaston, J. Lee and A. Harris. 
After receiving the usual charge from the 
court, they repaired to the jury room, which, 
in this case, was "G'id's first temples," and 
after an hour's deliberation returned into 
court, presented the indictments and were 
discharged. The next term of court was held 
on the 15th and 16th of May, 1820, Judge 
Wilson again presiding, and Henry Eddy 
acting as State's Attorney. But we will not 
follow the prooeadings of tho courts, as our 
readers would find them, doubtless, dry 
reading. The brief extracts have been made 
merely to show the commencement and or- 
ganization of this important branch of the 
county's machinery. 

Public Buildings. — At the first term of the 
County Commissioners' Court, it was resolved 
to build a court house. This building was 
unpretentious, but it served the purpose of 
those early days when we were not as proud 
as we are now. It was of hewed logs, and 
was 18x30 feet in dimensions. A stray 
pound was ordered, and at the February term, 
1820, the court ordored a jail to be built. 
These early public buildings, however, will 
be noticed by Mr. Johnson, in his sketch of 
Mount Vernon, and all the facts pertaining 
to them and their successors will there be 
given. The part they bear in the organiza- 
tion of the county requires some reference to 
them in this connectiim, but this brief allu- 
,sion must suffice. 

Among the first acts of the court was laying 
off the county into civil divisions. At first 
it was divided into two districts, or town- 
ships, called respectively " Moore's Prairie" 
and "Casey's Prairie." At the Juue term 
of the court, in 1820, Walnut Hill Precinct 
or Township was formed It included all of 
Jefferson and Marion Counties north of the 
line dividing Townships 1 and 2 south. The 



138 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



next change in the civil divisions, of which 
we find any account, is in June, 1832, when 
Grand Prairie Precinct was formed. It was 
in the northwest part of the county, and was 
eight miles square. The voting place was 
fixed at Poston's mill. In June, 1834, Horse 
Creek Precinct was laid oif. It extended 
seven miles from the east line of the county, 
and was bounded north by the county line 
and south by the Fairfield road. The voting 
place was at Frank Haney's. Gun Prairie 
Precinct was formed in 1835. It began, the 
records say, where the "new hurricane" 
crossed the west line of the county, " ran 
with the hiu'ricane to Morgan's mill, to A. 
Toney's, to W. Toney's, to the edge of 
Moore's Prairie, and on to the south line of 
the county." The voting place was to be at 
the house of William King. The next pre- 
cinct was formed in 1845. and was called 
Long Prairie. It was bounded by the West 
and Middle Forks of Muddy River and the 
Grand Prairie road, with the voting place 
at the house of H. Hicks. In 1846, Elk 
Prairie Precinct was formed. Its bounds 
were from the mouth of Dodd's Creek to 
Mendenhall's quarry, west to Middle Fork, 
down it to the county line, then up the creek 
to the beginniag. The voting place was fixed 
at J. Kelly's. A.t the same time. New 
Moore's Prairie Precinct was formed, includ- 
ing Township 4 and Range 4, with voting 
place at Wilbank's. With, perhaps, a few 
other changes in names and boundaries and 
geographical position, the county moved on 
for several decades, under the old precinct 
system. 

The population of the county has increased 
regularly since its organization. At the cen- 
sus of 1820, the first taken after the county 
was formed, it had a population of 691; 
in 1830, 2,555; in 1840, 5,762; in 1850, 
8,107; in 1860, 12,965: in 1870. 17,864: in 



1880, 20,686. If it has not increased as 
rapidly as some other counties in population. 
its growth has been steady and good, and its 
class of citizens will compare favorably with 
those of any portion of the State. 

County Officers. — As a matter of interest to 
our readers, we present herewith a very full 
and complete list of county offcers, from the 
the formation of the county to the present 
time. It has cost considerable time and 
labor to prepare it, and it is believed to be 
substantially correct. 

The County Commissioners come first, and 
are as follows: In 1819, they were Zadok 
Casey, Fleming Greenwood and Joseph 
Jordan; in 1820, William Casey, Joseph Jor- 
dan and Barton Atchison; in 1822. Samuel 
Gaston, William Hicks antl Barton Atchison; 
in 1824, W. J. Tunstall, John Jordan and 
H. B. Maxey; in 1826, Edward Maxey, Arba 
Andrews and M. Ham; in 1828, Edward 
■Maxey, Arba Andrews and M. Ham: in 1830, 
Edward Maxey, Arba Andrews and M. Ham; 
in 1832, Arba Andrews, Barton Atchison 
and Willoughby Adams; in 1834, Bai-ton 
Atchison, George W. Watters and J. M. 
Scott; in 1835, Noah Johnston succeeded 
Watters; in 1836. Willoughby Adams. Barton 
Atchison and A. Bruce: in 1838, William 
Bullock, James Sursa and Barton Atchison; 
in 1840, James Sursa, B. Atchison and James 
Kirby ; in 1841, Willoughby Adams succeeded 
Sursa; in 1842, Willoughby Adams, James 
Kirby and John Breeze; in 1844, James 
Kirby, F. S. Casey and A. D. Casey; in 1845, 
E D. Andrews was appointed to fill "out 
Kirby's term; in 1846. A. D. Estes, E. D. 
Andrews and F. S. Casey; in 1847, W. 
Adams, .John Troutt and F. S. Casey; in 
1848, F. S. Casey, Dr. W. Adams and John 
Troutt; in 1849,* W. Dodda was elected 



* Thp law was now cbanired, and the board was composed of : 
County or Pribate Justice or Jiidpe and two Associates. 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COtNTV. 



189 



Probate Justice or Judge, and Dr. W. Adams 
and F. S. Casey. Associates; in 1852, W. 
Dodds. Probate Judge, and F. S. Casey and 
Dr. W. Adams, Associates. Judge Dodds 
resigned, and J. R. Satterfield was elected to 
fill out his term. 

Judge J. R. Satterfield, the successor of 
Judge Dodds, is one of the old landmarks of 
Jeiferson County. Ho came here in the fall of 
1818, a stripling of a lad. He is an old man 
now, and has grown gray in the service of the 
people. Indeed, so long has he been in the 
official harness, that he is almost looked 
upon as a prehistoric relic. His official in- 
tegrity is above reproach, and his name is 
the synonym of fidelity and honesty. He 
was born in Pendleton County, Ky., and 
came to Illinois when but nine years old. 
Here he grew to manhood, and here he has 
spent an active life. He has been SherilT, 
County Superintendent of Schools, County 
Judge or Probate Justice for over twenty 
years, C()unty Recorder, Deputy Sherifl' and 
Justice of the Peace for forty years. He and 
Mr. Bogan have been in office so long, that 
they could not survive in private life. They 
are what the sage has termed " the noblest 
works of God " — honest men. 

In 1853, J. R. Satterfield, Judge, and F. 
S. Casey and A. D. Estes, Associates; in 
1857, J. R. ^Satterfield, Judge, Dr. W. 
Adams and S. W. Carpenter, Associates; in 
1861, J. R. Satterfield, Judge, and W. Adams 
and F. S. Casey, Associates; in 1865, A. M. 
Grant, Judge, and W. Adams and F. S. 
Casey, Associates; in 1866, J. R. Satterfield 
was elected to fill out Grant's term, he hav- 
ing resigned; in 1869, J. R. Satterfield, 
Judge, W. Adams and S W. Carpenter, Asso- 
ciates. After this date, township organiza- 
tion came into efiect. Since the Board of 
Commissioners have been superseded by the 
Board of Supervisors, there have not been 



many changes in the oflice of County Judge. 
Jared Foster was elected County Judge in 
1878, and in 1877 was succeeded by C. A. 
Keller, and he, in 1882, was succeeded by 
William B. Anderson, the present incum- 
bent. 

County and Circuit Clerks — Joel Pace was 
the first County and Circuit Clerk. He held 
both offices up to 1837. when Noah Johns- 
ton became County Clerk. He was suc- 
ceeded by E. H. Ridgeway, in 1838, who 
held both offices until 1843, when J. F. Wat- 
son succeeded him ; in 1857, W. Dodds came 
in; in 1865, C. H. Patton; in 1869, W. 
Dodds; in 1871, J. N. Satterfield; in 1873, 
W. H. Smith; in 1877, J. N. Satterfield; iu 
1880, Allen C. Tanner, the present incum- 
bent. E. H. Ridgeway succeeded Joel Pace 
as Circuit Clerk in iS-tl, and in 1848 was 
succeeded by John Wilbanks. X- B. Tanner 
came in in 1852, and in 1854 was succeeded 
by J. S. Bogan, who is still in the office. 
It is a striking example of the "right man in 
the right place. " He came very near being 
defeated once, that is, he lacked but three 
votes of carrying the county unanimously. 
This may have been fun for Bogan, but it 
was rough on his opponent. The people of 
Jefferson County show their good sense in 
retaining Mr. Bogan, for we have never been 
in a more neatly kept or admirably arranged 
office than his. He has a place for every- 
thing, and IS particularly careful to keep 
everything in its place — even his deputies. 

Sheriffs — Lewis Watkins was the first 
Sheriff, and was appointed in 1819; the next 
was W. L. Howell, who was appointed in 
1821; in 1823, Howell was again appointed 
to the office; in 1824, Nicholas Wren came 
in; in 1828, James Bowman, who, it seems, 
filled the office to 1842, when W. J. Stephen- 
son became Sheriff, and held the office until 
1848, and was sitcceeded by Elijah Piper; 



140 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



in I80O, J. R. Satterfield came in; in 1852, 
AV. Dodds; in 1854. J. R. Allen; in 1856, 
James Westcott; in 1858, John Bagwell; 
in 1860, C. G. Vaughn: in 1862, J. B. 
Goodrich; in 1864, C. G. Vaughn; in 1866, 
William Dodds; in 1868, W. E. Cofifey; in 
1870, 1872, 1874, J. B. Goodrich; in i876, 
1878, 1880, George W. Yost; in 1882, Thomas 
M. Gray. 

Treasurers — The first Treasurer of the 
county was James Kelly, who was appointed 
in 1819. He had but little trouble in taking 
care of the funds, and perhaps spent few 
sleepless nights through fear of " thieves 
breaking through and stealing" the funds of 
which the countj' had made him the custodian. 
In 1821, Edward Maxey came in; in 1826, 
John Wilbanks; in 1829, Joseph Pace; in 
1833, S. Goddard, in 1835, J. Livingston; 
in 1837, G..P. Casey; in 1839, H. B. New- 
by; iu 1843, A. B. Watson; in 1850, J. H. 
Watson; in 1851, Elijah Piper; in 1857, J. 
Q. A. Bay; in 1861, H. G. Goodrich; in 
1863, W. M. Hicks; in 1867, S. W. Jones; 
in 1869, W. H. Smith; in 1871, S. W. 
Jones; in 1875, C. D. Ham; in 1877; G. L. 
Cummins; in 1879, C. W. Lindley. 

School Commissioners — D. Baugb was the 
first School Commissioner of whom we have 
any account, and was appointed in 1836; J. 
R. Satterfield was the next, and was ap- 
pointed in 1845; he was succeeded by J. H. 
Pace in 1847; in 1850, W. H. Lynch; in 
1851, J. H. Pace; in 1859, J. R. P. Hicks; 
in 1861, J. M. Pace; in 1869, G. W. John- 
son; in 1873, J. D. Williams, the present 
incumbent. 

Miscellaneous — Of the early Surveyors we 
can learn but little. From 1850 to the pres- 
ent time, they have been as follows: L. F. 
Casey, 1850 to 1854; W. B. Anderson, 1854 
to 1865; J. D. Williams, 1865 to 1871; B. 
C. Wells, 1871 to 1875; W. T. Williams, 



the present incumbent. The first Assessor 
was James Kelly, and the next Edward 
Maxey. Among the early Justices of the 
Peace were the following, in their order of 
appointment: O. Morris, Lewis Watkins 
and W. Maxwell, in 1819; William Maxey 
in 1820, and in 1822, J. Roberts, James Ab- 
bott, J. Pace, John Jordan, W. L. Howell, 
Barton Atchison and Samuel Gaston. 

The votes cast at the November election, 
1882, by townships, were as follows: Grand 
Prairie, 92; Casner, 115; Blissville, 139; 
Bald Hill, 98; Rome, 194; Shiloh, 213; 
McClellan, 166; Elk Prairie, 176; Field, 
193; Mount Vernon, 731; Dodds', 182; 
Spring Garden, 250; Farrington, 105; Web- 
ber, 174; Pendleton, 304; Moore's Prairie, 
180; total, 3,312. 

The following is a partial vote of the 
county : 

For Legislature — Varnell, Democrat, 2, - 
775; Jennings, Democrat, 2,8351; Crews, 
Republican, 3,241; Judd, Greenbacker, 779. 

County Judge — Anderson, Democrat, 1,- 
972; Anglen, Greenbacker, 1,239; Ander- 
son's majority, 733. 

County Clerk — Tanner, Democrat, 2,010; 
Hobbs, Greenbacker, 1,262; Tanner's major- 
ity, 748. 

Sheriff— Gray, Democrat, 2,036; Wall, 
Republican, 1,236; Gray's majority, 800. 

County Treasurer — Carroll, Democrat, 
1,931; Legge, Republican, 1,340; Carroll's 
majority, 591. 

Township Organization. — The State con- 
stitution of 1847-48, contained the provision 
of township organization — a provision that 
was to be voted on by the people of each 
county, and leaving it oprional with them to 
adopt or reject it in their respective counties. 
So, in accordance with the provisions of that 
constitution, the first township organization 
act was passed by the Legislature. But the 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



141 



law, in attempting to put it into practical 
operation, disclosed radical defects. It was 
revised and amended at the session of 1851, 
substantially as it existed until the recent 
revision in 1871. The adoption of township 
organization marks an era in many of the 
counties of the State. The northern part of 
the State adopted it first. The people who 
had settled there were mostly fi'om the East, 
and were familiar with the township system 
and its practical workings. The people in 
the southern part of the State were much 
more slow to take hold of the new system. 

Jefferson County adopted township organ- 
ization in 1869 though township officers were 
not elected until the following year. At the 
time of the change, the election precincts of 
the county ,were Blissville, Elk Prairie, Gun 
Prairie, Grand Prairie, Horse Creek, Horse 
Prairie, Jackson, Jefferson, Jordan Prairie, 
Knob Prairie, Long Prairie, Moore's Prairie 
and Mount Vernon; total, thirteen. The new 
system involved a few changes, and the civil 
and Congressional townships were made to 
correspond, and the following are their 
names and the first Supervisors of ea(;h as 
elected: Mount Vernon Township, H. War- 
ren, Supervisor; Field, John C. McConnell, 
Supervisor; Shiloh, John R. Moss, Super- 
visor; Casner, Elijah B. Harvey, Supervisor; 
Pendleton, William A. Jones, Supervisor; 
Spring Garden, William S. Bumpua, Super- 
visor; Rome, Gilbert L. Cummings, Super- 



visor; Webber, S. V. Bruce, Supervisor; 
Blissville, Samuel Johnson, Supervisor; Elk 
Prairie, George W. Evans, Supervisor; Far 
rington, M. A. Morrison, Supervisor; 
Grand Prairie, Jacob Breeze, Supervisor; 
Moore's Prairie, J. A. Wilbanks, Supervisor; 
Bald Hill, John B. Ware, ^Supervisor; Mc- 
Clellan, William A. Davis, Supervisor; 
Dodds, Robert D. Roane, Supervisor. The 
following are the Supervisors at present: 
Thomas E. Westcott for Mount Vernon; 
Henry Breeze for Grand Prairie; William J. 
Bledsoe for Casner; J. B. Norris for Bliss- 
ville; R. T. Wright for Bald Hill; Andrew 
Riley, Jr., for Rome; John C. Tyler ^for 
Shiloh; Elijah Collins for McClellan; S. H. 
Dolby for Elk Prairie; William J. Garrison 
for Fields; William S. Bumpus for Dodds; 
C. M. Brown for Sjiring Garden; Thomas 
F. Mooi'e for Webber; L. E. Jones for Pen- 
dleton: G. W. Clark for Moore's Prairie; 
L. B. Gregory for Farringtou. 

The township system of Illinois is not 
closely modeled after the New England 
States. There, a representative is sent from 
each town to the Lower House of the Legis- 
lature. In New York, owing to her vast ex- 
tent of territory, this was found to be im- 
practicable, and a county assembly, denom- 
inated a Board of Supervisors, composed of a 
member from each township, was theti estab- 
lished. This ^modified system has been 
copied almost exactly in this State. 




142 



HlSTOKi: OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



CHAPTER V. 



SOME OF THE PIONEER FAMILIES OF THE COUNTV-THE CASEYS-THEIR EMIGRATION TO AMER- 
ICA-HOW THEY SERVED IN THE KEVOLUTION-FACTS ANU INCIDENTS OF THEIR 
RESIDENCE HERE-TUE;MAXEYS, ANOTHER OLD FAMILY-THEIR WELSH 
DESCENT-WHERE AND WHEN THEY SETTLED-THE .lOHNSONS- 
THEV ARE AN OLD FAMILY, TOO-SOMETHING OF THEM 
AND THEIR DESCENDANTS-OTHER PIO 
NEERS— INCIDENTS, ETC., ETC. 



■• How wondrous are the changes 
Since sixty years ago, 
Wlien girls wore woolen dresses. 

And boys wore pants of tow, 
When shoes were made of calf-skin, 

And socks of homespun wool, 
And children did a halt-day's work 
Before the hour of school." 

— Anonymous. 

ri^HE early settlers of Jefferson County 
_L were mostly from the States south of 
the Ohio Eiver. The great majority of 
them were poor in worldly wealth; they were 
whai was termed " poor white trash" in the 
South, in old slave limes, and when the lirst 
of them came here, Illinois was still a Terri- 
tory, reposing under the famous ordinance 
of 1187. Since the late war between the 
States has forever blotted out slavery, it may 
be interesting to know what was ^the " com- 
pact " or " ordinance " of 1787, so often 
quoted, coneerning the Northwestern Terri- 
tory. It was as follows: 

I. No person in peaceable demeanor was 
to be molested on account of his mode of 
worship or religious sentiments. 

II. The inhabitants were guaranteed the 
benefit of the writ of habeas corpus and 
trial by jury, a proportionate representation 
to the Legislature and judicial proceedings 

*By W. H. Pcriin. 



according to the course of the common law. 
"All persons shall be bailable, unless for 
capital offenses, where the proof shall be evi- 
dent or the presumption great. All tines 
shall be moderate, and no cruel or unusual 
punishment shall be inflicted; no man shall 
be deprived of his liberty or his property 
but by the judgment of his peers or the law 
of the land; and should the public exigencies 
make it necessary for the common preserva- 
tion to take any person's property or to de- 
mand his particular services, 'jfull compensa- 
tion shall be made for the same." No law 
ouo-ht ever to be made or have'^force in said 
territory that shall, in any manner, interfere 
with or affect private contracts or engage- 
ments made in good faith and without fi-aud. 

III. Religion, morality and knowledge 
being necessary to good government and the 
happiness of mankind, schools aod the means 
of education shall forever be encouraged. 
Good faith, justice and humanity toward the 
Indians was to be observed; their lands and 
property not to be taken without consent 
and peace and friendship to be cultivated. 

IV. The territory and States to be formed 
therein were to remain forever a part of the 
United States, subject to her law, the inhabit- 
ants to pay a just proportion of the public 
debt, contracted or to be contracted, not to 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



143 



tax the lands of the United States nor those 
of non-residents higher than those of resi- 
dents; the navigable waters of the lakes to 
remain forever free to all citizens of the 
United States. 

V. The Territory was not to be divided into 
less than three States, and, at its option, 
Congress might " form one or two (more) 
States in that part which lies north of an 
east and west line di-awn through the south- 
erly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan." 
With 60,000 free inhabitants, such States 
were to be admitted into the Union on an 
equal footing with the original States. 

VI. " There shall be neither slavery nor 
involuntary servitude in the said territory, 
otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, 
whereof the party shall have been duly con- 
victed," this section providing also for the 
reclamation of fugitives from labor. 

Such was substantially the fundamental 
law of this vast territory, which has ever 
had a controlling influence upon the destiny 
of the States carved out of it, and saved some 
of them from the permanent blight of slav- 
ery. Many of the pioneers of Southern Illi- 
nois have left upon record the fact that they 
sought homes in this country because the 
land would not be blemished by Negro slav- 
ery, or that civil or social distinction would 
be yielded only to those who owned " nig- 
gers." A fat soil ready for the plow, " land 
flowing with milk and honey," and a tem- 
perate climate were not peculiar to Illinois 
or Jefferson County. But the pioneers 
thought not of this. Their grand aim was 
a home — a home free and untrammeled by 
arbitrary rules of social equality, and in- 
spired by this noble purpose they plunged 
into the wilderness. They did not come 
in great rushing crowds, but alone or in 
meager squads, and they settled down to live 
where polite accomplishments were among 



the lost arts, and even where language was 
almost a superfluity. Rough they were, un- 
cultivated, unrefined, bixt still noble in a 
rugged way and possessing the true qualities 
of heroism, courage and humility. They 
were men of action, and whetted their in- 
stincts in the struggle for existence against 
the wild game, the ferocious beasts and the 
murderous savage. 

In a preceding chapter, we sketched the 
principal settlers and settlements, so far as 
we could obtain them, up to the organiza- 
tion of the county. In 'this chapter we pro- 
pose to tell something of these pioneer fam- 
ilies, also some of the later comers to the 
county, who they were, what they did, how 
they lived and what became of them. They 
found the soil when they came here unbrok- 
en by the hand of husbandry and the still- 
ness of the forests undisturbed save by the 
noise ol the hunter's tread and the crack of 
the Indian's rifle. But undismayed, they 
went to work with a will, and the result 
amply repaid them for the hardships and 
dangers they endured. 

The Casey family was and is the most 
numerous, perhaps, as well as the most promi- 
nent, of all the pioneer families of Jefferson 
County. Abner Casey,* the progenitor of the 
family in America, was born in the County 
Tyrone, Ireland, and there, upon arriving at 
the years of matm-ity, married a Welsh lady, 
who, like himself, possessed great physical 
and mental powers. They emigrated to 
America somewhere about the middle of the 
eighteenth century and settled in Virginia, 
close neighbors to Edmund Randolph. Their 
childi'en were all born while they lived on 
the Roanoke, and were Levi, Randolph and 
a daughter — Randolph being named for 
their illustrious neighbor. The family moved 
to South Carolina about the year 1760, lo- 

♦Compiled from Johnson's iiioneer sketches. 



144 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



eated near Spartansburg, where they lived 
until after the close of the Revolutionary war. 
They were stanch patriots and bore an act- 
ive and honorable part in the war for lib- 
erty and independence. Levi was a Colonel 
of South Carolina troops during the Revolu- 
tion; Moses was a Cajatain in the same serv- 
ice and Randolph was a Sergeant under 
Francis Marion — the " Swamp Fox of the 
Santee." He was present on the memorable 
occasion when Gen. Marion feasted the Brit- 
ish officer on sweet potatoes, roasted in his 
camp fire. He was' in many of the battles 
fought in the Carolinas and in Georgia dur- 
ing the war. His wife was Mary Jane Pen- 
nington, and their children were Levi, Ran- 
dolph, Isaac, Abraham, Charity, Hiram, Sam- 
uel and Zadok. These were all born in South 
Carolina except Zadok, who was bom in 
Georgia, whither the family had removed 
about the year 1795, and where they remained 
until about 1800, when they removed into 
Tennessee, locating in Smith County. Here 
the father, Randolph Casey, died. 

Of Randolph Casey's children, all eventu- 
ally came to Illinois to reside except Hiram. 
He was a minister of the Gospel and made a 
visit here once, and while in the county 
preached to the pioneers with marked effect 
Samuel Casey was the last of the children 
to remove West, and came in 1832, locating 
in the edge of Grand Prairie, where he died 
in 1850, his wife dying only a few years 
ago. Zadok, the youngest, came in 1817. 
Of him we shall have more to say hereafter. 
Levi, the eldest son, came to Illinois in an 
early day, but never lived in Jefferson Coun- 
ty. He settled in what is now -Johnson 
Coimty, where he died. Randolph, the sec- 
ond son, located on the Centralia road, about 
four miles from Mount Vernon. He after- 
ward moved into Clinton County, and finally 
to Iowa and died there. Isaac Casey, the 



third Mon of Randolph Casey, came to Jeffer- 
son County, as noticed^in a preceding chap- 
ter, in the spring of 1817. He was born in 
1765, and in 1788 was married to Elizabeth 
Mackey. Soon after his marriage, he emi- 
grated to Kentucky and settled in Barren 
County, from whence he came to Illinois in 
1803, locating on the Ohio River a short dis- 
tance above Cave-in-Rock. His wife died 
in 1834 and in the fall of 1836, he married 
Jemima Oard. She died in 1846, and he 
then made his home with his children until 
his death. He was a man of the strictest 
integrity, a true type of the old-time Chris- 
tian. He helped the helpless, aided the weak, 
fed the hungry, was a friend of peace and 
always ready to work to promote the inter 
ests of the church. Honest in business, 
courteous and kind, he was a friend to all 
mankind as were all men who knew him a 
friend to him. His children were Rebecca, 
William, Polly, Abraham T., Thomas M., 
Brunetta Catherine and Miranda. Rebecca 
married Isaac Hicks; Polly married Clark 
Casey: Brunetta married Carter Wilkey; 
Catherine married Henry Tyler and Miranda 
married George Bullock. 

William Casey, the eldest son of Isaac 
Casey, came to Jefferson County in 1817. 
About 1?36 or 1837, he moved to the north 
part of the State, but in a year or two, came 
back to this county and resided here until 
his death in 1854. His wife was Amy Bar- 
ker; their children were Blackford, Maletna, 
William "Buck," Abraham, Drury B., 
Thomas, Melissa and Zadok. Mr. Casey 
was a compound of noble and generous qual- 
ities, and passions dark and bitter when 
aroused. He was enterprising and indus- 
trious, and for a long time one of the richest 
men in the county. A story is told of 
him, that when he moved back from the 
north part of the State, where he had lived 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



145 



a short time, he had over a bushel of specie, 

and there are those who believe that he had 
large sums buried at the time of his death 
that will never be found, unless by ac- 
cident. With all his faults, and who of us 
but has fanlts ? he ever maintained the dig- 
nified bearing of a gentleman of the old 
school. 

Abraham T. Casey, the nest oldest brother 
of William, was a minister of the Gospel. 
He married Vylinda Maxey in 1819, and lo- 
cated on the Salem road, where he died in 
1834. He was a faithful minister of the 
Cross, and preached through all the surround- 
ing coantr}'. His children were Harriet, who 
married Dr. W. S. Van Cleve, of Centralia; 
Catherine, who married M. Morrow; Belver- 
etta, who married J. R. Walker; Lafayette, 
an itinerant minister of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church: Sarah, who married John 
Sproule; Elizabeth, who mai-ried Marion Gal- 
braith; and Martha, who man-ied Dr. Shir- 
ley, of Xenia. 

Thomas M. Casey, the third son of Isaac 
Casey, was born in 1801, while his father 
lived in Barren County. Ky., and hence was 
but sixteen when the family moved to this 
county. He married Harriet Maxey in Oc- 
tober, 1819. Though but eighteens years of 
age, he was possessed with a spirit of inde- 
pendence, and early in the following Janu- 
ary went out and selected a place on his own 
land to build a residence. He found a site, 
raked away the snow, put up a rail pen. put 
his roof on, using rails for " weight poles," 
moved in and set up housekeeping on his 
own account. This was near where the two- 
story dwelling stands in which his last years 
were spent. He was a very religious man 
and devoted Christian. He was licensed to 
exhort in 1831, and to preach in 1843; ho 
was ordained a Deacon in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church by Bishop Morris, and an 



Elder by Bishop Janes. He arranged all of 
his business and said, "I am now ready 
whenever God sees fit to call mo." His last 
words were, " Peace, all is peace." He had 
eleven children— Clinton M., Jane, William 
M., Cynthia, Caroline, Mary W., Barger, 
Rebecca, Nanny R., Abraham and Rhoda. 

Abraham P. Casey, a son of Randolph, 
younger brother of Isaac Casey, settled in 
the county in 1818. In a few years, he 
moved out into Grand Prairie, where he 
built the first house in that part of the coun- 
ty. He did not remain there long, however, 
but came back to the neighborhood of his 
first settlement. He was a kind of miarra- 
tory character, and moved around considera- 
bly, remaining but a short time in a place. 
True to the proverb that "a rolling stone 
gathers no moss," he did not accumulate as 
much property as some of the other pioneers 
of the county, though he was so fond of hard 
money as to obtain the sobriquet of " Old 
Silver." He despised a paper currency, and 
if he lived to-day he would be perhaps a 
tireless opponent of the Greenback party. 
He finally moved to Missouri and died there 
about 1841 or 1842; his wife died about 
1866. Their children were JohnC, Green 
P., Franklin S., Martin S., Isaac and two 
daughters, Clarissa, who married Uriah 
Hamblin, and Elizabeth A., who married 
Burrell McConnell. John C. married Polly 
Casey, and finally moved to Missouri, but 
came back to Jefferson County, where, in 
1862, he died. Green P. married Margaret 
Watkins, a daughter of Lewis Watkins, and 
died in 1858. at his home on the Carlyle 
road. Franklin S. married Rhoda Taylor. 
He was a man of industrj' and of business 
enterprise, and his wife was an excellent and 
faithful helpmeet. He was First Lieuten- 
ant in Capt. Bowman's company in the 
Black Hawk war; faithfully served his coun- 



146 



HLSTORY OF JEFFEKSOX COUNTY. 



try during that short but vigorous campaign. 
He was for many terms one of the Judges of 
the county court, and in 1847 was a mem- 
ber of the Constitutional Convention. He 
died in 1871. Martin S. lived on the Rich- 
view road, near Grand Prairie, and died 
there. 

Charity Casey was the only daughter of Ran- 
dolph and Mary Jane Casey. She was born in 
South Carolina, and married William De- 
priest in Tennessee, whither her faciily had 
moved. They came to Illinois in 1819. She 
was a very large woman, weighing some 
316 pounds when she came to this county. 
Illinois seemed to agree with her health, and 
she weighed before she died nearly 350 
pounds. Her sons were Green and Isaac, 
who lived for awhile in the county, but af ter- 
wai-d went to Missouri, and finally died there. 
Lucinda, a daughter of William and Char- 
ity Depriest, married Elijah Joliflf, who was 
an early settler in the county. 

This comprises a brief sketch of the Casey 
family and their settlement in Jefferson 
County, with the exception of Gov. Casey, 
whom we reserve for a subsequent chapter. 
The Caseys were a rather remarkable family, 
and produced some rather remarkable men 
and women. The old ones, the pioneers, are 
dead and gone, some of them many years 
ago, but this brief sketch will recall a type 
and character of that early day. The family 
was and is still a numerous one, as we have 
said, and numbers among its members some 
of the best and most distinguished citizens 
of the county. 

The Maxey family comes next in historical 
importance in the early settlement of the 
county. Edward Maxey, the first of the 
name of whom we have any account, was a 
native of Wales. He emigrated to America long 
prior to the Revolutionary war, and settled in 
Virginia. Of him or his family but little is 



known, except that a son, Walter Maxej', waa 
the father of Jesse, who was boru and reared 
in Virginia, where he married, and after- 
ward removed to Sumner County, Tenn. He 
was once attacked by the Indians, who toma- 
hawked and scalped him and left him for 
dead. He recovered, however, and lived 
twenty years after the event. His children 
were William, Edward, Walter, John and 
I Elizabeth. William Maxey, the eldest son 
■ was born in Virginia in 1770, and married 
Mary Emily Allen, a daughter of Rhoda 
Allen. In 1818, they removed to Illinois, 
and Maxey built a horse-mill in the fall of 
1820, which proved a great blessing to 
the people of the county. He was one 
of the early Justices of the Peace, hav- 
ing been appointed in 1821, and filled 
that office for a number of years. Many 
jokes and anecdotes were told of his of- 
ficial life, of which the following will serve 
as a sample: Being naturally difBdent. the 
marriage ceremony was a cause of great 
embarrassment, and its performance among 
the most difficult acts he was called on to 
execute. Cases of debt or assault and bat- 
tery he could dispose of in short order, but 
when it came to tying the nuptial knot, he 
was, to quote a slang phrase of modern in- 
vention, " all broke up." His first attempt 
was in uniting in marriage Ransom Moss 
and Anna Johnson. Their marriage took 
place on the 6th of July, 1821, and he had 
carefully prepared for it. He thought he 
"knew his piece," but when the couple came 
before him he lost his cue and broke down 
completely. Some say he commenced to 
recite the Declaration of Independence, in- 
stead of the marriage ceremony, and discov- 
ering his mistake, went back and started over 
again, and this time drifted into the consti- 
tution of the United States. Gov. Casey 
used to accuse him of informing the happy 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



147 



couple by way of prelude that the Lord in- 
stituted matrimony in the days of man's igno- 
rance instead of "innocence." Finally, with 
the aid of a Methodist book of discipline and 
Clark's Commentaries, he succeeded in get- 
ting through the ceremony and concluded 
with an invocation to the "Lord to have 
mercy on their souls." Mr. Maxey has now 
been dead for many years, but his influence 
for good was long felt in the community. 
His wife died in 1837 and he in 1838. They 
are described as an honest, industrious, 
pious old couple, full of kindness and sim- 
plicity of heart, and great lovers of children. 
Their whole lives were but the teaching of 
the sublime lesson about the cup of cold 
water to the little one, and their influence 
upon their immediate circle is not yet ob- 
literated. They had eleven children — Cla- 
rissa, Henry B., Bennett N., Elihu, Harriet, 
Vylinda A.. Charles H. , Joshua C, Hostil- 
lina (who died in childhood), William M. A. 
and Jehu. 

Henry B., or Burchett Maxey, was born in 
1795, in an old block-house erected during the 
Indian troubles, soon after the Revolution. 
He came to Illinois and settled on what was 
called Maxey's Prairie. At the sale of lots 
in Mount Vernon in September, 1819, he 
bought one, on which he erected the first 
house built in the town. He was a man of 
considerable prominence, and hold numerous 
offices; also built several houses at ditferent 
times. Additional to his other accomplish- 
ments, he was a great hunter, and oace 
killed eight bears in half a mile of his own 
house. He was shi-ewd, active, alert and 
rich in animal life and vigor, with many of 
his natural faculties cultivated almost to the 
perfection of the Siberian bloodhound. He 
once walked from Brownsville, a distance of 
seventy or eighty miles, through an unbrok- 
en wilderness full of wild animals. He 



slept . at night in the woods, and when the 
sun was clouded he had only the moss on the 
trees to guide him in his course. He mar- 
ried Peggy Taylor, and their children were 
Eliza R., who married S. G. Hicks; Will- 
iam P., who died in 1818 — the first death in 
the county; Thomas B., now living at Xenia 
Elizabeth A., who married John Breeze 
Elihu K, who died in Missouri; John H 
who died in 1846, on his way from St. Louis 
James C, who married Nancy J. Moss; Ed 
ward M. K., living in Missouri: Jehu J. 
Henry B., who died in 1865; Franklin C, 
who moved West, and Harvey M. 

Bennett N. Maxey was a soldier in the war 
of 1812, and was with Gen. Jackson at New 
Orleans. He was one of Col. Coffee's 
mounted men, and when those troops mistook 
an order and retreated, he alone of the entire 
command stood his ground until the men 
rallied and retui-ned to their position. His 
comrades called him " Broadhorns," on ac- 
count of his broad shoulders and prodigious 
strength. His wife, like many of the j^ioneer 
women, was about as " good a man " as he 
was himself, and did her full part in the bat- 
tle of life. Their children were Emily, 
William H. , James J., Charles H , Joshua C-, 
Eliza and Thomas J. Their oldest dausfh- 
ter, Emily, married Andrew Ray and died 
in a few years. William and James were 
preachers; Charles was a Captain in the 
One Hundred and Tenth Regiment during 
the late wai', and came home in 1863-64 
and died; Joshua died of a wound in .Louis- 
ville; Eliza married John N. White; Thomas 
served through the late war, and now lives 
near Ashley. 

Elihu, the fourth son of William Maxey, 
married Eveline Taylor in 1819. He owned 
one of the early mills of the county, and 
hence was a benefactor of the early settlers. 
His first wife died, and he married Sarah 



148 



HISTORY OF JEFFEiiSON COUNTY. 



Guthrie. He met with death accidentally in 
October, 1853. He rode out into the woods 
one morning to " hunt the cows," but was 
absent so long his family became uneasy, and, 
his horse coming home without a rider, ex- 
cited their serious apprehensions The 
neighbors were notihed and search made. 
His body was found two or three miles from 
home, cold in death. It was supposed he 
had been kicked by his horse. He had ten 
children, five sons and tive daughters: Ta- 
lina married Mervil Smith; Perigan T. died 
on Puncheon Camp; Henry lives near Wal- 
nut Hill; Parmelia married Samuel Walker; 
William C. is dead; Elizabeth married a 
man named Penix; Margaret married 
Thomas Maddox, and Eliza married James 
Maddox; Thomas married Eliza Smith, and 
E. Phelps died at Nashville during the late 
war. 

Charles H. Maxey married Sal lie Bruce in 
1824 He was the fifth son of William 
Maxey, and was a man of great physical 
power. His children who lived to maturity 
were Caroline, Mary, Martha, Susan and 
Drucilla. The first married S. F. Parker; 
Mary married Joseph Burke; Martha married 
C. Frost; Susan married George A. Collins 
and Druoilfa married James Swift. 

Joshua C. Maxey, the sixth son of William, 
was born in 1807, married Susan Criswell in 
1881, and at present lives on the old Maxey 
homestead. He is a Methodist preacher, 
and several times has had charge of circuits 
by special appointment. He is a truly 
Christian man and an enthusiastic Sunday 
school worker. He raised but two children, 
two dying in childhood. William T. married 
Mary A. Cummins, and Martha married 
John C. Tyler. 

Dr. William M. A. Maxey, the youngest 
son but one of William Maxey, married 
Edda Owens in 1830. He is a practicing 



physician and a local preacher. His chil- 
dren are Simeon W., who served in Stratton's 
company in the late war; Samuel T., a 
Methodist preacher, also served in the army; 
Harriet J., who married Frank Satterfield; 
William C, who married Gertrude Lane 
and served three years in the late war; Sarah 
C, married Sanford Hill; and Nelson, who 
married Miss Berger. 

Jehu G. D. Maxey is the youngest son of 
William Maxey. He married Mary A. 
Bruce, and their only child, James H. , died 
when he was but two years old. Mr. Maxey 
is an exhorter in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and an earnest worker in the Sunday 
school. 

Edward Maxey, a brother to William 
Maxey, and the second son of Jesse Maxey, 
moved to Allen County, Ky., and from thence 
to Jefferson County, 111. He mai'ried Eliza- 
beth Pitner in Tennessee, but they never 
had any children. They raised several 
adopted children, among them Judge Satter- 
field. He was a man of high honor and in- 
tegrity; was Justice of the Peace for twenty 
years. County Commissioner, a pioneer 
school teacher, a preacher and a man in 
whom there was no guile. He died about 
1850, and his wife soon after. 

John Maxey, the youngest son of Jesse 
Maxey, came to Illinois in 1823, in company 
with William and Jonathan Wells. He, too, 
was a Methodist preacher, and after living 
eight or ten years in the county, removed to 
Wayne County, where he died. He raised 
but one son, Stephen, who died many years 
ago, and three daughters. Theodosia mar- 
ried the Rev. Joseph Heliums: Elizabeth 
married Greenbury Wells, and Katie married 
Jesse Breeze, of Walnut Hill. Such, in 
brief, is the record of the pioneer Maxeys, 
who were among the early settlers of Jeffer- 
son County, and who contributed largely to 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



149 



its development and improvement. In 
other chapters will be found sketches of the 
younger generations of the name. 

The Johnsons, perhaps, might nest be 
mentioned in the catalogue of pioneer fami- 
lies. Like the Caseys and JNIaseys, they are 
a numerous family, and have been a promi- 
nent one from the earliest settlement of the 
county. 

Benjamin Johnson, the ancestor of the 
Johnsons living here, was a native of Mary- 
land, but removed to Hanover Coiinty, Va., 
where he died. John Johnson, a son of his, 
was the father of the pioneer Johnsons who 
came to Jefferson County. He married Han- 
nah Medlock, who died early, leaving three 
children. He afterward married Betse}' 
Tyler, a widow, who had (rhree children by 
her first husband. By this second marriage 
Mr. Johnson had four children — Lewis, 
James, Betsey and John. After his death 
(about 1803), his widow and her family moved 
to Sumner County, Tenn. The Tylers, 
Mrs. Johnson's children by her first hus- 
band, were also early pioneers in Illinois. 

Lewis Johnson, the eldest son of John 
Johnson by his second marriage, was among 
the early settlers in Jefferson County. He 
married Mrs. Winn, formerly Miss Stone, by 
whom ho had nine children — Milly, Anna, 
Lucy, James E., John T., Nicholas S., 
Elizabeth, Nancy and Susan. Mr. Johnson 
was licensed to preach in Tennessee in 1812; 
was ordained Deacon there by Bishop Rob- 
erts in 1816, and Elder by the same Bishop 
in Illinois in 1827. He was a pious man, 
and lived a purely Christian life. It is said 
that for a period of fifty years ho held prayers 
in his family regularly three times a day. 
He died in January, 1857, at the age of 
eighty, and his wife in December following 
at the age of eighty -three years. Of his chil- 
dren, Milly married Asahel Bateraan in 



Tennessee, but removed to Illinois in an 
early day. Anna married Ransom Moss in 
1821 and has numerous descendants fin the 
county. Lucy married Launcelot Foster. 
He died early from a peculiar disease 
brought on from exposure while hunting. 
Their house was burned a year or so after 
their marriage and their month-old infant 
burned to death in it James E. was the 
oldest son of Lewis Johnson. He was con- 
verted in 1821 and soon after began to ex- 
hort. He went back to Tennessee, where he 
attended school dui-ing the winter and then re- 
turned to Illinois and commenced preaching. 
He preached throughout Southern Illinois, 
Missouri and Arkansas, as a minister of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. His health 
gave way and he was forced to cease regular 
j)reaching. He came here and improved a 
farm where John T. Johnson now lives, or 
recently lived. He died at the age of seven- 
ty years. John T., the next oldest brother 
to James, was also licensed to preach, when 
but twenty-one years old. He joined the 
Illinois Conference (Methodist Episcopal 
Chm-ch) and for many years preached in 
this State and Indiana. In 1843, he located 
in this county on a farm, but still continued 
preaching. He has always been considered a 
lucid, interesting preacher, a successful farmer 
and a useful man. The next brother, Nicholas 
S., married Minerva HoUiday. He lived in 
Grand Prairie some years, where he finally 
died. Elizabeth married T. B. Afflack and 
moved to Grand Prairie and then to Kich- 
view. Nancy married James Bai-nes and also 
lives in Richview. Susan married U. G. 
Witherspoon, of Kentucky. They finally 
removed back to Kentucky after living here 
for a time, and now reside in Crittenden 
County. 

James Johnson, the second son of the pio- 
neer, John Johnson, was born in Louisa 



150 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



County, Va., about the year 1778. He mar- 
ried Clarissa Masey in Tennessee, and in 
1818 came to Illinois with five children. 
His wife died in 1847, and he afterward 
married Mrs. Livingston. He was a man of 
the most unswerving honesty, and was a re- 
spected and upright citizen. He died in 
1860 at the age of eighty-two years. Sii- 
teen children were born to him, one of whom 
died at the age of seventeen months, another 
at nine years, while the rest lived to matur- 
ity. His eldest son, John N. Johnson, mar- 
rie Sarah Hobbs in 1834. He was a stir- 
ring and enterprising man, and built several 
houses in Mount Vernon, among them the 
City Hotel, which was known as the Johnson 
House. He was a physician, and graduated 
in the healing art in Cincinnati, but did not 
follow the profession through life. He died 
in 1858, leaving a wife and five children. 
James D. and A. Curtis, his sons, are among 
the prominent citizens and business men of 
Mount Vernon. Others of James Johnson's 
children are mentioned elsewhere in this 
work. 

John Johnson, the youngest brother of 
Lewis and James Johnson, came to Illinois 
in 1834, and hence can scarcely be reckoned 
among the pioneers of Jefferson County. He 
was a preacher in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and in discharge of his ministerial 
duties traveled over a large portion of Ohio, 
Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee and Missis- 
sippi for a period of twenty-five years. He 
was a man of great power in debate and in 
the pulpit, and his fervent piety and patient 
endurance were unexcelled by any minister in 
the conference to which he belonged. He 
died in Mount Vernon in 1858, aged seventy- 
five years. His children were Dr. T. B. 
Johnson, who died in Kentucky in 1870; 
the wife of Blackford Casey; J. Fletcher, 
Washington S., G. Wesley, J. Benson, a 



girl and boy who died in childhood, and 
Adam C, the faithful historian of the pio- 
neers of Jefferson County, and whose sketch 
of Mount Vernon forms several interesting 
chapters of this volume. 

Among other pioneer families of the coun- 
ty who will receive adequate mention as we 
proceed with oui- work, we may note the 
following who came in a few years after the 
organization of the county: The Hickses, 
the Wilkersons, the Jordan family, Overton 
Harlow, the Baldridges, Fleming Greenwood, 
Thomas D. Minor, the Maxwells, Mathew 
Cunningham, and a number of others. 

We have now given in this and in the 
chapter on the early settlement a record of 
some of the pioneer families. The sketches 
as they appear in this book are drawn by 
those who never saw the originals, and who 
can know of them only by much talking 
with those who did know them long and 
well, and while they were here and playing 
their part in life, and from the brief sketches 
that have hitherto been written of them. 
To pick out the representative peojale of all 
the different classes of a community and 
draw a true representation of them — so true 
that any reader can gather an actual person- 
al acquaintance with those who were, per- 
haps, dead before he was bora, is no easy 
task, yet one, if done well and truly, will 
give him a just and correct idea of those 
about whom he is studying history for the 
purpose of learning. For a certain quality 
of society will produca a certain kind of men 
or a certain kind of character — a leading 
character, with strong marks and signs, that 
arrests attention and fixes upon him the duty 
of furnishing posterity the key to the whole 
mass of his fellow-men who were his neigh- 
bors and cotemporaries. 

The sketches, as we have said, ai-e not 
drawn by those who personally knew the 



M< 




A4. M'-iYc^ 



l\ 



Ol^WtRSV 



,/o'f aoHO)S 



HI.STOKY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



153 



original. This is best, for then thons ia less 
danger of prejudices, either for or against 
the subject that constitutes the picture, and 
false colors are not liable to slip in. There 
is less incentive (there should be none) to 
suppress here and overdraw there; in short, 
less of prejudice, and consequently more of 
truth. But men who write are affected by 
much the same prejudices of color of vision 
in viewing transactions of which they 
formed a part, as other men, and for this rea- 
son, history is written by strangers or the 
sons and dausrhters of strangers, who live in 
the long years and ages after the actors and 
their immediate descendants have passed 
away. 

So far, we have attempted to give the 
names and settlement, as already stated, of 
the first actual settlors of the county, together 
with some of the old and prominent and 
numerous families who came here over half 



a century ago. These notices and sketches 
have been necessarily brief. Many of those 
already mentioned will receive further no- 
tice in connection with works upon which 
they were actively engaged, and with sub- 
jects wherein they bore important parts. In 
the chapters devoted to the history of the 
different townships, many other pioneers 
hitherto unnoticed will be written up and 
receive full justice according to their merits. 
That their works are confined to divisions so 
small as townships does not imply that they 
are of no moment or interest. Men, at 
most, are but as coral, feeble, insignificant, 
working out of sight, but they transmit some 
occult quality o- power, upheave society un- 
til, from the moral and intellectual plateau, 
rises, as Saul above his fellows, a Shakes 
peare, a Phidias or a Hamilton, the royal in- 
terpreters of the finest sense in poetry, in 
art and statesmanship. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE BENCH AND BAR— SUPRE.ME COURT— ITS LOCATION AT MOUNT VERNON— THE JUDGES OF 

THE SAME— BREEZE AND SCATES— OTHER LUMINARIES— THE APPELLATE COURT— SOME 

OF ITS GREAT LIGHTS— CIRCUIT COURT— JUDGE TANNER AND OTHERS— EARLY 

CASES TRIED IN THE COURTS— MARSHALL, BAUGH, ETC.— PRESENT 

MEMBERS OF THE BAR, ETC., ETC. 



"The ethics of the bar comprehends the duties 
of each of its members to himself." 

TO write a history of the bench and bar 
of this or any other place is to write the 
history of that department which absolutely 
guarantees the freedom and safety of our 
government. The perpetuity of our liberties 
depends more upon an honest and intelligent 
judiciary than upon anything else, and to ac- 

*By George M. Haynea, Esq. 



complish the noble purposes for which it is 
created it must be supported by an honest 
and intelligent bar. It is by the courts of 
the land and the powers in them vested that 
criminals are apprehended and punished; it 
is through them that all wrongs are re- 
dressed; it is by them that the wrongly im- 
prisoned are given th(>ir liberty; it is through 
them that the minister is permitted to occupy 
his pulpit. In fact, our government could 

4 



154 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



not exist without its judiciary. It is the "jew- 
el that from the cluster riven woiild leave 
all a dark and hopeless chaos." Localizing, 
we can say that Mount Vernon and Jefferson 
County may well be termed the seat of jus- 
tice and the home of Judges. Since 1848, 
the Supreme Court has been located here, 
during which time the State has spent large 
sums of money in a building and its equip- 
ment. The library here is the largest and 
most valuable in the State. There is noth- 
ing written upon the law that has passed to 
the dignity of authority that may not be 
found here, and few finer collections can be 
found in the United States. Perhaps few 
towns of its size can boast of more Judges 
taken from its bar than can Mount Vernon. 
So marked has this been that it has almost 
became a proverb to say " Mount Vernon, the 
home of Judges." Although the county 
had been organized for fifteen years before 
we had a resident lawyer, the bar here has 
ever since stood high in line with the pro- 
fession of the State. Since 1864, the Mount 
Vernon bar has been represented upon the 
bench. In that year, the Hon. James M. 
Pollock was elected from this county. He 
was succeeded by Tanner, and he by Casey, 
the present incumbent. Mount Vernon has, 
since the county's organization, furnished 
Baugh and Scales, in addition to those of 
later date already mentioned. 

Supreme Court. — Under the Constitution 
of 1848, the State was divided into three 
grand divisions, the people in each division 
electing one Judge of the Supreme Court. 
The divisions were known as the First, Sec- 
ond and Third: this county was placed in 
the First, and after a strong and bitter strug- 
gle. Mount Vernon was selected as the seat 
of the court for the First Grand Division, 
which, through biennial tights, she has con- 
tinued to retain until the present. 



The first term of the court held in this 
place convened in December, 1848, with 
Samuel H. Treat, Chief Justice, and J. D. 
Caton and Lyman Trumbull, Associates; 
Finny D. Preston, Clerk. There were sev- 
enteen cases on the docket. The first case 
WHS Meridith Hawkins vs. Silas N. Berry, 
error to Franklin. Jefferson County fur- 
nished one case, William B. Thorn against 
Joel F. AVatson, administrator of the estate 
of James Ham. Thorn had a claim against 
the estate which Watson thought had been 
filed too late, and consequently barred by the 
statutes. Watson defeated him in the lower 
courts and Thorn took it up and was again 
beaten. The second term convened in No- 
vember, 1849, with twenty-three cases, one 
from this county. Governor, etc., vs. E. H. 
Ridgway et al., Eidgway being successful. 
The court remained the same until November, 
1853, when Trumbull resigneil and Scates 
was made his successor. 

In November, 1854, Preston resigned as 
Clerk and Maj. Noah Johnston was ap- 
pointed by the court to succeed him In 
1855. Treat resigned and O. C. Skinner was 
elected in his stead, and Scates became Chief 
Justice. 

In 1857, J. D. Caton became Chief Jus- 
tice; Scates resigned and Sidney Breeze was 
elected, and as such he continued until his 
death. 

In 1857, Skinner resigned and Pinkney 
H. Walker was elected, since which time he 
has been regularly re-elected, and is at^pres- 
ent one of the Judges. In January, 1864, 
Caton resigned, and Corydon Beckwith was 
appointed and served until June of the same 
year, when Charles B. Lawrence was elected. 
By the constitution of 1870, the judicial de 
partment of the State was reconstructed, th- 
three Grand Divisions retained, but tht^ 
Court increased to seven Judges, instead of 



i 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



)n5 



thref. The State was divided into seven 
districts and one Judge elected from eacti 
district. After the election under this sys- 
tem, the court consisted of Lawrence, Walk 
er, Breeze, Thornton, Seates, Sheldon and 
McAllister, and it is no reflection to say that 
at no time since the organisation of the 
court was it ever stronger. Its opinions were 
cited and recognized during this period as 
of the first of American authorities. In 1873, 
Alfred M. Craig succeeded Judge Lawrence 
and John Schotield went on in the place of 
Thornton. In December, 1875, T. Lyle 
Dickey succeeded McAllister, who resigned. 

June 28, 1878, Judge Breeze died and 
David J. Baker was appointed to succeed 
him by the Governor, and on the 2d of June, 
1879, John H. Mulkey was elected to succeed 
Baker, since which time there has been no 
change, leaving the court now consisting of 
Sheldon, Schotield, Craig, Dickey, Walker, 
Scott and Mulkey. June 3, 1867. R. A. D. 
Wilbanks was elected Clerk, succeeding Maj. 
Johnston, and so continued until November, 
1878, when he was in turn succeeded by J. 
O. Chance, the present incumbent. From 
1848 until November, 1853, the court met in 
the old Odd Fellows Hall on Main street, pay- 
ing an annual rent of $75. From November, 
1853, until the court house was completed in 
about 1856, it met in the Masonic Hall, over 
Joel Pace's store, at the same rent paid the 
Odd Fellows. • 

In 1854, an appropriation was obtained 
from the Legislature of §0,000 for the build- 
ing of a court house. T. B. Tanner, Maj. 
Johnston, Zadok Casey, William J. Stephens 
and Dr. John N. Johnson were appointed 
Commissioners to take charge of the build- 
ing and superintend its construction. Plans 
were obtained, and it was found that the 
fund was iusuflBcient, but finally parties in 
St. Louis were found who contracted to in- 



close it for the money, which was done, and 
in 1854, T. B. Tanner, who had been elected 
a member of the Legislature, obtained an 
additional appropriation of $10,000, with 
which the building was completed accordintr 
to the original design. In 1874, an addi- 
tional appropriation was obtained for the 
purpose of remodeling the building, and 
the nor^h and south wings were added, and 
the building left in its present condition, 
an oi-nament to the county and a credit to 
the State. 

Judge Sidney Breeze. — Illinois has pro- 
duced some very great men — men whom all 
the world has been proud to honor— men 
who will go down in the national history, 
yes, in the history of the world, as truly 
gre<it. In wai', the Illinois' soldiers are said to 
be the gi-eatest now living; in State-craft we 
sent Douglas and Lincoln-men prominent 
in statesmanship, men to whom the world's 
history must accord befitting space. But, 
great as they are, none have been greater in 
their particular line than has Judge Breeze in 
his — a jurist quoted in every civilized coun- 
try, logical, analytical, just and blunt, se- 
vere, yet impartial. Judge Breeze was born 
in New York on the 15th day of July, 1800 
— born at the beginning of the most brill- 
iant century the world ever saw — born fitted 
and destined to bear a most prominent part 
in the many overshadowing achievements of 
the world's history. He received a classical 
education at Union College, New York, and 
at a very early age started with the star of 
empire westward. The year 1818 found 
Judge Breeze at Illinois' first capital, Kas- 
kaskia, as Assistant Secretary of State to 
Elias Kent Kam — his old friend. During 
this employment, the State capital was re- 
moved to Yandalia. The responsibilty of 
removing the Secretary's office was left to 
Judge Breeze; he accomplished the task with 



156 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



a yoke of oxen and the old two-wheeled cart, 
and thus were the great State documents re- 
moved from the old to the new capital. 

In 1822, he was appointed State's Attorney; 
in 1827, he was made United States DiMtrict 
Attorney for Illinois by President John Q. 
Adams. In 1831, he published Breeze's 
Reports, to be found in every well-appointed 
law library, and the first book ever published 
in Illinois. In 1835, he first went ujion the 
bench as Judge of the Second Judicial Cir- 
cuit. In 1842, he was elected to the United 
State Senate and served as such for six years. 
His career in the Senate was not barren of 
results. Then Clay, Webster, Benton and 
Calhoun were there. In the forum c>r in the 
committee. Senator Breeze ranked with those 
giants. 

While his mind, perhaps, was not em- 
ployed in the more active and exciting ele- 
ments of politics and State craft, yet he was 
never idle, his giant intellect reached out 
into the great unknown future; he read its 
hidden pages; he saw the future wants of 
this then young republic; he saw a few years 
in the distance the great chains of iron that 
were to bind this continent into indissoluble 
union; he saw the rapid strides of commerce; 
he realized its demands. He saw that in the 
great and rich valleys and prairies of the 
West was to spring the attributes of prosper- 
ity and wealth to this Government. He 
saw the great agricultural districts bending 
beneath the rich harvests, asking for trans- 
portation. 'Twas then his practical sagacity 
and comprehensive mind discovered and 
brought for the first time to the light of the 
nation the necessity of railroad connection 
between the Pacific and the Atlantic. He 
availed himself of his opportunity as Chair- 
man of the Committee on Public Lands in 
the United States Senate in 1840, elaborated 
in detail and brought in the first report ever 



made, advocating and anticipating the con- 
struction of the Pacific Railroad twenty-three 
years in advance of its commencement. His 
friends were incredulous; his enemies 
thought, for the time, at least, that he had, 
by his own blunder, succeeded in throwing 
ridicule on himself. But no; he only lived 
as many great men before his time. 

It has so happened that no man has left to 
his age or his country a more enduring mon- 
ument by which he is to be known to poster- 
ity. This one act, had he done no other, 
would hand him down in history as long as 
the whistle of the engine and the rumbling 
of the cars are heard ujion oiu" great plains. 
But this was not all that Judge Breeze did 
in the Senate. He was a continual worker 
for the development of his adopted State and 
the resources of the nation, but to write of 
his activities and public services while in the 
Senate would of itself make a volume. The 
building of the Illinois Central Railroad was 
under consideration while he was in the Sen- 
ate, and in Judge Breeze that enterprise 
found a strong and valuable champion. 

He was defeated in 1848 for reelection to 
the Senate by the hero of Cerro Gordo, Gen. 
Shields, who had just returned from the 
Mexican war, covered all over with glory. 
The military sentiment ran riot, as it has 
many times before and since, and a greai 
mind was forced to retire for the advance- 
ment of one who, while brilliant and brave 
on the field, yet had no qualification to rep- 
resent the rising State of Illinois in the na- 
tion's councils. And again we have illustrated 
the senitmeut, "Put a man on a charger, call 
him a warrior, and the American people are 
ready to blindly follow him they know not 
whither, neither do they care; so long as the 
shouts of the ' General ' are heard they go." 
A few military gentlemen have been called 
to the White House from the same senti- 



t 



HISTORY or JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



157 



ment, and the experiment has in almost every 
instance shown the folly of such a selection. 
The better the soldier, the poorer the states- 
man. But we are digressing. After his 
retirement from the Senate, Judge Breeze 
remained in private life until 1850, when he 
was elected to the Seventh General Assem- 
bly, of which he was elected Speaker of the 
Lower House, defeating Gov. Z. Casey of 
this county. In June, 1855, he was again 
elected Judge of the Second Judicial Circuit, 
and from this time it may be said he began 
that course of life which has handed him 
down as the greatest jurist this State has 
ever produced, and the peer of any in the 
nation. This marked his final retirement 
from politics, not, perhaps, from his own 
inclination, for he early evinced a strong 
desire for political preferment, and for years 
cherished his political aspirations, but his 
defeat by Shields so mortified him that he 
never afterward pressed his claims or wishes. 
In 1857, he resigned the Circuit Judgeship 
to accept a seat upon the Supreme Bench, 
nevermore to leave it until the final sum- 
mons, and it is as such that he achieved his 
highest honors. He was upon the Supreme 
Bench in 1841, when he was elected to the 
State Senate. He died June 28, 1878, a 
member of the court. We know of no more 
fitting words by which his judicial life may 
be reviewed than the remarks of Mr. Justice 
Scott, of the Supreme Court, at Ottawa, 
upon the presentation of resolutions an- 
nouncing Judge Breeze's death. He says: 
" Judge Breeze was a man of gi'eat learn- 
ing in the best and broadest sense of that 
term. To the studies prescribed by the col- 
ege of which he was graduate, he added a 
life-time of study. Notwithstanding his 
constant employment in public life, he found 
time for the study of classic literature, both 
in Latin and in English. After the close of 



the labors of the day, extending to a late 
hour of the evening, I have often known 
him, in his private room, before retiring, to 
spend hours in reading standard works on 
literatm*e or scientific subjects. It was his 
constant habit. It is a marvel the amount 
of intellectual labors he could endure. What 
relates to his personal history will soon fade 
from the recollections of the living and be 
forever forgotten. He will only be remem- 
bered by his public works. 

" In two particulars Judge Breeze will stand 
out prominent in history. First, in his 
character as a statesman, and second as a 
jurist. 

^ 9ft" T^t ^Jt t|c fl|c 9jr ^ 5fc ifr ^ ■3^t 

" Few men have influenced in so large a 
measure the jurisprudence of this State or 
nation in which they lived as^Judge Breeze. 
Every one, to some extent, creates the oppor- 
tunities for success in life. The means he 
possessed were within the reach of others, 
had they possessed the ability to combine 
them. Genius makes opportunities as well 
as employs those at hand for successful i 
achievements. We call men great only in 
comparison with othei's. and hence we are al- 
ways looking to see what others have done 
in the same field of labor. When the real 
does not exist we may conceive the ideal, and 
institute comparisons. As no one appears 
anywhere in judicial history who conforms 
exactly to the ideal of the true Judge, it is 
no easy task to express the conception of such 
a character. Some few of the essential qual- 
ities readily suggest themselves. * * * 
While we may not expect to find in him 
whose character we are considering, nor in 
that of any other Judge of the present or past 
ages, all that we might conceive to belong to 
the ideal Judge, yet some of the grand es- 
sentials do appear in his character. Although 
making no parade of it, he possessed in a 



158 



HISTOUY OF JEFFEHSON COUNTY. 



full measure that absolute incorruptibility 
that insures purity in the administration of 
the law — qualities which belong to the true 
Judge. His judgments were always dis- 
tinctly marked with impartiality and even- 
handed justice. He believed in those fun- 
damental principles embodied in our organic 
law — that every person ought ' to obtain by 
law right and justice freely and without be- 
ing obliged to purchase it,' and that he 
ought to ' find a certain remedy in the laws 
for all injuries and wrongs which he may 
receive in his person, property or reputation.' 

"He had not that degree of self-conlideuce 
possessed by many, yet he was free from 
that hesitancy that so embarrasses many 
Judges, as to destroy, in a marked degree, 
their efficiency. Although he wrote with un- 
usual facility, fet so careful was he in pre- 
paring his opinions, I have known him when 
he deemed the case of importance, to write 
the same over as many as three or four times. 

" His style was singularly perspicuous — as 
specimens of line writing, it is my judgment 
that his opinions will suffer nothing in com- 
parison with the best, the most distinguished 
jurists of this country and of England. 

"In clearness of expression and splendor of 
diction, they are fashioned after the best 
models. 

" Chief Justice Marshal was on the bench 
for a period of thirty-fom- years. His opin- 
ions, with the other members of the court, 
are comprised in thirty vohimes, exclusive of 
his decisions on the circuit, many of which 
were written and published. Judge Breeze 
was a member of our Supremo Court not 
quite twenty-three years, and yet his opin- 
ions, with those of the other Justices, compose 
seventy volimies, including the opinions now 
in manuscript. Some idea of the magnitude 
of his labors may be obtained when it is 
stated as the truth, he did his full share of 



the work, aad that for the grea'^er portion of 
the time he was on the bench the court was 
composed of three Justices. 

" If wo except one of his associates still on 
the bench, he has, perhaps, written more 
opinions than any Judge who ever occupied 
the bench in any of the American States. 
The exception, if any, is Chancellor Kent, 
and it is, perhaps, quite correct to say that 

so many opinions do not appear to his name. 

*** ********* 

" There is scarcely a question that concerns 
the public welfare or the jurisprudence of 
this great State upon which he has not writ- 
ten, and almost always with great clearness 
and accuracy. 

" More enduring than a monument of solid 
granite are the official reports of the State to 
his learning and ability as a jurist. laclud- 
ing the opinions now in manuscript, in 
which he participated, we will have eighty 
more volumes of reports, with every one of 
which his name is connected, either as a re 
porter, counsel or as a Justice delivering the 
opinions. 

"The questions discussed in the sixty years 
he was in some way connected with the 
court are of the utmost importance, and are 
such as would naturally be expected to arise 
in that formative period of a rapidly grow- 
ing State, and especially in one that has so 
suddenly risen to the proportions of an em- 
pire in itself. 

" He rests from his labors, but how truly 
can it be said of him his works do follow 
him. His fame as a judicial wi'iter will en- 
dure as long as the common law is adminis- 
tered anywhere among the nations of the 
earth; and the beneficent princples his learn- 
ing and ability assisted to maintain will aid 
in establishing right and justice in behalf 
of the humblest as well as the most exalted 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



159 



of our race, so long as our civilization shall 
stand." 

He was a jurist of clear and keen per 
ceptions, surpassed by none and equaled by 
few. In polities, Judge Breeze in early life 
was a Whig. He was a bitter opponent of 
Andrew Jackson, and never lost an opportu- 
nity to strike. He afterward took a different 
view and became a zealous Democrat, and 
as such he died. 

It is impossible for the writer hereof to 
paint with pen the true character of this 
man He was too great for any but great 
men to write. He was at times cross and 
sensitive, at times kind and pleasant; when 
he felt like it, he was one of the most com- 
panionable men, well versed in literature, 
always entertaining in conversation. His 
knowledge of Illinois and the men and par- 
ties of the State was, perhaps, superior to 
that of any other man. and it is to be re- 
gretted that he did not find time from his 
labors to put his recollections in history. He 
made Hon. Melville W. Fuller his literary ex- 
ecutor, and among his effects it is hoped 
that much valuable manuscript may be 
found. 

He was extremely sensitive about his age, 
and seldom permitted an inquiry upon that 
subject. Upon one occasion a few years 
before his death, when asked by an old citi- 
zen of this county, who had known him for 
years and had grown old with him, how old 
he was, he replied by saying, " I may be 
fifty, sir, and I may be one hundred and 
fifty; it is none of your d — d btisiness." I 
have heard of but one instance where he 
volunteered his age. In 1872, he was 
pressed by his friends for the Democratic 
nomination for Presidency, and had ho been 
elected, he, no doubt, would have made an 
administration that would have been at once 
strong, honest, wise and popular. But, like 



Clay and Webster, he was too great to be 
President. 

Shortly before his death, he was called 
upon by Maj. Johnston, who, in the course 
of the conversation asked the Judge if he 
would be a candidate for re-election. The 
Judge's reply was : " I want to die in the 
harness," and so he did die, working up to 
the very last, and thus died one of the three 
great men of Illinois. 

Walter B. Scates. — The eminent character 
of this gentleman requires more than a pass- 
ing notice; in fact a history of the State 
would be imperfect without an extended 
notice of him and his many public services. 
j For more than fifty years, his life has been 
closely interwoven with the public affairs of 
the State, and we very much doubt if there is 
another man of Judge Scates' years that has 
rendered more public service than he. 

Walter B. Scates was born January 18, 
1808, at South Boston, Halifax Co., Va. He 
came from Revolutionary stock, his maternal 
grandfather, Walter Bennett, for whom he 
j was named, being a Surgeon in the war of 
independence. In April, after his birth in 
January, his parents removed to Tennessee, 
and after a short residence in that State re- 
moved, and finally settled upon a farm near 
Hopkinsville, Ky., where Walter B. grew to 
manhood. The Indians had btit recently 
been driven from that country, the car of civ- 
ilization had scarcely entered, and the subject 
of this sketch was what now would be termed 
"brought up in the woods." The principal 
amusement of the young men of that day was 
in riding the old. gentle horse, with a "turn 
of corn," some miles to the old mill, and the 
associations found upon these occasions were, 
perhaps, about the extent of his mixing with 
the outside world until he left home. His 
parents being poor, and living on what would 
now be termed the " borders," he had not the 



160 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



opportunities of school, yet Lis mind dis- 
pelled the cloud, and looked beyond for more 
educational advantages than was afforded him 
at home. By continued effort, and that same 
energy which has marked his whole life, he 
acquired sufficient education to enable him 
to read, and from this time forwai-d it may 
be said that his book was his constant com- 
panion. At the age of nineteen, he broke 
loose from the attachments of home, and 
without his family's permission or knowledge 
he went to Nashville, Tenn., and apprenticed 
himself to a Mr. Wilson, editor and publisher 
of a newspaper. WHson had a;good library, 
and young Scates had it stipulated in the 
articles of apprenticeship that he should have 
the use of the library-. When he first went 
to Nashville, it was his intention to study 
medicine, but having no money and but little 
education, he was unable to make the neces- 
sary arrangements, hence his engagement 
with Wilson, the printer. He continued with 
Wilson for about three months when his father, 
ascertaining his whereabouts, went to him 
and proposed that, if he would return home, 
he would lind some way to send him to school. 
This proposition was accepted, and Walter 
went with his father back to the home he had 
three months before left. 

Upon his return, he attended the neighbor- 
hood school for about one year, the latter part 
of which he received some instructions in 
Latin and Greek from a Mr. Moore. It was 
the intention of himself and father that he 
should study medicine, and an arrangement 
was made with a Dr. Webber, of Hopkins- 
ville, Ky. , for Walter B. to enter his office as 
a student, but being unable to make satisfac- 
tory arrangements about board, the engage- 
ment with Dr. Webber was abandoned. In 
182S, he entered the law office of Charles 
Morehead, afterward Governor of Kentucky, 
and became a student of Blackstone. In 



1831, he was admitted to the bar, and in 
Mari.'h of that year started on horseback to 
go to St. Louis to locate. On arriving at Old 
Frankfort, then the county seat of Franklin 
County, 111., he found his money matters get- 
ting short, only having $12 in depreciated cur- 
renc) of the old Commonwealth Bank of Ken- 
tucky. Being thus depleted in his finances, 
he concluded he could not maintain him- 
self in St. Louis, and at once settled in Old 
Frankfort To this place he brought his 
clothes and books in his saddlebags. His 
father had obtained 100 acres of land near 
Belleville, this State, which he gave him. 
He went to Belleville, sold or traded the land 
for some old horses, shipped them to New Or- 
leans, working as a deck hand to pay the 
freight. Judge Scates remained at Old 
Frankfort five years, in the practice of the 
law in Franklin and fourteen other counties 
— a territory SO by 120 miles. During 
this period, he came in contact with many of 
the strongest men of the State, many of whom 
afterward attained distinction in their pro- 
fession; among them were Breeze. Eddy, 
Gatwood, Hardin, David J. Baker (father of 
the present Judge Baker, of the Appellate 
Court) — in fact, the bar of that circuit was 
the strongest in the State. In 1885, Judge 
Scates was elected County Surveyor of Frank- 
lin County. He participated in the Black 
Hawk war; was at the battle of Kellogg" s 
Grove. In 1835, he was also a candidate be- 
fore the Legislature for the office of Judge of 
the Circuit Court of the Third Judicial Dis- 
ti-ict, but was defeated by Alexander Grant. 
In 1836, he was appointed Attorney General 
for the State and moved to Vandalia, then 
the capital. About this time, November 21, 
1836, he was man-ied to Miss Mary Ridgway, 
at Shawneetowm, 111. In about 1837, Scates 
was elected Judge of the Circuit Court by 
the Legislature, in place of Hardin, resigned, 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



161 



and removed to Mount Vernon. He held his 
first court in McLeansboro. In 1840, a law 
was passed, legislating all Circuit Judges out 
of office, and imposing circuit duties upon 
the Judges of the Supreme Court. The Su- 
preme Bench was increased by the^election 
of five new Judges. Under this law, Judges 
Douglas, Ford, Treat and Scates were elected. 
He occupied the Supreme Bench until 1847, 
when he resigned, and was elected a member 
of the Constitutional Convention from the 
counties of Hamilton, Jefferson and Marion. 
He was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee 
of that body. In the convention, he was ac- 
tive, industrious and able. He advocated the 
'2-mill tax, an elective judiciary, universal 
suffrage, prohibition of special legislation, 
prohibition of banking, limited sessions of 
the Legislature and strongly opposed the poll 
taz. 

In 1853, Judge Lyman Trumbull, of the 
Supreme Bench, having resigned his seat for 
the purpose of accepting the office of United 
States Senator, Judge Scates was elected to 
the vacancy, and continued as such until 
1857, when he resigned and removed to Chi- 
cago, and entered into the practice of the law 
with William K. McAllister, John N. Jewett 
and Francis B. Peabodj'. 

