977.3515
T139 TAKE THOUGHT
ON REMEMBERING ME
LIBRARY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
AT URBANA-CHAMPAICN
977.3515
TI39
ILLINOIS KiSTORiCAl SURW
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LIBRARY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
AT URBANA-CHAMPAICN
977.3515
TI39
TAKE THOUGHT
ON PMB'BERING W
A HERITAGE SAMPLER
A collection of the heritage of our forebears from diaries,
ne;vspapers and old settlers sampling the first seventy-five years
of our county, this book has been compiled in honor of the 125th
Anniversary of the founding of Marshall County, 1839-I96ii,
Marshall County Historical Society
Lac on, Illinois
wmu. OF I. uRsm-cniiMPiiiGir
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION
Take Thought on Ptemembering Me 1
FAMILY LIFE
Illinois Country 3
Nine of The Yoimgest ^
FA RUNG
Chaff From Harvests Past 9
V/eather or Not ^^
TRANSPORTATION
Steamboat 'Round The Bend 1°
The Railroads and The Prairies 18
Mail Delivery, 1853 ^3
Father' s Miraculous Riding Machine 25
GOVERNIvffiNT
\7higs, Jacksonian Democrats and Republicans 2?
Origin of Township Names 29
1850 Oath of Office, Fairfield Township 30
CIVIL V/AR
Not Afraid to Face The Cannon' s Mouth 32
By The Dim and Flaring Lamps 35
EDUCATION
Pioneer Pursuit of The Three R' s 37
18ii6 School Trustee - Teacher's Contract u2
INDUSTRY - BUSINESS
. . .And She Laid Down and Died «3
Crow Meadow Farmers Break Horse Thievery ii3
V/indow Sash, Blinds, Etc j^5
The Ice Harvest, A Iwinter Crop jio
Pea Ridge and Other Places |^7
Flannels and Fine Cashmeres ^^
Days of Our Years 51
RECREATION
1899 In Marshall County, A Poem 5a
The County Fair, A Rural Social Event 55
The Eighties Were Elegant, Notwithstanding 56
Bustle Age Bugaboos 59
Vignette in Motion °1
La Ball Enmasque Extraordinary 66
. . .And The Band Played On 68
PHILOSOPHY
T>vin-Spired Protector 70
Not Tossed About by Every Wind 71
Plumbing The Breadth, Heighth and Depth 73
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1 X ' • *
a reproduction of a Marshall County Sampler, fine needlework
typical of the times v.'hen early settlers came to Illinois country, made
by !5argaret Davies, grandmother of Margaret Jones Duke Miller.
This sampler was made in 183^; when Ilargaret Davies was thirteen
years old. It is of natural homespun linen with the alphabet, flowering
trees and bushes typical of art work in that period. Notice the abbre-
viation for Margaret. The flov/ering plants and bov;ls of fruit signify
plenty and the houses represent havens of refuge. The lion and the
birds hearken from coats of arms. In spite of broken threads and aging
linen the cross-stitch still is legible and tells a story.
The sister of Robert Davies, "largaret married Edward Jones on
September 21, iSiil in Chillicothe, Ohio, and continued to journey west-
ward until they settled in Lacon, Illinois. In 1880 a beautiful home
in Henry was built for her and there she resided until her death. Her
granddaughter, Mrs. I. G. Ililler, now resides in that house.
TAKE THOUGHT ON RElffiMBERII*} ME
It is the voice of the past calling to us. It is the spirit
of our heritage svreeping like a strong v.'ind through our fogged and
cluttered memories. It is the tree of tradition, rooted in past gener-
ations, shaking its leaves upon the soil of our present habitation.
"Take thought on remembering me."
Do we hear the words? Are we stirred by the insistent wind?
Do we feel the touch of the eddying leaves? Pray, be sensitive to that
part of the past which is within us: for save as we cherish the past we
cannot fully savor the present. Realize it or not, like it or not, we
are the link between the past and the future.
There are those who vn.ll say the past is of no benefit to us.
We must look to the future for progress, for fortune, for salvation.
Who then but the past is the architect of the present, even as the pres-
ent-is the architect of the future. Except that we draw sustenance from
the deep roots of the past we shall yield but small fertile seed for the
years to come.
Let us join together then to learn of the legacy of our fathers,
as v/e mean our children to learn from us. Lest we permit the continuity
of the chain between the past and the future to weaken — a chain v:hose
links we hold in our hands, with povrer to pass it on untarnished, or to
let it fall and moulder and rust in neglect and forgetfulness-let us
take thought on remembering the glorious heritage which is ours.
In a time when history is not much stressed and the past is
regarded as a sort of murky obsolescence f^om which we have sprung in
full-fledged splendor, let us follow the vanishing trail back to the
generations before us. Let us laugh and weep and wring out the meaning
hidden in our personal lore, the lore of Marshall County.
Let us look back into the lives of the pioneers and see what
perseverance, what endurance, what faith, hope and love did for them.
When we look across the fertile prairies let us be reminded of v/agon
trains. When we consider timbered bluffs and valleys, let us remember
those who hewed the trees to build cabins, grubbed out the roots of vines
and underbrush and planted grain, and in the time between seedtime and
harvest hunted deer and pheasant and vdld turkey for survival.
We are the inheritors, planting the fields they cleared;
travelling highways they knew only as trails. Our garments are of syn-
thetic fiber; theirs were of wool and flaxen homespun. We need not roman-
ticize the past, because distance itself lends enchantment. The pain and
toil and privation of the pioneer are mercifully forgotten; disappointment,
frustration and failure are lost in time. Even the children of children
of pioneers have put avray the sayings and the stories which are the lore
of history. So much of fact has been leached from the memory where
written records were not kept.
- 1 -
Happily, there is, here and there, a fragment which, with love
and care may he restored as a stone in the foundation of the past. Happy
is he who has thought on remembering tales told by his forebears; and
thrice happy that one who has preserved the lore in document fonn.
Knowledge is built upon one thing— research. The delving may
be into the things of the past to recover what has been; or it may look
into the things of the present to learn v;hat may be. Since this Sampler
is woven on the loom of history, it is into the past that we have delved.
The material came to hand not easily or readily, but from sniffing through
crackling manuscripts that pictured, entirely without romance, the way
things happened, the way they were when this county was young. Some of
the lore came from old diaries that wept with bitterness, and again, that
wept for joy.
The past is gone. "The moving finger writes and, having writ,
moves on." The paper moulders and the writing fades. The deeds, the hopes,
the fears of the past have fallen to dust. But out of that dust, like
Phoenix from the flame, springs a philosophy for the living to consider.
Had the pioneers done otherwise, xihat would be our lot today?
Our little book makes no pretension of delineating an era or of
expounding the pioneer philosophy. Here is gathered fact and lore concern-
ing an infinitesimal portion of the individuals and the events of earlier
days. We cannot escape that which the moving finger has written. To
coordinate the past with the present through the alchemy of history, let
us take thought on remembering.
- 2 -
ILLINOIS COUNTRY
V/e have only a few books and only a few old-timers to tell
about pioneers the legal records of whom often quote no more than
"bom...married.. .died*, .survived by...". These men came west with
their hopes and a vragonload of possessions. They found a vrildemess
almost for the taking. At first there was plenty of room and settlers
were urged to come and build. There vfas plentiful game and land that
was ready for the axe and breaking plov/.
Even in Europe the Illinois country v/as advertised as vast
prairie open for settling. Posters in the East spoke of Illinois as a
garden spot. Men came and looked and brought their families. From the
Illinois river settlements as well as from one side of the county to
the other faith held those first few families to their determined goal.
In the northeast comer of the county in what came to be knovm
as Evans Tovmship the earliest settler to arrive was Thomas Brooks v:ho
in 182ii settled on the eastern edge of the timber along Sandy Creek,
Benjamin Darnell with his family came among other settlers in 1829. The
journey was made in a large paneled box wagon with room enough for several
to sleep. Fort Darnell was built on his farm in 1832 as protection against
Indians during and following the Black Hav;k V/ar, and the first school vj&s
held in the fort building in that year for five pupils. That tovmship
received its name from a settler vrho came in 1830, Joshua Evans, and a log
cabin built for him in that year was until recently incorporated as part
of a bam on the Y/alter Kemp farm.
Dr. Selden Jtyers tells that "In 1833 Hiram liyers was bom in
Roberts Township. His father vras David Myers on v/hose farm George Ditnam
was helping butcher one day in winter, Ditnam lived on Sandy Creek some
two miles away. In the afternoon Ditnam was given a nice piece of meat
to take home. He started to walk the distance. V/hen about halfv/ay home
he heard the yelping of wolves j sure enough they had smelled the fresh
meat and were coming in his direction. Should he throw the meat and run?
Being a frugal man he decided to climb a tree with it. In the dusk he
saAY a hickory tree just a few rods av/ay, and he reached it before the
wolves caught up with him. Up he scrambled because those timber vralves
were dangerous when hungry. The wolves camped around the tree as darkness
came on. Though they howled Ditnam held on to the meat hour after hour.
Finally the wolves gave up and left, but despite the chilly air Ditnam
stayed in the tree until dawn.
"The tree, near the road to Henry on the farm of Hartley Malone,
later owned by Alfred V/rLght, was left standing many years and was kno^vn
as the Ditnam Wolf Tree.
"In 1837 Hiram Myers remembered his father discovering a black
wolf in the barnyard eating a dead hog, A mere boy of four, Hiram sav,-
his father call to his three older brothers to bring the dogs and gun.
Those black timber wolves were ferocious and dangerous when hungry, but
- 3 -
Albert, John and Joshua were soon on the scene and the wolf was killed,"
Hiram %ers wrote in his diary "Circle hunts were frequent when
I was a boy of 10 or 12 years. They were arranged to kill off the wolves ^
but usually more deer were killed than wolves. Before the hunt a hickor-v
pole with a bush left on the top, to be seen a long distance, was erected
at the meeting place one mile or so southeast of where Varna now is. Then
all the men and boys along Sandy Creek, Round Prairie, Crow Creek and in
the direction of Wenona, with horns and bells, would scare the game out of
the timber onto the prairie. Later in the day they formed a complete circlg
with captains every mile along the line to keep the men in order. There
were no farms out on the prairie, no fences in the way after we left the
timber farms. Only William Green had 80 acres fenced near Varna. T^Then the
circle hunt was about two miles across to the opposite line, the game was
well tired out and near the close easily overtaken by men on horseback
armed with clubs. They could ride along-side a wolf or deer and knock them
in the head. Guns were not allowed at such hunts for safety sake."
Life was precarious but on and on came the pioneers till every
township in our county had settlers on the land. Ways and means of living
on the Illinois frontier were rugged.
I
NINE OF THE YOUl^JGEST
"How's everyone down on Snag Crick, John? I hear your young 'uns
have been having the measles."
"Doin' right smart, Hennyj all over 'era except nine of the
youngest."
Large fcunilies were the rule in pioneer days. A widower with
half a dozen or more children might take a young virife and have eight or
ten more. Mortality, especially among women and children, was high. Old
diaries weep with tales of death at childbirth and burials on the lonely
prairie. They tell of bitter battles with the bleak prairie winters; of
losing battles for a precarious living on the rough frontier. Only the
strong, the tough, the determined stayed to fight and to conquer.
Large families lived in one-room or two-room log cabins, some
with lofts for extra sleeping space, some without. As from time immemo-
rial, brides began wedded life with varied prospects and endowments. If
the groom were willing and financially able, a newlywed couple might take
supper and spend a night in a village hotel. Then, back to their cabin
and the business of raising crops and children. A bride was to "possess
a skillet and the know-how to make a hunting shirt". It was taken for
granted that she often was to help her man in the fields as well as to do
her housework and rock a cradle.
There was clothin,-3 ho l-o made, often from the spinning and the
weaving of the cloth and the aycx::^ oP it \rith butternut hulls; there
were stockin^^b' and mittens to knit, c.r ,.o vanterj feather or straw mat-
tresses and pillovra, v/ool-filled coverlets to make. In season, berries,
apples, pears and corn were dried for winter use; a season's supply of
meat vras salted, smoked or fried-dovm-in-lardj bread to be baked and
cheese to be made. All food v/as home supplied except for a fev; pre'iiciis
spices and seasonings carried from town. Coffee, tea and sugar vrcro j-'-o~
cious items also, although settlers lucky enough to have sugar maple trees
made their own syrup and sugar.
Mrs. Frank Gray, granddaughter of early settler Levi Holmes in
LaPrairie Tovmship, wrote about the wonderful visits to grandmother's homo.
"It was really an event to we grandchildren for her table carried an array
of food and vie alvrays had tea. There vrould be cold chicken fried i'l onion
butter, cheese, home baked bread and butter. V/e really feasted on her
combined red plum and sT/eet apple preserves, canned peaches, big fat dough-
nuts and little fried pies trade in triangular shapes filled ivith dried
apple sauce. I can still almost taste those pies. V/ater for tea was
boiled in her old iron teakettle.
"IJ^ grandmother dried apples from the orchard v;here some of the
apples vfere pressed for cider. On applebutter-making day the cider was
put in a huge kettle outdoors and boiled dovm half. There was help to
peel apples, and then they were stirred in viith sugar and cinnamon season-
ing. Late at night the product was ready to take off and was a delicious
reward for all the waiting."
As the tilled fields- became larger, there was grain to sell.
For family use, wheat and com vrere taken to mills many miles distant to
be ground. A sackful of grain might be taken on horseback by a boy, or
larger amounts by vragon behind a team of horses or oxen. There were few
well-kept trails, scarcely any roads, as such, and the settler travelled
as the crov; flies, taking the shortest distance between two points. In
winter travel and transportation was largely by bobsled. A thick layer
of straw laid in the wagonbox lent warmth and v^oolen coverlets and robes
of buffalo and horsehide were used for cover. Felt boots, encased in
leather and finally rubber, kept toes warm. In summer leather boots
protected the wearer from the numerous snakes. The boots were had from
clothing or general stores and their first attention was a liberal
greasing vath tallov/.
One of the things, pride and joy of the pioneer settler, that
has passed from the scene is the apple orchard. Each man v/as his ovm
Johnny Appleseed, planting the seeds and tending the sapling trees with
loving care, pippin, domino, greening, Ben Davis, russet, many a variety
no longer grown. Seeds for the family garden were treasured and exchanged
among neighbors year after year. Fields v/ere cleared for crops; more
extensive gardens viere planted and vegetables and fruits added variety to
a diet that in the beginning consisted chiefly of meat and cornbread.
-5 -
Charles Salisbury, one of the senior residents of Saratoga Town-
ship, tells how vegetables, fruits and potatoes were stored in pits for
Tidnter use. A foot-deep "pit" was bedded with straw and on this was placed
a heap of potatoes or fruit as high as a man's head. This was covered with
straw and a layer of earth. Later in the winter a lot of wet straw was
placed on the heap. This froze and made an airtight seal. l/Vhen the food
was needed, an opening was made on the south side of the heap, a quantity
of vegetables or fruit was removed and the straw was replaced. From twenty-
five to thirty bushels of potatoes and as many apples were stored this way
for home use.
In addition to curing pork by salting and smoking and, possibly
storing it deep in oats, sausage, spareribs and backbones were fried and
stored in stone jars with lard covering and keeping the meat airtight,
Robert Kelley of Saratoga Tox-mship tells that large kraut cutters made the
rounds of neighborhood families in sauerkraut-making time. A barrel or
two of apple cider vinegar was kept on hand. All kinds of berries and
fruits were put into glass jars or tin cans and sealed vdth sealing wax.
The old saying, "as slow as molasses in January", was more fact than
fiction, said Mr. Kelley, Many farmers raised sugarcane and made sorghum
molasses. Barrels of molasses were stored for winter use and the molasses
ran very slowly in cold weather.
The quilts mentioned earlier in this article were of various
kinds. Some were woven, others pieced and quilted. Quilting bees were at
once the means of getting necessary work done and a rich expression of
social life. Of pieced quilts there were many patterns, such as lemon
(LeMoyne) star, log cabin, double tulip, garden wreath, double wedding
ring, rob Peter to pay Paul, and Joseph's coat. A woman prided herself
for her quilts and they were shown to visitors as persons today might show
mastervTorks of painting.
Homes, v/hich at first may have been little more than a three-
walled lean-to, or at best a crude cabin made weathertight by stuffing mud
between the logs and hanging animal skins over the doorway and one or two
small windows, gradually became more habitable and, in instances, opulent
for the times. Miss Nellie Thompson, a granddaughter of Col. John Strawn,
wrote the following about the evolution of the Strawn home in Richland
Tovmship.
"At first a single log cabin was completed, which they moved into
on Christmas Day, 1829, The big Conestoga wagon and a tent had kept them
comfortable v^hile this log house was being built. Later another cabin was
added, with a breezeway between the two. Food for the large family and the
hired man who had accompanied the Stravms to Illinois was cooked in large
kettles hanging over a fire in front of the cabin door.
"After the cabins came a large brick house which for more than
one hundred years was a landmark in Richland Township, The hoiise was
completed in 1839 and preparations for the building were begun many months
before. Timbers were cut and seasoned. Beautiful soft-red brick was
- 6 -
burned in vjood-burning kilns to raalce thera hard and enduring. The clay
v/as taken from near the surface of the ground southv/est of the location
of the house site and tvro of the oldei- children slept in a tent near the
kilns to keep the fires burning.
"The labor, skill and care of the builders all v/ere to be seen
in the finished product. The vralls vrere fourteen inches thick and stayed
straight and true for more than a century. Limestone, the stone custom-
arily used for foundations in those days, v;as hauled from a distant quarry,
A deep basement was excavated the length and breadth of the house. The
whole structure was similar to houses in Pennsylvania, v/here Colonel Strav/n
spent the early years of his life teaming for immigrants.
"The house vras L-shaped and all v;alls except gable ends were
plentifully supplied with large windows. A roomy attic topped the entire
tvfo-story house, and there numerous grandchildren of the Stravms gathered
on rainy days to dress in old clothing stored. The boys liked to put on
the epaulette-trimmed military uniforms of their grandfather, which he
wore with a three-cornered hat and fringed red sash in the Black Hawk War,
"The stairways, from first floor to second and from second to
attic, were small and wound up-rard behind the fireplaces with which every
room was supplied. In the basement vras a large fireplace beneath the com-
bination kitchen and dining room of the first floor, where cranes held the
iron kettles and dutch ovens in vjhich food was cooked. The fireplace would
hold a large log and the heat from it helped to warm the floors of the room
above it. Vfoodwork throughout the house v/as of solid black walnut, well
polished. The thick vralls produced deep door and v.lndow casings and on one
of these deep windov; sills Grandmother Stravm kept her Bible."
:iany of the pioneers v;ho came v;est by land or water routes were
not a literate people. Those of Marshall County were certainly more liter-
ate than the average. Even the illiterate families usually had one member
who could v;orry his or her way, vjord by vrord underscored by slowly moving
index finger, through the Holy Bible. Churches were not built until the
matter of survival vras secure. In the meantime people found common meeting
places, like the old bank barn in the Pattonsburg community. The old build-
ing has stood much more than a century across the road from the Floyd Stonier
dwelling.
Mr. Stonier's grandfather, Joseph Stonier, emigrated to the United
States when he was twelve years old, and from that time, imbued with the
pioneer spirit, he was "on his ovm". Wood for the barn was hewed from trees
on the farm. The original structure vras put together with v;ooden pins and
pegs and had not a nail in it; yet it stands straight and stur<fy to this d
There is much, much more to be told of family life and the homes
in which it vras lived. Each community, each section of the county had its
outstanding structures, some like the old Stravm house, gone forever; some,
like the equally ancient Roberts house, having fallen into kindlier hands,
still staunce and in use.
- 7 -
iT,
The Livingston Roberts house was built in iBijl. Their home was
the home of the homeless that came to that neighborhood. The homestead
in Roberts Township was a station stop on the stagecoach route from
Springfield to Chicago. In the early days the stagecoaches stopped enroute
while the horses viere rested and fed. Men drove hogs and cattle from thoi'e
to Chicago, 120 miles. The brick house still stands, but the great bank
bam that sheltered the horses burned in 189^. The lower floor of the bam
was so huge that entire coaches and horses were driven into the barn. The
day the barn burned it held a threshing engine and separator.
Dr. Selden Myers writes "Horses regained their strength in the
great barn, men went about their chores, but boys of the Roberts household
and the neighborhood played there. One game was Follow The Leader with a
bigger, more daring boy climbing ladders from ground floor to haymow, over
hay and around on the great beams with other boys following. The game was
to see who was most daring.
. "One day in 1877 a small boy desirous to be agile and brave fol-
lowed the rapid pace up onto the beams. He could scarcely keep up, and
Just as he came to the beam above the hay chute his foot slipped. Down he
went through space from the top of the mow, through the chute, down into
the lower level where he landed and lay motionless. The other boys ran
down, looked and shook him. In a few minutes he groaned and opened his
eyes. They lifted him. How many bones were broken? He could breathe,
stand, walk, and finally said 'Guess I'd better go home'* They helped him
up onto Old Spat's back and the faithful horse took him the mile and a
half home while he scarcely knew how. At home his mother looked in sur-
prise at his being home early and asked 'Anything the matter?'. He replied,,
'Oh, nothing. Mom, Just got hungry'."
Other stories of family life might be gleaned from the ;vayside
houses along the various Trails j the Galena, first known as Kellogg 's
Trail through the west end of the countyj and others cutting across the
prairie and skirting the creeks in the east end. Life along the trails;
anecdotes concerning travellers who stayed a night and went on to their
various destinations; the "romance" of travel itself, by stagecoach, by
wagon or on horseback; all these merit space which is not here available.
All such things and multitudes more must await another time, another SAPtPLER
- 8 -
CHAFF FH3M HARVESTS PAST
Bull snakes were so numerous on unplovred prairies that pioneers,
breaking the tough virgin sod, would find on the last unplowed bit of field
a concentration of snakes that broke and slithered avfay in all directions
from the encroachment of the plovf. Snakes v/ere natural habitatnts of the
lush grass and swamplands v^here mice and moles and gophers and a dozen
denizens provided choice tidbits for the reptilian appetite. As the land
yielded to cultivation the snakes yielded their domain and moved to
undeveloped areas.