In 1858, Mr. Peabody withdrew from the 
firm, leaving the firm of Scates, McAllister & 
Jewett — perhaps as strong a legal combina- 
tion as then existed in the State. McAllister 
afterward became a member of the Supreme 
Bench, and is now on the Circuit bench in 
Chicago. The firm continued in a growing 
and lucrative practice until August, 1862, 
when Judge Scates, thinking his country 
needed his services in its hour of apparent 
darkness, retired from the law firm of which 
he was the head, and although beyond that 
age in life when such a sacrifice could be de- 
manded, volunteered his services to the army, 



and wag at once assigned to duty as Adjutant 
on Gen. McClernand's staff, and so continued, 
in camp and in field, doing brave and gallant 
service for the land of his birth until he was 
mustered out in January, 1806. He was 
brevetted Brigadier General for bravery and 
faithfulness in the line of duty. Of Gen. 
Scates, it is but just to history to say that he, 
in every post assigned him, was vigilant, ac- 
tive, faithful, brave and zealous. He was a 
true and tried soldier, prompt in the per- 
formance of every duty, undaunted in the 
hour of danger, and. although comparatively 
an old man, full of fire, courage and energy. 
Upon his return from the army, he re-entered 
the practice of his profession at Chicago, as 
the senior member of the firm of Scates, 
Bates & Towslee; but he was not permitted 
to remain long in the piu-suit of his private 
business; he had proven himself so faithful a 
servant, and in the same year of his return 
from the army, President Johnson appointed 
bim Collector of Customs at Chicago, vice 
Havan, deceased, and in this capacity he 
proved himself the same efficient and faithful 
officer that had characterized him throughout 
life. Of his integrity and ability in the ad- 
ministration of his duties, his regular reports 
to the department bear the strongest evidence, 
each showing an increase of receipts and a 
decrease of expenses. Judge Scates served 
his time as Collector of the Port with honor 
to himself and credit to the department, and 
it mar well be said that with more men of 
the Judge's ability and integrity to superin- 
tend and handle the revenue there would not 
be heard so often the cry of fraud and em- 
bezzlement. After bis retirement from public 
service, he again entered the law, and is still 
so engaged, although on account of his age 
(seventy-five years) and feebleness, he at pres- 
ent is not attempting the practic(> extensively, 
and is perhaps only engaged in some few mat- 



162 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



ters in which he has a personal interest. He 
recently told the writer that he expected to 
visit Mount Vernon at the next session of the 
.yuj)reme Coui't, in November, and there make 
an argument in an important case. Judge 
Scates was Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court several terms, and it is, jierhaps, as 
such that he shines brightest. He has writ- 
ten in many leading cases, and ably written. 
His opinions are recognized to-day by the 
courts and the bar as of the highest author- 
ity — the peer of any, and second to none; 
for clearness and analytical force, learned 
and soundness of law, his opinions are re- 
markable. To Judge Scates, together with 
Gov. Casey, Jefferson County and Mount 
Vernon to-day owe a debt of gratitude that 
they will, perhaps, never be able to pay. It 
was owing to their efforts, as members of 
the Constitutional Convention of 1848, that 
the Supreme Court was established there. 
All of the towns in this division were appli- 
cants, and pressed their claims with energy; 
but by the skill of Judge Scates, who had 
been a member of the Supreme Bench, and of 
Gov. Casey and Maj. F. S. Casey, Mount 
Vernon was selected, and has so far been 
able to retain it. Perhaps if Judge Scates 
was to be measured by the standard of great- 
ness that is so prevalent to-day — so unjust, 
so short-sighted — he would not bear the test. 
We allude to the test of " means " —of 
" money." Judge Scates lived in a day 
when l)rains, not money-bags, constituted 
worth. He engaged in a few business vent- 
ures, but they were not successful, and to- 
day he IS a poor man in money, but rich in 
mental results, which will remain- an honor- 
able monument to him long after a world of 
money has passed away. In fact, no higher 
compliment can be paid the public servant 
who has spent a lifetime in office than to 
truthfully say, " He closed his career a poor 



man. " It is a sure record of honesty, and it 
might be added that, in the present day, it is 
a compliment too I'arely deserved. 

David J. Baker was Associate Justice of 
the Supreme Court, appointed by Gov. Cul- 
lum to the vacancy occasioned by the death 
of Judge Breeze. 

Judge Baker was born in Kaskaskia, on 
the 20th of November, 1834, and was the 
third son of the late Judge D. J. Baker, of 
Alton. He graduated at Shurtleflf College in 
1854, carrying off the prize of the Latin ora- 
tion. He read law with his father, and was 
admitted in 1856. In the same year, he cast 
his first vote, for John C. Fremont for Pres- 
ident, and from that day to the present there 
has been no perceptible change in his poli- 
tics. Yet it is safe to say that the bummers 
and corruptionists that have so neariy wrecked 
the Eepublican party find no sympath} in 
Judge Baker. In 1864, he was elected Mayor 
of Cairo, and in 1869 was elected Judge of 
the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit. 

In July, 1864, h* was mai-riedtoMiss Eliz- 
abeth White, daughter of John C. White, of 
Cairo. He was re-elected Judge in 187-3; re- 
signed, to accept the appointment of Judge of 
the Supreme Court, in 1878; was again re- 
elected to the Circuit Bench in 1879, and 
was, by the Supreme Court, assigned to Ap- 
pellate Com't duty — which position he now 
holds. 

As a Judge, he is logical, discriminating and 
just; in private life, he is social, kind and 
genial. 

Judge John H. Mulkey, who now occupies 
the Supreme Bench from this division, is a 
man who has long been known to the bar of 
Southern Illinois. 

He was born about 1823, in Kentucky, and 
with his father's family came to Illinois and 
settled in Franklin County. The family, 
with the exception of the Judge, were farm- 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUXTY 



1B3 



ers. He soon discovered that he was not 
specially adapted to farm life. He obtained 
a fair education, and by persistent reading 
soon stored his mind with a fand of general 
information. 

At twenty- five years of age, he entered the 
commercial world, and opened a cross-roads 
store in Franklin County, but he did not 
continue long in this business. The " dogs 
of war " were beginning to growl, and the 
military spirit was pervading the country 
with irresistible force, and Judge Mulkey 
did not escape its attack. He volunteered as 
a private of Company E, Second Illinois 
Regiment, and took up the line of march for 
the land of the " Montezumas." He was 
afterward promoted to Second Lieutenant of 
his company. Upon his return from war, 
he taught school and began the study of the 
law, reading, as some of his friends have 
said, in " the brash." He afterward read 
some at Benton, Franklin County, after which 
he tried farming, but was not a success, and 
again became a merchant for a short time. 
His career in this direction was brought to 
a sudden close, however, by an unfortunate 
adventure; he invested largely in lumber 
(hoop poles), loaded them on a flat-boat and 
started for the market, but danger was ahead 
of him. His craft struck a snag, and down 
into the waters of the Mississif)pi wont bciat, 
hoop poles, and about all of the Judge's earth- 
ly effects, and left him in a seriously damaged 
condition; in fact, he was a " busted mer- 
chant." He then, with ax and hoe, under- 
took to subdue the wild forest and make him 
a home; but again he failed. 

In 1857, he removed to Perry County, and 
was admitted to the bar. It was not long un 
til he and his friends discovered that he at 
last had drifted to his element. He soon at- 
tained a high rank in his profession — " rode 
the «ircuit," as was the custom in those days. 



It is, perhaps, not out of place to say that his 
father, a prominent minister in the Christian 
Church, long cherished the hope that his son 
should follow his footsteps and likewise enter 
the ministry, and made some effort to prepare 
the Judge for clerical duties. And no doubt 
the son made strong effort to comply with his 
father's wishes in this particular, and while 
he was noted for his early and exemplary 
piety, this enterprise was no more successful 
than his farming and merchandising. He was 
plain, unassuming and fun-loving in his 
young manhood, and yet he must have been 
a close, hard-working student in order to 
carve out the bright and honorable career that 
lay before him. In 186l), he located at Cairo, 
and formed a partnership with the present 
Judge D. J. Baker, and from this time we 
may date his rapid rise to the head of the bar 
in Southern Illinois. 

April 2, 1864, he was commissioned Circuit 
Judge of the Third Circuit; but previous to 
this he was, for opinion's sake, made one of 
the victims of arbitrary arrest, and at the 
suggestion of the authorities, for a time took 
up his residence at the old capitol in Wash- 
ington — a hotel conducted exclusively by the 
Government — and while the accommodations 
were not altogether of a desirable nature, yet 
they were regular, and all the bills paid by 
the Government. On June 2, 1879, he was 
elected to the Supreme Bench, vice Baker, 
and is at present tilling the high position. 

Judge Mulkey owes nothing to fortunate 
circumstances or sui'roundings. He has not 
been favored with the aid of strong and in- 
fluential friends; but alone, and by his own 
inherent strength of mental jjower, he has 
achieved, apparently without effort, the prize 
for which so many ambitious men have toiled 
and struggled. 

Appellate Court. — The Constitution of 
1870 provided for the creation of Appellate 



164 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



Courts, after the year 1874, <jf uniform or- 
ganization and jurisdiction in districts cre- 
ated for that purpose, to which such appeals 
and writs of error as the General Assembly 
may provide may be prosecuted from Circuit 
and other coui'ts, and from which appeals 
and wi'its of error may lie to the Supreme 
Court in all criminal cases and oases in which 
a franchise or freehold or validity of a statute 
is involved, and in such other cases as may be 
provided by law. Such Appellate Courts to be 
held by such number of Judges of the Circuit 
Coui'ts, and at such times and places and in 
such manner as might be provided by law; 
but no Judge shall sit in review upon cases 
decided by him, nor shall said Judges receive 
any additional compensation for such serv- 
ices. Under this provision of the constitu- 
tion, the Legislatiu-e, in 1877, created four 
Appellate Courts in the State; the first to 
consist of Cook County, the second to include 
all of the counties of the Northern Grand 
Division of the Supreme Court except Cook, 
the third to include all of the Central Grand 
Division, and the f oui'th to include all of the 
Southern Grand Division. The Judges of 
these Appellate Courts to be assigned by the 
Supreme Court from the Circuit Courts of 
the State, and each court to consist of three 
Judges thus assigned. Two terms each are 
held every year. 

On the organization of the court in this, 
the Fourth District, Judges Tazewell B. Tan- 
ner, James C. Allen and George W. Wall 
were assigned by the Supreme Court to Ap- 
pellate Coui't duty. Judge Tanner became 
the first Presiding Justice of the coui-t, and 
R. A. D. Wilbanks was its first Clerk, by vir- 
tue of his offices as Clerk of the Supreme 
Court. 

In June, 1879, Judges Wall, David J. 
Baker and Thomas S. Casey were assigned to 
the Appellate Court, and now constitute that 



court. While this branch of the new judicial 
machinery of the State has only been in prac- 
tical operation since 1877, yet it is in good 
favor by the bar of the State. Its efifect has 
been to greatly relieve the Supreme Court in 
the then rapidly accumulating business. It 
insures more promptness and greater dispatch 
in the law than could have possibly been ob- 
tained without it or some other relief meas- 
ure. T 

Judge Tazewell B. Tanner. — Perhaps no 
member of the bar of this county became so 
thoroughly identified with every material in- 
terest as did the subject of this sketch. 

He was born in Henry County, Va., :ind 
died at his residence in this place on the 25th 
day of March, 1880. He came to this coun- 
ty in IS-tG or 1847, and took charge of the 
public schools, after which he became con- 
nected with the Jeffersonian, a Democratic 
newspaper then published here. In 1848 or 
1849, he was taken with the gold fever, and 
crossed the plains in search of wealth. He 
met with some success, retm-ned in 1850 or 
1851, was elected Clerk of Circuit Court, 
served two years and resigned. He had taught 
school in Belleville before he came here, and 
while there read law with Gov. Matteson. 
While Clerk of the Circuit Court, he contin- 
ued the study, and upon his resignation he 
was admitted to the bar, and at once entered 
upon the practice with the now Judge Thomas 
S. Casey. In 1854, he was elected to the 
Legislature, and while there secured an ap- 
propriation for the building, at this place, 
of the Supreme Court House, and was made 
one of the Commissioners to superintend its 
construction. In 1862, he was elected a 
member of the Constitutional Convention. 
He early attained a high standing in the pro- 
fession as a lawyer, and while " riding the 
circuits" always had his share of the busi- 
ness. In 1867, he was a candidate for Judge 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



165 



of this circuit, but was defeated by the Hon. 
James M. Pollock. In 1873, he was again a 
candidate, and was elected over Judge Pol- 
lock and Col, John M Crebbs, of White 
County. In 1877, upon the organization of 
the Appellate Court, he was, by the Supreme 
Court, assigned to the Appellate Bench, and 
became its first presiding officer. In June, 
1879, he was, for a time, a candidate for 
Judge of the Supreme Court, but withdrew 
before the election. Upon his retirement 
from the bench, he again engaged in the ac- 
tive practice, and so continued until stricken 
down by the disease which terminated his 
life. It is not our purpose to give an extend- 
ed sketch of Judge Tanner in this chapter — 
his full biographical sketch will be found 
elsewhere — biit a history of the bar would 
not be complete without something of him. 
He was a kind, social gentleman, full of in- 
teresting anecdotes, and always fond of relat- 
ing them. There are many good stories told 
of him, one of which the writer hereof well re- 
members: He was defending a man charged 
with shooting at some negroes. The prc>se- 
cuting witness wiis a colored gentleman known 
here as George orCapt. Scott. The Captain 
had sworn very positively to the shooting, and 
had made a rather strong case against the 
Judge's client ; but the cross-examination 
came, and Tanner took the Captain in hand 
txD break the force of his evidence, if possi- 
ble. He commenced by asking him if he 
was in the house at the time the shooting 
occurred. 

Scott answered, "No." 

" Were you out doors?" asked Tanner. 

" No, sah." 

"Were you under the bed'?" 

"No, sah," 

" Were you in the loft? " 

" No. sah." 

" Were vou under the floor?" 



" No, sah." 

" Were you in the chimney X" 

"No, sah." 

Tanner, now thinking he had him fast: 

" Well, sir, if you were not in the house, 
out doors, under the bed, in the loft, under 
the floor nor in the chimney, where were 
you, sir? Now, answer me that, sir; " and 
he di'ew down his eyebrows and closed his 
eyes, as was his custom when he thought he 
had his man fast, and paused for the answer. 

The answer came with promptness: "I 
was a-standing in the door, sah; that's whar 
I was, sah." 

It is needless to say that the examination 
proceeded no further. 

Judge Tanner was a profoimd lawyer ; 
well read in all the books. In practice, as 
well as ou the bench, he went to the bottom 
of every case presented. Ho brought to his 
aid an intelligent industry, that made him a 
better lawyer at the end of each year than he 
was at the beginning. To young men just 
enteriug the profession, he was most kind: he 
always had words of encouragement for them. 
It was the good fortune of the writer to study 
law with the Judge, and no man was ever 
kinder to a student; he always had a good 
word. To his client he was honest and just. 
If the client did not have a case, the Judge 
did not hesitate to tell him so; and fre- 
quently has he lost clients because he did 
not advise success; but his principle and 
theory was that if the client did not have a 
case, to frankly tell him so. 

On the bench he was most painstaking. 
He sifted every case and brought to the 
front the equities. Of unimpeachable integ- 
rity, a purer man never sat in judgment. 

"A judge — a man so learned 
So full of equity, so noble, so notable; 
In the process of life so innocent; 
In the management of his office so incorrupt; 



166 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



In the passages of rights so wise; in 
Affection of his country so religious: 
In all his services to the State so 
Fortunate and exploring, as envy 
Itself cannot accuse, or malice vitiate." 

Jndge G. W. Wall, at preseni member of 
the Appellate Court and its presiding officer, 
was born in Chillicothe, Ohio, April 22, 
1839; came with his family to Illinois in the 
latter part of 183'J and located in Perry Coun- 
ty, where he grew to manhood. For a time 
was a student at McKendree College, but 
graduated at the Michigan University in 
1858. He read law with C. I. Simons, in 
Cairo, and afterward graduated at the Cin- 
cinnati Law School in 1859, and was at once 
admitted to the bar. In 1866, he was a 
member of the law firm of Mulkey, Wall & 
Wheeler, of Cairo, which continued for many 
years, and until he was elected Judge of the 
Circuit Court. He was attorney for the Illi- 
nois Central Railroad, and while thus acting 
a good story is told of him. He was called 
upon to attend a case at Effingham for the 
railroad, which had been sued by a citizen 
for the value of stock killed by defendants' 
train. The venerable and ever ready O. B. 
Ficklin was prosecuting the company, to- 
gether with some other attorney whose name 
is not now remembered. The evidence was 
heard, and counsel went to the jury. The 
plaintiff's case was opened by Ficklin's asso- 
ciate, who indulged in considerable bunkum 
and bombast about giant corporations, etc. 
After he clo'^ed. Wall replied for the defense, 
and during the course of his remarks com- 
pared the gentleman who had preceded him 
to Dickens' famous character of " Sergeant 
Buzfuz," and, as he thought, completely an- 
nihilated the gentleman, and left nothing to 
be done but for the jury to retiu-n a verdict 
for the defendant, and thus closed his case. 
It was now time for Ficklin to make the 
closing argument for the plaintiff, and after 



speaking to the testimony and the law, he 
concluded in the following vein of pathetic 
and injured innocence: 

"And now, gentlemen of the jury, it be- 
comes my painful duty to reply to the malig- 
nant and uncalled-for attack uj)on one of the 
best men this country ever produced; a man 
who has long since slept with his fathers, 
and upon whose character no man, until to- 
day, has dared to cast the shadow of suspic- 
ion. I allude, gentlemen of the jury, to 
the attack of my young friend Wall upon the 
memory of that good and kind man. Sergeant 
Buzfuz. Gentlemen, it was not, perhaps, 
yoiu- privilege, as it-was mine, to have known 
him personally. I remember him well, in 
the early and trying times of this country. 
He first assisted to cut out the roads through 
this county. He was the early pioneer; who 
was ever ready and willing, with honest heart 
and active hand, to aid a friend or brother 
in distress. In fact, gentlemen of the jury, 
there are few men, living or dead, that this 
country owes more to than it does to my old 
friend Sergeant Buzfiiz. It is true, gentle- 
men, that he was somewhat uncouth and 
blunt in his way, but his every action, T assure 
you, was prompted by a noble and honest 
motive. He was not blessed with the brill- 
iant and accomplished education of my 
young friend. He, gentlemen of the jury, 
wore no starched shirt, or' fine neckties; he 
was humble and retired. In his leather leg- 
gins and hunting shirt he went about the 
country, not as a representative of a rich rail- 
road monopoly, but as an humble citizen do- 
ing good to his fellow-man. His bones have 
long since moldered into dust ; the sod gi-ows 
green over his grave; his work is done, and 
he is gone from among us to return no more 
forever; and I was sm-prised to hear his just 
and amiable character attacked in the man- 
ner it has been upon this occasion; and it is 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



161 



impossible for me, his last remaining friend, 
to permit it to go by unnoticed. And to you, 
sir [turning to Wall, who was by this time 
completely dumb-founded], I say, no better 
man ever lived than he whom you have so 
unjustly abused. Youth, sir, should have 
more respect for the men who have made life 
pleasant for those who come after them, than 
to assail their character in the manner you 
have done;" and thus he continued until his 
close, with great earnestness and the utmost 
apparent sincerity. At its close, the jury 
could hardly wait uotil they could write their 
verdict for the full amount of damages 
claimed by the plaintiff, and, it is said, so 
worked up were they that Wall had difficulty 
in escaping personal violence. 

In 1802, Judge Wall was elected a member 
of the Constitutional Convention; in 1864, 
he was State's Attorney for the Third Judi- 
cial Circuit, and in 1870 was again a member 
of the Constitutional Convention. 

In August, 1877, he was elected Jvidge of 
the Third Judicial Circuit, which position he 
still holds. In September. 1877, he was 
assigned to the Appellate Court for the 
Fourth District, and has so remained to the 
present time. As a -Judge, he is clear, con- 
cise and sound, of unimpeachable integrity; 
and for ability and legal learning he takes 
front rank in the State's judiciary. Yet, it 
is said, he has never referred in a disparag 
ing manner to any of the early settlers since 
he made the acquaintance of Judge Ficklin. 

Hon. Thomas S. Casey, one of the Circuit 
Judges of this judicial district, and also one 
of the Appellate Judges, was born in Jeflfer- 
son County, 111., April 6, 1832, and is a son 
of Gov. Zadok Casey. He was educated at 
McKench-ee College, Lebanon, 111., and after 
completing his allotted course of studies and 
securing the degree of Master of Arts, he 
applied himself to the study of law under 



the preceptorship of Hugh B. Montgomery, 
with whom he remained as a student for 
three years. At the expiration of that time, 
he was (in 1854) admitted to .the_bar. In 
I860, he was elected State's Attorney for the 
Twelfth Judicial District, having, up to this 
time, been engaged in the practice of his 
profession. In 1864, he was re-elected to the 
same position. In 1862, he entered the army 
of the United States as Colonel of the One 
Hundred and Tenth Regiment of Illinois 
Volunteer Infantry, and served during the 
succeeding eleven months. He participated 
in the battle of Stone River, and took part, 
also, in many other minor engagements. On 
his return from the field, he resumed his pro- 
fessional labors, and until 1868 filled the 
position of States Attorney. In 1870, he 
was elected to the Lower House of the Leg- 
islature, and while a member of that body 
delivered a powerful Free-trade speech, which 
is noted as being the first speech of its kind 
ever delivered in the Legislature of Illinois. 
In 1872, he was elected to the State Senate, 
and served for four years. In 1879, he was 
elected one of the Judges of the , Second 
Jud/cial Circuit Court, and immediately 
thereafter was, by the Supreme Court, as- 
signed to duty as one of the Judges of the 
Appellate Court of the Fourth District; which 
positions he still holds. In politics, he has 
always been an " Ironside Democrat." He 
was married, in October, 1861, to Matilda 

, S. Moran, of Springfield, 111. 

Judge Edwin Beecher, one of the Judges 
of thiscircuit, was born in Herkimer County, 

i N. Y. , September 11, 1819. He received a 
collegiate education, and, in September, 1837, 
removed to Licking County, Ohio; and at 
Lancaster, Ohio, he i-ead law with the Hon. 

j Henry Stansbury. In 1844, he settled in 
Fairfield, Wayne Co., 111., and entered at 
once upon the duties of his profession. At 



168 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



that lime, there was but one lawyer, a Mr. 
Ward, in the county, and he died the spring 
after Judge Beecher's arrival. J udge Beecher 
at once took a front rank in the profession, 
and in 1840 was elected Probate Justice of 
Wayne County. He was elected Judge of 
the Circuit Court for this circuit in 1855, 
and held the office for six years. In 1860, 
he edited the second edition of Breeze's 
Reports, and made the volume more valuable 
by additional notes and citations. He was 
appointed Paymaster in the United States 
Army in November. 1862, aad continued as 
such until 1869. 

Judge Beecher has always been regarded 
as a profound lawyer and a wise counselor; 
he made an excellent Judge — and in what- 
ever position he has been called, he has dis- 
charged the duties required of him faith- 
fully and honestly He is still residing at 
Fairfield, where he first settled, and although 
he is now in his sixty-fourth year, he is 
hale and vigorous, and enjoying a lucrative 
practice. 

Circuit Court. — The first term of Circuit 
Court held in this county was convened on 
the 8th day of October, A. D. 1819, with 
William Wilson as Judge; Joel Pace, Clerk; 
Lewis Watkins. Sherifif, and Frederick 
Adolphus Hubbard, Prosecuting Attorney. 

The grand jury, after a laborious (session 
of about two hours in the woods north of the 
public square, about where the livery stable 
of Walker & Pattison now stands, returned 
two indictments, one against William Casey 
and one against Lewis Watkina, Sheriif, both 
for assault and battery. Watkins confessed 
the soft impeachment, and a fine of $2 and 
costs was imposed. 

May term, 1820, Wilson presided and 
Henry Eddy was appointed Prosecuting At ■ 
torney for the term. Two civil cases appeared 
on the docket, both dismissed by plaintift', 



six indictments for assault and battery and 
five for selling liquors without a license, 
from which we gather that the early settlers 
came here with the impression that a good 
knock-down was a luxury to be sought after 
by those who would have distinction linger 
around their names. This sentiment, accom- 
panied with a bit of the " elixir of life," or 
"corn juice," as it may have then been called, 
was well calculated to make things interest- 
ing and not a few sore heads. 

At the October term, 1820, Hon. Thomas 
C. Brown presided. At this term an indict- 
ment was returned againsl Ferdinand Herrin 
for countorfeiting, and for the first time the 
county found itself in need of a jail; but 
none was at hand, and the'prisoner was taken 
to the White County Jail, from whence he 
proceeded to make his escape, but after a 
while he was recaptured and lodged in jail 
at Old Covington, Washingon County, where 
he remained until the June term of the com-t, 
1821, Judge Joseph Phillips presiding. On 
the 19th day of June, 1821, Herrin was 
placed on trial, and as it was the most im- 
portant criminal trial that had been called, 
considerable interest was manifested, and 
after due legal forms, a jury was called and 
testimony heard. After due and careful con- 
sideration, the jui-y returned a verdict of 
guilty, and the court immediately proceeded 
to pronounce the following sentence: " It 
is therefore considered by the court that 
the defendant pay a fine to the people of the 
county aforesaid in the sum of $20 and costs 
of this prosecuticm, and that he be whipped 
thirty-nine stripes on his bare back, which 
the Sheriff of the county is ordered to in- 
flict at half past 6 o'clock this evening, 
and it is further ordered that he be com- 
mitted until fine and costs are paid." 
Speedy justice, indeed! It was the first time 
an opportunity had presented itself to give 






0. i 



'%. 




\, 



S- 




CMJAjt^i^^uttA^ 



LIBR ..r 

V "I HE 

JNIVERSriY OF ILLINOIS 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



171 



to the citizens a practical illustration of the 
"terrors of the law," and it could not be Inst. 
The whipping part was executed at tlie ap- 
pointed hour, and considering the number of 
inhabitants in the county at that time, no 
larger number of the fair daughters and stal- 
wart sons of Jefferson County were ever 
gathered together. He was committed under 
the order of the court, but wages being low 
and payments poor in jail, he did not accu- 
mulate very rapidly, and after awhile he 
was released and the tine and costs are still 
unpaid. .4. little management in the way of 
gate fees might have paid it, but it was a 
free show. 

At the November term, 1822, Hon. Thomas 
Reynolds presided and William Wood sued 
John M. Pace for false imprisonment. Par- 
ties not being ready, the cause was continued 
until the May term, 1823, at which term the 
Hon. John Reynolds presided. The case of 
Woods against Pace was called and tried by 
jury, and the following verdict retui-ned: 
" We the jury lind damages in favor of 
plaintiff $38.37|^ in paper of this State." 
Judgment was accordingly rendered. 

October term, 1823, Thomas Reynolds 
presided and for the first and only time in 
the history of the county, the Grand Jury 
adjourned without finding any indictments. 
Peace and good will seems to have reigned 
throughout the entire county. 

At the May and October terms, 1824:, 
Thomas Reynolds presided. In April, 
1825, James Hall was upon the bench; Oc- 
tober, 1825, James Wattles wore the title 
and James Hall was here again in April and 
October, 1826. 

March, 1827, court opened with Thomas 
Brown on the bench. The grand jury at 
this time in hunting for violators of the law, 
discovered that Joel Pace, the Clerk of the 
court, had been a little pugnacious, and they 



returned a bill against him for assault and 
battery. Defendant first thought the indict- 
ment was bad and entered his motion to 
quash. The court, however, was inclined to 
be satisfied, and overruled the motion. Defend- 
ant b}' this time came to the conclusion that 
he was not guilty, and so entered his plea 
and called for a jury. A jury came, and 
after full investigation of the case, came to 
the conclusion that the defendant was again 
mistaken in his plea, and returned a verdict 
of guilty as charged, whereupon defendant was 
required to contribute the sum of $1 to the 
school fund and also to pay the costs of the 
prosecution. 

Judge Brown continued to hold the courts 
until the March term, 1835. 

In March, 1835, Alex F. Grant came to 
the bench. 

March and August terms, 1836, Jeptha 
Hardin presided. About this time Judge 
Hardin's brother-in-law killed a man, and the 
Judge resigned his seat to prosecute him, 
and in doing so said he would rather be the 
owner of a tub mill in Kentucky than a Cir- 
cuit Judge in Illinois. 

After Hardin came Scates, who held court 
from 1837 to 1846. 

At the August term, 1838, Downing Baugh 
was indicted for retailing clocks without 
having first obtained a license therefor. 
Defendant entered his plea of not guilty, as 
inferred from the following order entered in 
the case: " Now on this day came the peo- 
ple by Marshall, State's Attorney, and the de- 
fendant in his own proper person, and the 
said defendant for plea says he is not guilty 
and for trial puts himself upon the country 
and State's Attorney does the like, whereup- 
on let a jury come, and thereupon a jury 
came, to wit: James Montgomery. Samuel 
Cummins, John R. Allen, Joseph Dorrel, 
Granville Jones, James Bennett, John Dod- 



172 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY 



son, William R. Little and Uriah Wither- 
spoon, who beiug elected, tried and sworn, 
well and truly to try the issues joined, upon 
their oaths do say, we, the jury, find the 
defendant guilty. It is considered by the 
coui-t that the plaintiff recover of the defend- 
ant the sum of $5 and costs of this proceed- 
ings." 

We conclude that the proceedings had in 
this case did not materially affect the de- 
fendant's popularity, because he was after- 
ward made Judge of the Circuit Court. 

With this one exception, nothing of spe- 
cial interest seems to have come before the 
coiu-t until the April term, 1S41, when the 
first indictment for mui'der was returned 
into court against Rollin Bradley, charging 
him with killing and murdering one Elijah 
P. King. Nothing was done at this term in 
the case except to recognize the witnesses 
and continue. The witnesses were Robert 
A. D. Wilbanks, father of the present Clerk 
of the Appellate Court; William H. Short, 
John Browning, James W. Garrison. Nathan 
Kirk, A. D. W. Williams. Elijah Piper, 
George Black, Bershall Black and James A. 
Hamilton. 

At the special November term, 1841, the 
case was called and the trial entered upon. 
But in order that the case may be fully un- 
derstood, we will give the circTimstances of 
the killing as we have gathered them from a 
history of the county by Dr. A. Clark John- 
son, published in the Free Press a few 
years ago: 

Elijah P. King, the victim, lived near 
the east side of Elk Prairie. Bradley lived 
on the west side, was an industrious man, 
kept a barrel of whisky, and was gaining 
property as rapidly as was common in that 
day. He was, however, always a determined 
and dangerous man. 

King came to Bradley's for some whisky; 



before he left a quarrel arose, and King, be- 
ing a large, stout man, and rather anxious 
for a fight, took a chair, knocked Bradley 
down, and gave him a very severe beating, 
and, leaving him, got on his horse and went 
home. Wesley Hicks came in a few minutes 
afterward, and finding Bradley insensible 
and the floor all bespattered with blood, pro- 
nounced him a murdered man. But by the 
help of Hicks' dressing and good attention, 
he was able to be up next day and swore he 
would kill King on sight. 

The next moi'ning King concluded he 
would go to Bradley's and make friends with 
him and get some more whisky. When he 
rode up, Bradley met him with his gun. 
King said, " Bradley, you are not going to 
shoot me, are you?" Bradley replied, 
"Yes, by — , I am." King dismounted on 
the opposite side of his horse, exclaiming, 
" For God's sake don't shoot me." Bradley 
stepped around the horse, placed the gun to 
King's side, fired, and King died in a few 
minutes. Bradley then fled. Ho was, how- 
ever, captiu'ed, indicted, and trial set for the 
special November term, 1841, Scates was 
on the bench; Willis Allen was Prosecuting 
Attorney; Henry Eddy, W. J. Gatewood, S. 
G. Hicks and E. Jones represented the de- 
fense. After an examination of about fifty 
men, a jury was impaneled, consisting of 
Coleman Smith, W. M. Fuller, J. H. Wat- 
son, S. B. Shelton, B. McConnell. Jesse 
Phillips. D. Baugh, John Holt, D. McLaugh- 
lin, Joel Smith, Edward Owens and W. Gib- 
berson. The examination of witnesses began 
on November 30, and December 7, the argu- 
ment opened, continuing until December 8, 
when the^case went to the jury. In. a short 
time, however, the jury retmmed a verdict 
of guilty. 

Motion for new trial and arrest of judg- 
ment being overruled, the court pronounced 



HISTORY OF JEFFEKSOX COUNTY. 



173 



sentence of death on Bradley and fixed the 
3d day of January, 1842, between the hoiu's 
of 12 and 2 o'clock, for his execution. Judge 
Scates is said to have evinced considerable 
feeling, but Bradley listened with much in- 
diflerence and at the conclusion, got up and 
took a di'ink of water as if nothing had hap- 
pened. 

A gallows was erected somewhere near 
where the machine shop now stands, and 
every arrangement made for the execution; 
but Bradley had friends, and they were not 
idle. A petition was at once circulated, ask- 
ing for his pardon. Bluford Hayes took it 
to Springfield, obtained the pardon and re- 
turned just in time to disappoint one of the 
largest crowds that ever assembled in the 
county, many of them leaving mad and hot 
at their disappointment. 

Thus we give the history of the first mur- 
der ever committed in this count)', and the 
only one where the sentence of death was 
passed. 

Judge Scates was on the bench from 1837 
until 1846, when the Hon, William A. Den- 
ning was elected, and continued to hold 
court until the election of Judge Marshall in 
1851, when he resigned, and Downing Baugh 
was appointed to fill the vacancy. Edwin 
Beecher followed Baugh in 1855, and in 
1861 Marshall came back, remained vintil 
February, 1865, when he again resigned to 
accept a seat in Congress, and James M. 
Pollock was elected and served until 1872, 
when he was succeded by T. B. Tanner, and 
in 187S he gave way to Thomas S. Casey, 
the present incumbent. Thus have we given 
a brief sketch of the Circuit Coiut. 

William Wilson was born in Loudoun 
County, Ya., in 1795. At eighteen, be 
studied law with Hon. John Cook, a lawyer 
of much prominence at the Virginia bar and 
who was aftei'ward Minister to the court of 



France. In 1817, young Wilson came West 
in search of fame and success. He settled 
near Carmi, White County. In 1818, he 
was a caudidate for Judge of the Supreme 
Court before the Legislature, but was de- 
feated by six votes; but within less than one 
yeai' he was appointed to a vacancy and 
served as Justice, when he was made Chief 
Justice, then in his twenty-ninth year. He 
was not a politician in any sense of the 
word; he did that which he conceived to be 
his duty regardless of consequences, and 
this trait, together with some considera- 
ble legal knowledge and ability, kept him on 
the Supreme Bench for thirty years. His 
composition was clear, distinct and to the 
point. He possessed an analytical mind; 
his judgment as a lawyer was discriminating 
and sound, and upon the bench his learning 
and impartiality commanded respect, while 
his own dignified deportment inspired decor- 
um in others. He was greatly esteemed by 
the members of the bar. 

In politics, Judge Wilson was a AVhig. 
He was an amiable and accomplished gentle- 
man in his private life, with manners en- 
gaging and friendship strong. His hospi- 
tality was of the " Old Virginia " order, and 
during his summer vacations he almost al- 
ways had many friends and men of distinc- 
tion visit him at his home on the banks of 
the Little Wabash near Carmi. 

With the re-organization of the judicial 
system of the State in 1848, Judge Wilson 
retired to private life. He died April 29, 
1857, at his home near Carmi, in his sixty- 
third year, one-half of his life having been 
spent upon the bench of the highest court 
of his State. 

Samuel S. Marshal], a native of Illinois, 
has spent his whole life in this State. He 
was born in Gallatin County, near Shawnee - 
town, on the 12th day of March, 1821, and 



174 



HISTOKY OF JEFFERSON COUXTY. 



there grew to manhood, during which time 
he obtained a fair education. He entered the 
law office of Henry Eddy, of Shawneetown, 
one of the then prominent lawyers of the 
State. In 1S44, Judge Marshall was admit- 
ted to the bar, and shortly after located at 
McLeansboro, where he still presides, and 
began the practice of his profession. He 
was not long permitted to remain in private 
life. He already began to develop traits of 
character and ability which pronounced a 
leader, and in 1846 he was elected to the 
Legislature, where he at once took a front 
rank in the councils of the State. Dm-ing 
his term as a member of the Legislature, he 
was elected by that body Prosecuting Attor- 
ney of this judicial circuit, then comprising 
the counties of Jefferson, Marion, Hamilton, 
Franklin, Williamson, Jackson, Union, 
Alexander, Pulaski, Massac, Pope, Hardin, 
Gallatin and Saline, fourteen in all, extend- 
ing from what is now the Ohio & Mississippi 
Eailroad to the southern boundary of the 
State at Cairo; and from the Ohio River on 
the east to the Mississippi on the west. In 
those days, it will be remembered that no 
railroads were in this county, and the trav- 
eling accommodations were not as good as at 
present. The court and bar " rode the cir 
cuit" from county to county, sometimes in a 
stage, sometimes in a wagon, then on horse- 
back and again on foot, with a rail on their 
shoulder to pry the stage out of the nest mud 
hole. Those were trying times on the bar, 
and yet many pleasures were had that are 
not to-day enjoyed; telling stories and crack- 
ing jokes was the pastime on the way. At 
court, four or five would be stowed away in 
a small room at the best hotel, which was 
nothing to speak of. But whisky was cheap, 
and the trials were bravely endm^ed. For 
two years Judge Marshall " rode the circuit" 
in this manner as Prosecuting Attorney, on 



a salary of $250 per year, and really though 
he was on the road to prosperity. To-day, 
each county has a prosecutor, at an average 
salary of SI, 000 per year, amounting in the 
aggregate to S14,000, for the same territory 
in which Judge Marshall received S250. At 
the time the Judge was elected Prosecutor, 
he had been in court but little, but by a 
persistence which is characteristic of him, 
he soon learned the harness and taught the 
violators of the law that their acts would re- 
ceive due and ample consideration. At the 
expiration of his term of office, he declined 
a re-election and returned to the practice, 
but in 1851 he was again called to public 
life, and elected Judge of this judicial cir- 
cuit over the Hon. ,^ Charles H. Constable, 
then of Wabash County. He continued upon 
the bench until 1S54, when he was elected to 
Congress as the Democratic candidate from 
this district He was re-elected in 1856, 
and declined to be a candidate in 1858, and 
was succeeded by John A. Logan. 

In March, 1861, Judge Marshall was again 
elected to the bench and served as Judge of 
the Circuit Court until 1864, when he was 
1 again called by his party to bear its standard 
'> for Congress, and was regularly re-elected 
I in 1866, 1868, 1870 and 1872: was a candi 
j date in 1874, and was defeated by Hon. W. 
, B. Anderson, of this county, who had become 
1 the leader in this district of that short-lived 
tidal wave, the farmers' club movement 
Judge Marshall had. daring his entire life, 
adhered strictly to the Jeffersonian Democ - 
racy, and refused to pander to the caprices of 
the occasion for the sake of present political 
preferment. Time has only proved the wis 
dom of his course, for the mushroom hallu- 
cination which placed Gen. Anderson and 
many others for a time at the front was 
scarcely born ere it began to die, and has 
long since been numbered with things that 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



175 



were, " a schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an 
hoiir." and. in its receding, has left many of 
its followers stranded ufion the shores of the 
uncertain and dangerous sea of politics. 

Since Judge Marshall's retirement from 
Congress, he has not been in public service. 
As a prosecutor, he was faithful, feai-less and 
unflinching; as a Judge, he was upright, 
just and able: as a legislator in both State 
and nation, he was strong, forcible and con- 
vincing, and in every conflict he was found 
watching and battling faithfully and hon- 
estly for the people whom he represented. 
Judge Marshall has ever enjoyed the full con- 
fidence of his party; at one time he received 
the vote of the Democrats in Congress for 
Speaker of the House. 

Space will not permit us to enter his Con- 
gressional life: it would be a history within 
itself. Sutfice to say that he was the peer of 
any member, recognized as a man of strong 
ability and great industry. As before stated, 
from his youth he has been an unalterable, 
uncompromising Democrat of the Jefferson 
school, ever believing that within the Demo- 
cratic principles are found the elements of 
the most good to the most people, and in 
every conflict to which our State and nation 
is subject Judge Marshall may be heard 
where the battle is hottest advocating the 
political questions in an able manner from a 
Democratic standpoint. In his official life, 
he was always found at the post of duty, 
and it is remai'ked of him that although in 
poor health, he was never absent from the 
court room when by law it was his duty to 
be there. Talented and cultm-ed, of vmim- 
peachable integrity, has been the life of Sam- 
uel S. Marshall, a man known to the State 
and nat'on and one who has not lived in vain. 

Downing Baugh was born April 22, 1798; 
is still living, hale and hearty. He is a na- 
tive of Barren County, Ky., from which 



State many of Illinois' early great men came. 
He moved to this State in about 1820, lived 
a short time in Bond County, and finally set- 
tled in Mount Yernon. He married Milly 
Pace, the youngest child of Joel Pace, sen- 
ior sister of the late Joel and Joseph Pace, 
of this county. Judge Baugh' s father was 
a man of some education, and was a school 
teacher in the early days. The Judge ac- 
quired some education, and when a young 
man also taught school. In those days the 
scholar who could study the loudest was 
considered the best; quite a contrast with 
the present system. Could we step into one 
of the Judge's old time schools to-day, we 
would hear every student studying his lesson 
" out loud," if he studied at all. After 
teaching school awhile, he went to mer- 
chandising, in which business he was not suc- 
cessful. He was Postmaster here for many 
years. At the age of forty-seven, he began 
the study of law. which he finally completed, 
and for some yeai's pursued the practice with 
success. In 1854, he was appointed Judge 
of the Circuit Court by Gov. Joel A. Matte- 
son, to fill the unexpired term of Judge Mar- 
shall, who had been elected to Congress. 
Judge Baugh presided as Circuit Judge for 
the nine remaining months. He was honest 
and upright and performed his duties with- 
out reproach to the judiciary or to himself. 

In 1840 and 1841, he was Enrolling and 
Engrossing Clerk of the Twelfth General As- 
sembly. He was Probate Justice of this coun- 
ty for a time, and many years a Justice of 
the Peace. In 1857, he removed to McGreg- 
or, Iowa, where he has since resided. 
Shortly after his removal to Iowa, he was 
elected Judge of the City Court, and so acted 
until the Supreme Court declared the law 
creating the City Coui'ts unconstitutional. 

He has for many years been an enthusias- 
tic Mason; is now Grand Chaplain of the 



176 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



Grand Chapter of Iowa and Grand Prelate 
of the Grand Gommandery. He has lived a 
consistent Christian life, and always com- 
manded the respect of those among whom he 
has lived. 

For years, Judge Baugh has been entirely 
blind. He is now in his eighty-sixth year, 
yet his mind is as clear and vigorous as ever. 
He may be termed one of those pioneers who 
helped to form and mold the early senti- 
ment of this country and get it started off on 
the right foot. 

He has two children living in Mount Ver- 
non — J. VV. Baugh and Mrs. Elizabeth Fly. 

William H. Green is among those once 
members of the bar of this county, who have 
attained distinction in their profession and 
in politics. None, prehaps, stand more 
prominent in the' profession than Judge 
Green. He was born in Danville, Boyle 
Co., Ky., December 8, 1830, and was the son 
of Dr. Duff Green and Lucy Green (n6e 
Kenton). 

His ancestors were among the earliest set- 
tlers of Virginia and extensive land-owners 
in the Shenandoah Valley. They came 
originally from the province of Leinster, 
Ireland, about the year 1730. His mot' er 
was a niece of Simon Kenton, the celebrated 
pioneer and Indian lighter of Kentucky, and 
was of Scotch parentage. 

Judge Green was educated at Center Col- 
lege, Danville, Ky. , and without graduating 
became a fair classical scholar, and has all 
his life been an extensive reader of history 
and belles- letters, and kept pace with the mod- 
ern investigations of scientists. His range 
of thought and study has been upon the 
higher plane. 

In 1846, he came, with his father's fam- 
ily, to Mount Vernon, where, after teaching 
school for a time, he entered upon the study 
of the law under the direction of Judge 



"Walter B. Scates, was admitted to the bar in 
1852, and for one year pursued the practice 
of his profession in Mount Vernon. Then 
he moved to Metropolis, where he remained 
in active practice for ten years and then re- 
moved to Cairo, where he has since resided. 
He has served two tej-ms in the lower branch 
of the State Legislature, 1858 to 1862, and 
one in the Senate. In 1865, he was elected 
Judge of the Circuit Court for the district 
in which he lived, and since 1861 he has 
been the attorney for the Illinois Central 
Railroad except during the times his official 
positions made it inconsistent for him to be 
so. 

He attended the foiu- National Democratic 
Conventions as a delegate, at Charleston, 
Chicago, Nesv York and Cincinnati; has for 
years been a member of the State Democratic 
Central Committee, and for twenty-two years 
has been a member of the State Board of 
Education, the only Democrat upon it. 

Judge Green is now in he prime of intel- 
lectual life, and already has he tilled the 
measiu'e of a just ambition, not so much by 
the eminence of the politics.1 or judicial po- 
sitions he has tilled, as by the unalloyed re- 
spec: and confidence he has inspired in all 
men by his able and upright bearing to all. 

Lewis F. Casey was bom on the 23d day 
of April, 1821, in this county. By persever- 
ance and industry, he acquired a fair educa- 
tion and was elected County Surveyor in 
1841. In 1843-44, he read law together 
with Eobert F. Wingate in the law ofdce of 
Judge Scates. He was admitted to the bar 
in 1845. In 1846, he was a member of the 
Legislature and voted for Stephen A. Doug- 
las for the United States Senate. In about 
1848, he formed a law partnership with 
Judge Breeze, which continued for two 
years. In 1852, he removed to Texas, and 
in eighteen months after his arrival was 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



177 



elected Prosecuting Attorney for the district 
in which he lived, and was also made the 
financial agent of the State. 

In 1861, Mr. Casey was elected to the 
State Senate of Texas for four years. He 
was a member of the Senate at the time the 
State passed its ordinance of secession, voted 
for Lewis T. Wigfall for member of the Sen- 
ate of the Confederate Government, aud of 
covirse voted for Jefferson Davis for Presi- 
dent of the Confederate States. He returned 
to the State of Illinois in 1806, and 
located in Centralia, where he has since 
practiced law. As a lawyer, he is able and 
ready; in argument he is forcible and always 
has the attention of the court he addresses. 
He, in connection with Capt. S. L. Dwight, 
enjoys a large practice in Marion, Clinton, 
Washington and Jefferson Counties. He is 
a nephew of the late Gov. Casey, and pos- 
sesses much of the ability, energy and other 
characteristic , which so marked the Governor. 

Richard S.Nelson. Among the members of 
the bar of early days no man figured more 
conspicuously than did Richard S. Nelson. 
He was born June 12, 1815, in the city of 
Douglas, on the Isle of Man. His father was 
an eminent divine in the Established 
Church of England, and it was his desire 
that the subject of this sketch should follow 
in his footsteps and take the pulpit, but as 
he gi'ew to manhood the young man's tastes 
diflered from his father's, aud he chose that 
other profession that is next of kiu to the 
clergy — the law. He completed his studies 
and at ouce turned his face to America, and 
at twenty years of age he landed in New Or- 
leans and began the practice of his profes- 
sion. He, however, did not remain there 
long, bat soon removed, coming directly to 
Southern Illinois. He landed at Shawnee- 
town and opened an office, but not meeting 
with the success he desired, he removed to 



Old Frankfort, Franklin County, and from 
thence to Mount Vernon. After a few years' 
residence at this place, he i-emoved to Me- 
tropolis, Massac County, and there remained 
for eight year.s. During his residence there, 
he passed through, perhaps, the most excit- 
ing scenes of his life. 

It was during this period that the Regula- 
tors aud Flatheads inaugurated what has 
passed into history as the " Massac war. " 
Mr. Nelson was strongly identified with the 
law and order party, who were known as the 
" Flatheads." Exciting and active demon- 
strations were had by both sides, until at 
last the opposing factions met in battle line, 
and on the 7th day of December, 184:6, in 
front of Mr. Nelson's house, proceeded to 
tight it out. The Regulators finally won the 
day and the Flatheads were put to flight. 
Mr. Nelson made his escape by flat-boat to 
Cairo and thence to St. Louis, and then to 
Springfield. The Regulators after their vic- 
tory held control of things for some months, 
and until, at the earnest entreaties of Mr. 
Nelson, Gov. French sent between 400 and 
500 militia to the scene of the troubles. Mr. 
Nelson returned with them aud did all in 
his power to sustain the soldiers. In two 
weeks his table furnished 316 meals, and he 
fed and stabled 200 horses, for ^ which not 1 
cent was ever paid to him or his family. 
This should receive the early attention of 
our State authorities, and restore to this 
family the long delayed justice. Mr. Nelson 
never resumed the practice in Metropolis, 
but left his desolated home, which had been 
reduced to ashes, and moved again to Mount 
Vernon, where he at once entered upon a 
large and remunerative practice. He soon 
reached a high standard in his profession. 
In 1862, amid the demoralizing influences of 
the late war, he removed to Centralia, where 
ho remained until his death, on the 19th day 



178 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUXTY. 



of August, 1865. He was attending covurt at 
this city when he was attacked by apoplexy, 
and soon died. 

Mr. Nelson was a man of more than ordi- 
nary intellect. He applied himself with much 
assiduity to his pi'ofession, and soon became 
widely and favorably known thi'oughout the 
southern part of the State. He was what 
might be termed a self-made man, and rose 
to prominence in his profession by his own 
exertions. He occupied such a position only 
as his own talents and moral worth com- 
manded. He rose to distinction not only 
without the patronage of influential friends, 
but in opposition to a degree of prejudice 
which is encountered by every foreigner. 
His success was due to native talent and to 
the energy with which he devoted himself to 
his profession. His native energy of intel- 
lect, his legal erudition and his imbending 
integrity commanded respect and confidence 
wherever he was known. 

Hon. S. F. Crews was boru in 1845, in 
"Wayne (bounty, 111., and came to Jefferson 
County in 1872 and formed a law partner- 
ship with George M. Haynes. In 1876, he 
was elected State's Attorney, and in 1882 was 
elected to the Legislature. Upon the ad- 
journment of the Legislature, ilr. Crews re- 
moved to Chicago, where he is at present en- 
joying a reasonably good practice. 

Of the present members of the Mount 
Vernon bar, we shall but briefly speak, leav- 
ing the histories of their triumphs and their 
glories to the writers who shall come after us, 
saying, however, in a general way that the 
bar of Jefferson County will compare f avora 
bly with that of any county in the southern 
part of the State. 

Robert H. Carpenter was bom September 
30, 1837, studied law and was admitted in 
1871. 

A. M. Green was born in 1846, studied 



law in Mount Vernon, attended at Ann Ar- 
bor, Mich., and was admitted in 1870. In 
1872, he was elected State's Attorney and 
served four years. In 1877, he was elected 
to the Legislature. 

W. N. Green, born in , 1858, 

read law and was admitted in 1878. In 1877, 
he was appointed Master in Chancery and 
served two years. 

C. A. Keller was bom November 24, 1851; 
read law, and was admitted in 1873. In 1877, 
he was elected County Judge, serving 
acceptably as such for four years. A more 
extended sketch of his career will be found 
in the biographical department of this vol- 
lune. 

George B. Leonard was bom December 16, 
1849, and was admitted in 1876. 

Norman N. Moss was born March 25, 1856, 
and admitted May 5, 1882. 

C. H. PattoQ was born May 9, 1834, came 
to Illinois in 185- , taught school, was elect- 
ed County Clerk and admitted to the bar on 
March 21, 1862. For further particulars 
the reader is referred to otu- biographical 
department. 

Hon. James M. Pollock was born in ; 

came to Moimt Vernon in 185- ; in 1864, was 
elected Judge of the Circuit Covirt and re- 
elected in 1866. His life and histcry will 
also be found in the biographical department 

W. C. Pollock was born July 12, 1853, 
and admitted in Jime, 1877. 

James L. Pollock was born March 1, 1859, 
and admitted February — , 1881, 

James M. Pace was born in Mount Ver- 
non on the 29th day of November, 1826, and 
is said to have been the first white male 
child born in the city. For a number of 
years he was County School Superintendent, 
and tipon the organization of the city gov- 
ernment was elected the first Mayor. He was 
admitted in 1870. 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



179 



W. T. Pace was born December 22, 1853, 
and was admitted June 6, 1878. 

Norman A. Pearcy was born January 4, 
1856, and admitted in 1SS2. 

E. V. Satterfield was born January, 1836, 
and admitted . 

W. N. White was born October 17, 1856; 
was admitted in 1879, and elected State's At- 
torney in 1880, which position he still holds. 

Albert Watson was born April 15, 1857, 
and was admitted in September, 1880. 

George M. Haynes was born August 27, 
1847, and was admitted in 1870. 



Robert A. D. Wilbanks, born in 1846, 
was admitted in 1867; for twelve years was 
Clerk of the Supreme Court of this grand 
division ; is now Clerk of the Appellate 
Court. 

There were and have been many other 
members of the bar of this county, among 
them Gen. R. F. Wingate, F. D. Preston, 
and others, of whom we have been unable to 
obtain sufficient data from which tu write 
them. Also Col. S. G. Hicks, whose history 
and life is fully given elsewhere in this vol- 
ume. 



CHAPTEK VII.* 



POLITICAL HISTORY— BIRTH OF THE WHIG AND DEMOCRAT ORGANIZATIONS— PARTY STRIFE AND 
SCRAMBLE FOR OFFICE— JOEL PACE, FIRST CLERK OF THE COUNTY— POLITICIANS OF 
THE TIMES— ZADOK CASEY— HIS LIFE AND OFFICIAL SERVICES— GOV. 
ANDERSON— SKETCH OF HIS PUBLIC CAREER— NOAH JOHNSTON 
AND OTHER DISTINGUISHED CHARACTERS— SENA- 
TORS AND REPRESENTATIVES, ETC. 

over the elder Adams. At this election (1824), 
the candidates were Gen. Jackson, with the 



"The greutest frii-nd of Truth is Time; 
Her greatest enemy is Prejudice." 

IN the early history of Jeflerson County, there 
was but little, if, indeed, any, party strife. The 
exciting events of the war of 1812, which had 
closed a few years prior to the organization of 
the county, had wiped out the old Federal par- 
ty — a party that had bitterly opposed President 
Jeflierson and his official acts. The war meas- 
ures of President Madison, and the dominant 
party in Congress were very generally, and even 
earnestly, supported by the people throughout 
the country. The Presidential election of 1824, 
the second after the formation of Jefferson 
County, was attended with unusual excitement, 
probably with more than any election that had 
ever taken place in the Republic, with the ex- 
ception of the Presidential election of 1800, 
which resulted in the success of Mr. Jefferson 

»Bj W. U, Perrin. 



laurels of New Orleans still blooming upon his 
brow; Henry Clay, the sage of Kentucky; John 
Quincy Adams, a born statesman, and William 
H. Crawford, of Georgia, all intellectual giants, 
truly. Each of these distinguished gentlemen 
had his friends, who supported their favorite 
candidate from personal preference and not 
from party predilection. None of them, how- 
ever, had a majority of the votes in the elec- 
toral college, and under the Constitutional rule, 
upon the House of Representatives, for the first 
and the last time in the history of the country,* 

*OriginaiIy, It was the law for the candidate receiving the high- 
est n'lmberof Totesin the Electural f^oliegeto Ik. declared President. 
an 1 the one receiving the next highest to bo declared Vice Presi- 
dent. In 1800, Thomas .letTen*on and Aaron Rnrr received the same 
number of votes, and thy question wont to the House of Represent- 
atives for its deciBion, where it was hotly contested by Burr but 
finally decided in favor of Jefferson. The law was afterward 
changed, and candiilates nominated for President and Vice Presi- 
dent, which rule is still followed, and the election of IS'li is theonly 
cne in which the House of Representatives had to deride between 
the Presidential candidates atone, and make a President. 



180 



HlSTOKl' OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



devolved the dutj- of making choice of Presi- 
dent, each State, bj- its delegation in Congress, 
casting one vote. Gen. Jackson led Mr. Adams, 
in the Electoral College, by a small plurality; 
Mr. Crawford was the third on the list of can- 
didates, and Mr. Clay, who was the hindmost 
man, was dropped from the canvass. Mr. 
Adams was chosen President by the casting 
vote of the State of Kentuck}-. Jlr. Clay was 
a member of the National House of Represent- 
atives, and its Speaker, and it was at once 
claimed by many of his political enemies, that it 
was through the great influence of Ohio, which 
State, as well as his own, Mr. Clay had carried 
in the Presidential contest, that the delegation 
from Kentuck}^ was induced to cast the vote 
of that State for Mr. Adams, an Eastern man, 
in preference to Gen. Jackson, a Western and 
Southern man. By that coup d'etat, Mr. Clay 
was instrumental in organizing political parties 
that survived the generation of people to which 
he belonged, and ruled in turn the destinies of 
the Republic for more than a quarter of a cent- 
ury. 

In the new Cabinet, Mr. Clay was placed at 
the head of the State Department by Mr. 
Adams, which gave rise to the charge of '' bar- 
gain and sale " between the President and his 
chief Secretary', that threw the country into a 
blaze of excitement from one end to the other. 
At this time, when Henry Clay has been dead 
for more than thirty years, and his faults and 
errors have been enveloped in the mantle of 
charity, no one will presume or dare to ques- 
tion his patriotism or honesty; but the charge 
was persistently made bj' the partisans of Gen. 
Jackson, it greatly injured Mr. Clay in the 
public estimation, and contributed largely to 
the General's success in the Presidential race 
of 1828, and forever sealed Mr. Clay's own 
doom, so far as regarded the Presidency. At 
the Presidential election of 1828, party lines 
were closely drawn between Gen. Jackson and 
Mr. Adams, and the result of a hot and bitter 



contest was the triumphant election of the hero 
of New Orleans, both b}- the electoral and pop- 
ular vote. At this time parties were known 
throughout the country as the Jackson and 
Anti-Jackson parties. 

The gubernatorial election in Illinois, follow- 
ing this contest, presented a curious phase of 
the politics of the times. There were two tick- 
ets in the field for Governor and Lieutenant 
Governor, all professing strong Jacksonism, 
but really were what to-day would be termed, 
perhaps. Stalwarts and Half-breeds. Mr. Kin- 
ney was the stalwart candidate for Governor, 
or as he was called then, the " out and outer" 
Jackson candidate, while Zadok Casey was the 
candidate for Lieutenant Governor on the same 
ticket. John Reynolds was the " Half-breed" 
candidate for Governor, but claimed to be as 
good a Jackson man as Kinney; and associated 
with |him as a candidate for Lieutenant Gov- 
ernor was Rigdon B. Slocumb, of Wayne Coun- 
ty. The peculiar feature of the election was, 
that Rej'nolds and Casey were elected, repre- 
senting the two different wings of the Jackson 
party. And as an illustration of the great 
power and influence Casey ever wielded over 
his constituency, is the fact that he was the only 
stalwart candidate elected in the State in that 
contest. With but few changes in their plat- 
form of principles, the Jackson and Anti- Jack- 
son eventually became the Whig and Demo- 
crat parties. 

The scramble for the " loaves and fishes " of 
office in the earl}- period of the county's exist- 
ence, compared with later years, was almost 
nothing. But few offices were sought for their 
emoluments, and much ofteuer then than now 
the office sought the man. The most lucrative 
offices were filled by appointment, and not by 
popular vote, as they are now. It was not for 
years after the formation of the county that 
local offices were made elective, and it is even 
now a question for discussion, whether the lat- 
ter is the best policy. In most cases, the offices 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



181 



were filled by faithful and competent men. The 
appointing power conferred bj' the Legislature 
upon the Commissioners and the courts, al- 
though anti-Republican in principle, seems to 
be. judging from the experience of the past, 
the best calculated to secure efficienc}' and 
competency in office. Experience has shown 
pretty conclusively that the less frequentlj- 
changes are made the better it is for the public 
service, notwithstanding the present political 
war-cry of " turn the rascals out." Chancellor 
Kent has said that the great danger to this 
country is " the too frequent recurrence to pop- 
ular election." The early records of the county 
show, under the appointing power, but few 
changes. From the organization of the county 
in 1819 to 1837, the duties of both County and 
Circuit Clerk were laithfuUy performed by Joel 
Pace, an excellent and competent man. It is 
not inappropriate in this connection to devote 
a few words to the county's first Clerk. 

Joel Pace was born in Virginia, and his father, 
Joel Pace, Sr., emigrated to Kentucky, locating 
in Woodford County. ^ On reaching manhood, 
young Joel went to Frankfort, Kj-., where he 
engaged to work for one Thomas Long. The 
latter gentleman had a brother-in-law — Owen 
Riley — who was a merchant in Vincennes, Ind., 
and once when on his way to Philadelphia for 
goods, Riley stopped at Frankfort and asked 
Long to refer him to a trusty young man who 
would do for a salesman. He recommended 
Joel Pace, and Riley employed him, and sent 
him with a stock of goods to Vincennes. Here 
he remained for a year or two, when Riley had 
a stock of goods damaged by the sinking of a 
boat, and sent Pace to sell them out as best he ' 
could at Shawneetown. But Riley soon aban- ; 
doned himself to drink, and Joel left him, and 
was employed by Peoples & Kirkpatrick. 
Judge Brown was then living at Shawneetown, 
and he gave Joe! Pace the appointment of Cir- 
cuit Clerk for Jefferson County, and procured 
for him also the offices of Recorder and Notary 



Public. So he had three offices when he came 
to the county in the spring of 1819, and was 
soon appointed to a fourth. Yet there was so 
little business that he found time to attend to 
them all, and besides to teaeh a school — the 
first ever taught in the count}-. Such was the 
man who held one, or rather several, of the most 
important offices of the county, and for almost 
twenty jears faithfull}' discharged his official 
duties. The early officers of the county were 
faithful and efficient, but none of them wore 
the official harness so long without rest as did 
Mr. Pace. This, however, is not intended as a 
reflection upon those who have held office under 
the elective system ; for truly Jefferson has 
been favored in the official integrity of its 
public servants in late years, as well as in the 
earl}' period of its existence, as that pattern of 
old fidelity, Mr. Bogan, so eminently proves, 
with its man}' other true and faithful officers. 

It was during the memorable campaign of 
1840 that the ''Liberty party" was organized 
and a ticket for President and Vice President 
was nominated. For several years previous to 
this, the anti-slavery agitation had been making 
slowly, but uumistakingly, its deep impressions 
upon the public mind, and more especially the 
minds of the religious portion of the people 
North and East, but it was not until about this 
period that the friends of the cause of emanci- 
pation proposed political action. James G. 
Birney, a former slave-holder of Kentucky, 
but then a resident of Michigan, was placed at 
the head of the ticket, and Thomas Morris, of 
Ohio, was placed second. This ticket had but 
little popularity so far west as Illinois, and was 
scarcely heard of in the southern part of the 
State. The small vote polled for the ticket 
throughout the country was taken principally 
from the Whig party. Four years later, the 
vote of the party was largely increased. This 
organization was believed by many of its 
friends, and doul)tless was, premature and mis- 
guided, but no party was ever actuated by 



182 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



loftier or purer motives. The anti-slavery 
movement, at that time, was not larger than the 
cloud the Hebrew prophet saw, that so rapidl}' 
spread over the whole heavens and filled the 
earth with refreshing showers. At that time, no 
one expected to live to see the institution of ne- 
gro slaverj- in America abolished, but in less than 
the period allotted bj' Providence to a generation 
of men, by an amendment to the Federal Con- 
stitution, slavery, and involuntary servitude of 
every species, in all the States and Territories 
belonging to the American Union, was forever 
abolished. 

But notwithstanding the drafts the anti-slav- 
er}' part}', the temperance party, and other par- 
ties from time to time made upon the Whigs, 
they continued to be one of the ruling parties 
until the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 
1854, which led to the organization of the 
Republican party, and the absorption of the 
Whig, as well as the Liberty, or Abolition, 
party. For a quarter of a century the Repub- 
lican has been the dominant party in Illinois, 
but has never attained to a majority in Jeffer- 
son County. 

That other political organization — the Demo- 
cratic party — which sprang into existence 
or, assumed distinctive form during the 
administration of Gen. Jackson, is still 
one of the great political parties of the coun- 
trj\ For fifty years it has maintained its or- 
ganization without change of name or princi- 
ples, and to-daj- the indications lor its success 
were never more flattering. It has alwaj's been 
the ruling party in this county. Indeed, the 
county has been and is still a stronghold of 
Democracy. Many of the early settlers fought 
under Gen. Jackson in the Indian wars of the 
the South, and were with him at New Orleans, 
and it is not strange, nor was it inconsistent with 
their duty or honor that they should look upon 
the old hero in the light of their political pa- 
tron saint. And when he had passed away to 
his reward, they reverently placed his mantle 



upon the worthy shoulders of Stephen A. 
Douglas, and accepted him as their leader. 
With unbounded faith in the wisdom of their 
choice, they transferred their political allegiance 
to the " Little Giant," and in all party fights 
they rallied around him as solidl}- as the Old 
Guard around Napoleon at Waterloo, or the 
Stonewall brigade, of Confederate fame, around 
its idolized leader. When his sun went down 
forever in the dark political storms of 1860, 
they, so to speak, " hung their harps upon the 
willow," and mourned as those without hope 
and without faith. But eventually they aroused 
anew for the fight, and now they present to 
their political enemies a solid and unbroken 
front. 

Other political parties have sprung up in the 
county, and in the country at large, and under 
the name of " Greenbackers," '• Prohibition- 
ists," " Independents," " Grangers," etc., have 
flourished for a period to a greater or less 
extent, and succeeded sometimes in electing 
their candidates to office, but only in a very 
few instances. It is not probable that any of 
them will rise into formidable opponents of the 
two great ruling parties. The count}- is and 
doubtless will continue largely Democratic for 
years to come. 

Zadok Casey. — It is eminently appropriate 
in the political history of the county to notice 
at length some of those active spirits who par- 
ticipated in the early politics, and bore a promi- 
nent part in the scenes and the times of which 
we are writing. Indeed, the political history 
would be incomplete without sketches of those 
men who contributed so largely in molding 
the political life and afl'airs of the county. 
Foremost of the list, as well as first in chrono- 
logical order, is the Hon. Zadok Casey, who for 
a long period of his life devoted his time and 
his talents to the service, in one capacity or 
another, of his country and his fellow-men. 

Zadok Casey was born in the State of Geor- 
gia March 17, 1796, and was the youngest 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



1«3 



child of Randolph and Mary Jane (Pen- 
nington) Casey. He was married, when scareeh" 
twenty years of age, to Rachel King, a daugh- 
ter of Samuel King. From the pioneer 
sketches of Mr. Johnson, and from other 
sources at our command, we gather some of 
the facts of Mr. Casey's early life, and his 
removal to this county. Soon after his mar- 
riage, he began to preach, and kept it up 
through life, even when most thoroughly en- 
gaged in politics. He was very poor, and 
after his father's death the care of his mother 
devolved on him, as well as that of his own 
family. When he came to Jefferson County in 
1817, be brought her with him, and the worldly 
goods of them all comprised but a very small 
number of necessary articles for housekeeping. 
In a few days after his arrival here, he had 
selected a location, and beside a large log 
erected a camp to shelter them until he could 
build a house. He soon put up a cabin of 
small logs because there were not men enough 
in reach to raise a house of large logs. The 
floor was rough puncheons, the door of clap- 
boards, beds of board scaffolds, a shovel, a 
skillet ; this was their early home in Illinois. 
But he was young, strong, and a good worker, 
and soon there was a sign of improvement and 
thrift about his place. He was a man of strong 
character and a powerful native intellect. 
When he came here he was entirely unedu- 
cated ; indeed, it is said that he learned his A 
B C's partly with the aid of his wife after he 
was married. But his natural thirst for knowl- 
edge led him to improve every moment, and he 
eventually became an excellent scholar. As 
we have said, he was a minister of the Gospel, 
and continued to preach at intervals during his 
whole life. But it is principally of his political 
career we shall speak in tliis connection. 

Mr. Casey's active public life commenced 
almost with his settlement in the county. He 
took a prominent part in securing the forma- 
tion of the county, and was one of the Com- 



missioners composing the first County Court. 
In 1820, he made his first race for the Legisla- 
ture against Dr. McLean, of White County, 
and was defeated, but at the next election 
(1822) he was elected over his former competi- 
tor, and was again elected in 1824. In 1826, 
he was elected to the State Senate for four 
years, and, in 1830, to the office of Lieutenant 
Governor, John Reynolds, as already stated, 
being elected Governor. So great and so uni- 
versal was his popularity that in his race for 
the Legislature in 182-1, he received every 
vote cast in the county but one. Before his 
term as Lieutenant Governor had expired, he 
was elected to Congress over Mr. Allen, of 
Clark County. He was re-elected in 1834 over 
W. H. Davidson, and, in 1836, over Nat Har- 
merson ; was elected again in 1838, and elected 
in 1840 over Stinson H. Anderson. But at this 
session he voted for a national bank, for a 
bankrupt law aud against the independent 
treasury. This, to a great extent, injured his 
popularity in the district, and, in 1842, he was 
defeated by John A. McClernand. This left 
Gov. Casey for a time to the obscurity of pri- 
vate life, and for several years he was engaged 
in local and domestic enterprises. He was 
elected in 1847, together with Judge Walter B. 
Scates and F. S. Casey, to the Constitutional 
Convention, and to him and Judge Scales, 
more than to any other influence, is Jefferson 
County and the city of Mount Vernon indebted 
for the location here of the Supreme Court 
Hou^e. He was elected to the Legislature in 
1852, and was a member of the State Senate at 
the time of his death. September 4, 1862. He 
was employed by the Ohio & Mississippi Rail- 
road to secure the right of way through Illi- 
nois but when the company failed lie lost 
heavilj- by not being paid for his services. 

Gov. Casey was a Democrat in politics, though 
not as strongly partisan as many of his asso- 
ciates in public life. Tliere are those who knew 
him well, that even intimate that his politics were 



184 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUXTY. 



"shaky," and tint he was disposed to be just a 
little hypocritical. His great popularity, how- 
ever, with the mass of the people, refutes all 
such charges. He was an excellent financier. 
Though he commenced life poor and penniless, 
he accumulated considerable property, and in 
after life, whatever he took in hand seemed sure 
to prosper. His children were Mahala, Mary 
Jane, Samuel K., Hiram R., Alice, Newton R., 
a physician of Mound City, 111.; Thomas S., 
of Mount Vernon, one of the Judges of this 
judicial circuit ; and John R., a practicing phy- 
sician at Joliet, 111. 

We have now given in detail the record dates 
of the birth, removal to Illinois, and the differ- 
ent important official positions filled by Gov. 
Casey during life, and it only remains now to 
fill up the strong outlines of this sketch by a 
just delineation of those physical, moral and 
mental characteristics of the man that stand 
out like the bold promontories that divide the 
troubled waters and embrace those harbors of 
safet}' for the ships upon life's sea. We have 
sketched his life from his birth in 1796, in the 
bumble pioneer home of his parents in Geor- 
gia, his early marriage and removal to Illinois 
in the spring of 1817, where, beholding the 
territory in all its natural beauties of woodland 
grove, green prairie sward, decked and covered 
with rich foliage and lovely flowers, that, becom- 
ing enamored with so much natural wealth 
and beauty of country, he determined to make 
it his permanent home. With his wife and 
child, he came to what is now Jeflferson Coun- 
ty, and built his rude log cabin upon the spot 
made historic b}' his acts, and which will be 
known to remote historj' as the old Casey 
homestead. He was barely twenty-one 3'ears 
of age when he landed in the territory with his 
little family. They came here, the wife riding 
the only horse he was able to possess, and car- 
rying the child and their all of earthly goods, 
•particularly the " skillet," being strapped to the 
saddle, and in front of this caravan walked the 



young husband and father, leading the way with 
his rifle upon his shoulder. When, upon the 
first night of his arrival, he had built his camp 
fire by the side of a large log, and his wife had 
set about preparing the first frugal meal, he 
wandered oflT a short distance, looking about 
him, and finally stopped and leaned in wrapt 
contemplation against a large oak tree, and 
there, with the silent stars looking down upon 
him as witnesses, he knelt in prayer and eai-nest 
supplication to the great God of the universe, 
and asked that his enterprise might meet the 
favor of heaven, that his family might be given 
happiness, health and security, and that he 
might be only a Christian, sincere man, and an 
upright, honorable and good citizen. That 
honest petition to heaven was gi-anted as soon 
as it was asked, as his great and pure life has 
so abundantly testified to all the world. Here 
was the humble beginning of a pioneer life, 
that was only given for the short space of forty- 
five years to his family, to his neighbors, to the 
county-, the State and the nation, and j'et its 
impress is everywhere, and its good effects will 
be known and deeply respected by the millions 
who may come after him, and are now and will 
continue to reap what he has sown. He came 
to Illinois a poor and wholl}' illiterate young 
■man, a wife and child and pon}- being his chief 
and nearlj' the whole of his possessions, and 
looking much like an awkward, overgrown bo}-, 
to whom the alphabet was an unexplored m3S- 
tery. He onlj* knew how to work, and soon a 
floorless cabin had gathered beneath its clap- 
board roof his household goods, and his first 
years were only marked by hard work and 
humble Christian piety. There was nothing 
self-asserting in his nature, and he lived and 
worked and struggled the true hero, and in 
front of his fire of an evening, he would lie 
upon his back, while his wife was singing the 
song of the spinning-wheel, and aiding him in 
the mastery of the alphabet, that he might 
more acceptably advance the cause of Chris- 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



185 



tianity. Before he came to Illinois, he had been 
regularly licensed by his church — the Method- 
ist p]piscopal — to preach the Word of God, and 
this holy work he continued until the day of 
his death. He had soon grown into physical 
and mental strength and symmetry. He was 
nearly six feet and two inches in height, of 
perfect proportions, lithe, active and graceful 
in his movements, and courtly- of manners, his 
presence in any crowd would arrest the atten- 
tion and command deference and respect at all 
times and in all places. Soon he was drawn 
into political life and into public oflBce, and 
here he was even a greater man, and wielded a 
wider influence upon the stump than he had in 
the pulpit, although in his most active political 
lile, when a leading politician and office holder 
in the State, he never relaxed his ministerial 
duties, but mentally expanded, and grew with 
all his multifarious work, until, in the very 
threshold|of hisjlife, he lived and moved a great, 
commanding and central figure. With his own 
strong hand, he was first a great farmer and an 
eminent financier, calling about him numerous 
dependents, to whom he was as a kind father 
and indulgent friend, giving good advice, em- 
ployment, subsistence, and in the fullness of a 
' heart that was big enough to take in all the 
world, he attached all to him in bands of steel, 
and at the same time his busj' brain thought 
out schemes of industry, that built up his 
county and his State beyond anj* other man of 
his day or age. 