Despite the fact that most of Marshall County's early settlers
came here to farm, the rich, black prairies were not the first to be
settled. Most of the pioneers chose, rather, v/ooded areas along streams
where trees furnished building material, fuel and wood for many other
purposes. With the coming of the railroads in the fifties the settlement
of the prairies mushroomed and in two decades the face of the county changed*
Many of the homesteads, especially in the military tract in the
west end of the county, were given as land grants in the 1820 's to soldiers
during President Ifonroe's term of office, llany of those receiving land
never saw their property and sold it to men v/illing and able to develop
their holdings. However it was acquired, the land yielded to the plow and
in certain areas to that most used pioneer farming implement, the grubbing
hoe. The settlers brought the knovv-how, the strength and the will, and
acre by acre tillable fields were vfrested from the "wilderness".
The plows which were fairly efficient in the East could not cope
with the heavy sod and soil of the Illinois prairie and much thought and
time were given to the development of a tool that would do the job.
Roderick Qwen, who ;^^ith his brother, Timothy, had a blacksmith shop and
Ivimber mill on Crow Creek several miles from the river, is credited vrLth
having made the first steel plows used in this part of the country. The
steel self-scouring plows quickly replaced the old vrooden mold-board
implements and the pursuit of agriculture received a tremendous boost.
In the summer of 1833, Timothy O'.ven leased his mill in the Crow
Creek valley and moved to a farm he had entered on the Richland prairie.
This move was not lightly made and it was taken against the objections of
his wife v;ho, never having lived where timber v;as not close at hand, feared
that it would be difficult to keep a supply of fuel on hand. She at length
consented to the move provided her husband would keep a constant supply of
wood at the cabin door and would dig a vrell, Mrs. O'-ven's v.-as an attitude
such as that which contributed to the settlement of the timbered areas
first by the pioneers.
In pioneer days everyone worked. Children no more than five years
old pulled weeds in the fields. Russell McPCee's Grandmother Harper told
"There vrere women of the kind v;ho could take a yoke of oxen and work out-
doors in all id.nds of vreather, in winter hauling shock fodder to the cattle
and rails for fencing. The rails were the real article, too, three making
a load for an ox team."
- 9 -
Such work, with the regular household duties, plus spinning,
weaving and sewing, and the bearing of many children, made Jill Pioneer
a very busy woman. Small wonder that old graveyards attest to high
mortality among pioneer women.
In addition to rigorous and spartan living the population was
subject to "the shakes", as malaria was called, and "queen ann" (quinine)
and whiskey were the staple remedies. Home remedies of herbs, roots and
barks sufficed to cure everything curable in the very early times and it
was not until the »70s and '80s that the patent medicine panaceas were
foisted upon a more or less gullible public. Old historical bits tell
that the population, not only of this county but of the entire region,
was sallow and ailing from malarial effects. The condition gradually
dimished as more and more land was put to the plow and the sloughs were
drained and tiled.
The prairies bloomed with cultivated fields, and meadowgrass
replaced the wild prairie hay, often as tall as a man on horseback and a
constant invitation to the scourge of prairie fires. This rough, tough
growth called "ramrod hay", is no more.
Came spring and many farmers were up at h a.m. scouring their
steel hand plows on the roads in preparation for seasonal plowing. 11/hy
they did not scour the plows in their fields remains a question. In the
spring of 1877 a. local newspaper editor registered indignation because
farmers used the roads for scouring rusty plows. Said he, "The roads
suffered as well as those who had no plows to scour, but were compelled
to ride considerably." And, he might have added, uncomfortably.
Com always has been the staple crop of the county, with lesser
plantings of small grains. The first mechanical cornplanters took two
people to operate. If there were no children of suitable age, the wife
helped to drive the horses while her husband did the checking. With the
mechanics of com planting in process of evolution, it was only natural
that the problem of corn husking should be considered.
S. H. Mitchell, a Marshall County resident, patented a com
husker in March of 1872. This was not a husking machine but a husking
peg, one of the variety of such that was in use for many years. Mr.
Mitchell contrived the gadget by bending a hinge hasp on a laced finger
stall with straps to encircle the wrist. The hook ripped open the husk
and the ear was easily gripped. Mitchell had a shop where he made cast-
ings, steps and stair railings. He sold "power windmills", horse-powered
crosscut saws and circular wood-sawing machines.
This was the heyday of cornhusking contests and husking bees,
contrived for getting a hard task done in a pleasant way. Husking bees
were part of the social way of life and many a maid blushed when her swain
found a red ear of com and claimed a kiss as reward.
- 10 -
The first patent ever granted for a corn husking machine was
issued to 3. C. Quincy, then a resident of Lacon, in the early l870's.
He worked on his invention several years and then, in the fall of 1873,
gave a demonstration in a field at the edge of Lacon, A great crov/d
gathered. The machine worked well for a short time and then became
clogged with husks and stalks. The assembled farmers shook their heads,
pronounced the contraption a failure and went their ways, addicted for
more decades to their simple, but tried and true, husking pegs. Mr.
Quincy expected to remedy his husker's defects but never did so. He
sank $2,000 realized from another invention in the cornhusker and died
a few years later in straitened circumstances.
Mechanization of farm work was on the march, although a farmer's
strong muscles and teams of good horses were still the backbone of fanning.
Blacksmithing and harnessmaking moved apace with the growing demand for
fine teams and fine harness as the prairie acres were tilled from county
border to border. Men took pride in the brass knobs and rings which jin-
gled on harnesses and glinted in the sun as sleek teams drawing wagons and
carriages rattled along country roads and through village streets. A. man
was often judged by his horseflesh and the care he took of it.
Vifith the coming of farm prosperity farmers invested in better
breeding stock and much of this was supplied by the Burgess Brothers,
Robert and Charles, virho came from England and established themselves,
finally, at IVenona in 1871 to become the largest importers of registered
draft horses in the country. Percherons, Shires and Belgians, one or the
other filled the needs of the farming communities of Marshall County and,
in fact, of the Midwest area wherever fine horses were in demand.
In the western part of the county the firm of Leigh and Monier
imported fine Belgian studs.
A reputation for fine cattle arrived after years of hard labor
with scrubby cows. Realizing that, even to a cow, the grass on the other
side of a fence seemed greener, many farmers, and some cattle corners in
the towns, permitted their stock to roam at large. The south part of
Lacon Township was one of the places where cattle roamed at large, invading
unfenced fields and fanning human tempers to battle pitch. The situation
continued almost to the turn of the century when laws were passed and,
eventually, enforced, not without engendering bitter resentment among owners
of the free-loading kine.
To^vns, too, had their problems v/ith cattle, horses and hogs run-
ning at large. Not everyone pemitted his stock the freedom of the city,
but enough did so to cause inconvenience and concern. In 1889 the Lacon
city marshal was alerted by a local editor that someone was "pasturing a
power of mules" in the south ward streets. A sedate young lawyer, walking
home from a call on his lady friend, had his head in the clouds on one
dark night. His feet followed more mundane paths and, in the shadow ol a
tree, he fell over a cow lying on the side^valk. It may be gathered that
romance was, for the moment, forgotten. Many housewives complained that
- 11 -
I
often, when attempting to look out a window, they were faced by a cow,
staring in. A most disconcerting occurence, especially when no mirror
was involved.
The animals roaming at large were not, of course, the prized
stock which graced many a well-kept farm such as those of the Turnbull
and Pringle families in LaPrairie where they early became interested in
livestock on a large scale. Mechanization was moving in on agriculture,
but such mechanization as there was, was motivated by horsepower. The
first horse-drawn corn cultivators plowed one side of a row and the
farmer walked. Soon an implement was devised for plowing both sides of
a row at once, and a seat for the plowman was slung between the frames.
Cyrus McCormick may have made the first reaper, such as it was,
but he had plenty of competition, even in the early days. And from the
earliest days patent litigation kept lawyers fat. Newspapers reaped
profits from advertisements spreading the claims of rival manufacturers.
Field trials were held and fortunes were spent on them with medals and
cash going to the winners, and the winners varied from field to field.
Bands were hired to play and each trial brought out hundreds of interested
spectators. Argimients concerning the demonstrations continued long after
the trials.
There were a h\mdred or more makes of reaper and harvester, many
of which were tried out in Marshall County fields. It should be noted
that there was a difference between a reaper and a harvester. A horse-
drawn reaper, it was claimed, saved the labor of four and one-half men;
■vrtiile a harvester, also horse-drawn, saved the labor of twenty. McCormick
made a reaperj Esterly, a contemporciry, made a harvester. In lQh9 there
were in use about 3,000 reapers and 180 harvesters in the grain-growing state
The first reaper was simply a reel attached to a mower and later
a self -rake attachment gathered the grain into large bundles. But the bun-
dles still had to be tied with twists of straw for there was no self-binder
yet developed. The mechanical reapers, crude as they were, were credited
with saving many a harvest when manpower was drained away by the California
goldrush and the Mexican war.
Fearful and wonderful were the contraptions of those early days
and one of the most fearful was the Atkins Reaper and Automatic Raker, which
had iron arms that reached out like gargantuan human arms and pushed the
grain from the reaper platform onto "gavels". There two men teetered on a
jovmcing platform, snatched lengths of straw, scooped armfuls of grain and
tying bundles swiftly and neatly, dropped them onto the stubble. If the
workmen resembled somewhat a pair of romantic dancing sandhill cranes, the
humor of the situation was lost in the feverish activity of the harvest.
Most of the machines had certain similarities, like the platforms
on which two binder-men stood. The flailing windmill arms of the Atkins
gave way to a system of continuous canvas aprons v/hich carried the grain
from the platform onto which it fell in the cutting, to the elevated table
on which the human binders stood.
- 12 - *>
Men vfere experiment ijig with mechanical binders, some successful,
some not. One thing was certain, the day of the uneasy Apollos in overalls
swaying on chattering reaper platforms was gone. It had taken forty years
to perfect a harvester, not exactly foolproof but on the whole serviceable.
And boys like Hiram Myers, born in 1833, no more would earn ten cents a dc.y
driving a team in an endless round over grain on the threshing floor. For,
as the harvester approached perfection, men were developing the threshing
machine.
The Buffalo Pitts Apron Thresher was one of the first on the local
scene. It was a vibrating, endless apron thresher, motivated by horsepower
or by a farm steam engine, "plain or traction". It was apparent that less
difficulty was encountered in developing a thresher than a self-binding
harvester.
Hen still were tinkering with the harvesters to simplify them.
Chapman and Vifhittaker, Lacon, were agents in 1882 for Osborne mowers, "?/hich
have the latest and best Appleby binder on them". But the claims of the
Deering were not allowed to languish. To wit: "Be it remembered that
William Deering in his twine binder has discarded twenty-one pieces v;hich
are used in all other than his binder, making his binder so perfect a success."
But Deering 's was not the only "perfect" binder to be had. The
Esterly, nov; a twine binder, was back with the "simplest, strongest, easiest
draft, most successful binder ever manufactured". The Esterly contributed
even more to simplicity than the Deering for its maker had taken out not 10
pieces, not 21, but hi, with only seven used in their place. Hov; much
simpler could a mechanism get? Even the lightest draft machines needed
three horses to pull them, with four required when the cutter bar was
lengthened to eight feet.
Now that the operation of the self-binder relied on twine, it vras
not long before the binder-twine industry was growing fat at the expense of
the farmers. In 188? the Grange was shouting, "Down with the twine trust."
"Break the wicked trust," cried the Grange, charging it was "a syndicate
formed to rob farmers of several millions of dollars at one squeeze on the
price of this year's binding twine." Farmers throughout the grain-growing
states were urged to "fight the trust".
All these things which apply to the development of the county's
farms—clearing, breaking, draining the soil, planting orchards, improving
livestock, the mechanization of farm operation— were but phases in the
advancement of agriculture by hardworking pioneers, their children and their
children's children.
In a day vihen all operations are mechanized for laborsaving it
seems romantic to look back upon the trials and tribulations of those who
cleared the way for us. The milking machine has usurped the province of
the milker on a three-legged stool squirting fragrant, foamy milk into a
pail. As one farm woman put it, it was a time of togetherness, this time
- 13 -
of doing chores when father, mother and the large-enough children rested
their heads against bossy's flanks and drummed a sweet tatoo of music into
the milk pail. The sun was usually rising or sinking on the horizon and
the smell of freshly cut hay completed the pastoral serenity.
But it was Mother's province to wrestle with the cream separator
and its many separating discs which was a challenging phenomenon in the
milkhouse or the kitchen; and many a farmer's wife almost wanted to give up
her job over the washing of that danged contraption.
The pioneers very early learned that the best way to pay off a
mortgage was by raising hogs. The hogs were fattened and driven overland
to the slaughter houses. Many farmers from all parts of the county drove
their hogs to Lacon where they were processed by the Fisher Pork Packing
Company, When the ice was strong enough in winter hogs and cattle crossed
the river on it in droves. Billy Cain, grandfather of Thomas Cain of
Saratoga, in the late I800's sold IOI4 hogs, weighing 500 pounds each, to
Fisher's where the meat was packed for shipment to points east and south.
The hogs fetched five dollars per hundred.
Milan Holmes, son of Levi Holmes, one of the first settlers west
of the river, herded cattle over much of that area in his youth. He rode
an Indian pony reputed able to smell and avoid rattlesnakes; nevertheless
Holmes killed fourteen of the reptiles one summer. An Englishman named
Pipes, one of the mary cattlebuyers who roamed the country, bought a herd
from the Salisbury's near Hennessey's Comer. Staying there overnight, he
drove the cattle to Peoria aided only by his mount and a dog.
Many cattle were "fed out" by Peoria distillers. Thousands more
were fattened by the Thayer Brothers, Lacon distillers, who maintained
large cattle pens near the distillery north of Sixth and west of Main stree
That part of town was called "Sloptown" because of the mash which always wa
available to residents for feeding their own cattle and hogs, as well as or
a larger scale for the feeding of distillery livestock.
^VMTHER OR NOT
A book could be written on farming and its related activities.
This would include the development of the mode of agriculture from the hanc
to the machine. It would include scores, yes hxindreds, of names of pioneei
and fragments of reminiscences. It would have a chapter on weather alone,
for then as now, weather was a prime topic for reflection and discussion.
During one great drought year a group of Marshall County pioneers
traveled two weeks to the east to find wheat to buy and bring home. This
emphasizes the solemn importance of weather, but now, for a look at it froD
a more humorous side.
-Ill-
Russell McKee, formerly from Richland Township, writes that threshing was a big
job in his teens.
"Our "run' was 51/2 miles from one end to the other and took just about a month of
normal weather to finish. Bad years, such as 1901, took about 21/2 months and the shocks,
especially if poorly made, were more like pieces of sod than bundles of grain. Our gang
wasn't very ambitious to get around in the morning to get the first load, but they did scheme
on getting the "clean side' of the separcrtor and tried to avoid getting the last load at night."
This photo shows a typical threshing day with a coal burning steam engine furnish-
ing the power. Note fly nets on horses in foreground.
Typical 4th of July parade float in Toluca, 1893. This was shortly after the town be-
came incorporated and shows Santa Fe Avenue with the city hall, jail house, and frame
business houses.
This was opposite the present bank building. Notice the Majestic range, Samson
windmill (every farmer harnessed the wind), and walking plow on the float. A matched
team of Belgian horses belonging to Robert I. Litchfield pulled the display from the Litch-
field Brothers' Hardware Store.
In the background stands the city curfew bell, rung at 9 p.m. by the town policeman.
At far right is the hose cart of the Toluca Fire Department. It stands in front of the original
wooden water tower.
Thir' l6^-doll<-.'r-a.-inonth hired hand and his employer would ."^athei"
with their counoerparto aiound Iho potbellied stove in the village "store,
there to regale their fellows with tales of their experiences and to argue
the matter of "coldest days". On one occasion Frank Bennington had the
best of such an argument. Quoth he, "It was the coldest night in fifteen
years; our old tomcat froze, and he never done that before."
A bit of reminiscing about work and v/eather is found in an article
by Dr. M. A. McClelland in an "Old Times on the Creek" series, meaning Sandy
Creek in the east end of the county. In part of the following excerpts he
tells of a trip to a mill for his employer, purposely left nameless.
"I started to the mill at daylight one morning in the winter of
1856 in company with Mr. John Litchfield. Each of us had a team and heavy
wagonload of wheat. I was given provisions sufficient for the two-day
Journey and a couple of comforters which, with part of the hay taken for
horse feed, was to be my bed on the night out.
"The temperature was loafing around zero and my rations were
frozen, but with keen appetite and fairly good teeth I managed to eat them.
V/e reached the mill on the Vermillion late in the afternoon and found that
our wheat could not be groiind until late that night. Having no money of my
own, and my thrifty employer having furnished me with none, I prepared to
spend the night under the stars. litr. Litchfield, however, decreed otherwise,
and at his expense I slept indoors and had a warm supper and breakfast. Mr.
Litchfield was wroth at the penuriousness of my employer and used such lan-
guage v/hich v;hile not exactly profane, was such as a good Baptist could, in
good conscience use and which, short of swearing, befitted the occasion.
"Two days I especially recall for their low temperatures; one was
February U, 1856 and the other January 1, 1865. The atmosphere on those
two days might have been cut into blocks with saw and ax. They had no equal
except once, in 1839." Hiram Llyers noted in his diary that it was 3ii degrees
below zero that New Year's morning and remained very cold for 10 days.
I do not vouch for another account of the "coldest day". I merely
relate irtiat I have been told, as coming from that reliable citizen, the
"oldest inhabitant". The day dawned warm, and much of the later discomfort
and tragedy may be attributed to the light clothing donned for that reason
by the settlers. By afternoon dark clouds covered the sky and a waspish
wind sprang from the north. So swift and so great was the change in temper-
ature that chickens, attempting to cross a muddy road to their shelters,
were caught when the mud froze as in an instant. Some, trying to fly, were
frozen in flight. Horses and other domestic animals perished before they
could reach shelter short distances away.
It is told that many persons likewise were frozen when caught out
in open fields or roads. The freezing of what sap there was in trees was so
sudden and severe that the trunks burst with sounds like cannonading. This
saga of a severe winter has been repeated through the years, and there prob-
ably is as much reason to believe some of the "facts" as to doubt them. At
any rate, this and similar tales enlivened the recorded hardships of the
pioneer, and especially the pioneer farmer, whose home was miles distant from
a neighbor and who braved the elements in every phase of his existence.
-15 -
STEAl.BOAT 'ROUND THE BEND
Mrs. Florence Ong Grieves wrote the following information from
records in her possession, and many other soiirces including C. E. Palmer
of the University of Illinois and Mrs, Bertha F. Rogers of Streator.
Many of the original settlers of the Lacon community did not arriv:
in prairie schooners, but came by boat up the river to Strawn's Landing, the
site of v:hat was to become Lacon, county seat of Marshall County,
The first boats to ply the river, after the Indians' canoes, were
flatboats and keelboats, and these were used to bring in lumber and supplieSj
and to haul out produce, some times as far away as New Orleans,
The steamboat, however, followed the settler in the first decade
after his coming. In I8ii0, less than ten years after the town was laid out,
a period of high water brought boats swarming upriverj side-wheelers and
stern-wheelers, they nosed out of St, Louis and points south and, heading
upstream, ran as far as the head of navigation at LaSalle-Ottawa, There
was not a bridge across the Illinois and few towns along its shores.
Stoppages listed along the route were eighteen: Bushnell, Naples,
Merodocia, Beardstown, Beard's Landing, Havana, Copper Creek, Pekin, Peoria,
Rome, Allentown, Columbia (Lacon), Hennepin and Ottawa, The boats carried
merchandise and passengers. Vifith the breakup of ice in the spring there
was a grand dash and scramble to be first to churn up the river. The first
boat through received special recognition, and a lion's share of available
freight .
Hundreds of boats plied the Illinois River during the steamboat's
heyday, some running as regular packets, others coming perhaps once a sea-
son, or once and no more. From the head of navigation at LaSalle cargoes
were shuttled to Chicago by canal boat on the Illinois-Michigan Canal.
Horses pulling the boats went at a gallop betvreen the stations, set twelve
miles apart along the length of the canal. The canal and its usefulness
dwindled with the building of the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad.
Early steamboating was a hazardous occupation. Channels were
unmarked and many a boat came to grief on sandbars or sunken logs. Many
were burned or were destroyed by explosion of their boilers. Until the
late '80s strings of barges carried no searchlights, no post lights or
day boards.
A man had to serve three years with a good pilot to learn the
channel and the pilot had to vouch for the student before a license was
issued. The neinr man had to be a thorough steamboatman before he could
become Master or Captain.
Strings of barges, each drawing ten to twelve feet of water and
325 to 350 feet long, made up the tovre. They hauled grain, ice to the
St, Louis breweries, and other commodities. There were no capstans or
- 16 -
ratchets on the barges, no wire rope. The headlight was an oil lantern
flickering on the lead barge. Going through bridges on dark, stormy-
nights, all the pilot had to guide him was the red light on the bridge,
and nine times out of ten the light would be out.
Captain Sol York, one the the River's most colorful characters
and able pilots, would send a man with a yrfiite lantern out to each corner
of the tow, and the tow would fill the space between the bridge pilings
so that a man could step off on either side. Captain York owned and
piloted many boats but the most famous was the Grey Eagle.
In iQlih according to the Illinois Gazette, published in Lacon,
four packets advertised regular weekly runs from St. Louis to Peru and
Ottawa and return. The year before the steamer Superb had contracted to
haul barreled pork from Lacon to New Orleans. Captain Samuel Rider, a
New Englander, had a lucrative run, carrying some 800 barrels of pork and
beef and, besides, 50 cabin passengers at $3 each, and 60 deck passengers
averaging a dollar each; plus way freight, to a total of $560 for the trip.
On one trip the Superb took on a company of hO persons and 16
wagons, all from Michigan, en route to California via St, Louis and
Independence, Missouri. Passengers and freight were taken on along the
way until, at Bath, the Superb took on the crevf and passengers of the
steamer Lamartine, which had bximed. Although crowded and heavily laden,
the Superb arrived safely in St. Louis.
During the latter part of the 19th century, and the first sev-
eral decades of the 20th, packet lines operated between Peoria and Henry
on a daily basis, with the run occasionally being extended to Peru. The
regular daily passenger fare was one dollar a round trip from Henry with
slightly lesser charges from Lacon and Chillicothe. ViThen a steamboat war
was on, passengers enjoyed 10 cent trips to Peoria and the boats did a
land-office business for the few days the "vrar" lasted. Excursions sev-
eral times a season were normal business promoters and for these the boats
often stopped at Spring Bay to pick up passengers at 25 or 50 cents a head.
The daily schedule cailled for leaving Henry at 6:30 a.m. and ar-
riving in Peoria at 10 a.m. Returning, the packets left Peoria at 3 p.m,
and arrived at Henry at 6:30 p.m. Freight and passengers were picked up
and discharged along the way and the staples of many a local merchant's
week lay piled on the makeshift dock, or even on the ground, to be picked
up by a horse-drawn dray after the steamer had backed from shore, turned and
hooted its way around an upriver bend.
The Swain dynasty, headed by Captain David Swain, at one time or
another, operated seven boats on the Illinois River. They made packet rtms
3h years between Peoria and Henry, and their excursion boats were among
the finest.
Navigation lights on the Illinois date from 1889, fihen the U. S.
Steamer Water Lily located sites for navigation lights and markers. The
- 17 -
lights consisted each of a tower seven or eight feet tall, each fitted^
with a strong kerosene-burning lantern. Some person living in the vicin-
ity was employed, at $l5 a month, to fill the founts and keep the lamps
burning on dark nights. There were 35 such lights on the river between
Cairo and LaSalle,
The last of the packet lines folded in 192h, giving way to rail-
roads and, largely, trucks which took away the payloads. The river has
changed greatly since the early days, before government engineers began
tinkering and experimenting. Canals, locks, dams and dredges have been
added through the years, all trying to improve navigation. Barges of coal,!
oil, grain, molasses, sulphur chum the river's water and slog through icej
in winter, following the icebreakers.
Coast Guard vessels mark the channels with buoys and keep it
clear of ice most of the winter months. Transportation still occasionally
halts at ice gorges in the narrow channel at Chillicothe-Rome. Eventually,]
the ice moves out, the tugs move on.
To anyone's knowledge, the Illinois River never has gone dry.
Nor ever will, so long as Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes exist. The
flowage can be regulated to maintain a constant level for transportation
in peace or war.
The early part of the winter of 1888 was so mild that a Henry
paper carried this item: "If the river doesn't freeze over the Rescue
will run an excursion from Henry to Peoria on Christmas Day,"
Marshall County residents, especially those of the river towns,
were familiar with steamboat "wars", which dropped fares among rival boats
to as little as 10 cents from Lacon to Peoria. Possibly only a few from
the area took advantage of a railroad "war" in 1883 betvreen the CRI&P and
the CB&Q, Passenger rates were 15 cents from area cities to Denver and
Kansas City. That "vrar" lasted only a few days, but while it raged train
travel was tremendous.
THE RA.ILROAD AND THE PRAIRIES
The coming of the railroads gave settlers the impetus to move
out onto the prairies. The earliest pioneers on arriving in Marshall County
sought out homesites along the creeks, principally Big Sandy in the east and
Crow Creek toward the center of the county. And always, of course, along
the river. Here were wood and water, a settler's first need. The prairies
- 18 -
prairies, vast expanses of head-high grass or sloughs and bogs, barren of
trees; these were not attractive to most of the pioneers.
Choice prairie land went begging at $1.25 an acre. Went begginR,
that is, until the railroads came through. First to boost the prairie pop-
ulation T;as the Illinois Central, cutting along the eastern edge of the
county. The first locomotive ran through V/enona May 16, 1853. It was a
woodbumer and attained the marvelous speed of 20 miles an hour.
Early railroads received government subsidies in the form of land
grants. The coming of the I.C, opened land in alternate sections adjoining
the right of way, and extending six miles on either side of the track.
After completion of the railroad survey, lands that had gone begging at
$1.25 an acre sold like hot cakes at $2.50; and within two decades the area
along the railroad was wholly settled. The Government gave 2,595,133 acres
in grants to the Illinois Central and 11 million acres in all were available
to railroads in l85l, through the Land Grant Act of 185 0.
The I.C. tracks were laid from Chicago through LaSalle to Bloora-
ington and a branch, then known as the Three I, ran from Streator through
McNabb to Zearing. The railroad was built T/ith the help of hundreds of
farmers who brought horses, mules and oxen to the work. H\indreds of immi-
grants, their fares paid from Ireland and other European countries, swung
picks and shovels on the job.
Streator had coal in the big Vermilion Coal Mine. V/enona, grow-
ing industrially, needed coal. That was in the I860's« After the Civil
War the two communities got together in promoting a connecting railroad.
The survey for the road was started in June, 1867, and in due time the
grades were made, tracks laid and bridges built. In January, 1869, the
first coal was being shipped at the rate of Ii5 carloads a day.
It was hoped that connection vrould be established with Chicago
through Ottawa via the Fox River Road, but this did not materialize direct-
ly. However, the Chicago & Alton later took over the road and continued it
eastward to Dwight and westward to Lacon in 1870.
V/hen coal was discovered in V/enona in 1882, the trade in coal
between Marshall and LaSalle Counties dwindled.
Another short-line railroad, the Rutland, Toluca & Northern,
operated from 1902 to 1937. This tapped the coal mines which had been
opened in Toluca. These mines, too, vrent the way of others in the area
and the last two locomotives of the R. T. & N. were sent to destruction
in a planned head-on collision.
A county newspaper item of December 11, 1897, has the following,
concerning the Toluca and Eastern Railroad. Any connection between the
- 19 -
.1:
two roads mentioned failed for lack of research. The item: "The laying
of the track for the Toluca & Eastern has nearly reached completion. _ Y^ork
on that line is now being done within the corporation limits and it is
expected that a connection with the Central will be made today and the
first car of coal will be shipped over the road before the day ends.
Trains will be running by the first of next week. The time card will show
two round trips a day for the benefit of the public. An extra engine will
be procured to assure against delays should the first engine break down.
The combination coach is now at Toluca ready for use. The first wreck on
this new road was reported last Vfednesday evening. A bolt connecting the
trucks and the main part of the car gave way and the former jumped off the
track. The car was filled with workmen returning home but no one was hurt."
il
Long before the Civil VJar plans were entertained for building an
east-vrest railroad through Marshall County crossing the river at Lacon.
Grading for such a road actually was begun in the vicinity of Lacon and the
grade coincided with that of the present GM&O tracks, but continued westward
to the river where the tracks now turn south. The west terminal of this old
grade ran to the river at what was known as "the point", for years a favorite i
swimming place for men and boys. |
The outbreak of the Civil V/ar so changed the econonry of the nation
that the project was abandoned. It ivas many years, however, before local
hope of getting a railroad to cross the river at Lacon was completely aban-
doned. Around the turn of the century and for several decades later a pro-
moter named Cherry made sporadic visits to the city and on each occasion
fanned the embers of hope. He made at least one trip to Europe looking for
capital. The money was not forthcoming, either here or abroad, and Cherry's
visits came at longer intervals, then ceased. The graying embers of hope die*
Mean-while the right of way and the grade of the defunct V/estern
Airline Railroad, into which the City of Lacon and Marshall County each had
sunk ^1>50,000 in bond issues, lay inviting but uniised. Such work as had been
done on the Vfestern Airline, or Chicago, Lacon and TiTestem Railroad, dated
back to the early 1850' s. Crossing the river at Lacon, the road was planned
to strike Sparland, Monica, Maquon, St. Augustine and Blandinsville in
Illinois and, crossing the Mississippi River over the Hamilton and Keokuk
bridge would, running on a direct line, tap the main Chicago and Alton line
at Glasgow, Missouri. This would have given the C, & A. the shortest route
between Chicago and Kansas City.
The plan was talked for years. An October 3, 1889 item in the
Chicago Daily Mews told of the contemplated extension of the C. & A. across
the river, saying: "The Chicago and Alton now operates a direct line from
Chicago to Lacon, Illinois on the Illinois River. The company is said to be
desirous of securing a more direct route from Chicago to Kansas City than the
one now in operation, which is considerably longer than that of rival lines."
The leap across the river at Lacon never vras made by a railroad.
- 20 -
Lacon finally did get a railroad of C. & A. tracks laid on the
old Yfestem Airline grade. It was of vastly more importance in its early
years than it is today. There vras a daily connection with Varna and points
east and south. Passengers as well as freight viere carried and although
the spur was, fondly or otherwise, called Flat V/heels or Square Wheels, it
was extensively used. Never was there an Old Settlers' Day when old Flat
Wheels didn't chug in with a load of several hundred persons, plus a band,
from the east end of the county.
The west branch of the Chicago and Alton was developed in two
prongs, one of which ran from Wenona through Varna to Lacon, as it still
does; and the other, branching in a southerly direction from Varna. The
portion then called the Chicago and St. Louis, or St. Louis, J. & C. Rail-
road, went to LaRose and then turned southwest, going to V/ashington, Illinois,
where it joined the Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw, All of these were generally
lumped together as the Western Division of the C, & A., a road v/hich for some
20 years has been part of the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio system.
There are several versions of the fiasco which attended the aban-
donment of the Western Airline Railroad. One has it that the bonds, sold to
private buyers, were repudiated; the other tells of the slow retirement of
the bonds at public expense. Since both versions were given credence in
various quarters, both are mentioned.
Said one: Vifhen the road did not materialize Lacon repudiated the
bond issue and paid neither principal nor interest. For years the bonds
were considered vrorthless. Then the Supreme Court rendered an opinion in
a similar bond case which aiffected the standing of the local railroad bonds.
Consternation prevailed. The town would be ruined if it had to pay off the
bonds, by then reaching a total of ;t)100,000. Fortunately, the situation was
learned in Lacon before it became commonly known. A meeting was held at the
John Hutchins' home. Business and professional men present appointed Thomas
M, Shaw to try to buy up the supposedly worthless bonds before their validity
became known, and pledged themselves to provide the funds necessary for the
purchase. The purchasing syndicate was organized by leading citizen,
J. S. Thompson.
This bit of slick financial footwork "saved" the City for, except
in the case of one or two owners, the bonds were surrendered for peanuts.
The owners too sharp to sacrifice their holdings were paid at face value,
minus interest.
The other version, quoting an excerpt from a Lacon city council
meeting, as of July 7, 1875, purports to be quasi official and states:
"Lacon has paid off ■■?2l4,000 of the railroad bonds and has made arrangements
to pay the remainder from an established sinking fund . . . and this will
do away with the additional taxes that have been levied to defray, piecemeal,
the City's commitments."
- 21 -
Ray Litchfield has contributed reminiscences of James Peter
Marker on the building of the Illinois Central Railroad in Marshall
County. We quote the following:
"Among the early pioneers who came to the vicinity where Rutland
now is located, was James Peter Marker, who was bom on the Island of
Bonholra, Denmark, October 8, 1828. In the spring of 1852, at the age of
about 23, he came to America and, landing at New York on May 10, set out
for LaSalle, Illinois, via boat to Albany, New York. From Albany he went
to Buffalo by rail and thence around the Great Lakes by boat to Chicago.
Here he shipped on the Illinois -Michigan Canal and, two weeks out of New
York, arrived at LaSalle where the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad was
then being graded.
"He soon afterward was hired as a railroad grading hand and began
work on that line near the tunnel betvreen Utica and LaSalle. After working
two months he, and about forty-five other workmen, took the prevalent fever
and ague which compelled him to quit woiic for the season. Vifhen he returned
to LaSalle he joined a crew building the Illinois Central Railroad, at a
point just north of what was known as Dressers Crossing, two miles north of
Wenona. H? worked southward with the crew to where Rutland subsequently
was located, and to a hill about one mile south of that place. This place
was reached by the graders in November, v;hen work was stopped for the winter.
"During the season of labor on the railroad bed the gang lived
first in a shanty on the west side of the railroad not far from where the
Santa Fe now passes over the Central. Later they lived in a two-story
building on the east side of the grade on the site of Wenona.
"The year 1852 was one of those noted for the ravages made by
Asiatic cholera throughout the country. At LaSalle, said Mr, Marker, it
was no unusual circumstance for the morning sun to rise upon cholera vic-
tims dead along the streets, and so numerous were these fatalities that
often no pretense was made to convey the bodies to the cemetery. Instead,
they were frequently interred near the towpath of the canal, wrapped in a
single blanket. (This evidently was in the LaSalle area.)
"The contractors along the section of grading in this locality
had built a shanty with a connecting sutler's building. In this shanty a
number of Swede hands were being boarded when the cholera broke out and
nearly all of them, to the nxunber of forty or more, died and were buried
nearby in unmarked graves. The contractor then had this shanty burned and
later built a new shelter not far from the first. It vras after the second
shanty had been built that Mr. Marker joined the crew in this vicinity
about the last of September or the first of October, after which date few
further cholera deaths occurred.
"The grading progressed rapidly until cold weather set in, when
the road bed had reached a mile or more south of Rutland's location. In
that area, about twenty-five other cholera victims were buried on a hill
two miles to the south.
- 22 -
"This was then a vald country, indeed, said Mr. Marker. There
were no houses to the north until Tonica was reached and none vrere said to
exist southward along the Central nearer than Bloomington. On quitting
work in November, llr. Marker set out for LaSalle at an early morning hour
and had to walk sixteen miles to Tonica before breakfast could be procured.
No houses then existed east of this locality nearer than Long Point Timber,
or towards the southeast nearer than Rooks Creek Timber. To the vfest, John
Litchfield and Joel Skelton had recently settled along the 3rd principal
meridian and were nearest in that direction.
"liVild animals, including snakes both harmless and poisonous,
abounded on the prairies. A bull snake, eight feet long, was killed in
this immediate vicinity while the railroad was being graded.
"IJLr. Marker subsequently v/ent to farm in Nebraska and did not
return to the scene of his railroad building labors until I869. What a
change there was I Towns and farms nov/ dotted the once almost uninhabited
prairies. Now well-kept fences and living hedges divided the prairie into
productive farms, while sturdy groves of shade and fruit trees marked the
location of prosperous farm homes. No wonder that a section of the country
which could make such rapid strides in development attracted his attention
and inspired him v/ith a desire to make it his home."
MIL DELIVERY, 1853
Ray Litchfield also contributed another interesting bit of
history concerning transportation.
"Robert Cinnamon's nativity would puzzle a government census
taker to place it in the proper column. He was bom in Belfast, Ireland
in 1830, of Scotch-English parents and lived in America for nearly a half
century. He was therefore a genuine Scotch-English- Irish-American.
"In 1853 he went into Lacon and entered the employ of I.Ir. Abner
Shinn as a mail hack driver at Sl8 per month which was a considerable ad-
vance over his former compensation, although the broken rest and frequent
loss of sleep proved far more exhausting than the even routine of farm
work. At this time litr, Washington Brovm was also a co-laborer with Mr.
Cinnamon in the enterprises of his employer.
"Ifr. Cinnamon thus details the various routes traveled in the
performance of his duties which gave him an especially intimate knowledge
of numerous localities as they then appeared in this part of the state.
With Lacon as the starting point, one route was via Spring Bay to Feoria,
returning over the same the following dayj a second was from Lacon to
V/enona returning the same day; a third was to Henry, or rather to Foster's
Post Office, thence to Hennepin and via Granville to Tonica, returning over
- 23 -
I
the same route the day f ollowingj a fourth extended to Lawn Ridge via
Pleasant Valley, on to Wyoming, the next day being given to the return
to Lacon; while a fifth went via Metamora to Eureka and thence to Kappa
whence a return was nade on the next day,
"During the one and a half years that Mr. Cinnamon was thus
employed, he spent most of the time on one or the other of these stage
routes and many and varied were the experiences of a stage driver in those
early days. Although during the whole period he drove over the various
routes unarmed, he was never molested and no attempt was ever made to
interfere with the mail or its carrier. Few bridges then existed and not
unfrequently was the driver compelled to leave his road and strike across
the unbroken prairie to bypass some difficult place or to avoid high water
at the usual point of crossing a stream.
"The trip to Wenona was the shortest and the route most traveled
by the public as it was the most convenient point of reaching a railroad
from Lacon. At Wenona a Mr. Goodell was both postmaster and station agent
for the Illinois Central Railroad, and it was with him that the driver and
his team found rest and refreshment. As no church building had been erect-
ed in Wenona at that date, religious services were held in the depot build-
ing, the station agent being an active worker in religious matters. Some-
times arriving on the Sabbath, the stage driver found opportunity to attend
the church services while his team was being fed. At this date the railway
locomotives were burning wood as a principal fuel for the storing of which
long sheds had been erected.
"The north route to Tonica was to him the most lonesome and un-
pleasant, as the outgoing part of the trip was made at night, leaving Lacon
at 8 p.m. and traveling much of the way through timber along the Illinois
River as far as Hennepin and thence reaching Tonica before daylight. Tin-
kling cowbells and howling wolves supplied the agreeable and disagreeable
extremes of sounds which not unfrequently greeted his ears on his lonely
journeys, and afforded the cheering evidence of the nearness of habitation
or of the unwelcome prowlers of darkness as either the one or the other was
heard.
"At Foster's the mail to and from Henry was left and received,
Mr. Foster carrying it between his own place and Henry, a distance of per-
haps a mile or more including the river crossing, no bridge then or for
several years later existing at that point.
"One night after leaving Granville a violent thunderstorm came
upon Mir. Cinnamon v/hile crossing the prairie and the darkness became so
intense that it was almost impossible to proceed or even be certain of the
proper direction to take. Since the particular star ■wrtiich he had on other
occasions used as a guide was wholly bedimmed, his carriage ran against a
stake set for a landmark with such force as to fracture it mth an extremely
sharp report, so frightening his horse that the animal became unmanageable.
Breaking loose from his connections with driver and vehicle, the horse
disappeared in the darkness. At length the stonn clouds lightened, the
- 2U-
horse y.?.s found and discerning a light across the prairie, Mr, Cinnamon
sought out its location. He vras kindly received and awaited the approach
of morning. Then, after patching up the vehicle, he proceeded to Tonica,
arriving there several hours behind schedule. Deer, sand hill cranes and
other inhabitants of the prairie were almost daily observed along portions
of his travels,"
Mrs, Alvin Foster tells about her grandfather's part in bringing
the mail routes to the western side of the county. "Before the days of
rural mail delivery, Milan Holmes, with Michael Hosey as his helper, drove
through the country getting signers. They v/ere the ones who made the
necessary moves to bring the mail through the rural areas.
"The first mail was brought by what they called a star route at
that time, each farmer paying so much to the carrier. Finally when the
government provided a rural free delivery of the mails, Sparland was among
the first to be so favored. This was quite a luxury at that time as there
were so few accomodations."
FATHER'S I.HRACULOUS RIDING MACHIInIE
Dr. Selden Myers writes "When I was a small boy near the turn of
the century ny father was the rural mail carrier for the Varna area. In
winter the snow drifted to the tops of fences and in spring the roads were
ankle deep in mud. Father kept four horses which he alternated in driving
every day on the twenty-nine miles of his mail route. V/hen roads were in
good condition he drove one horse, but he often found it necessary to use
a team to get through. He had one open buggy and another to which he had
attached a box-like enclosure of his own manufacture for use in bad weather.
He would fill the bottom of the buggy v/ith straw in winter and heat bricks
on Mother's kitchen range to place in the straw. They would help to keep
him vfarm for part of his trip.
"Then came mechanical pov;er. Someone offered father a ride on a
primitive motorcycle, and forthi,vith he was bitten by the motorcycle bug.
He dreamed of the tedious hours he could save by using the new mechanical
contraption. Hovrever, he failed to anticipate the problems involved in
maintaining and operating the critter.
"His motorcycle was a crude belt-driven machine for vrhich the
rider had to be a combination athlete and trapeze performer. To start
the machine it had to be in gear and pushed by running full speed alongside.
men and if it started, father had to make a flying leap and hope to land
astride the saddle; othen-ase the results were disastrous. It was a feat
- 25 -
merely to push the machine against the compression of the engine, I and
all the other small boys in the neighborhood would stand in awe as father
took off on his miraculous machine.
"Father carried on a running battle with his motorcycle for some
time. When all went well he could reduce the time on his route by several
hours. More often he spent longer hours, like the day a farmer brought
mother a message that father was stalled and wanted me to hitch up one of
the horses and come and get him. For the first time I was entrusted with a
horse and buggy, and I felt very important as I drove out through the country,
"I found father about three miles .from Varna lying under a tree
with the motorcycle beside him. I was dismayed because I had never seen him
so exhausted. To small boys, fathers are invincible and here was a situation
that was impossible. Although he was not injured, father was trapped with
his motorcycle in a narrow valley -with a hill on each side. He had worn
himself out trying to start the machine pushing it uphill. We attached one
end of a rope to the motorcycle and the other end to the axle of the buggy.
Then I drove home with father wearily trudging behind, supporting the
motorcycle. Thus ended a pioneer experience in motor transportation because
father reverted to the slower, more certain horse and buggy conveyance."
■
People of the county were farsighted, however, as is recorded in
a local newspaper. Fred Thienart, a Lacon Woolen Mill employee, worked
several years, circa 1896, on a flying machine. Electricity was to be the
motive power of the machine, which had several wing-like attachments. The
wings were four or five feet square and, said a local news item, "ingeniously
constructed". ¥i/hen propelling the ship they were airtight. They dropped
back and a number of slots were reversed, allowing air to pass the wings
without resistance. Mr. Thienart was confident the machine would fly and
tried to get some "capitalist" to promote the venture. There is no record
that the flying machine ever got off the ground.
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ViraiGS, JACKSONIAN DMOCR/^TS AND REPUBLICANS
The development of Marshall County's local government was sat-
urated with the personalities of the men who were in places of leadership.
The story of Lacon's Dr. Boal, v^hose dual career as a member of
the Illinois Medical Society, and as the astute political leader for the
upper mid-section of the Illinois River Valley in the campaigns of Abraham
Lincoln, is nothing less than a saga. It is weaved in the pioneer years
of Marshall County's political growth.
The Illinois period of Dr. Boal's life began in 183U, when with
some Cincinnati friends, he came on a prospecting tour to the Valley. The
party came directly to a place knovm as Columbia, about twenty-five miles
upstream from Peoria on the eastern shore of the river. Later, Dr. Boal
was one of the committee who renamed the town "Lacon", and yet later, was
influential in having Lacon chosen as the county seat.
As a result of the visit in 183U he decided to settle in the
valley of the Illinois River, By the spring of 1836 Dr. Boal was situated
and was the practicing physician serving the twenty miles distance between
Hennepin and Lacon and extending over the timber bluffs to the sparsely
settled cabins on Round Prairie off to the east.