When it is remembered that in the times 
when Gov. Casey lived his most active young 
life, when his destin}' was shaping itself, the 
surroundings were such as we know little or 
notliing of now except by traditions. The pio- 
neer people were rougii, rude, simple, sincere, 
honest, warm-hearted and hospitable, and the 
men of mark were mostly brilliant, erratic, often 
irreverent and dissipated. Their lives were fe- 
vered and delirious, and upon the rostrum or 
in the forum, where they would gleam and flash 



like blazing meteors, thej- would easily descend 
to the revel or orgie, and their flashing lights 
would be quenched in gloom and darkness. In 
the society of the young State were the two ex- 
tremes, the rude simplicity and the gifted, brill- 
iant children of erratic genius, and amid these 
surroundings Gov. Casey trod alone his path- 
way of life, the sincere preacher, the pure and 
spotless politician and statesman, the great, the 
grand man of his time. 

It was the inherent force of a great mind 
alone that enabled him to enter upon a long 
and exciting political campaign, and from the 
stump to discuss with wonderful power the ab- 
sorbing and often exasperating questions of the 
day, and when Sunda\- came he could gather 
about him even those who had waged hot po- 
litical controversy with him all the week, and 
all thoughts and all stirred up passions were 
laid aside in a moment, and as the minister of 
God he would lead the entire flock to the fold 
of the Great Shepherd — to that fountain of life 
for all mankind and for the ages. In religion, 
he was not a fanatic; as a teacher of the truths 
of Holy Writ, there was not a trace of dogma- 
tism, and hence in his intercourse with men or 
in the pulpit, he was as natural, pure and com- 
manding, as the simple and sublime truths that 
his life and preaching exemplified. 

As a politician, he was equally pre-eminent, 
whether in the hustings, the Legislature, the 
State Senate, or the Congress of the United 
States ; he was respected whether as the hum- 
blest new member of these bodies, or as the 
presiding otficcr, the master spirit of the im- 
portant committee, or the orator and speaker 
upon the floor. Here as elsewhere, he was the 
born leader among men, and his well-poised 
mind was never at fault — never brought in 
question the justness of his leadership. His 
fellow-members in Congress soon learned that 
he made no mistakes, and it was an almost 
everj'-day occurrence in the State Legislature 
while he was a member, and the Speaker was. 



l86 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



called on to unravel by his rulings some diffi- 
cult parliamentary question, to announce to the 
House that the chair " desired to talve the opin- 
ion of the member from Jefferson County," and 
the business or discussion would suspend until 
Gov. Casej' could be consulted, and the tangled 
questions be made plain and settled to the 
complete satisfaction of all. 

A grand old man, whose pure and exalted 
life is one of the most important chapters in 
the history of the Northwest for the study and 
contemplation of the youths of our country. 
His death, in the meridian of his intellectual 
manhood, was a National grief and calamity, 
for which a grateful posterity can only now 
have the consoling compensation that may 
come from the pen of the biographer, whom, 
we trust, may gather the hint from this brief 
sketch, and make an immortal book, entitled 
the " Life and Times of Gov. Casey." 

Stinson H. Anderson. — Carlj-le said, "great 
men, taken up in an}' wa}-, are profitable com- 
pany." This is very true, like all the aphor- 
isms that fell from the pen of the great author 
and essaj'ist. We cannot look, however imper- 
fectly, upon a great man without gain- 
ing something liy him. He is the living light, 
fountain of native, original insight of manhood 
and heroic nobleness, which it is good and pleas- 
ant to be near. No great man lives in vain. 
And happy is the country, and happy the com- 
monwealth, if it produce but one, whether it be 
a soldier, the foremost of the age, or a states- 
man who administered the affairs of a nation. 

It is the uaturallj' great men — men of strong 
intellects and force of character — that come to 
tile front when important work is to be done. 
Such a man was Stinson H, Anderson. He 
came here at a time when he was most needed, 
and his finger-marks are still to be seen — tell- 
ing tiie stoiy of his handiwork, and writing his 
epitaph in the hearts not only of his descend- 
ants, but of the thousands who are reaping and 
who will in the future enjoy the fruits of his 



labors. He came here, no doubt, impelled by 
the Napoleonic impulse of destiny. A new 
county was still in its first decade of " success- 
ful experiment," and while be did not, at once, 
rush into the vortex of political and official life, 
yet he soon became a recognized leader. He 
drew men to him as the magnet draws the steel. 
Even his opponents and political enemies ac- 
knowledged his merits and admitted his power 
and great intellectual strength. 

Gov. Anderson was born in Sumner Coun- 
y, Tenn., in 1800, and while still a young 
;man came to Jefferson Countj'. He engaged 
/ in agricultural pursuits, and soon became one 
of the most successful and enterprising farmers 
of the county. He devoted consideral)le atten- 
ftion to fine stock, especially to horses, of which 
he was extremely fond. He loved the fleet- 
footed coursers, and the sports of the turf were 
his greatest pleasure and pastime. 

In illustration of his love of the turf, the 
I following incident is related of him: He 
had a little race mare called Polly Ann, that 
he cherished next to his wife and children. 
He believed that she could outrun any ani- 
mal (her distance) that stood on four legs in 
the State of Illinois, and was willing to stake 
his all on such an issue. Dr. Logan, father 
of Gen. John A. Logan, the "swarthy Sena- 
tor from Illinois," had a very fine race horse 
— a stallion called Walnut Cracker — of which 
he entertained much the same opiuion as the 
Governor did of Polly Ann. Logan lived 
in Jackson County, and after considerable 
bantering between the owners of the rival 
nags, a race was finally made — distance 
1,000 yards. To sach a pitch of excitement 
were the principals wrought up, and so con- 
fident was each in the speed of his animal, 
that they staked, not only all their ready 
cash, but all the property they possessed in 
the world. The race was run upon Logan's 
own track at Murphysboro, and Gen. Ander- 



^.i^^'^:^. 



if 



I ^»\."v 



^ 



■''^fefcBW'* 








& 





{.IBRftn* 

.; THE 

JNiVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



189 



iSon, of Mount Vernon, a son of the Gover- 
|nor, then but a lad, and Gen. John A. Logan, 
were the riders. When they appeared upon 
the race track, Walnut Cracker, the Logan 
horse, came with his head up and nostrils 
distended, like the warhorse of old, as 
though he scented the battle from afar, while 
little Polly Ann stood with her head down 
and her ears flopped over her eyes, seemingly 
almost without life. Young Anderson was 
somewhat awed by the appearance of the 
Logan horse, and with a sort of whimper, 
told his father he believed Polly Ann would 
be beaten. " William," said the Governor, 
•'she's got to beat; if you don't make her 
win, I'll whip you sir, as a boy was never 
whipped before, by — — sir!" Such iiery 
eloquence had its effect on William, and in 
the race, which followed a few minutes later, 
Polly Ann passed under the wire several 
lengths ahead of Walnut Cracker, thus car- 
rying to the ownership of the Governor all 
the cattle, horses, hogs, sheep, etc., of Dr. 
Logan. 

But the talents of Gov. Anderson were not 
destined to be hidden ander a bushel, nor 
his abilities 

"To rust imburnished, not to shine in use," 
and duty to his countrj' called him from his 
plow, Cincinnatus-like, to take his place in 
her councils. He was elected Representa- 
tive of Jefferson Coiinty in the legislative 
session of 1S3'2, and re-elected in 1834 He 
naturally became a leader, as one born to 
command, and by his rare judgment of men 
and things, convinced his fellow-members 
that ho committed few errors. In 1838, he 
was elected Lieutenant Governor on the 
ticket with Thomas Carlin, and for the sue 
ceeding four years was the presiding oflicer, 
by virtue of his position, of the Senate. 
Hen. Noah Johnston, who served in the Sen- 



ate during those four years, describes him as 
an able, courteous and dignified presiding 
oflBcer. and one whose knowledge of parlia- 
mentary law and usage enabled him to avoid 
all mistakes. While President of the Senate, 
says Mr. Johnston, but one of Gov. Ander- 
son's decisions was appealed from, and in 
that case he was sustained in his ruling. 
After the close of his term as Lieutenant Gov- 
ernor, he entered the United States Army, 
and was appointed Captain of dragoons, and 
served in the Florida or Seminole war — a 
war which continued with varying results 
for twenty years before the Indians were 
finally subjugated. He was Warden of the 
penitentiary at Alton for four years, and 
upon the accession of Mr. Polk to the Presi- 
dency, was appointed United States Marshal 
for the State of Illinois, which position he 
held until the close of President Polk's term. 

Gov. Anderson's political life commenced 
just at a time when the two great parties as- 
sumed distinctive names. That of the National 
Administration took the name of Democrat, 
and the opposition that of Whig. Gov. Ander- 
son cast his fortunes with the Democrats, and 
was ever after a faithful, active and energetic 
worker for his party. During his Presidency 
of the State Senate, party strife ran high and 
the bitterest political vituperation was indulged 
in by the Whigs and Democrats, but such was 
his tact and power in the management of men 
that througiiout the stormy sessions of his 
official term he maintained the profound re- 
spect of the opposition as well as of his own 
party. 

In all the official positions held by Gov. An- 
derson, he discharged his duties with unswerv- 
ing fidelity. A man of the most exalted integ- 
rity — the very soul of honor — he scorned a 
mean or dishonorable act as he scorned the diit 
beneath his feet. He was free and open in his 
speech, and would readily say before a mans 



190 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



face what he thought behind his back, but was 
just and generous, and willfulli' wronged no 
man. In his family, he was a devoted husband, 
a kind and indulgent father, and liberal in the 
education of his children. Although of no re- 
ligious belief particularlj-, }-et he contributed 
freelj- of his means to the support of the 
churches and the Gospel, and his heart was 
tender, j-ielding in S3'mpathy and relief to dis- 
tress wherever he found it. 

Gov. Anderson died in September, 1857, 
deeply regretted and mourned alike by the 
countrj' which he had so faithfully served, and 
the people who knew him so well. 

The political history of Jefferson County for 
years was embellished with the finger marks of 
the two statesmen whose sketches we have 
above given. Although of the same political 
faith — good Democrats — yet, to say that at all 
times thej' were in full part}' harmonj-, would 
be in direct conflict with the true political his- 
tory of the county. Not infrequently was it 
the case, that in exciting and important cam- 
paigns there were found to be two Richmonds 
in the field, and who always pi'oved foeraen 
worthy of each other's steel. For years it has 
been another " war of the roses," and without 
the bloodshed and carnage which charactarized 
the political differences of the houses of York 
and Lancaster, it 3"et crops out occasionally be- 
tween the descendants of the two great leaders. 
It is not material to the subject of this chapter 
that we enter into the details of this political 
feud — the party hroniUcrie. which had for its 
prime cause the fact that the count}- was too 
small for these two master spirits, a fact that 
led them to often cross swords upon the points 
of political power and aggi-andizement. It 
never culminated in open rupture or party 
dismemberment, but has been more good-nat- 
ured than otherwise. It only shows in local 
contests, wherein more than one aspirant for 
official position can charge his defeat to a mem- 
ber of the rival faction. These little local dif- 



ferences, however, cut no figure upon national 
questions or in national contests. In these, all 
stand shoulder to shoulder, and pour in their 
fire where it is most needed, and where it will 
do the most good. And, indeed, this is but 
another peculiarity of the political history of 
the count}'. It matters not how much wran- 
gling there maj' be upon local issues, or how 
much scramble for local offices, when it comes 
to a general fight with the common enemy all 
petty differences are forgotten, all countj' 
squabbles are laid aside, and a larger majority 
than ever piled up for Gen. Jackson. For proof 
of the truth of this portion of political history 
the reader is referred to Gen. Anderson, George 
Haynes, Judge Casey, Bob Wilbanks, and 
other young politicians of the day, now in the 
zenith of their glory, and whose '• lives and 
times " will be more fully written up in the 
nest centennial history of Jefferson County. 

Noah Johnston. Another of the represen- 
tative men of the county and who has con- 
tributed largely to its high rank, politically, 
is Ma]. Johnston. The following excellent 
sketch of him was furnished us by Mr. 
George M. Haynes: 

For more than fifty years Maj. Noah 
Johnston has lived in this county. He has 
become, as it were, one of the fixtures, one 
of the land- marks known by every person, 
and knowing as many of the old settlers and 
the men who first cut out the roads through 
-this part of the State as perhaps any one now 
living. He is in his eighty-fourth year, and 
as he passes along our streets we and he 
well know that in the order of things he 
must soon "cross the river;" that but a few 
years at most, and his familiar face will no 
longer be seen. But will he die? No; such 
men rarely die; they continue to live long 
after their bodies have moldered into dust. 
For generations, at least, after his flesh and 
bones have returned to the earth fi'om 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



191 



whence they came, he will live in history 
and in memory. And as we see him day by 
day, we can but be impressed with the 
thought that he is of that class that leads us 
hack to other days. His life has been long 
and eventful; it began just two days before 
the close of the last century, and along the 
line of march he has liot been idle: he has 
gathered and stored knowledge. Possensed 
pi an active and intelligent mind, he has 
sufifered few things of importance to escape 
him, and one cannot converse with him for 
any length of time without feeling that he 
has learned something from him of the men 
and manners of former times that he did not 
before know. He stands forth, as it were, 
a friendly guide-board, ready to point out to 
the traveler the rocks and snares on the 
road of life — a gentleman of the old school in 
every sense of the word, made so by nature. 

Maj. Johnston was born on the 2yth of 
December, 1799, in Hardy County, Va., 
on the waters of the South Branch of the 
Potomac, the oldest but one of ten as healthy 
children as could then be found in the " Old 
Dominion." His father, George Johnston, 
moved from Hardy County to Woodford 
County, Ky., in 1812, and settled near old 
Lexington. The summer after, his family 
were taken with bilious fever, a disease in 
that day not understood by the physicians, 
and before its ravages ceased four of the 
same healthy children of the year before 
were buried and one crippled for life. His 
father, George Johnston, died in Adams 
County, this State, in his eighty- fourth year. 
The Major is now the only surviving member 
of that family, who in the early days of the 
republic started "West to secure to themselves 
the homes which were not so accessible in 
the older States. 

In 1824, the family removed to Clark Coun- 
ty, Ind., and after a few years' residence re- 



moved to Parke County, same State, where 
Maj. Johnston's mother died and was buried. 
The Major continued to live at home and 
work on the farm with his father until he 
was thirty years of age, when he left his 
family in Parke County and returned to 
Clark and married a Miss Mary Bullock, his 
present wife, who has since been the sharer 
of his triumphs and of his reverses; together 
have they trod life's journey, sometimes in 
rain, sometimes in sunshine. Through life 
there are many dark sides and many bright 
sides, but they have been met and almost 
passed by this venerable couple, he in his 
eighty- fourth, she in her eightieth year. 
They are going — and soon; their work is 
almost done; their trials and . tribulations 
about over, and right well are they prepared 
for this earthly ending. 

Soon after his marriage, Maj.- Johnston 
moved to this county and began farming. 
He was a man of more than an average edu- 
cation for that day, although he never at- 
tended school more than thi-ee or four 
months, yet his father was a good English 
scholar and devoted a good deal of his per- 
sonal attention to the education of his chil- 
dren. After farming for a short time in this 
county, the Major engaged in mercantile 
pursuits, which, with some surety invest- 
ment, did not succeed, and he soon found 
himself heavily in debt and forced out of 
business with no property or means to pay 
with, and thus [his little craft went down 
beneath the financial crash. After his fail- 
ure, and, in fact, awhile before, he began to 
give some attention to politics, and was soon 
elected one of the Count}' Commissioners, 
and afterward was elected County Clerk. 

But perhaps it would not be out of place 
to here relate a little incident of his family. 
A brother of his father left' home in Virgin- 
ia and went to Mississippi and located near 



192 



HISTORV OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



Natchez. He never married and accumulated 
considerable property, consisting largely of 
negroes and lands. While the Major's 
father lived in Kentucky, this brother died, 
and another brother, the only remaining one, 
came from Virginia to Kentucky, and the 
two brothers went on horseback to Missis- 
sippi to look after the estate. While they 
were not abolitionists, they were opposed to 
slavery and were followers of Henry Clay's 
doctrine of gradual emancipation. On their 
arrival at Mississippi, they simply took what 
money there was, and being unable to give a 
bond for the good behavior of the negroes, 
as the law then required, they were unable 
to free them, and they retui-ned home and 
left the slaves and lands thei'e and never af- 
terward returned. 

In 1838, Maj. Johnston was elected to the 
State Senate from this and Hamilton Coun- 
ty, serving four years. During his term of 
olHce, there were two regular and two special 
sessions; in fact, it was a period of much 
legislative interest. The first session of 1838 
was the last held at Vandalia, and there was 
considerable excitement over the proposition 
to remove the caf)ital to Springfield. The 
Sangamon County delegation, with Abraham 
Lincoln as its leader, consisted of A. G. 
Herndon, E. D. Baker (afterward killed at 
Ball's Bluff, Va.), John Calhoun, John Daw- 
son, Ninian W. Edwards, William F. Elkins, 
Andrew McCormick and Thomas J. Nance. 
In the excitement of the occasion, the dele- 
gation was termed by some gentlemen of the 
opposition as the "Long Nine. " Lincoln in 
reply said, "Yes, we are the ' long nine ' and 
I am the longest of the nine," and as such 
they have passed into history. They suc- 
ceeded and the capital was removed to 
Springfield, where it has since been retained. 
In this session was to be found many who 
afterward gained renown and became a part 



of the permanent history of the State. One 
gained the Presidency, many seats in Con- 
gress, and some renown upon the battle-field. 
Marshall was there and Baker, and Ficklin, 
and DuBois, and Logan, father of the pres- 
ent Senator, and many others. For some 
years after the cajsital was removed, the 
Legislatui-e met in a chui-ch in Springfield. 

At the first session after the removal the 
Bank of Illinois susjjended payment and 
the suspension was legalized by the Legisla- 
ture until the end of the next session. In 
November, 1840, following, the Legislature 
met in special session; the time for the,reg- 
ular session by law was December 7, 1840. 
There was considerable agitation over the 
bank susj)eusion. The Democrats were de- 
termined that the bank should resume and 
the Whigs that they should not before the 
end of the regular session, and to carry their 
point attempted to run the special session 
into the regular session, and thereby prevent 
an adjournment. The time was drawing 
near when the matter had toj be settled one 
way or the other. The Democrats being in 
the majority, the W'higs resorted to eveiy 
means known to parliamentary rules to delay 
and prevent a vote upon the question of 
adjom-nment. For days the battle was 
waged; the " Long Nine " were there, with 
Lincoln at their head. At last, when all 
their tactics had been exhausted and it was 
evident the Democrats would carry the ad- 
journment unless something was done, Lin- 
coln asked that the roll be called; it was 
called and found that there was one less than 
a quorum. The Speaker at once ordered the 
doors closed and instructed the doorkeeper to 
go out and bring in another member. Lin- 
coln, seeing that his chances were getting 
no better, quietlv raised the window and 
jumped outside and left, which left the 
House two members short. But when the 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



193 



doorkeeper returned he had two members 
instead of one. The vote on adjoiu'nment 
was then put and carried, and the Legisla- 
ture adjourned on the 5th of December, just 
two days before the regular session convened. 
On the same evening of the adjomnment the 
oiBcers of the bank called a meeting of the 
Directors, and at once resumed specie pay- 
ment. 

In 1852, Maj. Johnston, together with 
Abraham Lincoln and Judge Dickey, of 
Chicago (not the present Judge of the Su- 
preme Court), were appointed a commission 
to take and report the evidence on claims 
. filed against the State on account of the con- 
struction of the Illinois Canal. The Com- 
missioners opened an ofSce in Ottawa, Chi- 
cago and Springfield. In 1845, he was En- 
rolling and Engrossing Clerk of the Senate, 
and under his inspection passed the entire 
revision of 1845, which is claimed by many 
prominent lawyers to be the best the State 
has ever had. In 1846, he was elected as a 
"floater" to the Fifteenth General Assem- 
bly from the counties of Hamilton, Franklin 
and Jeiferson. During this session the prop- 
osition to issue State bonds for the payment 
of the State indebtedness was presented and 
carried. The Major was presented by his 
friends as a'candidate for Speaker, and but 
for the action of the Cook County delega 
tion. which then, as now, had an as or two 
to grind, would have been elected. They 
sent for the Major to meet them, which he 
did at the old American House. When he 
arrived the Chairman of the delegation in- 
formed him that they had decided to vote for 
him, provided he would make certain promises 
in reference to the appointment of the com- 
mittee on canals, which then, as now, was an 
important question to Cook County. The Ma- 
jor replied that there were certain fixed rules 
which had been observed in the formation of 



the committees of the House whch he 
thought fair and just, and that if elected 
Speaker he could not and would not depart 
from them. This answer was not satisfac- 
tory, and they supported Mr. Newton Cloud, 
the member from Morgan County, who was 
elected by a very small majority, and it is 
not improper to here say that he was a good 
man and made an excellent presiding ofiicer. 
Shortly after Maj. Johnstou's return home 
in March, 1847, he received the appointment 
of Paymaster in the United States Army, 
with the rank of Major of dragoons, and 
ordered to report at St. Louis for duty. Gov. 
Anderson, then United States Marshal, 
brought him the news of his appointment 
one night after he had retired. At that time 
the Major was running a small " sueing 
shop" as Justice of the Peace, and had an 
otfice on the west side of the public square, 
about where the Thorn building now stands. 
He took the appointment, together with the 
bond sent out for execution, which was for 
$20,000, to his otfice, and after due consider- 
ation became satisfied he could never fill it, 
and prejiared a letter to the President, Mr. 
Polk, declining the appointment, had it all 
ready to mail, when some of his fri'ends 
came in and asked him when he was going 
to the war to pay the boys off. He informed 
them that he had decided to decline the 
honor, and had just so wi-itten the President, 
giving as his reason that he could not fill 
the required bond. It will be understood 
that up to this time he had not asked a sin- 
gle person to sign the bond with him. His 
friends who had called prevailed on him to 
sign the bond, which he reluctantly did, and 
it was at once taken out by his friend, who 
in a short time had it all complete and ready 
with ample sureties to present to the depart- 
ment. The Major then destroyed the letter 
he had written declining the appointment, 



194 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



at once proceeded with his preparations to 
leave, and soon was on his way to Alton to 
present the bond for approval, which was 
done by the proper officer on presentation, 
and he at once reported at St. Louis for 
duty He continued ♦to receive and disburse 
the money of the Government to its soldiers 
until the war closed, receiving and taking 
charge at times of as much as $200,000 in 
specie. On one occasion ^e went to Fort 
LeavenwortH with $200,000 to pay Gen. 
Price's men, but upon his arrival he found 
Maj. Bryant a ranking officer already there, 
and the Major transferred his money to Bry- 
ant and returned to St. Louis. In the 
spring of 1848, he crossed the plains with 
$100,000. He traveled between 25,000 and 
30,000 miles, received and paid out over 
$2,000,000 and never lost a five-cent piece. 
When Congress called upon the Paymaster 
General for an account of losses to the reve- 
nue through his thirty-six different Paymas- 
ters, his reply was " not one dime." The 
handling of so much money on $20,000 
bonds would not be productive of such results 
at this day. 

While Paymaster, the Major, by economy 
and prudence, saved enough from his salary 
to enable him to relieve himself from his fi- 
nancial embaiTassments, which had continued 
to abide with him since bis failure before 
mentioned. 

In November, 1854, Finny D. Preston, 
then Clerk of the Supreme Court, for the 
First Grand Division, resigned, and Maj. 
Johnson was appointed to succeed him by 
the Si-ipreme Court. In June, 1855, he was 
elected as his own successor, and was re- 
elected in June, 1861, serving altogether, by 
appointment and election, about thirteen 
years. In November, 1866, he was again 
elected as Representative to the Legislature 
from this and Franklin Counties; this was 



the last public office held by him. In about 
1853 or 1854, the Legislature made an ap- 
propriation of $6,000 for the purpose of 
building a Supreme Court House at this 
place. The Governor appointed as Com- 
missioners to superintend the construction of 
the building Zadok Casey, T. B. Tanner, 
Dr. J. N. Johnson, W. J. Stephenson, and 
Noah Johnston. Upon the organization of 
the Commission, Maj. Johnston was made 
the General Superintendent and thus, under 
his immediate supervision, the building was 
constructed. 

During his residence in this county he 
has held the office of Justice of the Peace for 
twelve years, and for many years was Post- 
master, although he permitted Daniel Kin- 
ney to attend to the office and receive all the 
emoluments. He was Deputy United States 
Marshal for four years under Gov. Anderson. 
It will be noticed that for more than two- 
thirds of his life in this county he has occu- 
pied important public positions in one ca- 
pacity or another, in all of which he has 
proven himself faithful and capable. The 
Major was never an orator, and although the 
greater j)art of his life has been spent in 
politics, yet to unflinching integrity and 
competency, rather than to oratoiy, does he 
owe his success. In no place, in no position, 
public or private, can, nor has there, lodged 
the least stain upon his character; straight- 
forward, plain, frank and honest has been 
his conduct, and as such he is to-day. 

He is in some respects a remarkable man; 
he has lived to see this now great State of 
Illinois develop from the beginning as it 
were to its present grandeui-. He has, in 
fact, done his part in the progression that 
has been so marked. A man of no surplus 
words, a wise and honest counselor, he en- 
joyed the most friendly and personal rela- 
tions of many men of distinction, among 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY 



195 



whom were Lincoln, Douglas and Breeze, 
the three really great men produced by this 
State, and of whom we shall never cease to 
be justly proud. There are few men now 
living so rich in personal reminiscences of 
the men of the earlier days of the State. The 
vitality and clearness of his mind is indeed 
wonderful; although near the close of his 
eighty foiu-th year, he converses readily and 
with much more freshness than many much 
younger men. He has witnessed every ma- 
terial improvement and advancement made 
both by county and State, and in many has 
contributed largely. He is now the Presi- 
dent of the Mount Vernon National Bank, 
giving it his daily personal attention. 

He has always been a partisan Democrat, 
never, we believe, departing one single time 
from that faith. Born just at the close of 
power by the old Federal party, the early 
enemy of Democracy, and just as Jefferson 
was establishing so firmly his more liberal 
and democratic ideas, the Major early be- 
came a student of that political school which 
had Jefferson for its founder, and " the most 
liberty for the most people" its beacon light. 
Although earnest and zealous in his politics, 
yet he always enjoyed the confidence of his 
political enemies. 

In religion, he has belonged to no church, 
although a constant and attentive attendant 
and a fu-m believer in the Christian relisfion. 
His faith has been, to judge from his life, 
"to do right in all things, be jiast and honest 
to all men," and a just God will make all 
things well. 

A more appropriate conclusion to this chap- 
ter on the county's political history could 
not be given than a list of the faithful who 
have served the people — many of them faith- 
fully and well. The list of Senators and 
Representatives, and others, which follow will 
recall names of men who were once well 



known, but some of whom are now almost 
forgotten by the mass of the people. 

State Senators. — The following are the State 
Senators representing Jefferson County since 
its organization: 1822-24, Thomas Sloo, Jr.; 
1824-26, Thomas Sloo, Jr.; 182G-28, Zadok 
Casey ; 1828-30, Zadok Casey ; 1830-32, En- 
nis Maulding ; 1832-34, Ennis .Alaulding ; 1834 
-36, Levui Lane ; 1836-38, Levin Lane ; 1838 
-40, Noah Johnston ; 1840^2, Noah Johnston ; 
1842-44, Robert A. D. Wilbanks; 1844-46, 
Robert A. D. Wilbanks ; 1846-48, William J 
Stephenson; 1848-50, J. B. Hardy * ; 1850-52, 
J. B. Hardy ; 1852-54, Silas L. Bryan ; 1854- 
56, Silas L. Bryan t ; 1856-58, Silas L. Bryan ; 
1858-60, Silas L. Bryan ; 1860-62, Zadok Ca- 
sey ; 1862-64, Israel Blanchardt; 1864-66, 
Daniel Reilly ; 1866-68, Daniel Reilly ; 1868- 
70, Samuel K. Casey ; 1870-72, Samuel K. Ca- 
sey i ■ 1872-74, Thomas S. Casey H ; 1874-76, 
Thomas S. Casey ; 1876-78, Charles E. Mc- 
Dowell II ; 1878-80, Charles E. McDowell ; 1880 
-82, John C. Edwards**; 1882-84, Thomas 
M. Merritt. 

Tlie Representatives in the Lower House of 
the Legislature are as follows : 1822-24, Zadok 
Casey; 1824-26, Zadok Casey ; 1826-28, Nich- 
olas Wren ; 1828-30, Israel Jennings ; 1830- 
32, William Marshall; 1832-34, Stinson H. 
Anderson ; 1834-36, Stinson H. Anderson ; 
1836-38, Harvey T. Pace; 1838-40, Harvey 
T. Pace ; 1840-12, Stephen G. Hicks; 1842- 
44, Stephen G. Hicks; 1844-46, Stephen G. 
Hicks ; 1846-48, Lewis P. Casey ; 1848-50, 
Zadok Casey (the county is now in the Sixth 
District) ; 1850-52, Zadok Casey ; 1852-54, 
John Wilbanks ; 1854-56. T. B. Tanner (Jef- 
ferson is now in the Eighth District) ; 1856-58, 
William B. Anderson ; 1858-60, William B. 



* of Hamiltnn County, ami JeflferBon 15 in the Third District. 

t of Marion County, and Jt-fferson is in the Twentieth District. 

* of Jackson Comity, and Jefferson is in the Third District. 

g Casey died, and 'Williara B. Anderson was elected to fill out tiis 
unexpired term. 
•" Jefferson is now a part of the Forty-sixth District. 

of White County. 
♦* of Hamilton County. 



196 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



Anderson ; 1S60-G2, ; 1862-64, Henry 

M. Williams (the county is now in the Fifth 
District) ; 1864-66, John Ward ; 1866-68, No- 
ah Johnston ; 1868-70, C. C. M. V. B. Payne ; 
(whose name is Christopher Columbus Martin 
Van Buren Payne) 1870-72, Thomas S. Casey 
(Jefferson is now in the Eighteenth District) ; 

1872-74, 1874-76, Amos B. Barrett 

(the county is now in the Forty-sixth District); 
1876-78, Tliomas J. Williams; 1878-80, Alfred 



M. Green and John R. Moss ; 1880-82, R. A. 
D. Wilbauks ; 1882-84, George H. Varnell. 

Additional to the Representatives in the Gen- 
eral Assembly of the State, the county has 
furnished two Lieutenant Governors, viz., Za- 
dok Casey and Stinson H. Anderson ; one At- 
torney General, Walter B. Scates ; and two 
Congressmen, viz., Zadok Casey and William 
B. Anderson. 



CHAPTER VliL* 



SOMETHING MORE .iBOUT THE PIONEERS— THOSE WHO CAME IN LATER— THEIR SETTLEMENT- 
GAME AND WILD ANIMALS— PIONEER INCIDENTS— MRS. ROBINSON AND THE PANTHER- 
SOME RATTLING SNAKE STORIES— FEMALE FASHION AND DRESS— WOMAN'S 
LIFE IN THE WILDERNESS— HARD TIMES, FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES, ETC. 



" The cry of the beast from his unknown den 
They haunted the lonesome wood 
Only to deepen its solitude." 

THE pioneers, the men who skirt the outer 
confines of civilization on this continent, 
have entirely changed in their characteristics 
since the memorable days of '49, when the 
discovery of gold on the Pacific slope set all 
the world in a blaze of excitement. They are 
now, perhaps, the most cosmopolitan people 
in the world, and we incline to the belief 
that the old Californians were and are the 
best practically educated people, for they 
were suddenly gathered togther in large 
numbers, representing every civilized people 
of the globe, many of the half civilized, and 
even some of the totally barbarous This 
heterogenous gathering of such varieties of 
people resulted in the world's wonder of a 
public school. It rapidly educated men as 
they never had before been taught. It was 
not perfect in its moral symmetry, but it was 

•Bjr W. II. Perrin. 



wholly powerful in its rough strength, vigor 
and swiftness. It taught not of books but 
of the mental and physical laws — of com- 
merce, of cunning craft; it was iron to the 
nerves and a sleepless energy to the resolu- 
tion. This was its field of labor, its free 
university. Here every people, every nation- 
al prejudice, all the marked characteristics 
of men, met its opposite where there was no 
law to restrain or govern either, except that 
public judgment that was crystallized into a 
resistless force in this witches' caldron. 
This wonderful alembic, where were fused 
normal and abnormal humanities, thoughts, 
false education, prejudicies and pagan fol- 
lies, into a molten stream that glowed and 
scorched ignorance along its way, as the vol- 
canic eruption does the debris in its path- 
way. It was the untrammeled school of at- 
trition of every variety of mind with mind, 
the rough diamond that gleams and dazzles 
with beauty only when rubbed with diamond 
dust. The best school in the world for a 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



197 



thorough practical education — we mean real 
education and not " learned ignorance," as 
Locke has aptly called it. Such an educa- 
tion is the grand leveler of the human 
mind. It is like the struggle for life, where 
only " the tittest survive " and the unlit per- 
ish. 

But the pioneer's school life was spent in 
a wholly different one from that just de- 
scribed. The surroundings of the Illinois 
pioneers differed radically from that of the 
old California "forty-niners." They did not 
come here in rushing crowds as men sought 
the gold fields of California, nor did they 
represent all the civilized nations of the earth. 
They came, as we have- already stated, most- 
ly from the Southern States, and they settled 
down in the wilderness to live, where un- 
remitting toil was required to maintain life. 
In a former chapter we have noticed the ad- 
vent of the first pioneers, that forlorn hope 
of civilization in Jefferson County, and the 
erection of their rude cabins which formed 
the germ of a large and prosperous settle- 
ment. Further on we gave sketches of some of 
the prominent pioneer families, who came a 
few years later and might be termed the 
" second crusade." In this chapter we shall 
notice the arrival of those who came in at a 
still later period, and also some of the hard- 
ships and difiSculties endured by the people 
in the pioneer period. 

The Jordan family, Felix McBride, Nich- 
olas Wren, John Sanders, John Lee, Sam- 
uel Bradford, Elijah Joliff, and several 
other families, additional to any men- 
tioned, settled in the county about the year 
1819. The Jordan family were early set- 
tlers in Franklin County, where they had 
built a kind of fort or block-house, but after- 
ward moved into Jefferson. Nicholas Wren 
was a son-in-law of William Jordan; Mc- 
Bride lived in Mount Vernon, but finally 



went to Galena; John Sanders helped to 
build the first covu't house, and Bradford set- 
tled near the present town of Belle Rive, 
but afterward moved into Wayne County; 
Joliff married Lucinda Deprist in Tennessee, 
and came here and entered land in Section 1 
of Township 2 and Range 2, in October, 1819. 
He was accidentally shot, and died in the 
house where he settled. 

In the year 1820, still further accessions 
to the population were made in the arrival 
of Joseph Pace, Reuben Jackson, Joseph 
Reed, W. L. Howell, Thomas Hopper, Ben- 
jamin Vermilion, Rhoda Allen, James 
Chafiin, Ebenezer Daggett, Nathaniel S. 
Andrews, Henry Watkins, James Phipps, 
Samuel Hirons, Mrs. Hays, Nathaniel Wil- 
son, Bi;tler Arnold, Ransom Moss, Gessom 
Moss, Herbert Avent, etc., etc. The Paces 
are a numerous family in the county still. 
Reuben Jackson settled in Grand Prairie. 
He remained but a short time and moved 
North; Howell was the second Sheriff of the 
county, and in a few years returned to Ten- 
nessee; Hopper came from Tennessee and 
settled west of Moore's Prairie; Vermilion 
was an early tavern-keeper in Mount Vernon: 
Rhoda Allen died in 1820 — the first man 
who died in the county — and his widow af- 
terward married James Douglas; Chaffin 
moved away to the north part of the State; 
Andrews died soon after he came to the coun- 
ty; Watkins lived in Grand Prairie; Hirons 
was the builder of the first brick court 
house; Nilson was one of the very first 
settlers in Grand Prairie; Arnold was from 
Butler County, Tenn. ; the Mosses and 
Avent came together. Ransom and Ges- 
som Moss were brothers, and Mrs. Avent was 
their sister. They were from Virginia, and 
Avent WHS once very wealthy, but poor when 
he came here; he was a fine pattern of a Vir- 
ginia gentleman. 



198 



HLSTOEY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



Additions were made to the settlements 
iu 182 J, as follows: Other members of 
the Pace family, Israel Smith, Biirrell and 
Alfred McConnell, John Blackburn, Aquilla 
Alexander, Jnhn Gibson, Emery P. Moore, 
Joel Hargrave, the Tunstalls, etc. ' In 1822, 
came William Porter, William Rearden, Jacob 
Norton, the Chandlers, Absalom and Joseph 
Estes, William Hicks, Robert Snodgrass, 
George Webb, Yoiing Lemore, William South- 
wood; and in 1823, Rhodam Allen, William 
Drummond, Jarviee Pierce, Sr., Thomas Kell, 
Azariah Bruce, Parson Upshaw, the Wellses; 
and in 1824, James Dickens, Simon McCenden, 
Blalock and Lyon, William Crabtree, Taurus 
Rife, Wallace Caldwell. Elisha Plummer, Rob- 
ert Stockton, John Summers, Drs. Adams and 
Glover, Downing Baugh, Blagdon East, 
Samuel Foster, Josiah League, Henry Lewis, 
George May, Jesse Lee, etc. From this 
time up to 1830, we may mention the follow- 
ing additional settlers: David Hobbs and 
Aaron Yearwood came in 1826; Robert 
Breeze, in 1827; Joseph McMeens settled in 
Jordan's Prairie in 1826-27; northwest of 
town, Howe, John Cash, and others settled; 
Enoch Holtsclaw about 1826-27; and Samuel 
Cummins and John Watters soon after; the 
Bullocks came about 1828 or 1830; Billing- 
ton Taylor in 1828; Caleb Barr and Elisha 
Myers the same year; Peter Owen, soon 
after; William Finch, a few years earlier; 
Julius Scott and Thomas A. Nicholas about 
1829; and quite a number of others we can- 
not now name. 

We can only make the briefest mention of 
these early settlers in this portion of our 
work, as they necessarily iigm-e in the differ- 
ent townships, and will there receive further 
notice. Their names are merely given here 
to show the increase of population and the 
growth of settlement. 

Wild Game. — Although we have alluded 



tp the hard life of the pioneers already, yet, 
doubtless, we cannot interest our aged 
readers more than by giving fvtrther details 
of the early trials, hardships, manners, cus- 
toms, game, etc., of the early settlers. 
Again drawing upon the sketches of Mr. 
Johnson, he says that when the first settlers 
came, there was no elk here or comparative- 
ly none. That those animals had once been 
plenty in this region was evinced by the fact 
that the settlers found bones and horns in 
great profusion in certain portions of the 
county, notably in Elk Prairie, and which 
name they gave that prairie in consequence. 
That seemed to have been their great resort, 
as their bones were numerous there — or per- 
haps it was their cemetery. Sinbad, the 
sailor, tells of the elephants having cemeter- 
ies or "boneyards" in their own "country," 
where their dead was deposited. Tunstall, 
we are told, took away a couple of tame elk 
with him when he moved from the county. 
The last one was seen, it is said, by William 
and James Hicks while out on a hunt, but it 
escaped them. Bears were quite plenty, es- 
pecially along the water-courses and in the 
heavy timber. The pioneers used their flesh 
for meat and their hides for clothing. If 
they made them into clothing, like Tom 
Bolin's breeches — "with the fleshy side out 
and the woolly side in" — we dare to say they 
were warm and comfortable. But in a few 
years after the organization of the county, 
they had (the bears) almost wholly disap- 
peared. Ml'. Johnson relates the following 
" bear incident," as among bruin's " last ap- 
pearances" in the county: "When Abraham 
Buffington went to Horse Creek, he found 
bears. With a courage equal to Putnam's 
when he followed the wolf into her den, 
Buffington followed an old she bear into her 
den, and by the aid of her gleaming eyes 
shot her in the darkness of the cave." But 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



199 



of all the tour-footed game, perhaps deer 
were the most abundant. It was not uncom- 
mon to see 50 to 100 in a gang on the 
prairies or on the barrens at " one look." 
Nobody that could shoot — and all pioneers 
could do that, it was a part of their education 
— was ever out of meat long at a time. If a 
man on rising from his couch m the morn- 
iog was informed by his spouse that there 
was no meat in the larder, he coolly said, 
" "Well, wife, just wait a little," and often in 
less than half an hour his game was lying at 
the door, and meat, for the time, was plenty. 
Sometimes a man could stand in his own 
door and shoot deer as they grazed within 
easy range. A great deal of clothing was 
made of deerskin, before the raising of cot- 
ton and flax. The lirst eiforts to tan the 
hides were almost a failure. A new method, 
however, was introduced which was much 
better. This was, after removing the hair, 
the skins were thoroughly rubbed and 
dressed with brains. They were then 
stretched on stakes driven into the ground, 
around a large hole, and the hole tilled with 
light and rotten wood, which was set on tire. 
The warmth caused the brains and oil to per- 
meate the skins and the smoke gave them a 
beautiful color. Tanned in this way, they 
are said to have been very soft and pliant, 
and were handsome. One girl is mentioned 
by some of the old settlers as having a buck- 
skin petti — ahem! of which she was very 
proud. Her word, however, had to be taken 
as to its beauty, for that garment was worn, 
in the pioneer days, invisible to the naked 
eye. 

Wolves were almost as abundant as deer. 
Wolf Prairie received its name from the 
great numbers found in that section, and for 
at least twenty years after the formation of 
the county there were many wolves in the 
unsettled portions. They did not often be- 



come dangerous, never unless provoked or 
nearly famished by hunger. Thompson Atch- 
ison once had a severe fight with two or 
three wolves that had attacked his dogs. 
Dr. Wilkey was once pursued by a small 
pack, but paid little attention to them for 
some time. Finally, when they had be- 
come a little too impudent, he turned and 
shot one, when the others scampered away. 
Mi's. Robinson — Aunt Rhoda, as she was 
called — once killed a wolf that came prowl- 
ing around her cabin at night. Her husband 
had brought home a deer in the afternoon, 
which he had shot, and the wolf had scented 
the slaughtered game and followed to the 
cabin, when it was attacked by the dogs. In 
those early days, the dog was a respected 
member of the family. Any man would tight 
for his dog. Literally it was " love me, love 
my dog," or take the consequences. Every 
man knew every dog in the neighborhood by 
his bark, just as he knew a man's voice when 
he heard him speak. When the wolf was 
attacked by the dogs, Mrs. Robinson ran out 
to help the latter, and as she ran caught 
up a "chink" that had fallen from a crack of 
the cabin. Ai-riving upon the scene, she 
gave the wolf a blow with the billet that laid 
him dead at her feet. She was once pur- 
sued by a panther as she wended her way, 
alone, and on foot, through the forest. A 
less brave and resolute woman would have 
been paralyzed with fear, and to say that she 
was not frightened would, perhaps, be a vio- 
lation of the truth; but the pioneer women 
had to fight their own battles, as it were, 
side by side with their husbands. IMrs. Rob- 
inson was going to a neighbor's several miles 
distant, with no company but her dog and 
the babe she carried in her arms, when a 
large panther appeared upon her trail ic 
close pm-suit. Her dog ran to her and 
crouched at her feet for protection. As the 



200 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



panther came too near to be pleasant, she 
threw down her bonnet as she ran. This 
stopped the panther a few moments, for 
he tore it into fragments, and then started 
again in pui'suit. As he came near, she 
threw down her shawl, and again he stopped 
long enough to tear it in pieces; and when 
she was almost ready to drop from exhaus- 
tion, and the hungry beast was near enough 
for her to distinctly hear his teeth snap, she 
fortunately met a man who shot and killed 
it, and thus relieved her of further danger. 

To young hogs and sbeep were wolves, 
wildcats and panthers particularly destruct- 
ive. Vast numbers of them were killed. 
Even young calves were not secure against 
them. A wolf one day ran a calf up to 
William Casey's very gate. The women 
folks hurried out, opened the gale for the 
calf, and thus saved its life. Indeed, for 
years it was almost impossible to raise hogs 
and sheep; but the persistent vengeance with 
which the pests were hunted by the settlers 
finally cleared them out, until at present 
there are none to be found in the county, 
not even in the wildest regions. The pan- 
thers and wild cats were found here in quite 
as great numbers as wolves, and they were 
even more dangerous when " met by moon- 
light alone." Such small game as foxes, 
raccoons, turkeys, and other feathered deni- 
zens of forest and prairie were too numerous 
to mention. 

Snakes. — According to the early history of 
the county, snakes were as plenty here as 
they were in Ireland prior to the days of St. 
Patrick. It may be that the patron saint of 
the " gem of the say " drove them to this 
country when he cleared them out of " ould " 
Ireland. Says Mr. Johnson : " Snakes were 
fully represented here when the settlers 
came. It was in 1820 that the first little 
log schoolhouse was built at old Shiloh. 



Soon after the man, James Douglas, made his 
appearance in the nei ghborhood, and though 
addicted to drink, he got up a reputation 
for scholarship, and then got up a school at 
Shiloh. A few weeks after a school began, 
the scholars found so many snakes about the 
hill that all concluded there must be a den 
of them in the vicinity. The report of a 
snake den produced great excitement, and 
the settlers, fond of sport and apprehensive 
of danger to their children, turned out in a 
body, armed with hoes, axes, spades, clubs 
and guns, and still not prepared fully for 
such a task as awaited them. It really 
seemed as if the immediate vicinity was lit- 
erally alive with the descendants of the first 
apple vender. Every tuft of grass con- 
cealed a snake; every rock covered one; 
every hole and crevice contained one; every 
imaginable nook was full of them. Fre- 
quently, on turning a moderately sized rock 
out of its bed, eight or ten snakes, all coiled 
together, were found underneath it. Rattle- 
snakes, copperheads, vipers, adders, mocca- 
sins, all seemed to have made peace and 
taken up their abode together. The rattler 
was largely in the majority, nearly 300 be- 
ing killed, laid out and counted; the whole 
number killed and counted was largely over 
500. If every man had had an attack of the 
jim-jams, he probably could not have seen 
more snakes. It will readily be allowed that 
those who were particularly afraid of snakes 
felt nervous when out in tall grass for some 
time after this onslaught on the reptile 
population of the community." 

Shiloh, however, did not contain all the 
snakes, but, on the contraiy, they seem to 
have been numerous most everywhere. 
Johnson thus continues his dissertation on 
snakes: " Henry Tyler settled at what is now 
known as the Brown place in March, 1823, 
some seven miles north of town. Aunt Katy 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON^ COUNTY. 



201 



found a rattlesnake one morning coiled on 
one of the bars when she went to let the cow 
in to milk her. Some time after,Elihu Maxey, 
went up to spend the day with Tyler, and 
the snakes spread themselves. One crawled 
out of the jam, another out of a crack in the 
hearth, another sprawled himself on the 
door step. In the course of the day, seven 
snakes were killed in the house. This was 
pretty good, but it got better. Tom Casey 
went up to see his sister (Mrs. Tyler), and 
he and Tyler went out to take a little hunt, 
expectiag to kill a deer in a thicket that had 
escaped the autumnal fires. One took each 
side of the thicket to go around it. Tj^ler 
saw an otter in the branch, stopped to watch 
it until Casey came round, and in a few 
minutes saw seven snakes crawl down to the 
branch. Thinking like the Irishman, that 
' where there's two snakes there's sure to be 
one,' they hunted about awhile and killed 
and laid out 170. Next day they raised a 
little help and dug out and killed 217." It 
seems that this aroused a suspicion in the 
mind of Tyler that that whole hill had 
" snakes in its boots," and he lost no time in 
moving away. In additiim to all these, a 
den was found on Joliff's sugar camp branch, 
and some two or three hundred were killed 
there. Many of the snakes were exceedingly 
venomous. "Wallace Caldwell was riding 
along the road one day, and a snake bit his 
horse on the leg. With all these stories, it 
was not considered strange when Mi-. Ed- 
wards settled where Capt. Henderson lives, 
and had been there a short time, his wife, 
who was quite a nervous woman, became so 
alarmed over snake stories she could not 
stay, but had her husband pull up stakes 
and return to Kentucky, whence they had 
come. 

This cleaning out of snake dens and the 
great slaughter of the reptiles soon had the 
effect of visibly diminishing their numbers. 



It became more safe and pleasant for the 
timorous to perambulate through the tall 
grass, and when a cow or horse started or a 
hen " chuckled " in alarm, it was no longer 
considered a "snake sure." But it was many 
years before they were generally gone; «ven 
now one may occasionally be seen. North- 
east of Rome there was a stream named 
Snake Den Branch in memory of the veno- 
mous reptiles. 

Thus the dangers and annoyances of the 
early settlers were such as none but brave 
hearts would dare to encounter. Nothing 
but the hopeful insj^iration of manifest des- 
tiny urged them to persevere in bringing 
under the dominion of civilized man what 
was before then a howling wilderness. 
They were exceptions, in a great degree, of 
the accepted rule, that " immigrants in set- 
tling in a new country usually travel on the 
same parallel as that of the home they left." 
Coming from the South as they did, where 
most of them were poor, and regarded as no 
better than the black slaves by the haughty 
aristocracy, they launched out sovereign citi- 
zens, independent, free and equal, and ac- 
knowledging themselves in the presence of 
no superior being, except when kneeling 
alone in prayer to the King of Kings. It was a 
wise conclusion that prompted them to come 
here, where they were far more useful in 
church and State than the)' ever could have 
been in the regions they left behind, where 
others held the places of influence. 

The fashions in the primitive days of the 
county were few and simple, compared with 
the gaudy and costly paraphernalia of the 
present time. Comfort and freedom wei"e 
always consulted in preference to personal 
appearance, and the dude was then unknown. 
The principal articles for clothing were of 
home manufacture, such as linsey-woolsey, 
jeans, tow linen, etc. The world was not 
laid under tribute, as now, to fiu-nish the 



102 



HISTOKY OF JEFFERSON COUXTT. 



thousand and one mysteries of a lady's toi- 
let. Powders and lotions and dangerous 
cosmetics, by which the modern belle bor- 
rows the transient beauty of the present, and 
repays with premature homeliness, were un- 
known to hev frontier ancestors, whose 
cheeks were rosy with the ruddy glow of 
health, painted by wholesome exercise and 
labor. The beauty and symmetry of the 
female form was not distorted or misshapen 
by tight lacing, The brave women of those 
days knew nothing of ruffles, curls, switches 
or bustles. Instead of the organ or piano, 
before which sits the modern miss, tortur- 
ing selections from the majestic operas (!) 
the}' had to do their part of the work. 
"The girls took music lessons 

Upon the spinning wheel, 
And practiced late and early 

On spindle swift and reel." 
and were contented with their linsey 
(slothing, their rough- made shoes, and a sun- 
bonnet of coarse linen The women believed 
it their highest duty — as it was their noblest 
aim — to contribute their part in the great 
work of life. The " hired girl " had not then 
become a class. In cases of illness — and 
there was plenty of it in the early times — 
some young woman would leave home for a 
few days to care for the afflicted household, 
but her services were not rendered for the 
pay she received. The discharge of the 
sacred duty to care for the sick was the 
motive, and it was never neglected. The 
accepted life of a woman was, to marry, bear 
and rear children, prepare the household food, 
spin, weave and make the garments for the 
family. Her whole life was the grand, sim- 
ple poem of rugged, toilsome duty, bravely 
and uncomplainingly done. She lived his- 
tory and her descendant;! write and read it 
with a proud thrill, such as visits the pilgrim 
when at Arlington, he stands at the base of 
the monument which covers the bones of 



4,000 nameless men who gave their blood to 
preserve their country. Her work lives, but 
her name is only whispered in a few homes. 
Holy in death, it is too sacred for ojjen 
speech. 

Hard Times. — The financial pressure in 
the early days was very heavy. Quite a gale 
of prosperity swept over Illinois just after 
the close of the war of 1812, and a large flow 
of immigration followed that event. People 
were seized with a spirit of speculation and 
much land was bought. Land sold at $2 per 
acre — $80 down on a quarter section, the 
balance to be paid in five years. Everybody 
botight all the land on which they could 
make the advance payment, with the expec- 
tation of selling enough to emigrants to 
make the other payments. Wild-cat banks 
were established and flooded the country 
with their worthless bills, and then — " bust." 
The emigrants so confidently expected did 
not come, and hence there was little or no 
sale for real estate. The flood of bank notes 
had driven out specie, and when the banks 
failed there was no money of any kind, and 
pelts, tallow, beeswax, wolf-scalps, etc., be- 
came the circulating medium of the country, 
lender a State law, wolf scalps were made a 
legal tender for taxes. These, together with 
fox, coon and opossum skins, passed current 
for tobacco, whisky and other necessaries of 
life. Indeed, it is said that a man would 
enter a " grocery — " there were no saloons, 
they were all groceries — for a glass of whis- 
ky, present a coon skin, receive his glass of 
whisky and a "possum" skin in change. 
Under these depressing circumstances, the 
country improved and settled very slowly 
for a number of years. These were some of 
the trials and difficulties and dangers the 
pioneers of Jefferson County had to contend 
with. They wotild appear almost insur- 
mountable to us of the present day. 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



203 



CHAPTER IX.* 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS— EARLY ROADS AND TRAILS— SALINE AND WALNUT HILL ROAD- THE 
VANDALIA ROAD— OTHER HIGHWAYS AND BRIDGES— RAILROADS— HOW THEY GREW OUT 
OF THE OLD IMPROVEMENT SYSTEM— JEFFERSON COUNTY'S EFFORTS FOR RAIL- 
ROADS—ST. LOUIS & SOUTHEASTERN — THE AIR LINE — PEOJECTED 
ROADS, SOME OF WHICH WILL BE BUILT, ETC., ETC. 



"And fast, and fast, and faster still. 

As though some superhuman will 

The Iron Horse did guide." 

AMONG the internal improvements of a 
country, none are of more importance 
than its roads and public highways. It has been 
said that a stranger may judge of the civili- 
zation to which a community has attained by 
its system of public roads. In this chapter 
we propose to treat of the public roads and 
railroads of the county, taking them from 
their first inception to their present perfected 
system. First, we shall consider the wagon 
roads in their order, and then direct our at- 
tention to the railroads. 

The Saline and Walnut Hill Road. — The 
reader will pardon us for giving most space 
to this fii'st road, and the one hardest to get of 
all our roads. At the beginning, the Goshen 
road was the only one, and it crossed the pres- 
ent Fairfield road four miles east of town,iust 
beyond Samuel Brace's. It was necessary to 
have one through the county seat. There 
were a few trails, but not even a trail led to 
Mount Ve'-non, It was said that all roads 
led to Rome, but it was just the reverse in 
regard to Mount Vernon — all roads led some- 
where else. On the third day of the first 
term of the County Court, June, 1819, the 
subject of roads came before the Commis- 
sioners, and it was " ordered that William 

•By Dr. A. rlark Johnson. 



Goings, Thomas Jordan, James Abbott, 
James Johnson and John Abbott, or any 
three of them, do view and make a road the 
nearest and best way from Mount Vernon to 
where the old road leaves the county. " It was 
"further ordered that John Jordan, Nicholas 
Wren, John C. Casey, Joseph Reed and 
Robert Cook, or any three of them, do view 
and make a road from Mount Vernon to 
where the Prairie road crosses the east 
boundary line of the county, near Hodge' s " 
— both boards of Viewers to report in Sep- 
tember. These intended roads were what is 
now within this county of the McLeansboro 
and Centralia roads. 

But when September came it brought no 
report from Viewers, and a new hoard was 
appointed for the whole road It was "ordered 
that William Casey, William Jordan, Sr., 
and Samuel Bradford, or any two of them, 
do view a road, beginning at or near the 
southeast corner of this county, on the near- 
est and best way to Mount Vernon; from 
thence, on the nearest and best way, to the 
lower end of Thomas Jordan's Prairie, tak- 
ing into consideration a road hereafter to be 
cut out on a direction to Vandalia, and from 
Jordan's Prairie, on the best and nearest 
way, to where the old road crosses the north- 
ern boundary lino of this county, and re- 
port," etc. 

It was found easier, however, to make 



304 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



orders than to induce men to do what they 
were not compelled to do, and indeed, hard- 
ly knew how to do. On the same day with 
the last order — September 7, 1S19 — Curtis 
Caldwell, John Jordan and Robert Mitchell 
were appointed to view a road from the ford 
of the creek near Jordan's — now Garrison's 
— to where the new road from Maulding's 
intersected the county line. This last was a 
road that Maulding had just cut out from his 
house in Hog Prairie, a few miles this side 
of where McLeansboro now stands, to 
Hodge's — late Abe Irvin's — crogsing the east 
line of the county n ear the southeast corner. 
These men iu due time made a report: "We, 
John Jordan and Curtis Caldwell, having 
been appointed, etc., do hereby certify that 
we have examined and believe that the near- 
est and best way is on a straight line from 
where Maulding's road intersects the county 
to Joseph Jordan's; thence along the old 
road to the ford of the creek, interfering 
with no person's farm, by the Overseers mak- 
ing some small amendments if necessary." 
This report was approved, and John Jordan 
made Overseer. The " Old Road " here was 
a trail from Jordan's to where Lew Beal 
lives. The " Old Road " in the previous 
orders was the Goshen road. William Casey, 
James Johnson and William Goings were 
now — October 4 — ordered to view the road 
toward Carlyle. But still some were dissat- 
i.'ilied with the Viewers' report just received, 
and John C. Casey, Samuel Bradford and 
Oliver Morris were ordered to view the route 
over again. 

Incredible as it may now appear, all those 
orders and views and reports failed to ac- 
complish anything; and this arose from the 
fact, wo suppose, that, as is now the case 
when a railroad is talked of, almost every 
man thought he lived exactly where the road 
ought to be made, aud a man was unwilling j 



to offend so many of his neighbors as did 
not live on the route he might recommend. 

But at length a bold and working board 
was found. January 4, 1820, William Jor- 
dan, James Abbott and Reuben Jackson were 
ordered to view and mark the road, and James 
Kelly was requested to procure the services 
of William Hosick as surveyor. A month or 
more elapsed and Hosick came not. It was 
then ordered, February 10, 1820, that the 
order authorizing Kelly to employ Hosick he 
rescinded, and Joseph Pace be appointed in 
his stead. Let this rej^ort speak for itself: 

" We, James Abbott, William Jordan and 
Reuben Jackson, appointed, etc., met at 
Mount Vernon on Thursday, the 24th day of 
February, and viewed to the creek (Muddy) 
and adjourned until the next day; 25th, 
met at the creek below the ford at a suitable 
place for a bridge, viewed on thence, cross- 
ing the little prairie at the upper end; 
thence on to the Little or Jordan's Creek, 
which we crossed, about a quarter of a mile 
above Hood's Ford; thence on to an arm of 
Moores' Prairie, at the Bushy Ridge; thence 
on to Watkins', and, it being night, ad- 
journed; 26th, met and ran on a straight 
line to Crenshaw's; thence, with the general 
direction of the old road to where the new 
road cut by Thomson and Crenshaw inter- 
sects the said old road; thence down said 
new road to the county line. We met on 
Monday, the 2Sth, agreeably to apjjointment. 
at Mount Vernon, viewed to the right of 
Henry Wilkinson's, thence on a line through 
a corner of Harlow's tield, thence on by 
Elisha Perkins', thence on to a small creek, 
and, it being night, adjourned till morning. 
Tuesday, the 29th, we met agreeably to ap- 
j)ointment, and continued our course on 
through an arm of Jordan's Prairie, running 
within a quarter of a mile of Wren's place; 
thence on to Gaston's, thence on to the old 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



207 



road where it comes to the base line. We 
do hereby certify that we believe the above 
to be the nearest and best way for a road 
through the county, and as near to the 
prayer of your petitioners as one can be got." 

This report was dated March 10, 182U; the 
road was ordered to be made on the route sur- 
veyed; it was to be opened eighteen feet wide, 
and for their services Abbott, Jackson and Jor- 
dan, the Viewers, and A. P. and G. P. Casey, 
the chain carriers, were ordered $12 each, 
and Joseph Pace §24 as sm-veyor. Daniel 
Crenshaw was appointed Overseer from the 
county line to the ninth mile tree; Joseph 
Reed, from the ninth mile tree to Muddy; 
A. P. Casey from Muddy to the fifth mile 
tree, northwest of town; and Samuel Gaston 
the rest. Just one incident: Two of the 
Viewers, Jordan and Abbott, were veiy fond 
of drink, and when they , started out of town 
the second time they took a bottle of whisky 
along. When they' got near Harlow's, as 
mentioned in their report, they began to 
drink, and after drinking freely themselves, 
they gave Uncle Joe Pace the bottle and he 
tvu-ned away and emptied it on the ground. 
But he was too late. Jordan already had 
more than he could carry, so he sat down to 
rest while the others went on. We believe the 
rest all put up at Perkins' that night; at any 
rale, no Jordan appeared till some time next 
day. "When he had rested sufficiently to 
travel, he had lost his way and spent the 
nigh' in the wouda. 

The road crossed no stream requiring a 
bridge but Casey's fork of Muddy. Here 
the first bridge in the county was built by 
Ben Hood and Carter Wilkey. From the 
settlement at the March term, 1821, it 
seems that the structure cost $44.15. Hood 
and Wilkey sawed the lumber by hand. As 
soon as the bridge was done, old Mr. Harris 
came along and was anxious to be the first 



man to ride over. The workmen considered 
it unsafe, as the old man had taken some 
"tea;" but they compromised, the old man 
dismounted and led his horse, and so got 
safely over. The road still runs very nearly 
where it was originally located throughout 
its entire length. 

The Vandalia Road. — Before the opening 
of the Vandalia road, there was a trail to 
Peddling Billy Hicks', where old Mr. Bruce 
afterward lived, and a trail from the Carlyle 
road by Fleming Greenwood's to the White- 
sides settlement, near where Flowns lived 
more recently, in Jordan's Prairie. These 
were the avenues leading north. But Octo- 
ber 5, 1821, Abraham Casey, James Young 
and William Maxwell were ordered to " view 
the ground from Mount Vernon to Lee & 
Hicks' mill and report the nearest and best 
route for a road from Mount Vernon to 
said mill." Emboldened by this beginning, 
the court also " ordered that the said re- 
viewers continue the review of said road 
from the said mill on the nearest and best 
direction toward Vandalia to the county line 
of Jefferson County. " 

Ou the 3d of December, the report came 
in : "By order of the County Commissioners 
of Jefferson County, to us, the undersigned, to 
view the ground from Moimt Vernon to Lee 
& Hicks' mill, and from said mill to the 
north boundary line of Jefferson County, ou 
the direction of Vandalia, and report whether 
there is ground tit to make a road, and 
we having received a plat of the Clerk of 
the Court, have viewed and marked one as 
straight as we possibly could, and report 
that we think we have gone as straight as 
can be without surveying, and think that the 
gromid will answer. Signed by us, Abra- 
ham Casey, William Maxwell, James 
Young." The report meeting with no oppo- 

7 



208 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



sition, was received and the said road was 
" established a public highway." 

For the purpose of opening this road, it 
was next day ordered that Elihu Maxey be 
Supervisor of that part " that lies between 
Mount Vernon and the north line of Section 
No. 25, Range 2, Township 1;" to William 
Maxwell was assigned the portion " lying 
between the north line of Section No. 25 
and the north line of Section 23, Range 2, 
Township 1 north, with all the hands east of 
the county or Carlyle road;" to James 
Young fell the part "lying between the north 
line of Section No. 23 and the northern line 
of the attached part of this county, with all 
the hands north of the line where he com- 
mences." " The said road to be opened 
eighteen feet wide and made passable for 
carriages; to be opened smooth," and to be 
completed by June. 

But the road was not opened very smooth, 
and, indeed, was not used a great deal, so 
that it was really in danger of growing up. 
Hence it became necessary, September 1, 
1828, to order "that the Sheriff inform 
Thomas D. Minor and William Maxwell, 
•Supervisors on the Vandalia road, to pro- 
ceed to cut out said road twelve feet wide 
and keep the same in rej^air." This impera- 
tive demand had the desired effect, and the 
road became a permanent highway. 

The Frankfort or Golconda Road. — The 
idea of this road seems to have originated in 
1822, from the people of Franklin County 
having opened one leading from Frankfort 
to oiix county line. The friendly challenge 
from Franklin was accepted by our Com- 
missioners, and at their March term — March 
5, 1822— it was ordered "that Barton Atchi- 
son, Esq., James Dawson and Nicholas Wren 
view the ground for a road from where the 
Frankfort road intersects the county line to 
where the said road will intersect (the Sa- 



line) road at or near the bridge." In due 
time the report came in: 

" Agreeably to an order of the court, we, 
the undersigned viewers, have viewed and 
marked the intended road, beginning one- 
half mile east of the middle line dividing 
Range 3, where the Frankfort road inter- 
sects our county, thence a little northwest, 
until we come to the Gun Prairie; continu- 
ing the same course through said prairie 
until we striick the above line; thence on and 
near the said line to the Saline road near 
the bridge. We, the viewers, think this to 
be the nearest and best ground for said road, 
allowing the Supervisor to vary as he may 
think necessary." Dated April 12. 1822. 

To open this road, James Dawson was ap- 
pointed Supervisor, with all the hands hith- 
erto belonging to Moses Ham on the Saline 
road, where Ham bad succeeded Crenshaw, 
except Young Lenore, Ignatius Atchison, 
William Southwood, .Joseph Jordan, Daniel 
Crenshaw and John Crenshaw; "and farther 
ordered that the said road be opened twelve 
feet wide arid it be done by the December 
term of this court." 

Notwithstanding these orders, it was not 
" done by the December tei-m," and at that 
time it was found necessary to order that 
Amos Chandler be " Supervisor on that part 
of said road between the bridge across 
Muddy and Rollin.s' Creeks, with all the 
hands north of the creek on which Mr. B. 
Atchison lives, except the hands formerly al- 
lotted to Mr Ham," and that Absalom Estis 
supervise the portion south of Rollins' 
Creek, with all the hands south of Atchison's 
branch, escej^t those formerly allotted to JIi\ 
Ham. This move secured the opening of the 
road. In 1838, William Redman built the 
first bridge over Gun Prairie Creek for S175. 

The Covington or Richview iJoad.— Cov- 
ington, as many of our readers are awai • 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY 



209 



was origiaally the county seat of Washing- 
ton, and stood on the Okaw, near the mouth 
of Crooked Creek, about fourteen miles north 
of Nashville. Indeed, it still stands there, 
but in considerably reduced prop ortions. 
When Clinton was formed out of the north- 
ern part of Washington. Covington was no 
longer central, and for a short time before 
Nashville arose, Georgetown, almost a vil- 
lage, a few miles west of Nashville, was the 
county seat. Clinton County was formed in 
1S25. 

Well, the Grand Prairie people, who had 
only a winding trail by which to come to 
town, and the town people who wished to 
build up, asked for a road to Covington, 
June 4. 1822, the court ordered that Jacob 
Norton, Isaac Hicks and James E. Davis view 
and mark the route as far as the county line, 
and report in September. This certainly 
was sufficient time, but September brought 
no report, and it was necessary to issue a 
new order: " Agreeable to an order asrreea- 
ble to a petition handed into this court at 
the June term, on which Viewers were ap- 
poi nted, but have failed to act, therefore ordered 
that Curtis Caldwell, Thomas Jordan, Jr.. 
and William Casey be appointed to act as 
Viewers, to be viewed on the straightest and 
best way on ;i direction to Covington, as far 
as the Washington County line, and make 
return at the December term." 

This order was slightly mixed, but "agree- 
able" and easy to be understood; yet it was 
entirely without effect. Nor was a "' view " 
obtained till after March 4, 1823, when 
Thomas T. Tunstall, Felix McBride and 
William Deprist were ^appointed for the 
purpose June 10, they reported that they 
had marked the road on the nearest and best 
way, to the best of their knowledge, and that 
the " course generally runs west of north- 
west." This road ran not far from where 
the Eriohview road now runs. 



Still the road was not opened till Decem- 
ber. Then. December 1, 1823, "for the 
purpose of opening said road," it was " or- 
dered that William Deprist be and he is hereby 
appointed Supervisor on that part of said 
road bptween SEount Vernon and the Middle 
Fork of Muddy, with the hands as follows, 
to wit: Isaac Deprist, Jordan Tyler, Lewis 
Johnson, John T. Johnson, Nicholas John- 
son, James E. Davis, Nicholas Stull, 

Overbay and his son-in-law, Rhodam Allen, 
William Maxey, Charles H. Maxey, Joshua 
C. Maxey, Edward Masey. Zadok Casey, 
Samuel Hirons, Jarvis Pierce, William Wil- 
kerson, Joel Wilkerson, Samuel Reed and 
Asahel Batemen." A. P. Casey was Su- 
pervisor on the rest of the road, " with all the 
hands west of Foster's Creek, including the 
Long Prairie settlement," " said road to be 
opened by the March term of this court 
wide enough for carriages to pass." In 
1828, this road was vacated, but in a 
few years it was restored as the Grand 
Prairie, afterward the Richview, road, a 
change being made at the west, and under 
Jacob Breeze, Joe Baldridge and John 
Switzer, and at the east end under L. F. 
Casey, H. D. Hinman and J. C. Maxey, all 
in 1844. The present western terminus was 
at last located in 1846 by Duncan Cameron, 
Esq., Isaac Casey, Jr., and Samuel Watkins. 

The Georgetotvn or Nashville Road. — At 
the June Court, 1828, at the same time the 
last road was vacated, a new one to George- 
town was called for. It was to " cross the 
Middle Fork of Muddy near Shiloh Meeting 
House and the West Fork near Hamlin's." 
Most of our readers will no doubt recollect 
Noah Bullock's and Bill Maby's " meeting 
house " better than this Shiloh that stood 
about the same j)lace. William Casey, Robert 
Holt and A. Buffington were the viewers, 
and on their report the Covington road was 
vacated and the Georgetown road estab- 



210 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



lished. Green, Dysnish and Jim Johnson of 
Long Prairie were chosen to open the road. 
It issued from town at the west end of Main 
street, and ran nearly southwest by west to 
W. Casey's house on the hill. 

The Fairfield Road.— In 1824, John Sum- 
mers bought A. P. Casey's improvement east 
of town; and June 5, 1826, he and others 
petitioned for a road toward Fairfield. Ac- 
cordingly, he and Joe Jordan and Isaac 
Casey were appointed to view the route. 
September 4, they made their report: 

"Pursuant to an order of the County Com- 
missioners' Court at their June term, 1826, 
we, John Summers and Joseph Jordan, have 
viewed and marked for a road from Moimt 
Vernon to the county line to Fairfield, com- 
mencing at the court house; thence to John 
Summers'; thence to William Jordan's; 
thence intersected the road from Fairfield at 
the county line." John Summers was ap- 
pointed to open the road, together with 
Bridges Hynes, Edmund Hines, Jesse Green, 
Thomas Hopper, John Vance and Hiram 
Hodge. The next spring court gave him 
the hands in Adam's Prairie also. The road 
as then established, ran near where it now 
does, except that it struck out nearly due 
east from the court house ran by a cabin 
that stood where Dr. Green lives, ran nearly 
a hundred yards south of the Shields House, 
tlien wound around to the ford below where 
the old bridge was. In 1838, Coleman Smith 
built the first bridge over Seven Mile for 
$25. 87^ In 1839, James Ross, John John- 
son and E. H. Ridgway, in accordance with 
an act of the Legislature, relocated the road 
from town to the creek, throwing it into 
Main street, and so on, nearly where it is at 
present. 

The Brownsville and Pinkneyville Roads. 
— The roads toward Brownsville and Pinkney- 
ville attracted a good deal of attention, con- 



sidering how little business we ever had at 
either of the places. The Brownsville road 
began in 1834. September 27, " the Viewers 
appointed to view and mark a road from 
Mount Vernoa to intersect a cart way in 
Horse Prairie and on a direction to Browns- 
ville, do make the following report: That we 
have viewed the same to run from Mount 
Vernon, the present leading road to John 
Hays' at Elk Prairie; thence angling down 
said prairie near the east side of John 
Black's farm; thence down a little arm of 
said prairie to the lower end of the same; 
thence crossing Muddy below the hurricane; 
thence to the county line above the head of 
Honey Point." Signed by Samuel Boswell 
and John Hays. 

In 1835, Isaac Casey, A. Buffington and 
Jesse Green were sent to view a road toward 
Pink-neyville, and failing to do it the job was 
next year assigned to John Dodds, I. T. 
Davenport and AVilliam Hicks. They located it 
by .Tohn Dodd's house from the Nashville road, 
by Rhodam Allen's field across the prairie, and 
so on to the Brownsville road. Thus it re- 
mained till 1839, when A. Milcher, P. Os- 
born and J. A. Dees were sent out to see if it 
were not useless. For anybody but Dodds 
and Rhodam Allen, it certainly was, so 
there it died. Then an Elk Prairie road 
sprang up, 1837, running between Joseph 
Pace's and Dr. Greethan's, to Bodinis, to 
Reed's ford, across Muddy, and to the old 
road at the county line. After changing 
routes frequently, the Pinkneyville road, was 
located not far from where it now runs, in 
March, 1845, by Sam Boswell, Sid Place 
and Jesse A. Dees, the route having been 
suggested by J. R. Allen and Eli Gilbert 
in 1844. 