Doctor Boal was more than a family doctor. He had the zest and
the background for other things. In time he became well known in Spring-
field, Quincy, Jacksonville, Bloomington and Peoria.
In iQlik he was elected to the Illinois senate of the General
Assembly, ninning on the Vilhig ticket. He represented the counties of
Bureau, Henry, Stark and Marshall in the new capitol building in Springfield.
Doctor Boal made the acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln about I8ii2,
possibly before that date. He first knew Lincoln as a V/hig, and of course
later, as a Republican. During the years that Lincoln vras a circuit riding
attorney in the old eighth judicial district, he travelled between the
courthouse of Metamora and Hennepin, stopping en route at Lacon, vdiich was
about midvvay. On these trips, Lincoln stayed overnight at the comfortable
home of Doctor and Mrs. Boal; their home was the center for an unknovm
number of meetings, many of which were concerned vrith political matters.
Marshall County may find pride in that Doctor Boal attended the
Republican convention in Chicago, the historic one held in the Wigwam when
Lincoln was nominated for the presidency.
It is told in the stories handed down that, when Doctor Boal re-
turned to Lacon from the Wig^vam convention, his home v;as even a greater
attraction for visitors. Doctor Boal later was Lincoln's campaign manager
in the upper mid-section of the Illinois Valley.
" 27 -
Another of Lacon's adopted sons, if we may so classify him, was
Greenberry L. Fort, who was bom in Scioto County, Ohio in 1825, and came
as a small boy with his parents in 183U to settle on Round Prairie east of
the town later named Lacon. He attended Rock River Seminaiy in Ogle County
in 18U5, and upon his return to Lacon announced that he would study law in
the office of the Honorable Silas Ramsey, then the county judge. Fort was
admitted to the Illinois bar in 16i;9-50 and commenced practice.
It is reported that in 1850 the Whigs were in the minority in^
Marshall County by about two hundred votes? however. Fort ran on the Whig
ticket as a popular candidate for the office of sheriff and defeated the
incumbent Democrat, Addison Ramsey. That was in 1850, and old records
claim he won the election by four votes.
In 1852 he announced for the office of circuit clerk and was
elected by a large marjority. Four years later he was nominated for the •
office of county judge. His popularity continued and he was elected. It |
was during his term as county judge that the debates between Stephen A.
Douglas and Abraham Lincoln occurred. Judge Fort entered the lists
(petitions) for Lincoln and made a number of speeches for Lincoln's
senatorial candidacy.
It was during the same year of the Douglas-Lincoln debates, 1858,
that Greenberry Fort married Clara Boal, the daughter of Doctor and Mrs. Boal.
The Civil War came and Fort stepped into the ranks soon after Fort
Sumter was fired upon, joining Company B., 11th Regiment, Illinois Volunteer
Infantry. He was mustered in at Springfield on April 22, i860, for three
months service. His service lasted much longer, and after the battle at
Fort Donelson he was made quartermaster. His war record was a brilliant
one, even for the Civil War. He returned to Lacon in 1866 to resume the
practice of law.
When the Republican convention met in Septenber of that year.
Colonel Fort was chosen to be state senatorial candidate representing the
counties of Marshall, Putnam, Peoria, and V/oodford; at the eviration of
his term he declined renomination.
In 1872 he was nominated at the Fairbury convention to be a
representative to Congress, and was elected on the Republican ticket. He
was re-elected in succeeding terms until his term expired March U, 1881.
He came home to Lacon once more and found that his friends were proposing
him for the office of governor. But, in January, 1883, he suffered a
sudden heart attack while working at training a young colt.
When Marshall County was organized its government was placed in
the care of men known as county commissioners. In 1850 the system was
changed and the county set off into townships, a representative from each
called a supervisor was elected. The first supervisors were: Theodore
Perry, Henry Snyder, John B. White, C. S. Edwards, James Gibson, Addison
Ramsey, R. P. Bell, William Maxwell, and Amasa Garrett.
- 28 -
The change which went into effect in 1850 had been approved in
November, I81i9; and in February, 1850 the tovmships were laid off. In
April, 1850, the supervisors became the officers.
These v/ere the first township lines: Evans, Roberts, Hopewell,
Lacon, Richland, Belle Plaine, Henry, Whitefield, Fairfield and Steuben.
Later the name of Fairfield was changed to LaPrairie and the final "e" on
the spelling of each word. Belle Plaine, was dropped. There was not enough
population to orgamize Bennington or Saratoga tovmships in 1850, that came
a little later.
ORIGIN OF TOVmSHIP NAlffiS
In 3911 the Henry Newspaper published this article: "In the
early days as long ago as 1831, what is now the city of Lacon was known
as "Strawn's Landing". The place v;as laid off in 1831 and named Columbia.
In 1836 the name was changed to Lacon, suggested by D. C. Holbrook of
Cincinnati. General Henderson was representative from the district and
Jesse C. Smith and Ira Fenn went to lobby it through. The matter was
referred home, discussed and adopted. The township bore the pompous name
of "Free State", as it was something of a rough community in the early days
before the organization of the county. It v;as afterward named Lacon Township.
"Henry Tov/nship at the suggestion of the late Hooper YJarren was
named after General James D. Henry, who gallantly led the Illinois volunteers
to victory over the hostile Sac and Fox Indians in the year, 1832.
"Roberts Tovmship was named after Jesse S. Roberts, one of the
first settlers who located there in 1830.
"Bell Plain Township derives its name from an early settler.
Colonel Bells, who kept a noted hotel for the care of travelers in the
early days.
"Bennington Township derives its name from the Bennington family,
which was a large one among the early settlers of that region.
"Evans Township was also named after its first settler, Joshua
Evans, who located there in 1830. V/enona was laid out in 1855.
"Richland Township was named by John Strawn for the place from
whence he came in Ohio. For a long time it and Hopewell were known as
"Round Prairie". John Strawn prospected the territory in 1828 and was
its first permanent settler.
"LaPrairie Tovmship was thought to be the banner township of the
county. Charles Stone thought LaPrairie an appropriate nomenclature. A
majority of the settlers preferred Fairfield. The county judge, Silas Ramsey
- 29 -
found several places in the state bearing the latter name, so arbitrarily
but properly substituted LaPrairie as the name. Its first settler located
there in 1832.
"Saratoga Township was named by George Scholes, from the New
York Saratoga. He was one of the earlier settlers.
"Whitefield was named complimentary to John B, White. George
Burt suggested the name "liWite", in honor of one of its much respected
citizens. The county judge, Silas Ramsey, thought the name too short and
attached the annex "field", so that tovmship has the long name, Whitefield.
Lacon, Henry and Evans are all short so that Ramsey's arbitrary change of
"Ti/hite" to V/hitef ield was peculiar and without sufficient reason.
"Steuben Township was named from Steuben County, New York, from
whence some of its early settlers came. The name is derived from Baron
Steuben, a distinguished Prussian soldier and intimate friend of General
Washington with ivhom he served in the war of the Revolution. The name
commemorated their former home and a gallant soldier likewise, and at the
suggestion of Timothy Atwood it was chosen as the name of the township.
"Hopewell Township was named by Lunsford Broaddus, first settler
who came in 1830."
1850 OkTH OF OFFICE, FAIRFIELD TOY/NSHIP
The following excerpts were taken from the clerk's book of the
town meeting. Town of Fairfield, Marshall County, 1850: • "At an Election
held at the house of William Smith in said township on the second day of
April, the year of our Lord, 185 for the purpose of electing one Super-
visor, one Town Clerk, one Assessor, one Collector, one Overseer of the
Poor, three Commissioners of Highways, two Constables, two Justices of the
Peace and such other business as might be necessary . . . ."
At a meeting of the Marshall County Historical Society, Lester
Leigh read the following oath of office written in flowing script popular
in that day and in the best style of keeping a township clerk's book: "I
do sollemly sware that I will faithfully and promptily to the best of my
skill and abilities discharge the duties of supervisor for said Town of
Fairfield, that I will support the constitution of the United States also
the constitution of the State of Illinois, that I have not fought a duel
nor sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel the probable issue if
which might have been the death of either party, nor been a second to either
party, nor in any manner aided or assisted in such duel, nor been knowingly
the bearer of such challenge or acceptance since the adoption of the con-
stitution, and that I will not be so engaged or concerned directly or
- 30 -
or indirectly in or about any such deed during my continuation in office,
so help me God, Given under my hand this 11th day of April, 1850,
Subscribed and sworn to before the undersigned April 11, 1850,
Justice of the Peace {'/^"Ji
1 do hereby certify that the above is a true copy.
Town Clerk."
- 31 -
NOT AFEAID TO FACE THE CANNON'S MOUTH
ppii
Rupert Nurse wrote the following excerpt
about a "place on the prairie where many fond mem-
ories are still with the older generation". It is
Lawn Ridge, located on the Marshall and Peoria County
line in the southwest comer of LciPrairie Township.
In the early I850's the town was located one mile
north of the present location. It was called The
Comers. There was a store and a few houses. One-
half mile south of The Comers was a church called
"The Old Yellow Church". A few years later Mr.
Gillman laid out the village of Lawn Ridge. The store
and houses moved to Lawn Ridge and in 1880 there was a
post office, two drug stores, one grocery store, one
general store, a harness shop, three blacksmith shops,
two wagon shops, two shoe shops, two restaurants, a
cabinet-ware shop, a school, a barbershop, two hotels,
a public hall, a doctor and two churches. It was a
thriving town.
The Underground Railroad passed through because Lawn Ridge was
noted for advanced ideas upon the subject of human freedom. The first
fugitive who passed through Lawn Ridge was brought by Doctor Cutler of
Princeville under a feather bed. The next was a Negro who had been
pressed so closely by pursuers that he had to dodge under a bridge at
Farmington and remain a day and a night to escape their clutches. A
friend of the cause brought him to Lawn Ridge, one of the few places
where a fugitive slave was safe. Escaping slaves were usually brought at
night but went forward by daylight because there was little danger beyond
this point.
Rupert Nurse's grandfather, one of the early residents of the
Lawn Ridge community, wrote a rather complete set of letters while serving
in the Civil War. Here was a country boy gone to war where strange, ter-
rible happenings occurred. He wrote home as regularly as he could find
paper and time from duty. In his letters we catch his spirit of good
morale because of the v^orthy cause, only to read of several heartbreaks
near the end of his letters. He described the bloocty butchering by doc-
tors who had no other choice than to amputate, but was quite composed over
his own leg amputation, and concerned mostly for the feelings of the folks
at home.
Henry H. Nurse was bom October 20, 181^3, in a log house on the
Nurse homestead. On August 12, 1862, nineteen years of age, he enlisted
in the Union Arny at Chillicothe, Illinois. They spent a month at Camp
Lyons, Peoria, Illinois, which was the old fairgrounds on the bluff. These
men were known as the 86th Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry. September
7, 1862, they were loaded into stock cars from which cattle had just been
taken and were sent to Camp Joe Holt, near Jeffersonville, Indiana. From
there they went on to Louisville, Kentucky. Two days later the amy from
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Fort Dunelson came. A new amy was organized. The new army was called
the "Ai'jy of the Cumberland". They were vdth General Sherman on his march
to the sea. The last battle of the 86th was fought near Bentonville, North
Carolina, the latter part of March, 1865. The following excerpts are from
letters written by Henry H. Nurse to his father, Isaiah Nurse, while in the
Civil War,
"War is a dreadful thing. It separates friends of all kinds,
never to meet again, but I hope peace will soon come and war will be no
more. Tell Martha I wish her much joy and a good shivaree for she would
have got one if I had been home .... July 27, 1863. I was quite unwell
for several days but I think I can stand it now, as I have got over the
Tennessee quickstep which is the worst thing in the am^y . . • • July 25,
1863. I do not want you to fret much about me for if I die here I die in
a good cause and am not afraid to face the cannon's mouth if necessary to
defend the Union and the flag of our beloved country, which has been
assailed by a traitorous foe.
"August 30, 1863, Columbia, Tennessee. When we were on picket
some of the boys milked a cow belonging to a woman who flew mad about it
in a hurry when she found out, but she could not find out which one it was
that done it for of course soldiers never know who does anything ....
Camp of Chicamuga, November 30, 1863* Have been out on a foraging expedi-
tion for ten days and just got back yesterday. V/e had a very good time
even if the mud is ankle deep. Got all the fresh meat, molasses, chickens,
turkeys, geese and them that liked got all the tobacco they wanted.
"Gordon's Mill, Georgia, March 30, 186U. Vfliat is your opinion
about the next president? There is a good deal of contention in the amy
... I think that the majority of them are in favor of putting Old Abe in
the chair again. I think he has done as well as any man could in his place.
I do not know whether the soldiers of Illinois will get to vote or not ... .
May 28, I86ij. I am well and feel first rate, but I do not know how long I
will remain. According to accounts. Grant is driving the Rebels but is
slaughtering a lot of his men. The Rebels are throwing shells over this way
but only about one quarter of them explode, nevertheless I will have to quit
writing and get behind the breastworks. They might accidentally give me a
knucker on the head .... June 29, 186U. I am not very well . . . Benjamin
Prentis was killed yesterday, shot through the head . . . V/e had a cessation
of hostilities today while our men went to get off our dead for they smelt
so bad that we couldn' t stant it any longer .... July 8, I86ii, 1/2 mile
north of Atlanta. Our boys had small looking-glasses fixed on their guns so
that they could lay behind their breastworks and stick their guns over the
top, shooting without exposing themselves any at al] . . . . July lii, IQbUj
Boltonsville, Georgia. You have probably seen a list of killed and wounded
out of the 86th . . . Rather hard, but some one must fall in battle. V/e
miss the boys very much. Oh cruel war, when will it end? May God speed
the time and save as many lives as possible. We have got good clothes and
plenty to eat. We get beans and desecated potatoes with meat, crackers,
coffee, sugar, salt and soap. We traded our sugar for two of us and got
four rations of potatoes . . . V/hen I was at home I could not go it on beans
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but you must raise a good crop of them the year that I come home ...
Some of oui- boys are going into speculation. They foiind a lot of tobacco
fix ready to make segars, and -there is an old segar-maker' in our comparQr.
He is making it up into segars -and can sell them as fast as they can make
them.
"September lli, 186ii. I do not like to hear of men getting killed
by lightening or in any other way. Just before I got your letter I had got
my fill of mush, but I did not have any milk to put on it. We made some
sugar molasses and it went first rate . . • All of the old maids and old
bachelors are getting married up there. I am glad of it for we may want
another arny in the course of twenty years and now is the time to commence
to raise it ... . October 13, I861i, Athens, Alabama. It was the two hard-
est days service we have seen since we have been in the service. V/e had to
ford streams that was from knee to bottom deep, then march right along with
our shoes and socks full of mud and water, and it wore all of the skin off
our feet. A good many of the boys are barefooted. I have got good shoes,
but my socks is played out.
"December 17, I86ii, Savannah Georgia. We were glad to hear how
the election had gone. The citizens told us that Lincoln was elected . . •
V/e left the country desolate where we came through. We burned most every
house. Once in a while we had to set some rich family outside, but not the
poor ones. I never ate so many sweet potatoes as I did on this trip. The
men are all fat and healthy and doing well .... March 28, 1865, Goldsboro,
North Carolina. Day before yesterday th^ found me laying on my back taking
care of my stump. I am doing well and ny leg -is in fine condition. You must
not get scared and think I am going to die. Vife have a good place and good
doctors to tend on us ... . April lU, 1865. They had big times here over
the news of Lee's surrender to Grant. They fired salutes, played brass
bands and halloed and got tight and raised thunder generally from what I
could hear ... I don't regret coming into the arny for all I have lost,
was my leg, and I stood a good chance several times of losing my life, but
by the providence of God, ny life is spared to me, and I hope to reach home
safe to my folks and friends in good health and with a whole head.
"Fort Schuyler, New York, April 23, 1865. It is an awful affair
of Lincoln being killed. I would like to pass the sentence on the one that
done it ... • Castle Gardens, New York City. I got my discharge on the
twenty-sixth of June and camie here. The captain in charge told me that I
might stay here a month if I wanted to. I shall get jsy leg and get home as
soon as I can for I want to see you very much ..."
Quoting from Hirain llyer' s diary "During the war of the rebellion
prices were high. Wool was $1.10 a pound. Vftieat was -$2.50 a bushel. Corn
was $'')1.00 a bushel, Oats were 65 cents a bushel and other things in propor-
tion. Hogs brought |1U.50 cwt. live. I bought 100 Sheep that year, l86ii,
at $)U.00 a head. I raised 60 lambs and got .iJlt.OO each at weaning time. The
wool sold at $5*00 that year. The sheep proved to be a profitable investment.
■■ - 31, - .
Fanners were paid high prices, but the vrar years were sad ones.
Another young man was heard about and v/e make mention here.
Captain Fred Shaw, a young Lacon man with the intention of
studying lavf, was mustered into service at Springfield in April, 1861, when
Company B. of the 11th Regiment was formed. He was appointed captain and
fell in battle February, 1862, at the siege of Fort Donelson, Greenberry
L. Fort, another Lacon man, and a first lieutenant of the company, may have
been effective in sending the body of his comrade home to Lacon for a final
resting place in the cemetery of his family.
The disaster for the Union Forces at Fort Donelson on the Cumber-
land River was no less personally felt by Grant's men than by the community
of Lacon who knew that a fine young man in his twenties was one of the many
men killed in that action. Available records indicate that Captain Shaw
was the only casualty returned home during the conflict, but there were
others returned at a later and more convenient time, not to mention those
who still lie in unkno'ivn graves.
BY THE DIM AND FLARING LAMPS
The Civil War was one of the singingest in United States history.
The boys in blue and the boys in gray marched, fought and bivouacked to
song. The Blues slogged through mud and rain shouting "The Battle Cry of
Freedom", "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp" and later in the vrar, "Marching Through
Georgia". VHio vras to stand against the Blue when they came on like waves
of the sea, singing "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the
Lord"? Is it any wonder that they were, in the last analysis, invincible?
Many of the songs were frankly, and heavily, sentimental. Not
with a lovesick sentimentality, but \7ith the sentiment of patriotism, the
pathos of dying. As in the lament of a wounded soldier, "'Jrap the Flag
Around Me, Boys", with music by R. Stewart Taylor, A concluding quatrain
of this, "0 v/rap the flag around me, boys; to die v/ere far more sweet, vrLth
Freedom's starry emblem, boys, to be my vrLnding sheet."
Especially for the fallen were, "Tread Softly, a Soldier's Sleep-
ing Here" J "Lay Him Low", dedicated to those v/ho fell at Stone's River;
"Toll the Bells"; "Our Sleeping Heroes"; "Our Honored Dead"; and "The Silent
Camp", a memorial song.
There were ribald songs, of course. Many of the tunes found their
way across the lines and were sung by the Johnnie Rebs, using their ovm
v/ords. llany of the songs poked fun at persons and customs. In, "Call 'Em
Names, Jeff", the Union soldiers alleged that the rebels had tried to stop
them by "making faces", and suggested that Jeff Davis try calling them
names, instead.
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In "English Neutrality", the author and composer, William A.
Daugherty, lampooned the sale of British ships to the Confederacy. In
"Grafted Into the Army", fact probably was mixed with fiction: "I thought
they would spare a lone widder's heir, but they grafted him into the aray."
The incident at Harper's Ferry was memorialized in, "John Brown's
bocfy lies a mouldering in the grave ... but his soul goes marching on."
The song was a natural for parody: "We'll hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple
tree ... as we go marching on."
There were songs for the President, and even the women at home
who made surgical dressings were saluted in "The Lint Pickers".
"Unite", originally published in the Toledo (Ohio) Blade, was
set to music. One of the five stanzas:
"Nay, from the graves our heroes fill, , v
From Yorktown, Trenton, Bunker Hill,
From Vernon's tomb, from Marshfield's sage, ^'
From Ashland and the Hermitage,
The gray-haired men from every tomb
Point where our struggling armies fight;
Listen, the countless tones that come.
For coiintry, God and home, unite I"
Besides the songs indigenous to the time, there was a goodly
sprinkling of old songs like "Yankee Doodle", "Columbia, the Gem of the
Ocean", and such for marching. The Confederates are said to have lamented
that they had no marching songs comparable to those of the Union forces.
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming
of the Lord,
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes
of wrath are stored I"
Who w^s there to stand against it?
Marshall County sent its sons to march and sing, to fight and
die for the Union. Many fell in battle, at Shiloh, Vicksburg, flanassas,
wherever the Illinois regiments vrere engaged. Many returned home to
bivouac with the G.A.R. in its annual encampments. None forgot the roiasing
songs which had buoyed their spirits and lent coiu-age and strength, even
to the last weary mile.
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PIONEER PUFSUIT OF THE THREE R's
Because Marshall County settlers were for the most part literate,
they were aware of the need their children had for learning. However, in
pioneer days many a child became adult without benefit of formal education.
The pioneer's first need was to survive and often this demanded all a
family's resources of time and strength and inclination.
It is to the credit of the settlers of Marshall County that they
early diverted energy to the establishment of schools. These, fev/ and far
between, often were in session bcirely two or three months a year. School
was kept in winter months when the children were not needed at home or on
the farm. The teachers were individuals who themselves had no more than
an elementary school education, obtained in eastern states from which they
came.
Lacking anything more than the rudiments of the three R's, the
pioneers developed innate common sense and shrewdness with which they built
a heritage of wealth, character and independence for the generations which
followed, even to this day. The present was not established in a vacuum.
Its foundations were laid a century and more ago; and the foundation of the
past is the birthright of the present, however it may be recognized and
cherished, however spumed or dissipated.
Since public schools vrere not established by Illinois law until
I851i, early education v/as at the expense of parents of school-age children,
and school-age included anything from toddlers to adults. Often from fifty
to sixty pupils of all ages sat on hewn log or plank benches in the log
school houses and learned their letters, to cipher, to read and spell a
little. Teachers were paid on a per capita basis in cash and/or produce.
As was completely natural, pupils learned some things besides the
three R's. An estimable lady, one of sixty children who attended school in
a twelve-by-fourteen foot building, told that the entire group learned to
chew tobacco as a proud adjunct to education.
The hickory switch was the symbol of discipline in early schools.
One schooLmaster is said to have kept a human skelton in the schoolhouse loft
vrlth which to confront the unruly. Some of his older pupils promptly smoked
him out by stopping up the school house chimney.
Records of school activities prior to the institution of the free
public school system are practically non-existent. Such information as has
come down through the years has been preserved in general community history
recorded, and that sketchily, only in the newspapers of the time.
A few settlers came to Marshall County as early as 1829 but it
was 1830 and after that a general influx began. It has been suggested that
early teaching, like early preaching, may have been in settlers' homes.
This may have been the case in Lacon, where there is no record of any school
until 1836, vihen the Lacon Academy was formed.
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Much earlier were the log cabin schools in Evans and LaPrairie
Townships, 1831; and Hopewell and Richland, 1833. A school was kept in
the Crow Creek region in 1635, one in Bell Plain Township in 1836, and
others later including Henry smd Crow Meadow Prairie in 1638.
Lacon had one of the early "academies" in the county, built in
1836 and first used the following year. This was built and supported by
citizens of the town. Henry had a Female Academy, founded in 1839 by the
Rev, H. G. Pendleton, a Presbyterian minister, and supported by the denom-
ination. Much later, in 185 U, the Protestant Methodist Church opened the
Northern Illinois University in Henry with the Rev. G. B. McElroy, principal,,
and two assistants. Shortly after the panic of 1857 the school closed and
the building was sold to the city for use as a public school.
Wenona, too, had its academy, in a building erected in 1858. This
school was, however, located across the Illinois Central tracks in LaSalle
County, Marshall County people helped to pay for it and it served the chil-
dren in both counties. It was strictly non-sectarian and was not a grade
school, but a seminaiy of high school level. The academy was discontinued
in the 1880' s and part of the building was used for a public school until
it burned in the early '90s.
The Henry Female Seminary, founded by Rev. Pendleton, also enjoyed
success and its buildings were several times enlarged. Like other private
schools the seminary was weakened by the crash of 1857 and the establishment
of the public school system drained its attendance. Just before the Civil
Vifar its doors were closed but, like similar institutions, it had by that
time served its purposes.
Not for the pupils of early schools were such elaborate curric-
ulimis offered as are offered today. Physical education would have received
short shriftj children got their exercise through work at home and by walk-
ing two or three miles to and from school. Family life was a subject admin-
istered in the family circle. Sports were unorganized and recreation un-
supervised. In winter, the only time when early district schools were in
operation, youngsters took their school benches to a nearby hill, if it
offered, and used them as sleds to coast.
Mentioned as textbooks in the 181tO«s were Daboll's Arithmetic,
Murray's English Grammar and Maltebrun's Geography. As many as a dozen
or more pupils used the same book. The New Testament was almost universally
used as a reading text.
Pupils were taught patriotism and history in rhyme and the little
Americans of that day repeated a couplet that should remain forever popular:
"Before all lands of east or west,
I love my native land the best,"
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There also was a quatrain, used in an attempt to convey a
smattering of knowledge about the kings and queens of England, which ran:
"Plantagenets they in fifty-four.
To which prefix eleven.
Just number sovereigns as of yore.
To war and conquest given."
Neither ^vas grace neglected in the midst of pursuit of the three
R's, and a certain amount of history and poesy. In some pioneer schools
social poise and courtesy took the form of placing the left heel in the
hollow of the right foot, and making a profound bow when entering or leav-
ing a room in which v;as an older person, a gratifying and not a little
amusing tribute to the elders.
As late as i860 three log school houses still v/ere in use in
Marshall County, tv/o in Hopewell Township and one in Steuben, Of the
remainder, fifty-four were fi*ame and twelve were brick. Twenty male teach-
ers and forty-seven females held certificates, but only four in the county
had taught three or more years. It was not until 1869 that the county had
one teacher v/ho was a graduate of Normal University. Ten year« later there
were three teachers who had attended Northern Nonnal, but vrere not graduates.
They were Isabelle Martin, who taught a rural school in Saratoga Toimship;
Mary I. Garrison of the V/enona Public Schools; and Ira Ong, principal of the
Varna Public School. The following year two Nonnal College graduates were
employed in Sparland.
County school commissioners (superintendents after 1865) were
paid five dollars per day for school visitation, holding teacher examinations
and institutes, and when engaged in office and incidental official duties.
l/Then John N. Fuller of Lacon was appointed school commissioner in
1861, he wrote: "I have just been appointed to fill a vacancy and do not
know what was done by my predecessor in regard to teachers' reports. I
have made no requirements."
Concerning institutes, Ilr. Fuller wrote in 186?: "I had taken
preliminary steps to hold one in March, but on application to the board of
supervisors I found that they would do nothing to assist me in procuring
suitable lecturers and helpers, so I abandoned the project," Another, and
successful, attempt to hold an institute was made the following year. After
that, institutes were held several times a year. They were periods of in-
struction for teachers and ranged from five days to three vreeks in length.
Those held in the winter often vrere poorly attended on account of bad roads.
The most successful vrere those held in late summer. Teachers then converged
in numbers on the county seat, where most of the institutes were held, and
absorbed instruction and enjoyed social activities. An announcement by a
superintendent once told that the citizens of Lacon would offer entertainment,
"if it was wanted", and subsistence and lodging for one dollar per day.
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Early schools, even after the public school system was adopted,
were ungraded. All pupils, young and older, studied the same texts, with
distinctions made at the discretion of the teachers. Later, a course of
study for common schools was divided into three categories — primary, inter-
mediate and advanced. This situation obtained until 1870. In the follow-
ing twenty years the number of graded schools increased and work was carried
through eight grades, an additional year having been added to the intermediate
section.
The primary two years covered reading, ynr-iting, spelling, language,
numbers and general exercises which included music, drawing, manners and
morals. Elementary geography was added to the list in the intermediate
grades. In the advanced years grammar was substituted for language, and to
elementary science, which included the simplest forms of zoology, botany and
physics were added. At the end of each month examinations were given on a
certain day throughout the county on questions furnished by the superintendent;
of schools.
In the early days of the public school in Marshall County the annual
education cost per pupil did not exceed sixteen dollars. There then vrere
eighty-eight district schools, rural and urban, in which 5,178 pupils were
served by 183 teachers. By 19 UU there were only forty-seven district schools
with 2,085 pupils and 11^2 teachers. As the number of pupils dropped, the per
capita cost advanced until, by 1890, the cost of maintaining the county's
schools wcis about one and one-half times that of 1865, or $50,786.
Top salary in the county was a magnificent $80 per month, paid in
only one instance, and the male pedagogs invariably received at least twice
the salary of the female teacher, \7hen $80 was top salary for men, ShO was
the top for women, and when men received a minimum of $20, it seemed only
fitting that women receive $10.
The school commissioner, succeeded by the county superintendent
in 1865, in the beginning had nothing to do with the supervision of schools.
According to a state law passed in 1829 the county commissioner acted chiefly
as a land agent for the county, supervising the sale of public lands, his
only compensation being a small percentage of the sales. In 1833 he was
authorized to apportion the school fund among the schools entitled to it,
and was permitted to retain for himself two and one-half per cent of the
money so apportioned.
After the orgsinization of Marshall County in 1839, John Y/ier was
appointed the first commissioner with bond in the sum of $1,000. In I8iil
a law was passed providing for the election of the school commissioner, and
in 18U5 that official was nade ex-officio superintendent of common schools
with the duty of holding examinations for persons who desired to teach. He
received a fee of one dollar per person.
The first complete report as required at the time of the county's
school affairs was made in l85ii by James Miller, who took office that year.
He induced some of the township school officials to make reports. During his
- llO-
\
six-year tenure his compensation averaged $100 annually, including three
dollars per diem pay for school visitation.
Mr, Mller's reports show that in 1858-59 six nev^ school houses
vrere built at a total cost of $2,570.2?, The whole sum received that year
for school purposes was $21,03^4.75, of which $19,593,10 was expended. This
was for the maintenance of sixty-four schools having 2,60ii pupils served by
103 teachers.
I861i was the last year in which third class certificates were is-
sued in Marshall County. Of forty-one teachers' certificates issued that
year, four v/ere third class, twenty-five were second class and twelve vrere
first class. VJheeler W. Heath of Henry was the last school commissioner to
issue the third class permits.
Until 1885 the superintendent's office was v/herever he hung his
hat. After that he was supplied with an office and necessary supplies as
were other county officials. The new regulations, contained in a state law,
required the superintendent to spend one-half "the time alloted him" visiting
ungraded schools. He was hired by the county board of supervisors and was
allowed "not less than l50 days" at per diem in counties having less than
fifty schools. Counties with fifty to seventy-five schools were allowed 250
days of service, and only those with 100 or more schools were permitted full-
time service.
It was during the incumbency of Superintendent M. M. Mallary in
1895 that a standard system of text books was adopted for the schools of the
county. Superintendent Mallary discovered that several of the large school
book publishing companies were foisting inferior and obsolete texts on un-
suspecting district directors. Mr. Mallary' s determined efforts to rout the
perpetrators of this fraud resulted in much bitterness, and a number of
communities were split into factions on the text book question. Mr. Mallary
perservered and finally v/as successful in establishing a uniform and up-to-
date system in the county's rural schools.
Little has been said in this necessarily brief account either con-
cerning personalities or individual communities and their contributions to
education in the county. The subject is too great. Suffice it to say that
each and every town and tcamship maintained schools adequate for the tines
in their several districts.
In addition to classroom instruction, incidental infonnation,
offered by lyceums, chautauquas and such, was welcomed by those who relished
a leavening of erudition in their entertainment. Henry Ward Beecher lectured
in Henry and Ralph YJaldo Emerson visited Lacon to lecture in the court house
in the I850's. Dr. Eggleston, author of "The Hoosier Schoolmaster", deliv-
ered a lecture in Lacon' s Rose Opera House in 1892, and in 190U Edmund Vance
Cooke appeared in the new Lacon School's assembly hall.
Early school buildings were used for various purposes besides
classrooms. A series of school houses in Hopewell Tovmship were used, in
- 11 -
turn, as forums of the Hopewell Debating Society. There was a period when
every rural school had at least one box-social a year. These were likely
to be expensive pleasure for the local beaux, for their practical- joker
friends might cause them to spend a week's wages for the privilege of eating
supper with their lady friends.
Many products of the county's educational system made marks for
themselves in various fields. None, however, achieved world-wide recogni-
tion, such as was won by the internationally famous crusader against
cigarettes, Lucy Page Gaston. Miss Gaston was graduated from Lacon High
School in 1877 and taught in area niral schools several years before leaving
for greener fields. The Gaston family who were truck gardeners, and accord-
ing to local newspaper advertisements, pickle-makers, included Edward Page
Gaston, also a man of parts but less well-known than his famous sister.
Generations have come and gone through the schools of the county,
and few who really desired education failed to find it, either in the crude
log cabins or in their later elaborations. Many a successful and honorable
career, many a family fortune, had its inception in the rude pioneer schools
which offered, along with the three R's, character-building instruction,
patriotism and morals.
SCHOOL TRUSTEES-TEACHER CONTRACT, I8I16
For those who find it difficult to credit tales of low salaries
paid to teachers in pioneer days the following contract is given verbatim.
A copy of the agreement was furnished by Roscoe L. Ball of \7enona.
"Article of Agreement made and entered into and between Thomas
Judd, Jr. of Marshall County, Sandy Grove, of the one part and John G. Hunt,
Jacob %ers, James Beatty, school trustees of the other part, — ¥/itnesseth,
that the said Thomas Judd doth agree to teach an English school for the term
of two months, 5^ days in each week and be attentive to his business and
make all lost time and keep good order in said school, and board himself
while teaching said school. School to commence l$th January, 18U6, and the
said trustees doth agree to pay the said Thomas Judd for teaching said
school, $10.00 per month to be paid by the 1st day of May next, one-half in
cash and the other half in young cattle or grain or store goods at cash
price, and said trustees doth agree to have firewood furnished and other
necessary suitable for the accommodation of said school, the said trustees
doth agree that if there is any scholar that does not obey the rules of the
school they shall quit said school or be dealt with according to such rvles
as said trustees shall proscribe, January l5th, 18li6.
John G. Himt
Jacob Ifyers
James Beatty"
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. . . AND SHE LAID DOY/N AITO DIED
In the pioneer days horse trading was a common and usually lucra-
tive business for some sharpies who were expert in judging and appraising
horses* Quite often the ovmer of a horse thought he was just as smart as
the professional trader and there would be a battle of wits vdth much hag-
gling and dickering. Each owner would extol the merits of his charger at
great length and try to make the other fellow believe that his horse was
ready for the bone heap.
Dr. Selden Myers originally of Varna related an encounter between
his grandfather and a professional trader as told to him by his father,
"The meeting occurred in the alley at the rear of grandfather's bam in
Varna, In those days most good citizens owned at least one horse stabled
in a bam at the rear of the premises. The trader had a fancy looking
animal which he paraded up and down the alley first walking, then trotting,
all the time giving a great harangue on the wonderful merits of his horse.
"Grandfather's horse was more mediocre in appearance but a good
sound animal. Grandfather was suspicious because the trader's horse was
much better in general appearance than was his, but the trader asked a
substantial sum 'to boot' so his suspicions were somewhat allayed.
"There was much prodding, thumping, examination of teeth, legs,
etc. and more arguing and dickering. Finally Grandfather's caution and
thrift came to the fore and he told the trader that there vras no deal.
The trader started mournfully to lead his horse away. As he departed he
turned and said, 'Steve, you will always be sorry that you didn't make
this trade ' .
"That did iti Grandfather called the trader back and they made
the trade. Two days later the fancy stepper quietly laid down and died."
Not all horsetrading was honest, some definitely not. Fine
horseflesh was so desired that horse thieves were plentiful.
CRaV lEADOT FARlffiRS BRE/J( HORSE THIEVERY
During the settling-in decade of the I81i0«s, in the territory
then knov-m as the Henry Prairie (later to be named V/hitefield Township),
a group of farmers banded together to suppress an outbreak of horse thiev-
ery and other petty depredations that flourished in this section of the
c^??: It can almost be definitely stated that the Crow Meadow Horse Thief
De^cUng Company was the first civic organization formed for purpose of
community protection.
Its prime purpose was the suppression of horse theft. The
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handwritten constitution and by-laws outlined the duties of the society
membero and officers stating there should be twelve riders elected from
the group who would hold themselves in readiness, "at a moment's warning",
to the orders of the society' s president. The task of the twelve riders
was to hunt and search for stolen horses and apprehend the thieves.
Dues for membership in the Crow Meadow Horse Thief Detecting
Compaity were fifty cents. There were two officers, a president and a
secretary. The president and the treasurer were one and the same person.
In the event a stolen horse was recovered, the owner was assessed twenty
per cent of the value of the horse. A committee set the value of the
horse, and the percentage payment went into the organization's treasuiy.
\Vhen the company was organized in 18U3, there were forty-six men
listed on the members' charter. Not all of the members lived on the Henry
Prairie. It included some who lived on the fringes and lent their support
with dues or as riders. Among the signatures noted were those of Warford
Bonham, James Talifero, Isaac Tanquary, Henry Hoskins, David ViTatkins and_
John B. Iffhite. Descendants of some of these men are still among the citi-
zens of the county; they do not, however, serve the community in the same
capacity in which their forefathers, the founders of the Crow Meadow
Detecting Company, served.
The most spectacular accomplishment of the association was ridding
the county of the Reeves family. It was a common suspicion that the Reeves
had established a rendezvous west of Henry Prairie. Previous to the organ-
ization of the detecting group there was no legal way to attack the problem
of the thievery. It was reported that some members of the family left the
Valley shortly after the detecting group was founded.
Within a few weeks after organization, a special meeting was
called in June, 181^3 for consideration of the Reeves family. Several rob-
beries had occurred between Lacon and Henry, and two of the suspects, one
of them Cameron Reeves, had escaped.
A delegation from the association called at the Reeves home and
ultimately gave them a single choice — to leave the country and the county.
To make sure their leaving was a fact, the event was witnessed by the Crow
Meadow vigilantes who accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Reeves, and those of their
family still making their home ^dth them, to the boat landing at Henry.
To give a legal aura to the situation, a meeting was held in a
grove west of the Henry village to deliberate. (Mr. and Mrs. Reeves observed
this open meeting. ) The purpose was ostensibly to decide the fate of the
family. An open-air trial took place -vrLth a Dr. Swaney of Bureau acting as
judge; Dr. Robert Boal of Lacon was called upon to give character testimony
for Mr. Reeves.
This action in the grove so much terrified the Reeves couple that
they pleaded for a chance to leave the country, promising never to return.
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In keeping with the gravity of the moment, the decision mentioned above
was readied. They were immediately transported to Henry to the steamer
Dove v/hich vras at the time in port.
The Crow Meadow Detecting Company served a purpose for a number
of years, but none of its activities rivaled the spectacular drama of its
ridding the county of the unpopular Reeves family.
\7INDaV SASH, BLINDS, ETC.
James Hodge brought his family to V/enona in 1855 from Magnolia
T/here he had settled when he first arrived in Illinois from Ohio, two years
previously. He established a lumber business and built a planing mill which
still stands today and is a monument to his building knowledge and skill.
Through necessity, a planing mill has to withstand great vibration,
therefore, the two story main section has sixteen-inch brick v/alls tied to-
gether at the second floor level v/ith iron rods ending v/ith a bolt set in
decorative star-shaped washers. The ties run east to west and north to
south, two rods each way extending the full width and length. The ten-inch
floor joists are also indicative of the skill and knowledge of the builder.
In one corner of the second floor there is a square opening v^iich undoubtedly
was the elevator shaft for moving lumber and parts up and down.
For many years the "Old Brickhouse", as the planing mill became
known, was the residence of the Gustave Beckman family, and v/hen they exca-
vated for a basement they found a boiler buried in the earth. The east
room of the building was used as a boiler room vjhere steam produced the
pov/er for the planers. The lathes and sav^s were located in the section
v;here the boiler was found.
Lewis Hodge, son of the ovmer, vrorked in the planing mill until
the eruption of the Civil War v/hen he enlisted. VJhen Lewis returned from
the war he re-entered the business with his father. An addition to the
mill vras built soon after and was located on Pine Street with the lumber
yard to the east of the mill facing Birch Street. Along the Gulf, Mobile
and Ohio Railroad tracks, the loading docks were located to the north of
the mill.
Hodge and Company had four associates: James Hodge, R. Snodgrass,
J. H. Taggart and R. B. Work. They were not only "contractors and builders"
but also manufactured window sash, doors, blinds, molding and dressed lum-
ber to order. After the death of f.5r. Hodge the business disintegrated, and
eventually, the mill became the Beckman home. Mow, the residence is occupied
by the Robert Kemp family.
- Ii5 -
THE ICE HARVEST - A V.TNTER CROP
One of the seasonal occupations of Marshall County which flour-
ished in the latter half of the nineteenth century in both Henry and Lacon
was the harvesting of ice from the Illinois River.
At Henry there was an excellent ice business operated by the
four Bauter brothers, Fred, Clyde, Earl and Roy. Their location was adja-
cent to the old lock and dam above the bridge that now spans the channel.
In the suamer, the Bauters were fishermen, but in the winter they were
industrious icemen.
Bauter' s icehouse stood on the river bank very close to the ice
field which they harvested each winter. The chief items for production
were a variety of special saws and, of course, horses. One saw vra.s a
circular one that was drawn by a horse, another operated vertically on a
ratchet and also involved horsepower.
A ramp and pulley system was used between the river bank and the
loft of the ice house and the ice was packed in bins lined with sawdust
for keeping.
Both the Henry and Leicon ice businesses enjoyed some trade vdth
off -river locations. At Lacon, the Chicago and Alton spur railroad loaded
specially styled freight cars with ice during the season and shipped it to
previously contracted purchasers. Often these v;ere butchers who used the
ice in their walk-in refrigerators. Henry icemen, too, shipped "on contract"
by rail.
Vfith the coming of the mechanical refrigeration and the change in
the sanitary conditions of the Illinois River, the ice-harvesting business
vanished just as did the fashion for high-button shoes and pearl-handled
button hooks.
Not only were there commercial ice packers doing business in
Henry and Lacon, but some merchants and some farmers maintained private ice
houses. It is said that years ago when the Senachwlne Creek, which cuts
across the western part of Marshall County on its curling route to the
Illinois River, flowed a deeper stream some ice was cut from it. On the
Monier home farm in western Steuben Tovmship there was a small icehouse,
and each winter one of the chores of the season was to fill it from
Senachwine Creek for summer use.
Some farmers exchanged help in hauling ice from the Illinois
River on the same plan as neighbors exchanged v,'agon and team help at corn-
shelling time.
Sometimes the farmers bobsledded a load of com to the grain ele-
vator at Lacon and returned home with a load of river ice. An example of
this practice vras carried on for a number of winters at the Ola G. Hunt
farm located two and one-half miles west of Sparland in Steuben Township.
- Ii6 -
PEA RIDGE AND OTHER PLACES
Three to four miles south of Lac on lies Pea Ridge. While Pigeon
Creek and Crow Creek, streams running through this area, have names easily
reasoned by the abundance of birds inhabiting them in early day?. Pea Rid^-^
has two stories about its naming. First, the story goes that white settlers
who first came grew peanuts for food for themselves and their hogs that
roamed the area. The second story concerns a settler, cousin of a resident,
who came to visit about 1865 after both had fought in the Civil War. The
settler was from Pea Ridge, Arkansas, an area known for the abundance of
wild peas. Thinking this area resembled his home area he named it Pea Ridge,
Wayne Buck tells that his great-grandfather, Joe Ualone, came to
this area about 181^2. He found many evidences of Indian civilization which
Roland Braun of Braun Kuseum in Richland Township can now verify. The pre-
historic Indicins buried their dead in an unusual manner that has recently
been revealed there.
"In iQlih Joe Llalone started a brickyard. He used soil two to
eighteen inches below the surface for the mud. The soil was dumped into
a pit, six to seven feet deep and eight feet across. It was mixed with
water, stirred by horsepower. A boom pulled by the horse around the top
of the pit moved a wooden finger spoon through the mud until it was the
right consistency.
"He and his co-workers made brick, forming it in brick molds,
three bricks to a box. These were placed in the yard to dry so they could
be handled. Removing them one at a time, these bricks were placed in a
kiln to be burned. About three kilns were kept burning at one time for
ten days and nights. ^
"After the bricks were cooled, the kilns were torn down and the
bricks were sold for 63.50 to 555.00 per thousand bricks. Five thousand
bricks placed in molds was a big day's work for one man, it is related.