Other Roads. — We have given details of 

; the first old roads, not only to show when 

and where they were located, but to give an 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



211 



idea how we got them; and the recital also 
gives an idea that the best evidence as to 
where they run, is the fact that they run 
there, the record evidence of exact location 
being slim. At length, however, roads be- 
came literally too numerous to mention. We 
note the principal ones: In 1838, a road from 
Nashville to Equality, across the southwest 
corner of the county, was laid out under the 
direction of George W. Lee, Thomas Thompson 
and George McCary. The same year, a road 
was opened from Salem to Chester, across the 
northwest corner of the county, and Allen 
Dolson was the first Supervisor. It was also 
in the same year that the Maysville road was 
located. Isaac Casey, Azariah Bruce and 
Lloyd BuflSngton were the Viewers, and it 
was described as running with the Fairfield 
road to a point near the Goshen road; thence 
to Wright Ballard's, thence to the bridge 
over Shiloh Fork above Slocum's mill. In 
1839, the new State road from McLeans- 
born to Mount Vernon was located, Ben 
Hood, Ophey Cook and Wm. Sturman being 
the Viewers. It was described as coming 
through John Lowry's field, through Willis 
Holder's and to a post of Atchison's mill and 
to the old road between Atchison's and Os- 
born's. In 1848, a road was opened from 
the Academy by Short's mill on the creek 
and by Samuel Atchison's to the county line 
at or near the Spuriock place. The Farming- 
ton road was located in October, 1849, by Jona- 
than Gregory, Joe Bufiington and Lafayette 
Casey. In the same jear, the Richview & 
Fairfield — now the Richview & Farmington 
— road was located by G. P. Casey, N. S. 
Johnson and P. T. Maxey. The east Long 
Prairie road from Seven-Mile bridge was 
laid out in March, 1850, Abram Marlow, 
Alexander Moore and Peter Bruce being 
Viewers. The same year, the Frog Island 
road began, A. D. Estes, J. Y. Shelton and 



Andy Elkins locating it from the Frizzell 
bridge to A. D. Estes', and southeast to 
Shelton's mill. The route from Ashley to 
Willbanks' was completed by S. S. Manner) 
and S. K. Allen in September, 1852. A road 
from Rome to John Foutts' on the Carlyle 
road was viewed in 1853 by Owen Breeze, 
John Foxitts and Arch Maxwell. The toll 
road began in June, 1854, and a road 
was opened from Rome to Kuneville by E. 
Wimberly and others in 1854. Isaac Gar- 
rison, Thomas Moore and Rolla M. Williams 
located the Mount Vernon & Lynchburg road 
in July, 1855. B. T. Wood, W. A. Dale 
and D. B. Davis located one from Council 
Bluffs to Lynchbm-g in July, 1857. The 
Spring Garden and Tamaroa road began the 
same year, viewed bj- J. B. Ward, James 
Kirk and Henry Williams, and in the same 
year a way was opened from Lynchburg to 
Ham's Grove by J. Taylor, W. D. Daily 
and A. D. Estes, and the next year one from 
Ham's Grove south by G. H. Puehett, 
Joshua Hopper and Morgan Harris. 

And now roads get to be so numerous it 
makes our head swim to try to follow the 
story any further. Indeed, there are so many 
that a stranger can hardly get anywhere. 
And the changes have been so many! Some 
have kept wriggling like a snake. For in- 
stance, the Brownsville road. If every move 
had made a move forward, too, like a snake's, 
it probably would now be in the middle of 
Arkansas. We might add that, under town- 
ship organization, we have very expensive 
roads and hardly any good ones. 

The Railroads. — We desired to give a 
complete history of the struggles made bj 
our people to secure railroads, but the story 
looms up before us now st) long and wide 
that we submit in despair and consent to 
give a mere outline. 

The stniggle began long ago. Illinois 



312 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



had a large amount of Saline lands in Gal- 
latin County, aboiit four townships that had 
long been withheld from aale and leased out 
by the United States, but at length donated 
to the State. It was about the year 1831 
(L. 1831, 15.15), it was determined to sell 
20,000 acres and distribute the proceeds 
among the counties. Jefferson's share was 
$200, but we never got it. In 1836 (Laws, 



p. 120), the Illinois Central road was char\^road was chartered (L., 1853, p. 177), and 



tered and our people made an effort to get it, 
but got only about 400 yards of it across the 
northwest corner of the county. The older 
citizens all remember the crazy lit that the 
Legislature had in 1836-37 and 1838. It 
was attempted to supply the whole State 
with railroads at once. One was to be built 
from Galena to Cairo, one from Alton to 
Shawneetown, one from Alton to Mount Car- 
mel, one from Alton to Terre Haute, one 
from Quincy, by Springtield, to the Wabash, 
one from Bloomington to Pekin and one 
from Peoria to Warsaw — over 1,300 miles. 



1100 at one time and $50 at another, secured 
by the persistent efforts of H. T. Pace. 

Illinois bonds, credit, railroads, and every- 
thing else were " dead as a mackerel " until 
1850-51, when the new Illinois Central Rail- 
road Company was chartered, and the road 
now bearing that name was begun. This 
moved hope and enterprise, and other roads 
were projected. The Sansramon & Massac 



February 15, 1855, gave birth to two or three 
charters that promised roads for us (L., p. 
24U. 296). One was the Belleville & Fair- 
field with J. L. D. Morrison, et al. , of St. 
Clair; A. D. Ha}% et al., of Washington; J. 
M. Johnson, T. M. Casey, Z. Casey and H. 
T. Pace, of Jefferson; and D. Turney, et al., 
of Wayne, composing the company, capital 
unlimited and sis years to begin it. The 
'Other was the Mount Vernon Railroad, capi- 
tal $500,000; election of ofificers at Mount 
Vernon, wben $1,000 per mile should be 
subscribed; to run from Mount Vernon to the 



All this was undertaken just as the State had. Central or the Chicago branch, and Jefferson 
begun to recover from a general financial Vallowed to give her swamp lands if the peo- 
depression and had got out of debt. The 
result was a debt of $14,000,000 and about 
100 miles of railroad from Springfield to the 
Illinois River, that was never worth over 
$100,000. Our Representative, H. T. Pace, 
strongly opposed these measm'es, and this 
was one cause of our getting none of the 
railroads. But in 1839 (L., p. 252), by the 
efforts of Noah Johnston in the Senate and 
H. T. Pace in the House, an act was passed 
which gave us (?), in addition to the $200, 
an interest in $200,000 that was appropri- 
ated to counties that failed to get any rail- 
road. Yet if a future sui-vey should put 
Mount Vernon on the road, our interest in 
the fund was to "determine." So we missed 
getting a railroad that time; so did the rest; 
Bo did we miss getting the money — except 



pie so voted. The charter members were J. 
N. Johnson, Z. Casey, H. T. Pace, S. H. 
Anderson, Q. A. Willbanks, J. R. Allen, S. 
K. Allen, S. W. Carpenter, B. T. Wood, J. 
H. McCord, Uriah Mills and G. W. Pace. 
The Bloomington & Toledo road was 
changed to or united with the St. Louis & 
Loi;isville. February, 1857, a consolidation 
was perfected and this was confirmed by the 
Legislature February 22, 1861. 

Before recurring to the Mount Vernon 
Railroad, we must notice the swamp lands, 
as these have been the basis of all our efforts. 
Congress passed a law September 28, 1850, 
entitled "An act to enable the State of Ar- 
kansas and other States to reclaim the swamp 
lands within their limits," which gave to 
the States named in the act all the swamp 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



213 



and overflowed lands within their limits for 
drainage, education or internal improve- 
ments. Our Legislature, in the winter of 
1851-52, accepted, and gave the land to the 
several counties whereia it lay. September 
6, 1852, GUI- County Court appointed Elijah 
Piper Drainage Commissioner, with power 
to sell iirst-class lands at $1, second at 75 
cents, and third at 50 cents per acre. But 
Piper gave no bond till December, when the 
order was made for a sale at public outcry. 
February 28, 1853, for cash or work on the 
drains. From some cause, perhaps iinding 
an injunction staring him in the face, Piper 
didn't sell, and all was quiet for awhile. 
In December, 1854, the Clerk was ordered 
to notify magistrates to watch for trespassers, 
and all was quiet again. 

As soon, however, as the Mount Vernon 
Railroad Company would organize, they, by 
Scales, asked the County Court for a vote at 
the judicial election, lirst Monday in June, 
1855, on a proposition to donate the swamp 
lands to aid in the construction of the road. 
On the eve of the election, it was postjaoned 
until the November election. The donation 
was conditional, on the road being done 
in three years, and the land to be sold for 
not over §2.50 per acre in one year, or $5 
after one year. The propositioH carried. 

In the meantime it was found that the 
Illinois Central had taken 7,000 acres of 
swamp lands in this county, and W. B. An- 
derson was appointed, August 17, to select 
other lands instead. On the 28th, he reported 
nearly 1,000 acres, and notices were sent to 
the land offices and to Springfield, but we 
believe that Mi-. T. A. Hendricks replied 
that the resolution was void. A list of our 
swamp lands was received from T. H. Camp- 
bell, Auditor, August 20, footing up nearly 
19,000 acres. 

Soon after the election, a Mr. Alton, from 



Wisconsin, came with proposals to build the 
road, but was incontinently snubbed. Gov. 
Casey founded a company under the style of 
Vanduzer, Smith & Co., and to these the 
work was awarded. For Gov. Casey was 
President, and A. M. Grant Secretary of the 
old company. Vanduzer was from Ohio, 
Smith from Troy, N. Y., Vooris from Ohio 
and Gortschius from New York, but at that 
time from Peoria, 111. They came; books 
for subscription were opened at Anderson & 
Mills' store, and about $40,000 subscribed and 
several thousands paid in. All went lively. 
The track was cleared from Ashley to Fair- 
field and the road-bed nearly finished. Joel 
Pace, June 2, 1856, was appointed Trustee 
of the swamp lands, and June 11 filed his 
bond in the sum of $8,000. Vanduzer, 
Smith & Co. were everybody's pets. Newby 
took them out in his buggy or carried out 
luscious dinners to them on the road. They 
located a station at John Wilkerson's and 
went for his beef and spotted horse. They 
■ went in debt to everybody. Ties were piled 
along the lino. They borrowed $6,000 from 
Shackelford and Givens and got our Trustee 
to give them a deed to 4,500 acres of our 
land. Dr. Green and others found them- 
selves guarantors for them to the tune of 
about $10,000. One of them married one of 
our handsomest ladies. Vanduzer, accom- 
panied by Casey and Grant, took $500,000 
in bonds to New York to sell and we believe 
his report is not in yet. Things began to 
drag, slow, slower, slowest, then a full stop 
— one gasp and all is over — the company is 
"smashed." The aforesaid guarantors at- 
tach what little there is to attach, and are 
further idemnified by the county with a 
somewhat dead claim on Warren, and by 
another party with a somewhat dead note on 
Vanduzer, Smith & Co. for $3,000. The 
note died entirely when suit was brought 



214 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOSr COUNTY. 



upon it, and the indorsers proved that it was 
only "a goak." Smith — not Gen. but Dr. — 
■went back to Troy and his wife got rich; 
Vooris went to Memphis and got shot; 
Gortschius went to Paducah and got a fatal 
fall, and Vanduzer went to Michigan and 
got into the penitentiary. Dr. Green didn't 
get the depot on his land as promised; 
Capt. Newby didn't get it on his, as prom- 
ised; and Gov. Casey didn't get it on his, as 
promised; most of us got " skun " for larger 
or smaller amounts, and none of us got any 
railroad. 

Of course, by their failure, Vanduzer. 
Smith & Co. forfeited everything. The 
original company brought suit for recovery 
of franchise, etc., by Scates's advice the road 
bed was suffered to go to sale, and they sent 
Tom Hobbs to Springfield with $1,000 and 
he bought it. A new charter, however, was 
procured for the Ashley & Mount Vernon 
Railroad. February 21, 1861, with all the 
privileges of the Central. Z. Casey, H. T. 
Pace, J. R. Allen, W. D. Green, T. B. Tan- 
ner, C. T. Pace and Noah Johnston, being the 
company. (This was to cover contingencies.) 
Then came Maurice H. Baron, of New York, 
and June 28, 1860, contracted to build the 
road — a four-cornered contract — Baron, one 
County Court, two; J. Pace, three: several 
other men, four. Baron was to biiild the 
road and run it ninety-nine years for the 
road-bed and swamp lands, and to pay the 
other parties $30,500 by October 1. The 
"several other men" were to make the swamp 
lands up to 19,000 acres. All went smooth- 
ly, especially Baron, and he went to London 
to sell bonds and never came back again. 
The enterprise was now considered as dead 
and bm'ied. And so it was, for it didn't ex- 
hibit a sign of life for five or six years. 

In September, 1866, came in petitions for a 
vote on the $100,000 proposition again, and 



the result, November 6, was. for, 691 ; 
against, 1,188. Nothing daunted, the friends 
of the project held a public meeting the nest 
spring, and May 3, 1867, court was again 
petiti-^ned to have a vote on it at the June 
election. The petition was granted, the 
county was " stumped " and the proposition 
carried. The stock-holders of the road met 
in Mount Vernon, November 8, 1867, and 
chose as Directors W. D. Green, S. T. Strat- 
ton, S. K. Casey, H. B. Newby, G. H. Var- 
nell, T. H. Hobbs and T. S. Casey. Dr. 
Green was chosen President and T. S. Casey 
Secretary. April 23, 1868, it became neces- 
sary to increase the capital stock $200,000, 
and Varnell, Stratton, Newby, Green and 
Hobbs went in $40,000 each. Next day a 
contract was made with Crawford & Doane. 
John H. Crawford was from Buffalo, N. Y., 
where he had been engaged in lake com- 
merce; and Isaac S. Doane was from Mead- 
ville, Penn. , and was a regular railroad man. 
The same day Joel Pace resigned and 
Thomas H. Hobbs was appointed Trustee in 
his stead. Crawford & Doane agreed to 
build the road for the swamp lands, the 
right of way, depot grounds and $100,000, to 
begin work July 1, 1868, and finish by May 
1, 1869. If work was not progressing by 
September 1, all was to be null and void, 
Mr, Crawford was elected Vice President 
and fiscal agint for the company -July 3, 
A move was made toward organizing an Ash- 
ley & St, Louis Company, and our company, 
August 18, approved it and resolved to get a 
through line. They therefore extended the 
time for work to begin to October 1. 

It was difficult at that time to raise money, 
and Crawford & Doane could not begin ac- 
cording to contract, though backed by Bel- 
don with the promise of help to the amount 
of $6,000,000, During the pause that en- 
sued, March 10, 1869, a new company got a 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



216 



charter for a road from St. Louis to Shaw- 
neetown and took the name of St. Louis & 
Southeastern Railroad Company. The com- 
pany was O. Poole, James H. Wilson, J. J. 
Castl es, S. S. Marshall, A. G. Cloud, R. W. 
Townsend, S. K. Casey, W. D. Green, T. H. 
Hobbs and E. F. Winslow. All these were 
old residents except Gen. James H. Wilson, 
who was Grant's chief of staff during the 
war, and Gen. Winslow, who was from 
Maine, had been a merchant in Iowa, broke, 
went to the war, was i n a dry goods house in 
Cincinnati, built the Bvough road by Vandalia 
etc., sold out for $100,000 profit and became 
a railroad man. 

At a meeting of the Mount Vernon Rail- 
road Company, in Mount Vernon, March 26, 
1869, Dr. Green was directed to go to Chi- 
cago to confer with Crawford, who now re- 
sided there, and renew the contract with him 
or foiTn one with Mr. Winslow, or otherwise, 
as he might think best. He here met with 
Douglas, who was then President of the Illi- 
nois Central Railroad Company, and Douglas 
said, "build your road yourself; we will in- 
dorse your bonds and lease your road." But 
Green knew that nothing but a through road 
would satisfy his company and reluctantly 
declined the generous offer. He found 
Crawford with good vouchers, but no 
through charter, and Winslow just the re- 
verse. As our company had been repeatedly 
twitted about wanting a " bob-tailed ruad," 
for the benefit of Mount Vernon, Dr. Green 
inclined to prefer Winslow. Another fact 
conlirmed this inclination; he found on a 
slip of paper that Crawford had accidentally 
left in a record book, a list of distances, 
etc. , which indicated that it was Crawford's 
design to make the railroad junction in 
Moore's Prairie and build up a large town 
there at the expense of Mount Vernon. So 
he gave the contract to Winslow, saying, 



" You shall have it on one condition, that 
you build the depot south of town, opposite 
the court house." "I will do it," said 
Winslow. 

Dr. Green, knowing there had been irreg- 
ularities enough in the elections and legal 
proceedings in regard to the Mount Vernon 
Railroad to vitiate everything, if contested 
and pushed to investigation, went to Spring- 
field, and by help of W. H. Green, lobby 
member from Cairo, put a bill through by 
which everything hitherto done in the busi- 
ness was legalized, and the title of the 
Mount Vernon Railroad Company to the 
road, franchises, etc., confirmed, March 31, 
1869. April 8, the contract with Crawford 
& Doane was rescinded, and next day the 
contract was let to Winslow & Wilson. It 
was a four-cornered contract: St. Louis & 
Southeastern, one; Mount Vernon Company, 
two; Court, three; and Hobbs four, thus: 

It was first agreed to begin May 24, and 
finish by January 1. Iron, forty-five pounds 
to yard and fish-scale joint; guage and grade 
of Illinois Central; ties, eight feet long, six 
inches thick, six-inch face, 2640 to the mile; 
bridges, workmanlike; three stations, at 
Ashley, Mount Vernon and between. 

Second, agreed to give $100,000 county 
bonds, 14,700 acres of swamp lands, three 
acres in 600 yards of court house for a depot 
and right of way from Ashley to Mount 
Vernon. 

Third, agreed to issue the bonds on order 
of President of Mount Vernon Railroad and 
completion of road to Ashley, bonds bearing 
8 per cent, principal due in twenty years, 
payable after five years, and to cause swamp 
lands to be conveyed — the bonds to be a sub- 
scription to the capital stock of the railroad. 

Fourth, agreed to convey the swamp lands, 
etc. This was signed by E. F. Winslow, W. 
D. Green. T. S. Casey, J. R. Satterfield, W. 



216 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUITTY. 



Adams, F. S. Casey and T. H. Hobbs. The 
claim of the county against the United 
States for lands entered after donated by the 
swamp land act, which sums from the 
County Court record B, page 632 to have been 
part of the proposition to aid the Mount 
Vernon Company, is entirely omitted in this 
contract. These proceedings secured the road. 
Perhaps we ought not to go back to say that 
in 1855 a Marion and Jefferson Coimty Rail- 
road was chartered, but limited to two years 
to begin, so it didn't begin. In 1865. a 
Shawneetown branch of the Illinois Central 
was chartered, which was expected to give 
lis a road from Tonti through Mount Vernon. 
This lay pretty still until 1869, when April 
1, the St. Louis, Mount Carmel & New Al- 
bany Company was chartered. So at the 
April meeting, 1870, the Supervisors re- 
ceived plenty of petitions, some asking a 
vote on giving Si500,0()0 to the St. Louis & 
Southeastern when the road extended to the 
east county line; some the same for a road 
toward Benton; some the same for the St. 
Louis, Mount Carmel & New Albany Com- 
pany; some the same for almost anybody. 
The only tangible result was the extension 
of our road to the southeast, which was com- 
pleted in 1871. Then those splendid ma- 
chine shops were built which were bui'nt, as 
we shall notice hereafter. 

The Air Line.- — We have already noticed 
that imder the internal improvement scheme 
by the State during the mania of 1835 to 
1838, a road was undertaken from Alton to 
Mount Carmel. The $4,000,000 borrowed 
to build all these roads was exhausted before 
any railroads were built. Gen. William 
Pickering was specially interested in this 
Albany & Mount Carmel road, and when the 
whole scheme fell through, the road was 
seized by its creditors, and thus passed into 
the hands of Pickering. He undertook to 



finish it, and spent his fortune upon it, but 
only got a road from Princeton, Ind., to Al- 
bion, 111. He had arrangements made with 
Eastern capitalists for money, but when 
Elijah P. Lovejoy was killed at Alton and 
his press thrown into the river, they became 
alarmed, considering it an unsafe country 
for the investment of money, and withdrew 
their support. Gen. Pickering could go no 
further, but he held on to what he had till 
about the time he was appointed Governor 
of Washington Territoiy, when he sold out 
to Blueford, Wilson and others. He got 
none of the money, but after his death his 
heirs got about $14,000. To cover contin- 
gencies, a charter was obtained, April 1, 
1869, for the St. Louis. Mount Carmel & 
New Albany Eailroad, and perhaps another 
under the name of the Louisville, New Al- 
bany & St. Louis Air Line Railway Com- 
pany. Under the latter name, the company, 
by Augustus Bradley, President, and George 
Lyman, Secretary, executed a mortgage to 
Calhoun & Opdyke, of New York, for 
$4,525,000, due in 1902, but we don't think 
they ever got any money. 

Not much was done then till 1881. May 
20, the stockholders met at the office of Bell 
& Green, in Mount Carmel, and resolved to 
issue $3,000,000 first mortgage bonds and 
$3,000,000 four per cent, fifty jear cumulative 
income bonds and $1,000,000 second mortgage 
bonds. Robert Bell was then President, 
holding two shares, while Goldthwaite, Burr 
& Wilson held 3,806. The same day it was 
resolved to increase the capital from $3,000- 
000 to $5,000,000. In November of the 
same year, the name was changed to Louis- 
ville, Evansville & St. Louis Railway Com 
pany. But in June 1881, the company had 
executed a mortgage to the Mercantile Trust 
Company aud Noble C. Butler, in which 
the route is described as being from New 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



217 



Albany, by Huntingburg, Intjleton, Oakland 
City, Princeton, Mount Cavmel, Albion and 
Fairfield, to Mount Vernon, about 192 miles, 
forty-five miles being already finished from 
Ingleton to Albion. Tlie change of name 
was made necessary by a consolidation with 
roads fi-om Evansville to Jasper, Ind, and 
from Rockport to Gentry vi lie, Ind., making 
now a total of 260 miles. March 1, 1882. 
the road was completed from Mount Vernon 
to Huntingburg, in all 202 miles, and by a 
mortgage $1,000,000 was raised to finish it 
to New Albany. Jonas H. French succeeded 
Ml-. Bell as President, and he was succeeded 
in turn by John Goldthwaite, the present 
incumbent. Thus it will be seen that the 
Air Line was built without costing our peo- 
ple any great effort or ex-pense. Most of the 
money was really furnished by Ballon, of 
Boston. After it was completed, the road 
was much damaged by high waters, and lay 
quite awhile before trains ran regularly, 
but the result was a settling of the earth 
whioh made" it the best new road-bed in the 
State. Its business has grown rapidly, and 
it is already a paying road. The Salisbiu-y 
Company do its repair work at present, but 
we expect other shops and a depot at no dis- 
tant day. The Air Line is using the Louis- 
ville & Nashville track to St. Louis, but expect 
to build a line of their own, when a connection 
with the Chesapeake & Ohio will give us the 
most direct route from St. Louis to the At- 
lantic. The road is noted for the courtesy 
of it.s ofi&cials. 

Coming Boads. — The Kaskaskia, St. Elmo 
& Southern Railroad Companj' was incorpo- 
rated in September, 1882, but by a delay in 
the notice of a meeting of the stockholders 
last spring, it was apprehended that damage 
might result, and a new incorporation was 
perfected July 30, 1883. B. F. Johnson, 
B. C. Smith, L. E. Stocker, I. H. Johnson, 



W. H. Smith, A. M. Johnson, Joseph 
Micksch and J. B. Leash, all of St. Elmo, 
are the incorporators; capital, $10,000; 
shares, $50 each; route, Altamont by Blount 
Vernon, etc., to the Ohio, opposite Puducah. 
From Altamont there is a line of roads to 
Chicago already, 200 miles. The estimated 
cost of the road is $3,500,000, of which 
$500,000, to be )-aised on stock and $3,000,- 
000 on bonds. A meeting is to be held in 
October to issue the bonds. Timothy Genay 
and G. M. Haynes are the financial agents. 
They have secured the indorsement of 
Gov. Hamilton, ex-Gov. CuUom, the Chicago 
Board of Trade, Mayor Harrison, Farwell & 
Co., the Missottri Pacific and the Chesapeake 
& Ohio Railroad Companies, and many 
others, and have every asstu-ance of being 
able to place the bonds at once when issued. 
The right of way has been seciu-ed for nearly 
the entire route. 

The Mount Vernon & Tamaroa Railroad 
comes in place of the Tamaroa, Mount "Vernon 
& Vincennes Railroad, of two years ago. 
The latter lapsed by the two- years clause. 
Its length will be twenty-six miles; estimated 
cost, $450,000, of which $50,000 are to be 
raised on .stock and $400,000 on first mort- 
gage bonds. It is to connect with the Wa- 
bash, Chester & Western, whose eastern termi- 
mis is Tamaroa, with the Air line, and be- 
yond the Mississippi with the Chester & 
Iron Mountain. This road has been consol- 
idated with the Kankakee, St. Elmo & 
Southern, Col. Evans, of the Mount Ver- 
non & Tamaroa, becoming Treasurer of the 
consolidated company, and R. A. D. Will- 
banks one of the Directors. All the right of 
way has been secured except a short distance 
neai- Mount Vernon. 

The Toledo, Texas & Rio Grande Railroad 
Company began June 7, 1882, incorporated 
for fifty years. The route is from Charles- 



318 



HISTOEY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



ton, Coles County, by Marti Qsvi lie, in Clark 
County, to Cairo. Capital, 12,500,000. The 
incorporators are J. C. Allen, of Olney, 
John Mason, of Newton; J. G. Rupert, of 
Decatiu-; E. Pratt Buell, of "Warsaw; O. B. 
Ficklin, of Charleston; F. A. Vongassy, of 
Effingham; William Lindsay, of Martins- 
ville; Robert Hannah, of Fairfield; John H. 
Halley, of Newton. Judge J. C. Allen is 
President, J. G. Rupert, Secretary. The 
great advantage of this road is that it has 
its outlet to the northeast, striking the lake 
commerce 600 miles nearer to the seaboard 



than Chicago, parallel with scarcely any 
other road, crossing them all, and running 
through an excellent but chiefly undeveloped 
or very imjaerfectly developed country. The 
right of way has been obtained, the timber 
cut off, and a great deal of the grading done. 
It runs across the sou theast corner of the 
county, through the flourishing town of 
Belle Rive, 

Besides these roads, the Jacksonville, 
Northwestern & Southeast Railroad Com- 
pany was chartered in 1867, and is gradually 
moving down upon us from the northwest. 



CHAPTER X. 



EDUCATIONAL— EARLY EFFORTS AT FREE SCHOOLS— THE DUNCAN LAW— EDUCATION AT PRESENT 
—STATISTICS— THE PRESS— EDITOR .JOHN S. BOGAN— FIRST NEWSPAPERS— MOUNT VER- 
NON A NEWSPAPER GRAVEYARD— THE PRESS OF TO-DAY— RELIGIOUS 
HISTORY— OLD-TIME CHRISTIANITY— PIONEER MINISTERS- 
CHURCHES ORGANIZED— REV. JOHN JOHNSON, ETC. 



THE subject of education should interest 
every reader of this work, more, per- 
haps, than aay other mentioned in the gen- 
eral history of Jefferson County. For we are 
told that it " is education forms the common 
mind," and our forefathers appreciated this 
fact when they declared, in their famous 
ordinance of 1787, that " knowledge, with 
religion and morality, are necessary to the 
good government of mankind." In that little 
clause they struck the very keynote of Ameri- 
can liberty. The governing power in every 
country upon the face of the globe is an edu- 
cated power. The Czar of the Russias, ig- 
norant of international law, of domestic re- 
lations, of finance, commerce and the organ- 
ization of armies and navies, could never hold, 

•By W. H.Perrin. 



under the sway of his scepter, 70,000,000 of 
subjects. An autocrat must be virtuous and in- 
telligent, or only waste and wretchedness and 
wreck can wait upon his reign. England, with 
scrupulous care, fosters her great universities 
for the training of the sons of her nobility, 
for their places in the House of Lords, in 
the army, navy and church. What, then, 
ought to be the character of citizenship in a 
country where every man is born a king, and 
sovereign heir to all the franchises and 
trusts of the State and Republic? An ig- 
norant people can be governed, but only an 
intelligent and educated people can govern 
themselves. 

WTien the siu'vey of the Northwest Terri- 
tiOry was ordered by Congress, it was decreed 
that every sixteenth section of land should 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



2iy 



be reserved for the maiDtenance of public 
schools within each townshii?. The ordi- 
nance of 1787 proclaimed that " schools and 
the means of education should forever be en- 
couraged." By the act of Congress passed 
April 18, 1818, eaabling the people of Illi- 
nois to form a State Constitution, the " Sec- 
tion numbered 16 in every township, and 
when such section had been sold or otherwise 
disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto 
and as contiguous as may be, should be 
granted to the State for thn use of the inhab- 
itants of such township for the support of 
schools." The act further stipiilates " That 
5 per cent of the net proceeds of the lands 
lying within said State, and which shall be 
sold by Congress from and after the 1st day 
of January, 1819, after deducting all ex- 
penses incident to the same, shall be reservud 
for the purposes following: Two-fifths to bo 
disbursed, under the direction of Congress, 
in making roads leading to the State; the 
residue to be appropriated by the Legislature 
of the State f nr the encouragement of learn- 
ing, of which one sixth part shall be exclu- 
sively bestowed on a college or university." 
In other words, Congress donated to the 
State a full township, six miles square, for 
seminary purposes, and the thirty-sixth part 
of all the residue of public lands in the State 
and 3 per cent of the net proceeds of the sales 
of the remainder, to support common schools 
and pi'omote education in the then infant 
State. Truly a most magnificent and prince- 
ly donation and provision for education. 
The sixteenth section, so donated, amounted 
in the State to nearly a million acres; in 
Jeflerson County to over ten thousand acres. 
Laws were first passed, directing Commis- 
sioners' Courts to appoint three Trustees for 
the school land in each township, where the 
inhabitants of such townships numbered 
twenty white persons. These Trustees had 



power to lease the school lands at public out- 
cry, after twenty days' notice, to the highest 
bidder, for any period not exceeding ten 
years, the rents to be paid in improvements, 
or in shares of the products raised. The 
laws were crude, and fell far short of their 
intended object. The school lands, under 
the lessee or rental arrangement, yielded lit- 
tle or no revenue; many of the renters, hav- 
ing no title to nor common interest in the 
land, only opened and cultivated enough for 
a bare support, and of course produced noth- 
ing to divide. Then squatters took posses- 
sion of a considerable portion, and wasted 
the timber, and in many ways depreciated 
the value of the lands. As a result, the cause 
of education languished, and was at a stand- 
still for years. There were a great man}' in- 
fluences and obstacles in the way of a general 
diffusion of knowledge. The settlements 
were sparse, and money or other means of 
remunerating teachers were scarce; and 
teachers, competent to impart even the com- 
mon rudiments of an English education were 
few and far between. 

This state of affairs continued until 1825, 
when Joseph Duncan, then a member of the 
State Senate, introduced a bill for the sup- 
port of common schools by a public tax. The 
preamble to the act was as follows: "To 
enjoy our rights and liberties, we must un- 
derstand them; their security and protection 
ought to be the first object of a free peo2:)le; 
and it is a well-established fact that no na- 
tion has ever continued long in the enjoy- 
ment of civil and political freedom which 
was not both virtuous and enlightened; and 
believing that the advancement of literature 
always has been and ever will be the means 
of devolojjing more fully the rights of man; 
that the mind of every citizen in a republic 
is the Common property of society and con- 
stitutes the basis of its strength and happi- 



220 



HISTORY OF JEFFEESOX COUNTY. 



ness; it is, therefore, considered the peculiar 
duty of a free government, like ours, to en- 
courage and extend the improvement and 
cultivation of the intellectual energies of the 
whole." The test of this admirable law may 
be divined from the preamble. It gave edu- 
cation a powerful impetus, and common 
schools floimshed in almost every settlement. 
But notwithstanding all this, the law was in 
advance of the civilization of the times. 
The early settlers had left the older States — 
the Southern States, where common scliool 
education never has flourished as it should — 
and plunged into the wilderness, braving 
countless dangers and privations in order to 
better their individual fortunes and to escape 
the burdens of taxation, which advanced re- 
finement and culture in any people invaria- 
bly impose. Hence, the law was the subject 
of much bitter opposition. The very idea of 
a tax was so hateful, that even the poorest 
preferred to pay all that was necessary for 
the tuition of their children, or keep them in 
ignorance — which was generally the case — 
rather than siibmit to the mere name of tax. 
This law — the Duncan law, as it was 
called — is the foundation upon which rests 
the superstructure of the present common 
school system of Illinois. The law provided 
for the division of townships into school 
districts, in each of which were elected three 
School Trustees, corresponding to Directors 
of the present day, one Clerk, one Treasurer, 
one Assessor and one Collector. The Trust- 
ees of each district had supreme control and 
management of the school within the same, 
and the employment of teachers and fixing 
their remuneration. They were required to 
make an annual report to the County Com- 
missioners' Com-t, of the number of children 
living within the bounds of such district, be- 
tween she ages of five and twenty one years, 
and what number of them were actually 



sent to school, with a certificate of the time 
a school was kept ujj, with the expenses of 
the same. Persons over the age of twenty- 
one years were permitted to attend school 
iipon the order of the Trustees; and the his- 
tory of education in Illinois discloses the 
fact that it was no uncommon thing for men 
beyond the meridian of life to be seen at 
school with their children. The law required 
teachers, at the close of their schools, to pre- 
pare schedules giving alphabetically the 
names of attending pupils, with ^their ages, 
the total number of days each pupil attended, 
the aggregate number of days attended, the 
average daily attendance, and the standing 
of each scholar. This schedule was submit- 
ted to the Trustees for their ajaproval, as no 
teacher was paid any remimeration except on 
presentation to the Treasurer of his schedule, 
signed by a majority of the Trustees. The 
law further provided, that all commun 
schools should be maintained and supported 
by a direct public tax. School taxes were ' 
payable either in money or in produce, and 
teachers would take the produce at market 
price, or if there was no current value, the 
price was fixed by arbitration. Fancy the 
schoolma'am of the present daj^, taking her 
hard-earned salary as a teacher in potatoes, 
turnips or coon skins! We have heard it re- 
lated of a teacher in one of the counties border- 
ing the Wabash River, that he was paid in 
coon skins for a ten weeks' school ; and after 
his school was out, he footed it to Vincennes, 
with his pelts upon his back, a distance of 
over thirty miles, and there disposed of them. 
When this wise and wholesome law was 
repealed by the Legislature, Gen. Duncan 
wrote, as if gifted with prophecy, " That 
coming generations would see the wisdom of 
his law, and would engraft its principles on 
their statute-books; that changes in the con- 
dition of society might render difterent ap- 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOJT COI'NTY. 



321 



plications of the same necessary, but that the 
principle was eternal, and the essence of free 
and enlightened government; and legislators 
who voted against the measui-e will yet live 
to see the day when all the childi'en of the 
State will be educated through the medium 
of common schools, supported and main- 
tained by direct tax upon the people, the 
burden falling upon the rich and poor in 
proportion to their worldly possessions." 
These predictions, yellow with the years of a 
half-century and over, have been faithfully 
fulfilled and verified. 

The Duncan school law remained in force 
only a little over two years, when it was re 
pealed. The great objection, as we have 
said, to the law, was the tax clause. This 
was, substantially, that the legal voters of 
any school district had power, at any of their 
meetings, to cause either the whole or one- 
half of the sum necessary to maintain and 
conduct a school in said district, to be raised 
by taxation. And if the voters decided that 
only one-half of such required amount was 
to be so raised, the remainder was to be paid 
by the parents, masters and guardians, in 
proportion to the number of pupils which 
each of them might send to such school. No 
person, however, could be taxed for the sup- 
jjort of any free school unless by his or her 
consent fu'st obtained in writing, though all 
persons refusing to be taxed were precluded 
from sending pupils to such school. In al- 
most every district there were those who had 
no childi'en to educate, and then there was 
an uncivilized element of frontier life, who 
believed education was a useless and un- 
necessary accomplishment, and only needful 
to divines and lawyers; that bone and muscle 
and the ability to labor were the only require- 
ments necessarv to fit their daughters and 
sons for the practical duties of life. A prov- 
erb then current was (in many localities), 



" The more book-learning the more rascals." 
To quote a localism of the day, "Gals didn't 
need to know nothin' about books, and all 
that boys orter know was how to grub, maul 
rails and hunt." That senseless prejudice, 
born of the crude civilization of the early 
period of the country, has descended, in a 
slight degree, to the present, and yet tinges 
the complexion of society in many different 
localities. 

After the repeal of the Duncan law, edu- 
cation, for nearly a generation, was in any- 
thing but a flourishing condition, either in 
this county or in the State. Like the stag- 
nant waters of a Southern lagoon, it was 
difficult to tell whether the current flowed 
backward or forward. For many years the 
schoolhouses, school books, school teachers 
and the manner of instruction were of the 
most primitive character throughout the 
whole of Southern Illinois. The houses 
were the proverbial log cabin, so often de- 
scribed in the early annals. A few of these 
humble schoolhouses, unused and almost 
rotted down, may still be occasi'jnally seen, 
eloquent of an ago forever past. The early 
books were as primitive as the cabin school - 
houses, and the early teacher was, perhaps, 
the most primitive of all. The old-time 
pedagogue was a marked and distinctive 
character of the early history — one of the 
vital forces of the earlier growth. He con- 
sidered the matter of imparting the limited 
knowledge he possessed a mere question of 
effort, in which the physical element predomi- 
nated. If he couldn't talk or read it into 
a pupil, he took a stick and mauled it into 
him. 

The schoolmaster usually, by common con- 
sent, was a personage of distinction and im- 
portance. He was of higher authority, eveu 
in the law, than the Justice of the Peace, 
and ranked him in social position. He was 



223 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



considered the intellectaal center of the 
neighborhood and was consulted upon all 
BubjectB, public and private. Most generally 
he was a hard-shell Baptist in religion, a 
Democrat in politics and worshiped Gen. 
Jackson as his political savior. But the 
old-time pedagogue — the pioneer of Ameri- 
can letters — is a thing of the past, and we 
shall never see his like again. He Is ever 
in the van of advancing civilization, and tied 
before the whistle of the locomotive or the 
click of the telegraph was heard. He can- 
not live within the pale of progress. His 
race became extinct here more than a quarter 
of a century ago, when the common school 
system began to take firm hold and become a 
fixed institution among the people. The 
older citizens remember him, but to the 
young of to-day he is a myth, and only lives 
in tradition. 

The school laws, after the repeal of the 
Duncan law, were often changed — they were 
revised and changed again before they at- 
tained to the perfection we at present have 
in them. Even now, they are susceptible of 
improvement, though they are superior to 
those of many other States. A ])eculiarity in 
the difl'erent State constitutions is that per- 
taining to education. The constitution of 
1818, while indorsing education in a general 
way, is silent upon the subject of educating 
the masses through the medium of the com- 
mon schools. The framers of the constitu- 
tion of 1848 went a little further; they said 
that the General Assembly might provide a 
system of free schools. It was not, however, 
till cf ter half a century of existence as a State, 
that her delegates, in convention assembled, 
engrafted upon the pages of her organic law 
a mandatory section, declaring " that the 
General Assembly sihall provide a thorough 
and efiicient system of free schools, whereby 
all children of this State may receive a good 



common school education ;" and the last Gen- 
eral Assembly (1882-83), among the few re- 
deeming acts of its long, turbulent session, 
was one compelling all parents, guardians, 
etc., to educate the children intrustedto them. 
The first school ever taught in Jeiferson 
County was in 1820, by Joel Pace, whom we 
have mentioned elsewhere as the first Coun- 
ty and Circuit Clerk. It was taught in a 
floorless cabin, without ceiling or window — 
perhaps without a shutter to the door. The 
pupils comprised the children of William 
Maxey, probably, and John and Henry Wil- 
kerson's, one or two of Isaac Casey's and a 
few of James and Lewis Johnson's. The 
next school was taught by James Douglas, at 
Old Shiloh. Douglas was a man of educa 
tion, and, it is said, understood several dif- 
ferent languages. He boarded at Zadok 
Casey's much of the time, and from him Mr. 
Casey received the rudiments of an English 
education. The Shiloh house in which 
Douglas taught was burned down the next 
fall, and hence his was the only school 
taught in it. Another was afterward built, 
near the same site. Emory P. Moore taught, 
perhaps, the third school in the county at 
Union, in 1820-21. In 1822, W. L. Howell 
taught in the same house. About 1821-22, 
an Irishman named Freeinan taught a school 
on Mulberry Hill, in a cabin that had been 
built by Clark Casey and afterward aban- 
doned. Referring to the early schools of the 
coanty, Mr. Johnson says: " The schools 
were not large nor learned. The Testament, 
spelling-book and arithmetic, with writing, 
constituted the coarse of study; audit didn't 
'run smooth,' for nearly all the schools were 
loud — just as loud as the children's lungs 
could make them, every one studying at the 
top of his voice; yet the teachers were more 
rigorous in discipline than is common at 
present. " 




#•• 



ELI GILBERT. 
(deceased.) 



;- THE 
jN.VERSnV OF iUlNOIS 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



225 



The following statistics will show some- 
thing of the present status of education in 
the county: 
Number of children in the county under 

twenty-one years 11,041 

Number of children between six and twen- 
ty-one years 7,414 

Number of graded schools in county. ... 2 

Number of schoolhouses, brick. 4 ; frame, 

90; log, 15; total 109 

Number of males attending scliool, 2,942; 

females, 2.787; total 5.729 

Number of male teachers employed, 89; 

female, 52; total 141 

Fund for school purposes from all sources, $38,139.37 
Total expenditures for schools, etc 32, 191.23 

Balance on hand Juno 30, 1883 $ 5,948.14 

The Press. — A history of the county which 
did not give a full and complete histor}' of 
the press woitld be incomplete, to say the 
least. JeiTerson County, like many other por 
tions of the State — and many portions, even, 
of the whole country -^has been a great news 
paper graveyard. For a history of the 
many enterprises — living and dead, past and 
present — in the "art preservative of all arts," 
we are indebted to Dr. A. Clark Johnson, 
who knows more of the press history, as well 
as the entire history of Jefferson County, 
than any other man. living. His sketch of 
the jjress is as follows: 

It ought not to be difficult to prepai'e a full 
and connected account of our newspaper en- 
terprises, but it is so; and chiefly, we suj)- 
pose. because oui- papers .changed owners so 
ofteu, and so many of our editors and pub- 
lishers have left us. We trust, however, 
that the reader will find nearly all the lead- 
ing actors and events in this line in the fol- 
lowing sketch: 

Tlie Jeffersonian. — Our present Circuit 
Clerk, John S. Bogan, was the principal one 
"to be, to do and to sufier" in this, our lirst 
attempt. A few words of him are not out of 
place here. The son of a printer, Mr. Bogan 



had learned the art in the Congressional 
Globe office at Washington City in early boy- 
hood, and followed types till 1840. He then 
located a few miles out of town, near the line 
of Montgomery and Prince George Coun- 
ties, in Maryland. He was born in Shenan 
doah County, Va., in 1820. His father, 
Benjamin Bogan. was also a Virginian, and 
a fine type of that old Virginia gentleman 
now fast passing away. For many years he 
edited and published a newspaper in both 
Virginia and Ohio, and then located in 
Washington City. Our old editor, John S. , 
has been with us so long that we all know 
him. He is a part of us — a very large part, 
for his heart is large enough and warm 
enough to take in the whole human race. 
He came here young, and buoyant with hope 
and life, and now he is growing old and is 
fast descending the shady side of life. For 
forty years he has gone in and out among us, 
and his long and active life is without spot 
or blemish. Although he long ago retired 
from the editorial chair, he has always been 
in public life, itntil the county machinery 
would hardly run without his aid. 

He came to our county in 1846, at the sug- 
gestion of Gov. Casey, who was ever trying 
to bring the better class of immigration 
hither, and bought the old Sam Casey place 
in Grand Prairie. He was quite a success- 
ful farmer, aad remained here till 1851. T. 
B. Tanner, having learned from Gov. Casey 
that Bogan was a printer, rode out to his 
farm and remained a day or two with him, 
discussing the project of starting a paper in 
Mount Vernon. The result was that the 
paper was determined upon, and a subscrip- 
tion by the citizens footed up $156. A pause 
ensued. H. T. Pace inquired how much 
more was wanted, and finding it was §200 
offered to loan that sum, taking notes due in 
one and two years. 



326 



HISTORY OF JEPFERSOiN' COUNTY. 



Bogan found a partner in the person of 
Augustus A. Stickney, then at Centralia. 
Stickney, we believe, was originally from St. 
Clair County, and was related to the O'Mal- 
venys. He was a man of brain and vim, but 
not much physical strength. An old Ram- 
mage 2:)ress was secured at Belleville. It had 
formerly done service at Alton. It was inked 
with balls instead of a roller. Its mahogany 
frame would indicate that it had once been a 
line one, but it required four tremendous 
pulls to print a paper. This was too much 
for Stickney, who got to spitting blood when 
he went to strike off the paper; so in a few 
weeks he retired, went to Faii-tield and 
started a paper there. Let us finish him: 
From Fairfield he went South, and at length 
brought up in San Francisco, where he pub- 
lished, and perhaps still publishes, the 
Alaska Herald. We have a copy of his 
paper. Vol. VI., No. 140 agooddeal English, 
some Russian, and in his terms he agrees to 
take greenbacks at par. 

The first number of the Jefferson ian was 
issued in August, 1851. It was a modest 
sheet, of six column size, with some adver- 
tisements, and enjoyed a circulation of about 
six hundred copies. The Hamilton County 
printing was done here, but beyond this the 
job work did not amount to much. Prob 
ably, in the way of Eastern exchanges, the 
Jeffersonian excelled any other paper we 
ever had. The Alton Telegraph and the 
State Register, both dailies, were also on the 
exchange list, besides the few papers then 
published in Southern Illinois, as the Cairo 
Argus, Benton Standard, Shavpneetown Ad- 
vocate, Belleville Advocate, Salem Advocate 
and the rest of the Advocates, whether so- 
called or not. It was not, however, a finan- 
cial success, resembling, in this respect, 
Grossman's Benton Standard, and most of 
the papers of that day in Southern Illinois. 



After Stickney left, Bogan had helps — 
"Wallace; Matchett, the universal tramper, 
who could scare all the boys bj' his fearful 
recitations of Shakespeare; Frank Manly, 
who married and went to Mount Carmel and 
died; John A. Wall for a short time, T. T. 
Wilson, E. V. Satterfield, et at. This office 
produced the first roller ever used in the 
county. Bogan was the building committee, 
and Ed Satterfield the master mechanic. Ed 
Noble made a tin mold; the materials were 
mixed and cooked in an old iron pot, and 
the whole performance took place in the mid- 
dle of Main street, in front of the office. 
Thus the modern improvements were intro- 
duced. Yet the enterprise failed to pay, and 
in three years was hopelessly in arrears — as 
papers are apt to be when their subscribers are. 
Pace sued on his notes, and finally Bogan, 
his paper and his farm all "went under" to- 
gether. 

Tanner, at this time, was Circuit Clerk, 
having been elected in 1852, and he re- 
proached himself as the cause of Mr. Bogan' s 
misfortune. Downing Baugh was now Judge, 
filling the unexpired term of S. S. Marshall. 
So Tanner, having first obtained a promise 
of Judge Baugh, resigned his office and Bo- 
gan was appointed to succeed him. Thus 
began Bogan's somewhat protracted term as 
Clerk of the Circuit Court, dating from Sep- 
tember. 1854. 

In August of that year, however, in wind- 
ing up his affairs, he had sold his old press 
to Bowman & Robinson for $325 in gold. 
These gentlemen were from St. Louis; the 
former a son of wealthy parents, the latter 
fresh from California; both nice young men 
— too nice to be satisfied with so rough a 
press. Before they had run it long, they 
offered to sell Mr. Bogan the whole concern 
for about $200. Robinson soon quit, and 
Bowman persevered for about six montiis 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



when he sold out to Dodds, Johnson & Co. 
The origin of this company was peculiar. 
The county had recently come in possession 
of about 19,000 acres of swamp lands. One 
party was in favor of selling these lands im- 
mediately, and talked of a groat system of 
drainage and numerous new schoolhouses as 
the result. Dodds favored selling, partly, 
it may be —and very naturally — because ho 
was County Clerk, and would receive $1.50 
for every deed made by the county. A 
caucus of those opposed to selling and in 
favor of holding the lands as a means of 
some day securing a railroad, was held — 
Casey, Seates, Johnson and Tanner, perhaps, 
forming the caucus. They resolved to form 
a company and buy the Jeffersonian, and 
run it in the interests of their raiboad proj- 
ect, fighting the pi'oposed sale of the lands. 
Of course this design was not even whispered 
to Dodds. The company was soon formed, 
composed of W. Dodds, John N. Johnson, 
Z. Casey, W. B Scales, T. B. Tanner, An 
ders'jU & Mills, J. Pace & Son. This was in 
April, 1855. 

Tanner, fresh from the Legislature, be- 
came the editor. A Mr. Smith — not John, 
but Lute B., from Evansville — an inferior 
printer but not easy to get rid of, was fore- 
man, aided by any boys he could pick up, 
especially, and for most of the time, by 
John A. Wall. Tanner went to St. Louis 
and secured a number of advertisements. 
The people were talked to, and the subscrip- 
tion list ran up to eleven or twelve hundred. 
A new press was bought from Frank Manly, 
and Daniel Anderson took a wagon to Gray- 
ville and hauled it home. In short, the en- 
terprise was quite a success. After Dodds, 
Johnson & Co. had run the concern one year, 
and had accomj)lished their design — the sell- 
ing of the lands had been voted down by the 
people — but still wishing to have a county 



paper, they fell into the generous course of 
giving the use of the press to anybody that 
would take it and publish a paper. 

The Sentinel. — This was the nest paper 
that made its appearance. Tanner and Tom 
Casey were practicing law together and Will- 
iam Ander.'ion was studjing. Casey and 
Anderson were ambitious, and wished to try 
their hands at' the newspaper awhile, and 
Tanner consented to the use of his name. 
So Tanner, Casey & Anderson it was. They 
took the office for one year. The paper was 
styled the Sentinel, and Anderson was the os- 
tensible editor. John A. Wall and Joel V. 
Baugh were the typos. John had been 
"devil" a good deal, but we believe Joe just 
went in with scarcely any initiation. It was 
before Casey had learned to write — we mean 
like he does on the Judge's docket —so the 
boys could read nearly all his articles. Tan- 
ner wrote the long articles — so long, the boys 
did not have time to correct the pi-oofs care- 
fully; and Anderson not being a born wi-it- 
ing master, it went hard with the editorials. 
Tanner said that sometimes when the paper 
came out, and he looked at the " leader, " he 
could hardly remember whether he had ever 
written anything like it or not. The Sentinel 
did not prove very profitable, in fact, it be- 
gan at the wrong time — just after the Presi- 
dential election in 1856, when everybody 
was cooling off so, when the year was out, 
Tanner, Casey & Anderson went out. And 
Baugh went out. 

The Egyptian Torchlight. — Dodds, John- 
son & Co. now sold their press and fixtures 
to William R. Hollingsworth and John A. 
Wall. They christened their paper the 
Egiipiian TorchUght, and published under 
the fii-m style of Hollingsworth & Wall, Ed 
Sattertield and Sam Bird assisting. In the 
fall, 1857, Wall withdrew and went to Mur- 
freesboro, Tenn., and Hollingsworth went on 



228 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY 



alone, but not long. The Torchlight did not 
shine so long as the Sentinel did — not much 
over six months — say from spring till late in 

1857. Hollingsworth then surrendered .the 
office, not having yet paid for it, and went 
to Missoui-i or Arkansas. He came from 
Iowa. After Hollingsworth & Wall had both 
gone, Ed Satterfield issued the paper for a 
few weeks, making no notable change in it 
except the adoption of a motto that some 
were wicked enough to say was ambiguous: 
" Egyptian darkness and Jackson Democracy 
• — one and inseparable." The paper then 
again changed hands and name 

The Advocate. — This was the name of the 
new paper. S. Tm'ner Brown was the new 
proprietor and Ed Satterfield and Frank 
Dowler were his forces. This enterprise 
lasted from "late in 1857," vide supra, imtil 
very late in 1857 — that is, for about three 
weeks. Dr. Brown was from Alabama by 
way of Metropolis, and his tall, slender fig- 
ure, his very [tall, slender coat, his nervous 
locomotion, his fi'ay with Mi". Thorn, his real 
estate speculations, his marriage to Miss Jen- 
nie Lewellyn and his departiu-e will be well 
remembered by many. The lady mentioned 
was a niece to H. D. Hinman, was out on a 
visit from West Virginia, was ij[uite hand- 
some and accomplished and was with the 
Doctor when they were heard from — what 
was long the last time; they were then at 
Memphis, he a surgeon in McCullough's 
ai-my, which was moving into Arkansas. Re- 
cently we learn that the Doctor now lives 
near Little Bock, and is succeeding well. 
After the Doctor left, Ed Satterfield again 
came in as the forlorn hope, and kept the 
paper going till after the publication of the 
delinquent tax list in the spring of 1858. 

The Mount Vernon Star. — Up to' January, 

1858, the press was still owned by Dodds, 
Johnson & Co. , and occupied the room over 



Joel F. Watson's store, east of the present 
Phcenix Block. J. E. Satterfield now bought 
the office for about $250, and kept it till 
after the sale of delinquent tax lands, as 
above-mentioned, when he sold it to Curtis 
& Lane for §300, and, we suppose, "was 
happy." The new men, S B. Curtis and 
James S. Lane, were both fi-om Y'psilanti, 
Mich., both were school teachers and Curtis 
had studied law. Wall was in Centralia. 
and Curtis & Lane sent for him to take 
charge of the type and press' work, as they 
were not printers, and Wall felt " passing 
rich" on a promise of §450 a year. Todd 
Wilson was his only " devil." We now find 
the office over James M. Pace's store, in the 
Johnson House, and the paper comes forth 
as the Mount Vernon Star, with a Latin 
motto, something like Non nobis solum, sed 
toto mundo nati. The" proprietors were 
strongly anti-slavery — perhaps Abolitionists 
would not be too strong a word; but they 
tried to make the Ijaaper neutral and failed, 
as usual. People found them out, and did 
not support them well. So, in 1859, at the 
end of one year, they retired, giving Wall a 
lease for another year. We believe they both 
returned to Michigan. Lane went into the 
army and was killed, and Cm-tis is practic- 
ing law. 

"Wall soon after moved the office into the 
basement of the old Odd Fellows Hall. Todd 
Wilson and Ham Watson — now Dr. ^\'atson, 
of Woodlawn — were his helpers. At the end 
of nine months, Curtis & Lane, and Wall 
and all of them failed to finish paying for the 
press;] Wall's lease succiunbed to a prior 
claim, and Judge Sattei-field closed up the 
business by taking possession. But the Star 
was not extinguished. The Satterfield boys, 
Ed and John, moved into a room up-stairs in 
the com-t house, where it remained until they 
sold out to Haves in the fall of 1865. In 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



229 



the meantime it was still changing hands. 
We had Satterlield Bros., or Sattertiold & 
Bro., till 1861. Ned went to the war, and 
John ran it till the close of the year, then he 
went South, and Judge Sattertield and Wm. 
Davissim ran it till the next spring. Ned 
came back and ran it till fall, then both ran 
it till Hayes bought it. 

The Mount Vernon Guardian. — In April, 
1860, the Guardian appeared. It was pub- 
lished by Eussell & Wall. Alex Russell was 
from Minnesota, and was son-in-law to Mr. 
Erwin, who had bought and located on the 
hill where L. N. Beal lives. Eussell & Wall 
bought their press from Judge O'Malveny, 
of Centralia; it was the same that had been 
used by the somewhat noted J. G. D. Petty- 
john, when he was publishing his Modern 
Pharos. It was located upstairs in the build- 
ing now occupied by W. E. Jackson, south 
side of the public square. This was our first 
Republican paper; indeed, it rather |claimed 
to be a War Democrat. Thus it went on for 
one year, when Wall joined the army, and 
was succeeded by William Durlinger, an- 
other son-in-law of Mr. Erwin. In a few 
months, Russell sold his interest to Durlin- 
crer, and went to Belleville, and started the 
Bellville Democrat. Durlinger held up man- 
fully for some time, but at last gave way, 
and retii-ed to a farm near Tamai-oa. Not 
liking that, he changed again, went to Belle- 
ville, and is still there with Russell, publish 
ing the Democrat. We believe it was in 
March, 1863, that the Guardian went down. 
The Unconditional Unionist. — By this 
time — 1863 — Wall came home from the ai-my, 
crippled, and some of his friends aided him 
to piu-chase the Guardian office. He moved 
to the room formerly occupied by Jack Fly 
as a furniture shop, near the old stand of D. 
Baltzell, and gave his paper the name of 
Unconditional Unionist. Of course it was 



unquestionably Republican. After piiblish- 
ing this paper for three years. Wall pulled 
out and went to Salem. Then A. B. Barrett 
and others formed a stock company, that we 
might not be left without a Republican 
paper, find soon found a man — A. J. Alden 
— to publish it. Jack kept it going, aided, 
of course, by Barrett and others, until the 
summer of 1867. He then went to Mc- 
Leansboro, and started the Hamilton Sucker, 
and was succeeded by George W. Moray. 
But Moray did not seem to succeed any fur- 
ther, for in five weeks he subsided and went 
to Princeton, Ky., and started a paper there. 
The Statesman. — This paper followed the 
Unionist. Henry Hitchcock, from Indian- 
apolis, bought the press and fixtures, put 
Theodore Tromley in as chief " type tosser," 
and issued his first paper Septembers, 1867. 
Hitchcock was a nice, pleasant gentleman, 
and his paper did well until domestic afflic- 
tions compelled him to relinquish the busi- 
ness. He sold out in 1873. 

The Free Press. — C. L. Hayes, as before 
noticed, bought the Star office from Satter- 
field in November, 1865, and on the 6th day 
of December issued his first paper, with the 
name of the Mount Vernon Free Press. From 
the court house he m(3ved to the room over 
Tom Goodrich's store, where it was burned 
in the great fire of March 16, 1869. His 
friends promptly rallied to his aid, and in 
about a month after the fire he had n new 
press, and resumed the publication of his 
paper. Hayes, with all that bitterness which 
sometimes injured him, must ever [be ranked 
very high as an editor and newspaper man- 
ager. He was a good hand to gather news, 
judicious in the use of the scissors, and much 
above the average in his editorials. He pub- 
lished the first history of Jefferson County, 
and expended $100 in assisting the writer in 
gathering up materials and preparing the 



230 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



sketches that appeared from week to week in 
his columns. In March, 1872, he sold to R. 
A. D. Wilbanks and G. M. Haynes, under 
whose management it continued till the next 
October, John Wightman being chief print- 
er. This last purchase may have been made 
for a political pui-pose — we can't say. 

The press was still nearly new; it was one 
that Wilbanks & Haynes had traded the 
old Star press for in Chicago, paying the 
difference. These gentlemen, now having no 
special object to accomplish, let the ofSee to 
W. H. Mantz. He continued till the spring 
of 1870, when he assumed a hostile attitude 
toward Wilbanks & Anderson, whereupon 
they " elected that his lease should termi- 
nate," and he went out, and became corre- 
spondent of the Missouri Republican. He 
was succeeded in the Press office by Don 
Davisson. Don was a Greenbacker now. and 
so was the Free Press, and the editorials 
presented a rare combination of softness and 
roughness. It will be remembered that the 
Greenbackers that year — 1877 — elected two 
of their candidates — John N. Satterfield, 
County Clerk, and John D. Williams. Su- 
perintendent of Schools. 

But it soon became necessary to do some- 
thing more; so, in April, 1879, the Jefferson 
Couuhj Greenback Printing Company was 
organized. William B. Anderson, Seth F. 
Crews and William H. Smith were the Com- 
missioners to obtain license, etc., from the 
State. The object, as stated in their ap- 
plication, was to print and publish a weekly 
newspaper and to do a general printing, pub- 
lishing and book-binding business, with 
power to change the weekly to a semi-week- 
ly, tri-weekly or daily. Their capital was 
$2,000, in 200 shares of $10 each, and their 
corporation was to run for ninety-nine years. 
The principal stockholders were W. B. An- 
derson, W. H. Smith and S. F. Crews, fif- 



teen shares each; G. W. Evans, G. L. Var- 
nell, John Wilbanks. Ananias Knowles and 
Jesse H. Smith, ten shares each; the rest 
running from nine shares down to one. No- 
vember 8, 1879, they elected as Directors, 
for three years, T. Anglen, L. B. Gregor}% 
J. B. Pearcy, Ananias Knowles, Alonzo Jones 
and G. W. Evans. Thus backed — and green- 
backed — the thing looked fearfully strong; 
but the high colors soon began to fade, and 
in February, 1880, they sold out to H. H. 
Simmons, of the News. During the brief 
existence of the Free Press, in its last days, 
Anderson was the editor, and the vigor and 
earnestness — not to say acrimony, — with 
which he threw hot shot into the defunct old 
parties are too fresh in mind 'to be referred 
to here. 

The News. — September 2, 1871, is the date 
of the lirst issue of the Mount Vernon Neivs. 
It was published by Lawrence F. Tromly, 
the auxiliary side being furnished by Kim- 
ball & Taylor, of Belleville, and the style of 
the concern being L. F. Tromley & Co. 
Theodore Tromley, who had handled some 
types for Satterfield, and had graduated un- 
der Jack Alden, on the Hamilton Sucker, 
joined Lawrence and they bought the office. 
Under the style of Tromly Bros., they then 
changed the paper to a quarto of eight pages, 
and moved from Varnell's Block to the Phoe- 
nix Block. L. F. Tromly began his experi- 
ence with Durlinger & Russell, in 1861, and 
now publishes the Shawnee Neivs. 

In the spring of 1876, the Tromly brothers 
sold out to C. L. Hayes, and Hayes to C. A. 
Keller in Januaiy, 1877, Hayes retaining 
possession till April 1. November 28, Kel- 
ler sold to H. H. Simmons. Simmons was 
an Eastern man, who came West in 1849. 
After exploring the W'est, from Dubuque to 
New Orleans, he went into the Alton Demo- 
crat office with John Fitch, and remained 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, 



231 



there two years. He then went to Greene 
County, and published the CaiToUton Demo- 
crat for cue year, and then the Logan Coun- 
ty Democrat for one year, and through the 
Presidential campaign, lighting Fremont. 
He was then correspondent for the Herald 
for a time, after which he traveled several 
years in the East, in the in*^erest of the North 
Missouri and the Atlantic & Great Western 
Railroad. In 1867, he started the Lebanon 
Journal, as an independent and local news- 
paper, and continued it for several years, 
when he sold out to Eckert and went back to 
Washington County, Ohio. He'there bought 
a half interest in the Democratic paper and 
remained one year, when his wife died and 
he went to Cleveland, where his sister lived. 
Thence, he came here in April, 1877, and ran 
the News for C. A. Keller till November 28, 
when he bought it, as before stated. 

In February, 1880, Mr. Simmons bought 
the Free Press, and his paper is now the 
Mount Vernon News and Free Press. He 
paid what was, perhaps, a good price for the 
Free Press — $1,100; but he has shown him- 
self what most printers are not- -a good 
financier, and has the whole outfit of both 
papers paid for. The News is the first paper 
in the county that proved a financial success. 
By this, and by a dignified course, with a 
good deal of editorial ability, the News has 
attained a high rank among the local papers 
of the State. 

r/ie Si(cfcerS/a/e.— In May, 1873, C. L. 
Hayes and R. M. Morrison bought Henry 
Hitchcock's Statesman oifice, and began the 
publication of the Sucker State. In changing 
hands, the News changed politics — from 
Republican to Democratic — without change of 
name; but in case of the Statesman the 
change of name was as conspicuous as that of 
its political complexion. Morrison retired 
from the Sucker State December 27, 1873, 



and January 17, 1874, Hayes drup[)ed the 
co-operative outside, after which he claimed 
to have " the only paper printed in Jefferson 
County." But this county is too small a 
stream to float large or heavily-laden craft, 
so he finally ran aground and went to pieces. 

The Weeldy Exponent.— In our biograph- 
ical department will be found a sketch of 
Mr. Edward Hitchcock, the editor and pro- 
prietor of the Exponent. This supersedes 
the necessity to notice here his previous la- 
bors as a journalist. In November, 1878, 
when solicited by Rejaublicans of Jeflerson 
County to publish a paper here, he was, and 
had been for two years, publishing a paper 
at Casey, in Clark County, bearing the name 
of the Exponent. At that date — November, 
1878 — the Republicans of Jefferson County 
invited Mr. Hitchcock to locate at Mount 
Vernon, and to bring hither his press and 
printing material. He did so; and on the 
5th day of December, 1878, the first number 
of Vol. Ill of the Exponent was issued in 
Mount Vernon. Since that date, and up to 
the present, during a period of nearly five 
years, the paj)er has regularly appeared, not- 
withstanding difficulties and trials that can 
scarcely be appreciated by those who never 
tried to stem the tide of adverse political 
sentiment and contend with a majority such 
as uniformly sweeps all before it at election 
in Jefi'erson County. The paper is now well 
established, with a good circulation and 
liberal patronage in the way of job work and 
advertising. The office has been recently 
moved from the northwest corner of the same 
block to rooms in the Crews building, corner 
of Bunyan and Washington streets. It will 
not, perhaps, detract from Mr. Hitchcock's 
reputation to attribute his success, in part, to 
the amiable character of his family, as well 
as to his own ability as a jom-nalist. 

Church History. — The state of society fifty 



233 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



or si sty years ago here was rough and rude. 
But for all this, that curse of huuianity, 
intemperance, was no more pre-valent, in 
proportion to population, than now— perhaps 
not as much. Scarcely was the nucleus of a 
settlement formed ere a distillery was 
started; for where there was such profusion 
of snakes there must be whiskj- to cure their 
bites! The settlers endured privations and 
hunger, and their children cried for bread 
for want of mills, they groped in ignorance 
for want of schools and churches, but the 
still house was reared in their midst, where 
the farmer exchanged his bag of corn for the 
pioneer beverage of the border. This is but 
the history of Illinois, and particularly of 
the southern part of the State. In every fam- 
ily the jug of bitters was to be found, and 
was regularly partaken of by every member 
of the household, especially during the chill 
season. The visit of a neighbor was signal- 
ized by producing the bottle or demijohn. 
At all rustic gatherings, liquor was consid- 
ered an indispensable article, and was freely 
used. Everybody drank whisky. Even min- 
isters sometimes took a little as an — ague 
preventive, or for the stomach's sake. There 
were some rough neighborhoods in which the 
people resisted all advancement and prog- 
ress. In these, liquor was used to great ex- 
cess, and then, as now, was an active pro- 
moter of broils, disturbances and tights. In 
these affrays — to their credit be it said— fists 
and feet were alone used, and were called 
"rough and tumble." The knife, the pistol 
and the bludgeon were then unknown, and 
are the products of a much later and more 
advanced civilization. These sections were 
known as "hard neighborhoods," and were 
shunned by all respectable emigrants seeking 
homes, who were so fortunate as to find out 
their reputation. 

Into this rude state of society came the 



pioneer preacher, as " oae crying in the wil- 
derness." These old-time ministers were 
characters, in their way. They were pos- 
sessed of an individuality peculiarly their 
own, and as different from the high-bred 
clergymen of the present day as possible. As 
a class, they were uneducated, rough and res- 
olute, and exactly suited to the day and 
civilization in which they lived. They en- 
countered and overcame obstacles that would 
appall their effeminate representatives of a 
later period. They were exactly suited, we 
repeat, to the civilization in which they 
lived, and seem to have been chosen vessels 
to fulfill a certain mission. These humble 
pioneers of frontier Christianity proclaimed 
the glad tidings to the early settlers, at a 
time when the country was so poor that no 
other kind of ministers could have been main- 
tained. They spread the Gospel of Christ 
where educated preachers with salaries could 
not have been supported. They preached the 
doctrine of free salvation, without money 
and without price, toiling hard in the in- 
terim of their labors to provide themselves 
with a scanty subsistance. They traversed 
the wilderness through sunshine and storm; 
slept in the open aii, with the green eai-th 
for a couch and the blue sky for a covering; 
swam swollen streams, suffered cold, hunger 
and fatigue with a noble heroism, and all for 
the sake of doing their Master's will and of 
saving precious souls from perdition. 

Many of these old-time preachers sprang 
from and were of the people, and were with- 
out ministerial ti-aining, except in religious 
exercises and the study of the Scriptures. 
In those days it was not thought necessary 
that a minister should be a scholar, but that 
he might be from the common people, just as 
some of the disciples were from the lowly 
fishermen of Gallilee, and that it was suffi- 
cient for him to preach from a knowledge of 



HISTOEY or JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



233 



the Bible alone; to make appealH warm from 
the heart; to paint the joys of heaven and 
the miseries of hell to the imagination of the 
sinner; to terrify him with the one and ex- 
hort him, by a life of righteousness, to attain 
the other. Many of these added to their 
Scriptural knowledge a diligent perusal of 
Young's Night Thoughts, Milton's Paradise 
Lost, Jenkins on Atonement and other kin- 
dred works, which gave more compass to their 
thoughts and brighter imagery to their fancy. 
In profuse and flowery language, and with 
glowing enthusiasm and streaming eyes, they 
told the story of the crown of thorns, of 
Golgotha and Calvary. 

Their sermons sometimes turned upon 
matters of controversy — unlearned arguments 
on the subjects of free grace, baptism, free- 
will, election, faith, jusitfication and the 
final perseverance of the saints. But that 
in which they excelled was the earnestness of 
their words and manner, the vividness of the 
pictures they drew of the ineffable bliss of 
the redeemed and the awful and eternal 
torments of the unrepentant They painted 
the lake of fire and brimstone and the tor- 
ments of hell so plain, that the startled sin- 
ner, in his excited imagination, could hear 
the ponderous iron doors open and their 
rusty hinges creiik. But, above all, they 
inculcated the great principles of justice and 
sound morality, and were largely instrumental 
in promoting the growth of intellectual ideas, 
in bearing the condition and in elevating the 
morals of the people: and to them are we 
indebted for the first establishment of Chris- 
tian institutions throughout the county. 

The first religious sect represented in the 
county was the Methodists, and of course 
they organized the first church society. This 
was different from most of Southern Illinois, 
for in many other portions, in fact in a ma- 
jority of the counties, the Baptists— the hard 



shells — were the pioneers of religion. But 
here the Methodists got the start. We have 
said elsewhere that Jefferson County was a 
stronghold of Democracy; it was also a 
stronghold of Methodism. Several of the 
very earliest settlers were not only Method- 
ists, but were Methodist preachers. Among 
these were Zadok Casey, Edward Maxey and 
Lewis Johnson. John Johnson, another 
pioneer preacher, came in later. As pioneers, 
these men are noticed in other chapters. 
They were the old-time ministers we have 
already described, plain and unvarnished, and 
preached the Word of God, not for "the 
world's di-oss," but from a sincere conviction 
of riffht and a desire to benefit their fellow- 
men. Next to the Methodists, the Baptists 
were the strongest in numbers and earliest in 
settlement. Elder Harris was one of their 
early preachers. The first sermon preached 
in the county is said to have been delivered 
by Zadok Casey. It was preached in the fall 
of 1817, in a house that had been just 
erected by Isaac Hicks, and we have the au- 
thority of Johnson, the historian, for stating 
that every man, woman and child then within 
the present limits of Jefferson County was pres ■ 
ent. The first house iised for church purposes 
was the one already mentioned as the one in • 
which Joel Pace taught the first school. It 
■ was used until the fall of 1820, when it was 
destroyed by tire. 

In the spring of 1819, or thereabouts, the 
first religious oi-ganization in the county was 
effected. It was at a meeting held at Edward 
Maxey's cabin, and the society thus formed 
comprised Edward Maxey and wife, William 
Maxey and wife, Burchett Maxey and wife, 
Fleming Greenwood and wife, James Davis 
and wife and Zadok Casey. In the fall of 
1820, a house was built at Union, and in the 
fall of 1821, that at Shiloh. These were 
used both for school and church purposes. 



3U 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



We cannot, however, go into details of or- 
ganization of the different churcheH in this 
chapter, but in the history of the towsnhips 
shall devote considerable space to each of 
them. 

Rev. John Johnson. — A more fitting con- 
clusion, perhaps, could not be given to this 
chapter than to append a sketch of the Rev. 
John Johnson. No minister of his day stood 
higher in Southern Illinois. Rev. G. W. 
Robbins, who preached his funeral sermon, 
only -ipoke the unanimous verdict of all who 
knew him best, when he said " John Johnson 
was no ordinary man." He was born in 
Louisa County, Va., Januaiy 7, 1783. Born 
in poverty, he was left an orphan when less 
than two months old, and sank to the ex- 
tremes of poverty more trying still. When 
her sons had grown to manhood and had 
gained sufficient wealth to own a cart and 
yoke of rattle, the mother moved to Sumner 
County, Tenn. There Mr. Johnson, slender 
and feeble in his youth, lived to the age of 
twenty-eight, developing a strength of frame 
that would be deemed almost gigantic at the 
present day. With increasing strength, there 
came a desire for improvement. By the help 
of a slave, he learned the alphabet, and by 
the help of a piece of an old song book, con- 
taining songs he knew by heart, he learned 
to read. He was converted, and felt himself 
called to preach before he could yet read so 
as to be understood. By the light of pine- 
knots, lie studied at night, after his hard 
day's work was over, and on Sundays, at 
some little cabin on the hillside, he would 
proclaim the Gospel, with little of man's 
learning but with a pathos and a power that 
always carried the hearts of his rustic hear- 
ers by storm. He applied for admission into 
the old Western Conference, but even that 
primitive body, looking at his uncouth garb 
and listening to his stammering e£fort to 



read, rejected his application and kindly ad- 
vised him to abandon his design of trying to 
preach. He was not humbled by this — he 
was as humble as man could be before. He 
returned to his home, his studies and his toil. 
The next year, the Conference admitted him 
on trial, but seemed curious to see how 'much 
hardship he could bear. They sent him to 
the Sandy River, where climbing mountains 
and swimming unbridged streams was his 
daily work. Two hundred times he had to 
swim in the course of the year. He then 
traveled two years in diiferent parts of Ohio 
— then the frontier — and was next sent to 
Natchez, in Mississippi, a jpoint it required 
1,500 miles' travel by the zigzag routes to 
reach, most of this distance being by paths 
and trails, 600 miles of it through the " In- 
dian nations." 