About ten men were employed at the yard at all times.
"Samuel Buck bought this brickyard in 1857 and operated it for
over thirty years. Then he sold it to nephew V/illis Buck and Amiel Raquet.
They moved the yards about a mile west where they operated it several years.
"On Pea Ridge the settlers, besides tilling their small acreages,
found employment in the cutting of logs for the sawmill operated by George
Laible. The cooperage in Lacon made hoop poles and barrel staves. Small
hickoiy poles were hand cut and split into proper-sized pieces for the
barrels and kegs. Staves were made from white oak, split by hand, cut to
the right size and hauled to Lacon on wagons pulled by strong teams of
horses. V.'ood for fuel was also hand chopped and hauled to town as the
population increased.
"The first settlers had to go as far as Big Sandy for a sawmill.
Soon a mill was started in the locale on a bank near a spring. Logs were
- U7 -
rolled off the hill onto a carriage. A straight sav;- blade about eight
feet long was used. It had a stroke of about eighteen inches and was
operated by horsepower. V/hen steam engines came along their power was
used, but no traces of these mills remain even though Wayne Buck has a
board or two in his basement that vias sawed by this mill on Pea Ridge
well over one hundred years ago,"
Maiy Hastings McCleery, formerly of LaPrairie Township, tells
of the making of molasses at the Baltzer B. Kratz farm at Forest Grove,
As a girl she remembers coming home from school in the fall and having to
go to the cane field to help strip off the leaves. The stalks were then
hauled to the mill where they were put into a vise driven by horsepower.
The juice vfas squeezed out and then boiled in vats. She remembers Grand-
mother Kratz stirring the batch to keep it from burning.
This spry lady of the last generation remembers the Bolander
Cheese Factory where her father would take her occasionally when he deliv-
ered milk. She v/atched the men dump the milk into a pipe that ran into
vats. It was heated to make curds and finally pressed into large round
cheeses, some weighing as much as thirty pounds. She liked it, all but
the smell.
There was a very fine store at LaPrairie Center in the 1800' s.
It was owned by Vftll Hiltebrand at first. She remembers Otto Eichsteadt
taking over the store when they moved away. The following owner was Zenas
Graves. It had a post office before rural delivery came into being. It
was a friendly, folksy place mth the potbellied stove and cracker barrels.
Values and prices are interesting to read. From the diary of
Baltzer B. Kratz on March 21, 1881, we quote: "l/"fent to Chillicothe today.
Roads are fearful bad. I bought a sack of meal and a sack of flour @ ^J2.00,
also a pair of shoes for Sl.itO .... April 1, 1881, Snow standing on
ground so much a person can't do anything but made me a halter for one of
my horses from a calf skin. Hauled up a load of rails I had split ....
April 6, Took some eggs dovm to Northampton horseback, 12|^ a dozen for
four and a half dozen .... May 15, 1881, Nice day, I went down to
Jim's in the morning and got his horse planter. Finished marking and
planted 'till noon. In afternoon my wife and I planted our cane. Mary
Newell was here all day romping with the children , , , . Jty wife and I
made fence all day. Laid up 2? rods five rails high, then cut stakes and
double-rided our fence.
"July 2. I went with my team and worked the roads for my poll
tax .... January 5, 1891. Went to Chillicothe and got some medicine
for the baby. Paid out ^>1.17 for drugs and medicine .... August 2li.
My wife and I went down to Crew's Coal Bank and got 15 bushel of coal to
thresh with, paid S<^ per bushel for it ... , December 5. We went to
town, took a grist of wheat to mill. Got my horses shod .... April 27,
1892. ¥e got a couple pair of spectacles from peddler .... April 30.
I T/ent to Chillicothe and bought a suit of clothes. Paid $8.00 for it. . , ,
June 5, 1893. I vrent up to A. Pringle and paid rrsy road tax, ^2.00."
- ii8 -
Uncle Fred Kratz tells that grist mills were different sizes
and whatever amount of t*eat a mill v/ould hold was called a grist of
wheat. He also said the pans used for making molasses at the Kratz mill
were about eight feet by three feet in size. One pan made six to eight
gallon of molasses. One pan would hold a fifty gallon barrel of juice
and took almost a day to make.
From the LaRose Vidette, Vol. XLVIII, LaRose, Illinois, Thursday,
December 30, 1886: "In Varna about four o'clock on Christmas morning the
people of this village were awakened by the gathering of our Swedish friends
to attend their usual Christmas services which commence at that time in the
morning. One feature is the illumination of the church with lights in all
the windows as well as the chandeliers."
"Henry Olin is still in the poultry business in Varna. He is
shipping from four to six thousand pounds per day. He runs from five to
nine hands in his picking shop and one man does the packing and weighing.
It reminds one of the dajrs of Fisher and the old packing house in Lacon to
see the teams standing in line awaiting their turn to unload."
"C. R. Pinkney of Lawn Ridge, Illinois, on February 5, 1886, took
seventy pounds of ear corn, put it in a sack and hung it up. On August 5,
1886, the com was re-v;eighed and found to have shrunk seven pounds, a
shrinkage of ten percent. This shows that com nets the farmer as much today
at 30 cents a bushel as it vdll next July or August at kO cents. Hr. Pinkney' s
father has made a test from November to the middle of July and he finds the
shrinkage in that period from 20 to 25 percent, according to quality of com.
For these interesting facts we are indebted to him."
FLANNELS AND FINE CASHIiERES
The following article includes excerpts from the Woolen Hill
history written by Florence Ong Grieves.
"The woolen industry in Lacon was the outgrowth of an article in
the Chicago Tribune, printed about the close of the Civil War. It was
written by a Lacon man, Spencer Ellsvrarth, and dealt vrLth manufacturing in
this area. It attracted the attention of Samuel Saque and John Grieves.
These gentlemen were at that time in the New England states, Ur. Grieves
being superintendent of a mill located in Maine. Correspondence followed
and a meeting of the citizens of Lacon resulted. I.ir. Ellsvrarth and V/xllxam
Fisher vrere appointed to confer with the gentlemen from the east and this
proved very satisfactory. A stock company vras at once organized with a
capital of $ilOO,000 which afterwards was increased to $123,000. About 75%
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of the stock was paid up by the subscribers and the remainder was paid
from the Mill earnings during the first five years it was in operation.
"The erection and equipment of the mill with the necessary ma-
chinery exhausted the capital of the company, leaving it without a dollar
to purchase necessary supplies. Mr, Grieves went to Chicago, and, by
stating his case to dealers, secured the dyes and other materials needed
and work commenced*
"The main structure of the mill was built during the summer of
1866. This was the first industry of its kind west of the Allegary Moun-
tains. The plant was originally a 'two set' mill, but failing to make a
satisfactory output to make the investment profitable, another 'set' was
added. The first year the mill work consisted of flannels and fine cash-
meres, but eastern competition was difficult to meet, so the production
changed to the manufacture of shawls. For a number of years the average
output was 30,000 per year. It was on an exhibit of their fine shawls at
the Exposition of Textile Fabrics at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1869, that the
Lacon Woolen Mills was awarded a gold medal for high grade textiles.
"In 1883 a hosiery yarn mill was erected. In 189U the Grieves
moved the two mills together. Since that time, it has operated as one
property, first under the name of Lacon V/oolen Mills of John Grieves and
Sons and presently as Lacon Woolen Mills of John Grieves' Sons.
"On March 1, 1901, disaster struck, and shortly after one o'clock
in the morning fire broke out in a dryer near the engine room. Due to
several reasons and failure of fire equipment, the blaze was soon beyond
control and the main structure of the Mil was destroyed.
"Lacon citizens were fully aware of what the loss of the Woolen
Mills meant to the community and a public subscription was circulated.
The new building was one story high and covered most of a square block.
"Mr. John Grieves passed away in 190U. His sons, George H. and
John W, continued the operation of the mills, and the manufacture of under-
collar cloth, billiard cloth, and flannels was begun, with accent on the
under-collar cloth. The Mills have continued to be operated by the grand-
sons and great-grandsons of the original founder.
"The employment situation has always been a pleasant one. In
the long years since 1866 relations between management and employees has
been of the best. At the time the Mill burned around seventy-five people
were employed, and the payroll was around four thousand dollars per month.
After nearly a century the Mills employ around three hundred people, many
from Sparland and other nearby communities, and they are working two and
one-half shifts of eight hours. During the depression days of the 1930' s
and more recently several times bonus payments were issued to the employees.
Christmas baskets were delivered to the homes and gay parties were given for
the employees and their families.
-50-
"Since the rebuilding of the Mills, the only one of the original
Lacon industries to be rebuilt, the factory has grovm steadily. The first
building with the two sets contained twelve looms. Today, the Llills run
eight sets and sixty-four looms. The machinery to manufacture suitings,
shirtings, billiard cloth, under-collar cloth, flannels and dress goods has
changed greatly over the years. The shawls were dried on frames in the open
air. Today, all materials are dried in big electrical dryers. The use of
synthetic fibers with the wool necessitates special handling and machinery.
The present output is around 5,500 yards per day. This is shipped to all
parts of the United States. Present day estimates to one buyer run as high
as 178,000 yards, to be cut into 20 yard pieces and distributed by him.
"The Woolen Mill at Lacon was the first factory of its kind west
of the Allegany Mountains and at present is the only woolen mill in Illinois.
The first building was of brick, three stories high and was situated near the
river bank on the west side of an alley line. The present buildings cover
over one and one-half blocks and the north building is two stories high, and
contains the offices.
"As vre look back over the years of steady employment and prosperity,
the community must pay tribute to the tv;o men who made it possible — first, to
Spencer Ellsworth, who conceived the idea that manufacturing would pay; and
second, to John Grieves, who came from Scotland to a far western country and
used his skilled training and level thinking for the benefit of all."
DAYS OF OUR YEARS
There are dates and events which are of more than ordinary impor-
tance to every community, be it large or small. Perhaps the most significent
dates and events of an area are the founding of its urban communities. Second
only to these are the foundings of businesses and industries which contributed
to the growth of each community and to the prosperity of the whole. Marshall
County has seven urban communities, three incorporated as villages and four
as cities, \7hile the industries which led to, or followed, their founding
may long have passed, the economic and cultural essence of their being, and
their passing, may be discovered as an influential heritage by those who
choose to look.
If any city in Marshall County may be said to have sprung full-
blown from industrial development it is Toluca, the youngest of the seven,
which grevf sYdftly as a result of the sinking of coal mines. Colonies of
workers came, spur railroads were built, business followed employment and
prosperity. Toluca was organized March 13, I89I4 as a city. The mines have
long since been worked out.
Two other communities, Uenona and Sparland, were given impetus by
the building of railroads and the opening of coal mines j V/enona with a city
form of government and Sparland as a village. The date of Wenona's organi-
zation was in 185 3 j of Sparland, in 1855.
-51 -
Yfenona might be said to be the offspring of the Illinois Central
Ptailroad. It was the first urban center in the far east part of the county,
serving the fertile prairie and the early settlements in the Big Sandy area*
Here, too, coal raining has been abandoned, Wenona was a central Illinois
headquarters for the import of fine draft horses. It was famous for the
organization of the great Vifenona Union Fair, the first of its kind in the
county and one of the first in the area. Like other cities in the county it
had a diversity of business and industry.
Oldest city in the county is Lacon, dating from December 10, 1839.
Because it was the predecessor by fifteen years of the next city, Henry,
Lacon became the county seat. It early became important for the diversity
and size of its industries. In its hey-day Lacon had the Fisher Pork Packing
Plant, the Thayer Brothers Distillery, Phoenix and Model Flouring Mills, sev-
eral breweries, saw and planing mills and such industries as were common to
all early communities — ^wagon and carriage factories, harness and saddle
makers, a cooper shop and the like; plus two woolen mills, one still in
operation.
Lacon, like Henry, was and is a river town. Lacon never had more
than a spur railroad, whereas Henry also became a station on the Chicago and
Rock Island. Henry very probably inherited the grain shipping on the Illinois
River first carried on at Hall's Landing, a small settlement a few miles up-
river which was abandoned after several years. Incorporated March 1, 185 U,
Henry had its quota of mills, a newspaper, churches, a creamery and other
flourishing industries and businesses.
Varna, in Roberts Township, dates from October 17, 1873, and
LaRose, in Bell Plain, from May 16, 1887. Both supported businesses and such
industry as was necessary to the development of an urban community in a rich
farming area. Situated on comparatively open prairie, the villages, had they
been established earlier, would have been subject to the "Indian scares"
which plagued the settlers who resorted to building forts, to which they fled
when rumors, chiefly during the Black Hawk ViTar, of Indian marauding swept
like prairie fires across the length and breadth of the county. There is no
record, however, of any Marshall County resident being harmed by Indians.
The foregoing, giving only the briefest of mention to the several
communities and their industrial activities, would be most unsatisfying were
it not that in each instance elaboration is planned in another work, similar
to this.
Much of the material contributed has been held over because of
lack of space and the time to prepare it for publication. Even as each com-
munity has its own particular characteristics and flavor, as Mrs. Hattie
Smith has so well told for Vifenona in past issues of the Peoria Journal Star,
so each has contributed leavening to the whole. The complete story of not
one single community could be told in a volume many times the size of this.
The editors had to be content to choose highlights from the whole; facts,
lore and incidents which give a picture of the individuality of Marshall
- 52 -
County; a coiinty in essence so like others in mid-Illinois; in entity so
different from the rest because of its own contributing factors.
These differences may be attributed not only to the people who
settle a community, but to the physical attributes of the land itself; its
soil, its trees, minerals, watercourses; its general topography. V/hat its
pioneers made of it is each county's individual story,
Marshall County has productive farms, well-run businesses, modest
industries. It has an enlightened citizenry and encouraging prospects for
the future. Marshall County observed 125 years' existence in I96U. It has
richness in every phase of its history. It is the purpose of this small
voliime, and of others to follow, to glean some of the historical harvest of
the years for those who recognize the past as a challenge to the future.
It has been said that "A city that forgets its past will never
have a future worth remembering." Mght not the same be said of a county,
a state, a nation? Let us, indeed, take thought on remembering.
-53 -
1899 IN MMSHA.LL COUNTY, A POEM
S. Paterson Prowse, a newspaperman connected with the Peoria
Star, and whose wife was a Henry girl, read the following original poem
at the Old Settlers Reunion in 1899-
IN MARSHALL COUI\ITY
"Some anglers boast and hunters brag
About their cast and aim.
And some romancers never lag
Behind with tales of game.
If they desire to speak the truth
Regarding flock or fin
Keen sportsmen can repair, forsooth.
To where they need not sin
In Marshall County.
"For there obliging bass is sure
To bite with gentle grace.
And when a fowler's aim is poor
It pains the feathered race;
You sit beneath the lofty trees
That shade the flower-fringed shore
And land leviathans with ease
Until your head is sore
In Marshall County,
"The sky takes on the blush of June
V/hile earth reflects her smile;
Night's pearls are dropped by spendthrift moon
On prairie, lake and isle.
The bees pursue their daily toil
With honeysuckles' aid;
The hollyhocks invade the soil
And give a dress parade
In Marshall County.
"Sour grapes are seldom found on vines.
And wormy fruit is rare.
No troubles rise in baseball nines
And school contests are fair.
Mild-tempered cows refuse to shield
Disease that doctors fear.
And chubby chickens often yield
Their lives without a tear
In Marshall County.
'Sh-
"The politicians do their best
For village, tovm and school.
And undefiled religion's test
Is use of golden rule.
The children's grovrth is watched by those
Who train the budding will
That each may blossom like the rose
V/hen older hearts are still
In Marshall County.
"V/hen call to muster in was heard
Throughout the loyal west.
This county's sons were quickly stirred
And Marshalled with the rest,
Her volunteers, in swamp and rain.
Found service was not sporbj
They shared in task of trouncing Spain
And now they hold the fort
In Marshall County.
"Some exiles suffer poignant pain
At thought of home, svieet home.
And fain would find a trusty rein
To check desire to roam.
If each would fill his lonely life
With angel-guard of grace.
Just let him take a winsome wife
From any sun-kissed place
In Marshall County,"
THE COUNTY FAIR, A RURAL SOCIAL EVENT
On June 13, i860, a group of thirty-eight prominent men of the
Marshall County communities met in Henry and adopted the constitution of
the Farmers' and Mechanics' Institute, the forerunner of the Marshall-Putnam
County Fair, The first fair was held September 25 - 2?, i860.
According to Ford's "History of Putnam and Marshall Counties"
published in i860, the place of permanent location was decided in the spring
of 1858 because the residents of Henry subscribed i'2,600 compared with ^ii2,100
raised in Lacon.
Premiums were offered for "best 25 head of horses", "flax seed",
"tobacco", "wine grapes", and "hand-made bricks". By 1863 various buildings
were built, including one v/hich required a motion to pay for a sign which
read, "Ladies' V/alk", In I86I4 a catalog was published. In the same year
-55 -
money was borrowed from Samuel Camp in Henry at ten percent interest to
purchase what was described as the "west end" of the grounds.
During the Civil War times in the fair of 1865 a prize of aj:;50
flag was given to the best drill company. Soldiers had free gate admission
to the fair grounds.
Most interest centered on the trotting horses and high prizes^
were given the racing winners. There were frequent squabbles recorded in
the minutes over prizes being awarded to someone other than the winners.
One prize for a mule race was the subject for a bitter argument.
In order to win a prize for cake or jelly, it helped to have a
husband on the board judging from the lists of winners.
In 1870 a balloon ascension was contracted to appear. The event
failed, but it cost the fair board $7S*
The original minute book which details the fair's business from
its beginning to I896 is considered a tribute to the county's late nine-
teenth century education. Throughout the book there is beautiful penmanship
and very few misspelled words. The book is one of the prized local history
possessions of the Henry Public Library.
THE EIGHTIES 1/VERE ELEGANT— NOTmTHSTMJDING
Considering what, and how much, our forebears ate, it seems
strange that the feminine part of them should have felt compelled to resort
to bustles and a multitude of starched petticoats to set off their charms.
Perhaps it was not so much style consciousness as an attempt to dissemble
avoirdupois which caused such sartorial appurtenances to be worn.
One suspects that the styles were devised by women of mature fig-
ure who were well aware that padded garments could make even the young and
willowy appear as supple and graceful as a metal dress form, and thereby
lessen any 'odious comparisons between the youthful and the mati^snly figures.
Gentlemen, being men as well as good trenchermen, were less con-
cerned with their figures, even though the tailors of the day had not mas-
tered the art of dipping a suit to hide the noble paunches they stoked
assiduously and well. Menus of the day, discovered in yellowed, well-
thumbed cook books, attest the suspicion that stomach was king and that
corpulence was not to be despised, since it was a result of enjoyable eating.
Menus are found, supposedly compatible with the various seasons
and so compiled, but the difference in quality and quantity of food varied
little from season to season. For instance, the menu for a summer breakfast
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included oatmeal mush, veal cutlets, fried liver, fricasseed potatoes, nevi
onions, breakfast toast, hot pocketbook rolls, asparagus, radishes, coffeo
or chocolate. Recommended for a winter breakfast was oatmeal mush, veal
cutlets breaded, fricasseed tripe, fried raw potatoes, fried onions, buck-
wheat cakes with syrup, bread, tea and coffee. Quantity appears to have
been on the side of the summer meal, v/ith the addition of fresh vegetables
not then available except in season.
The time in question was the 1870' s and 1880' s. More manual labor
was necessary then than today, both by men and women; perhaps the hearty —
to say the least — breakfast was needed as a springboard for plunging into
the day's chores. At least, the housewife had never heard of vitamins in a
bottle, had not learned of the necessity to count calories and, v^ith plenty
of stiff -boned corsets available, apparently sav/ no need to restrict diet
in the interest of form.
Many of the items commonly mentioned in menus and recipes of the
time are today rare and commonly unobtainable delicacies. Mentioned are
boiled plover, snipe on toast, broiled prairie chicken and fried squirrel.
All these, by the way, were listed on breakfast menus, being considered
perhaps a whit too light for more substaiitial meals.
The Marshall House, Lacon's first and for many years leading hotel,
served all these gastronomic goodies — plus haunch of venison — on special
occasions. The earliest recorded incident of such a v;ild game dinner at the
hotel was in I86J4; the last mention of such found in local papers was in
1879. These meals were not breakfasts.
According to suggested menus a typical spring dinner at home
called for macaroni soup, baked fish with dressing and sauce, boiled ham,
roast veal, asparagus, potatoes, spinach, lettuce, radishes, lemon pie,
"cocoa-nut" pie, queen of puddings, coffee.
A fall dinner beginning with raw oysters ran through a vegetable
soup with poached eggs, roast duck, chicken pie vath oysters, mashed pota-
toes brovmed, turnips, cauliflower, macaroni, lima beans, Es telle pudding
v.dth cream sauce, "pine-apple" ice cream and cake, melons and grapes, coffee
or cocoa.
After such a meal the family presumably arose sufficiently sus-
tained to attack vigorously the afternoon's workj although the wonder is,
that they did not succumb to a lethargy to hold them comatose until supper.
In the evening the day's labors vrere rev/arded with a little more
food, barely enough to sustain the body through a night's repose on a
stuffed cotton or horsehair mattress. A supper snack, winter style, con-
sisted of sliced cold beef, pickled oysters, chicken salad, raspberry jam,
cheese, diy toast, canned peaches, cocoa-nut cake, preserve puffs and tea.
A really light snack for a sumir.er supper included cold lamb, cucumber salad,
bread, strawberry shortcake with sweetened cream, gooseberry "fool" and tea.
The mention of dry^ toast recalls the edict that "bread eaten wxth meat should
not be buttered. Bread and butter is a dish for dessert".
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How the homemaker found time to do anything besides prepare the
ample family meals is a mystery. And yet she baked and washed and ironed
and sewed prodigiously. Her household implements were of woodenware,
earthen and stoneware, tin and ironvrare. She had no aluminum, plastics or
enamelj no electrical gadgets or appliances.
Kitchen equipment included such items as a wooden potato pounder,
a hardwood mush stick, a small wooden paddle for coffee— coffee was ground
at home and sometimes even roasted and boiled, a tin bread grater, nutmeg
grater, toasting rack, coffee mill, iron kettle with porcelain lining for
preserving and canning, three flat irons and many stone crocks and jars.