We have not space to follow Mr. Johnson 
through his various experiences of trial and 
toil. August 10, 1814, he married Miss 
Susannah Brooks, who showed herself a 
worthy helper for such a man, and who still 
lives, one of the most aged and venerable of 
the few survivors of her generation in Jeffer- 
son County. Without a trace of ambition or 
a suspicion of self-seeking, but by the over- 
powering weight of mind and character alone, 
Mr. Johnson rapidly made his way to the 
very front. In the palmiest days of the 
Kentucky Conference, when it contained 
many such men as Peter Cartwright, Peter 
Akers, Thomas A. Morris, Jonathan Stamper 
and Henry B. Bascom, it was asserted by a 
writer of that day that " Bro. Johnson was 
the most poj)ular and effective preacher in 
the State." An evidence of his standing is 
found in the fact that, in 1822, when the con- 
ference sat at Bells' Camp Ground, near 
Lexington, Mr. Johnson was unanimously 
chosen to preach the funeral of that great 
and saintly man, Valentine Cook, to one of 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



235 



the largest and most august assemblies that 
had ever met in Kentucky. After filling 
nearly all the most important positions, hav- 
ing been stationed at Nashville, Maysville, 
Louisville, Hopkinsville and other points, 
and Presiding Elder for several years on the 
Hopkinsville District, Gum River District, 
etc., he located and came to Mount Vernon 
in 1834:, and here, on the 8th day of April, 
1858, he passed away. 

In person, Mr. Johnson was of medium 
height — about five feet eleven inches — his 
weight 170 to 180 pounds, complexion dark, 
hair black as the raven. His movements 
seemed slow, but, he pushed forward what 
ever work he had to do with an energy that 
never tired. In his labors, whether on the 
circuit or the farm, he seemed incapable of 
fatigue and had physical strength sufiicieut 
for all demands. But with all his rugged 
vigor he had a heart as tender as a woman's, 
and a sympathy that extended even to the 
insect under his feet. He had a voice of 
most unusual power. Even when speaking 
in tones so loud that he could be heard two 
miles away, he seemed to speak with ease, 
and his voice never lost that peculiar quality 
that melted the hearts of all who heard. His 
profound learning and his masterlj' intellect 
commanded the respect of all; but it was 
more, perhaps, by the tenderness and inten- 
sity of his emotions that he swayed the mul- 
titudes. Yet his discourses were short, sel- 
dom over twenty or thirty minutes. A camp 
meeting was once held near his home; he 
returned fi-om a business trip on Satm-day 
evening; the meeting was dragging on, 
heavy and cold; he jsreached on Sunday, at 
11 o'clock, and it was as if a cyclone had 
struck the congregation, carrying saint and 
sinner alike before it. The uproar after ho 
closed lasted longer than the sermon. One 



evening in Hopkinsville, the sexton was ab- 
sent with the church key, and Mr. Johnson 
talked a few moments to the group that was 
shut out, and when he closed, all were in 
tear.s, and they went shouting along down 
the streets in every direction. Perhaps there 
never was a man who could open a shorter 
way to the heart. At a love- feast at old 
Union, he once spoke not more than half-a- 
dozen words, but everybody's cup seemed to 
run over at once, for a general shout was the 
result. He was not fond of debate, but 
when it was forced upon him showed him- 
self a David ready for any Goliath he might 
meet.. While stationed at Nashville, Tenn., 
the Methodist Episcopal Church was as- 
sailed, and defiance thrown out by a Mr. 
Vardiman, distinguished alike for polished 
manners, learning and skill as a debater. 
Mr. Johnson accepted his challenge. When 
the appointed day came, Johnson walked 
humbly in, alone, and soon Vardiman strode 
in, with Felix Grundy on one arm and An- 
drew Jackson on the other. The contest was 
to last three days. On the second morning 
Vardiman failed to appear, and he never was 
seen in Nashville again. It may be that there 
was what some ministers term a divine power 
about his ministry; for he was one of the 
most fully consecrated of men, and there was 
a solemn gravity about the man such as is 
very rarely seen. It may have been this that 
made a certain man declare that it "made 
the cold chills run over him to see Mr. John- 
son walk down the aisle to the pulpit." It 
is, no doubt, largely owing to his influence 
that the Methodist Church has grown from 
D. Baugh and wife, the only members at the 
time he came, to 400 members now. His 
remains, with those of his youngest son, who 
died in 1853, repose in Salem Cemetery. 



236 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



CHAPTER XI.* 



AGRICULTURE— ITS RANK AMONG THE SCIENCES— HOW TO KEEP THE BOYS UPON THE FARM- 
EDUCATE THEM TO IT— PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE IN THE COUNTY- SOME STATISTICAL 
INFORMATION— COUNTY FAIRS AND ASSOCIATIONS— OFFICIALS OF THE SAME— HOR- 
TICULTURE— VALUE OF FRUIT GROWING— STATISTICS— THE FORESTS, ETC. 

The people of Southern Illinois generally 



" Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; 
How jocund did they drive their team afield! 
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy 
stroke." — Oray. 

THE advantages of science, a superior 
soil and the use of machinery will al- 
ways render agriculture the most attractive, 
manly and profitable branch of industry in 
which the people can engage, contributing, 
more than any other pursuit to individual 
comfort, and proportionally adding to the 
prosperity of the country. The cultivation 
of the soil, in all ages, has furnished employ- 
ment for the largest and best portion of man- 
kind; yet the honor to which they are en- 
titled has never been fully acknowledged. 
Though their occupation is the basis of na- 
tional prosperity, and upon its progress, 
more than any other branch of industry, de- 
pends the march of civilization, yet its his- 
tory remains, to a great extent, unvirritten. 
Historians duly chronicle the feats of the 
warrior who ravages the earth and beggars its 
inhabitants, but leaves unnoticed the labors 
of him who causes the desolated country to 
bloom again, and heals, with the balm of 
plenty, the miseries of war. When due worth 
is recognized, instead of the mad ambition 
which subjugates nations to acquire power, 
the heroism which subdues the soil and feeds 
the world will be the theme of the poet's 
song and the orator's eloquence. 

« By W. H. Perriu. 



have not fully comprehended the natm-al ad- 
vantages of their soil, and its agricultural 
advantages. Hence, they have worked in the 
dark, so to speak, for many years, and the 
development of the country, as a conse- 
quence, has fallen behind what was its just 
due. The farmer will take his place among 
the best and noblest of the earth, only when 
he forces his way there by the superior in- 
telligence, culture and elegance, with which 
such a mode of life is capable of surrounding 
itself. Each branch of the science of prop- 
erly cultivating the earth is dignified and 
ennobling, if the farmer himself will exert 
his abilities to make it so. It is worthy of 
the devotion of the greatest intellects, and 
offers a field for the finest powers of the best 
endowed of mankind. A great need of the 
times is to make rural life so attractive, and 
pecuniary profit in it so possible, as to hold 
the boys and young men on the farm, that, 
not by mistaken ideas of gentility, of ease 
of life and opportunities for winning 
fame, so large a percentage of them may be 
drawn into the so-called learned professions 
or into trade. With proper surroundings, 
education and administration of the econ- 
omies of the farm, with a sufficient under- 
standing of the opportunities for a high 
order of intellectital and social accomplish- 
ment in the rural life of the coiintry, this 
need not and would not be so. A bright. 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



237 



high-spirted boy is not afraid of labor, but 
he despises drudgery, ile will work hard to 
accomplish a liue end, when the mind and 
heart both work together with the muscles; 
but he will escape from dull, plodding toil. 
Let the boys learn that rural life is di'udgery 
only when the mind is dull; that the spade 
and the plow are the apparatus with which 
he manipulates the wonderful forces of the 
earth and sky, and the boy will begin to rank 
himself with the professor in the laboratory 
or the master at the easel. The farmer 
should be educated to feel that there is no oc- 
cupation in life that leads the educated man 
to more fruitful fields of contemplation and 
inquiry. The scientific mind finds every 
da)% in the fields and orchai'ds, new material 
to work upon, and the cultivated taste end- 
less opportunities for its exercise. 

Agriculture, then, should rank first among 
the sciences, for vvithout it life itself would 
soon cease. All important interests, all thriv- 
ing industries and all trades and professions 
receive their means of support, either directly 
or indirectly, from it, a ad, therefore, are but 
secondary to it in actual importance. 

It is too often the case that farmers do not 
pay the attention to their lands necessary to 
keep them in a highly productive state, but 
through excessive cultivation exhaust their 
vitality while yet they should only be in 
their prime. Johnston, in his " Chemistry 
of Common Life," gives the following des- 
cription of the system of farming commonly 
adopted by the first settlers on this continent, 
and the truths uttered apply with as much 
force to a single county or community as to 
the country at large. He says: 

" Man exercises an influence on the soil 
which is worthy of attentive study. He lands 
in a new country, and fertility everywhere 
surrounds him. The herbage waves thick and 
high, and the massive'trees sway their proud 



stems loftily toward the sky. He clears a 
farm in the wilderness, and ample returns of 
corn repay him for his simple labor. He 
plows, he sows, he reaps, and the seemingly 
exhaustless bosom of the earth gives back 
abundant harvests. But at length a change 
appears, creeping slowly over and gradually 
dimming the smiling landscape. The corn 
is first less beautiful, then less abundant, and 
at last it appears to die altogether beneath 
the scourge of an unknown insect or a para- 
sitic fungus. He forsakes, therefore, his long- 
cultivated farm, and hews out another from 
the native forest. But the same early plenty 
is followed by the same vexatious disasters. 
His neighbors partake of the same experi- 
ence. They advance, like a devouring tide, 
against the verdant woods; they trample 
them beneath their advancing culture; the 
ax levels its yearly prey, and generation after 
generation proceeds in the same direction — 
a wall of green forest on the horizon before 
them, a half desert and naked region behind 
them. Such is the history of colonial cult- 
lU'e in our own epoch ; such is the history of 
the march of Euroiaean cultivation over the 
entire continent of America. No matter what 
the geological origin of the soil may be, or 
what the chemical composition; no matter 
how warmth and moisture may favor it, or 
what the staple crop it has partially yielded 
from yeai' to year; the some inevitable fate 
overtakes it. The influence of long-continued 
human action overcomes the tendencies of all 
natural causes. But the influences of man 
upon the productions of the soil are exhibited 
in other and more satisfactory results. The 
improver takes the place of the exhauster and 
follows his footsteps on these same altered 
lands. Over the sandy and forsaken tracts 
of Virginia and the Carolinas he ^spreads 
large applications of shaly marl, and the 
herbage soon covers it again with profitable 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



crops; or he strews on it a thinner sowing of 
gypsum, and, as if by magic, the yield of 
previous years is doubled and quadrupled; or 
he gathers the droppings of his cattle, and 
the fermented produce of his farmyard, and 
lays it upon his fields, when lo! the wheat 
comes up luxuriantly again, and the midge. 
and the rust and the yellows all disappear 
from his wheat, his cotton and his peach 
trees. But the renovator marches much 
slower than the exhauster. His materials are 
collected at the expense of both time and 
money, and barrenness ensues from the early 
labors of the one far more rapidly than green 
herbage can be made to cover it again by the 
most skillful, zealous and assiduous labors of 
the other. " 

There is a great deal of truth in the above 
extract, and we see it illustrated in every 
portion of the country. The farmer, as long 
as his land produces at all plentifully, seems 
indifferent to any effort to improve its failing 
qualities. And hence, the land, like one who 
has wasted his life and exhausted his ener- 
gies by early dissipation, becomes prema- 
turely old and worn out; when, by proper 
care and timely improvement, it might have 
retained its rich, productive qualities thrice 
the period. 

The agricultural history of Jefferson Coun- 
ty is but little more than a repetition of the 
history of almost every county in Southern 
Illinois. The area of the county is 576 square 
miles, and the greater portion of it is suscep- 
tible of cultivation. But little of this is 
prairie — perhaps about one-fifth. These 
prairies occiipy the more or less elevated 
lands between the creeks ajud water- courses, 
and are generally very productive. The 
white under-clay, which is such an unwel- 
come feature of some of the prairies farther 
north, hardly anywhere extends into Jeffer- 
son County. The land outside of the prairies, 



is mostly well adapted to the cultivation of 
grain and all sorts of fruit. 

For the first twenty to forty years of settle- 
ment in the county, there could be little 
incentive to grow crops there was no market 
for. Each settler raised corn and potatoes 
and " garden sass" enough for his own use 
and no more. The implements of agricult- 
ure consisted of a small bull-tongue plow, 
an old " Cary " plow and a hoe made by the 
blacksmith. The main [point in farming, in 
those days, was to have a herd of wild hogs 
in the woods, corn enough for bread and to 
feed the pony — when the settler was so fort- 
unate as to have one — and a few ears to toll 
the hogs home to mark them. 

When spring came, the crop time was 
rather a hard life to live. About all the 
revenue that could be counted on was hens' 
eggs — after these domestic fowls 'had been 
introduced — ^to buy the small luxuries, such 
as coffee, sugar, salt or anything in that line ; 
and if the hens failed to come to time on the 
" lay," the old man and the childi-en would 
strike out to the woods to dig '' ginseng." 
This was after game began to get a little 
scarce. A large sack of the then staple 
article of ginseng could be dug in a few 
days, and, when dried, would bring ?3 or $4 
— a sum that would help out the family 
finances in gootl shape. There was but little 
provision made for the cattle, as they could 
almost live through the winter in the woods. 
But very little wheat was grown here then, 
as there were no mills to grind it, and no 
market for the surj^lus. Indeed, the early 
settlers were at great inconvenience to get 
their corn ground; there were but few mills, 
mostly run by horse power. But all this is 
changed now. The coming of railroads has 
produced a wonderful revolution in the mode 
of farming. Saw mills have cut the timber 
off, to a great extent, and much of the land 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



239 



has been brought under cultivation. From 
the sickle and old-fashioned scythe and 
cradle, the wheat is now mostly harvested 
with self-binders. The hay crops are of 
great value. Timothy, red -top and clover 
flourish as finely here as in any part of the 
State 

In the early history of the county, the 
pioneers were favored by the mildness of the 
climate, the abundance of wild game and 
the fertility of the land when brought into 
ctiltivation. Step by step, the hardy settlers 
made their inroads into the heavy forests, en- 
larged their farms and increased their flocks 
and herds until they found a surplus beyond 
their own wants and the wants of their 
families. There was then but little outlet 
for the products of the farms, and far less of 
the spirit of speculation than at the present 
day. The result was that after a few years 
the farmers had plenty at home; they 
handled less money, it is true, but they lived 
easier. They did not recklessly plunge into 
debt; they lived more at home with their 
families, and were far happier. There was, 
too, much more sociability, neighborly feel- 
ing and good cheer generally among them. 
There was not such a rush after great wealth, 
and hence fewer failures among farmers. 
The accumulated wealth of farm products di- 
rected attention to the question of markets, 
which had hitherto been confined to a kind of 
neighborhood traffic among the farmers them- 
selves. Until the openingof railroads, markets 
were mostly reached by hauling on wagons 
to St. Louis, Vincennes, Shawneetown and 
Cairo. Much of the surplus produce was 
hauled to Shawneetown and Cairo, and 
shipped from those places to New Orleans. 
But the opening of railroads changed all this, 
and the best markets of the country are now 
easily accessible. 

The following statistics, compiled from 



the last report of the State Board of Agri- 
culture, show something of the products of 
Jefferson County, and will, doubtless, be of 
interest to many of our readers: 

No. of acres of corn cultivated 37,231 

No of bushels produced 577,016 

No. of acres of wheat 63,458 

No. of bushels produced 678,633 

No. of acres of oats 8,853 

No. of bushels produced 133,344 

No. of acres of Timothy 8.601 

No. of tons produced 7,353 

No. of acres of clover 845 

No. of tons produced 161 

No. of acres of prairie 1,534 

No. of tons produced 1,293 

No. of acres of Hungarian and millet 114 

No. of tons produced 123 

No. of acres of sorghum 109 

No. of gallons of sirup 8,677 

No. of acres of pastures 18,07'5 

No. of acres of woodland 93,835 

No. of acres of uncultivated 13,341 

No. of acres of city and town real estate . . 383 

No. of acres not included elsewhere 10,373 

Total number of acres reported for the 

county 258,574 

No. of fat sheep sold 1,766 

Gross weight of same — pounds 159,140 

No. of sheep killed by dogs* 490 

Value of same $1,170 

No. of pounds of wool shorn 33,736 

No. of fat cattle sold 1,713 

Gross weight of same — pounds 1,418,364 

No. of cows kept 3,661 

No. of pounds of butter sold 53,539 

No. of pounds of cheese sold 300 

No. of gallons cream sold 100 

No. of gallons milk sold 370 

No. of fat hogs sold 6,985 

Gross weiglit of same — pounds 1,320,165 

In I860, an agricultiu-al association was 
organized, which, with some changes, is 
still in. existence. Its first officers were J 
R. Allen, President; Jeremiah Taylor, Vice 
President; J. S. Bogan, Recording Secre- 
tary; Dr. E. E. Welborn, Corresponding 
Secretary, and Joel Pace, Treasurer. Direo- 

* From these statistics, it will be seen that one-fourth as 
many sheep were killed by dogs as were sold, and yet farmers 
still persist in keeping worthless dogs. 



240 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



tors, F. S. Casey, William Woods, Jesse A. 
Dees, John Dodds, James J. Fitzgerell. John 
Wilbanks, Dr. "W. Adams, Benjamin T. 
Wood, S. W. Carpenter, Joseph Baldridge, 
Charles McClure and S. K. Allen. Forty- 
acres of land, the site of the present fair 
grounds, were bought on a credit from A. M. 
Grant. The sura agreed on was §800, with 
10 per cent interest until paid. On motion 
of Judge Tanner, a Committee to solicit sub- 
scriptions for the association was selected, 
as follows: 

Jordan's Prairie Precinct — Samuel Cum- 
mins, J. F. Caldwell ,and Hiram Williams. 

Grand Prairie Precinct — J. C. Baldridge, 
Lemon Fouts and Henry Breeze. 

Blissville Precinct — H. Creet, Thomas 
Bagby and Andrew Welch. 

West Long Prairie Precinct — James Smith, 
J. Q. A. Bay and Isaac Hicks. 

Knob Prairie Precinct — John Hagel, 
Sidney Place and Joseph Laur. 

Horse Prairie Precinct — William Clampitt, 
J. B. Wood and Joseph Hartley. 

Elk Prairie Precinct. — William Wells, 
Elisha Wilson and W. B. Anderson. 

Gun Prairie Precinct — C. G. Vaughn, 
Henry W. Williams and Solomon Goddard. 

Jackson Precinct — F. jHicks, John Ham 
and H. W. Goodrich. 

Moore's Prairio Precinct —David Kiffin, 
David Eotramel and John Lowry, Sr. 

Lynchburg Precinct — Curran Jones, S. V. 
Bruce and Jesse Laird. 

Horse Creek Precinct — B. E. Wells, Eob- 
ert French and E. H. Flowers. 

Mount Vernon Precinct — Capt. H. B. 
Newby, John Bagwell and D. Baltzell. 

The foregoing Committee was selected 
by a committee consisting of Dr. Green, 
Samuel Schenck and William Dodds, which 
had been appointed on the motion of Prof. 
B. C. Hillman. The following committee: 



Dr. Green, W. B. Anderson, J. R. Allen and 
J. S. Bogan, was appointed and drafted a 
constitution and by laws. 

The first fair was held on the 23d, 24th 
and 2r)th of October, 1860, and was well at- 
tended and proved successful. The old 
officers were reelected, except Charles T. 
Pace was elected Treasm-er in place of Joel 
Pace. In 1862, no fair was held, on account 
of the excitement of the civil war then in 
progress. The Directors elected this year 
were F. S. Casey, Jesse A. Dees, William 
Wood, J. J. Fitzgerrell, John Wilbanks, 
Joseph Baldridge, P. T. Maxey, John 
Arnold, C. G. Vaughn, S. Place, S. Cum- 
mins, T. G. Holland and A. Kiffin. 

For 1863, the following officers were 
elected: J. E. Allen, President; S. V. 
Bruce, Vice President; Charles T. Pace, 
Treasurer; J. S. Bogan, Recording Secretary, 
and E. J. Winton, Corresponding Secretary. 
Directors — S. Cummins, Joseph Baldridge, 
E. B. Harvey, William Wood, J. A. Dees, 
Isaac Place, J. J. Fitzgerrell, John Wilbanks, 
C. G. Vaughn, J. H. Smith, John Ai-nold, 
J. C. Jones, R. S. Young and F. S. Casey. 

For 1861— J. C. McConnell, President; 
John Wilbanks. Vice President, Chai-les T. 
Pace, Treasurer; T. H. Hobbs, Assistant 
Treasurer; Dr. Welborn, Corresponding 
Secretary; J. S. Bogan, Recording Secre- 
tary. Directors — F. S. Casey, John Ai-nold, 
W. Knowles, J. H. Smith, Curran Jones, S. 
Cummins, J. C. Baldridge, Sr., E. B. Hai-- 
vey, William Wood, J. A. Dees, John Dodds, 
J. J. Fitzgerrell, James Bodine and JMark 
Hails. 

For 1866*— G. H. Varnell, President: J. 
C. Jones, Vice President; A. F. Taylor, 
Treasurer; W. D. Watson, Assistant Treas- 
urer; J. S. Bogan, Recording Secretary; J. 
W. Baugh and A. M. Green, Assistant 

*No election of officers fer 18ti5. 




j^Jv^-}yy^^ 



LIBRAriy 

1." THE 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



243 



Secretaries. Directors — F. S. Casey, Will- 
iam Wood, John Arnold, T. J. Williams, Q. 
A. Wilbanks, J. Foster, B. E. Wells, J. C. 
McConnell, Jacob Breeze, E. B. Harvey, J 
A. Dees, J. Q. A. Bay, J. J. Fitzgerrell and 
John W^ilbanks. 

For 1867— G. H. Varnell, President; J. 
C Jones, Vice President; A. F. Taylor, 
Treasurer; Dr. Welborn, Corresponding Sec- 
retary; J. S. Bogan, Recording Secretary; 
J. W. Baugh and T. J. Casey, Assistant Sec- 
retaries. Directors— F. S. Casey, M. Fitz- 
gerrell, J. K. Jones, J. C. McConnell, E. B. 
Harvey, J. A. Dees, J. J Fitzgerrell, J. 
Arnold, C H. Judd, B. E. Wells, Jacob 
Breeze, William Wood, John Dodds and Col. 
W. B. Anderson. The same oiScers were re- 
elected in 1868, with one or two changes in 
the directory. Mr. Varnell, during the year, 
resigned as President, and J. C. McConnell 
was elected, August 13, to till the vacancy. 
The same officers served through 186U. 

For 1870 — Jesse A. Dees, President; J. 
M. Galbraith, Vice President; A. F. Taylor, 
Treasurer; J. S. Bogan, Recording Secre- 
tary; R. F. Pace and G. W. Johnsoa, Assist- 
ant Secretaries; C. H. Patten, Con-esponding 
Secretary. Directors— F. S. Casey, J. M. 
Scott, John Gibson, G. L. Cummings, E, B. 
Harvey, H. Moore, J. R. Knowle.s, J. Arnold, 
J. Walters, B. E. Wells, Jacob Breeze, Will- 
iam Wood, A. J. Norris and John Wilbanks. 
For 1871— S. W. Jones, President; S. H. 
Allen, Vice President; W. E. Collins, Treas- 
urer; J. F. Baltzell, Assistant Treasui-er; 
A. F. Taylor, Corresponding Secretary; J. 
S. Bogan, Recording Secretary; Capt. J. R. 
Moss, General Superintendent. Directors — 
J. C. McConnell, G. L. Cummins, J. W. 
Johnson, S. V. Bruce, S. K. Casey, B. W. 
Towner, E. B. Harvey, J. A. Dees, John 
Wilbanks, John Arnold, J. C Jones, C. H. 
Judd, C. M. Brown, D. C. Jones, S. S. Man- 



nen and Jacob Breeze. In 1872, there 
seems to have been no election. 

For 1873— Capt. J. R. Moss, President; 
Edgar Jones, Vice President; A. F. Taylor, 
Treasurer; C. D. Ham, Corresponding Sec- 
retary; J. S. Bogan, Recording Secretary; 
J. C. McConnell, General Superintendent. 
Directors — John Hawkins, H. N. Maxey. G. 
S. Cummins. R. Howell, Dr. W. D. Green, 
T. C. Moss, T. B. Lacy, J. A. Dees, G. W. 
Evans, John Frizell, J. Foster, M. McPher- 
sen, C. M. Brown, J. C. Gwinn, J. Willis 
and H. Breeze. 

For 1876*— J. S. Bogan, President; T. B. 
Lacy, Vice President; J. AV. Baugh, Record- 
ing Secretary; G. M. Haynes, Corresponding 
Secretary; A. F. Taylor, Treasurer and James 
A. White, General Superintendent. Direct- 
ors— J. C. McConnell, J. C. Maxey, J. M. 
Gaston, A. Marlow, W. A. McConnell, J. C. 
Johnson, W. R. Champ, T. H. Mannen, W. 
Dodds, G. D. Jones, G. W. Clark, J. A. 
Glazebrook, G. W. Bodine, Dr. T. F. White 
and Jacob Breeze. 

For 1878— S. Gibson, President; J. R. 
Moss, Vice President; A. F. Taylor, Treas- 
urer and J. S. Bogan, Secretary. Directors 
— S. Moffitt, J. C. Gwinn, J. A. White, J. E. 
Goodrich, E. Jones, J. C. McConnell, J. S. 
Bogan, John AVilbanks, W. A. McConnell, 
J. A. Dees and A. F. Taylor. 

For some time, efforts had been made to 
change the association into a joint-stock com- 
pany. This was accomplished during the 
year 1879, when, on the 10th day of May, 
an agreemeat was "signed, sealed and de- 
livered " to the Jefferson County Fair Asso- 
ciation. The first officers under the new re 
gime were as follows: 

For 1879 — Jesse A. Dees, President; John 
Wilbanks, Vice President; A. F. Taylor, Re- 



• ThiB year (1876) soems to have been the next election of of 
fleers. 



244 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



cording Secretary; J. S. Bogan, Correspond- 
ing Secretary; G. W. Evans, Treasurer, and 
J. C. McCounell, General Superintendent. 

For 1880— J. A. Dees, President; John 
Wilbank, Vice President; J. S. Bogan, Re- 
cording Secretary; A. F. Taylor, Correspond- 
ing Secretary; C. D. Ham, Treasurer, and 
J. C. McConnell, General Superintendent. 

For 1881— J. G. Gee, President; Dr. H. 

F. White, Vice President; G. W. Evans, 
Treasurer; J. S. Bogan, Secretary, and J. A. 
Dees, Marshal. 

For 1882— J. G. Gee, President; A. Gil- 
bert, Vice President; J. S. Bogan. Secretary; 

G. W. Evans, Treasurer, and Dr. H. F. 
"White, General Superintendent. 

For 1883— John Wilbanks, President: A. 
Gilbert. Vice President; J. S. Bogan, Secre- 
tary; G. W. Evans, Treasurer, and S. H. 
Watson, General Superintendent. Directors 
— S. H. Watson, J. Wilbanks, A. Gilbert, C. 
D. Ham and E. A. Jones. 

Horticulture. — Gardening, or horticulture 
in its restricted sense, cannot be regarded as 
a very prominent or important feature in the 
histoiy of Crawford County. If, however, 
we take a broad view of the subject, and in- 
clude orchards, small fruit culture and kin- 
dred branches, outside of agriculture, we 
should find something of more interest and 
value. The flourishing trade the writer has 
witnessed in apples alone in the city of 
Mount Vernon, since he commenced his work 
of writing this history, is the most convinc- 
ing proof that horticulture and fruit-grow- 
ing is a valuable industry, to which the coun- 
ty is well adapted. The following statistics, 
Wb think, will bear us out in the assertion: 

Number of acres in apple orchards 3,801 

Number of bushels produced 139,487 

Number of acres in peach orchards 65 

Number of bushels produced 2,116 

Number of acres in pear orchards 2 

Number of busliels produced 40 



Number of acres in vineyard 6 

Number of bushels produced 240 

Number of acres in fruits not included in 

orchards 2 

Value of same f 150 

Number of pounds of grapes produced 11,979 

There can be little doubt but that, if the 
farmers were to devote more of ,_the attention 
that is given to wheat — a crop that has. of 
late years, proven to be very uncertain in this 
latitude — to fruitgrowing, the experiment 
would pay, and pay well. The climate of 
this portion of the State is better adapted to 
fruit culture than further north, though, as a 
fruit-growing section, it is, perhaps, not to 
be compared to some portions of our coun- 
try. 

The apple is the hardiest and most reli- 
able of all the fruits for this region, and 
there are more acres in apple orchards than 
in all fruits combined in the county. The 
first fruit trees wore brought here by the pio- 
neers, and were sprouts taken from varieties 
around the old home, about to be forsaken 
for a new one hundreds of miles away. 
Lewis Johnson, Sr., brought the first fruit 
trees here that ever flourished in the county, 
except the wild fruits found here by the 
early settlers. Apples are now raised in the 
county in great quantities, also peaches 
somewhat, while small fruits are receiving 
more and more attention every year. Many 
citizens, too, are engaging, to a greater or 
less extent, in grape culture. 

That the cultivation of fruit is a union of 
the useful and beautiful is a fact not to be 
denied. Trees covered in spring with soft 
foliage, blended with fragrant flowers of 
white and crimson and gold, that are suc- 
ceeded by fruit, blushing with bloom and 
down, rich, melting and grateful through all 
the fervid heat of summer, is indeed a tempt- 
ing prospect to every land holder. A people 
so richly endowed by nature as the people of 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



245 



Southern Illinois should give more attention 
than they do to an art that supplies so many 
of the amenities of life, and around which 
cluster so many memories that appeal to the 
liner instincts of our nature. With a soil so 
well adapted to fruits as that of Jefferson 
CouQty, horticulture should be held in that 
high esteem which becomes so important a 
factor in human welfare. 

Tlie Forests.— Our rapidly disappearing 
forests have awakened apprehensions in the 
minds of many close observers, and is calling 
out much discussion of the subject. A late 
writer has remarked: " The disappearance 
of our old forests threatens to fulfill the pre- 
diction of Frederick Gerstaecker, who pro- 
phesied that the progress of our reckless 
civilization would soon make the United 
States as barren as Western Asia. But be- 
fore the end of this century, protective legis- 
lation would not come too laie. Our mount- 
ain ranges at least, have still forests enough 
to preserve the agricultural regions from any- 
thing like an Asiatic drought." Forest cult- 
ure has already attracted the attention of 
the Legislatures of many of the older States, 



and steps are even now being taken to not 
only protect the forests, but for planting for- 
ests in the less timbered regions of the coun- 
try. Indeed, the only measure of relief thus 
far suggested, with any definite prospect of 
success, is the planting of new forests. Much 
has been said, and many plans proposed, for 
the preservation of those that remain, but 
the words seem meaningless in view of the 
fact that private property is beyond the con- 
trol of the Government, and Congress de- 
clines even to grant means to prevent the 
destruction of that which still pertains to the 
public domain. 

No one now living, it is true, can reason- 
ably expect to see our forests entirely de- 
stroyed, yet that they are disappearing more 
rapidly than new forests, of spontaneous 
growth, attain maturity, it naturally follows 
that, unless some means are adopted to pro- 
tect them, sooner or later Frederick Ger- 
staecker's prediction will be fulfilled. No 
doubt the time will conie, and that soon, 
when the protecticm and improvement of our 
forests will receive the attention they un- 
questionably merit. 



CHAPTER XII. 



WAR HISTORY— THE REVOLUTION AND THE WAR OF 1812— WHAT WE GAINED BY THEM- 

MEXICAN WAR— JEFFERSON COUNTY'S PART IN IT— HER OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS— 

THE LATE CIVIL WAR— SKETCHES OF THE REGIMENTS IN WHICH THE 

COUNTY WAS REPRESENTED— GEN. ANDERSON, COL. HICKS 

AND OTHER VETERANS— INCIDENTS, ETC., ETC. 



■THE 



"Rash fruitless war, from wanton glory waged. 
Is only splendid niunler." — Thomson. 

AS a nation, we have had liut few wars aside 
from our troubles with the Indians. 
Wliile still colonies we took part in the old 
French and Indian war, which, for a time, 

*Bj W. H. Pcrriu. 



settled the question as to the ownership of the 
vast Northwest Territory. The war of the 
Revolution transferred this magnificent domain 
to us, and the war of 1812 settled its owner- 
ship perhaps for ages to come. The result of 
these several wars was the securing to the 
puny Republic of the thirteen American Colo- 



246 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



nies, an empire greater than that over which 
the Roman eagles soared in gilded triumph. 
A grand result truly, and one that has made 
the American Republic, or contributed very 
largely to making it, the foremost nation on 
the globe. 

It is not known that any of the early 
settlers of Jefferson County participated in 
the Revolutionary war, but it is altogether 
probable that they did. Many of the early 
settlers in Southern Illinois were Revolutiouarj' 
soldiers, and hence, some of the pioneers of 
Jefferson County may have been ; but if so, we 
have not learned their names. Quite a number 
of them, however, took part in the war of 1812. 
But as both of these wars occurred before there 
were an^- settlements made in the county, they 
are of no special interest to this work, except 
as a kind of introduction to the general war 
history- of the county, and to show the ad- 
vantages we as a people received from them. 

77ie Mexican War. — The Black Hawk war — 
a war which personally- effected the people 
here — has been noticed in a preceding chapter. 
Next in order comes the Mexican war. Early 
in 1846, war was declared against Mexico, and 
Illinois was required to furnish three regiments. 
Later she was allowed to furnish another regi- 
ment, making four altogether. Jefferson. 
County' contributed two companies, one under 
the first call and one under the second call for 
troops. The first was enrolled in June, 1846, 
as Compan3- II, of the Third Regiment, Col. 
Ferris Foreman, of Vandalia, commanding. 
The roster of Company H is as follows : 
Stephen Gr. Hicks, Captain ; Lewis F. Casej-, 
First Lieutenant (resigned November 1, 1846, 
at Matamoras, Mexico) ; William A. Thomas, 
promoted from Second to First Lieutenant 
November 1, 1846 ; Thomas S. Livingston, 
Second Lieutenant. Sergeants — John Bag- 
well, Gazaway Elkins, J.acob Casey and 
Marcus D. Bruce. Corporals — • Joseph F. 
Thomasson, John Q. A. Bay, William Summers 



and John McConnell. Privates — Thomas J. 
Atchison, Peter Bean, James R. Brown, 
Thomas H. Ballard, Eli Blalock, John Brady, 
Samuel Bullock, John Butler, James C. Bate- 
man, Benjamin Buckout, Loring R. Beal, 
James F. Caldwell, James A. Donohoo, Will- 
iam H. Dorris, Jesse J. Fly, Abraham W. 
Fields, Nicholas Gray, J. J. Garrison, James 
M. Galbraith, James Hull, Thomas Harlow, 
John Hawkins, Jesse Hawkins, Marcus 
Hailes, William Hicks, Albert Hailes, Johnson 
Hatfield, George Knox, James Kelle}-, John B. 
Lynch, John T. Lisenby, James W. Lewty, 
James Murphy, John Nielburn, Alexander 
Moore, James McCarver, Pleasant McFarlaud, 
Andrew McGivin, Edward McAtee, James C. 
Overbay, Benjamin Patterson, John M. Poston, 
James Scott, H. H. Wilkerson, Quincy A. 
Wilbanks. James Westcott and David H. 
Warren. Discharged — Sergt. William B. 
Braden, and Privates Joseph T. Atchison, 
Samuel W. Avant, William Foster, Alexander 
M. Hill, E. B. Harvey, Benj. Ivey, William J. 
Crisel, L. C. -Moss, William R. McClenden, S. 
R. Owens, John E. Xewby, Robert B. Rankin, 
Charles W. Stearns, James E. Summers, Will- 
iam J. Stephenson, Daniel Smith, P. T. Thur- 
man, James Teeters, Benjamin Veasy, J. A. 
Wallace, V. P. Williamson, Harrison Wilkey, 
John Yearwood, John Williams, all on surgeons 
certificate of disability. Died — Corporals James 
Bruce, January 16. 1847, en route to Tampico. 
Mexico, and James Wimberl}- (killed) April 
30, 1847, near Jalapa, Mexico. Privates 
Jonathan H. Breeze, died December 6. 1846, 
in general hospital at Blatamoras ; Moses 
Harlow, died October 26, 1846, in hospital at 
Matamoras; Joseph Harvey, May 13, 1847, 
fell overboard on the way to New Orleans ; 
James C. Newby, died August 13, 1846, at 
Brazos Santiago,)Texas. 

The company left Mount Vernon on the 18th 
of June, and marched to Alton, the place of 
rendezvous, where the regiments, after they 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY 



347 



were organized and equipped, embariced for 
Mexico. They saw hard service during their 
term, and were at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, and 
in other battles and sliirmishes. At Matamo- 
ras, the companj- was divided, a part of it under 
Lieut. Casey going to Comargo in charge of a 
wagon train, the main part, under Capt. Hiclis, 
remaining on guard duty at Matamoras. Lieut. 
Casey's squad, after remaining a month at 
Comargo, was ordered back to Matamoras to 
report to Gen. Taylor. Lieut. Casey, from 
failing health resigned here and returned home. 
In January, Gen. Taylor marched for Buena 
Vista, but Gen. Shield's command, to which the 
Mount Vernon troops belonged, was ordered to 
report to Gen. Scott at Vera Cruz. After the 
surrender of Vera Cruz, the next move was on 
Cerro Gordo. In the operations here, they 
were actively engaged, and acquitted them- 
selves with honor and distinction. Their cour- 
age at Cerro Gordo elicited from Gen. Twiggs 
the well-merited compliment ; " Well, I never 
saw such fellows as you Illinois men are in my 
life 1 Here the regulars are broke down and 
the horses are all given out, and you darned 
ragged rascals pitching around like squirrels, 
or something that never get tired and hungry." 

After the capture of Jalapa, they remained 
in camp on the Puebla road until their term of 
service had expired, when they returned home 
and were discharged. 

The second company was enrolled at Mount 
Vernon June 3, 1847, under the President's 
second call for troops. The rank and file were 
as follows : James Bowman, Captain ; he died 
at Jalapa December 28, 1847, and L. H. Powell 
became Captain ; Eli D. Anderson was 
First Lieutenant ; he died at Vera Cruz Sep- 
tember 11, 1847, of yellow fever, and Willis B. 
Holder was promoted to First Lieutenant ; he 
died at Jalapa January 2, 1848, and James B. 
Hinde became First Lieutenant ; H. B. Ncwby, 
Jr., Second Lieutenant ; he died at National 
Bridge September 16, 1847, of yellow fever. 



and J. J. Anderson became Second Lieutenant. 
A. H. Cox and Jacob Keller were also pro- 
moted to Second Lieutenants. Sergeants — 
Jonathan Wells, Gilford D. Connolly, John P. 
Newell and Jonathan S. Cook. Corporals^ 
Edward Bond, Robert R. Ingram, Elias M. 
Holmes and William Bullock. Privates — John 
Ames, R. C. Anderson, Calvin M. Brown, Will- 
iam Cassidy, James Cummins, Richard Chil- 
ders, Martin Clark, Thomas D. Crey, Julian 
Elee, John B. Green, Caleb Godfrey, Newton 

A. Gastin, R. S. Hillhouse, Lewis Johnson 
Henderson Kimball, Peter Kaltenbach, A. J. 
Kinman, Damon C. Kennedy, Josiah McCor- 
mick, Preston McCulloch, William McCassilin, 
Thomas Mullen, Aaron Messecher, Martin 
McRorgh, James McDonald, Job A. Orton, 
James L. Osborne, Welcome Root, John Rose, 
Andrew Stephens, Alonzo Soule, Oliver Safford, 
Laurence Stull, Jacob Sanders, William A 
Thornton, Thomas J. Vance, Isaac Wilson 
John D. Watts, Thomas Weymon, Bennett M. 
Weldon, Sherman D. Wood and Henry Went- 
worth. Died— Sergeant James Mathewson, in 
hospital at Vera Cruz October 28, 1847 ; Ser- 
geant Benjamin F. Bogan, in hospital at Jalapa, 
Mexico, January 11, 1848; Corporal William 
0. Cook, in liospital at Jalapa December 2, 
1847 ; Corporal Jonathan Reilly, in General 
Hospital at New Orleans September 14, 1847. 
Privates, died — John Bodine, November 13, 
1847, General Hospital at New Orleans ; Mat- 
thew Ballard, November 22, 1847, General 
Hospital at Vera Cruz ; Hiram Bruce, May 17, 
1847, at Puebla; William Cummins, December 
18, 1847, in Regimental Hospital, Jalapa ; John 
Crooms, February 1, 1848, at Jalapa ; Dillard 

B. Caster, January 15, 1848, at Jalapa; Will 
iam Clark, December 14, 1847, at Jalapa ; 
Isaac Dawson, January 2, 1848, at Jalapa ; 
Joseph Dorrell, September 10,1847, in General 
Hospital at Vera Cruz ; George W. Dornell, 
August 17, 1847, at Jalapa ; James F. Griffith, 
December 16, 1847, at Jalapa ; Robert Good- 



248 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



rich, August 28, 1847, in General Hospital at 
New Orleans ; John Gilbert, May 4, 1848, in 
General Hospital at Puebla ; John A. Jenkins, 
September 17, 1847, in General Hospital at 
Vera Cruz ; William Knox, April 21, 1848, at 
Puebla; John Kfller, January 11, 1848, at 
Jalapa ; John Mylett, December 16, 1847, at 
Jalapa ; Hiram Leonard, December 2, 1847, at 
Jalapa ; Thomas A. Long, November 24, 1847, 
at Vera Cruz ; Henry Lawson, December 1, 
1347, at New Orleans ; Reuben Light, Decem- 
ber 2, 1847, at Jalapa ; Zedick Marlow, De- 
cember 1, 1847, at Jalapa ; William R. Maynor, 
June 30, 1847, at Carrolton, La., James Mc- 
Connell, September 12, 1847, at Camp Bergara, 
Mexico ; William N. Moss, August 16, 1847, 
at Alton, 111. ; John McLaughlin, April 2, 1848, 
at Puebla ; Henry Piper, December 5, 1847, at 
Jalapa; William Pierce, October 12, 1847, at 
Vera Cruz ; John Redmon, December 29. 1847, 
at Jalapa ; William Reynolds, March 5, 1848, 
at Jalapa ; William G. Stewart, January 23, 
1848, at Jalapa ; John H. Stull, December 20, 
1847, at Camp Bergara ; Wright Taylor, May 
6, 1848, at New Orleans ; William G. Worley, 
September 10, 1847, at Vera Cruz ; Charles 
Weston, September 2, 1847, at Camp Bergara ; 
Thomas A. White, February 1, 1848, at Jalapa, 
and Daniel Wallace, February 15, 1848, at 
Jalapa. Discharged — Sergeant Jeremiah Mor- 
gan, disabilitj- ; Privates William Baker, Will- 
iam C. Brooks, Clinton Brown, Robert Ballard, 
Oliver Forward, George W. Green, S. A. Honey, 
Arthur Leach, Robert Osborne and John 
Vickey for disability. The company was A of 
the Second Regiment, commanded by James 
Collins, Colonel, Stephen G. Hicks, of Mount 
Vernon, Lieutenant Colonel, and Thomas S. 
Livingston, Major. 

The company proceeded to Alton, and there 
on the 26lh of June, 1847, was mustered into 
the United States service. Maj. Noah John- 
ston, of Mount Vernon, was Paj'master of the 
army during the last years of the war, and a 



more faithful officer in that important line of 
duty never wore the livery of Uncle Sam. The 
troops did not leave Alton until the 13th of 
August, and on the last day of the month they 
arrived at Vera Cruz. They were on active 
duty until after the close of the war, though 
they were engaged in no hard fighting. On the 
2d of June, they were ordered home, and 
arrived at Alton July 7, where they were in 
due time paid off and discharged. 

The Rebellion. — After the close of the Mexi- 
can war, for a little more than a decade, we 
remained in peace and tranquillity, save an oc- 
casional skirmish with the Indians. But war 
clouds were gathering, and our political atmos- 
phere foreboded the coming storm. No outside 
foe or foreign enemy, however, now opposed 
us. Internal dissensions were shaking the 
countr}' from center to circumference, and it 
bade fair to become a " house divided against 
itself" In 1860, the storm grew dark and 
angry, and at the election of Abraham Lincoln 
to the Presidency, and his inauguration in 1861, 
it burst in all its fury. It involved us in a 
civil war, the magnitude of which the world 
had never before seen. When the stars and 
stripes were hauled down from the battlements 
of Sumter, and the palmetto of the so-called 
Confederacj' raised in its stead, it set the coun- 
try in a blaze of excitement. Old soldiers who 
had fought in the Black Hawk and Mexican 
wars came to the front, and scarcelv had the 
President made his first call for troops ere the 
quota was filled, and many left out who were 
clamoring to enlist. JeflTerson County was no 
laggard in the path of dutj-, and her patriotism 
was equal to any of her sister counties. She 
was not into the fraj- quite as soon as many 
other counties, but when once in she stuck to 
it until the old flag waved in triumph again 
over every State and Territory. 

The Fortieth Infantry is the first regiment 
in which we find the county represented, and 
only in this by a ver)' few men and officers. 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY 



249 



The regiment was made up principally in Mar- 
ion, Wayne, Hamilton and Franklin Counties, 
with a few representatives, as we have said, 
from this county. It was commanded by that 
brave old warrior-hero of the Black Hawk and 
Mexican wars — Stephen G. Hicks. John W. 
Baugh was Adjutant, and Albion F. Taylor, 
Quartermaster, both honorable citizens of Mount 
Vernon, and perhaps others, of whom sketclies 
will be found in the biographical department 
of this volume. 

Stephen Or. Hicks, a Sergeant in the Black 
Hawk war, a Captain, and afterward Lieutenant 
Colonel in the Mexican war, and Colonel of 
this (the Fortieth) regiment, was born for a sol- 
dier. He was the son of a soldier, possessed 
all the elements for a good soldier, and was 
one than whom none braver ever wore the 
uniform, nor followed the flag of the Union. 
He was bora February 22 (the anniversary 
of Washington's birthday), 1809, in Jackson 
County, Ga., and was the son of John Hicks, 
one of the seven men killed in the battle of 
New Orleans, January 8, 1815. Hence, he was 
left an orphan at the age of six years, with 
few advantages for education or mental culture. 
But he was an energetic lad, had a vigorous 
body and an active mind, that could not be 
content in idleness. After his father's death, 
his mother married Jacob Weldon, by whom 
young Stephen considered he was cruelly 
treated, and long before arriving at manhood 
he left the parental roof and hired to a man 
living near SpringQeld.. He worked during the 
summer, and went to school in winter, thus 
picking up a moderate education, and finally 
he found his way to the lead mines at Galena. 
Returning a few j-ears later, he worked at the 
carpenter's trade with iiis uncle, Carter Wilkey. 
When the Black Hawk war broke out in 1832 
he was among the first to enlist, and was ap- 
pointed First Sergeant of Capt. Bowman's 
Company, in which position he faithfully served 
during the war. He was married, in October, 



1829, to Miss Eliza R. Maxey, a daughter of 
Burchett Maxey, who still survives him, and is 
a resident of Mount Vernon. Mr. Hicks rep- 
resented Jefferson Count}' in the Lower House 
of the State Legislature from 1842 t6 1848, 
and as a legislator proved himself worthy and 
efficient, receiving the highest commendations 
of his constituents. He studied law, was ad- 
mitted to the bar, and practiced law for a 
number of years. 

At the breaking-out of the Mexican war, 
Col. Hicks recruited Company H, of the Third 
Regiment (Col. Foreman), and when his term 
of service had expired, he re-enlisted as a pri- 
vate, but was promoted Lieutenant Colonel of 
the Second Regiment as re-organized, before it 
left Alton, the place of rendezvous. His rec- 
ord throughout the Mexican war was that of 
an excellent and efficient officer, and a brave 
soldier. The following incident is illustrative 
of the man, and of his courage and bravery : 
A bad feeling was engendered during the first 
year of the war between Maj. Marshall and 
himself, and in their difference Col. Hicks pro- 
posed to go down on the river bank and fight 
it out. Maj. Marshall accepted the proposition, 
and, armed with pistols, they were about to 
test each other's courage, when the Lieutenant 
Colonel of their regiment found it out, and put 
a stop to it. He and Lieut. Bagwell had a lit- 
tle " spat " also during the first jear in Mexico, 
in which Bagwell (juestioned Hicks' bravery. 
In the battle of Cerro Gordo, when bullets were 
flying as thick as hail, Hicks held his hand 
aloft, and cried out, •' Lieut. Bagwell, show 
your hand, and we will see who is the bravest." 
Both men were brave even to rashness. Bag- 
well was at one time Sheriff of Jefferson Coun- 
ty. He recruited a company during the late 
war, and joined the confederate army, and was 
killed in the battle of Shiloh, gallantly fighting 
at the head of his men. Hicks became Colonel, 
as we have seen, of the Fortieth Infantrj', 
in the late rebellion, and served his (Jov- 



250 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



ernment faithfully to the close of the 
war. He was severely wounded in the bat- 
tle of Shiloh. while leading his regiment in 
the thickest of the fight. Waving his sword 
in the direction of the enemy, and turning in 
his saddle to cheer his men, a ball struck him 
in the back or shoulder, and he fell from his 
horse. His men swept on to avenge his fall, 
and Col. Hicks crawled a half a mile to water, 
and washed the blood from the wound with his 
own hand. During his service in the late war, 
he had four horses shot under him. After he 
recovered from his wounds, Gen Sherman, 
struck with the bravery of Col. Hicks, and in 
consideration of the wounds he had received, 
offered him the command of any post between 
Cairo and New Orleans. Col. Hicks had been 
stationed for awhile at Paducah in the early 
part of the war, and, liking the place, told Gen. 
Sherman he would accept the command of Pa- 
ducah. which Sherman readily granted. Hicks 
also asked that Capt. Taylor, his Regimental 
Quartermaster, and who was his son-in-law, 
might be detached, and go with him as Post 
Adjutant. This Gen. Sherman also granted. 
Col. Hicks remained in command of Paducah 
from October, 1863, for about one and one-half 
years, and then went to Columbus, where he 
remained in command until after the close of 
the war. While in command at Paducah, the 
place was attacked by the confederate Gen. 
Forrest, who sent in a demand to Col. Hicks 
for its unconditional surrender, otherwise no 
quarter would be shown if it was captured by 
force. Hicks sent him word that his Govern- 
ment had placed him there to protect its prop- 
erty, and he would prove a traitor if he surren- 
dered it, and wound up by telling Forrest he 
would have to come and take it. Gen. Thomp- 
son, of Mayfield, Ky., who commanded a bri- 
gade, had asked the favor of Forrest to let 
him take the fort where Hicks commanded in 
person, and was granted the request. He 
attacked it with great fury, but was struck by a 



cannon ball and literally torn in pieces, his 
bowels being scattered over the ground, and a 
portion of his spinal column being thrown sev- 
eral rods from where he fell. The battle was 
terrible while it lasted, the rebels losing 1.200 
men in killed and wounded. The Union forces, 
who were protected b}- a fort, lost but seventeen 
killed and a number wounded. 

Col. Hicks remained in the service until the 
establishment of peace. His defense of Padu- 
cah was one of the most brilliant achievements 
of the war, and won for him unqualified praise, 
but did not bring the promotion he merited. 
After his return from the war, he made his 
home in Salem, Marion County, where he had 
some time lived. He died there December 14, 
1869, and his widow now lives in Mount Ver- 
non, a highly respected elderly lady. 

The Forty-fourth Infantry was a regiment in 
which Jeflferson County was well represented. 
Company F contained some fifteen or twenty 
men from this county, together with its first 
and Second Lieutenants, William Hicks and 
George W. Allen. Hicks resigned April 5, 
1862, and Allen was promoted from Second to 
First Lieutenant, and resigned January 1. 1865. 
The other commissioned officers of the company 
were from Ashley and Richview. 

Company I was almost wholly from this 
county, and was enrolled with the following 
commissioned officers ; Jasper Partridge, Cap- 
tain ; Russell Brown, First Lieutenant ; and 
Jesse C. Bliss, Second Lieutenant. Capt. Part- 
ridge and First Lieut. Brown were mustered 
out at the end of three years, and Lieut. Charles 
M. Lyon was promoted to Captain of the vet- 
eran company, and T. J. Abbott became First 
Lieutenant. Second Lieut. Bliss was mustered 
out at the end of his term, and Andrew J. 
Young appointed Second Lieuteuant under re- 
organization. The non-commissioned officers 
were Cyrus A. Barrett, John A. Wall and Mor- 
ris H. Taylor, Sergeants ; and Learner B. Allen, 
Franklin S. Parker, Henry P. Daniel, Isaac 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



251 



Price, Edwin R. Bliss. Andrew J.Watson. Will- 
iam H. Pavey and John C. Crawford, Corpo- 
rals. Wall was discharged April 8, 1862, on 
account of wounds ; Taylor re-enlisted as a 
veteran ; Daniel was discharged April 8, 1862, 
from disability ; Price was killed at Stone River, 
Decemlier 31, 1862; Watson was discharged 
from disability May 29. 1862. and Pavey died 
at home, February 1, 1862. The others were 
mustered out with the regiment. 

The Forty-fourth Infantry was organized in 
August, 1861, at Camp Ellsworth, Chicago. It 
was mustered into the United States service on 
the 13th of September, and the next day pro- 
ceeded under orders to St. Louis, Mo., and took 
up its quarters in Benton Barracks. It was 
supplied with arms from the St. Louis arsenal, 
and on the 22d embarked on a steamer for Jef- 
ferson City, which was threatened at that time 
by the rebel Gen. Price, jubilant over his re- 
cent victory at Lexington. It remained here 
until the 29th, when it was ordered to Sedalia, 
where it was assigned to Gen. Sigel's division. 
Here it was engaged in drilling, camp duty, 
scouting, foraging, etc., until the 13th of Octo- 
ber, when the army took up its line of march 
toward Springfield, Mo., arriving at that place 
a little too late to participate in the bloody 
charge led by Maj. Zagonia (of Gen. Fremont's 
body guard) against the rebel cavalry stationed 
there. With much marching and counter- 
marching, and in dailj- expectation of meeting 
the enemy, the fall and winter wore awaj-, and 
on the 2d of February, 1862, Gen. Curtis hav- 
ing assumed command of the army, it marched 
from RoUa, where it had been for some time, 
back toward Springfield, where Gen. Price was j 
concentrating his forces, with the intention of i 
offering fight should he be attacked. But he 
'' retired in good order," and the Union forces 
took possession of the town on the 13th with- 
out serious opposition. Then began an excit- 
ing chase, which many of Company I doubtless 
still remember, as the Forty-fourth was contin- 



ally in advance until the army reached Camp 
Halleck, Benton Count}-, Ark. The pursuit 
was abandoned on the 20th of February, and 
the troops were allowed a few days' rest after 
their arduous service. They had marched four 
consecutive days, during the most inclement 
weather (there being six inches of snow a part 
of the time on the ground) and skirmishing 
almost continually during the last week's march. 
The troops remained here until the 5th of 
March, when news was received that the com- 
bined forces of Van Dorn, Price and McCul- 
lough were advancing to attack them, when 
they moved toward Sugar Creek Valley, and in 
the afternoon of the sixth the rear guard was 
attacked by the enemy and repulsed. This 
was the opening of the terrible battle of Pea 
Ridge, which resulted so disastrousl}- to the 
rebels. Tlie Foi-ty-fourth took a prominent 
part in it, and after the enemy had been routed 
was one of the regiments selected to follow up 
the retreat. For three days they pursued the 
fleeing rebels, capturing one stand of colors, 
and taking many hundred prisoners, and several 
pieces of artillery. They remained in this 
vicinity until the 5th of May, when they moved 
toward Forsythe, Mo., but was ordered back to 
Batesville, Ark. Here the army was re-organ- 
ized, and the Forty-fourth became a part of the 
brigade commanded by Gen. Osterhaus. On 
the 8th, the army was put in motion, and 
started for Little Rock, but orders were received 
ordering it to Cape Girardeau, Mo., where, upon 
its arrival, it embarked for Pittsburg Landing, 
to re-enforce the troops then besieging Corinth. 
Miss. The troops arrived at Pittsburg Land- 
ing on the 26th, and the next day marched up 
within supporting distance of the main body of 
the army, arriving two days before the evacu- 
ation of Corinth. After the evacuation, the 
brigade to which the forty-fourth belonged was 
attached to Gen. Pope's army, and sent in pur- 
suit of the retreating rebels, but owing to bad 
roads the pursuit was soon abandoned. The 



35i! 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUKTY. 



troops returned to Rienzi, Miss., and went into 
camp, wiiere tbej' remained until the 26th of 
August, when they were ordered to Covington, 
Ky.,to protect that place and Cincinnati, Ohio, 
against threatened attacks of the enemy. Tbey 
arrived there about the 1st of September, and 
were on duty there until the 17tb, when tbey 
crossed to Cincinnati and proceeded to Louis- 
ville, then threatened by Gen. Bragg. 

The command remained in Louisville until 
the 1st of October, and during the time, it was 
again re-organized, the Forty-fourth being 
assigned to the Thirty-fifth Brigade, Eleventh 
Division, Army of the Ohio. October 1, the 
command (including the Forty-fourth) started 
on the memorable campaign through Kentucky 
in pursuit of Gen. Bragg, and participated in 
the battle of Perry ville on the 8th, being at the 
time in the division commanded by Gen. Phil 
Sheridan. They followed in pursuit of the 
enemy to Crab Orchard, and on the 20th of 
October marched toward Bowling Green, 
arriving there on the 1st of November. Here 
Gen. Rosecrans assumed command, and on the 
4th the army took up the line of march toward 
Nashville, where it arrived on the 7th, reliev- 
ing the garrison at that place and re-opening 
communication with Louisville. On the 26th 
of December, the army moved against the enemy 
at Murfreesboro. The Forty -fourth was now 
attached to the Second Brigade, Third Division, 
Twentieth Army Corps, Col. Schaffer command- 
ing the brigade. Gen. Sheridan the division, 
and Gen. McCook the corps. The Forty- 
fourth took an active part in the bloody battle 
of Stone River, losing more than half its 
members, killed and wounded, Capt. Hosmer 
of Ashley, being among the killed. It re- 
mained with the army at Murfreesboro, until 
the 26th of June 1863, when it again marched 
to the front and crossed swords with the enemy 
at Hoover's Gap, Shelbyville and Tullahoma. 
In the early part of July, it proceeded to 
Stephenson, Ala., where it remained until the 



21st of August, when the movement began 
against Chattanooga. The Twentieth Corps 
moved down toward Rome, Ga., when the 
balance of the army was attacked near Chicka- 
mauga by Bragg and Longstreet. The Forty- 
fourth was ordered to return at once and join 
the main army, and after three days and nights 
of forced marches, it arrived on the field in time 
to take part in the desperate conflict of Septem- 
ber 19th and 20th. Falling back to Chattanooga, 
it remained there until the latter part of No- 
vember, when it again advanced, and on the 
25th was one of the foremost regiments in the 
bloody charge on Mission Ridge, Gen. Sheri- 
dan bestowing unmeasured praise upon it for 
having placed one of the first flags on the ene- 
my's works. Following the enemy next day, it 
captured many prisoners and several pieces of 
artillery. On the 27th, it was ordered back to 
Chattanooga, to prepare for a forced march to 
Knoxville, 150 miles distant, to relieve the 
forces then besieged by Gen. Longstreet, but 
arrived three days after the siege had been 
raised by Gen. Burnside. The Twentieth and 
Twenty-first Corps were consolidated at Chatta- 
nooga, and the Forty-fourth was assigned to 
the First Brigade, Second Division, Fourth 
Army Corps, Col. W. T. Sherman commanding 
the brigade. Gen. Sheridan the division, and 
Gen. Granger the corps. After considerable 
maneuvering, the troops went into camp at 
Blain's Cross Roads, where they were several 
times on the point of starvation, having, for 
da3-s at a time, nothing but corn in the ear, and 
but a limited supply of that. Said a writer upon 
the subject : " Nothing could more fully prove 
the patriotism of the men than the fact that 
here, on the point of starvation, exposed to the 
most inclement weather (it being so cold that 
the ink would freeze to the pen as the men 
signed their names), over three-fourths of the 
regiment voluntarily consented to serve three 
years more, for that Government for which 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



253 



they had suffered so much daring tlie past two 
and a half years." 

Tlie regiment remained at Blain's Cross 
Roads until the 12th of January, 1864, and 
then marched to Dandridge, Tenn. On the 
16th and 17th an attack was made by the ene- 
my in full force, and the Uniou forces fell back 
to Knoxville, and from there marched to 
Kingston, where they remained until the 30th, 
when the Forty-fourth was ordered to Chatta- 
nooga to receive veteran furlough. It arrived 
there on the 3d of February, and drew full 
rations for the first time in four months, and 
started home on the 18th, arriving at Chicago 
on the 1st of March. On the 4th the men were 
furloughed and started for their homes. From 
the time the regiment left its rendezvous in 
September, 1861, to the time of its re-enlistment, 
it had marched over five thousand miles. 

The Forty-fourth reached Nashville April 
14, 1864, on its way back to the field, and two 
days later marched toward Chattanooga, 
where it arrived on the 30th, moving from there 
to Cleveland, Tenn., where it was immediately 
ordered to the front with tlie main army, then 
moving toward Atlanta. It passed through 
nearly all the battles and skirmishes of the 
Atlanta campaign, among which were Buz- 
zard Roost, Rocky Faced Ridge, Resaca, 
Adairsville, Dallas, New Hope Church, Ken- 
esaw Mountain, Gulp's Farm, Chattahoochie 
River, Peach Tree Creek, Jonesboro and At- 
lanta. From the 28th of September it was on act- 
ive duty, engaged nearly every day in scouting, 
skirmishing or fighting until the 30th of No- 
vember, when it took part in the battle of 
Franklin, Tenn. This was one of the most 
desperate battles, while it lasted, in which the 
regiment was engaged during the war. The 
honor of winning the battle and saving the ar- 
my, in a general order, was given to the bri- 
gade of which the Forty fourth was a part. 
The next day the army reached Nashville, and 
the Forty-fourth took part in the battle of 



Nashville, December 15 and 16, and fol- 
lowed the broken columns of the rebel army 
to the Tennessee River. The army weut into 
camp at Iluntsville, Ala., on the 5th of Janu- 
ary, 1865, where the battered old Forty-fourth 
enjoyed a few weeks' rest. Its fighting was 
now about over. The confederacy fell soon 
after, and with the tableau at Appomattox, the 
curtain went down on the bloody drama. But 
the war-worn veterans of the Forty-fourth were 
not yet permitted to lay aside the trappings of 
war. On the 15th of June, it started, under 
orders, for New Orleans, arriving on the 22d, 
and after remaining thereuntil the 16th of July, 
it was ordered into Texas. It remained on 
duty in Texas until September 25, 1865, when 
it was ordered home, arriving at Springfield on 
the 15th of October, and was paid off and 
discharged. - 

The Forty-ninth Infantry is the next body in 
which we find Jefferson County represented. 
Company K was from this county, and its 
commissioned officers were as follows : Benja- 
min F. Wood, Captain ; Joseph Laur, First 
Lieutenant, and James G-. Gilbert, Second 
Lieutenant. Capt. Wood resigned June 10, 
1862 ; Lieut. Laur was promoted to Captain 
in his stead, and mustered out with the regi- 
ment September 9, 1865. Upon the pro- 
motion of Lieut. Laur, Second Lieut. James 
Lemmon became First Lieutenant. His 
term expired January 9, 1865, and Second 
Lieut. Jonathan Foster was promoted in his 
stead. Lieut. Gilbert resigned March 5, 1862, 
and James Lemmon was promoted to the 
vacancy, and afterward to First Lieutenant. 
Edward Barbee became Second Lieutenant 
upon the promotion of Lieut. Lemmon ; he 
resigned July 5, 1865, and Jonathan Foster 
was promoted to fill the vacancy. Foster was 
promoted to First Lieutenant, when John S. 
Brooks became Second Lieutenant, and as such 
was mustered out with the regiment. 

The Forty-ninth Infantry, Col. William R. 



254 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



Morrison commanding, was organized al Camp 
Butler December 31, 1861, and mustered into 
the United States service. On tiie 3d of Feb- 
ruary, 1862, it was ordered to Cairo, 111., and 
on the 8th it moved to Fort Henry, where it 
was assigned to the Third Brigade of McCler- 
nand's division. It moved to Fort Donelson 
on the 11th, and participated in that battle, 
losing fourteen men killed and thirty-seven 
wounded. Among the wounded was Col. Mor- 
rison, who commanded the brigade to which 
the Fort3'-nintli belonged. The regiment re- 
mained at Fort Donelson until the 4th of 
March, when the army was put in motion, and 
on the 6th the Forty-ninth, with other troops, 
embarked for Pittsburg Landing. It bore an 
active part in the battle of Shiloh April 6 and 
7, and lost in the two engagements seventeen 
killed and ninety-nine wounded. Among the 
wounded in this engagement were Lieut. Col 
Pease, commanding the regiment, and Maj. 
Bishop. It was engaged in the siege of Cor- 
inth, and on the 4th of June it moved to 
Bethel, where it was assigned to the division of 
Gen, John A. Logan, district of Jackson, 
Maj. Gen. McClernand commanding. On the 

th of March, 1863, the regiment moved from 
Bethel to Grand Junction, and from thence to 
Germantown, and on the 12th to White Station, 
where it was assigned to the Fourth Brigade, 
First Division, Sixteenth Armj- Corps, Col. 
Sanford commanding the brigade. Gen. Smith 
the division, and Gen. Hurlbut the corps. It 
was ordered to Helena, Ark., August 21 to 
join Gen. Steele's expedition against Little 
Rock. September 2 it joined the main array 
at Brownsville, Ark., and on the 10th partici- 
pated in the capture of Little Rock. From 
here it proceeded to Duval's Bluff, and from 
thence it returned to Memphis, where it arrived 
on the 21st of November. 

On the 15th of January, 1864, about three- 
fourths of the regiment re-enlisted, and were 
mustered as veterans, and were assigned to the 



Third Brigade, Col. Wolf commanding. Third 
Division, Gen. Smith, and the Sixteenth Arm}- 
Corps. It remained on active dut}', was with 
Gen. Sherman ^on the Meridian campaign, was 
assigned to the Red River expedition and 
served in Louisiana until June 24, when it 
was ordered home on veteran furlough. The 
non-veterans remained in the field, commanded 
b}' Capt. Logan, and participated in the battle 
of Tupelo Julj' 14 and 15 while their comrades 
were at home enjoying themselves. At the 
expiration of their furlough, the veterans ren- 
dezvoused at Centralia, and proceeded to Cairo, 
and from thence to Memphis and Holly Springs, 
where they joined the command. August 12, 
they participated in the Oxford expedition, and 
on the 30th of September embarked for Jeffer- 
son Barracks, Mo., and proceeded to Franklin. 
They drove the enemy from that place, and 
with the main army went in pursuit of Gen. 
Price, after which the Forty-ninth returned to 
St. Louis on the 18th of November. From St. 
Louis thej- were ordered to Nashville, Tenn,, 
where they arrived December 1, and took part 
in that bloody battle on the 15th and 16th, It 
was ordered to Paducah, Ky., on the 24th of 
December, where the non-veterans were mus- 
tered out of the service, their term of enlist- 
ment having expired. The veterans remained 
on garrison duty at Paducah until September 
9, 1865, when they were ordered to Camp But- 
ler, 111., and on the 15th were paid off and dis- 
charged. 

The Sixtieth Infantry contained more Jeffer- 
son County men, perhaps, than an}- other regi- 
ment of the war. Its second Colonel, William 
B. Anderson, is a native of the county, has al- 
ways lived here, and is known to nearly every 
man, woman and child ; the last Colonel of the 
regiment, George W. Evans, is now a promi- 
nent citizen of Mount Vernon ; the last Quar- 
termaster, James H. Rogers, was also from the 
county ; while Jefferson contributed to nearly 
every company, and very largely to C, D and 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



255 



G, furnishing more than half the men in those 
companies. 

William B. Anderson, who, upon the death 
of Col. Toler — the First Colonel of the Sixtieth 
— succeeded to the command of the regiment, 
was born in Mount Vernon April 2, 1830, and 
is a son of Gov. Stinson H. and Candace 
(Chickering) Anderson. He was educated in 
the common schools of Jefferson County, and 
at McKendree College, Lebanon, 111., and at 
the age of twenty-one years began the study of 
the law under Judge Scales, then on the Su- 
preme bench. Mr. Anderson was admitted to 
the bar in 1857, but owing to failing health re- 
sulting from a too close application to study, 
he gave up a profession in which he was emi- 
nently fitted to shine as an ornament, and be- 
took himself to the more humble life of a 
farmer. Thus was lost to the legal profession 
a man who, had he remained at the bar, would 
no doubt have become one of the leading law- 
yers of Southern Illinois. 

Mr. Anderson soon displayed an interest in 
the political affairs of the county, and in 18,i6 
was elected Representative in the Lower House 
of the State Legislature, and re-elected in 1858. 
He took an active part in both sessions, which 
were rather stormj', as political controvers3-, 
consequent upon the recent organization of the 
Republican party, ran high. Such were the 
strength and solidity of his abilities that he 
won the most honorable position among the 
members of those bodies. He introduced a 
resolution in the session of 1856 to prohibit 
special legislation, and to make all legisl.ation 
general, as special legislation had been carried 
to such excess as to become a nuisance, and 
greatly retard business. He fought it all the 
way to the end, but was overpowered at last. 
But he could not give it up, and in the Consti- 
tutional Convention, some fifteen years later, 
lie again brought it up, and succeeded in hav- 
ing it engrafted in the new constitution. It 
was a sore stroke to Ciiicago. and still rankles 



in her people. The onl3- way that Chicago can 
now secure special legislation is through a gen- 
eral act "applying to counties of 100,000 in- 
habitants and upward." 

But it is as a soldier, perhaps, that Mr. An- 
derson is best fitted for a noble and brilliant 
career. It has lieen said " that tiie poet is 
born, not made," and to the soldier does the 
saying apply with equal truth, as proven by 
man}' of our citizen soldiers during the late 
civil war. Scores of officers could be enumer- 
ated who never saw West Point, and who re- 
tired from the army at the close of the rebell- 
ion, the equal in militarj" talent and ability oT 
any graduate of West Point that ever wore 
sword. It is the natural talent for a trade or 
profession that qualifies a man to adorn that 
trade or profession, and, while education may 
the better fit him for them, yet education alone 
will not make a mechanic, a lawyer, or a sol- 
dier. 

lu February, 1862, Mr. Anderson enlisted as 
a private soldier in Companj' B, of the Sixtieth 
Illinois Volunteer Infantry. But upon the 
organization of the regiment, which took place 
on the 17th, at Camp DuBois, Illinois, he was 
made its Lieutenant Colonel, Silas C. Toler, of 
Jonesboro, being Colonel. Col. Toler died 
.March 2, 1863, and Lieut. Col. Anderson was 
promoted Colonel in his place. March 13, 
1865, he was promoted to Brigadier General for 
brave and meritorious service, a promotion 
more than merited, though long deferred. Un- 
fortunately for Gen. Anderson's military pre- 
ferment, he was of the wrong political faith, 
and unlike some of his brotiier officers from 
Southern Illinois, he refused to change his poli- 
tics for the sake of official advancement. He 
adhered to the principle that " the leopard can- 
not change his spots, nor the Ethiopian his 
skin " (consistently, at least), and saw frequent 
examples of men selling their political opinions 
for military rank. Lo3-al to the core, and brave 
as a Roman warrior, he was doomed to the hu- 



256 



HISTORY OF JEFFEKSOX COUNTY. 



miliation of witnessing promotion upon promo- 
tion over his liead wliolly for political reasons. 
And, when, in view of liis long and faithful 
service, promotion could no longer be withheld, 
it came somewhat grudgingly, or indifferently 
rather, much as we might throw a bone to a 
dog. The war then, was. in a measure, over, 
and tlie hard fighting about through with, and 
Gen. Anderson, soon after his promotion as 
Brigadier General, resigned, and returned to his 
home in Jefferson County. 

Gen. Anderson was a brave and efficient 
soldier, and seemed born for military service. 
That he did not receive his just deserts, is a 
shame and a reproach upon the Government he 
faithfully served through four lon^ and terri- 
ble years. As a Major General, he would have 
won a name and a fame equaled by few and 
surpassed by none of Illinois' citizen soldiers. 
But his political principles, to which was no 
doubt added a jealousy of his growing rep- 
utation, conceived by other officers, whose 
ambition led them to covet his hard-earned 
laurels, kept him in the background, while 
those less worthy and less qualified rose to 
prominence. The language of the late 
George D. Prentice seems eminently appro- 
priate here : 
^ ' ■ The flame 

Had fallen, and its high and fitful gleams 
Perchance had faded, but the living fires 
Still glowed beneath the ashes." 

After his return from the army, Gen. An- 
derson again entered upon farm life, but in 
1869 he was elected to the Constitutional 
Convention, and in 1871, upon the death of 
Hon. S. K. Casey, he was elected to fill out 
his unexpired term in the State Senate. In 
1874, he was elected upon the Independent 
Greenback ticket to the National Congress, 
and in 1876 came within two votes of being 
elected to the United States Senate, instead 
of Hon. David Davis, and but for a little 



private jealousy perhaps would have been 
chosen to that honorable position. In 1882, 
he was elected County Judge, which position 
he now occupies. 

Col. George W. Evans, who was mustered 
out as the commanding officer of the Sixtieth 
Infantiy, was a citizen of Johnson County, 
111., at the breaking-out of the war. He 
there recruited Company E. of the Sixtieth, 
of which he was made Captain. He was 
promoted Major of the regiment March 2, 
1863, and on the 21st of May following, was 
promoted Lieutenant Colonel, in place of 
Col. Hess, who had resigned. Upon the res- 
ignation of Gen. Anderson, Col. Evans suc- 
ceeded to the command of the regiment, and 
was promoted to Colonel May 11, 1865, but 
never mustered as such. He was mustered 
out with the regiment, July 31, 1865, as 
Lieutenant Colonel. 

Col. Evans was a brave, gallant and faith- 
ful soldier. During his whole term of serv- 
ice, he never missed a march or a battle in 
which his regiment participated. He was in 
all the principal battles from Nashville to 
the sea. and was at the surrender of Gen. 
Joe Johnston, and with his gallant old reg- 
iment went to Washington via Richmond, 
parti'^ipated in the grand review at Washing- 
ton, and was finally mustered out with it at 
Louisville, Ky. He then returned to Illi- 
nois, and has since been a citizen of Jeffer- 
son County. 

Company C, of the Sixtieth, in which 
Jefferson CounLy was largely represented, 
was enrolled with the following commis- 
sioned officers : John B. Moss, Captain ; 
Thomas J. Rhodes, First Lieutenant, and 
Mark Hailes, Second Lieutenant. Capt. 
Moss resigned December 19, 1862, and Sim- 
eon Walker was promoted to the vacancy. 
His term expired March U, 1865, and John 
B. Allen was promoted Captain, but de- 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



257 



clined the commission, and resigned as First 
Lieutenant, April 5, 1865, -when Francis L. 
Ferguson was promoted Captain, and as such 
was mustered out with the regiment, July 31, 
1865. First Lieut. Rhodes was promoted to 
Captain of Company A, and Mark Hailes be- 
came First Lieutenant. December 20, 1862, 
John R. Allen succeeded him as First Lieu- 
tenant, and upon his resignation Francis L. 
Ferguson becames First and was promoted 
Captain, when James H. Guthrie was pro- 
moted First Lieutenant, and was mustered 
out with the regiment. Second Lieut. Mark 
Hailes was promoted, and Simeon Walker 
became Second ; he also was promoted and 
was succeeded as Second by John Tweedy, 
who resigned January 25, 1864, and Edward 
A. Patterson was promoted to Second Lieu- 
tenant, but mustered out with the regiment 
as Sergeant. 

Company D, which contained some forty 
odd men from this county, went into the 
service with the following commissioned ofiS- 
cers : Alfred Davis, of McLeansboro, 
Captain ; Edmund D. Choisser, of Moores- 
ville, First Lieutenant, and James Stull, 
Second Lieutenant. Capt. Davis resigned, 
and was succeeded by Capt. L. S. Wilbanks, 
who also resigned, and was succeeded by 
John B. Coleman. CajJt. Coleman was killed 
July 26, 1864, during the Atlanta compaign. 
Green S. Stuart then became Captain, re- 
signed, and William H. Thorp was pro- 
moted Captain and mustered out with the 
regiment. First Lieut. Choisser resigned, 
and was succeeded by Lieut. Coleman, who, 
upon promotion, was succeeded by Anozi 
Kuiffen. Lieut Knififen was killed May 12, 
1864, and Green W. Stewart became First 
Lieutenant, who was promoted, and suc- 
ceeded as First by William H. Thorpe ; he 
was also promoted and Eli Webb became 
First Lieutenant. Second Lieut. Stull re- 



I 



signed and Anozi Kniffen was promoted in 
his stead, and upon his own promotion was 
succeeded by Alfred Kniffin, who resigned 
January 9, 1864, and was succeeded by M. 
W. Smith, who was mustered out with the 
regiment. 

Company G also contained a number of 
Jefferson County men, and the following com- 
missioned officers from the county: Jehu J. 
Maxey, the First Lieutenant and the second 
Captain of the company; Cornelius N. Breeze, 
the second First Lieutenant, and E. H. Red- 
burn the third Second Lieutenant of the com- 
pany; while Company I also contained men 
from the county, and the following com- 
missioned officers: John Frizell, the first 
Captain, Asa Hawkins, the secoud Second and 
the second First Lieutenant, and John W. 
Moses, the third and John A. Johnson the 
foui'th Second Lieutenants of the company. 

The Sixtieth Infantry was organized at 
Camp Du Bois February 17, 1862, and 
mustered into the United States service. On 
the 22d, it was ordered to Cairo, and March 
14 it moved to Island No. 10. After the 
surrender of that place, it returned to Co- 
lumbus, Ky., and afterward to Cairo. It was 
ordered to the Tennessee River on the 7th of 
May, and on the 12th arrived at Hamburg 
Landing, where it was assigned to the Sec- 
ond Brigade, First Division, Army of the Mis- 
sissippi, Col. Charles M. Lynn of Michigan 
commanding the brigade. The Sixtieth was 
engaged in the siege of Corinth, and was a 
part of the force that pursued the enemy 
beyond Booneville, Miss. July 21, it was 
ordered to Tuscumbia, Ala., thence to Nash- 
ville, where it arrived September 12, and 
where it remained during the siege. On the 
7th of November it was engaged in repelling 
an attack on Edgefield, made by Gen. Mor- 
gan. December 12, it was transferred to 
the Second Brigade, Third Division, Foiirth 



258 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



Army Corps, and on the 5th of January, 1863, 
it had a skirmish with Wheeler's cavalry, 
between Nashville and Miirfreesboro, in 
which the latter were repulsed. After the 
battle of Murfreesboro, the Sixtieth returned 
to Nashville, and on the 2d of March Col. 
Toler died, and Lieut. Col. Anderson suc- 
ceeded to the command. July 20, the regi- 
ment moved to Murfreesboro, and August 26 
it proceeded via Columbia, Athens, Huntsville 
and Stevenson, to Dallas, Tex., where it 
arrived the 12th of November. Here the 
Sixtieth was assigned to the First Brigade, 
Second Division and Fourteenth Army Corps, 
and participated in the battle of Chattanooga 
and took part in the memorable march to 
Knoxville. Ragged and footsore, the tat- 
tered regiment returned to ChattaQOoara, 
arriving December 24, and going into winter 
quarters at Rossville. February 22, 1864, 
about three fourths of the regiment re en- 
listed, and on the 26th took part in the 
reconnoissance toward Dalton, Ga., which 
resulted in the battle of Buzzard Roost. In 
this battle the Sixtieth suffered severely, 
forty-two being killed and wounded. On 
the 6th of March, the regiment, or the veterans 
of it, was sent home to Illinois on furlough. 
When its veteran furlough had expired, the 
regiment returned to the iield via Louisville, 
Nashville and Chattanooga to Rossville. 
The Atlanta campaign commenced on the 2d 
of May, and the Sixtieth bore an honorable 
part in those stirring times. It participated 
in the battles of Ringgold, Dalton, Resaca, 
Rome, Dallas, New Hope Church, Kenesaw 
Mountain, Nickajack, Peach Tree Creek, 
Atlanta and Jonesboro. For its brave and 
gallant conduct at Jonesboro, September 1, 
the regiment received the highest praise, of 
both the division and corps commanders. 
It remained in camp at Atlanta until Sep- 
tember 29, when it moved to Florence, and 



October 10 it proceeded to Chattanooga. On 
the 18th it marched from La Fayette, Ga., to 
Gdtesville, and from thence to Atlanta. 
It took part in the famous march to the sea, 
and was in many ot the battles and skir- 
mishes of that hard campaign, that at Ben- 
tonville, March 19, 1865, being as severe as 
any in which the regiment was engaged dur- 
ing its long service. At one time, it was 
surrounded on all sides, but behaved gallant- 
ly, and finally extricated itself and escaped 
capture. April 10, it moved to Raleigh, N. 
C, and remained there until after the sur- 
render of Gen. Joe Johnston, when it pro- 
ceeded to Richmond, the quondam confederate 
capitol, and from thence to Washington, 
where, on the 14th of May, it participated 
in the grand review. 

The war was now ended, and the boys 
were eager to exchange the sword for the 
plow. On the 12th of June the regiment 
was ordered to Louisville, Ky., where it 
performed provost guard duty until July 21, 
when it was mustered out of the United 
States service. It then proceded to Camp 
Butler, 111., wheve it received final payment 
and discharge. 

The Eightieth Infantry is the next regi- 
ment in which the county was rej^resented. 
Company E was a Jefferson Coanty company, 
while Company H contained some Jefferson 
County men. Comjaany E was enrolled with 
the following commissioned officers: Stephen 
T. Stratton, Captain; Newton C. Pace, First 
Lieutenant; and Charles W. Pavey, Second 
Lieatenant. Capt. Stratton resigned De- 
cember 22. 1862, and was succeeded by 
Lieutenant Pace, who was honorably dis- 
charged May 15, 1865. Lieutenant Pavey 
was promoted to Captain, but was absent on 
detached duty at the muster out of the regi- 
ment. He is now Collector of Internal Rev- 
enue for this district. William Randall was 




V^r3-^L.^. 



USRakY 

>- THE 

JMIVERSITY aF ILLINOIS 



izr yis- "" '-*^* — - — - -- - e il~: — : : -: . . .-^ -was r- : 



- - arcL S^jutH^ 31. :ais£ 3wi - : . . i^ jiai uwi 

_~": ■ __^-- - - ;- - TTtTT >-^~to f KTir -; :. ' . — ' " rt 

_ - . ■ i'lmSS. IE " .-TTTTT IITT-^ T ,_ - i 

!^- -- - . ----- - ,-Hrfr, JlL 'ilr li£ -or _ , . -I '^^ 

cTtr ajt rT?Ti;grg . -aarr _ - ~ — yjinr. itti- ->»». 

~ m :maL ^ksqbL tat ^e 1S£ i£ Atas^ ^ns sl~ 



:-» S. jnTTg JKSiZ-~C JJEC3SE xntts y. jygS. -"iawiM^gg- XC CamSSBBT C, 



^zrr-^^s. JE ncnnnBrr zi_ inisr . ZiCtifm. : - iboc ifionmaimiE: 



: — e tisei^ l^s-- y.pwigHa. A=irr «Zae!^ aat -«ae sssintsf. 'u 



it 

' -" -- -- _ -- ;^- ---- ^ - - — - - ^ 

^ - - -a. 



-v;^ asEosBM. tt 3aii y '' ■[i , : < Oocss. Kmiiwi. snfeciisc af^arsir^ r?iiiLTcii 



263 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



ing and Bhoes. January 27, 1864, it broke 
camp and moved to Blue Springs, via Chat- 
tanooga, Cleveland and Charleston. It was 
engaged in the Atlanta campaign, and par- 
ticipated in the battles of Dalton, Resaca, 
Adairsville, Cassville, Dallas, Pine Mountain, 
Kenesaw Mountain, Marietta, Peach Tree 
Creek, Atlanta, Jonesboro and Lovejoy Sta- 
tion. During this stirring campaign, the 
Sixtieth lost twenty-five killed, and sixty 
wounded. It pursued Hood in his long re- 
treat, and December 15 and 16 took part 
in the battle of Nashville, where it behaved 
with great gallantry. On the 5th of January, 
1865, it arrived at Huntsville, Ala., where 
Maj. Bates, who had returned from captivity, 
assumed command of the regiment. The 
remainder of its service was in marching and 
skirmishing, and Jane 10, 1865, its term of 
service having expired, it was mustered out 
of service, and sent home to Camp Butler for 
final discharge. During its term of service, 
the Sixtieth traveled over 6.000 miles, 
and took part in more than twenty bat- 
tles. Only four of the captured officers 
ever)' returned to the regiment. 

The One Hundred and Tenth Infantry also 
contained a company from Jeiferson County, 
together with its first Colonel, Thomas S. 
Casey; its Quartermaster, Thomas H. Hobbs; 
and its First Assistant Sargeon. Hiram S. 
Phimmer. Sketches of Col. Casey and Dr. 
Plummer will be found in other chapters of 
this work. Company B, the company from 
this county, had for its commissioned officers 
the following: Charles H. Maxey, Captain; 
Samuel T. Maxey, First Lieutenant; and John 
H. Dukes, Second Lieutenant. Capt. Maxey 
resigned March 22, 1863, and was succeeded 
by Lieut. Maxey, who was mustered out 
under the consolidation of the regiment. 
Lieut. Dukes was promoted to First Lieu- 
tenant, and transferred to Company A, under 



the consolidation, and promoted to Captain, 
and as such mustered out with the regiment 
at the close of its term of service. Thomas 
J. Maxey was promoted to Second Lieuten- 
ant March 22, 1863, and transferred to Com- 
pany A, under the consolidation. 

On the 8th of May, the One Hundred and 
Tenth was consolidated, by reducing the regi- 
ment to a battalion of four companies, under 
the following special field order: "Maj. Gen. 
Palmer, commanding Second Division, Twen- 
ty-fu'st Army Corps, will cause the consoli- 
dation of the One Hundred and Tenth Regi- 
ment Illinois Volunteers, under the instruc- 
tions contained in General Order No. 86, 
War Department, current series. The officers 
to be retained in the service to be selected by 
him. The Assistant Commissary of Musters, 
Second Division, Twenty-first Army Corps, 
will muster out of service all officers rendered 
supernumerary by the consolidation. By com- 
mand of Maj. Gen. Rosecrans." Under the 
consolidation, Col. Casey, Quartermaster 
Hobbs and Surgeon Plummer were mustered 
out of service, and the battalion given in 
command of Lieut. Col. Crawford, who after- 
ward resigned. E. B. Topping, of Spring- 
field, was promoted Lieutenant Colonel, and 
remained in command of the battalion until 
the close of its term of service. 

So far as we have been able to obtain in- 
formation, this completes the sketch of those 
regiments in which the county was repre- 
sented by commissioned officers or an organ- 
ized tiody of men. Many men, however, 
from Jeflerson County served iu the late wai', 
besides those belonging to the regiments we 
have described. In nearly every regiment 
recruited in Southern -Illinois, Jeiferson 
County was represented with more or less of 
enlisted men, while they were even found 
scattered through more than one Indiana. 
Missouri and Kentucky regiment A clo-e 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



263 



perusal of the history of the Black Hawk 
and Mexican wars, and the rebellion, will 
tell the story of Jefferson County, and of 
Illinois soldiers generally. A hundred bat- 
tle-fields attest their bravery in the late civil 
war. and their depleted ranks, as the broken 
regiments struggled homeward, disclosed the 
sad evidence that they had met foes aa brave 
as themselves. Many who went out came not 
back, but sleep in peace — now that their bat- 
tles are ended — in the unknown graves where 
they fell. Requiescat in pace! 

A few words of tribute, in conclusion of 
this chapter, are due to the noble women 
whose zeal and patriotism were as pure and as 
strong as those who bore the brunt of the bat- 
tle. They could not shoulder their guns and 
march in the ranks, but they were no idle 
spectators of the struggle. How often was 
the soldier's heart encouraged; how often his 
right arm made stronger to strike for his 
country by the cheering words of patriotic, 
hopeful women! And how of ten the poor lad 
upon whom disease had fastened, was made 
to thank devoted women for their ceaseless 
and untiring exertions in collecting and 
sending stores for the comfort of the sick 
and wounded. A war correspondent paid 
them the following merited tribute: " While 



soldiers of every grade and color are receiving 
the eulogies and encomiums of a grateful 
people, patient, forbearing woman is forgot- 
ten. The scar-worn veteran is welcomed 
with honor to home. The recruit, the col- 
ored soldier, and even the hundred days' 
men receive the plaudits of the nation. But 
not one word is said of that patriotic wid- 
owed mother, who sent, with a mother's bless- 
ing on his head, her only son, the staff and 
support of her declining years, to battle for 
his country. The press says not one word of 
the patriotism, of the sacrifices of the wife, 
sister or daughter, who, with streaming eyes 
and almost broken heart, said to husbands, 
brothers, fathers, ' Much as we love you, we 
cannot bid you stay with us when our coun- 
try needs you,' and with Spartan heroism 
they bade them go and wipe out the insixlt 
offered to the star-spangled banner, and to 
preserve unsullied this union of States. " 

Brave, noble, generous women! your deeds 
deserve to be written i q letters of shining gold. 
Your gentle ministrations to the unfortunate, 
and your loving kindness to the poor, war- 
worn soldiers will never be forgotten while 
one soldier lives; and your noble self-sacri- 
ficing devotion to your country will live, 
bright and imperishable as Austerlitz's sun. 




264 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



CHAPTER XIII, 



ODDS AND ENDS— DE OMNIBUS REBUS ET QUIBUSDAM ALUS— A BRIEF RETROSPECTION— MILLERS 
AND MILLS— BLACKSMITHS AND OTHER MECHANICS— BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, DEATHS— 
A BATCH OF INCIDENTS— BUCK CASEY PLAYING BULL CALF— DONNY- 
BROOK FIGHTS— FOREST FIRES— A RUNAWAY NEGRO— COUN- 
TERFEITING— THE POOR FARM, ETC.. ETC., ETC. 



"It is not now as it hath been of yore." 

— Wordsworth. 

"VXT^E have followed the history of Jeffer- 
V V son County from the period of its 
occupation by the aboriginal tribes down to 
the present, and may now take time to look 
back and to stop and breathe. When the 
county was formed —nearly sixty-five years 
ago — it was a wild waste, with only here 
and there meager settlements of hardy pio- 
neers, but few of whom are now living to 
tell over the strange story of their early lives 
in the wilderness. They have passed away 
in their day and generation, and the very 
few who have come down to us from a former 
era have forgotten and forgiven the early 
hardships that encompassed them, and re- 
member only the wild freedom and joys of 
their eager childhood. "We look back over 
the departed years and see a wilderness, un- 
inhabited by white people, its solitudes un- 
broken by a sound of civilization. We look 
around us to-day and what do we see? The 
red man is gone, and has left nothing behind 
him but fading traditions. The verdant 
wastes of Jefferson County have disappeared, 
and where erst was heard the dismal howling 
of the wolf, or the far-off screech of the hun- 
gry panther, are now productive fields, cov- 
ered with flocks and herds and with growing 
grain. Rapid as have been the changes in 

•By W. H. Peiiin. 



this section, Jefiferson is only well upon her 
course. The energies which have made the 
present will not falter, for 

" Lo! our land is like an eagle, whose young gaze 
Feeds on the noontide beam, whose golden 
plumes 
Float moveless on the storm, and, in the blaze 
Of sunrise, gleams when earth is wrapped in 
gloom." 

In our sketch of the county, we have touched 
upon most of the principal facts connected 
with it of a historical character. By 
way of conclusion of the general history, we 
design, in this chapter (composed of the 
odds and ends) to gather up the scattered 
threads and weave them into a kind of vale- 
dictory to the first part of the volume. A 
few items and incidents have been over- 
looked and omitted in the preceding pages, 
and these we shall group together in this 
chapter. 

The rifle and the fish hook antedated the 
grater and the stump mills among the very 
earliest settlers in supplying food. The first 
famines that occurred among the people 
were caused by the lack of salt, notwith- 
standing the close proximity of the Saline, 
as they could make bread of meat by using 
their lean meat for bread and the fat for 
meat when driven to it. Mr. Johnson says 
that bear meat was used for bread and the 
venison for meat. The question of bread 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



265 



after the first coming of a family until they 
could clear a little truck patch to raise their 
family supply was often a serious one in- 
deed. Then, too, even after the fii'st corn 
was raised, there were no mills accessible to 
grind it. Corn was the staple production. 
Wheat was not raised for several years. 
Nearly all the bread used until the fall of 
1818 was brought from the Wabash or |from 
Kentucky. The first mode of procuring 
meal by the settlers of Jefferson County 
were by the mortar and pestle, the mortar 
being a hollow stump, and the pestle a bil- 
let of wood swung to a sweep or made 
with a handle and used by hand. It was a 
dozen or more years before these were laid 
aside. Of this mortar-made meal, the finest 
was made into bread, and the coarser into 
hominy. Families were sometimes without 
even this kind of bread for weeks at a time. 

One of the first mills known to Jefferson 
County was kept by old Billy Goings, as 
early as 1817, but it is said that as he also 
kept a tavern, a grocery (what we would call a 
saloon now), and a great many other things, 
including bad company, his mill was only 
resorted to by the better class of people in 
cases of extreme emergency. In the fall of 
1818, Dempsey Hood put up a mill, of 
his own manufacture, except the buhrs, 
which he had bought from Goings. It was 
ot the simplest mechanical construction, and 
was operated by horse power. Many good 
stories are told of these early mills. One 
man used to say he always took his corn to 
mill in the ear, as he could shell it faster 
than the mill could grind it, and then he had 
the cobs to throw at the rats to keep them 
from eating all the corn as it ran down from 
the hopper. Another story was told on 
Hood's mill, that if a grain of corn got in 
" endways " it stopped the mill until the ob- 
struction was removed. Still another story 



is told on the first water mill erected. The 
miller put thn grist in the hopper, turned on 
the water, and about the time the mill got 
under good headway he heard a turkey "gob- 
ble " in the woods near by, so he caught up 
his gun and started out after the turkey. 
While he was gone, a blue jay alighted on 
the hoop around the buhrs, and as fast as a 
grain of corn would shake down from the 
hopper, he would eat it. When the miller 
returned, the jay had eaten all the corn and 
the mill stones were worn out. 

William Maxey built a mill near where 
Cameron Maxey now lives, in the fall of 
1820, and for a number of years contributed 
largely to the supply of bread for the set- 
tlers. About the same time or soon after, 
Carter Wilkey put up a "stump" mill, and 
in the fall of 1823 Thomas Tunstall put up 
a tread-mill, the first of the kind in the 
county. A short time after, Arba Andrews 
built a wind mill. By the year 1825, the 
country was pretty well supplied with mills, 
such as they were. They were much supe- 
rior, however, to no mill at all, and whether 
hand, stump, wind, tread or horse mill, they 
all had one family resemblance, and that was 
in speed. A blue jay might have eaten the 
corn from any of them faster than they 
could grind it. This is all changed now, 
though, and the county is supplied with 
mills that are without superiors in quality. 
But it is hard to realize that only fifty or 
sixty years ago, there were no mills, but such 
as we have described, in the county. What 
a gradual but wonderful development is there 
in the slow growth of the splendid perfected 
roller patent process mills from the pioneer 
hand-mill and mortar! 

Elisha Plummer is the first blacksmith 
we have any account of, and came to Mount 
Vernon in 1820. If his " smithy " was not 
under a spreading " chestnut tree," it was 



266 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUKTY. 



prnbably because there was no chestuut 
tree, for houses of all kinds were scarce. 
John Cooper, another blacksmith, came in 
1824. A man named Lane was the first 
gunsmith, and this was a very important 
business then. He was in the county as 
early as 1822-23. ButSagton was also an 
early gunsmith; Rhoda Allen's sons were 
the first cabinnt-makers. etc., etc. Thus the 
trades became represented in the county as 
business and population demanded. 

The first birth, marriage and death are 
always matters of considerable interest in a 
new country, and usually ai-e preserved on 
record. The first birth we have failed to 
learn definitely, but it is believed to have 
been a son of Isaac Hicks, born in 1817. 
But that there has been a first one. followed by 
many others, the present population of the 
county is indisputable evidence. The first 
marriage was a daughter of Joseph Jordan, 
to Garrison Greenwood, a son of Fleming 
Greenwood, but the date is not remembered. 
Apropos of weddings, the following is re- 
lated of Green Depriest, who is represented 
as a kind of devil-may-care fellow, as fond 
of fun and a good time as a monkey of a 
basket of apples. He started out one day for 
Walnut Prairie to have a littie spree. On 
his way, he stopped at the Widow Allen's to 
inquire the way. While talking with Mrs. 
Allen, a young woman, her daughter, came 
out of the house to speak with her. Depriest 
was impressed favorably with the young 
■woman's appearance, and, according to his 
abrupt way of doing things, told her who he 
was and that he would like to marry her if 
she had no objections. She replied that 
" Barkis was willin'." So he said he would 
go to the field and see the boys about it, 
while she could talk it over with her mother. 
The result was he married her, took her up 
behind him on his horse and went home, to 



the great surprise of his friends and family. 
Thus he had his spree after [all, but al- 
together a difi'erent one from that he had 
started out to enjoy. 

The next wedding was three— a kind of 
wholesale or job lot. On the 5th of October, 

: ISiy, Harriet Maxey was married to Thomas 
M. Casey, Vylinda Maxey to Abraham T. 
Casey, and Bennett N. Masey to Sally Over- 
bay, all at the same time and place. This 

[ was overdoing the poet, for instead of " two 
souls with but a single thought." it was six, 
four more than the poet bargained for. It 
was the largest wedding of the period in the 
style put on and the numbers present, as well 
as in the profusion of brides and grooms. 
Every family was invited, and every man, 
woman and child, who possibly could, at- 
tended, and the good cheer was the best the 
country afforded. Ransom Moss and Ann 
Johnson were married July 6, 1821, and 
thus the good work went on. 

The death of Rhoda Allen, who was a 
man, notwithstanding the peculiar name, 
was the tu'st death of a grown person. 
He passed to his reward in August, 1820, 
and was buried at Union — the first person 
buried there. A child of one of the Maxeys 
died a short time before Allen, and is sup- 
posed to have been the first death in the 
county. Death has not been idle since then, 
as the many graveyards in the different por- 
tions of the county show. 

An incident occurred in 1826 that cast a 
gloom over the whole settlement and excited 
the sympathy for the afflicted family. Jo- 
seph McMeens had recently settled in Jor- 
dan's Prairie and had a family of several 
children. In the fall and winter of 1826, 
his boys devoted considerable attention to 
trapping. One. day they left the house to 
visit their traps as usual, when a little sister, 
only four years old, started unknown to 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



267 



them, to follow. Her parents supposed she 
was with her brothers until their return 
and reported that they hail seen nothing of 
her. An alarm was at once spread and 
search made and kept up until in the night 
without any success. It was renewed the 
next day and continued for many days, but 
the child was 'never found. The strangest 
part of it was not the slightest trace of her, 
not a shred of her clothing or a footprint 
was ever discovered to tell the story of her 
fate, or suggest a theory as to her strange 
disappearance, and to-day, after a lapse of 
nearly sixty years, when the circumstance is 
forgotten by all except a few old people, the 
mystery is as deep and impenetrable as 
when it first occurred. The most plausible 
theory was that she had been picked up and 
carried away by some prowling band of In- 
dians, though no trace of Indians were dis- 
covered in the vicinity. It was one of those 
mysteries that will probably never be cleared 
up until that great day of final settlement. 

A fight with a wild cat is related by 
James Dawson, in which he triumphed over 
his feline antagonist in a summary manner. 
Dawson was a son-in law of Fleming Green- 
wood, and a man who is represented as not 
being afraid of the devil himself. Such a 
thing as raising domestic fowls was impossi- 
ble in the early times, without a stanch 
house to keep them in at night. Even then 
the " varmints " were as sure to find them 
sooner or later as the colored American citi- 
zen is to find the hen roost of the present 
day. One night Dawson heard a racket in 
his chicken house, that denoted the presence 
of some unwelcome intruder, and he ran out 
with a light to investigate the trouble. 
Upon looking into the chicken house, he dis- 
covered a huge wild cat in possession. Stick- 
ing his torch in a crack of the building, he 
gave the monster battle, and in a few min- 



utes succeeded in making a fiaak movement, 
seized it by the hind legs and knocked its 
brains out against the side of the house. 

Quite an amusing story is told of a man 
named Dickens — James Dickens. He was a 
rather early settler, and for some time had 
charge of Tunstall's mill. The story goes 
that one day, while in charge of the mill, 
some ladies came to him who had become 
considerably bothered and perplexed in their 
calculations about a piece of cloth, and 
asked him if he knew figures. Now there 
was a tailor living in Mount Vernon named 
Figgers, and supposing the ladies referred 
to the little tailor, Dickens exclaimed in his 
oif- hand style, " Know Figgers ? Wy, yes; 
dodding if I didn't make him out of rags — 
all but his head." The result of the joke 
was a dickens of a fight, for the little tailor, 
like little men generally, was inclined to be 
a little " fierce," and he took mortal offense at 
Dickens for the remark, and a fist-fight fol- 
lowed. 

The state of society on the frontier fifty to 
seventy-five years ago was not perfect in its 
moral symmetry by any means. Every com- 
munity had its rough characters, and it is 
not improbable that the rough element some- 
times predominated. Public days, such as 
muster and election days, where cheap whis- 
ky got the upper hand of the less free-willed, 
free fights were often inaugurated which would 
have done credit to a Donnybrook Fair. Jeffer- 
son County was no exception to the rule, and 
had its little episodes that would now be con- 
sidered quire disgraceful. Mr. Johnson al- 
ludes to a general tight that occurred in 1820, 
in which nearly the whole population of the 
county took part. He says: " It was said 
that some of the Maxeys had said that the 
Maxeys and Caseys were going to rule the 
country. John Abbott determined to refute 
the idea by whipping the first one of them 



268 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



he might meet. This was noised abroad and 
it fell upon Elihu Maxey to measure strength 
with Abbott. Tliey met in town one day when 
nearly everybody else was there, and at it 
they went, like a couple of modern pugilists. 
Everybody got excited, even Uncle Jimmy 
Johnson laid aside his usual gravity, threw 
his old straw hat as far as he could send it, 
and requested any other man that wanted to 
fight to come to him, while Jim Abbott 
danced around and said, 'anybody that whips 
John Abbott will have to whip Jim', but 
Billy Casey picked up Jim and ran clear off 
with him. But it was all over in five min- 
utes or less time. It was roughly estimated 

' that every man in town had his hat, coat or 
vest off, calling for somebody to fight him," 
This was no isolated case, but of common 

; occurrence in the early history of the coun- 

i ty, when 

' ' Frontier life was rough and rude," 

and to be considered the " best man " in the 
neighborhood was an honor greatly coveted 
and highly cherished by him who was so 
fortunate as to possess the enviable ( ?) noto- 
riety. But with the progress of Christianity 
and tlie refining influences of education, so- 
ciety improved, gradually at first, but then 
more rapidly, until, at the present time, we 
find the county equal in civilization and re- 
finement to any portion of the State, and as 
to Mount Vernon, it may very appropriately 
be termed the Athens of Southern Illinois. 

The best incident illustrative of the pio- 
neer period is told at the expense of " Buck" 
Casey, or rather, he tells it at his own ex- 
pense. Although the incident has traveled 
over the State and has been located in a 
score or more of different places, yet it is 
vouched for as having originally occurred in 
this county and of Buck Casey having been 
the actual hero of it. In early times, when 
the settlements here were in their infancy, 



teams were very scarce and the means of 
hauling and plowing were restricted to the 
naiTowest limits. To such straits were the 
settlers sometimes reduced, and so sorely 
taxed was their ingenuity to rig out a team, 
that means would often be resorted to that 
in this day of inventive perfection would 
appear ludicrous in the extreme. It was not 
uncommon for a settler to yoke up a pair of 
bull calves when so young and small that 
only dire necessity — which we are told is 
the mother of invention — would sussfest 
their ability to be of much service, even in 
"snaking" up firewood. One year, so meager 
was the supply of bull calves in the neigh- 
borhood, that Buck Casey conceived the happy 
idea of yoking himself with the only one his 
family possessed, for the purpose of hauling 
wood from 'the adjacent forest. The yoke 
was adjusted, and with his younger brother, 
Abram, to drive, the team was ready for 
work. It is a tradition, however, that Buck 
made such an " onery " looking bull calf that 
his mate refused to pull or budge a step in 
the right direction, but whirling his busi- 
ness end to leeward, turned the yoke. Buck 
had heard of tying the tails of young cattle 
together to prevent such catastrophes when 
breaking them to the yoke, so he gathered 
up the big end of a corn-cob in the slack of his 
leather breeches, and to this he securely tied 
the calf -tail, then told Abe to give 'em the 
gad. The calf made a bound, found his tail 
fast, became frightened and then plunged 
forward at the top of its speed, helter-skel- 
ter, pell mell, over stumps, logs and brush 
at a rate that bade fair to bieak the necks of 
both. Buck became worse frightened than the 
calt, and as they approached tlie house, he 
yelled out at the top of his voice: " Here we 
come, head us off, pap, damn our fool souls, 
we are running away," It was Buck's " last 
appearance" in the role of a bull calf. 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



269 



One or the great'dangers the early settlers 
were subject to were prairie and forest f res. 
It is true, the danger is not so great here as 
farther north, v?here miles and miles of pra- 
irie grew rank with grasses, ten or fifteen 
feet high, and' without a tree or shrub in 
sight to break the endless monotony, but 
still there was danger. AVhen ' the grass 
dried up in autumn and the leaves fell from 
the trees and they, too, became dry, the 
whole presented one immense tinder box, 
that, once ignited, no power could resist or 
control. The roaring flames would sweep 
over the prairies, and, reaching the woods, 
where the leaves lay thick, diminished but 
little in volume, but crackled, roared and 
swept on, scorching the trees, sometimes, 
forty feet from the gi-ound. We have heard 
of no loss of human life in this county, but 
stock often perished, and houses, stacks of 
grain and other property were destroyed. In 
many portions of the State much loss of life 
has resulted from these autumnal fires. 

Crime has never prevailed in Jefl^erson 
County to that extent it has in some portions 
of the State, though, of course, the county 
has not been wholly free from it, and from 
lawless charac;.ers. Among the first settlers, 
there were a few whose morals would not 
bear too close a scrutiny. Goings, who has 
already been mentioned as having one of the 
first mills in the count)', was accused of 
being a counterfeiter. Goings always had a 
lot of men around him of bad repute, and it 
was generally believed that his house was a 
regular rendezvous or headquarters for horse- 
thieves, negro stealers and all sorts of low, 
vicious characters. He left the county in 
1821, impelled, no doubt, by the urgent wish 
(!) of his neighbors. John Breeze, who after- 
ward occupied Goings' house, found a quan- 
tity of unfinished counterfeit money, that he 
had been obliged to hide when he suddenly 



left the neighborhood. A man named Her- 
ron also became involved in counterfeiting. 
He was arrested, and was tried at the June 
term of com-t, 1821, and was fined $20 and 
costs and sentenced to be whipped. The 
sentence was carried out, the prisoner receiv- 
ing thirty-nine lashes upon his bare back. 
This seems to us a rather barbarous sentence 
now, but fifty or seventy-five years ago it was 
common, not only in Illinois but in many, 
if not all, of the older States. Another case, 
we noticed in running over the old records, 
of whipping, that occuiTed here in 1830. It 
was that of James Vance, who was tried and 
convicted as a horse-thief. He was fined $22 
and costs and sentenced to ten days in jail 
and to receive twenty lashes upon his bare 
back, which penalty was duly executed. A 
number of other criminals, more or less 
vicious, might be noticed, but such history is 
better forgotten than perpetuated. 

A case that caused the most intense escite- 
ment was that of a "runaway negro," who 
made his appearance in the county in 1843. 
Runaway negroes, in old slave times, were a 
common occun-ence, and there are still many 
people living who well remember the line of 
underground railway through Illinois on 
which negroes, fleeing from slavery in the 
Southern States, traveled on free passes to 
the land of freedom. There were not many 
people in this portion of this State, perhaps, 
who would actually help the negroes to es- 
cape from their masters, but there were many 
who would not help the masters to re-capture 
the negroes, and a little further north there 
were many warm friends of the slave. Run- 
away negroes, as we have said, were common, 
and were much feared by the women and 
children. A fretful child could nearly always 
be quieted with the threat that " a runaway 
nigger would get it." But it was in the 
spring of 1843 that the runaway negro 



370 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



Frederick first appeared in the county. He 
was seen northwest of Mount Yernon, 
near Jefferson City, where he attacked an 
old lady named Campbell, but he became 
alarmed and fled. The neighbors were 
aroused, and soon there were several hun- 
dred men sccairing the woods in search 
of him. He was again heard of in the 
the eastern part of the county, where he had 
abused a Mrs. Sursa. Nest, he was heard of 
in Wayne County, where his pursuers soon 
followed him, but he had fled into Clay 
County. Finally, he was captured near the 
town of Maysville, Clay County, and was 
brought to Mount Vernon, where the excite- 
ment went up to fever heat. Some wanted 
to burn him, others to hang him, and it was 
only by the utmost exertions of the more law- 
abiding citizens that he was not lynched. 
Judge Scates, as soon as he found a chance 
to be heard, made a speech to the excited 
people, setting forth the sufliciency of the 
law, the consequences of mob-law in general 
and the penalties to which they laid them- 
selves liable, individually, by persisting in 
it. Concluding his speech, Judge Scates 
remarked to Sheriff Stephenson: " I wish 
you to watch this proceeding, and report to 
me the very first man that you see doing what 
is contrary to law; I will issue a writ, and 
have him arrested, if there is force enough 
in the State to do it." Law and order at 
length prevailed, and the excited people with- 
drew. The negro was indicted at the Au- 
gust term of the court, 1843, for rape and 
attempt to commit rape. Upon these he was 
tried, found guilty on both counts and sen- 
tenced to the penitentiary, on the first 
charge, "for the full term of his natural 
life," and on the other for " fourteen years" 
longer. As there was no Gov. Blackburn to 
pardon him out, the negro was still serving 
his sentence the last knovyn of him. 



The care of the poor is a duty we owe to 
that unfortunate class, who have found the 
thorny path of life " rough, adverse and for- 
lorn," and crave our assistance. " The poor 
ye have with ye alway," said the Master, and 
we, who have been more fortunate than they, 
should not fail to contribute of oui- earthly 
goods, when we can, to smooth the path of 
some poor unfortunate. 

" A little word in kindness spoken, 
A motion or a tear; 
Often heals the heart that's broken, 
And makes a friend sincere." 

Kindness costs but little, and to'the child of 
misfortune it sometimes goes almost as far 
as dollars and cents. None of us know how 
soon we may go " over the hill to the poor 
house" ourselves. We recently visited one 
of these institutions, and were pointed out 
an inmate who once could ride ten miles, we 
were told, in a straight line upon his own 
land. But a multitude of misfortunes 
brought him to the poor-house. Then, be 
kind to the poor, for in so doing you may en- 
tertain angels unawares. 

As early as 1830, we find allusions to 
county paupers. They were then usually 
kept by some person who was paid for it by 
the county. In 1843, the pauper list is re- 
ferred to by Mr. Johnson in his sketches, as 
being a Mrs. Henly, H. M. E. Herron, Will- 
iam Tuck, a man named Beasley and a 
woman named Shoulders. These were all 
kept by individual citizens, at the expense of 
the county. A few years later, they had 
increased to some twelve or fifteen, who were 
maintained in the same manner. 

In 1859, the first steps were taken for the 
establishment of a regular poor-house. Two 
and a half acres of land were purchased, 
situated in the northeast quarter of the south- 
west quarter of Section 22, Township 2 and 
Range 3 east. March 19, 1859, 120 acres 



HISTORY or JEFFERSdN COUNTY. 



271 



were purchased in Section 27 of the same 
Township and Range, by the Coiiiity Board, 
composed of J. R. Satterlield, W. Adams and 
S. W. Carpenter, for the sum of $1,150, upon 
which the requisite buildings were erected. 
This is still used for a county farm and poor- 
house, and is the home of all the county's 
poor who are maintained at the public ex- 
pense. 

This chapter closes the history of the 
county at large, and the succeeding pages 
will be devoted to individual towns and town- 



ships respectively. The foregoing, though a 
sketch, and admitting of anecdote, excui'sive 
digressions and a flexible texture of narrative, 
yet, for the most part, it is essentially his- 
torical. We have endeavored to narrate some 
of the physical and moral features of the 
county; its formation, settlement, local di- 
visions and progress; the habits and cus- 
toms of the early pioneers, interspersed with 
individual incident. These we have recorded 
as best we could, and now submit them for 
the verdict of the general reader. _ 




PART III. 






•^HISTORY+OFiTHE+TO¥NSHIPS> 



PART III. 



HISTORY OF THE TOWNSHIPS, 



CHAPTER I.* 



MOUNT VERNON TOWNSHIP— DESCRIPTION, TOPOGRAPHY, ETC.— EARLY SETTLEMENT— OLD SUR- 
VEYS AND LAND ENTRIES— A CLOSER ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE PIONEERS— AVHO THEY WERE 
AND WHERE THEY LOCATED— THEIR GOOD TRAITS AND PECULIARITIES— THE SELECT- 
ING OF A SITE FOR A TOWN— MOUNT VERNON CHOSEN AS THE COUNTY SEAT, ETC. 



"The hunt, the shot, the glorious chase. 
The captured elk or deer; 
The camp, the big, bright fire, and then 
The rich and wholesome cheer." 

— Gallagher. 

nnHE public lands of Jefferson County were 



1 



surveyed in 1814 and 1815. The field 



notes of the exterior lines of Town 2 south, 
Range 3 east, are signed by Charles Lockhart, 
Deputy Surveyor, and dated " December 18, 
1814;" those of the interior lines, by Joseph 
Meacham, Deputy Surveyor, "April 19, 
1815." The surveys seem to have been very 
accurate, as the aggregate— 23,022 acres — 
falls only eighteen acres short of an exact 
township; but there was carelessness some- 
where, as this note on the records will show: 

St. Lodis, Mo., February 17, 1817. 
There are no notes of the east boundary of this 
township on file in this office. D. Dunklin, 

Surveyor Oeneral. 

And the deficiency has never been sup- 
plied. 

In looking over those old field notes, we 
are surprised at another feature — the fre- 
quent occurrence of " White Oak" among the 

*By Dr. A. Clark Johnson. 



bearing trees. It may have been that the 
surveyors sought this as the most enduring 
variety of oak; possibly it may sometimes 
mean water oak; yet the proportion seems 
very large. Of about 200 bearing trees, 
there were twenty-five hickory, fifty-seven 
"Black Oak," five "Pin Oak," nine elm, 
three sassafras, two ash, one each of gum, 
locust, mulberry and walnut, and ninety-six 
"White Oak." 

At the time when our sketch begins, the 
natural features of the country differed from 
anything we have seen here for a generation 
or more. The prairies, valleys, bills and 
water-courses were where they are to-day, of 
course, but all were dressed in quite another 
garb. The annual autumnal fires, sweeping 
over all, burned out and kept down the un- 
dergrowth; and the woods were so open, the 
trees so lofty, the branches so high, and the 
ground so bare of anything like a bush, that 
game could be descried in any direction at 
almost any reasonable distance. A deer 
could be seen a quarter of a mile in the 
woods, and a man on horseback nearly a mile, 
at any point where there were no intervening 



276 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



hills to stop the view. The eastern part of 
this township consisted of open barrens, as 
if a few trees had been scattered over a some- 
what broken or rolling prairie. These facts 
explain what would seem very odd in the old 
field notes above referred to, that the sec- 
tion corner between four and five on the 
township line had to be marked by a "post 
in mound;" that the half mile corner on the 
north side of Section 29 is marked "no 
trees," and the same note is made of the cor- 
ner between Sections 11, 12, 13 and 1-4. 

The prairies generally ran into the woods 
without any border of small trees or thickets; 
and the grass was generally higher than a 
man's head, frequently high enough to hide 
a man on horseback at the distance of a hun- 
dred yards. They appeared much more 
nearly level than now. This was partly 
because the grass was ranker on the lower 
ground, and partly because, before the grass 
was eaten and tramped down so closely, the 
water filtered away or stood in the valleys, 
whereas it now washes a channel that carries 
away the soil. 

There was this peculiarity, too, in both 
prairie and timber, that wherever the ground 
was level or low, it was wet and marshy 
throughout the year. Being trampled but 
little and very porous, besides being shaded 
by the luxiu'iant grass, the earth held water 
so that it hardly ever became thoroughly dry. 
Bottom lands were extremely wet, and their 
soil a heavy clay, utterly unlike the loam 
that has since been carried down from the 
adjacent uplands. 

With these facts all in view, and knowing 
that the township is somewhat hilly on the 
west, rolling off to the creek two miles to the 
east, rising gently into hills beyond, with a 
little prairie of about 1,000 acres on its 
south side, the reader can form a pretty good 
idea of what the present Mount Vernon 



Township was at the beginning. There was 
no trace of man, except the surveyor's marks 
upon the trees, and the Goshen road. This 
famous road led from Goshen, a settlement 
four or five miles this side of Edwardsville, 
to the salt-works on the Saline; and was made 
by parties going to the Saline for salt. It 
struck this county just south of where the 
town of Walnut Hill now stands, and passed 
out near the southeast corner. It entered 
this township about Section 5, and running 
west of the old Short camp-ground, passed 
out east of where John Waite lives. So noted 
was this old trail, that it is referred to over 
fifty times in the Government surveys of the 
county, and eight or ten times in the field 
notes of this township. In numberless 
places it may still be seen. Yet it was only 
a narrow trail, almost buried under the rich 
growth of summer, coming out in wonderful 
distinctness after the autumnal fires. 

About the year 1815, a man by the name 
of Black came up from Pope County on a 
hunting expedition. On his return, he gave 
a glowing accoimt of the country, and espe- 
cially of a beautiful prairie he had visited. 
Among others, he told his story to the Caseys, 
near Cave-in-Rock. They soon set out in 
search of Black's Prairie, and this was the 
occasion of their first visit to this part of the 
country. They never knew whether they 
found Black's Prairie or not. But in the 
autumn of IS 15, Isaac Casej and his two 
sons — William, a married man, and Thomas 
M., a large boy — came out to look at the 
country. They came by Crenshaw's ; and he, 
glad of new-comers, as all pioneers are, ac- 
companied them in their search for locations. 
A circumstance occurred on their way up, 
which afforded them much amusement. As 
they took a northwesterly course across the 
prairie, a deer (a very large buck) started up 
at a little distance from them, and the men 







/^x -t^z <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^'— -^ ^' 



LSBRAKY 

i." THE 

jNlVERSnV Of iLUNOIS 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



279 



all blazed away at it at ouce. It ran a little 
way, and fell. They ran up, each one shout- 
ing, "I killed it ! I killed it ! It's my deer, 
I killed it !" when lo ! only one bullet-hole 
was to be found in all its tawny hide. The 
animal was opened and the bullet found, 
when it proved to be from the gun of Cren- 
shaw, the oldest man, indeed the only old 
man in the company. This party went a few 
miles beyond the present site of Mount 
Vernon, and returned. 

In the spring of 1816, Isaac Casey, Will- 
iam, his son, Brunetta, his daughter, and 
Isaac Hicks, his son-in law, all came out and 
built a camp at the northern edge of the 
prairie, just east of where the Supreme Court 
building now stands. They broke and culti- 
vated a little field, without any fence of 
course, extending to where the Methodist 
Church stands. In after years, when the old 
camp had been left and had rotted down, a 
locust tree sprang up on the old chimney pile 
— the same tree that now stands in the street 
east of the Supreme Court House. In the 
fall of this year, 1816, these all went back to 
the Ohio River where they came from, and 
brought out their families and the rest of 
their stock. William Casey, with wife and 
child, came into the cabin just referred to. 
Isaac erected a cabin near where L. N. Beal 
lives. Section 31, while Isaac Hicks located 
near the place at which he died. 

While these pioneers were raising this 
year's crop, they had no trouble about meat 
or "sass," as game was abundant and honey 
more abundant still, but bread was a serious 
matter. William Casey brought their first 
supplies of meal from Kentucky, and corn in 
the following year. Isaac Casey and one or 
other of his daughters, several times went 
to the Wabash bottoms, ten miles beyond 
Carmi, to lay in a supply of meal. "Uncle" 
Isaac rode a horse and led one, but a single 



horse and "turn"' of meal was found enough 
for a girl. One of them, Mrs. Katy Tyler, 
tells how that, on their return from one of 
those trips, she chanced to slip off the horse 
near where the fair grounds are located; and 
there was not a stump, rock, hillock, log or 
anything else, from which she could remount 
" in all that part of the country,'' so she had 
to walk home. 

Of the pioneers of 1817 and 1818, most 
located in Moore's Prairie and Shiloh. Hen- 
ry Wilkerson, about this time, settled on the 
hill just south of the Jake Stitch — now Bates 
— house; and William Jordan settled on 
Seven Mile Creek, where Coleman Smith af- 
terward lived so long, and Thomas Jordan 
southwest of him. Thomas D. Minor, lo- 
cated a little southwest of where Thomas 
Johnson lives. Very little as to progress of 
settlement can be learned from the land en- 
tries. The first entries were made in 1817. 
In that year William Casey entered land in 
Section 30, Isaac Casey in 31, and Gorum 
A. Worth in 32. In 1818, Elihu Maxey en- 
tered land in Section 6, William Casey in 
29 and 30, and Thomas Sloo, Jr., in 31. In 
1819, Jeptha Hardin entered in Section 20, 
Abraham P. Casey and Henry Bechtle in 
28, Joel Pace and Dorris and Maxey in 30, 
Gray and Grant and John Johnson in 32. 
Then there was not an acre of land entered 
in the township for seven years! So we find 
hardly half a dozen families in the township 
at the time Mount Vernon began; and before 
proceeding further, we must stop and become 
better acquainted with the persons already 
mentioned. 

Isaac Casey used to say that his father and 

uncle came over the ocean and settled at 

Goldsboro, N. C. , whence they passed by 

successive removals to South Carolina and 

Georgia. There is another account — that 

Abner Casey, reared in the North of Ireland, 

1 1 



280 



HISTOBY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



married a Welsh lady and came to Virginia, 
on the Roanoke; their children were Levi, 
Mosea, Eandolph and a daughter; all went 
to South Carolina about 1760; Randolph 
married Mary Jane Pennington, and Levi, 
Randolph, Isaac, Abraham P., Charity, Hi- 
ram, Samuel and Zadok were their children. 
This family went to Georgia in 1795, thence 
to Smith County, Tenn., a few years later. 
Isaac Casey was born in South Carolina in 
1765, maiTied Elizabeth Mackey in 1788, 
and went to Barren County, Ky. He was 
Sheriff of that county about six years. In 
1803, he came to Illinois, and located on the 
Ohio River, a mile or two above the Cave-in- 
Rock. A double murder occurred there some 
years after. A Mr. Ballinger killed a Mr. 
Billingsly, and then one Fisher killed Ballin- 
ger. Fisher was related to the fh'st victim, 
and aiso to Casey; and Casey was almost the 
only witness against Fisher. Isaac Casey 
did not want a man hung on his testimony 
alone, so he went up into the hills along the 
Saline, and spent months there; he then 
went to Arkansas Post and was gone a year, 
and probably it was really a similar motive 
that brought him to this section. After liv- 
ing where L, N. Beal does for seven or 
eight years, he sold out to Abe Buffington in 
1825; made a little improvement near where 
Lewis Johnson lives; went to merchandis- 
ing with Joel Pace at town in 1828; but soon 
retired, and spent most of his remaining 
days in the country. He was a man of great 
energy and activity, a dignified Christian 
gentleman, though he had been dissij)ated in 
his younger days. Isaac Casey was the 
father of Isaac Hicks' wife, Rebecca; Clark 
Casey's wife, Polly; Dr. Wilkey's wife, 
Brunetta; Henry Tyler's wife, Catharine; 
George Bullock's wife, Miranda. His sons 
were William, Abram T. and Thomas M. 



i The old man died at Thomas M. Casey's, in 
; 1848. at the age of eighty-four years. 

AVilliam Case, — or "Billy," as more 
commonly called — was the oldest son and 
the second child of Isaac Casey; was born 
in Barren County, Ky. , in 1794 or 1795. 
His wife was Amy Barker, daughter of 
Lewis Barker, who owned the ferry at 
Cave-in-Rock so long; and they bnnight one 
child, Blackford, with them to this county. 
After living awhile in tLe cabin before men- 
tioned, he built a pretty decent house of 
hewn logs where the Commercial Hotel now 
stands, saying jocosely when it was up, 
" Boys, here is the first house in town." 
When the town was laid off, however, this 
house was just outside the limits. He then 
cleared a field reaching nearly to where the 
Presbyterian Church stands. A few years 
later he built on the hill where Sauiuel Casey 
last lived; he sold that place to Joseph Sla- 
ter in 1836, and moved to a place on Punch- 
eon Camp Creek, and thence soon after to 
the northern part of the State. In a year or 
two he came back, lived at the Harlow place 
two miles from town, thence going to Punch- 
eon Camp, thence to Moore's Prairie. His 
wife died in 1846, and in 1850 he married 
Miss M. J. Shelton; lived at the Prairie two 
or three years; moved back to the Harlow 
place, and died there in 1854. 

The name of William Casey was one that 
suggested a strong mitid, a very strong and 
active body, and passions deep and terrible 
when once aroused. He worked and traded 
with excellent judgment, and received some 
assistance from his father-in-law ; so that he 
was for some time the wealthiest man in the 
county. He and Isaac Hicks were all the 
men who brought surplus money with them, 
and much of the land entered by the settlers 
in that day was entered with money bor- 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



281 



rowed from ihem. He never sought office, but 
was once, in 1820, elected as one of the Coun- 
ty Commissioners. At all times he walked 
with a kingly dignity that made our boyish 
eyes look for the ground to shake under him. 
Mrs. Casey was a good woman. Their chil- 
dren were Blackford, Maletna (Mrs. A. D. 
Estes), William B. (or Buck), Abraham, 
Drury B., Thomas, Melissa (]\Ii-s. Griibbs and 
afterward Mrs. Lester) and Zadok. Newton, 
recently deceased, was a son of the second 
wife. 

Hem-y Wilkerson had a brother John, and 
Phebe, wife of Rhodam Allen, was his sister. 
They were Virginians by way of Tennessee. 
Henry lived for many years on the place he 
first settled, in a round-pole cabin, for he was 
fond of drink and never accumulated much ; 
he was long subject to tits of insanity, in one 
of which he would set out and walk hundreds 
of miles ; he made three or four trips thus 
from Tennessee to Virginia, and one from 
Tennessee to Illinois ; he at length became 
entirely deranged, and remained so till his 
death, sometimes being furious, at other 
times nearly rational ; but he never was so 
rational as not to run, when he saw a storm 
coming, and throw his hat, shoe, sock, or 
whatever came to hand, into the fire, to stop 
the wind from blowing. By trade he was a 
cooper. He lived at Robert's for fourteen 
years, in a small house in the yard, and died 
in 1846, aged nearly eighty-four years. His 
wife, from whom he had long lived separate, 
survived him, and lived to the age of ninety- 
nine years. Their sons were William, who 
went to Louisiana ; Edward, who died in 
Union County, and Robert. Few descend- 
ants of these remain. Mrs. Stockird, of 
Mount Vernon, is a daughter of Edward, and 
Rosa Wilson a grand-daughter of Robert — a 
short list. Of Henry Wilkerson's daughters. 
Sally married Jarvis Pierce ; Phebe married 



Spencer Pace ; Rachel, George Crosno ; and 
Rebecca, J. Wesley Hicks Many descend- 
ants of these are with us. 

William Jordan was the son of William 
Jordan, Sr., and the nephew of Thomas Jor- 
dan, who settled near him. The older set 
were William, Joseph, Thomas and Francis 
— the last remaining in Franklin Coanty. 
Thomas lived a few years near where David 
H. Warren lives, then moved to where Elias 
Howard lives, and gave name to Jordon's 
Prairie. His wife was a Whitesides. Will- 
iam Jordan, Jr., had a sister married to 
Moses Ham and one married to Nicholas 
Wren, and a brother named Aaron, who 
married a Crooms. Most of the Jordans re- 
mained here till 1830 and 1832, then some 
went North and some to Texas, A man of 
the name of Parker from Vincennes got a do- 
nation of a league of land in Texas, and took 
oS" quite a colony of Jordans, Greenwoods 
and others. Joe Jordan, William, Jr., 
Thomas, Jr.. Oliver Morris, etc., all went to 
Texas. 

The act of the General Assembly, forming 
Jefferson Coanty. approved March 26, 1819, 
as set forth in a preceding chapter, con- 
tained this clause : " And for the purpose of 
fixing the permanent seat of justice therein 
the following persons are appointed Com- 
missioners: Ambrose Maulding, Lewis Bar- 
ker, Robert Shipley, James A. Richardson 
and Richard Graham ; which said Commis- 
sioners or a majority of them, being duly 
sworn before some Judge or Justice of rhe 
Peace of this State to faithfully take into 
view the convenience of the peojjle, the situ- 
ation of the settlement with an eye to future 
population and the eligibility of the place, 
shall meet on the second Monday of May, at 
the house of William Casey, in said county, 
and proceed to examine and detei-mine on the 
place for the permanent seat of justice and 



388 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



designate the same; provided, that the pro- 
prietor or proprietors of the land shall give 
to the county for the purpose of erecting 
public buildings a quantity of land, not less 
than twenty acres, to be laid out in lots and 
sold for that purpose ; but should the pro- 
prietor or proprietors reftise or neglect to 
make the donation aforesaid, then and in 
that case it shall be the duty of the Commis- 
sioners to fix on some other place for the 
seat of justice, as convenient as may be to 
the inhabitants of said county ; which place 
fixed and determined upon, the said Commis- 
sioners shall certify under their hands and 
seals, and shall return the same to the next 
Commissioners' Court in the coitnty afore- 
said." 

When the first Coitnty Board met in June. 
1819, the location of the county seat was one 
of the first matters that demanded its atten- 
tion. The Commissioners appointed by the 
Legislature presented the following report : 

" According to an act of the General As- 
sembly, passed the 10th day of March, 1819, 
appointing certain Commissioners to meet 
on the second Monday of May at the house 
of William Casey, for the purpose of fixing 
a permanent seat of justice for and in Jeiier- 
son County, the following persons met, viz. : 
Lewis Barker, Ambrose Maulding and 
James A. Richardson, who, after being ditly 
sworn, have provided, determined and fixed 
upon the southwest quarter of Section 29, 
Range 3, Town 2, on the laud owned by 
William Casey, the town to be laid off in 
the southwest corner of said quarter, to com- 
mence near the timber, on a point not far 
distant from said Casey's house, and thence 
to the foot of the descent, on a point on 



which said Casey's house stands, or in such 
manner as said County Commissioners shall 
designate. 

" Given itnder our hands and seals this 
12th day of May, 1819. 

" It is unanimously agreed that the name 
of the town shall be Mount Pleasant. 

" James A. Richardson, 
" Ambrose Maulding, 
" Lewis Barker." 

This settled the question of locating the 
county seat. Isaac Hicks had been expect- 
ing to have it near him, as " Post Oak Hill," 
his place, was very near the geographical 
center of the county, and the land lay well 
for the piu'pose. An effort had also been 
made to locate it on the high grounds between 
the Casey place and the Dodds place, west 
of the present site ; but the influence of 
William Casey with Lewis Barker, his father- 
in-law, predominated, and it was put as 
close to him as it .could be without including 
his house and improvements. 

Of the men just named, we may here add: 
Lewis Barker, as just stated, was the father 
of Mrs. Casey, and the owner of the ferry at 
Cave-in-Rock, and was a member the first 
four sessions of the State Senate from Pope 
County. Ambrose Maulding lived near his 
brother Ennis, in Hog Prairie, a few miles 
this side of where McLeansboro is now. 
Ennis, it will be remembered, went to the 
State Senate ; he also built a famous mill on 
Skillet Eork. James A. Richardson lived 
about Carmi. We don't know what became 
of Shipley and Graham. A year or two later, 
the county allowed Maulding S8 and Barker 
and Richardson $12 each for their services. 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON" COUNTY. 



283 



CHAPTER II.* 



CITY OF MOUNT VERNON— THE LAYING-OUT AND BEGINNING OF THE TOWN— SALE OF LOTS— EREC- 
TION OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS— THE FIRST COURT HOUSE— STRAY POUND, GAOL AND 
CLERK'S OFFICE— STICK CHIMNEYS, COURT HOUSE LOCK, ETC.— THE PIONEERS 
AND FIRST SETTLERS IN THE TOWN— THEIR GENHALOQICAL TREES, ETC. 

eighteen and twenty- four months. Mount 
Pleasant was the name first projwsed, and 
almost became the name of the town ; but 
the popular love for AVashington was yet 
warm, and Mount Vernon, his ancestral 
home, prevailed. 

In a few weeks, the services of William 
Hosick were engaged ; the town was surveyed 
and platted, and the notes and plat ready for 
record by July 10. This man, Hosick, was 
the son of a little Scotchman, who lived in 
Livingston County, Ky., about nine miles 
from Golconda, Alick Hosick. William was 
a one-armed man, and lived at Shawneetown. 
The new town, of course, included but twenty 
acres. It extended from Harrison street 
north of the jail, on the north, to Jordan 
street on the south, and from Casey street 
east of the Commercial Hotel on the west, to 
Johnson Alley, west of Westbrook & Co.'s 
Mill, on the east. The lots were numbered 
from the northwest corner, where Crebs lives, 
and ended with Lot 48 in the southeast 
corner, where Kline's boarding house stands. 
They lay in eight squares, three each way, 
and one to the county, but nothing was said 
about blocks in the survey. Here, then, the 
business lay till September, when, the time 
of sale drawing nigh, it is "ordered that 
AVilliam Casey and Joel Pace be, and they 
are, hereby employed to set four mulberry 
stakes around the public square, /. e., one at 
each corner, to drive all the stakes in the 



" the waving fields 

Bow to the reaper, where I wildly roamed ; 
Cities now rise where I pursued the deer ; 
And dust offends me, where in happier years 
I breathed in vigor from untainted gales." 

— The Aged Pioneer. 

ON the 0th of Jtine, the court proceeded 
to consider the expediencj' of laying 
off the town, so as to enable them to sell the 
lots and place them in a situation to erect 
pitblic buildings, wherefore it was ordered : 
" That Joel Pace be, and be is, hereby ap- 
pointed and empowered to contract with a 
surveyor to lay off the said town in sttch 
manner as will be most advantageous to the 
county, or in such manner as the County 
Commissioners may direct ; and it is further 
ordered that the sale of said lots shall com 
mence on the third Monday of September 
nest ; and further ordered, that an advertise- 
ment to that effect be inserted in the Illinois 
Eiiii grant for three weeks previous to the 
commencement of said sale, and that fifty 
copies of said advertisement be printed on 
handbills, to be sent to the different parts of 
the country, for the information of those who 
may want to attend the sale, for which serv- 
ice the editor of the aforesaid paper shall 
be paid out of any money that may be in the 
treastiry, not otherwise appropriated. And 
it is further ordered that the town be called 
Mount Vernon." The payments were to be 
made in four- equal installments, six, twelve. 



' By Dr. A. Clark Johnson. 



284 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



town, and also to number the lots, for which 
they are to be paid by the county the sum of 
$5." 

The day of sale arrived. About a hundred 
persons assembled, many of them strangers, 
and they sallied forth into the town. It was 
a little nook on a gentle swell at the north 
side of the prairie. The edge of the timber 
ran from near where the academy afteward 
stood, northwest, pasb Fletcher Johnson's, 
by the New York Store, by the jail, by Joel 
Watson's, west a hundred yards or more, then 
southwest, past William Casey's field, and so 
on down to where the woolen factory stands : 
while clumps of sturdy white oaks stood 
west of the square, and at Porter's corner, 
and near where D. C. Warren lives. The 
prairie was not so smooth as it had been a 
few years before, but here and there was a little 
hazel or brier patch, or a bunch of sumach or 
elder bushes. But the lines had been hacked 
or staked out, and the lots could be found. 
When well ou.t into the open space, James E. 
Davis, a Cumberland Presbyterian preacher, 
raised the cry, ' ' O yes, gentlemen ! I am 
now going to sell you some lots in the beauti- 
ful town of Mount Vernon, all covered now 
with a beautiful coat of green, but destined 
soon to be cov«red with magnificent build- 
ings." Lot No. 1, Crebs's, was struck off to 
Bennett Maxey for S^-tl ; No. 2. to Barton 
Atchisson ; Burchett Maxey bought No. 4, 
south of Herdman's, where he soon after 
built a large double log house ; Lewis Wat- 
kins took the corner lot, the Joel Pace lot, at 
$162.50 ; Nelson Ferguson, the corner east 
of that, now bank corner, for $165 ; Edward 
Maxey, the Thorn lot, for $60; Clark Casey, 
the corner west of Nieman's, at $160 ; 
Thomas Jordan, the lot where J. D. John- 
son's store is, at $153 ; William Maxey, the 
lot now Porter's corner, for $95 ; Dr. Mc- 
Lean, afterward of McLeansboro, bought 



the H. T. Pace corner at $136 ; Isaac Casey 
was his security, McL. failed on it, Isaac 
took it, and passed it over to Burchett Maxey. 
But more of these matters hereafter. 

Watkins had already made some prepara- 
tions to build on his lot, though he never 
paid for it, and Thomas Jordan took it off 
his hands ; and Bm'chett Maxey, as before 
stated, at once put up a house on his. These 
buildings were scarcely under headway, when 
Clark Casey moved his walnut-log house 
from near where Joseph Pace lately lived up 
to his lot, and the town was fairly begun. 

Of course, one of the first subjects that 
occupied the attention of the County Court 
was the erection of public buildings for the 
use of the county. Indeed, the court house 
was already built, and standing there in all 
its glory at the time the sale of lots above 
described took place. The first sitting of the 
County Commissioners began, as before 
stated, June 7, 1819 ; and on the 9th they 
determined to build a court house : 

''As it is inconvenient to hold court in a 
private house for several reasons, 

" Ordered, That the building of a court 
house be let to the lowest bidder on Friday 
the 24th inst., to be eighteen by twenty feet, 
thirteen feet high ; to be built of hewed logs 
that will face from ten to twelve inches, 
closely notched down ; to have a good roof 
made of boards ; also a good under floor 
made of plank, rough, and closely laid ; and 
joist-plates, with holes cut for joists ; the 
house to have one door and one window, cut 
and faced, and to them good shutters hung, 
made of rough plank ; the house and all 
the work abotit it done in workman-like 
manner, completed and delivered to the 
County Commissioners' Court at their next 
September term, subject to the inspection of 
the County Commissioners, said house to be 
built in the public square, or on the spot the 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



285 



said Commissioners shall designate. The 
timber to be fui-nished by Isaac Casey, 
William Casey and Josejjh Jordan. The 
building of said house to be paid for out of 
any moneys that may be in the treasury not 
otherwise appropriated." 

Accordingly, on Friday, June 25, the court 
again met at the house of William Casey ; 
and, "in pursuance of an order of the last 
court, the building of a coui-t house was this 
day let to the lowest bidder, the building of 
which John Sanders undertook for the sum 
of $85, and entered into bond with James 
Kelly, his security, conditioned for the faith- 
ful performance of his contract." Isaac 
Casey, William Casey and Joseph Jordan 
furnished the timber, and many others found 
employment in cutting and hewing the logs, 
sawing the plank, ''riving'' the boards, haul- 
ing, etc. It must not be understood, how- 
ever, that the gentlemen named furnished the 
timber from their own lands. There was 
good timber on the United States lands on 
the ridge a mile or two northwest of town, 
from where Judge Keller lives to old Union, 
and there all the materials for this house 
were "got out." Henry Tyler hewed nearly 
every log in the building. We can readily 
imagine how much the public attention was 
excited by so important an enterprise. Not- 
withstanding the whole was to be done in the 
sultry months of July and August, the work 
went bravely on, and when the court met in 
September, Monday, 6th, they found the 
building nicely finished and ready for use. 
' ' According to an order of the last court, 
for letting the building of a court house, it 
was let to John Sanders, who completed and 
delivered the same to the court at their pres- 
ent term; wherefore ordered, that the Clerk 
grant him a certificate for the same. " 

It stood about the center of the public 
square, its only door fronting to the south. 



its only window in the west side, and the 
bushes around were so broken down that its 
bright logs and roof were plainly visible from 
all the business part of town. But the best of 
earthly things are imperfect. As winter 
came on, it became too evident that, large 
and commodious as the court house was, it 
was not a comfortable place for a winter ses- 
sion. Hence, when the court met in Decem- 
ber, 6th, it was ordered that the finishing of 
the building should be let to the lowest bid- 
der on the following day. And this was to 
be the manner of it : "To be completed as 
follows, to wit : A chimney place to be cut 
out, and a good chimney, back and hearth 
to be built, after the form of the chimney to 
the house in which Lewis VVatkins now lives, 
and to be as good as said chi i ney was when 
it was first finished; also a set of good 
hewed or sawed joists put in, and an upper 
floor of sawed plank to be closely laid, the 
plank to be one and a fourth inches thick; 
also the cracks to be closely chinked in- 
side, and well daubed outside with well 
wrought mortar. There is a platform to be 
constructed in the west end of the house, to 
be of proper height, four feet wide, of good 
hewed puncheons or thick plank, to lack but 
three feet of reaching from one side of the 
house to the other; at the end of said plat- 
form are to be steps composed of blocks or 
planks, and a hand-rail in front of the afore- 
said platform of a proper height, and a seat 
in the rear of the platform of the same 
length of the platform, and two seats in front 
of the platform of the same length on the 
floor, all the seats to be made of good hewed 
puncheons or plank, to be made in such a 
manner as to be steady, and movable at 
pleasure. The platform is to be supported 
by good substantial posts, pillars or blocks. 
All of which is to be completed by the first 
Monday in March next, and to be done in a 



HISTORY OF JEFFEKSON COUNTY. 



workmanlike manner." All of this Oliver 
Morris undertook to do for the sum of $80. 
But he signally failed, the Commissioners, 
on an examination of the work, finding it so 
imperfect that they determined to deduct $5 
from the amount he was to have received. 
He accepted the $75. The building now, 
though not indeed everything that a court 
house ought to be, had'cost the county $160. 

The next demand was a Stray Pound — not 
because there were more cattle than criminals 
running at large, nor because they were more 
likely to be taken up, but because the law im- 
peratively required it. And this again was be- 
cause, from the scarcity of inclosures, stock was 
very liable to go astray. By an act approved 
March 23, 1819, the County Court in all new 
counties was required, within three months 
after locating coui't house, etc., to cause a 
Pound to be made near the same place, under 
penalty of $20 for every term of the court 
after the three months till it should be built. 
In this Pound all stray horses, mules, etc., 
over two years old, taken up within twenty 
miles, were to be kept from 12 till 4 o'clock 
on the first day of the County Court for 
three terms nest after the taking up, to en- 
able the owner to find and prove his proper- 
ty. Strays under two years old were adver- 
tised nearly as at present. If over twenty 
miles away, the stray was to be put in pound 
on the fii'st day of the second term after the 
taking up. The keeper was to keep and 
tend the pound on court days, under penalty 
of §8 fine. 

On the second day of this December term, 
therefore, the court "Ordered that the build- 
ing of a Stray Pound be let to the lowest 
bidder, of the following form, to wit: Forty 
feet square, five panels on each side of equal 
length, to be made of posts and rails, the 
posts to be made of white or post oak, neatly 
hewed, fom- by seven inches; the rails to be 



sufficiently strong; the cracks from two feet 
downward not to b^ more than four inches, 
and from that upward not more than six 
inches ; a good strong gate, and fixed to it a 
good lock and key, to be affixed to one side 
of said pound ; the posts of said fence to be 
set in the ground not less than thirty inches, 
to be in all respects strong and firm ; said 
pound to be completed and delivered to this 
court at the next March term. ' ' 

John C. Casey took the contract for build- 
ing the pound for S33.87i, but he does not 
seem to have been in haste about it, for at 
the February term, February 10, 1820, the 
coui't ordered that the pound be built on Lot 
No. 31. Garrison Greenwood having bought 
that lot, and failed to execute the required 
notes, it of course went back to the county. 
The Pound was ordered upon that lot, and 
" six feet from the southeast corner." And 
there it was located in due time, being re- 
ceived March 6, and the architect appointed 
to keep it. This lot. No. 31, is that on 
which the county jail now stands. 

The Jail. Before the Stray Pound was fin • 
ished (February 10, 1820), it was determined 
to build a jail (m the same lot as 
follows: "Ordered, that the building of a 
gaol be let to the lowest bidder on the second 
day of nest March term, to be built as fol 
lows, to wit: The first floor to be composed 
of two layers of timbers squared to twelve 
inches laid crosswise, and the whole to be 
covered with two inch plank closely laid and 
spiked down, the floor to be sunk within six 
inches of the surface of the earth; the wall 
to be composed of timber squared to twelve 
inches, of which two walls are to be built 
thirteen inches apart, the vacancy between 
which is to be filled with timbers not less 
than twelve inches square, to stand perpen- 
dicularly; the walls to bebtiiltin the way above 
described ten feet high, the timbers to be 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



287 



laid as close as possible; on which a second 
floor is to be made of twelve-inch square tim- 
ber closely laid and covered with two- inch 
plank, closely laid and spiked down, the 
spikes to be not less than four inches long; 
the room above described is for a dungeon. 
On the second floor there is a debtor's room 
to be built by continuing the outside wall of 
timber as before described, eight feet high 
from the second floor; then there is to be a 
third floor composed of timbers twelve inches 
square, closely laid, reaching from the outside 
of each wall, the house to be well covered 
with shingles. The lower room to be ten 
feet square in the clear, the walls and floors 
to be composed of good, sound oak timber. 
There is to be a door cut in one side of the 
upper or debtor's room, to which a good 
shutter is to be made and hung sufiiciently 
strong, to be made of two lay of two inch 
plank spiked together with spikes to go 
through and clinch; there is to be two win- 
dows to each room, twelve inches square, 
with eight bars of iron two feet long and an 
inch and a half square to each window put 
crosswise; about the middle of the second 
floor there is to be a hole cut two feet square, 
and to it there is to be hung sufiiciently 
strong a trap-door to fit the hole made in the 
same manner that the other door is to be 
made; there is to be made to reach up on the 
outside of the gaol to the door, a good and 
substantial pair of steps, and also a plat- 
form made at the top of the steps four feet 
square, and a railing three feet high from the 
platform around the same and also on one 
side of the steps ; the whole to be com- 
pleted and delivered in a workmanlike man- 
ner to the County Commissioners' Court at 
their next December term." 

Burchett Masey took the contract for build- 
ing the jail at $320. It cost more than the 
court house — twice as much — and rightly, 



for while there were but fifty or sixty logs in 
the court house, there were largely over 200 
in the jail. No sooner did Burchett Maxey 
secure the job than Zadok Casey, who was an 
extra hand with an ax, either in chopping or 
hewing, was taken in as a partner. Lewis 
and James Johnson and others assisted in 
gettiug out the timbers, but John Wilkerson 
hauled nearly every log in the building. It 
was " erected on the southwest corner of Lot 
No. 31, eight feet from the line." And on 
the 5th day of December, ' ' Henry B. Maxey, 
who undertook the building of the jail, de- 
livered the same to the court, which being 
completed agreeably to the order, was re- 
ceived by the court." The platform required 
by the contract was formed by putting in four 
logs foui- feet longer than the rest, the pro- 
jecting ends forming the platform and need- 
ing no support, while the steps were literally 
"a pair," being formed of two large tim- 
bers twelve or fourteen inches square, in 
which the steps were cut. We see economy 
in all the transactions of the court. In set- 
tling for the jail, the Treasurer was ordered 
to pay Z. Casey $114, and H. B. Maxey $96, 
and Zadok pledged himself to take his own 
paper for the rest, the court authorizing the 
Treasurer to receive it. 