Unless the lady of the house sent her laundry out she would have had three
washtubs, a clothes boiler, hand-power wringer, a strong wooden stick for
stirring the boiling clothes and a supply of homemade soap and javelle water
for bleaching.
Listed as kitchen luxuries were tin molds for jellies, a gravy
strainer made of gauze wire in the shape of a funnel, an egg beater — the
Dover was recommended as best, a pancake lifter, a tin tube apple corer,
larding needles, spice cabinet, fish kettle, tea kettle boiler, a can-
opener vihich "saves time and trouble and knives in opening cans", and a
"kitchen gem", a contraption somewhat like a modem deep-fry basket.
Wooden sugar buckets, today such prized relics of the past, held
little granulated sugar, for granulated sugar was not much used, being rec-
ommended only for sweetmeats, jelly and raspberry vinegar. Powdered sugar
was used in making light-colored cakes, icing, floating island, blanc-mange,
meringues and whips. Pudding sauce might be made vdth either powdered or
brown sugar, but the brown was preferred for baked custard, mince and squash
pies, fruit cake, gingerbread and most Indian puddings. Coffee, often
bought green and by the bag, was thought to improve vrLth age if kept in a
dry place.
The homemaker of that day was no lady with "a delicate air". She
made her own soap and water softeners; starch for both "silver polish" and
"enamel" finishes of shirts j "coffee starch" for dark calicoes, percales and
muslins.
To make the silver polish starch for men's shirt bosoms she added
an ounce of isinglass and one of borax, a teaspoon of white glue and two
teaspoons of egg whites to two quarts of fine starch and boiled the lot.
The shirts were starched in this and dried. Before ironing, some of the
mixture was applied to the bosom and ciiffs and ironed with a hot glossing
iron on a "bosom board". Some housewives preferred the enamel method,
achieved by melting together one ounce white wax and two ounces spermacetti
in enough starch for a dozen shirt bosoms. Linen cuffs and collars were
stiffened by adding a small piece of white wax and a teaspoon of brandy per
pint of starch.
Hard water for laundering was softened by adding a half peck or
more of hardwood ashes to a half barrel of water. Then, as now, ice was
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considered one of the greatest of summer luxuries and at many homes the
icehouse and the smokehouse stood side by side. Butter-making was a fine
art wherever a family had a cov;j and most families did, even in tovms,
v/here the bovines roamed free and unfenced almost until the turn of the
century.
It was a good, vfell-fed time, A time of reliance on nature's
products for home remedies as well as for food. A liniment, considered
m\ich superior to arnica, vras made by putting common Hay-weed blossoms in
alcohol. Hot pennyroyal tea was recommended for colds, and an oil made
by "trying up" common angle worms was thought excellent for stiff joints
and sinews.
The druggist's shelves were filled with patent nostrums and many
of these probably were used to augment homemade remedies. Surely one could
not have gone wrong with any of the panaceas chosen at random. All, accord-
ing to advertisements were good; good for everything that ailed man or beast.
So universally good that, in consequence, they were good for nothing.
BUSTLE-AGE BUGABOOS
"China twisted into such outlandish forms as dolphins, frogs,
porcupines, or even small pink dogs, is not to be tolerated," v^rote a lady
with some pretense to decorative taste in an 1877 issue of Appleton's Jour-
nal. And, shades of our modem planters, she tut-tut ted the "substitution
of flowering bulbs for the quills of the fretful porcupine", and charged
that persons who did tolerate such objects as "slippers vri.th cut flowers in
the toe, fishes with open mouths" for the same purpose, and a host of other
"preposterous devices in china", lacked the slightest appreciation for the
"eternal fitness of things". "Both nature and art cry out against such
monstrosities," she declared.
Here was a voice crying in the wilderness of the ornate, the
rococo, the gaudy clutterment. Parlors were literally stuffed with useless
furniture vfhose only purpose v;as to hold equally useless objects, all gath-
ered and proudlv displayed in the guise of decoration. The housev.ife, her
buxom hourglass figure amplified by numerous starched petticoats, threaded
the maze ;^'ith comparative ease; but the plight of a visitor must have been
terrifying, except that she herself was accustomed to the same kind ol
clutter in her own parlor.
The decorative scheme of the time was repeated in house after
house which, according to the writer, were generally as alike as two peas
in a pod.
Upon entering a parlor a guest, so adroit as not to fall over
one of the "infinite" footstools, miss collision with numerous large china
-59 -
jars and avoid toppling a parlor table holding a plaster cast of the
"reigning" President, might also be expected to dodge a swinging fairy-
basket filled with artificial flowers and suspended from "somewhere".
Having survived the obstacle course, the victim might sink upon a horse-
hair sofa and, by planting the feet firmly on the flowered Brussels carpet,
maintain a position on the slick whaleback from which to view the room's
. decorative splendor.
Tops as an eye-catcher was the mantel. And even though the man-
tels of the day were described as being "made for giraffes", so high were
they, neither themselves nor their contents were to be ignored. There was,
in the center the ubiquitous clock, although a developing artistic aware-
ness was suggesting a picture or a handsome piece of bronze or parian in the
place of honor. More often than not draped with a heavily fringed crimson
cloth, a color in high favor, the mantel held all manner of bric-a-brac.
There might be a mammoth match box whose lid was a large china
rooster or a setting henj large flat vases, ragged of edge and gaudy with
painted flowers and giltj cone frames, wax flowers under glass, among the
things that "should not be". Candlesticks with candles were approved. The
really elite, it was noted, preferred candles and candlesticks as being much
more "poetical-looking illuminators" than gas chandeliers or lamps.
Little knick-knacks, if curious or beautiful, were proper for
scattering on mantels or tables. But the marble-top table, today so sought
by collectors, was frowned upon as a "parlor tombstone". However, it was
conceded, such a table, or any table, covered with a fringed crimson cover
long enough to touch the carpet, gave a room a warm, bright look. Also
contributing to the cozy atmosphere were tovrering bouquets of dried grass
in gaudy china vases j crocheted mats and tidies of all sizes, shapes and
kinds, which "overrun everything like weeds". The walls sagged under the
weight of numerous family portraits and "coarse chromes" given as premiioms,
all in huge, ornate frames.
Other practices which offended were furnishing rooms with "sets"
of furniture and carpeting floors from vrall to wall. Any carpet in scarlet
or crimson, with small designs, was good if it showed a yard or more of
dark polished floor around the sides. But very few carpets were properly
used, the writer said. Instead, they were laid by men "with slippers on
their feet and tacks in their mouths", who pulled and stretched the carpets
into every possible corner, leaving not one inch of space uncovered.
As for the people viho "furnish in suites", and have their orna-
mental things in pairs, "like the contents of the ark", the 1877 authority
thought it a blessing in disguise that many persons could not get every-
thing at once or at the same place.
Most perfect treasure of all in a bedroom was an open fire, and a
wood fire at that, v^ich, with its pretty dancing lights was a "boon to be
thankful for". A stove in a bedroom was both ungainly and too hot, and here
a register was a "worse abomination" than elsewhere.
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A parlor in the gay nineties often was the picture gallery and always was the most
elegant room in the home. This young gent seems more intent on the "Gibson girl" who
will be coming through the doorway soon, than on the volume in his hand.
The ornate sola, pillows, footstools, chairs, and tables made the room glow with opul-
ence, not to mention the baroque clock, pitcher, and George Washington pillowtop. This
is from a glass negative found in the Myrtle Strawn house.
•^ !
. 11 1 ~ y^ J.^
Two weeks before the Chicago White Sox played the Henry Greys in Riviera Park
in Henry, July 15, 1915, these four steamers docked for an excursion, — three of them prob-
ably are the Percy Swain, the Julia Bell, and the J. S., the largest steamer ever to dock in
Henry.
Note the "Texas" decks, — the upper decks of the steamers. Also note the sedan
touring cars at dock side, — one a Buick. These were the popular convertibles of that day.
This scene is at the Henry dock, fronting Waterworks Park (The Henry Greys defeated
the Chicago White Sox that July 15.)
We have come a long way — or have we— in ideas of hoie decoration.
The "outlamdish forms" in china are probably more numerous than they were
in 1877. Antique china, however gaudy, is prized, and pink Straffordshira
dogs are museum pieces. Footstools have become hassocks and the "coarse
chromos" may be valuable Currier and Ives prints. Even the bedroom "washing
apparatus" is sought at the antique dealers or at country auctions.
Is it too much to asstime that today's shin-cracking cocktail and
coffee tables, wobbly smoking stands and plastic objects of art may be
prized by unvatting generations in the future?
VIGIJETTE IN MOTION
"".'/hat did people do for entertainment in those days?" The question
takes in the whole period betv.-<3en the settlement of the Illinois valleys and
prairies and the latter days of radio, movies, juke boxes and television.
Like Pilate, the questioner rarely stays for an answer. Indeed, the seme-
tines halting replies of would-be informants scarcely merit prolonged atten-
tion. Except in the case of the very aged, a recapitulation of the enter-
tainment and activities of our forebears is a t-.cice-told tale. More often it
comes to us at third or fourth hand and few memories have total recall. Let
us consider a few things to set the record straight.
Our forebears enjoyed rich and varied entertainment; moreover, they
largely v;ere participants in the activities of the times, rather than specta-
tors. They did not flit from pillar to post in a semblance of today's mad
scramble to be entertained. V.Tien occasion arose — and largely they made the
occasion—they devoted themselves wholeheartedly, and for its duration, to
the entertainment at hand.
In suiraner there were lavm socials with ice cream, cake and straw-
berries; not once a season but, one place or another in a comrainity, practi-
cally every summer week. And no la;vn social v/as a success without music.
Vftiether music was then more practiced than it is now is a moot question.
Certainly it was more spontaneous, more shared and, in general, more prized;
and without question in better taste. There were so many musicians and
musical groups that they must have vied for chances to appear before social
groups or in public.
There were soloists, quartets, glee clubs and choruses; string
groups; mandolin ensembles; silver cornet bands; brass bands; pianists;
every community had them. The most outstanding played for the "grand illu-
mination" or ball en masque, anr.ual "haute monde" social events in eyeiy
community except the very smallest. There, and on other occasions, the
light of heart and foot tripped the measures of the schottische, polka,
minuet and waltz. Some even recalled the lancers and the minuet, and square
dancing was popular. The musical groups played, one or another of them, for
- 61 -
churcb , social, political and military gatherings. VJhatever else was
enjoyed, music was an abiding grace which all could share, whether as
performers or listeners.
There was music in gaslit halls for school and church programs
and for winter lyceums. There was music on summer evenings when chautau-
qua was in town. Then dusk found elaborately gowned ladies in ankle-length
dresses, their elaborate coiffures topped with even more elaborate hats,
moving through the dusk with their escorts; all converging on the tOTm
square or a convenient vacant lot where the big Chautauqua tent made a
pleasant oasis of light in the gathering dark. Gentlemen kept sartorial
pace with the ladies and would as soon have been caught barefoot as without
a hat, coat and tie in public. The pace vras unhurried. Anticipated enter-
tainment offered bread as vrell as hyacinths in the form of lectures, inter-
spersed among lighter fare of music, plays and magic on the week-long program
Also on the cultural — one way or another — side were meetings of
various groups, such as the Marshall County Horticulture Society, the
Hopewell Debating Society, the V.'CTU, and others banded together for pleasure
and cultural profit. For non-participating individuals there were spectator
sports and entertainment, baseball, horse racing, foot racing, wrestling
and circuses.
The Van Amburgh Company shows, billed as "abnormal in magnitude",
showed in Lacon June 28, 1880, with a "new golden menagerie, circus and
colossevmi". Nine years later it came back as Ringling Brothers and Van
Amburgh 's "united monster circus", and showed in Henry and Chillicothe.
In 1881 the King and Franklin shows came, as did Lorillard's Great
Southern Shovjs with a twenty-piece Mexican band. Most of the circuses re-
turned for repeat stands and there were other smaller outfits that rolled in
on wheels or, very rarely, came by river and showed on huge barges.
For horse racing there v;ere "driving parks" in almost every commu-
nity. In addition to track races there were road races, these chiefly be-
tween owners of well-rated steppers, each of whom backed his nag v/ith a side
bet. The "feud" races usually created more interest, and drew comparable
crowds, than the regularly scheduled driving park contests.
Among the race tracks in the Lacon area was a half-mile track at
the then Curtis Holland home in Richland Tovmship. This field also was used
for baseball under management of John Strawn, the younger. The Lacon Driving
Association operated the Lacon Driving Park, west of the Catholic cemetery or
the Alfred Thomas property. Another track was located just north of the
city. Racing continued through the early years of this century.
Foot racing and wrestling had their devotees, both as to partic-
ipants and spectators. Every amateur athlete fancied himself pretty good
and had the will to test his ability at a moment's notice. Men and women
both took long walks for pleasure and many banded themselves in social walk-
ing clubs. School children walked a mile or two to and from school each day,
- 62 -
played vigorously at outdoor schoolyard games the year around, and there
was no great problem of maintaining physical fitness .
Exercise and pleasure v^ere derived from bicycling, and cycling
became a craze. The sport was popular vfith men and women; so popular and
universally enjoyed that it had its ovm code of etiquette. The bicycle was
a vehicle from which its rider derived exercise, entertainment and a bonus
of social associations.
In 1895 each community, large or small, had one or more bicycle
clubs, each vdth its own colors, which members sported on their handle bars.
The more sedate riders pedalled about town while their venturesome fellov.s
"scorched" along the roads, to the utter distress of the "a la mode"
(conservative) riders and the general public.
The conservatives, who made up the great body of the riding gentr-/-,
had a code of ethics as inexorable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, and
etiquette books of the day included special chapters devoted to the bicycle
rider. An 1895 publication decreed that an unmarried woman v^o cycled had to
be accompanied by a married woman cyclist. Since practically everyone rode,
this posed no problem. However, a married woman, lacking a male escort, was
to be followed by a groom or maid, either of v/hom came in handy in picking
the lady off the ground if she came to grief. The etiquette book seemed
quite sensible in proclaiming that gentlemen should dismount vihen meeting
and engaging in conversation vri.th a group of ladies. It would have been
quite difficult to do otherwise. Unfortunately, no instructions were given
for maintaining the equilibrium of the ladies while they likewise conversed.
To be really complete, the furnishings of a bicycle included a
clock or bell, a luggage carrier and a cyclometer, the latter an "absolute
sine qua non", according to the book, for the woman or man wno cared about
records. Social usage for women insisted on a rigid upright position in
the saddle and fro^vned on the vulgar habit of constantly ranging the bell.
In hill-climbing and in bucking a strong vrLnd, the gallant male
used the tow rope he carried for benefit of his companion. The tow was an
India rubber door spring attached to about six feet of light rope. One end
was attached to the lady's wheel at the lamp bracket and ^heother to the
handle bar of the gentlemen's -cycle. Vmen the need for towing was past,
the gentlemen dropped back beside his companion and the tow rope v;as draped
gracefully around her shoulders.
Unless a bicycle tea or moonlight spin was i" °^f ^' ^i'^y^.^jlJtr^
"de rigeur" only in morning hours. Etiquette demanded that a lady efface
herself"" much as possible in all public places but this must have been^
some^vhat difficult of accomplishment when she rode magnificently ^P^^ght in
tZlaZ of a gentlemen bent low over the handle bars as he pumped manfully
to tow her along.
An exceedingly smart cycling costume for ladies was the
Londonderry. It consisted of ample knickerbockers, J^° J^f ^^i^^? ,°^l^^f
green hopsack, and a full-skirted coat of similar naterial cut with long
- 63 -
and very full basque, all prettily braided with black and fastened with
large black buttons. With the outfit went an Alpine Tam O'Shanter and
leggings and gloves to match. Skirts for cycling were declared an abom-
ination. Ladies probably did not join the gentlemen in trying for
"centuries" — one hundred mile runs in which male cyclists engaged almost
every Sunday, Many Lacon men took their wheels out each Sunday and rode
from forty to one hundred miles, as time and stamina permitted. Guaranteed
domes tic -manufacture bicycles could be had for from 19.75 to f>17. Fancy
imported bicycles brought as much as one hundred dollars.
Walking clubs of the era were strictly for the hardy bunion-
bruisers. For devotees of Terpsichore there were riverboat excursions,
dance pavilions and various community auditoriums. In earlier years there
were husking bees, singing bees, quilting beesj all kinds of "bees" built
around activities #iich offered an excuse for share-the-work-and-fun activ-
ities. Debating societies tackled the toughest subjects, local, national
and international, and logic combined with oratory to amaze and delight.
In the winter there was skating on ponds and on the river when
the ice was strong enough. Men, women and children made up coasting parties
and there were hay rides in season. Sometimes the rides were their own re-
ward; again, they served to transport passengers to a neighboring social or
bee. After an outing or a party groups might gather at a restaurant for an
oyster supper at the cost of twenty-five cents per plate. Sleigh rides, in
cutter or bobsled; carriage rides in surrey or democrat; horseback riding —
all provided recreation before the advent of the automobile.
In the evening — any evening, winter or summer — people enjoyed quiet
hours with stereoscopes, a sort of three-D apparatus that gave depth to pic-
tures so vievred; and the selection of subjects ranged from comics to inter-
national places of interest. Taffy-pulls were chiefly for the young. After
a batch had been pulled to a crisp white, it was fun to gather around the
parlor organ or piano and sing.
Baseball was popular in almost every community and each town had
a team whose progress was followed by rabid partisans. Hunting and fishing
were, if not more enjoyed, at least more productive, for game was plentiftil
but regrettably not conserved.
Commercially, there were nickleodeon and steroptican — magic
lantern — shows, forerunners of the moving picture. The mechanical music box,
the Edison graphophone with its cylinder wax records and large flower-painted
horn, card and parlor games like Parchesi — all served pleasantly to entertainr
For flamboyant activity and a measure of entertainment there were
political rallies and torchlight parades in iThich uniformed partisans marched
and sang and exchanged taunts with their opposites.
There was, too, for the indolent, hammock-lying; an activity — if
by courtesy it may be called an activity — that has long and generally been
abandoned.
-61i-
All this, and more, is what "they" did for entertainraent in
"those" days.
In January, 1900, John Singleton Copley sent from San Francisco
to a Lacon newspaper a long letter of reminiscences. He mentioned, in
particular, the pastime of wrestling and one of the county's premier
wrestlers, Enoch Oiven,
"A year before his marriage, I became acquainted with Enoch Owen.
He was about five feet, eleven inches tall, strong as a young lion, and tho
champion wrestler of Marshall County at collar and elbow holds. Baird
Carrithers held the belt-and-side holds championship for a number of years
until he made the acquaintance of a champion called rheumatism.
"Tall Jake HcClure, who used to run a four-horse threshing machine,
claimed to be the bully of Y/oodford County at collar and elbow, and nothing
vrould do the friends of Enoch but that he and Jake must come together. One
Saturday afternoon, all things being satisfactorily arranged, terms and
rules as to fair play, two best in three falls, at it they v;ent.
"At the very first pass Jake, vj^ho stood six feet four in his boots,
was laid on his back so neatly he nover knew hov; he got there. The second
time he was more wary and it was a long, hard struggle. The IVoodford cham-
pion came down at last, and he didn't crow any more v,hen he traveled over
Marshall County,
"After Enoch Owen's marriage — v^hich v?as a notable one, indeed,
with such honored guests as Uncle Jabez Fisher, the great Boston merchant,
and Doctor and l.Irs. Robert Boal and a great company of relatives and neigh-
bors — he quit wrestling and foot-racing entirely, although he could run like
a young deer."
Various stories of the recreation of yesteryear came forth as we
searched the diaries and files. Here are a few.
"Prairie Loo" was a game played by stagecoach or wagon riders.
Passengers watched from either side of the vehicle and counted vrLldlife
along the way. Ten points were given for sighting a wolf; one point for a
prairie chicken; and so on. One hundred points won the game.
Hiram \iiyers told about fishing in the Illinois River between Henry
and Lacon. He and other boys made a shelter of brush and built a campfire
nearby as "home base". They used Mr. LIcNeal's fishing outfit— a 30-foot
canoe and gigs to spear fish. The boys laid six-foot boards over the top
of the canoe, plastered them with six inches of mud and after letting it
settle and dry for a day, built a fire on the mud so that they could see
for fishing at night.
One stood at either end of the platform as the vessel moved quietly
along near shore. Fish, coming into the shallows to feed, were easily spear-
ed. They got nearly a barrelful of pickerel, a fxsh we know as northern pike.
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The first women horseback riders used the side-saddle. This
type of saddle was found dangerous and there vrere many persons who advo-
cated wide skirts for women so that they might sit astride like the men.
Even so, parents worried about daughters on horseback, and were in a state
of chronic anxiety until they returned with their cavaliers.
Vulgar was the word many persons had for the licenses required
of operators of horse-drawn vehicles for hire. Lights, too, vrere required
and many persons deplored the fact that it was obvious to everyone that they
were riding in a hired carrier.
Sam Rickey tells about friends of his who hunted muskrats at the
turn of the century. One cold winter day they made the rounds of their
traps with a sled on which to carry home the catch. They commonly crossed
the river on the ice, but this day the crust broke and one fellow was dunked.
The sled remained on the ice and the young man crawled from his frigid bath.
Being miles from home and in danger of freezing, he set out hastily on foot.
His solidly frozen clothing made a sort of barrier against the outer cold
and the physical exertion of walking kept him from freezing to death. But
when he reached home he was so cold that he was unable to grasp and turn
the doorknob.
LA BALL ENMASQUE EXTRAORDINARI
Florence Ong Grieves has retideved from Marcia Thompson Ong's
books an invitation to an extraordinary masked ball. Much has been written
and said about the elegant balls which the gentry of Marshall County commu-
nities enjoyed in the gaslight days. The elegance of the ladies* gowns was
a satisfaction to themselves and a matter of varied reaction to those not
of the upper cnjst. One old Irishman, astounded and amused by a lady's
decolletage, made the following pithy comment: "If her dress cost five
dollars a yard, she had on about a nickel's worth. I hadn't seen the likes
of it since I was weaned."
Following is an invitation to one of the effete balls issued at
the turn of the century and is couched in tongue-in-cheek humor popular at
the time.