At the October term of the county court — 
October 20, 1820— it was " Ordered, that the 
building of a Clerk's ofiice be let to the low- 
est bidder on the third Monday in October, 
inst., to be built as follows, to wit: The 
house to be built of hewed logs, fourteen 
feet square, the logs to face from ten to 
twelve inches, the wall to be nine feet high, 
to have a good, strong and tight clapboard 
roof, the ribs and weight poles the bark 
shaved off, the wall well chinked on the in- 
side and well daubed on the outside; the 
house to have a good floor of good and well- 
seasoned plank, jointed and well laid, to 



388 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



have a door place cut, and to it hung with 
good, strong iron hinges a good batten door, 
made of well-soaaoned plank, one window 
cut and faced the proper size for a nine- 
light sash, the sash and glass the undertaker 
to put in, also to have a chimney built after 
the same manner that the chimney to the 
court house is built, with good back wall, 
hearth and jamb-atones, the corners neatly 
sawed down, and a good batten shutter hung 
to the window with strong iron hinges; the 
house to be built of any kind of oak except 
Spanish oak. The whole to be finished in a 
workmanlike manner and delivered to the 
County Commissioners' Court at their next 
December term." 

This building was undertaken by John 
Wilkerson, but at the next court his time 
was extended until March. Accordingly, 
March 5, 1821, "the court proceeded to ex 
amine the Clerk's office, the workmanship 
of which being done in a satisfactory man- 
ner, was received, and in discharge for build- 
ing the same, ordered the County Treasurer 
to pay to William Casey 111, to William 
Jordan $2.25, to Henry B. Maxey $4, and to 
John Wilkerson $12.37^, all which amounts 
to $59.62|." Three months later the court 
ordered W. L. Howell |1 for a lock for the 
Clerk's office, and it was complete. It stood 
about midway on the north side of the pub- 
lic square, the door fronting south, the win- 
dow north, and the chimney east like that of 
the court house. And we may add, it is not 
expressly stated in the record, but it was ex- 
pressly done — both chimneys were built 
wholly of wood except the ' ' back, hearth 
and jamb-stones.'' They were genuine mud 
and stick chimneys, albeit they were very 
neat ones. And speaking of the lock for this 
ofiSce reminds ub that in September after the 
court house was finished — six months — they 
had to pay Lewis Watkins for a lock and 



chain for that building. The lock, you will 
at once understand, was a padlock, and the 
door was secured by putting the chain 
through a little chink between the logs and 
through an auger hole in the door, and lock- 
ing the end links together. You will notice, 
too, as the rib poles were shaved, that it was 
not intended that the Clerk" s office should 
ever have a ceiling. 

So much for the public buildings. They 
constituted about half of the town. It was 
in the court house that Burchett Maxey lived 
while finishing his own house on Lot No. 4, and 
it was in the Clerk's office that Joel Pace spent 
the last years of his single and first months 
of his married life. It was here that he 
lived with his family when Harvey T. Pace 
came out fi-om Kentucky in the vigor of 
youth, and split 3,000 rails for him at 50 
cents per hundred in State paper, equal to 
25 cents in specie. Harvey boarded with 
his uncle, and fourteen feet square seems to 
have been room enough for them and their 
goods, and also the office. 

It IS proper, perhaps, that we now tell 
who those men were that we have sometimes 
mentioned in connection with these first 
buildings in Mount Vernon. 

James E. Davis, who cried the sale of 
town lots, was one of a little colony of Max- 
eys, Johnsons and others, that came in from 
Sumner County, Teun., in 1818. He lived 
near where Robert Edwards lives. His wife 
was a sister to Burchett and Elihu Maxey's 
wives, and to James Bowman's and John 
Afflack's, all being daughters of Perry Tay- 
lor, of Wilson County, Tenn. Davis re- 
mained here till he had one daughter grown 
and married to John Tade. John was a son 
of David Tade, and David Tade was the 
father also of Mrs. W. Finch. They lived 
about where Elijah Knox lives, but in a year 
or two Mr. Davis, old Mr. Tade, and all 



HISTOJRY OF JEFFERSON COITNTY. 



2S9 



t.heir families, went to Tazewell County, and 
thence to Iowa. 

Of those who bought lots: Bennett N. 
Maxey was the second son of "William 
Maxey and brother to Joshua C. and Jehu 
G. D., who are still here; was the father of 
William H., James J., Charles H., Joshua 
C, Jr., and Thomas J.; also of Mrs. Emily 
Ray and Mrs. Eliza White; and died at the 
place he first settled, a mile east of Pleasant 
Grove, in 1846, aged fifty-one, his widow, 
Sally, nee Overbay, dying at Eome seven 
years later. William and Edward Mas.ey 
were brothers, sons of Jesse Ma.xey, of Vir- 
ginia. William married Rhodam Allen'n sis- 
ter Emily, in 1793, and came to Illinois in 

1818, and was the father of Henry Burchett, 
Bennett Nelbon, Elihu, Charles Hardy, Josh- 
ua Cannon, William McKeudree Adney and 
Jehu; also of Mrs. Clarissa Johnson, Mrs. 
Harriet and Mrs. Vylinda A. Casey, and 
Hostillina, who died in 1818; and William 
himself died in 1838, his wife having died 
in 1837. Edward married Elizabeth Pitner, 
went to Allen County, Ky., and came thence 
to Illinois in 1819; was a Methodist preacher, 
held office many years, raised no son or 
daughter, but raised Judge Sattertield and 
others, and died at Gov. Casey's about thirty- 
five years ago, his wife soon following. Bar- 
ton Atchisson was from Georgia, by way of 
Tennessee; married a Hill, sister to old Mrs. 
WiJkey and Mrs. Dempsey Hood; came to 
this county in 1815-16, was much in public 
life, and died in November, 1847, leaving 
sons, William, Ignatius, Samuel and George 
W., and daughters Winney Myere, Martha 
Chaffin, and one the wife of Theophilus Cook, 
Jr. Nelson Ferguson came to this county in 

1819, and lived one year on James Johnson's 
land, and went back to Tennessee, to Station 
Camp Creek, six miles north of Gallatin; his 
wife was a Tyler, sister to Jordan Tyler, now 



among us. Clark Casey — John C. — was a 
son of Abraham P. , and son-in-law of Isaac 
Casey; came to this county in 1818, and 
raised the first cabin on Mulberry Hill, where 
Capt. W^olflf lives, moved several times, lost 
his wife, married a Bingaman, went to Mis- 
souri, and at last came back and died here in 
1862. Lewis Watkins was prominent in the 
history of Jefi^erson County for several years, 
living first in Moore's Prairie, then in Mount 
Vernon, and at last went back to Tennessee, 
leaving one child here — Margaret, wife of 
Green P. Casey, and mother of Lewis F. 
Casey, of Centralia. 

Of those concerned in the public buildings: 
John Sanders was from Franklin County, 
his first wife, Nancy, a sister to Abraham and 
Joseph Estes. He was the first Constable, 
his appointment dating in June, 1819; next 
year he married a Miss Cox, soon after got 
license to keep tavern — somewhere in the 
south part of the county, and then we lose 
all trace of him. Hem-y Tyler, was the son 
of John Tyler, and John was a half-brother 
to James and Lewis Johnson. John Tyler 
and Lewis Johnson came from Sumner 
County, Tenn., in 1819. Henry married 
Catharine, daughter of Isaac Casey, lived 
awhile at the Brown place on the Salem road, 
and awhile where the eastern part of Mount 
Vernon is. He built a cabin east of where 
Thomas Hobbs lives; discovered the springs, 
but despised them because the water tasted 
"brackish," concluded his land would never 
be worth anything, and sold his pre-emption 
on the eighty acres to Thomas Tunstall for 
$92. He lived many years on the Centralia 
road, and died there in 1877. John C. and 
Isaac, of this county, are his sons ; Mrs. Pat 
Ingram, of Richview, his daughter. He 
never had the headache in his life, but died 
of something like apojalexy. Oliver Morris, 
was son-in-law to Joseph Jordan. He was a 



390 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



man of some means, living in Moore's Prairie, 
where he built a brick house in 1823. He 
and Lewis Watkins were appointed Justices 
of the Peace before the county was organized; 
and Morris " swore in " the first officers. 
He went to Texas about 1831; there his only 
child married Crockett Glenn, a nephew to 
Davy Crockett. They all came back about 
seven years later, fearfully reduced in fort- 
une Morris located on the high point east 
of the Benton road, about five miles south of 
Mount Vernon, where he died in August, 
1839. John Wilkerson was brother to Henry 
as before stated. He first married Dicey 



Keelin, in Virginia, then a Mrrs. Thomas, 
sister to Rhodam Allen and William Max 
ey's wife. Allen, father of H. H. W. Wilk- 
erson, was a son of the first wife. Mrs. 
Thomas by her first husband had five chil- 
aren— Mrs. Thad Moss's grandfather, "Aunt 
Polly" Parker, and Edward Wilkerson's 
wife were of these. John's last set of chil- 
dren were Mastin, John, Ransom, Betsey 
Webber, Sallie Daniel, Jane Hill, Emily Hill 

I and Patsy Lynch. So his descendants are 
all over the country. Zadok Casey, who oc- 
cupied such a place in our history, is exten- 

' sivelv noticed elsewhere in this volume. 



CHAPTER III. 



CITY OF MOUNT VERNON— MORE ABOUT ITS EARLY CITIZENS— SOME PEN PHOTOGRAPHS— THE 

SECOND COURT HOUSE-MOUNT VERNON FROM 1824 TO 1830— A FEW OF THE OLD 

HOUSES— RELICS OF A BY-GONE PERIOD— MORE TOWNSHIP ITEMS, AND A 

TRIPLE WEDDING— LATER SETTLERS— COUNTY ROADS— THE 

FIRST CHURCHES OUTSIDE OF TOWN, ETC., ETC. 



"All that I prized have passed away like clouds 
Whicli float a moment on the twilight sky 
And fade in night."— <S^ra'«. 

"TTTE now go back to the fall of 1819. 
VV The only buildings in the town at 
this time are the court house, Burchett 
Maxey's, Lewis Watkins' and Clark Casey's. 
The place was overgrown with rank weeds 
and grass; and not a road led into it or 
out, except trails and foot-paths. William 
Casey's house, where the Commercial Hotel 
stands, was quite oat of town. He now 
built out on the hill west of town, and 
Lewis Watkins left his half-finished shanty 
on the corner and moved into Casey's house. 
W. L. Howell came to town in 1820, and 

* By Dr. A. Clark Johnson. 



located in Watkins' house till he could put 
up some kind of a house on Lot 41, east of 
the court house. This man, William Lasater 
Howell, was the son of a wealthy farmer in 
Tennessee. The old gentleman lived in a 
large brick house on the turnpike, not many 
miles from Gallatin. We think no relatives 
of his came to this county except Mrs. Alex- 
ander, and she was not much honor to him. 
She said herself she had had eleven husbands, 
had no childi-en to bind her to any of them, 
and was going to have another man or more 
if she saw any she liked. Howell taught a 
school at Union in 1822. He was Sheriff 
after Watkins. He was a nice man, but a bad 
manager; and was kept in oflice till he could 
not five security or file the necessary bond. 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



291 



He lived awhile in Jordan's Prairie, at the 
Whitesides place. While living here, his lit- 
tle boy of four years (Erasmus) was lost. 
Mrs. Howell started to the branch for water, 
and the little fellow undertook to follow. 
There were only paths — one to the branch, 
some to the neighbors, some cow-paths, etc. — 
and Erasmus took the wrong path. On her 
return, the mother missed him. She soon 
raised the alarm, but it was so near night 
that little could be done. Howell was at 
town with his horse and wagon; and he was 
so excited, on hearing the news, that he 
drove the horse home at full speed, and did 
not notice a large tree that had fallen across 
the road — horse and wagon jumping it 
together. For two nights and a day, the 
search was kept up. Green Casey then lived 
at the Maj. Frank Casey place; he went out 
to feed in the dusk of evening, and heard a 
child crying and calling in the woods, but 
fearing it might be a panther, he would not 
go. near. Next morning, taking his gun, he 
went out, and there on the ground sat the 
child, quite exhausted and in despair. He 
looked as if he had given up and sat down 
to die. He was soon restored to his parents, 
and great was the joy among the friends. 
Howell, not long after, went back to Tennes- 
see, then to Arkansas, and died in Scott 
County. 

The same year, 1820, in the spring, Felix 
McBride came, took Clark Casey's lot — now 
the corner west of Nieman's — off his hands, 
and set up a grocery. We think McBride 
came with the Whitesides. He married Nel- 
lie Hensley, a sister to John and Leftridge 
Hensley, near Walnut Hill. She was the 
second woman buried at Union, "Aunt Milly " 
Tyler being the first. Her grave is close be- 
side "Roaring Billy" Woods', and was cov- 
ered with a bricfi arch of pretty neat work- 
manship. Their only child was soon after 



buried in the same grave. McBride enlarged 
the Clark Casey house to a double log build- 
ing, with open passage, and nearly two 
stories high. On the death of his wife, he 
left here and married again, went to Galena, 
and was at length killed by a miner. 

The next man was Elisha Plummer. Wat- 
kins returned to Tennessee, vacating the 
William Casey house; Plummer moved into 
it, and put up a rough blacksmith shop, just 
east of where the Methodist Episcopal Church 
stands. He did not stay long. His wife 
was a daughter of James Tally, and he and 
Tally went to the American bottom. At last 
accounts. Tally was keeping a boarding house 
in St. Louis. Next, Thomas Tunstall came, 
in 1821, and bought the " Kirby Tavern," as 
it was afterward called, and put up a log 
storehouse, where Herdman lives. Thomas 
came first, then the old peojile and his 
brothers. William Tunstall, the father, had 
his second wife, the first having died child- 
less. They were familiarly called " the old 
Colonel" and "Aunt Sally." Aunt Sally 
was a Mrs. Whorl, of the Todd family; and, 
as we are told, was an aunt to Mrs. Lincoln. 
Tom's name was Thomas Todd. They were 
all Kentuekians. The old lady died in 1825, 
and the old Colonel went back to Kentucky, 
where he died a few years later. The 
Colonel drank, and was found dead in bed 
one morning. Their children wei'e Thomas T., 
Edmund, George and Jane Webb. Thomas 
kept tavern and sold goods and groceries. 
He bought and sent South a great deal of 
stock. He could buy a good yearling for a 
set of plates, or a set of knives and forks, or a 
pair of shoes. While here ho sent ofl:' no less 
than 1,500 head of cattle, and a good many 
horses. He gave Nolin forty cows and calves 
for a race-horse called Moneymolder. He 
had the treadmill erected, which stood just 
north of where Judge Pollock lives, bring- 



292 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



ing John Summers up from Shawneetown to 
superintend it. Not long after this, he went 
to Vicksbui-g, then to Little Kock, and among 
other adventures, won a steamboat at the 
card table. He bought a large b^dy of land 
on White Eiver, and laid out the town of 
Jacksonport. James and William were his 
oldest sons; one of his daughters was mar- 
ried to John Boyer, one to McHenry. etc. 
He died at Memphis during the war. Ed- 
mund married Miss Baugh at Vandalia, came 
to Mount Vernon in 1823, lived a while at 
the Howell House, east of the court house, 
and succeeded Burchett Maxey as tavern 
keeper at the H T. Pace corner in 1824. He 
nest went South, and died, and John Baugh 
went down— spring of 1828— and brought 
his widow back. She had two sons, Edmund 
and James. About thirty years ago, the 
boys went South; James became Captain of 
a steamboat on White River, fell overboard 
at Buffalo Shoals, and was never found. 
Mrs. Tiinstall married a Hart. George, son 
of the old Colonel, went Souths and Jane 
W. was married in 1824 to Dr. W. Adams. 
William Rearden came about this time, and 
put up two cabins on Lot No. 16, south and 
west of where TJrry lives. He was a cabinet- 
maker, perhaps the first in the county, and 
his wife was a sister to Jarvis Pierce. His 
house was not only out of town, but entirely 
out of sight of town. He did not remain 
long. The preacher, better known as Col. 
Rearden, was his son. 

This brings us up to the fall of 1823, with 
Plummer at the Casey house, Burchett Maxey 
at the H. T. Pace corner, Thomas Tunstall at 
the Kirby tavern, Edmund Tunstall east of 
the court house, McBride at the corner west 
of Nieman's, and Rearden away out in the 
brush southwest of town. All the rest of the 
town was in the brush, and these lots are 
only partly fenced, and that with crooked 



rail fences. The Clerk's office, too, on the 
north side of the public square, and Joel 
Pace living in it from the spring of 1822 to 
1823, ought not to be forgotten. 

But Joel Pace built a cabin about a hun- 
dred yards east of where Gen. Pavey lives; 
a new court house was built, and the old 
Clerk's office was left tenantless. This new 
court house was first determined on at the 
December term, 1821, William Casey, then one 
of the County Commissioners, being the am- 
bitious man who ventured to propose it, and 
this was to be the fashion of it: " The wall 
to be built of brick, twenty-foiu- by thirty 
feet, two stories high; the first story nine 
feet, the ^second seven and a half, two sets 
of joists to be put in, nine sixteen-light win- 
dow-frames the lights eight by ten be- 
low, and eight twelve- light window-frames, 
lio-hts same size above, two door-frames to 
be put in, four fire-places above, the house to 
have a good, firm, brick floor; the house to 
be well covered with good oak shingles witli- 
out sap, the brick and timber to be of the 
best quality; the house completed * * * 
by next December term." McBride under- 
took the job, and handed it over the next 
summer to Thomas Jordan. McBride got 
$300, Jordan 8202, and Edward Tunstall 
SllO, when it was paid for. But it was not 
finished till the summer of 1823 — nor even 
then. For, in 1829, an order was made tor 
finishing the house— laying the upper floor, 
enlarging the hearth-boxes, putting stairs in 
the southeast corner, dividing the upper part 
into four rooms with dressed gum planks, 
ceiling the room with good shaved oak 
boards (fourfoot boards split by hand, of 
course), putting in bricks that had fallen 
out. and painting the outside with three 
good coats of Spanish brown. John Wilker- 
son bid off the job of inside work at $89, 
which was done bv Cannon Maxey and 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



293 



Stephen Hicks, and the painting at $79.93|, 
this part of the work being mostly done by 
Jarvis Pierce. The same year, 1829, the 
jail was moved to a place just east of the 
conrt house, and about fifteen feet from it, 
by Green Depriest. 

Mount Vernon from 1824 to 1830. — In 
1824, William Casey sold ninety rods off the 
west side of the southwest quarter of Section 
29, to James Gray for SI, 000. The convey- 
ance ignores the existence of Mount Vernon 
right in the heart of the tract. This is what 
was laid oiit and added to the town in 1840, 
the whole forming "Storm's Survey." About 
the same tme, 1824, John Cooper, another 
blacksmith, came, and moved into one of 
Rearden's houses. He afterward went to the 
Henry Wilkerson place — of late, Jacob 
Stitch's — where Jonathan Wells had lived 
awhile and had built a shop. Another noted 
arrival abont this time was a medical firm — 
Drs. Adams & Glover. They hoarded awhile 
at Edward Tunstall's, the H. T. Pace corner, 
and when Tunstall left they bought the prop- 
erty. They soon after sold to Pace. Glover 
went to McLeansboro — then a bran new 
town — married a Miss Locke, and went to 
Missouri. Dr. Adams was from Alabama. 
When Glover left, or sooner, he man'ied 
Jane Tunstall, October, 1824, and lived 
many years about town, part of the time two 
or three miles west of town; then went to the 
place in an arm of Moore's Prairie, where he 
died in January, 1873. Downing Baugh 
was also here, remained a year or two, mar- 
ried Milly Pace, went to Vandalia, and 
thence to Collinsville; then concluded to 
locate in Mount Vernon. He sold goods, 
and was for several years a Justice of the 
Peace. He built a store about where Seimer 
& Klinker now keep, in 1832; and he built 
the two-story frame on the north side of the 
square, that was burned before the Phoenix 



Block arose. He has ever been a zealous 
Methodist. He was appointed Judge of the 
Circuit Coiu-t, Twelfth Circuit, August 11, 
1854, vice S. S. Marshall, resigned, and held 
the office till the election of Edwin Beecher, 
in 1855. He was pronounced one of the best 
judges of statute law in the State. He now 
lives in McGregor, Iowa, at the age of 
eighty-four years. His wife died here in 
May, 1846, and he married a Miss Sophronia 
Davis. His daughters were Mrs. H. H. 
Wilkerson, Mrs. J. J. Ely, Mrs. W. W. 
Thurston; his sons, Thomas J., John W. and 
Joel V. T. J. and Mrs. W. are dead. 
Jack and Moses Baugh were brothers to the 
Judge; Mrs. Edmund Tunstall, two Mrs. 
Foleys, of Galena, and Mrs. Buck Pace, of 
Salem, his sisters. 

In the spring of 1825, William Flint built 
on Lot No. 19, and set up another gi'ocery. 
The house is still standing, the first resi- 
dence south of the Crews building. Perhaps 
Flint sold to D. Baugh. Baugh owned the 
place when H. T. Pace lived there. It was 
also in 1825 that Simon McClenden built a 
small frame house west of the court house. 
McClenden first settled in Moore's Prairie, 
then moved up to the Samuel Bullock place 
west of town, then to town. One of his 
daughters, Jane, married a Gilbert, and 
Polly Ann Billardy was the name of the 
other. Riley married a Quinn, then a 
Daniels, and is in Texas. Joseph Wilbanks 
came to town this season, and in the fall he 
went into the Thomas Tunstall or Kirby 
tavern, and kept it for about a year. The 
Wilbaukses began to come in 1824, as will 
be seen in other chapters. Joseph Wilbanks 
bought Lot No. 9, the^Thorn lot, from Pace, 
who transferred title bond from Edward 
Masey, for $40, moved the Rearden house 
up here for a residence, and bought McClen- 
den's house for a store room. He soon after 



294 



HISTORY OF JEFFEKSOX COUXTY. 



went to South Carolina on business, and 
died there, leaving John, Luke, Quincy and 
Margaret, his childi-en. Dr. Adams followed 
Joseph Wilbanks at the Tunstall House. 
But before Wilbanks bought McClenden's 
house, he, in partnership with a Mr. Han- 
cock, sold goods at the corner — now east of 
Porter & Bond's drug store. 

We will now finish the stoiy of some of 
those first houses of the olden time. The 
log court house was sold to some man— per- 
haps William Hamblin,— who moved and re- 
built east of Hansackers. Capt. Newby 
bought the lot, and moved the logs down to 
his residence (now Capt. Gibson's), where, 
after various uses, they went into a " shuck " 
pen, a few remains of which were to be found 
there only a few years back. We don't know 
what became of the old Clerk's office; some 
tell us it was burned — catching fire from the 
burning prairie; and some that it was moved 
down to the lot where Wlecke's Hotel stands. 
A log house stood for years on that lot. Har- 
vey Pace worked in it the first year that he 
lived in town. Dr. Adams lived there for a 
while. Mrs. Keller was born there, and it 
was in this house, or one erected on the cor- 
ner north of it, that Daniel Anderson kept 
his first grocery. Of Thomas Tunstall's old 
tavern stand, perhaps enough has been said. 
After Wilbanks & Adams, E. D. Anderson 
kept there. 1830 to 1836, and James Kirby 
came in and bought it, and occupied it from 
1836 till his death in 1844. The house that 
Watkins built at N. C. Pace & Co.'s corner, 
was used as a stable by John M. Pace — Jack 
Pace, as he was generally called, who kept a 
blooded animal there one spring and sum- 
mer. It was then occupied as a stable by 
a Mr. Black. This man (James Black), had 
married Joseph Wilbanks' sister, and was 
carrying the mail from Shawneetown to St. 
Louis on horseback. Black was killed in 



the Black Hawk war ; his widow married Comp - 
ton, and died, and Compton married Miss 
Sarah Hawkins; then at Compton's death his 
widow married a Combs, father of Samuel. 
In 1828. this old house was moved to the cor- 
ner where Porter & Bond's drug store stands, 
the first house on that corner, but was still 
used as a stable. No trace of it remains. 
Joel Pace bought the lot of James Gray in 

1829, for $45, and built on it in 1831. The 
log house that Burchett Masey built on the 
H. T. Pace corner, stood there till after H. 
T. Pace bought the lot. Indeed, Burchett 
had reared a two-story house just south of it, 
about 15x30 feet, longest from east to west, 
and had it inclosed and floored, a stairway 
up, etc. ; and he sold the whole, houses and 
lot, to Pace, for $250, in 1827. Pace then, in 

1830, built a store room in front, east of the 
log house, doing nearly all the work himself: 
rented it awhile to D. Baugh, then to E. H. 
Eidgeway, and began business in it himself 
in 1832. The log house was occupied for a 
time by W. W. Pace in 1829. From that he 
went to the Tunstall tavern, where he lived 
one year, then he went to the Wilbanks 
house west of the square, then to the Howell 
house east of the square, and then to Salem 
in 1834. But the old log house, after he left 
it, was bought by John Scott, and moved to 
the country. This last location was about 
south of the William Baugh house, where 
Cherry lives. Scott sold out to James Bow- 
man, and Bowman was bui'ned out in 1835. 
He had commenced a house in town in 1834, 
east of the square, and before it was nearly 
finished, sold to John Johnson, the wi-iter's 
father, and now having no house instead of 
two. He rebuilt out east, and this second 
house stood within the memory of many of 
us. AVesley Johnson now lives in the house 
Bowman started east of the square. Joseph 
Wilbanks, as stated, bought the Eearden 



LIBRARY 

OF THE 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



297 



house, and moved it up to the lot where Mrs. 
Thorn lives— Lot No. 9. Then in 1826, Har- 
vey Pace built an addition for Wilbanks 
south of the old house, and Stinson Ander- 
son m 1831; after he married Mrs. Wilbanks, 
built the part Thorn used for a shop. Thorn 
added the upper stories to these about 1855. 
The old Rearden house was moved back long 
before that for a kitchen, and is now "gone 
back " entirely. At Wilbanks' death, 1829, 
one-third of his north lot was sold to pay 
debts, and was used for a residence by vari- 
ous persons. In 1828, Uncle Isaac Casey 
and Joel Pace went into business in the Wil- 
banks storehouse, and continued there till 
Joel built at his comer lot in 1831. W. W. 
Pace bought part of the Wilbanks lot, in- 
cluding the residence; sold it to W. D. Isbell 
in 1832, for $125. Dr. Simmons lived there 
one summer; Dr. Moore got it, Lewis Moore 
got it, and at last Harvey Pace got it, bought 
the rest of the lot from Abner Melcher a few 
years later; and in the fall of 1844 moved 
the store to where it now stands, performing 
the office of milliner's shop, late dining-room. 
The old original William Casey house stood 
many years. After Plummer, Samuel Hirons 
occupied it, and many others succeeded him. 
Old Cesar lived there in 1834, and we know 
.not how long before or after; and finally, 
L. C. Moss bought it, and moved it out to 
a place he had bought this side of where Mr. 
Tankersly lived. The Clark Casey house, 
west of Nieman's, was considerably enlarged 
by Felix McBride; but in 1824 Mrs. McBride 
died, and he left. He was followed by Will- 
iam Thacker, he by old Mr. Davenport, he 
by Samuel McConnell; he by old Mr. Bos- 
well, father of Felix; he by Noah Johnston, 
and he by William Hickman, from Ken- 
tucky. Hickman came in 1836, built the large 
frame now occupied by W. E. Jackson, and 
sold to Witherspoon & Barker in 1837. W. 



B. Scates moved it to where it now stands. 
Thomas Cunningham bought the old houses 
and rebuilt them where Charles J. Pool lives. 
Witherspoon staid a few years, married 
Lewis Johnson's youngest daughter, Susan, 
and went back to Kentucky. Barker, Wes- 
ley Barker, was a brother to William Casey's 
wife, and his wife was a sister to Robert 
Wingate. Wesley went to Louisville. We 
just now referred to W. W. Pace's having 
bought the Howell house; he built an addi- 
tional room, and sold to Dr. Moore in 1835. 
Moore did not tarry long; went to Carlyle, 
then to Franklin or Columbus in Tennessee, 
then to St. Louis, where he became eminent. 
The Doctor sold out to John M. Pace late in 

1835. Next year Pace went back to his farm, 
then came to the Joseph Wilbanks houses; 
returned to his farm, rented the old Howell 
house for awhile to Bowman, and finally, in 

1836, sold it to Eli D. Anderson. Eli was 
succeeded by William Gibberson, a tailor, 
after whom a great number lived there, until 
Strattan demolished the house to " build 
greater," in 1859. We have dwelt on these 
details, because, if the record is not pre- 
served here and now, the whole story is gone 
forever. 

In 1S19, October 5, the third wedding in 
the county occurred at William Maxey's, in 
Shiloh Township, and three couples were 
married at once. And two of the couples, 
Ahiaham T. Casey and wife and Bennett N. 
Maxey and wife, with Elihu Maxey and his 
wife, newly married, and just back from 
Tennessee, all settled in Sections 6 and 7 of 
Mount Vernon Township. A. T. Casey's 
wife was Yylinda Maxey. Bennett Maxey's 
wife was Sally Overbay. raised by Edward 
Maxey. but a daughter of James Overbay, 
and sister to Carroll Overbay ; Coleman 
Smith's wife, Joel Hai-low's, Fountain Jai-- 
rell's, Garland H. Jarrell's, James Mclntire's, 

12 



298 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



Green Duncan's, Thomas Blaloch's, and — we 
believe that's all. Elihu Maxey's wife was 
Evaline Taylor. Well, A. T. Casey settled 
jnst north of where Windsor Pettit lives, 
and remained there till his death in 1834, 
and his family remained till old Mr. Lane 
bought the place. Elihu Maxey settled north 
of Casey, and south of where George Smith 
lives, and lived there till he was killed in 
October, 1853. Bennett Maxey settled a 
mile east of Pleasant Grove, and lived there 
till 184:6, when he died. These young 
people, and Thomas Casey, just married to 
Harriet Maxey, and settled over the Shiloh 
line, made a good start in the world. They 
had cabins, some had floors in their cabins, 
some had pole bedsteads, and some slept on 
board pens, filled with leaves, on the floor ; 
but all had plenty, and were happy. Deer, 
turkeys, bears, wolves and wild cats were 
always handy ; and if there was no meat for 
breakfast, the man would bid his wife wait a 
few minutes, take do^n his gun, and directly 
bring in the game. 

Dr. John W. Watson came to Illinois in 
1821, arriving November 21. He lived on 
the Mulben-y Hill until the next spring, 
when he, or rather John and Asa, built a 
large crib on the place a mile north of town, 
where he afterward lived. The crib had two 
or three apartments, one for gi'ain, one for a 
toolhouse, etc., and into one of these they 
came and lived till a hickory log house coviild 
be raised, the same that Thomas Hunt tore 
down about twelve years ago. This year 
(1822), the Doctor rented ground from John 
Wilkerson near Union, and by the next he 
had opened land of his own. He was the 
first physician that was located in the county, 
and in that day he paid well for his drugs. 
An ounce of quinine that he got of Atwood, 
in St. Louis, cost him $10.50, and an ounce 
of veratrum that he got from Philadelphia, 



$40. He was County Assessor in 1822 and 
1823, when his fees amounted to $17, and 
the whole revenue to $70. The home- 
dressed fawn-skin cover that he or his boys 
made for his Assessor's book is still preserved 
in the Clerk's office. Mi's. Watson died 
March 3, and the Doctor June 3, 1845. His 
childi-en were John, who died in Virginia in 
1803 ; Virginia, who was married to John 
Summers in 1824; John H., who married 
Betsy Rankin in 1827 ; William B. , who 
married Margaret and afterward Sarah 
Leonard ; Asa B., who married Diana Ham 
in 1833 ; Joel F. , who is among us and well 
known; Amelia, who died single, and Horry 
M. , who married Minerva Cummins. Joel Pace 
located on his farm adjoining Dr. Watson's 
in 1823, as before stated, and there reared a 
large family, lost his venerable companion in 
1877, and himself died, in 1879, at the age 
of eighty- eight years. 

In 1822, William Hix — as he spelt it, and 
Hicks as nearly everybody else spelt it — 
located and made an improvement four miles 
north of town. A man by the name of Lee 
came aboat the same time, and they had a 
little mill. Hix was related to Mrs. William 
Casey ; what relation we cannot say, but she 
called him " Cousin Billy." He and Will- 
iam Casey and Joseph Jordan comjjosed the 
second Board of County Commissioners. He 
sold his improvement to Azariah Bruce in 
the fall of 1823, and went to the " Western 
District " in Tennessee. Aboat the same time 
(1823), Jarvis Pierce, Sr. , formerly of New 
York, came up from White County, and 
moved into a cabin that stood south of the 
Hinman or Strattan place, a mile west of 
town. He was the father of Jarvis, Joseph 
and Henry, Mrs. Eearden, Mi's. Tolle, Mrs. 
Charles Mills; Mrs. Hick, afterward Mrs. 
John Storms; Mrs. Summers and Mi's. Martin 
Gillett. He did not stay long. Azariah 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



299 



Bruce came in 1823, and succeeded William ' 
His on the Salem road, four miles north of 
town. He was a native o^ Halifax County, 
Ya. He went to Tennessee, and married a 
Keelin in Wilson County. He served two 
terms as County Commissioner, lost his wife 
in July, 1853, and died himself in March, 
1854. Of his children, Sally was married to 
Hardy Maxey; Nancy, to Harvey Pace ; 
Polly, to Jehu Maxey ; Betsy, to John Baiigh 
now in Texas ; Armstead W. lives in Wayne 
County ; Marquis, north of Rome, in this 
county ; John, in Gallatin ; Leonard W., in 
Webber, and Savanner in this township ; 
Melissa died in youth ; Harmon died in 
Wayne County in 1868. Next year, 1824, 
John Summers, the Englishman whom Tun- 
stall had brought from Shawneetown to ; 
superintend his mill, and who had just mar- 
ried Virginia Watson, bought Abram Casey 
nut, and moved to the place two miles east of 
town, where he lived so long. Here he built 
a tread mill, and continued to improve it till 
at last he had a very good steam mill. He 
went to Texas, and died there. Of his de- 
scendants, only William's family and Jack- 
son's family are here now. William and 
Jackson are dead, and Jackson's widow is the 
wife of James Brown, of Field. 

Aaron Yearwood came in December, 
18'26. He was accompanied by his mother, 
with her two sons, Joseph and Robert, and 
by his brother William. With William came 



his wife's sister Betsy, now Mrs. Watson. The 
father of these ladies, Robert Rankin, Sr., 
came a year or so later, and after a short 
stay, went to Shelby County, but left here 
his son Robert and Mrs. Robert Yearwood. 
Old Mrs. Yearwood' B husband's name was 
Frederic ; she herself died in 1847. The 
next fall after Aaron's arrival, 1827, James 
SiU'sa, whose wife was sister to his wife and 
to Ward Webber, came out with his brother 
Jack Sursa. These men and one daughter were 
the children of Richard Sursa, who died in 
the war of 1812. Benjamin Webber came 
with the Yearwoods, married a Wilkerson, 
and settled at the Jordan or Coley Smith 
place on Seven Mile Creek. Ward Webber 
and John came three years later, 1829, the 
latter settling in the edge of Wayne County, 
while Ward located where Daniel Barfield 
afterward lived. Daniel was step sou to 
James Sursa. About the same time, 1829, 
William Byers came to the place still known 
as the " Old Byers place." Mrs. Byers — 
"Aunt Nancy" — was sister to old Mr. Year- 
wood. Byers had a daughter already married 
to Joseph Brown. Pete Bruce, or Armstead 
W. and Moses Baugh, took one each, and the 
last girl (we suppose, not finding a B. to 
suit her) was married to Fountain Garrison. 
He and James Garrison came in 1827, and 
James died of small -pox a few years ago. 
James married a Wimberley ; in two or three 
years after coming out, F. died. 



300 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



CHAPTER IV.* 



CITY OF MOUNT VEHNON— THE DECADE FROM 1830 TO 1840— GROWTH OF THE TOWN— NEW BUILD- 
INGS AND NEW BUSINESS— A LOOK BEYOND THE TOWN— BRIEF RETROSPECT— ANOTHER COURT 
HOUSE— SOME OF THE BUSINESS MEN AND WHAT THEY DID— STILL ANOTHER COURT 
HOUSE— THE JAIL— ORGANIZATION OF MOUNT VERNON TOWNSHIP— OFFICIALS, ETC. 



" What is the city but tlie people? 

True, the people are the city." — Shakespeare. 

AS early as any of these, perhaps in 1825, 
Jacob Ford settled in a little cabin now 
better known as the Tommy Short place, north 
of the Coley Smith place, on Seven Mile, 
and here he was soon joined by Joab Peter- 
son, a Swede; they had married sisters — 
cousins to old Mrs. Malone, by the way — 
and lived together for three or four years. 
The Garrisons, cousins to Isaac, etc., lived 
on the Herdman place. We may add that 
Aaron Yearwood ran the still-house on the 
creek for a year or more, Allen and John 
Wilkerson beiug the original owners. Aaron 
had no scniples about it till Abram Casey (A. 
T.) came in and mildly said, " Don't you 
think you are doing wrong?" Aaron re- 
flected; conscience was not satisfied, he re- 
solved to quit it, and did. Jack Sursa 
afterward operated there. James Sursa 
built a mill, which was extensively useful in 
its day; he was also County Commissioner 
for several terms. He died December 27, 
1852, and Jack had been dead ten years the 
past August. 

The Roads. — We have referred to th e 
Goshen read and the trails and bridle paths 
that traversed the country. No road what- 
ever touched Mount Vernon for a year or 
two after it was laid out. Even the new 

♦By Dr. A. Clark Johnson. 



road or trail from Crenshaw's crossed the 
prairie nearly half a mile south of town, and 
went to Isaac Casey's house (m the hill, 
where Beal lives. The history of our roads 
is given elsewhere, but we may here say 
that on the third day of the first term of the 
County Court, the subject of roads came be - 
fore the Commissioners. Orders were made 
at that time, and in September and October, 
1819, but without result; at length in Feb- 
ruary, 1820, a Board of Viewers, with Joseph 
Pace as Surveyor, located the road running 
diagonally across the county, near where it 
has ever since been, now running from Mc- 
Leansboro to Centralia. In the spring of 
1822, the Vandalia road was opened to the 
north line of Marion County, which was then 
an attached part of Jefferson, Elihu Masey 
opening the first section, and William Max- 
well the next. But the road was not used 
much, and was not fairly open until the fall 
of 1823, when Thomas Minor and Maxwell 
were ordered to cut it out twelve feet wide 
and keep it in repair. The next road was 
the Covington road, opened, after two or 
three fruitless orders, in the spring of 1824, 
not far from where the Richview road now 
runs. In 1826, by the influence of John 
Summers, the Fairfield road was opened. 
Summers being one of the Viewers and the 
first Supervisor. It ran nearly where it does 
now, except that it started out nearly due 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



301 



east from the court house. In 1828, the Cov- 
ington road was vacated, and the George- 
town road was opened, now much better 
known as the Ashley or Nashville road. 

The early religious settlers of the county, 
a majority of them, at least, were Methodists, 
several of them ministers. The next strong- 
est denomination was the Baptist. Zadok 
Casey, Edward Maxey and Lewis Johnson 
were Methodist preachers; James E. Davis, 
a Cumberland Presbyterian, and Archibald 
Harris, a Baptist, but all . these, all the 
preachers in the county, lived in a mile of 
where Thomas Moss lives. Th(j first relig- 
ious society in Mount Vernon Township was 
the Baptist. It was organized in the old 
log court house in 1820. Chester Carpen- 
ter was holding a meeting at this time. The 
official members were Jacob Norton, Joseph 
Jordan, Oliver Morris and Overton Harlow. 
Not long after, a little log church was 
raised between where Isaac Garrison lives 
and the creek, this location being considered 
nearer the center of the population than the 
court house. Joseph Reid at the time lived 
in a small cabin near where Joseph Jordan 
and Frizell subsequently lived. This place 
of worship was not used as such more than 
a year or two, when the frequent floods in 
winter and spring proved that the site was 
not well chosen. The meeting was then, per- 
haps in 1823 or 1824, moved to William 
Hicks', two miles west of town, and continued 
there for five or six years. But in the spring 
of 1829, a very nice and spacious house, for 
that day, was built near the creek, the site 
now being inside the Fair Ground. Thomas 
Pace and others in town, who kept horses, 
had opened a road to the creek for the pur- 
pose of watering their horses. This road 
left the Shawneetown road not far from the 
Wyatt Parrish house, ran southeast near 
where Newby afterward Iniilt a horse-mill, 



then nearly a due east course to the creek at 
a pretty deep hole called the horse hole. 
The road diverging from this one a quarter 
of a mile or less from the creek, and crossing 
at a ford below was of more recent date. On 
a rise north of the road near that horse hole 
this church was built, In the fall of the 
same year, an association met at this house, 
puncheon seats were provided and public 
services were held in the woods. Carpenter 
was pastor of the society first organized, and 
continued in the same situation, wherever 
the meetings were held, for ten or fifteen 
years. But perhaps we may as well finish 
this last house before we leave it. It was 
used regularly as a meeting place till 1835 
-36, and the puncheons being preserved, 
services were held in the grove when the 
weather allowed. A season of foot-washing 
was occasionally appointed here and con 
scieutiously observed. After societies were 
organized iu other places and this house no 
longer mot the demands of the church, 
it was sold; Capt. Newby bought it and 
converted it into a shop. He already had a 
small shop west of the road and nearly op- 
posite his dwelling, and he put the second 
shop east of the road north of his dwelling, 
put up two forges in it and used it for years. 
It was in this house that George Starner 
worked for Newby, and here Jefferson 
Stephenson, afterward County Judge of 
Washington County, hammered iron for a long 
time after he came to Mount Vernon. Many 
of oiu" readers will remember the church, 
and still more the shop. 

The second Baptist Church in the county 
was erected near what was called the soap 
ford on the creek, less than half a mile 
north of the Fairfield road. It was reached 
from town by a trail that went by where 
Hobbs & Sons' mill now stands, by where 
Charley Patton lives, and so on to the creek. 



30a 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



a trail frequently used by Caj)t. Sursa and 
others in the upper part of that settlement, 
coming to town. This church consisted of 
four large shanties standing about ten feet 
apart, forming an oblong square, with two 
halls crossing at right angles. The hall 
running north and south was closed at both 
ends. Of coui-se it was the design to hold 
camp-meetings^here,and several were actually 
held, one room or shanty being used for 
worship and the others used as camps. Meet- 
ings were hold here regularly for years. 
This curious structure was built about 1833, 
and stood and was used for six years or more. 
Traces of it may still be seen there. 

We left the various buildings and im- 
provements in Mount Vernon about 1830, 
closing up the history of the first houses. In 
the meantime, other houses were coming on. 
Greorge Pace married, lived awhile in the 
north room of the Kirby House, then built a 
chimney to Tuustall's old store room, on 
the lot where Herdman lives, and lived there a 
year; built a house on Bennett Maxey's lot, 
No. 1 , now Crebs', and finally bought Lot 
No. 37, where the Prince House stands, built 
and moved there. The house he built on 
Lot No. 1 was occupied by many after he left 
it, but perhaps as much by a negro called 
Old Nick, as anybody else. Nick died there, 
and it was not used as a dwelling house 
afterward. Yet some have said that this 
house was the old Clerk's office, moved up 
there by Dr. Adams, and the same that Mrs. 
Crosnoe got torn down in 1 841. George Pace 
sold his lot, now the Prince House, to John 
Van Cleve and went to Salem, as before no- 
ticed, in 1836. In the spring of 1829, Buck 
Pace, or W. W. Pace, by consent of John 
Tyler, who was agent for Nelson Ferguson 
and brother-in-law to both men, built a 
cabin on Lot No. 28, where the National 
Bank stands. Here Buck kept grocery. He 



or some one else subsequently built another 
cabin just east of this. Both were quite 
small, built of small logs and " skelped 
down." After Pace left, S. G. Hicks lived 
for a time in the corner house. By this time, 
however, Edward H. Eidgway had built a 
huge, hip-roofed house, in 1832, wtst of the 
square, where Hudspeth & Taylor keep. It 
was furnished with a store room, and here 
Hicks sold goods in 1834, 1835 and 1836, 
when he built a large frame north of the 
square, where Varnell's meat shop stands. Lot 
No. 25. Some years later. Hicks built a 
house near where the Methodist Episcopal 
Church stands. Benjamin Miller bought it 
in 1854 and moved it to his lot; Coffee en- 
larged it, and Maj. Summers now lives in it. 
(You see, we took up Hicks and ran clear 
away with him.) After he left the cabin on 
the Ferguson lot, Isaac [Casey lived there, 
and in 1837, when Stiuson Anderson came 
back from Alton, where he had been Warden 
of the penitentiary, he lived there long 
enough to build a cabin a little west of where 
Dr. Green lives. And there Anderson re- 
mained, out east of town, till he traded the 
farm to Edward Ridgeway for land in Elk 
Prairie. It was not long after Anderson 
left the Ferguson lot before John Kahm mar- 
ried Ellen Kirljy, about 1837, and came to 
town about 1840, setting up business at the 
old house on the corner, which Kirby had 
already used for a grocery, but making great 
additions to it. After Rahm, John Bost- 
wick went in with a grocery, and kept what 
some called a very disorderly house. As 
John is alive and we do not know how stout 
he is, we will not say much about it, bat 
folks said that three or four old ladies went 
to his grocery one night, about 1849, took 
out his chattels to the middle of the street 
and tore the old house into a thousand 
pieces. It was never ascertained what ladies, 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



303 



if any, did it, but John left iu disgust, went 
to Eome and hail the first bouse built that 
Rome ever contained, Asa Watson being 
the boss carpenter. 

In 1830, Dr. Adams built a house on Lot No. 
26, where Goodale keeps. William Baldridge 
had bid off this lot at the first sale for $70, but 
lots declined. He sold it to H. T. Pace in 
1825 for $20; he to Burchett Maxey in 1827, 
for $25; and he to Oliver Morris for $35. 
Dr. Adams built a house on it, but Downing 
Baugh soon after bought it, and Adams pre 
pared to move to an improvement ho had 
traded for west of town. But Thomas Minor 
had a claim against him, and put Stejihen 
Hicks, who was Constable, after him with 
an attachment. Adams showed signs of re- 
sistance, and Hicks struck him on the throat 
with a rock, a blow that came near proving 
fatal. Adams now went to the cabin where 
Wlecke's hotel stands, then went — perhaps 
took the house with hiLU--to the place where 
Old Nick died. Noah Johnston and William 
Bullock put up a two-story house, now owned 
by Russell Dewey and occupied by Hughes. 
Adams bought this frame and lived in it till 
he left town in 1835-3(5. Baugh built a 
store north of the square, about where Shep- 
herd's drug store is, in 1832, and he built a 
two-story fi'ame house a little east of it; but 
he sold these, rented Van Clove's house, and a 
Dr. Allen came into the old house, built a 
porch to it, inclosed the porch, piitting in a 
glass front,, and the house then went by the 
name of the glass house. As we have men- 
tioned Noah Johnston aud William Bullock, 
we may add that they came to Bullock's 
Prairie in 1831, and that Johnston came to 
town in 1833, sold goods some time where 
the Crews building stands, some time in 1834 
-35, at the next corner west, Lot No. 21, 
lived awhile at the Ridgway building, where 
Hudspeth & Taylor's store also stands, and 



finally bought and located where he now 
lives. William Bullock first lived in a cabin 
that he built near this end of the Spiese 
farm, some sign of his shop being still dis- 
coverable iu the road there. He then came 
to town and had his blacksmith shop almost 
in the middle of the block south of the 
square, ou the " big road." The south part 
of town was all open, and the road came di- 
rectly toward the com-t house. His dwelling 
house was located where Bob Wilbanks lives, 
but he died at Noah Johnston's. 

Somewhere back in the olden time, Green 
Daniel built a cabin on John Johnson's (the 
writer's father). Lot No. 18, corner of Jordan 
and Washington streets, aud lived there for 
several years. Samuel Goodrich afterward 
lived there for some time. It was still later, 
perhaps, that Mr. Goodrich built a small 
house south of where Westbrook's mill was 
bm-ned, near the northwest corner of Curtis 
Johnson's lots, and not far from the same 
time that Allen Stanton, a shoe-maker, built 
near the southwest corner of the same lots. 
These houses were all pretty good forty to 
forty- five years ago. As old as Green Dan- 
iel's cabin, was a shop that John Williams 
built northeast of the court house. John 
built this house about 1830-31, used it for 
a time, made a visit to Tennessee and never 
came back. He was brother to Mastin Wil- 
kerson's wife. So the shop stood there until 
Bowman built a frame house in front of it, 
and sold the lot, or let Rhodam Allen sell it 
to John Johnson. The writer's father bought 
it in 1834, finished the house, used the old 
shop awhile for a kitchen, built or had Wm. 
Yearwood to build a new kitchen, that still 
stands there, and we believe moved the shop 
on to some of his lot9. About the time that 
we came, perhaps in the spring of 1834, 
James Ross, a hatter, moved in, lived a year 
in the old house north of Herdman's, then 



304 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



got Lot No. 44, the south lot under Strattan 
& Johnson's block, built the log house that 
Mr. Schanck took away twelve years ago, 
and after awhile succeeded in trading for 
Daniel Anderson's grocery that stood on the 
corner, where he erected a large frame 
building for a shop. In this period also 
comes the grocery built by A. D Estes at 
the Crews corner. Joseph Estes, Absalom's 
father, had long owned the next lot west, 
and when Absalom married he built a small 
house there, where Morgan & Reid's shop 
stands, and painted it red, and it was univers- 
ally known as the red house. Absalom also set 
up the gi-ocery at the comer. Edward Wells 
kept a grocery there for a time. This house 
on the corner remained in statu quo till Rob- 
ert Castles got it in 1840, built a room west, 
a dwelling in the rear, etc. And thus it 
stood till Crews got it. It was also in 1834 
-35 that W. B. Thorn bought the lot second 
from the corner south of Hobbs' mill. He 
got it from the writer's father for $100. He 
then erected a large blacksmith shop in 
frout. one that he had brought from beyond 
Jordan's Prairie, and a very neat hewed-log 
house back for a dwelling. In 1837, John 
Johnson built a hewed-log house where Tay- 
lor's Hotel stands, and Thomas B. Johnson 
and Dr. Greetham used it for a year or two 
for an office and drug store; then Thomas 
went to Kentucky and Mr. Thorn put up a 
harness and saddle shop in the house. 
Thorn had converted the former blacksmith 
shop into a dwelling. In 1841, he sold it to 
William Edwards and moved to the house 
that still stands just west of Merrill's livery 
stable. AVe remember but two other houses 
of this period, the Poteet house and the La- 
mar house. Alfred Poteet, in 1835-36, built 
where E. M. Walker lives and lived there 
while he remained in Mount Veruon, but the 
house afterward fell into the hands of Josiah 



Melcher, and he moved it up and made a stable 
of it on the west end of what is now known 
as the Thorn lot, and it still stands there 
The Widow Lamar had two sons, Shelby and 
James. The boys built a cabin on John 
Johnson's lot south of the jail; it was occu- 
pied by them, Mrs. Foley; Blackhawk Will- 
iams, Sullins, Decoursey and many others, 
and only twelve or fifteen years ago passed 
away. 

A little later and on up to 1840, houses 
began to be numerous. Dr. Greetham built the 
house where Urry lives and went into it from 
where Mrs. Thorn lives, in 1S3'J. AV. A. 
Thomas built just north of Greetham's, now 
Hitchcock's, in 1840. The same year, or the 
next, the Rev. A. E. Phelps built the house 
Conger lived in till lately, on the south end 
of Casey street, and Henry Pierce the house 
across the street east of Urry's, and Ridg- 
way put up the four houses where J. R. Pal- 
mer, Peter Brown, etc., live, long known as 
the Ridgway Row. Jarvis Pierce erected 
the tavern that stood opposite the present site 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, sold to 
Eli Anderson and he built a two-story house 
north of Phelps'; Anderson improved his 
tavern and Grant added rooms to the oast 
end of it at a later date by moving a school - 
house in from the woods near Noah John- 
ston's. Little, a tailor, put up Joel Watson's 
house in 1830; Daniel Baltzell the house 
just across Union street west of Joel's; and 
Rufus Melcher the house recently torn down 
by Mrs. Baltzell. The old Methodist 
Church went up from 1836 to 1840, to which 
the parsonage north of it was added under 
the regime of J. H. Dickens ; the third court 
house was built, etc. D. Baugh built the 
house that stood where Heiserman's new brick 
is going up, Thomas Cunningham the house 
that stood where Charley Pool lives. M. 
Tromlev the old house north of Latham's, 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



305 



Isaac Faulkenberry the old house that 
stood on the east end of Latham's lots, and 
John Livingston the one that stood where 
George Ward lives. The Cesar and Guyler 
cabins went up near where is now the Baptist 
Church. W. Prigmore- built the house now 
better known as the Klinker House, north of 
the Prince house, and Johnny Smith the old 
house that stood on the corner of Walsh's 
lots. Thomas Pace put a house on the lot 
west of the old Odd Fellows Hall, now Mrs. 
Pace's, McAtee got it et al., and it formed 
part of the old Bogan houses near the Su- 
preme Court House. Hiram McLaughlin 
put one on the east side of Casey street, ojj 
posite George Haynes', Gray got it, Nelson 
got it, and it now forms part of the residence 
of Jeremiah Taylor. From all this it ap- 
pears that this was an era of unusual pros- 
perity in Mount Vernon, and this will be in 
part explained by taking another look at 
what has been going on outside of the town. 
AVe have already stated that not an acre 
of land was entered in the township for 
seven years after the county was organized 
and the town laid out. This was caused by 
the pressure referred t(j elsewhere, growing 
out of there-action that followed the inflation 
at the outset. The tirst entry was then 
made by Isaac Casey, 1826, in Section IS, 
now part of Lewis Johnson's farm. A. T. 
Casey in Section 7, was the next man, 1S29; 
Azariah Bruce, 1830, entered in the same 
section, and Thomas D. Minor, the same 
year, in Section 19. Still it went slow; land 
was plenty and a man settled wherever he 
pleased, stayed as long as he pleased, 
and ejectment was unheard of. In 1831, 
Bennett N. Maxey entered in Section 7; in 
1833, James Susca and William B. Watson 
in 21; Isaac Hicks in 31, and E, D. Ander- 
son in 32. and Dr. Adams in 29, in 1835. 
Then everything went with a rush. In 1836, 



Overton Harlow entered in Section 2, Elihu 
Maxey in Section 6, T. M. Casey, M. Bruce 
and C. H. Maxey in 7; Benjamin Webber in 
14; Brewneaty Wilkey and Lewis Johnson, 
Jr., in IS; John Livingston, David Hobbs 
and Z. Casey in 19; Z. Casey in 20; Cole- 
man Smith in 22; John Summers in 23; 
Calton Summers and John, in 27; W. B. 
Watson in 28; H. T. Pace, D. Baugh and S. 
H. Anderson in 29; William Bullock and 
Isaac Casey in 30; Thomas E. Pace in 31; 
and J. Johnson in 33, etc. In 1837, Har- 
low entered more land in Section 2; Elihu 
Maxey and W. F. Johnson entered in 5; 
John Dodds in 10; Henry D. Allen in 11; 
James M. Bridges in 13; Matilda Massey 
:ind William Byers in 18; Thomas Cun- 
ningham and Priscilla Meek in 19; Vir- 
ginia Summers in 22; T. Cunningham 
in 27; W. B. Watson, John Summers and 
S. H. Anderson in 28; Asa B. Watson, E. H. 
Ridgway, Thomas E. Pace, John Johnson 
and Cephas A. Park in 29; T. Cunning- 
ham in 31; and H. B. Newby and E. H. 
Eidgway in 33. In 1838, James Newby 
entered in li; A. M. Grant in 15; William 
Bvers in IS; Joel Pace in 20, and D. Baugh 
in 28. But 1839 was as fast as 1838 had 
been slow. Simeon Walker entered in Sec- 
tion 1; Hiram Duncan in 2; O. Harlow in 
10; H. Duncan and Mary Ann Summers in 
11; M. A. Summers in 1 2 ; D. Summers and 
jMeredith Strickling in 13; D. Summers and 
J. Newby in 14; John Hart, Martha Grant, 
Freeman Burnet and David Stewart in 15; 
Abraham Buffington in 18; .l)-mstead W. 
Bruce, James Sursa, Daniel Barfield, Aaron 
Yearwood and Robert B. Rankin in 21; 
Moses Kirby in 22; John W. Summers in 
23; Benton Y. Little in 26; William Mar- 
low and George W. Summers in 27, etc. 

The above is for reference, and not to be 
committed to memory. It shows, too, that 



806 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



up to 1840 no land was entered in Sections 
3, 4, 8, 9, 16, 17. 24, 25, 34, 35 or 36. 
Many of these were already settled upon 
their entries, and some had been occupying 
them for many years. 

We have now reached a period when in- 
dividual arrivals and buildings did not 
amount to so much. But before bidding 
adieu to the past, we present a brief resume, 
in different form, of the last ten yeai's' busi- 
ness. Joel Pace, merchant, licensed March, 
1831, remained till 1837, when he sold out 
to Handle & Grant; then I believe Grant 
bought Kandle out in 1838; D. Baugh, 
licensed March, 1831, still in business, 1840; 
Henry Isbell, of Belleville, or his sons, 1831, 
kept a few months at the corner west of Nie- 
man's ; E. H. Eidgway, 1 icensed 1831 and again 
1833, was in partnership with Eli Anderson in 
1837, opposite the present site of the Con- 
tinental. In 1832, W. W. Pace and Harvey 
T. were licensed as merchants; in 1833, H. 
B. Newby came in when Isbell went out, and 
in 1837 he had merchant's license. In 1834, 
Noah Johnston was licensed; next year it was 
Thompson & Johnston; in 1836, Thompson 
and Johnston were again separate, after 
which both disappeared from the record as 
merchants. Johnston first kept at the Crews 
corner, then Thompson & Johnston at the 
Hudspeth & Taylor corner. Dr. Adams held 
forth on the west side, renewing his license 
in 1836. Sanderson & Estes, 1834, kept at 
the National Bank corner; then Estes alone 
at the Crews corner. In 1835, John M. Pace 
comes in, but soon goes back to his farm; W. 
W. Pace comes in for a year, and switches 
off; B. Wells and A. D. Estes take out a 
merchant's license each, mostly selling — not 
dry goods, but to dry customers. In 1836, the 
licensed men of the town were Hickman & 
Witherspoon, L. C. Moss, A. B. Watson and 
James Kirby. In 1837, Bowman takes li- 



cense; so does Mr. England, Cunningham 
& Shields followed Adams; S. G. Hicks 
followed Thompson; Barker followed Hick- 
man, and Davis & Dodds went in on the 
west side. In 1838, W. S. Van Cleve fol- 
lowed Davis & Doddk, and William Dishon 
opened up at the Crews corner. In 1839, 
Van Cleve was succeeded by Addison, Daniel 
& Co. And we may as well add here that for 
the last ten or fifteen years, we mean prior 
to 1840, peltry was the chief staple of the 
country. Sometimes it seemed to be the only 
thing anybody had to sell or to buy goods 
with. Merchants sent deer hides to St. 
Louis by the hundred, some shaved, some 
with hair on. The shaving was done fast 
and cheap. A man hung a hide up by the 
neck, took a knife and scraped upward, and 
literally "made the fur fly;" and scraping a 
deer's hide was considered to be worth from 
3 to 5 cents. 

In 1840, the principal event was the 
building of the new court house. The old 
one never was really finished till now. It 
had long been considered unsafe, but the 
county court would not undertake a new 
one. But one bright, still morning in 1839, 
after " a calm, still night," it was found that 
the house had partly fallen down. There 
was a hole in one side big enough for a 
wagon to drive through. Nobody seemed to 
know how it had happened, but there was no 
doubt now; it had to come down. So every- 
body in town got out with ropes, which they 
ran in at one window and out at another; 
evei'ybody pulled and halloed, and soon it 
was only a pile of rubbish. The town was 
full of dust and noise and fun. The coun- 
ty court thereupon, March 7, 1836, made 
the following order: 

"Ordered the Clerk advertise in the West- 
ern Voice at Shawneetown and the State 
Register at Vandalia that this court will at 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



30 7 



the next June term reoeive sealed proposals 
for the building of ihe brick coiirt house on 
the public square in Mount Vernon, and that 
Noah Johnston, John "SY. Greetham, Down- 
ing Baugh and A. M. Grant, who in connec- 
tion with the Clerk of this court, shall con- 
stitute a committee whose duties shall be to 
superintend the advertising, planning and 
building of said house, subject at all times 
to the direction of the court and liable to be 
removed by said court." 

Still the Commissioners, Barton A tchisson, 
James Sursa and William Bullock, did not 
fully surrender their authority to " said com- 
mittee. " They all mounted horseS and rode 
to Carmi, examined the coui-t house there, 
thought it good enough, and in spite of the 
earnest protest of the committee, determined 
to take it as a pattern. So that, June 5, 
1836, it was " Ordered by the court that the 
Clerk shall advertise in the Shawneetown 
newspaper that they will let on the 20th of 
July the building of a court house in Mount 
Vernon on the plan of the court house at 
Cai'mi, 111., and of the same size and finish." 
William Edwards got the contract at $5,500. 
He was an Englishmaa, married Sarah Hyde 
in London, came to Washington, there got ac- 
quainted with Gov. Casey, bought land of 
him in Grand Prairie and moved out just in 
time to get this contract. He was a Method- 
ist preacher; of his family let us further 
say, that Francis H., his oldest son, finished 
his education here, became a physician, mar- 
ried Miss M. E. Hicks and died recently at 
Sandoval. Joseph, the youngest son, also 
a physician, married Miss Higgins and lives 
at Mendota; and the daughters married Will- 
iam Kidd, William McLaughlin and William 
Gibberson. The court house was finished in 
1840. But the county was hard run to pay 
for it. Orders were issued for small sums, 
but these were not quite satisfactory. In De- 



cember, 1840, the Legislature was petitioned 
for authority to borrow money, and in May, 
1841, the Clerk, E. H. Ridgway, was au- 
thorized to make a loan of S2,200 at the 
Bank of Illinois at Shawneetown. But not 
till October 14, 1841, was the final settle- 
ment made. It then ajj pears that Edwards 
had drawn in orders 13,061.61; he took 
notes on different parties to the amount of 
$474.86, and four bonds due June 8, 1848, 
for the remainder. This settlement did not 
settle. In September, 1842, Edwards re- 
turned the orders and bonds and took five 
$500 bonds, bearing 12 per cent, due June 
8, 1848, 1849, 1850, 1851, 1852. This court 
house was forty feet square, square roof, 
cupola supported by pillars and surrounded 
by railing, court room below. Judge's seat 
on north side, stairways in southwest and 
southeast corners, floor, half brick outside 
bar, bar cut off by railing with gates, four 
rooms for offices above, front door south, 
plain doors east and west. Cattle and sheep 
used the old house all through vacations, but 
by the efforts of Dr. AV. S. VanCleve, the 
public square was now fenced for the lirst 
time, and the bushes and weeds cut. So it 
looked well. 

About the time of the court house excite- 
ment, the Methodist Chui'ch was finished, 
the old Academy was built and the town was 
incorporated, but these will come up under 
the heads of churches, schools and city gov- 
ernment. It was in the time of this prosper- 
ity, all in five or six years, that Jonas Eddy, 
Castles, Baltzell, Phelps, Dr. Short, Schanck, 
Hinman, Thomas, Clement, Dick Nelson, 
Haynes, Robert Wingate, Shaffner, Scates, 
Dr. Caldwell, Dr. Roe, Dr. Gray, Rahm, 
Stephenson, Palmei', Barrett, Tromley, Alex- 
ander Barnes, and many others located in 
Mount Vernon. Then followed nearly ten 
years with much of the slow and heavy move- 



308 



HlSTORl' OF JEFFERSOIsT COUNTY. 



ment of the olden times. The pulse quickened 
a little -when the Central Railroad Company 
was chartered, but became irregular again as 
soon as it was located. Among the acces- 
sions to our population worthy of note were 
Dr. Green, Tanner, Mills, Thatcher, Preston, 
McAtee, Began and Condit. 

There is not much to add respecting the 
general history of Mount Vernon. Most of 
what remains to be told is included in the 
various sub-headings that follow, or is suffi- 
ciently set forth in the biographical and 
other departments of this work. A general 
outline reaching up to the present may be 
given in few words. The most conspicuous 
improvments in 1854 were the Johnson 
House and the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
John N. Johnson came to town a few years 
before, with little means, practiced medicine 
a while, got a small stock of goods, managed 
with eminent judgement, won everybody's 
confidence, built up rapidly, and by a very 
large purchase of hogs in the fall of 1853, 
made about $5,000. With part of this 
money he biiilt the hotel that bore his name 
for several years, but has been most recently 
known as the Commercial Hotel. He died 
the next winter, and the business, the 
church, the lodge, the town, the whole coun- 
try, felt the loss. In 1857, Strattau and 
Pavey came out from Ohio, bought the farm 
of John Johnson, the writer's father, south- 
east of town, traded it to Thorn for a very 
large stock of goods, and from that time to 
the present, Strattan & Pavey, in conjunction 
with Fergerson, Allen, Taylor, AVestbrook, 
and other associates, have occupied a very 
large space in our little business world and 
contributed largely to the growth of the 
town and the development of the country. 
Strattan & Fergerson built the store now oc- 
cupied by J. D. Johnson in 1859, and Strat- 
tan & Johnson the three-story block south- 



east of the public square in 1872, both the 
Johnsons just named being sons of John N. 
Johnson above mentioned, and the last 
named, Alva C, being Strattan's son-in-law. 
Pavey i& Allen built the store now occupied 
by Hudspeth, Taylor & Company, in 1875. and 
Strattan his residence in 1873. George H. 
Varuell was the next important accession to 
the ranks of business — proving indeed an 
accession to the town and the entire vicinity. 
He is brother-in-law to John S. Bogan, who 
has been so intimately connected with our 
history for thirty years, and came from 
Washington City in October, 1861. In the 
winter of 1802-63, Joseph J. HoUomon came 
from near Humboldt in Tennessee. He had 
bought of Mr. Elder, of Gibson County, 
Tenn., thirteen tracts of land in Franklin, 
Jefferson and Washington Counties, contain- 
ing about 1,300 .'acres, for something over 
$13,000. He erected a tobacco warehouse 
east of town, now inside the city limits, and 
did a lively business here until it was burnt 
down in 1864. He and Varnell built the 
" New York Store," northeast of the public 
square, in 1863, and the mill now owned and 
run by Hobbs & Son in the same year. Hol- 
lomon sold out to Varnell in 18G5 and returned 
to Tennessee. Varnell pushed along. He 
built the Continental Hotel in 1877 to 1880, 
and the block north of the Episcopal Church 
in 1872. Henry W. Seimer came earlier than 
some of those just mentioned, built up a 
fortune gradually, and has contributed much 
to the improvement of the town and the 
activity of its business. A tailor by trade, 
he has shown himself fitted for other kinds 
of business, and has succeeded in all. In 
March, 1869, the old court house was burnt, 
and the officers found rooms in the Phoenix 
Block, and the court a room in the Presbyte- 
rian Church. At the September term, 1870, 
the Board of Supervisors ordered an election 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



309 



on the question of building a new court 
house to cost not over $30,000; and in 
April, 1871, a contract was made with W. 
E. Gray, of Alton, at $29,315. The Build- 
ing Committee were G. W. Evans, Q. A. 
Wilbanks, Samuel Johnson, D. H. Warren, 
John C. McConnell and Henry Breeze, and 
the house was to be finished by March 1, 
1872. The rest of its story is well known. 
The new jail was erected in 1872-73. The 
town received a wonderful impetus fi'om the 
railroad as long as it was a terminus, uver 
seventy houses being built in as many weeks. 

The township was known in land descrip- 
tions, but had no political existence for 
many years. In August, 1841, James Sursa, 
Aai'on Year wood and Armstead W. Bruce 
were appointed Trustees of school lands in 
the township, like Trustees being appointed 
at the same time for all the townships. 

The growth of townships as political divis- 
ions was very gi'adual. For twenty years 
at all general elections, everybody voted at 
Mount Vernon. But it was necessary to 
have districts for magistrates and constables, 
and for these officers to be elected within 
the districts. In a preceding chapter, these 
different divisions are given from the forma- 
tion of the county down to the time of town- 
ship organization. 

September 10, 1869, S. F. Grimes pre- 
sented to the county court a petition for 
township organization, as stated in the 
chapter on organization of the county, 



and an election was ordered for No- 
vember. The result was 1,330 for, and 
633 against, out of a total vote of 2,182. 
D. C. Jones, William Kirk and G. L. 
Cummins were appointed Commissioners 
to lay off townships. At the March term, 
1870, they reported Grand Prairie, Rome, 
Field, Farrington, Casner, Shiloh, Webber, 
Blissville, Allen, Bald Hill, Anderson, 
Spring Garden, Moore's Prairie, each includ- 
ing an exact township; Mount Vernon, in- 
cluding Township 2, Range 3, and all of 
Township 3, Range 3, west of Muddy; and 
Pendleton, Township 4, Range 3, and all 
of Township 3, Range 3, east of Muddy. At 
the nest June term, Anderson was changed 
to Elk Prairie and Allen to McClellan; and 
at the September term, Dodds was formed of 
Township 3, Range 3. The lirst Board of 
Supervisors were Jacob Breeze, S. V. Bruce, 
W. S. Bumpus, G. L. Cummins, W. A. 
Davis, G. W. Evans, E. B. Harvey, Samuel 
Johnson, W. A. Jones, John C. McConnell, J. 
R. Moss, M. A. Morrison, J. B. Ward, D. 
H. Warren, Q. A. Wilbanks, and after 
Dodds was formed, R. D. Roane. 

The Supervisors of Mount Vernon have 
been, 1870-71, D. H, Warren; 1872-73, 
1876 and 1877, J. D. Johnson; 1874, G. H. 
Varnell; 1875, T. H. Hobbs and J. D. Rob- 
inson; 1878, John Klein; 1879, John Gib- 
son; 1880, 1881 and 1882, W. H. Herdman; 
1883, T. E. Westcott. 



810 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



CHAPTER v.* 



MOUNT VERNON— ITS RELIGIOUS HISTORY— THE METHODISTS, THE PIONEERS OF CHRISTIANITY IN 

THE COUNTY— A LIST OF MINISTERS— THE FIRST CHURCH— PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH— 

BAPTISTS— CATHOLICS AND OTHER DENOMINATIONS— CHURCHES OF THE 

TOWNSHIP— SCHOOLS IN AND OUT OF THE CITY, ETC., ETC. 



" God attributes to place 
No sanctity, if none be thitlier brought 
By men wlio there frequent."— i/f Wore. 

AT the conference of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church which met in the fall 
of 1819, David Sharp was sent as Presiding 
Elder, with five circuits in this State — Illi- 
nois, Okaw, Cache River, Wabash and 
Mount Carmel. On the Wabash was Thomas 
Davis, and he included the church at Old 
Union in his work. The next year, fall of 
1820, two circuits were added to the Illinois 
District— Sangamaugh and Shoal Creek. 
Davis went to Cape Girardeau, and Hacha- 
liah Vreedenburg and Thomas Rice came 
to Wabash. In the general minutes for 
1822, Mount Vernon first appears upon the 
record: Illinois District, Samuel H. Thomp- 
son; "Wabash and Mount Vernon, Josiah 
Pattison and William Smith." These were 
followed by Smith and Ruddle in 1823; these 
by William Moore in 1824:; he by Orceneth 
Fisher in 1825 for part of the year, Philip 
Cole a few months and John T. Johnson for 
the remainder of the year. In 1826, Thomas 
Files was sent to the Mount Vernon Circuit, 
Charles Holiday being Presiding Elder of the 
Wabash District. For several years we were 
in the Wabash District, then for several in 
the Kaskaskia District, before a Mouot Vernon 
District existed. 

The following is a very nearly correct and 

• By Dr. A. Clark JohDSon. 



complete list of the Methodist preachers here 
from 1825 to the time Mount Vernon Station 
was formed in 1854; the date given being 
that in which the conference year began, in 
autumn: 1826-27, Thomas Files; 1828-29, 
John Fox; 1830-31, John H. Benson; 1832, 
Simeon Walker; 1833, James W^alker; 1834, 

Warren L. Jenkins; 1835, Collins, one 

round, or month, and Joshua Barnes for the 
rest of the year; 1836, William Mitchell; 1837, 
David Coulson; 1838, James M. Massey; 1839, 
John Shepherd; 1840, William T. Williams; 
1841, James M. Massey; 1842, James H. 
Dickens; 1843, James I. Richardson; 1844, 
Allison McCord; 1845, Reuben H. Moffitt; 
1846-47, Arthur Bradshaw; 1848, David 
Blackwell and John Thatcher; 1849, I. C. 
Kimber; 1850, John Thatcher; 1851, James 
A. Robinson; 1852, John H. Hill; 1853, 
Thomas W. Jones; 1854, Norman Allyn. 

For many years the Methodists had no 
house of worship in Mount Vernon. The 
ministers preached at Old Union, and the 
people walked out from town. Sometimes 
services were held in the court house, some- 
times in private houses. In 1834, I think my 
father's and Downing Baugh's were the only 
Methodist families in town; but very soon 
re-enforced by James Ross. They determined 
to build. September 8, 1835, James Gray 
conveyed what is now Lot No. 1 in Block 19 
— the Episcopal Church lot — to John John- 
son, Thomas M. Casey, Joel Pace, David 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



811 



Hobbs, Downing Baugh, Joseph Pace and 
James Ross, as Trustees, etc. Here they 
built a small, plain house, with no pretense 
of a steeple or bell, and with very plain 
benches to sit on. It had one coat of plas- 
ter and a small box of a pulpit. But preach- 
ing was had here monthly, the Sunday school 
and prayer meeting sometimes, and occasion- 
ally some other kind of meeting. We had 
DO Sexton, so the hoTise was not very well 
kept, and the tirst one to come, on preaching 
days, generally swept the house and made a 
fii-e. One very cold winter morning we found 
the door standing ojien— and it may Have 
been open a week, for it was out of town and 
nobody passed that way — and the first act in 
the drama was to drag a dead calf out. It 
had taken refuge from the storm within the 
open door, and died there, perhaps several 
days before. The roof was of boards, and 
Boon warped, so as to let in some rain and a 
good deal of snow. This made it bad on us, 
especially in winter. John Van Cleve once 
came to hold quarterly meeting. It had 
snowed. Judge Baugh had a big dog. 
McKay was a tall, lank, sickly, weak-minded 
fellow, di'essed in rags; and Baugh's dog had 
a mortal hatred for McKay. That morning 
both were at church. As the room got warm, 
the snow overheau melted, and chunks of 
plaster fell. Baugh's dog thought it was 
McKay, so he bristled up and growled. 
Other chunks fell, and the dog got up, 
looked daggers at McKay and growled. At 
the third lacket, the dog jumped up, barked 
furiously and made for McKay in a way that 
made him stretch his long leg's over the 
benches with a very unusual show of activity. 
It almost bi'oke up the meeting, as the peo- 
ple all smiled very loud. 

In 1840, funds were raised to fix up this 
church, adding ten or twelve feet to the east 
end, putting a belfry on it, a new roof, etc. 



Before it was done, Circuit Com-t came 
on, and as the old court house had fallen 
down, court was held in the still unfinished 
church — the only room in town big enough. 
While the court was in session, Abraham 
Lincoln and John A. McClernand, Presiden- 
tial Electors, Whig and Democratic, came to 
address the people. McOlernand occupied 
the noon hoiu" or two intermission, but when 
Lincoln's turn came, politics were summarily 
put out, and court began. Scates, the Judge, 
and Bowman", the Sheriff, were Democrats; 
perhaps this was why. But Mr. Kirby said 
he was " for fair play, even in a dog fight;" 
so he invited Lincoln and everybody to the 
shade in front of his hotel, got a huge goods 
box, Lincoln mounted it, and the crowd lis- 
tened and laughetl and swore at him for an- 
other horn* or two. Court over, the house 
was finished, having, besides the improve- 
ments named, a much larger pulpit, and here 
a large variety of meetings were held, besides 
the regular services. 

At length, a desire sprang up for better 
quarters. The church resolved to build. 
July IS, 1S53, a deed was obtained from 
Ambrose C. Hankinson, of Peoria, to the 
Trustees — Downing Baugh, Darius C. War- 
ren, William J. Stephenson, Lucilius C. 
Moss, John N. Johnson, Joel F. Watson and 
Charles T. Pace — conveying Lots No. 05, 66, 
71, 72, the present site of the Methodist 
Episcopal Chui'ch. The church was erected 
in \SiA, at a cost of over §4,000. So it re- 
mained, with minor improvements from time 
to time, till they put an end to it — in fact, 
put two ends to it and a new steeple in 
1881-82, at a cost of over $4,000 more. 

In September, 1854, the Southern Illinois 
Conference met at Mount Vernon, and at this 
session the society at Mount Vernon became 
a station, with eighty- four members and 
eleven probationers. John H. Hill was Pre- 



312 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



siding Elder of the district, and James Lea- 
ton was appointed to the station. This man 
Leaton was an Englishman; a thorough 
scholar; had been a hard case in youth; had 
later been Professor in McKendi-ee College, 
and was the most lucid speaker and the most 
perfect pronouncer we ever heard. He still 
preaches up North. The official members 
were John Johnson, L. E. ; Zadok Casey, L. 
D. ; John H. Watson, H.Davisson and Samuel 
Schanck, Class Leaders; and the Stewards 
first elected were Zadok Casey, '-Joel F. Wat- 
son, John N. Johnson, Charles T. Pace and 
Downing Baugh. At the first quarterly con- 
ference, the Sunday school report showed 
seventy-five scholars, ten teachers. The al- 
lowance for the Presiding Elder was $41.40; 
for the preacher in charge, as salary, $272; 
table expenses, $150; traveling' expenses, 
$50. In August, 1858, the quarterly con- 
ference discussed the subject of a return to 
the circuit, but action was postponed. The 
question came up again at the fourth quar- 
terly conference, 1861, and the church here 
again become a part of Mount Vernon Cir- 
cuit. So it remained till the annual confer- 
ence of 1865, when it again became a sepa- 
rate station, and continues. 

The stationed preachers here have been — 
coming about September each year — 1854, 
James Leaton; 1855, Norman Allyn; 1856, 
Ephraim Joy; 1857, James Leaton; 1858, 
Thomas A. Eaton; 1859-60, R. H. Manier; 
1861, M. Hoiise; 1862, G. W. Hughey, who 
left early in the spring because the place 
was, politically, too hot for him, and was 
succeeded by John Ellis; 1868-64, John H. 
Hill; 1865, D. Chipman, whose health failed 
in six months, and Thomas H. Hordman took 
his place; 1866-67, B. R. Pierce; 1868, John 
Leeper; 1869-70-71. Joseph Harris; 1872- 
73, D. W. Phillips; 1874, N. Hawley; 1875- 
76-77, C. E. Cline; 1878-79-80, C. Nash; 



1881-82-83, John W. Locke. The Presiding 
Elders, most of whom removed to Mount 
Vernon, have been John H. Hill, George W. 
Robins, James A. Robinson, J. P. Davis, Z. 
S. Clifford, B. R. Pierce, L. C. English, 
J. Leeper, B. R. Pierce again, C. E. Cline, 
C. Nash. The most prosperous period in the 
history of this church was when C. E. Oline 
was pastor. The former parsonage, on Lots 
No. 24 and 21 — east half of 21 — was trans- 
ferred to the circuit September 19, 1855, 
and the site of the present one. Lots No. 64 
and 73, Block 11, was bought of Dr. Dixon 
March 23, 1867. The present parsonage was 
built in 1877 ; cost, $1, 100. The church now 
has about foui* hundred members enrolled, 
two hundred scholars and nineteen teachers 
in the Sunday scliool ; j)ays its pastor $1,000, 
and expends about $1,000 on other religious 
and benevolent objects; pays $100 on the 
Presiding Elder's salary. 

The Presbyterian Church. — The growth of 
the Presbyterian Church in Illinois has been 
more gradual — perhaps, also, more solid — 
than that of some others. Up to 1829, the 
Presbyterians were included in the Missouri 
and Wabash Presbyteries, each of which lay 
mostly beyond the State lines. October 28, 
1828, the organization of Central Presby- 
tery was authorized, and it was organized in 
January, 1829. It was central because it lay 
between the Missouri and Wabash. In Sep- 
tember, 1831, the Synod of Illinois was 
formed, with Presbyteries of Illinois, Sanga- 
mon, Kaskaskia and Missouri, Kaskaskia 
Presbytery, to which this part of the country 
belonged, having been formed in 1830. In 
r-38, the division of the Presbyterian Church 
into Old and New School took place. Mount 
Vernon Presbyterians, the few that were 
here, being of the Old School. B. F. Spill- 
man organized a church here in 1841, with 
ten members and two Elders. This church 







^ ^O-n^^^ 



LiBRAKV 

:>r THE 

UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



315 



was served, more or less regularly, by IVifr. 
Spillman, Alexander Ewing, Blackbur?! 
Leffler, and others, Lefflwr residing for sev- 
eral years in Mount Vernon. The Kaskaskia 
Presbytery held its spring session here in 
1846; Judge Scates and Jonas Eddy were 
the principal members. But the church 
never became strong; and in April. 1852, 
upon the I'equest of the members, the Pres- 
bytery — of Kaskaskia — dissolved the church, 
and the members transferred their member- 
ship to the Church of Gilead, at Rome, Thus 
ended the Old School organization at Mount 
Vernon. 

Alton Presbytery, New School, now gave 
us some attention, and February 21, 1854, 
Eobert Stewart effected an organization. 
The first list of members included Warner 
and Eliza White, John S. and Louisa M. 
Bogau, George and Hannah Mills. John C. 
and Juliana Gray, Sarah A. Tanner and 
William D. Johnston. The Elders were 
Miles WTiite and Bogan. Other Elders: T. 
Condit, April 29, 1855, died April, 1861; 
James F. Fitch; Samuel Gibson and W. B. 
White, January 2, 1870; S, B. Kelso, De- 
cember, 1874; James M. Pollock, July 25, 
1876. The pastors have been Samuel R. H. 
Wylie, a native of Logan County, Ky. , who 
took charge July 13, 1854, and died August 
11, 1854, aged forty-three; in 1855, William 
H. Bird, also a native of Kentucky, and 
brother-in-law to Wylie, died 1877; 1856, 
Hillery Patrick, a native of Vii-ginia: 1858, 
Charles Kenmore, an L-ishman, who went 
South, and died, in 1871; 1858, after K.'s 
brief stay, John Gibson, also an L-ishman, 
who died 1869; 1869-70, R. G. Williams; 
1870-73, Gideon C. Clark; 1873-74, Solo- 
mon Cook; 1874-76, Adam C. Johnson; 
1876, for three months. M. M. Coojjer; 1876 
-78, George B, McComb; 1878, J. J. Graham, 
employed in June, installed August 16, In 



the interval between 18.58 and 1869, the 
church was without a settled pastor, but the 
Presbytery's missionary, Joseph GordoQ, 
made many visits, and other ministers came 
occasionally. In the meantime, the members 
worked, the Sunday school and prayer meet- 
ing went on. The church was organized at 
Dr. Gray's house. The public services were 
in the basement of the old Odd Fellows Hall, 
Rev. Eben Muse has been pastor since Decem- 
ber, 1882. 

The Odd Fellows, with their usual gener- 
osity, gave the church the use of their hall 
gratis; but the members desired to be inde- 
pendent, and at once prepared to build. 
The first design was a nnestory house; but 
Judge Scates and Mr. Condit, especially 
Scates, wanted it two stories, and promised 
to see the extra |2,000 raised to have it so. 
The plan was changed, and they saw the 
money raised — but saw Mills and Bogan and 
Dr. Gray raise it. The house was finished, 
almost, at a cost of $4,000, and August 6, 
1856, Zadok Casey conveyed Lots No. 7 and 
8, in Casey's Addition, to George Mills, John 
C. Gray and John S. Bogan, Trustees, To 
finish paying for the house, the Trustees now 
got a loan of $500 from the Church Erection 
Fund, which was not finally settled till 1871, 
The church now numbers 100 members, pays 
its pastor 1700, and has a Sunday school of 
130 members and twelve teachers. 

The Baptist Church. — We have already 
noticed the earlier Baptist Churches. We 
always had Baptists in Mount Vernon, but 
no pei-maneut church before the pi-esent. 
" The First Baptist Church of Mount Ver- 
non" WHS organized August 6, 1868; Rev. J. 
W. Brooks, Moderator, Daniel Sturgis, Clerk 
of the meeting. R. A. Grant, D. Sturgis, 
G. J. Mayhew and G. W. Morgan were chos- 
en to carry letter to Salem Association, ask- 
ing for recognition as a church. September 



316 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



21, 1868, J. W. Brooks was elected Pastor, 
and G. J. Mahew and R. A. Grant, Deacons. 
After being some time without a pastor, the 
church called I. S. Mahan, for a quarter of 
his time; but for some reason he rejected the 
call, June, 1871. The following July, D. 
W. Morgan was called, and served as pastor 
for one year. July 31, 1872, J. F. James 
was called, and remained till after the first 
Sabbath in January, 1873. In May, Mr. 
Wilson, then Principal of our public school, 
consented to preach for this church while he 
remained here. W. Sanford Gee was the 
next regular pastor, from March 4, 1874, to 
June, 1876. Then Mr. Crawford was em- 
ployed for three months, and in October 
Crawford and Calvin Allen were invited to 
preach on alternate Sabbaths. In April, 
1879, Allen resigned, and Charles Davis was 
elected. W. W. Hay was employed Febru- 
ary 1, 1880. and W. B. Vassar in February, 
1881. After an interval, the present pastor, 
Mr. Medkifl", was employed. Februaiy, 1883. 
From the tu-st, the building of a house of 
worship was discussed. Various changes 
were made in the Board of Trustees, and 
various plans were proposed and rejected. 
April 17, 1871, a deed was made by Pollock 
Wilson, conveying Lots No. 9, 10 and 12, in 
Block 3, to the following Trustees: James 
M. Pollock, R. P, Rider, Daniel Sturgis and 
James M. Ferguson. To perfect their title, 
they afterward obtained a deed from Peter 
Haydea. of New York, November 28, 1873. 
The building, begun in 1871, was finished, 
and dedicated by Rev. Mr. Ford, of St. Louis, 
the second Sabbath in August, 1872. In 
1875, the Southern Methodists were granted 
the use of the house one Sabbath in each 
month, paying for lights and fuel; but this 
did not last long. Perhaps the most mem 
orable service in this church was tiie ordi- 
nation of Mr. Vassar, April 5, 1881. There 



were present Rev. I. N. Hobart, D. D. , Su- 
perintendent of Missions for the State of 
Illinois, as Moderator; Rev. Gilbert Fred- 
erick, of Centralia, as Clerk; Rev. D. Sech- 
man, of Ashley; Rev. William Lowry. of 
Moore's Prairie; Rev. W. H. Carner, of 
McLeansboro; Rev. W. W. Hay, of Zion's 
Grove; Rev. John Washburn, of Ewing, and 
Rev, J. Barry, of North Star Church, Chi- 
cago. 

This church was first connected with Salem 
Association: then with Vandalia, and is now 
connected with the Association of Centralia, 

It was much embarrassed for several years, 
the cost of the church building having run 
up to about §4,000; but it is now in a com- 
paratively easy financial condition. The 
membership is about sixty; average attend- 
ance at Sabbath school, sixty-five, with seven 
teachers. 

The Catholic Church. — For many years 
there was scarcely a Catholic in Mount Ver- 
non, Then a few came in — Mrs, T, S. Casey, 
Mr. Maloney and others; and these were 
visited occasionally by their priests, and the 
rites of the church performed. Their meet- 
ings were held at the private houses of the 
members, seldom in more public places. The 
first step toward an organization was taken 
by Rt. Rev. Peter Joseph Baltes, Bishop of 
Alton, and Very Rev, John Jansen, Vicar 
General of the same dioces ■. January 20, 
1871, they appointed Rev. John F. Mohr, 
priest of the church at Alton, and William 
O'Connell and Lorenz Fahrig, laymen, as 
Trustees of the diocese. May 20, 1872, 
Bishop Baltes and Vicar General Jansen, 
with Rev. John Neuhaus, who had been ap- 
pointed pastor of "St Philip Neri's Roman 
Catholic Church and Congregation of Mount 
Vernon, Illinois," appointed Michael Ward 
and Phillip Russell to act with themselves as 
Ti-ustees for the church in Mount Vernon. 



HISTOKY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



317 



For several years' the services were still 
held in private houses, and at irregular inter- 
vals. At length, under the leadership, in 
this undertaking, of Mrs. T. S. Casey — 
without whom, it is safe to sa}% it would not 
have been done for years — means were raised 
to purchase ground; and May 21, 1880, 
James Bell, of Cobden, in Union County, 
for SI, 500, conveyed to the Trustees of this 
church the block — foui* lots with the vacated 
alley — north of the Supreme Court House, 
Lots No. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., Casey's Second Ad- 
dition. Father Hissen, of Belleville, now 
took charge of the chiu-ch, and under his su- 
pervision the present very neat church edifice 
was erected in 1881. It cost about $2,000, 
mostly raised by the untiring efforts of Mrs. 
Casey. And we are requested by some of 
their own people to say that without the 
generous aid of Protestants and "outsiders," 
the means to secure the completion of the 
house could not possibly have been secured, 
as the members were comparatively few in 
number, and a large proportion of them 
poor. Father Becker succeeded Father His- 
sen, and after remaining about a year went 
to Kaskaskia. Just at present, the church is 
without a settled pastor, but is under the 
oversight of Father Spaeth, of Carmi. 

The Episcopal Church. — For some years 
Bishop Seymour, Episcopal Bishop of Illi- 
nois, now of the diocese of Sj^ringfield, re- 
siding at Spriuglield, has been hunting up 
his scattered sheep in Southern Illinois, and 
seeking to gather and crystallize whatever 
strength could be found in this section, by 
sending out missionaries and organizing 
churches. Rev. Martin Moody was appoint- 
ed to labor in this part of the field, giving 
special attention to Ashley, Mount VernoD, 
McLeansboro and Carmi. These were, and 
we believe still are, called mission stations. 
On the 15th day of March, 1878, a church 



was organized in Mount Vernon by Mr. 
Moody, when William Pilcher and H, W. 
Preston were elected Wardens, and H. H. 
Simmons, T. T . Wilson and J. J. Beecher, 
Vestrymen, and the name adopted was " Trin- 
ity Episcopal Church." Still under the pas- 
toral charge of Mr. Moody, the church 
services were held first at a private house; 
then at a room in the Supreme Court build- 
ing; then at Strattan's Hall. After the death 
of Mr. Moody, Rev. I. N. W. Irvine was ap- 
pointed as his successor. Mr. Irvine was a 
man of remarkable zeal and energy, and, to 
the admiration of every one, succeeded in se- 
cm-ing handsome church edifices both at 
McLeansboro and Mount Vernon. 

It will be remembered that the Methodists 
went into their present church in 1854. 
They had already sold the old church to 
Harvey T. Pace November 3, 1853, for $345. 
Pace at once improved it in every part, even 
supplying cushions for the seats, so that its 
old acquaintances could hardly recognize it. 
It was then used as a church by the "Chris- 
tian order," or Campbellites, all at Pace's 
expense, until his death, August 13, 1876. As 
he grew old, however, services were less reg- 
ular, he being Seston and everything else 
but preacher. After his death, his heirs 
divided his estate by deeds, and this lot fell 
to W. H. Pace, a grandson of H. T., and 
the only child of George T. Pace. W. H. P. 
now rented it out to anybody that wanted it, 
and for almost any "purpose. It was once 
rumored that a saloou and billiard tables 
were going into it; but instead of this, Fer- 
guson went in with his carpenter shop, the 
steeple was cut oflf, and a huge sign put up 
on top, 80 its old acquaintance could hardly 
recognize it again. Pace at length sold out 
to Mrs. Cramer, and after a few turns, " the 
Trustees and Rector of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church of the city of Mount Vernon " 



318 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



got a deed to the property from Mrs. Annie 
Pace, wife of W. H., February 25, 1881, 
and a deed from Gottsworth and Minnie 
Eilenstine April 27, 1881. The lot is forty- 
one feet north and south by sixty- sis feet 
east and west, at tlie southeast corner of 
Block 19. This was accomplished chiefly by 
the efforts of Mr. Irvine, who also had the 
whole biiilding renovated within and with- 
out. After Mr. Irvine's te m expired, the 
Bishop appointed as pastor the present in- 
cumbent, Mr. R. B. Hoyfc. Last April's pa- 
rochial report shows 27 families, 39 commu- 
nicants, 7 baptisms, 6 teachers and 85 schol- 
ars in Sunday school, and a total of contri- 
butions of $167.79, parochial and diocesan. 

The Second Baptist Church. — This is a 
church of colored people. For many years 
there were very few of these in Mount Ver- 
non. Cesar Hodge and Mai-ia his wife, 
their daughter Amanda Guyler, and Sam, her 
husband, Guyler'e two boys, William and 
another, and Old Nick, were all. But about 
1850, others came in, and in three or four 
years they became quite a colony. They had 
meetings in the old academy, and Overton 
and Loggins and others preached for them. 
Thoy settled in between the creeks east of 
town, till that section became well known 
under the name of Africa. They had Sunday 
school and a church organization, and so 
moved on for a few years, till about 1857, 
when some evil-disposed persons played Ku- 
Klux on them, and they soon scattered; 
Africa was depopulated, and scarcely a col ■ 
ored family was left in the county. After the 
war, their numbers increased very slowly for 
a time, then more rapidly, until they found 
themselves in force sufficient to again organ- 
ize a church. This was done in the spring 
of ]879, Willis W. and Rosa Wilson, Mar- 
shall and Margaret Campbell, Margaret Scott, 
Henry Bradford and William H. Jones were 



the members. Wilson was their preacher, 
and. May 27, Bradford, Campbell and Jones 
were elected Trustees. They had Sunday 
school awhile in the house south of Hobbs' 
mill; then they rented the Pace chiu'ch of 
Mrs. Cramer, tried to buy it, failed, and at 
length bought of Mr. Strattan their present 
house of worship, west of the Episcopal 
Church, for $300. Wilson was pastor two 
years; then Henry Jackson, of Richview, 
two years; the pastor last employed is named 
Williams, of Carmi. There are seventeen 
members; all attend Sunday school, in which 
are two regular teachers. 

The Colored Methodist Church. — Perhaps 
our readers know that, after the war, the 
Southern Methodist Church encouraged its 
colored members to form a separate organiza 
tion; and by easy steps they at length, in 
1875, reached the point of absolute inde- 
pendence, under the name of " The Colored 
Methodist Episcopal Church in America." A 
section of this was called the " Missouri and 
Kansas Conference." A member of this con- 
ference, formerly from Kentucky, W. C. 
Davis, visited the colored people in Mount 
Vernon in May, L881, and organized a church 
of ten members — G. W. Persons, S. P. Tandy, 
Charles Steager, and their wives, D. B. Bell 
and his two sisters and Thomas Slaughter. 
G. W. Persons was appointed pastor, and has 
continued. Their meetings have been held 
sometimes in private houses; for a time they 
used the Colored Baptist Church, and now 
hold meetings up-stairs north of Wlecke's 
Hotel. They have secured a lot, and are pre- 
paring to build a chm'ch. 

The Camp Ground, or Pleasant Hill. — The 
first house erected here was for the Cumber- 
laud Presbyterians. David Summers moved 
down from the Samson Allen place, south of 
Rome, to the place in this township, where 
he lived so long, in 1888. It was not long 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



319 



before Rev. Mr. Finley, of the Ciimberland 
Preebyterian Church, found him, and began 
to preach at his house. There being neither 
church nor schoolhouse on that side of Seven 
Mile, the neighbors agreed to build a church. 
The host included David and Oaltin Sum- 
mers and their boys, Coleman Smith, Nathaniel 
Parker and his boys — "only that and nothing 
more." But they built a small house of logs. 
It -was used for several years as a place of 
worship. But Mr. Finley was sent to labor 
in other fields, and Arthur Bradshaw, preach- 
er on Mount Vernon Circuit, formed a Meth- 
odist Society here, 1846-47, A camp ground 
was prepared, and for five or six years camp 
meetings were held here every fall. August 
8, 1848, George Leonard, son-in-law to Mr. 
Parker, conveyed a lot beginning at the 
northeast corner of the southwest quarter of 
the northeast quarter of Section 23, Town- 
ship 2, Range 3, thence running south twelve 
rods, east twelve rods, north twelve rods to 
beginning, to Bennett Short, Thomas Short, 
William Brookman, Benjamin Webber, Na- 
thaniel Parker, Aaron Yearwood and W, H. 
Lynch, Trustees of Pleasant Hill Mee ing- 
Hoiise. The description of the lot was imper- 
fect, but every one knew where it was. The 
camp meetings were now less regular, and 
finally ceased; but it was a regular preaching 
place, services being held in the house in cold, 
and under the " shed " in warm, weather. 
October 10, 1853, James T. Parker conveyed 
an additional lot, beginning at the northwest 
corner of the southeast quarter of the north- 
east quarter of Section 23, Township 2, 
Range 3, south twelve rods, east six and two- 
thirds rods, north twelve rods, antl west to 
beginning, to the Trustees; the board then 
being Coleman Smith, R. A. Grant, Aaron 
Yearwood, George Grant, Thomas Short, Jr., 
Littleton Daniel, Samuel Musgrove and 
James Kelly, But deaths and removals made 



sad inroads on the society; churches sprang 
up in adjoining neighborhoods; uther denom- 
inations came in, and after the war there was 
little of the old society left. I suppose it 
would be impossible to tell just at what point 
the organization went down. The house 
went into a heap, and was finally hauled 
away. 

As Pleasant Hill began to decline, W. F. 
Johnson and other born Methodists, some 
four miles northwest, could not be satisfied 
without a church. John Thatcher was the 
circuit preacher. The neighbors agreed to 
build, and met to select a site, but failed to 
agree. Some wanted it east of where Mont 
Morrow lives, some west. They compromised 
by leaving it to Tommy Casey and Jick 
Maxey. Mr. Thatcher would not interfere; 
he sat on the groand, leaning against a tree, 
and read Peter Parley. At length, the 
" Commissioners " drove down the stakes 
just east of where the present handsome 
church stands, and there the house of logs 
was built. It was several years before they 
got a deed of the ground. At length, July 
15, 1854, James A. Donoho conveyed the lot, 
beginning at the northwest corner of the 
northeast quarter of the northwest quarter of 
Section 4, Township 2, Range 3, running 
south eleven chains, east eighteen rods, south 
seventeen and three-fourths rods, west eight- 
een rods, north seventeen and three-fourths 
rods to beginning, to James J. Slaxey, Mont 
Morrow, W. H. Chastain, S. D. Misenheim- 
er, W. F. Johnson, John Sproiil, James 
Dodson, Matthew Humphrey and William 
H, Maxey, Trustees. This log house stood 
for aboiTt fifteen years, when it was sold to 
Dr. Cam Frost, who moved it home and uses 
it for an ofBce, In 1869, it was determined 
to build a better house; but they were in 
danger of being shut out from the public 
roads, so they got an outlet by two deeds, 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUXTY. 



one from John McLaugblin, for twenty feet 
off the west side of the northeast quarter of 
the northwest quarter of Section 4, Town- 
ship 2, Range 3, and one from Ed R. Collins, 
bea'innino' three rods west of the southeast 
corner of the southwest quarter of southwest 
quarter of Section 33, Township 1, Range 3, 
north eighty rods, west one rod, south eighty 
rods, east one rod to beginning; the latl er dated 
November 7, 1870, the former dated August 
19, 1807, and made to J. Sproul, M. Morrow, 
G. A. Collins, F. -M. Bates, W. F. Johnson, 
Jehu J. Maxey, M. Wilson, A. S. Way and 
E. R. Collins. The new building is one of 
our best country churches, and the society 
there honor themselves and their profession 
by uprightness of life and zeal in maintain- 
ing the institutions of their church. Their 
Sunday school is of the evergreen variety. 

The Methodist society at Liberty was or- 
ganized by Rev. J. Thatcher or J. A. Robin- 
son, in 1851. It included Anthony and John 
Waite, James Hails, Ransom Wilkerson and 
a few others. They built a log church in 
the usual way, every man working at what- 
ever he could do t.ill it was done; and it was 
a preaching place as long as it stood, the so- 
ciety experiencing the vicissitudes of decline 
and revival common to country churches. 
The house stood on James Hails' land, and 
he was always willing to make a deed, but 
never ready. So it went on till 1874, when 
H. began to talk of selling out, when, Feb- 
ruary 4, a Board of Trustees was elected to 
receive the deed. It was composed of George 
Stitch, James Hails, John Waite, Elijah 
Thickston, John W. Coates, James D. 
Askew, Alonzo Paine, Patrick Presslar and 
Joseph Howard. But even this effort failed. 
Mr. H. sold his land to the present owner, 
Daniel Hershey, conveyed to him without re 
serve, and Mr. Hershey took the house down 
and moved it away. The meetings are now 



held in the sehoolhouse. The society is 
growing in numbers and in activity, main- 
tains a good Sunday school and has regular 
services. 

The Baptist Church at Salem was organ- 
ized in 1856, by James A. Keele. Some of the 
earliest members were Bird Warren, Johnson 
Motield, Zebulon Sledge, R. Hawkins, R. A. 
Grant, Robert Harlow, G. W. Luster, Will- 
iam Stroud. Jesse Clark and William 
Hutchinson and their wives. 

Their meetings were held for several years 
in the Seven Mile Sehoolhouse. They pro- 
cured a lot from Bluford Harlow, March 13, 
1860, beginning at the northwest corner of 
the southwest quarter of the southwest quar- 
ter of Section 11, Township 2, Range 3, run 
east twenty- three rods, south eight rods for 
beginning corner, then south sixteen rods, 
east twenty-three rods, north sixteen rods 
and west to beginning. The Trustees were 
Richard V. Hawkins, William Hutchison, 
William C. Beal, George W. Lester and Zeb- 
ulon Sledge. Here was erected a substantial 
house of hewn logs, and afterward a large 
shed in front to accommodate the ovei'flow 
on special occasions. Thus it remained till 
last year, when a new house was begun on a 
lot bought from Hiram Duncan, November 1, 
1882. It was finished this spring. This lot 
begins 12.57 chains east of the southwest 
corner of the northwest quarter of the north- 
west quarter of Section 11, Township 1, 
Range 3, runs north 6.20 chains, west 2.75 
chains, south 12|° west 1.85 chains to road, 
south 57^ west 3.U6 chains, south 2.68 
chains, east 5.72 chains to beginning, being 
just half a mile north of the old one. The 
pastors of this church, since its organization, 
have been James A. Keele, George W. Grant, 
Thomas J. Burton, W. P. Proffitt (for a short 
time), F. W. Overstreet. J T. Tenison, B. D. 
Esmon and S.W. Derrickson. 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



321 



Southern Methodist Church. — The career 
of this denomination in Mount Vernon has 
been rather inglorious. After all its strug 
gles, the writer remains almost its sole rep- 
resentative, and has to confess that he feels 
like a tall rag- weed in the middle of a frost- 
bitten turnip patch, " whose lights are fled," 
etc. Soon after the war closed, and largely 
through the efforts of Eev. — or Hon. , per- 
haps both — John "\V. Westcott, the Methodist 
Episcopal Chm-ch South was planted in 
Mount Vernon— planted a little too deep, 
and the ground was heavy, so it didn't come 
up well. They got the use of the Presbyte- 
rian Church, and Rev. Dr. Eeed had services 
there for some time in 1867-68. A preacher 
by the name of Frost organized a church at 
the Summers Schoolhouse; and this church 
being planted while the Froft was on the 
ground, the soil was mellow, and under good 
cultivation the crop turned out well —about 
sixty bushels; that is, about sixty members. 
Davis, Halsey, Jones and others preached for 
us, but we still grew " small by degrees and 
beautifully less." Then, for a year or two, 
we had no preacher. Afterward, about 187'2, 
a little man by the name of Ward — a sickly 
young man, with a Bible and hymn-book and 
two shirts in one end of his saddle-bags, and 
about five bottles and three pill-boxes in the 
other — came to preach for us. He was irri- 
table, of course. We got the use of the Bap- 
tist Church awhile, and he preached and flew 
around like whiz; but the bottom of his 
tender fell out, and he blew the crown sheet 
off his boiler and quit. The writer then 
switched off, and ran on the Presbyterian 
track awhile, but his drive- wheel slipped on 
the rails so badly that he went back to the 
Southern Methodists. In the meantime, 
1877-78, we tried to build a chui-ch in East 
Mount Vernon, for the joint use of the Pres- 
byterians and Southern Methodists. Vi'e met 



at Hinman's saloon and elected the writer, 
John Yearwood and George Haynes, Trust- 
ees, and got about $100 subscribed in a week 
or two. We bovight Lots 8 and 9, Dewy's 
Addition, and gave notes and trust deed. 
We took' a deed, and while one thought an- 
other had it recorded, it got lost — we have 
no idea what became of it. Rev. Mr. Prine 
almost wore all the nap off his plug hat try- 
ing to get up a Southern Methodist Church, 
but failed and abandoned the field. The 
writer had to pay off the notes and assume 
the debts; so he v^-as out about 1200, and in 
for about $100 more. He got a deed fi-om 
the Trustees and one from Hobbs & Guthrie, 
and a resolution of a called meeting confirm- 
ing the action of the Trustees and accepting 
their resignation. The church was " busted ;" 
so was the writer. He tried to sell to some 
church, or somebody for a church, or any- 
body for anything, at almost any price, but 
no — not any. Yet the building was a church, 
or stood for one, about four years. And 
now, as far as Mount Vernon is concerned, 
the Southern Methodist Church is no more ■ 
indeed, not near so much. 

Schools— III Town. — The people of Mount 
Vernon, for several years, patronized schools 
in Shiloh Township. In 1830-31, a log 
schoolhouse was erected on the point, now in 
the northwestern part of city, north of the 
Tolle property, or nearly south of Gen. 
Pavey's. But in 1831 it was out of sight of 
town — purposely so, that the children might 
study with less distm-bance, and that the 
neighbors north and west might be accom- 
modated. Scholars came from the west as 
far as Bullock's Prairie. Here Mr. Tally 
taught our first schools, in 1831-32. In the 
winter of 1833-34, John Baugh, Sr., taught 
here; the next winter, Abner Melcher, and 
his daughter Priscillathe following summer; 
and both father and daughter the next win- 



332 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUSTTY. 



ter. In 1836-37, John Downer, who is still 
living among us, taught; after which I think 
the house fell into disuse. Miss Kancl, one 
of the teachers sent West by an association 
in the East, taught in a room over Dr. 
Parks's dwelling — the south end of the re- 
consti-ucted dwelling in which Mrs. Thorn 
lives, west of the square. To all these schools 
scholai-s came from a circle six or eight miles 
in diameter. We believe Joshua Grant, 
brother of A. M. , taught the next school, in 
the Methodist parsonage, a small frame 
building on the northeast corner of Block 19, 
where Varnell's three little brick houses 
stand, 1838-39. Here :Miss Elizabeth Bullock 
also had a summer school. It was in the edge 
of the woods, and we remember seeing the 
school thrown into excitement by the appear- 
ance of snakes in the room. 

At length the people of the town became 
ambitious to do something better; it was de- 
termined to have an academy, and the site 
was chosen. In February, 1839, the Legis- 
latui-e passed the act of incorporation, and 
the names of the Trustees augured well for 
the result. They were Zadok Casey, Stinson 
H. Anderson, Joel Pace, \V. S. Van Cleve, 
H. B. Newby, E. H. Ridgway, D. Baugh, 
Thomas Cunningham, J. W. Greetham, An- 
gus M. Grant. On the 5th of July, 1839, 
they received from S. H. Anderson a deed to 
a lot 180 feet square. It was in a very pret 
ty o-rove. just out of town, on the southeast. 
A Building Committee had been appointed, 
Tom King, et al., and the building, furnish- 
ing materials, etc., was let to John H. Wat- 
son for $350. Of course, at this price, the 
house was not long in being completed; John 
and Asa Watson and John Leonard doing 
the work. There were large schoolrooms — 
one below and one above — a hall and stair- 
way on the north below, and over these a 
room for apparatus, etc. A fine little appa- 



ratus, with chemicals, was furnished, chiefly, 
we believe, by Gov. Casey's liberality, at a 
cost of about $100. 

The first sessions were taught by Lewis 
Dwight, "a down-easter." a graduate, per- 
haps, of Yale College, and a minister of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. His assistant, 
the first term, was a Miss Evans, the next 
term Joel F. Watson. Dwight began in the 
fall of 1839, and taught two terms. In the 
meantime, he married Mahala, oldest daugh- 
ter of Gov. Casey, who died the following 
year, leaving an infant son — now Samuel L 
Dwight, Esq., of Centralia. People were 
jaretty well pleased with Dwight, as Princi- 
pal, except Bowman, Sheriff, father of two 
extra bad boys- -Frank and Jim — one of 
whom Dwight ventured to correct. Bowman 
tried to raise an altercation with Dwight on 
the street, and threw a brick bat at Dwight's 
head, inflicting a very severe wound. Bow- 
man was fined $1 for this cowardly assault. 

The writer feels some pride in having 
been a pupil in the academy, though he re 
ceived of Mr. Dwight the only blow he ever 
received in school. Many of the pupils have 
since risen to some degree of eminence. 
Among them may be mentioned Dr. Newton 
E. Casey, of Mound City, Mayor, and member 
of the Logislatiire ; Thomas S. Casey, now 
Judge of this judicial circuit and also of the 
Appellate Court; Robert F. Wingate, of St. 
Louis, ex- Attorney General of Missoui'i; Tom 
B. Lester and Ab F. Haynie, of Salem, both 
distinguished in medicine, the latter also a 
poet and scholar, the former Professor in 
Kansas City Medical College; Isham N. 
Haynie, Adjutant General of Illinois; James 
M. Pace, first Mayor of Mount Vernon; G. 
W. Johnson, Superintendent of Schools; 
Lewis F. Casey, of Centralia; Charles T. 
Pace, long a leading man here in business 
and in his church; Dr. W. C. Pace and E. 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



323 



C. Pace, bankers, of Ashley; Moses Shep- 
herd, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal 
Chiu-ch; Robert Yost, a lawyer of Thebes; 
John H. Pace, many years in various offices 
here; Thomas H. Hobbs, Alderman, and yet 
more prominent in other positions; Joel F. 
Watson, for sixteen years County Clerk, and 
others. 

J. F. Watson taught a summer school after 
Dwight's second term closed; then came 
Johnson Pierson, who married a Miss How- 
ard, wrote ap epic poem, the " Judaid," and 
went to Burlington, Iowa. After Pierson, 
Dr. Beech and lady — the Miss Bullock before- 
mentioned, W. W. Bennett, T. B. Tanner, 
Mr. Walbridge with his sister, and the noto- 
rious Robert G. Ingersoll, were successively 
Principals of the institution. 

But all this while the academy was grad- 
ually slipping away from the Trustees. The 
later teachers taught on their own hook. 
The financial career of the academy was in- 
glorious. The tangle began early. The first 
schedule, from some cause, missed fire; and 
February 24, 1843, an act of the Legislatm-e 
was passed, authorizing and requiring the 
School Commissioner to receive the schedule 
of a school taught in 1S40, and apportion 
thereon its share of the funds of 1842, pro- 
vided all other schedules in tie county were 
paid iu the same manner — rather an odd act. 
Then there was a balance due Watson and 
Leonard on the building; John B. Leonard 
obtained a judgment against the house for 
$40.53; the claim changed hands a few times, 
not being considered worth much litigation. 
Asa Watson found a purchaser in the Ragan 
family; execution had issued in November, 
1852; Watson transferred the claim, and 
Sheriff Dodds, in 1854, conveyed the prop- 
erty to Richard and Barzilla Ragan. After 
the death of these old people, on partition of 
the estate, the lot was sold to C. R. Poole, 



who transferred it to Mi-s. M. G. Rohrer. 
She had the old building taken down in 
1882, and a neat brick cottage erected in its 
stead. 

After the fall of the old academy, we had 
schools at various places, as happened to be 
convenient When Mr. Leffler, Presbyterian 
ministei", was here, he undertook a private 
enterprise, and put up a schoolhouse west 
of Noah Johnston's a short distance. But 
his school broke down on the start, or 
soon after, and Judge Grant bought the 
house, moved it into town, and annexed it to 
the east end of his hotel. There it stood till 
the old hotel was torn down several years 
ago. A more successful effort was made by 
H. T. Pace in 1851-52. He had bought a 
lot with a beautiful grove on it, just north of 
where Dr. Plummer lives, on Union street, 
and here he erected and furnished a very 
neat schoolhouse at his own expense, em- 
ployed a teacher and kept u]i a school. Miss 
AVillard, afterward man'ied to Rev. John In- 
gersoll, taught in this house; then Miss 
Chamberlain, Mrs. Hogue, A. M. Green and 
others. Some schools were taught in the old 
Methodist Church — notably those of the 
Misses Martha and Sarah Green, both now 
residing at Normal, where the former, now 
Mrs. Haynie, is a Professor; the latter is the 
widow of the late Dr. Gray. 

When the Methodist Episcojaal Chui-ch 
was built, it was understood that the three 
rooms below were for school jjurposes; and 
here Prof. J. Leaton, the tu-st stationed 
preacher, opened a school in the fall of 1854. 
Februarj' 0, 1855, a charter was granted by 
the Legislature to Zadok Casey, James Lea- 
ton, John N. Jo nson, John H. Watson, Joel 
F. Watson, Charles T. Pace and Walter B. 
Scates, who, with three others, to be named 
by the Southern Illinois Conference, were to 
be Trustees of " The Mount Vernon Acad- 



324 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



emy." Prof. Leaton was chosen Principal, 
of course, and continued for thi-ee years. He 
succeeded well, being a finished scholar and 
thoroughly systematic. After he left, Prof. 
A. C. Hillman, now of Carbnndale, John H. 
Pace, Charles E. Robinson and others con- 
ducted the school. But there was a steady 
decline of enthusiasm, till the academy de- 
generated into a common school — sometimes 
very common. 

After the war, however, interest revived, 
and the Board of Trustees was re-organized. 
It then, 1865, consisted of S. T. Strattan, 
Joel F. Watson, C. T. Pace, J. S. Bogan, W. 
H. Herdman, Dr. W. D. Green, D. C. War- 
ren, James Lyon, C. D. Morrison and Thomas 
H. Hobbs. The services of Rev. Thomas H. 
Herdman, of Greenfield, Ohio, were secm'ed 
as Principal, with Mrs. Carrie Smith, of 
Mattoon, as assistant. The school numbered 
sixty to seventy-five pupils. At the end of 
the first year, Mrs. Smith returned to Mat- 
toon, and Miss Sadie K. Sellars, who had 
formerly taught with Prof. Herdman, in 
Ohio, was chosen to take her place. Miss S. 
remained two years, and was succeeded by 
Miss Anna Waggoner, now Mrs. A.'M. Strat- 
tan. Thus Prof. Herdman remained four 
years, giving entire satisfaction to his pa- 
trons, and winning, in an unusual degree, the 
love and respect of his pupils. 

In 1866, the subject of building a school- 
house was warmly discussed — indeed, it was 
hot. Several sites were proposed, but it re- 
quired an efibrt of the board to get the peo- 
ple to say they wanted any. The effort cost 
Bogan, Sattertield and others their positions. 
But a site was chosen — Lots No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 
6, Block 4, Green's Addition, and a deed was 
obtained of Vi\ H. Herdman November 6, 
1866. After so long a time, a large, two- 
story brick building was erected, costing 
about $12,000, and having two large rooms 



above and two below. A Mr. Barbour was 
employed to teach, but got cut by Duff Green, 
one of his pupils, and quit before his time 
was out. E. V. Satterfield finished his term. 
Then followed G. W. Johnson in 1869, then 
Ryder, Forbes, Wilson, Woodward, Courtney, 
Frohock and Barnhart, the present Principal. 
It was made a gi-aded school under Mj. 
Ryder. 

When the schoolhouse was finished, the 
classes that had been in the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church went into it. Those in the 
Presbyterian Chm-ch remained till 1878. 
The contract made with the Presbyterian 
Church August 3, 1859, by N. Johnston, C. 
T. Pace and I. G. Carpenter, Directors, was 
for the use of the room ninety-nine years, 
for females only; the Directors were to finish 
the house and keep it continually in good re- 
pair, and to keep account of all expenses, and 
the church could annul the contract by re- 
funding the sum expended. In 1878, the 
church asked for a settlement. The Directors 
presented a bill of about 1555. The Trustees 
of the church thought this too much, as noth- 
ing had been done but lathing and plaster- 
ing the room, running a partition and put- 
ting up two cheap privies and fencing the 
lots. They specially kicked at $50 or $60 
for the privies. They also claimed to have 
kept up the repairs. They also wanted some- 
thing for the seats that were in the room at 
first, but now gone. A hot war was brewing, 
but was finally compromised by the Trustees 
allowing the Directors to use the rooms for 
one more term and paying $50. Thencefor- 
ward, the school was consolidated. In 1881, 
an addition eighty feet long was erected, and 
now oiir six or seven hundred pupils are 
pretty well accommodated. 

Country Schools. — The first school in the 
township, outside of Mount Vernon, was 
taught by the late William H. Chastain. He 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



325 



came in ] 338, and located near the spring, 
near where Johnson Hutchison lives, about 
three miles northeast of town. Finding out 
that he was a teacher, the neighbors com- 
bined and put up a log house on the rise — 
now the eastern part of Joseph Dawson's 
farm. Here Ghastain, Holt, Leech, Stockton 
and others taught for a number of years. 
The pati'ons of these schools were O. Harlow, 
Mr. Lisenby (Chastaiu's father-in-law), Bur- 
rell "Warren, James Carroll (who lived near 
where George Stitch lives), A. D. Estes 
(near the mouth of Two Mile), Freeman 
Bm-nett, Mr. Marlow, the Summerses, the 
Yearwoods, etc. 

As the country liecame more populous, a 
division became necessary, and a school was 
taught in the Cumberland Church at the 
Camp Ground, by a Mr. Wineburger. I 
think the next school there was taught by 
Miss Hamline, now Mrs. William B. Casey, 
Miss Tempe Short following in the summer, 
and William H. Summers the next winter. 
These schools were about 1848 to 1851. 
The writer taught tlu-ee schools there in 
1853, 1854, 1855. July 12, 1856, John 
Wright conveyed to J. R. Satterfield, W. M. 
A. Maxey and R. A. Grant, Township Trust- 
ees, a lot beerinninn: at the southeast corner 
of Pleasant Hill Church lot, running north 
208 feet, east 208 feet, south 208 feet and 
west to beginning. 

About the time the Chastain or hickory log 
house fell into disuse,- and the division above 
spoken of ensued, the northern neighborhood 
erected a house of split logs near Hiram 
Duncan's. This was known as the Split Log, 
the Seven Mile, or the Duncan Schoolhouse. 
After doing service for live or six years, this 
house was bm-nt down, and in 1853 the 



hewed log house was erected near the same 
place, where most of the people in that part 
of the township received their education. 

After the Hutchisons and some others came 
into the border neighborhood, between Mount 
Vernon and the Camp Ground, still another 
schoolhouse was demanded, and a site was 
secured from John W. Summers April 7, 
1856. It is described as beginning at the 
northwest corner of the southwest quarter of 
the southwest quarter of Section 22, Town- 
ship 2, Range 3, running south ten rods, east 
eight rods, north ten rods, and west to be- 
ginning. A house was built here, and so 
continues, except the addition of ten or twelve 
feet to the north end. 

Later school buildings are of such recent 
date as to require but brief notice. The Col- 
lins Schoolhouse was built on a lot bought 
from Joshua C. Maxey Maj 3, 1863. It is 
in the southeast corner of the southwest quar- 
ter of Section 4, and is eight rods wide firom 
north to south, and twenty from east to west. 
The Block Schoolhouse was built in a district 
organized chiefly by the efforts of C. G. 
Vaughn, and is built on a square half-acre 
bought of Garner Mc Walker October 9, 1876. 

It is in the southeast corner of the south- 
west quarter of the southeast quarter of Sec- 
tion 16. The Waite Schoolhouse was built 
on a lot bought of Mrs. Jane C. Webber De- 
cember 6, 1880. The boundary of the lot 
begins 24.89 chains west of quarter-section 
corner on the east side of Section 35, Town- 
ship 2, Range 3, runs east 4.47 chains, south 
2.23 chains, we.st 4.47 chains, north 2.23 
chains to beginning. The schools in these 
houses are well sustained, and the people aim 
to employ better teachers and have better 
schools with each succeeding year. 



3a6 



HISTORY or JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



CHAPTER VI.* 



MOUNT VERNON— TOWN SURVEYS AND ADDITIONS—" MORE THAN ANY MAN CAN NUMBER"- 

CASEY'S ADDITION— GREEN'S, STRATTAN'S AND SEVERAL OTHERS— THE NUMBER OF ACRES 

COVERED BY THE CITY— MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT— CITY OFFICIALS, ETC., ETC. 



"VXT^E have already noticed the sm'vey of 
V V the original town of Mount Vernon. 
It is dated July 10, 1819, and signed by 
William Hosick. The question is often 
asked why our corners aft'e not right 
angles. A sufficient answer is found 
in " Will's " statement of his beginning 
and first line: " The public square be- 
ginning at the northwest corner at a mul- 
berry stake, running thence thirteen degrees 
east, agreeably to the magnetical direction 
ran by a compass made by Thomas Whitney, 
of Pihladelphia, No. 419, thirteen poles to 
another stake of the same description," etc. 
This was the west line. The survey and plat 
are acknowledged by Henry B. Maxey, John 
Jordan and William J. Tunstall, before Oliver 
Morris, Justice of the Peace. The fact that 
William Casey sold ninety rods off the west 
side of the quarter section on which the town 
stood to James Gray has been referred to. 
Gray sold a lot to theMethodist Church Sep- 
tember 8, 1835. September 12, 1885, he 
also sold to John Johnson all the ground he 
owned east of the town and north of Bunyaa 
street, now Blocks 14 and 15. August 25, 
1837, he sold a square acre in the northwest 
corner of his tract to Rhodam Allen, now 
Block 31 ; October 5, 1887, he sold to James 
Ross, Df. Adams and John Stanford all the 
ground he owned west of the town and south 
of Banyan street, now Block G; October 7, 
1839, he sold to W. S. Van Cleve a strip in- 

*By Dr. A. Clark Johnson. 



eluding the ground where Merrill's livery 
stable stands, running as tar west as Mrs. 
Baltzell's and back to the alley. Downing 
Baugh bought all the ground Gray owned 
south of the town and east of Union street, 
now Blocks 3 and 4. 

Some of these were at once laid out in lots. 
Adams, Ross & Stanford's Addition, of six 
lots with a twenty-one foot alley — "North 
west Alley" — on the west, was surveyed by 
Daniel P. Wilbanks, De^juty Surveyor, No- 
vember 27, 1837. Baugh's Addition of 
thirty-two lots in two blocks was laid out by 
the same surveyor, April 20,1838, comprising 
the ground above named; the blocks were 
not numbered. The lots were numbered 
retroversely; acknowledgement taken by 
Noah Johnston. The title to the lots in this 
addition was pretty badly tangled for some 
time, but finally came out pretty straight in 
most cases. 

By this time Gray had sold out most of his 
land around the town that was available for 
building lots. Very naturally the Village 
Trustees wished to see the town grow and 
branch oat in good shape; so they, and not 
Jimmy Gray, as some supjjose, but no doubt, 
at Gray'8 suggestion, employed John Storm, 
County Surveyor of White County, to come 
up and survey the town. Storm's survey 
was to include all the tracts just mentioned 
and what Gray had left and the original 
town. Fortunately, there was not a block in 
the whole menagerie, so he was free to num- 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSOX COUNTY. 



327 



ber his blocks any way; but wherever lots 
were immbered the numbers could not be 
changed. This explains the numbers run- 
ning so irregularly in some parts of the town. 
The ninety rods off the west side of the quar- 
ter section made about ninety- four acres. 
The plat is dated September 18, 1840. The 
key corner stone was set at the southwest 
corner of Section 29, and the variation main- 
tained degrees. The blocks ran from 1 
in the southwest corner to 35 in the north- 
east. Block 24 and several others in the 
north and east were not lotted; they were 
so far from town and so badly in the woods, 
Storm states in his certificate, that the survey 
was "made pm-suant to the request of the 
Trustees of said town." The survey and 
field notes fill thirty pages of the record, 
Book C, and J. R. Sattertield, Recorder, cer- 
tifies that they were recorded from the Ist 
to the 27th of September, 1845. 

But of all the parties interested, not a 
man but Jimmy Gray acknowledged the 
"act and deed." This raised grave doubts as 
to the legality of it. Hence an act of the 
Legislature was procured and approved Feb- 
ruary 21, 1843, declaring " That the survey 
of the town of Mount Vernon in Jefferson 
County, made by John Storms in the year 
1840, and the plats and profiles made by 
him of said survey, are hereby legalized and 
shall be taken and received in all courts as 
prima facia evidence of the facts therein con- 
tained and set forth, and the beginnings, 
endings, boundaries and abuttals thereby es- 
tablished are hereby legalized and con- 
firmed." Thus perfected. Storms' survey has 
remained almost unchanged. In February, 
1865, by act of the Legislature, six feet were 
taken off the east side of Washington street 
from Main to Harrison, and added to the 
several lots, but in March, 1869, this was re- 
pealed. Block 24 was laid off into thirteen 



lots for J. F. Wataon by B. R. Cunningham, 
April 27, 1880. And Varnell opened an alley 
in Block 19, and S. H. Watson and others 
an alley through Block 26. Lots 7 and 8, 
Block 12, have been cut up by H. T. Pace's 
heirs, but no record made of it. It may be 
added that Storms' chain may have been 
just slightly too long, as many of his lines 
overrun a little. I may also add, as I am 
better at addition than multiplication, that 
Judge Pollock, April 14, 1881, carved four 
lots out of the parts of Blocks 28, 29, 30 
and 31, lying west of the Salem road. He 
opened a street and an alley, biit failed to 
give them names, and A. Curt. Johnson has 
divided Block 5 into lots. 

Casey's Addition soon followed Storms' 
survey. November 14, 1840, Zadok Casey 
had E. M. Grant, Deputy Surveyor, to lay 
out some lots on a triangular piece of ground 
just west of town, from the Nashville road to 
the Carlyle road. It had been a field. He 
moved his east fences back to a line west of 
where Judge Casey lives, and the town 
looked expansive. He built two cottages and 
a store, now on Main street, and invited im- 
provement. But Jarvis Pierce had an idea 
that the improvement would take the opposite 
direction, and center about the academy; so 
he bought a strip ten rods wide, and about 
fifty rods fi-om north to south, in the north- 
west corner of the east half of the north- 
west quarter of Section 32, from James 
Gray, and laid out sixteen lots, with 
Seminary street twenty feet wide on the 
west side, and South street fifty feet wide on 
the south. This was done by A. M. Grant, 
Deputy Surveyor, May 18, 1841; and Pierce's 
Addition stretched from where Mr. Brun- 
ing lives toward the Sunny South. But Jar- 
vis failed to pay for the ground; failed to 
sell lots, failed all over, and it all " went 
under." He and Albert Towle and Almon N. 



32S 



HISTORY OK JEFFEHSOX COUNTY. 



Towle, his nephews, held Gray's bond for a 
deed, bui it did no (jood. In September of 
the same year, the same three men. with Joel 
Pace, laid oat South street, hoping this 
would help Pierce's Addition out. It ran 
from Union street east 639 feet, and was 
sixty-six feet wide. There was noth i ng but 
open jirairie south of it — nothing to hinder 
its being 630 feet wide. It was not surveyed, 
but it was recorde(1 twice. The first time they 
had it south of BlocKs 3, 4 and 5 of Baugh's 
Addition. But they found there were but two 
blocks in the addition,' and they next got it 
south of Baugh's and R<iss. Stanford & 
Adams' Additions. This wiis no better, but 
they let it go so — and I don't know that it 
ever came back. Our blood did not call 
for any more additions until after the Su- 
preme Court came. Ca.^ey's Second Addition 
was the result. Gov. Casey moved his fences 
in again, and May 5, 1854, W. B. Anderson 
surveyed one tier of lots south of Bvinyan 
street two blocks north of them, a huge 
block for the Supreme Court, and three 
blocks north of that The lots ran from 1 
to *25. On the plat of the huge block afore- 
said was written "Block 1. donated to the State 
of Illinois." This was all the " Block" in it, 
and this is all the deed the State ever had for 
that. Fourth street, which ran north and 
south from the middle of the court house 
lot, was soon after vacated. The court house 
and the Presbyterian "Church soon brought 
this addition into notice. 

Green's Addition came next. The tidal 
vrave had moved west — it now turns back to 
the east. Billy Casey had sold the east sev- 
enty acres of this quarter section to Stins. 
Anderson. March 1, 1836. Anderson had 
sold it to Edward Ridgway, April 4. 1850, 
and at length. October *20. 1856. Ridgway 
had sold it to Dr. W. Duff Green. When 
Storm made his survev. evervtbing east and 



north of where Fletcher Johnson now lives 
was iu the woods, except an awfully small 
and more awfully stumpy field on the hil) 
north of the Fairfield road, and a field not 
quite so small and stumpy soutli of it. But 
now those fields had growa v.-istly. and mere- 
ly a few clumps of the blackjack woods were 
left. So Dr. Green. October 29. 1859, had 
Mr. L. J. Germain. Deputy Surveyor, under 
Mr. Grant, lay otit the entire seventy acres 
into blocks and lots. This added seventeen 
blocks to the town, in throe tiers running 
north and south, with Breckinridge and 
Spring streets between, and Green street 
separjiting all from the old town, Jesse J. 
Fly owned Block 7; H. D. Hinman most of 
Block 17; Block 9 was owned by Dr. Brown; 
Dr. Green reserved Block 12 for his home, 
and 15 and 16 included the s))rings, so that 
these blocks, as well as two and three, were 
not lotted. The street between 15 and 16 
was soon after vacated. Fly had Block 7 
divided into lots by a Mr. William S. Morgan. 
Deputy Surveyor. April 9. 1861, making eleven 
lots, except a strip at the northeast corner 
that he did not own. Indeed, he did not own 
near all the rest. Frank Parker coming in 
on the west and Benjamin Miller on the 
east. etc. Block 9 was subdivided by B. R. 
Cunningham. February 26, 1880, or rather 
he surveyed and platted its seven lots, for it 
was already divided among as many owners. 
The rest of this addition remains about as it 
was. Improvement progressed slowly until 
the railroad was built, when it swept over the 
whole addition like another tidal wave. 
Newby's Addition, surveyed by Germain 
June '20, 1860. also improved slowly for sev- 
eral years and experienced a like revival 
when the railroad was first built. Perhaps 
a sufficient clew to the location of this addi- 
tion is furnished by the record, for it seems 
to have one corner at the intersection of 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



329 



Breckinridge street ' and the Shawneetown 
road, its northeast comer. The record 
don't say where it is. 

As soon as the railroad was an assured 
thing, several more additions were made. 
Samuel Iv. Caser came, bought out the Gov. 
Casey heirs, and October 9. 1S67, had a 
large square tract on the southeast quarter 
of the southeast quarter of Section 30 laid 
out into twenty-one lots. TJie southeast cor- 
ner, or key corner, is north 68 degrees 
west 3.90 chains from the key corner of 
Storm's survey, vernier set at zero. This 
throws it 150 feet west of First street 
or the Brownsville road; Mills and Elm ai-e 
its principal streets. Gov. Casey had sold a 
lot at the corner of First and Bunyan to 
Dr. Short, and lots fronting on First to va- 
rious persons from time to time, south of the 
Short lot and running back the same dis- 
tance. After Samuel Casey had platted his 
square, as he called it, it was hard for the 
Assessor to pi-operly describe the lots between 
it and First street, as they hardly seemed to 
be still " parts of the southeast quarter of 
the southeast quarter of Section 30. Town 2 
Range 3." So Samuel W. Jones, then Treas- 
urer and Assessor, had the County Surveyor 
make a plat of those lots. Joel Pace owned one 
at the corner: N. C. Pace one west of that, 
and south of it were lots owned by Samuel 
Hawkins, T. H. Herdman, J. J. Garrison's 
heirs, J. J. Fly, J. F. Johnson and J. & J. 
Slevin. a bad place for jays. The surveyor's 
plat of these lots has no name on the record, 
but is generally known as the Williams Sur- 
vey. It was made May 21, 186S. Then in 
the same year, August 3. S. K. Casey's Sec- 
ond Addition was surveyed. It lies entirely 
west and north of the Supreme Court Irjt, 
beginning sisty feet west and sixty feet 
north of the northwest corner of it. It con- 
sists of two tiers of large lots, its lots being 



numbered from 1 to 9. The town now 
reached as far west as the depot south of the 
railroad, and as far as the west line of Bell's 
and Goodale's lots, etc., north of the raih'oad. 

The pendulum of improvement now swings 
to the east, and A. M. Strattan opens up 
Strattan's Addition. May 7, 1869. This is 
on the same tract with Green's Second, that 
is. the southwest quarter of the southeast quar- 
ter of Section 29, Town 2, Range 3. The 
Yearwoods ovmed eighteen rods off the 
east side, and Strattan had bought a strip 
west of theirs, 5.235 chains wide, and 
sold an acre off the south end to Fitch; on 
the rest he laid out his addition. But 
it is described as beginning at .a point 
fifteen feet south and 176 feet west of the 
northeast corner of the southwest quar- 
ter of the southeast quarter of Section 
29, thus lapping over on to the Tear- 
woods 121 feet A recent deed from Dr. 
Green, however, corrects this error. This 
addition contains four lots. Rynd L. Sti'at- 
tan put a good house and iiarn on No. 1, now 
owned by Dawson, and the rest are unim • 
proved. In fact, the Sti-attans have sold two 
strips, fifty and twenty feet, off the east side 
of Lot No. -i, and what is left is two feet 
eight inches wide by 630 feet long. 

Then the pendulum swings back to the 
west, and S. K. Casey's Third .Addition is 
thrown open. It was surveyed by John A. 
Garber, civil engineer. January 25, 1870. 
It includes seven blocks, on both sides of 
the railroad, north of Bunyan street or the 
Ashley road, and lies just within the western 
limits of the city, extending to Bogan street. 
It is there, and seems to be well fastened 
down with stakes and things, but it's hard to 
tell how it got there, for Garber located it on 
the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter 
of Section 30. Town 2. Range 3, about where 
the big pond is. Then it swung back to the 



330 



HISTORY OF JEFFKRSON COUNTY. 



east— the pendulum— and Varnell's First 
Addition was the result. Varnell owned the 
south half of the northwest quarter of the 
southeast quarter of Section 29, and Novem- 
ber 24, 1870, he laid out about half of it 
along the Fairfield road — or Main street — 
into lots, in three blocks. It is ninety feet 
seven inches, widest at the east end. 

The improvement now swings round to the 
south. First, Green's Second Addition, 
January 4, 1871, took in or let out all he 
had left of the southwest quarter of the 
southeast quarter of Section 29. The Doc- 
tor seldom did things by littles — don't think 
he ever gave a quit-claim deed, but always 
a warranty. ) There are nine blocks, only 
the first four being laid out in lots; all the 
rest fronted on the Fair Ground road. But 
the demand for lots was such that September 
18, 1871, he divided Block 5 and the south 
part of Block 6 into lots. This is Green's Di- 
vision, etc. He had sold 300 feet off the north 
end of Block 6 to the Lowrys. This Second 
Addition is bounded on the east by Lee ave- 
nue and the east line of the tract, on the 
west by Park avenue, and divided in the mid- 
dle by Lee avenue. Next, Augixst 10, 1871, 
George S. Winslow throws over seventy-five 
acres of lots into the market in Winslow' s 
Addition. It occupied the northwest quarter 
of the northeast quarter and all of the north- 
east quarter of the northwest quarter, except 
four and one -half acres ofi" the south side of 
Section 32. Its avenues ran east and west, 
Casey, Opdyke, Castleton, Walnut and New- 
by; its streets, Temple, Water and Sum- 
mer, north and south. It had 224 lots and 
no blocks. Lot No. 222, including the ma- 
chine shop grounds. But afterward, Decem- 
ber 22, 1S77, Lots 1 to 166 were vacated, 
except Lot No. 128, being all of the north- 
west quarter of the northeast quarter of Sec- 
tion 32, except one lot. Still swinging 



around, we ne> see Newby's Second Addi- 
tion, August 29, 1871. 

It is more definitely located than his first, 
beffinnino- at the northwest corner of the 
southeast quarter of the northwest quarter of 
Section 32, running north 140 feet, east 714 
feet, south 492 feet, west 714 feet, and north 
322 feet. All lies south of the shops, at the 
extreme south end of town Then, Novem- 
ber 14, 1871, John Liebundgut lays out an 
addition, west of Winslow's, on ten acres 
north of the railroad, bought of Joel Face. 
This addition lies on both sides of the south 
end of Washington street. It vas part of 
the northwest quarter of the noj jwest quar- 
ter of Section 32, extending south 407 feet 
and west 633 feet, from the northeast cor- 
ner. 

But there is still a demand 1 Jots in the 
east; so, August 8, 1872, De 's Addition 
begins. John Yearwood had, I'ebruary 18, 
1865, sold thirty-one rods eight links off the 
south end of his five acres, eighteen rods wide, 
to Joe; the next October Joe sold it to Bob, 
and in June, 1868. Bob sold the west half of it 
to Eussel Dewy. Dewy, then, April 20, 1870, 
bought fifty feet off the east side of Lot 4, 
Strattan's Addition, to give hira an outlet to 
Main street. He then laid out his addition, as 
above stated. This addition, according to the 
recorded survey, has these impossible bound- 
aries: Beginning 255 feet south and nine rods 
west of the northeast corner of the southwest 
quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 
29, Town 2, Range 3, running south 301 feet, 
west 19Si feet, north 595 feet, east fifty feet, 
south 234 feet, east ISSi feet, to beginning. 
There are nine lots, 1 and 2 reaching for 
Main street, the rest lying east and west. 
Then, April 22, 1873, Varnell lays out his 
Second Addition, covering the rest of his 
twenty-acre tract. There is one tier of lots 
in three blocks, reaching across the north- 



iX'r 



V,7 




'Mf 




LIBRARY 

OF THE 

UNIVERSITY OF ILUNOIS 



HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



333 



west quarter of the southeast quarter of Sec- 
tion 29. This and Dewey's were surveyed by 
B. C. Wells. With these additions the dis- 
position to go east seems to have been ex- 
hausted, and the movement has since been 
in the opposite direction. 

May 14, 1874, Fry's Addition of twenty- 
two lots is surveyed, with First street on the 
east and Franklin street on the we.st. This 
street, of course, was named in honor of 
Franklin S. Casey, Z. A. Fry's father-in-law. 
This addition occupies the east part of the 
south half of the northeast quarter of the 
northeast quarter of Section 31. April 26, 
1875, John J. Casey's Addition was surveyed 
by S. C. Polk. John had inherited six acres 
west of S. K. Casey's First Addition and of 
Fifth street, extending fi'om the Ashley road 
siiuth w the south line of Section 30, and 
about six and one-third chains in width. 
This he laid out into five lots, one west of 
Edge wood street and four east of it. in a 
few years. Buck Casey bought the foui' east 
lots, and February 25, 1878, had them cut 
up into twenty-six lots, under the name of 
William B. Casey's Subdivision. December 
I. 1876, Noah Johnston's Addition was sur- 
veyed. It differs from all other additious, 
It has no streati, no alleys, and each lot is 
totally unlike the rest in both shape and di- 
mensions. It is an irregular triangle, bounded 
by the section line between Sections 29 and 
30 an the east and the Carlyle road on the 
southwest. There are four lots; No. 1 is a 
small wedge, while No. 4 has 600 feet front 
on the road and the same on its north or 
northwest line, and over 700 on the east. 
No. 4 is the Major's home, and his " cabin" 
ha-; been there fifty years. William T. 
Pace's Addition, January 20, 1877, is the 
last "Harvey Pace's meadow," in the north- 
west quarter of the northwest quarter of 
Section 32, was a well-known held for many 



a long year. When its owner died, his 
heirs, in making a division of his estate, 
found it convenient to convey this tract to 
William T. Pace, a grandson, and have him 
cut it up into lots and re-convey to each as 
might be agreeable. It contains six blocks, 
three on each side of Casey street, with two 
east and west avenues — the northern Pace 
avenue; the southern, Virginia. 

xis a result of all these surveys, Mount 
Vernon has about 500 acres now laid out 
into 875 lots, of which about 490 are im- 
proved and 385 unimproved. 

Municipal Government. — The effort to in- 
corporate Mount Vernon was made in 1837. 
At that time the statute required a popula- 
tion of 150 to entitle towns to be incorpo- 
rated, 80 an act was passed to enable Mount 
Vernon, Mount Salem and Carlyle to incor- 
porate without the requisite population un- 
der the general law. But the records of the 
town are now lost and few of its officers re- 
main. The government continued for nearly 
ten years before it faded out and had to be 
renewed. Theu it ran on for nearly twenty 
years longer before it had to be sent to the 
renovator again. See below. It generally 
appeared in feeble health, but in 1853, when 
Capt. Newby tried the experiment of starting 
a saloon on South Union street without its 
authority, he found it was still alive. At the 
end of six months, he had to move out. 
John Johnson, William Edwards, A. Melcher 
and D. Baugh were members of the old 
board for years; we understand there were 
not many third termers in the later board. 

May 2, 1804, a meeting of the citizens was 
held to decide whether or not they would be 
incorporated under the general law. R. W. 
Lyon was President and A. N. Pace Secre- 
tary of the meeting. A vote was taken and 
was unanimously in favor of the propo.-iitiou 
— 82 to 0. On the 17th of the same month, 



334 



HISTOKY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



an election for Trustees was held, and among 
nearly twenty candidates, the five who re- 
ceived the highest votes were T. B. Tanner, 
83; Thomas H. Hobbs, 64; Harvey T. Pace, 
64; J. J. Holloman, 62; J. R. Satterlield, 
61. John H. Pace receivod 60 votes for 
Police Magistrate, D. C. "Warren, with 24. 
being the nest highest man. The Trustees 
were sworn in by J. S. Bogan June 13, 
1864, and the board was ready for busine.ss. 
Most of this, however, was routine business, 
and not much to note, except the annual 
struggle on the license question, which we 
may consider under the head of temperance 
movements. 

In 1872, Mount Vernon became a city un- 
der the general law respecting cities and vil- 
lages. The last Board of Trustees was "Wal- 
ter E. Carlin, President; John N. Satter- 
field, Clerk; and James D. Johnson, Russell 
Dewy, Newton C. Pace and William E. 
Jackson, Trustees. The following is a list of 
the Mayors and Aldermen under the city 
government: 

1872 — J. M. Pace, Mayor; T. Hansacker, 
T. H. Hobbs, A. Smart, J. J. Bambrook, Al- 
dermen. W. D. Watson succeeded Smart in 
the fall. Four wards and four Aldermen. 

1873— N. C. Pace, Mayor; H. W. Seimer, 
R. Dewey, C. A. Loomis, J. R. Allen, S. S. 
Porter and J. J. Bambrook, Aldermen. Three 
wards and six Aldermen. 

1874 — N. C. Pace, Mayor; James Guthrie, 
H. "W. Seimer, J. Taylor, C. A. Loomis, Silas 
Downer and H. Davisson, Aldermen. J. Bam- 
brook succeeded Downer, moved out of city. 

1875— G. H. Varnell, Mayor; J. Taylor, 
James Guthrie, C. A. Lnomis, J. A. Clinton, 
J. J. Bambrook and H. A. Baker, Aldermen. 

1876— G. H. Varnell, Mayor; H. A. Baker, 
J. J. Bambrook, J. A. Clintiin, D. B. Good- 
rich, C. A Loomis and N. C. Pace, Alder- 
men. In September, R. L. Strattan ap- 
peared as successor to Baker. 



1877— G. H. Varnell, Mayor; J. J. Bam- 
brook, J. A. Clinton, J. B. Crowder, D. B. 
Goodi-ich, N. C. Pace and R L. Strattan, 
Aldermen. 

1878— G. H. Varnell, Mayor; J. J. Bam- 
brook, J. A. Clinton, J. B. Crowder, D. B. 
Goodi-ich, Alexander Smart and R. L. Strat- 
tan, Aldermen. 

1879 -G. H. Varnell, Mayor; D. B. Good- 
rich, J. D. Johnson, J. A. Clinton, A. Smart, 
H. W. Preston, G. W. Yost, Aldermen. 
Johnson soon moved out of his ward and was 
succeeded by M. M. Goodale; then Goodrich 
moved out and was succeeded by C. D. Ham. 

188()-G. H. Varnell, Mayor; M. M. Good- 
iile, C. D. Ham, W. A. Keller, H. W. Preston, 
S. T. Strattan and G. W. Yost, Aldermen. 

1881— G. H. Varnell, Mayor; J. R. Allen, 
R. Dewy, C. D. Ham, John Gibson, S. T. 
Strattan and "W. Barg Casey, Aldermen. 

1882— G. H. Vai-uell, Mayor; J. R. Al- 
len, R. Dewey, John Gibson, M. M. Goodale, 
A. W. Plummer and A. M. Strattan, Aldermen. 

1883— H. S. Plummer, Mayor; M. M. 
Goodale, W. T. Goodrich, R. Dewy, A. W. 
Plummer, A. M. Strattau and Q. F. M. 
Ward, Aldermen. 

Peter Brown has been City Clerk ever 
since 1873. 

The City Marshals were E. J. Watson in 
1872: S. D. Cooper in 1873; J. R Guthrie, 
1877; L F. Hamlin, 1878; F. W. Fiy, 1878; 
T. J. Casey, 1879; R. A. Smith. 1880; and' 
C. C. Satteraeld, 1882. 

The Police Magistrates were John H. Pace, 
1872; James M. Pace, 1874; J. \V. Bauo;h, 
1876; Wesley Yost, 1880. 

The City Attorneys were T. T. Wilson, 
1872; E. V. Satterlield, 1875; T. T. Wilson, 
1877; S. Laird. 1879; Albert Watson, 1881; 
and W. H. Green, 1881. 

The Street Commissioners were W. D. 
Edgington in 1874; John Maloney, in 1878; 
and in 1882, G. W. Johnson. 



HISTORY OF JEFFEUSON COUNTY- 



335 



CHAPTER VII.* 



MOUNT VERNON— TEMPERANCE MOVEMENTS— THEIR GOOD WORK IN THE COMMUNITY— VILLAGE 
OP EAST MOUNT VERNON— MYSTIC ORDERS— MASONS, ODD FELLOAVS, ETC.— MISCEL- 
LANEOUS— WHICH COMPRISES FIRES, FIRE DEPARTMENT AND MANY 
OTHER LOCAL ITEMS— BIRTHS, DEATHS, ETC., ETC. 



"Finis coronal opus." — Shukespeare. 

AS the temperance movement has been 
one of the most important factors in 
our public life, it will not be amiss to give 
it considerable space in these pages. 

The first temperance organization iii the 
county was the " Mount Vernon Temperance 
Society," organized in March, 1832. The 
basis of