LA BALL ENIiASQUE EXTRAORDIMRI
Rose's Opera House, Lacon, Illinois
Thursday Evening, April 5^ '00
•Tourself and relatives are solicited to line up for a hot time
in the nature of a Masquerade Ball, invented by the old reliable Lotus
Club (Limited).
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At Rose' s Opera House, Thursday night and Friday morning, April
5th and 6th between the hours of 8 p.m. and 7 a.m.
"The noise will be made by DeRosa's Orchestra of Canton, who will
keep your time.
Subscription, one dollar in advance.
"Parties coming without clothes can be accommodated by a costumer
from Peoria, who will be at the Hotel Thomas rrith a full line of the latest
conceits in ladies' and gents' furnishings.
"THE COLC'lITTEEMEN - Turn your opera glasses on our array of com-
mitteemen. (Photographs furnished on application. )
"COMIITTEE DE £E,CEPTION -.Jay H.. Llagoon (also attorney for Lotus
Club) J Captain R. B. Fort of U. S. Rough Riders; St. C. Bullman; John I.
Thompson, mayor city of Lacon. The reception committee vfill meet you on
the outskirts of the city, lead your horse to the pound, take you to the
cheapest hotel and see that you don't leave tovm while you have a cent.
"INTRODUCTION COWilTTEE - IVill Hoffrichter, sergeant of Troop L
Guerillas; H. T. V/ilkes; Thos. Connell, secretary of Lacon Athletic Club;
Robt. Thiedohr; Sawyer Brothers, members of the Hopev.-ell Foraging Society.
It will be the duty of these worthy people to place all strangers Avithin
our gates on a speaking and dancing acquaintance with all, take care of
your valuables and by other little acts of kindness make this visit one
never to be forgotten in the hearts of our grateful countrymen.
"FLOOR CaPHTTEE - The gentlemen having charge of this section of
the enterprise have been selected with great care and after much thought and
discussion. It will be a part of their duties to sv,'eep the cobwebs from the
floor, keep the ceiling properly v;axed, see that the room is properly venti-
lated, etc. Floor Committee: George C. Marsh, Walter Chapman, R. B. Thomas,
H. T. V/ilkes, Frank Harrison, B. Z. I.'Iartin, Charles Coker, L. H. Allen,
Ed. R. Hannum.
"EXECUTIVE C0?5;iTTEE - A person of j'-our keen perception vdll dis-
cover at once that this committee is composed of some of Illinois' best
business talent. They have made affidavit to take all receipts and pay no
bills. If you go broke, go to them and they will sympathize vdth you - they
are alv;ays broke. Tell your troubles to them. They have plenty of their
own and will be glad to find that there are others. This is the executive
committee: George C. ?.larsh. Ambassador de Brandstreet; H. T. V/ilkes, In-
structor of Higher Branches on the Tree of Knowledge; Walter Chapman,
Lieutenant U. S. A.; R. B. Thomas, P.LI, and P.M. (consult Encyclopedia
- 67 -
Britannica)j Will Hoffrichter, Chief of Diplomatic Corps; Thomas A.
Connell, Chief of Life-Taking Station and Firing Department,
"A FW NOTES and somethings of interest to those attending the
ball; Excursions will be run on the river and on all railroads into the
city at regular rates. Don't worry about the price of coal - there will
be a hot time. Visit the great ice-making machine down on the river -
suspended until next winter. Special rates at all hotels and restaurants
to parties remaining until after our next Old Settlers' meeting.
"We will see you again April 5th at 10:30 p.m. when you unmask
and Richard is himself again."
... AND THE BAND PLAYED ON
Marshall County has always had its share of musical organiza-
tions. Choral clubs and orchestras, large and small, flourished in every
town and brass bands were numerous. In the summer of I88h, the Henry
Cornet Band accompanied the Lacon Guards, Company G. , 6th Regiment, on an
excursion of the military to Pekin, Illinois. Two steamers were used,
the Grey Eagle and the C. W. Anderson. Csmnon firing began at 6 a.m. and
at 7 a.m. as the Grey Eagle swung in and docked at Lacon, beside the C. W»
Anderson, she was welcomed with a cannon salute that almost caused several
runaways among the teams of horses at the landing. The Henry Cornet Band,
led by the celebrated cometist, Lem Wiley, was on board the Grey Eagle.
At the landing in Peoria, Marino's Italian Band went on board the steamer
and there was dancing on the lower deck.
Band concerts in the evenings were staged in most of the towns,
and band concerts on Sunday afternoons were very popular. If one of the
towns did not have a band, arrangements were made with a neighboring com-
munity for their band to come and play the concerts. On one such occasion
in the 1880' s, one of the bands was journeying to Magnolia to give a con-
cert. Driving north out of Varna the group reached the Livingston Roberts
home where the horses were stopped, and the band preceded to serenade the
Roberts family. As the group moved on their way to Magnolia, Miss Mollie
Roberts called after them, "Look on the gate post when you come back".
So, on their return a stop was made again and there on the gate post was
a delicious big cake waiting for them. It was eaten with many thanks to
Mollie.
The weekly band concerts held throughout the county were usually
financed by the businessmen of said towns. For one of the bands, for in-
stance, the businessmen of the city purchased the instruments. Each man
played the instrument of his choice and was responsible for its care.
One of the horns is still in use and is now the property of the Mid-County
School,
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One of the best-known bands in the county was the V/enona Band
directed for many years by D. C. Stateler, Mid-week concerts by this
group were attended by music lovers throughout Marshall County and from
neighboring LaSalle County. The bandstand was downtovm, between the
front business street and the I. C. railroad tracks, and crov/ds thronged
the area to hear their favorite waltzes and marches wafted on the summer
afternoon or evening air.
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Tl'ttN-SPIRED PROTECTOR
— <*\;
'^:*<r>»-fc: x-i*- Illinois had been admitted to the union
^^:2»^-:''-^.*r5'' ^^ "the twenty-first state on December 3, 1818, but
"^^^■'^X^yf^L, settlers were slow in moving into Illinois because
A^iij^'fetl"^^^ °^ '^^® many Indians in the area, and hence the fear
A^s";^ ^^Ji^ ■.^;^i^J^^^ of conflict with them. Finally, after most of the
^^■y^^i^:'^^'^^'^^^^^^ Indians were defeated and left Illinois, white
^i):'i/-'ir<^'-'K?'Z.i0''^ settlers came in greater numbers.
\:^^i^'^'^'0'^^>^^K^ During this time while there was conflict,
'^^^■L':^-^.^'\vi^> '^l?r^^ the settlers built forts for protection of whole
'"■'■^^^^■^-■■^i^^S^.^^^0^ families who would go to them during an uprising;
'^^^S:~^'^':^'(p^^^^^^!^!^ Fort Darnell along the Sandy Creek was built for
^'''^^^^^'^^^^'^i:^-^'^ this purpose. It was located on what is known as
the Virgil Mann farmj and right beside the fort,
settlers started a cemetery today called the
Cumberland Cemetery,
Among the settlers was the Hunt family who
settled along Sandy Creek and reared a family, A
small son, William, died in the fall of 1863, Their grief was greatly in-
creased by a worry over robbers opening their child's grave. One hundred
years ago dead bodies were dug up and sold by persons to medical scientists
for research purposes and for what vfealth they might find. It is believed
they buried the child in a circular grave and hoped to camouflage the burial
by planting a young Norway spruce over it.
The tree grew and protected their small son's grave. After a few
years, grave robbing became non-existent, and the Hunt's put a small tomb-
stone by the tree. Years passed and the twin-spired tree towered upward
supported by a large trunk that all but encased the small stone. In 1963
the Marshall County Historical Society dedicated the V/illiam Hunt Tree at
the Cumberland Cemetery to the resourcefulness and compassion of early
settlers in Evans Township,
The following poem was read at the dedication. It was written
by Alice Logan,
THE WILLIAM HUNT liEIvIORIAL TREE
And years beyond the time of need
The great tree stands,
(And if trees perhaps remember)
Perhaps remembering
The perilous early time that wasj
Perhaps remembering
The cycle of grov/th of those
L'hose fellow lay, his cycle ended.
In the earth at the foot
Of the guardian tree,
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And if trees remember.
This one remenbers springtime —
Children and flov;ers, yo\ing men and maidens.
Old men in the simj
Alvrays the same
To the one there in the earth j
And summers and summers
Bright and hot, noisy with children
Playing through the pleasant days.
All growing older
(Save the one)
And aut\imn burning colors
Against the coming cold
Year after fading year:
And winters following vrLnters
With v/indsung lullabies
Soughing the branches
Of the protecting tree.
Now the children have grown
(Save the one)
And the young men are old
And the old men are gone
Since the sapling was set;
But still the great tree grows
And tov/ers still;
And if trees remember.
Remembers all the cycles of time
Endured through God's goodness by some.
Spared the one at the foot
Of the memorial tree.
NOT TOSSED ABOUT BY EVERY TOND
Vife are living upon a battleground. Since times prehistoric
there has been the battle for souls lost and won on the very ground
under our feet. It mattered what they ate, drank, wore and worked at,
but most of all it mattered what they thought. That was what formed
their lives and sealed their future.
Vihen crossing over rivers, passing through tovms, or riding
in a rollicking bobsled dovm country roads, glimpses come back of the
laughing-eyed llarj'-s, serious Priscillas, boistrous Dans and thoughtful
Williams. They came to found homes on the frontier Illinois country
"where the v/ind was strong enough to blow the feathers off the chickens"
but they themselves v/ere not tossed about by every wind or doctrine.
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They brought culture and a philosophy of living worth keeping to pass on
to their children. Their keen eyes plumbed the breadth, heighth and
depth of their world.
It is worth remembering that those pioneers studied Latin,
Greek, knew the classics better than we, named their children, their
towns and their churches from them. They pursued the arts and practiced
the graces until their simple lives became beautiful.
They also loved their free, open-country life. "A man who
sits like wax-work for two hours over the same page of his ledger cannot
possibly exist here." Pioneers waded knee-deep in mud from farm to town,
could see daylight through the windward side of their log house, but felt
it was a privilege to be monarch of all they surveyed. To overcome dif-
ficulties was an accomplishment. "Take a city chit, who wears a ring,
whiskers enough for a bear and a flashy tSO coat, exhibit him to a gen-
uine boy of the woods and he would deal as gently with him as with a young
opossum, and as much wonder at his prettiness."
Human nature runs true to form through every generation. Young
people were very much the viorry of their elders in that day, too, as we
can see in the LaRose Vidette of 1886. V/e quote a section from the Bethel
news; "D. Watkins met vrLth quite a serious accident while returning home
from society meeting on Thursday night. It seems that two young men were
racing horses and Mr. Watkins, in trying to avoid the head team, was run
over by the second as it was trying to pass. The night was dark, and he
was not observed by either heedless driver. He was tal-cen home immediately,
but did not regain consciousness until the next day. He is better at this
writing. For shame I Young men, let this be a lesson to you in the future."
Sly wit was practiced and polished in a generation when it was
needed to alleviate hardships. Humor crept out in a September 1907 news-
paper item: "T. J. Longman has a team of large black horses to haul the
hearse. One of the horses took sick in Henry at the funeral of a horse
trader's son." But death often came suddenly and early and there was sad-
ness as expressed in these two items: "Henry, April 1879 • Mrs. Layman,
who lived near the German Catholic Church, is no more. The funeral services
were preached by Mr. David at the Methodist Church, of which she was a mem-
ber. The remains were taken over the river." "June, 1879. Mr. . . • died
very suddenly on Wednesday night. He was around town during the day and
appeared well. In the night he called to his parents and when they got to
his bedside he was dead. He was 19 years old. The funeral services were
at the house."
Hiram Myers lived a long, useful life; and from that living he
philisophized in the following manner in his life story. "My experience
in life is that poverty and reckless extravagance herded together lead to
the education of the street, while thrift and position (status) lead from
the education of the church ....
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"The certain extermination of shiftless poverty and crime is
securing to our children the benefits of a religious training of Sunday
church-going, visits from the minister and daily parental advice, counsel
morally and religiously from both Father and Mother.
"Health is one of the first things to be considered. Without
health we cannot do much good in the world for others or ourselves. Guard
well eating and drinking.
"The family home is the most important place on earth. V/e should
all so live as to make it heavenly, the dearest and most loved by each mem-
ber of the family .... Traveling is educational if we grasp what we ob-
serve and put it to good use, but the home is the place to prepare for this
life, to think right, to act right, to build a character that all people
v/ill praise . . . ,"
PLTOffilNG THE BREADTH, KEIGHTH AND DEPTH
Wom.enfolk held a special place up beside men on the frontier.
They were important as midv;ives ;vhen there was a birth, mothers to rear
the children, grandmothers to tell them about their forebears, and school-
marms to teach them readin', 'ritin' and 'rithmetic. In fact, v/omen often
did a man's work in the field, barnyard and shop. One such woman, Hattie
Buckingham, sister-in-law of Russell ::cKee, left a story of her life,
excerpts of which bear repeating.
Among the pages, she rambled on in her bold hanA-rriting about
homes of her relatives which impressed her as a girl. "Aunt Abbie's rose-
wood melodian added the finishing touches to the parlor, but to ray knovd-
edge the room was locked except for funerals. At those times the mirror
was covered vath a black crepe cloth and the melodian closed tight for
Aunt Abbie was very superstitious. I much preferred the girl's bedroom
upstairs where to enter vie stepped down three steps into a nice, low-
ceilinged, warm four-windowed room vrith three or four beds piled high ^vith
big fat feather mattresses, blankets and comforts. Here v/e used to play
in the winter, sitting on the floor by the stovepipe which ran up through
the roof. . . .
"In Grandfather Buckingham's home they were happy with their
buying, selling, cooking, eating, entertaining, and lots of hard labor
involved. Grandmother had no education, neither could read nor write.
Her signature was an X. She smoked a pipe, but when anyone went to the
house she would hide it under her apron. She vras a dear, good woman and
loved by our mother."
Admiration of her elders and praise of her mother was voluminous.
These people shaped Hattie' s life. "Our mother was quite a seamstress,
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caking our clothes, all household thin^js, comforts, quilts, shirts^ love-
ly buttonholes, darned socks, besides helping neighbors and friends who
were not quite so fortunate as she in knowing the art of sewing. Aunt
Lou was a lovely soprano singer and sang in the Methodist Church, Mother
said. Aunt Priscilla and Aunt Clara were both of the nervous type,
always fuming around about something, but we did love them both ....
"How Mother and Father met was that somebody threw a party and
they both were there. Father saw her and thought she was the prettiest
thing he ever saw, and I guess she was, with her rosy cheeks, lovely
brown hair and pretty blue eyes. From what we've been told by the people
who knew her when she first came to this part of the country to live 'not
one of her girls could hold a candle beside her' . It never made us one
bit jealous either, and I will add that she never lost her beauty to the
day she passed away, even after so many years of long illness.
"There was another man courting mother, I was told, and as I
had never heard mention of him, I asked her one day. Her reply was 'the
old fool thought he was going to get me but I didn't'. She probably would
have had more along financial lines as he afterward ovmed a tomato can-
ning factory and grew to be quite a well-to-do personj but look what she'd
have missed, all v/e little brats whose bottoms she had to paddle many
times to keep us in the straight and narrow path. We vrould run away and
fall asleep in the orchard where rattlesnakes, black spreadheads and other
kinds of snakes were so prevalent.
"After they were married in Ohio, Father brought his bride to
live in the little McKee house in the southern part of Richland Township.
He bought an 80 from his father with only a three room house, no water
facilities, had to carry all the water one-fourth mile from the neighbors,
jump over snakes sunning on the doorsteps, mire in mud to their shoe-tops
and wade through the slough every direction they went. It was in such a
place as this they began to raise their family. The Chicago and Alton
railroad later ran through the farm cutting it down to 72 acres. Mother
boarded and washed for the railroad construction men."
The stuff men and women were made of shows in her recounting
hardships but amid them there were happinesses. "Mother did all her
washing on the board, carrying the water. She had typhoid fever and she
was not supposed to have pickles and sauerkraut, snitched from the table
when no one was looking, but they didn't hurt her one bit. She did,
however, lose all her lovely brovm curly hair.
"Tilhen Father bought the place there was a mortgage, which through
some family mix-up he was made to pay a second time. We got along on the
least we possibly could, eating lots of potatoes, garden truck, fruit,
pickles, sweets and sours, all of ;rhich had to be stored in the cellar for
v/inter." Utmost care vras used in packing manure around the cellar and
house foundations or starvation could have been at their doorway ere half
the season was gone. The last mortgage payment was made when Hattie
graduated from high school,
-7h-
"Since there vrere no telephones people went when they could and
were made most welcome. IVe alvfays iiad beans, cured meat and our oAvn chick-
ens. Cooking on a wood stove meant that we had both top and oven so we
could do several things at one time. Many times vre would start a meal at
nine o'clock and have it ready by noon ....
"Butchering time was a welcomed ordeal lasting a week or more.
It was usually in the late fall so that meat v;ould not spoil. Two or three
families vrould go together to do the job, a big one. Hogs were killed and
then cooled over night. The second day they vfere cut up, sausage ground
and stuffed, lard rendered. The heads were cooked and ground meat made
into pressed loaves and scrapple. Backbones, ribs, hocks, livers, hearts
and tongues were hung out to freeze. These we ate steadily for fear of a
warm spell. By the time they v;ere all gone we were well lubricated. An-
other day was frying down, jar-packing day. Finally after butchering was
over we took apart the rag rugs and washed everything, scrubbing the floors.
This took several days as it was usually zero weather. V/'e v/ere always glad
when it was done and the rug back on the floor, so cold with cracks 'most
wide enough to stick a finger through. That job finished we were all set
for the rest of the v/inter with no more interruptions. IVe settled down to
peace and bliss. At evenings the vAiole family joined in singing v/ith Viola
at the dear old reed organ. Mother was an alto and Father just sang because
he loved it. He had had singing school at Grandfather Buckingham's when a
teacher came through and gave lessons.
"Father vras a drummer in the 77th Illinois Regiment in the Civil
T'far. He drummed anywhere and v.'ould take his drum and sticks to town or
use a board for a drum. He was quite fancy and could throw his sticks up
in the air v:here they would tvdrl, catch them coming dovm and go right on
drumming. He amused the kids at the Marshall Music Reunions. He played
the violin nicely, too, playing for dances often where he would also do
the calling. After the corn v^as out in the fall his first job was to tear
the organ apart and put in new pegs and whatever was needed. His violin
came next, perhaps needing a new bridge or restringing. Rosining up the
bow, he would tune it perfectly before playing a note. Soon as his fingers,
sore after corn husking, v;ere healed we had music, and I mean music. V/e
would all take a whack at the organ chording for him. It was fun when he'd
call out, 'Change key J'
"Long before Christmas time Mother would spend her evenings trea-
dling the old Singer sewing machine. All our gifts were homemade. V/e al-
ways had a tree, a branch from our own pine in the front yard. One year
Brother Bert built Clara and I a doll cradle; another year a little ward-
robe for our doll clothes out of a small box, barrel heads and an orange
crate. They were both varnished and stained. \le thought Santa sure was a
darling those years. These were both fashioned after we went to bed, back
of the heating stove, in the sitting room. Bert always carried me v.Tapped
in a flannel cape upstairs to the cold bed. We thought he was tops."
Frugality was a virtue. They found their happiness >vithin and
shared willingly. "One year Aunt Anna made me a penny bank from a small
- 75 -
round box. She covered it with scraps of linen and embroidered 'Penny'
in red on one side. I immediately began putting pennies into it, and
when we made our first trip to Ohio it was opened. The $1.50 it con-
tained was enough to pay Clara's train fare. I wasn't old enough to
have to pay.
"Yes we were happy little girls using our imaginations to make
ourselves a wonderful time with few playthings. We always had candy at
Christmas with an orange tucked in the top of our stocking. Otherwise
we had very little candy. Maybe if a nickel was left over from paying
for the groceries from the basket of eggs taken to the store it came back
in the form of a little sack of pure sugar cream candy, the only kind our
Father would buy. I think sometimes the grocer intentionally had a few
cents left over. We stretched that candy for several days, each piece
growing a little better than the one before."
Even as time rolled along, accomplishment of their goal kept
them striving. "Things carae slowly to our home, plastering on the walls,
painting, carpeting, a register in the ceiling to warm the upstairs rooms.
Our house was in a nice location, big trees and beautiful lawn, which we
finally could clip when we got the lawnmower. Another thrill was the first
ride in mn; 'surry with the fringe on top'. Vife had traveled the railroad
track, stomping cinders till bunions, corns and calluses were no joke any-
more; but nobody griped. Me knew the time was not ripe for a carriage,
but it did come as all other things have that are right for us to have.
Father and Mother both worked so hard to make life happy for their family
that -we really learned the lesson 'if you don't work you don't live' . • • ,
By working together in harmony we learned about love,
"Father was a grand man loved by all v;ho knew him. His kind,
unselfish, thoughtful disposition earned him the reputation of being good
to work for. Boys whose labor was generally thought to be not worth money
received payment from Father, and when we children were put to work in the
fields hoeing vines we were usually paid a dime which went for our lith of
July celebration . • . •
"He loved his family much, yet we knew just how far we could go
with his good humor before his patience would end, Clara and I would
perch ourselves on his lap after supper no matter how tired he was and
comb his hair, ?/e \vould braid and tie ribbons on his whiskers, trim his
hat Y^ith feathers, ribbon or carpetrags. Once or twice he went to town
dolled up in such a manner and the people in the store got a kick out of
it . . . ."
Parents shaped the future of their children with a sure and
steady hand, "My greatest desire was to be a nurse but Father objected
very much, I became Mother's right hand around the farm after Father died
and Bert went away to vrork and Clara to teach school. Mother and I would
get up at It: 30 a,ra, and pull weeds in suimner before the heat came down , . ,
Vfe moved to town xvhere I did fancyvrork for people, catered at weddings,
baby-sat, cared for sick folks, in fact was busy all the time, I tried
- 76 -
to get a job cis a clerk in a diy goods store but was told I was needed
at hone and they vrauld not hire me . . . ,1 have never been sorry I
helped so many people. They have been good friends and neighbors so
that no matter what discouragements came along we had help in overcoming
them. For all these things we are most thankful . , . ."
Then times began to change for Hattie, "Progress came and
people began to grow apart, ceasing their neighborly visits, spending
their time elsewhere. First we had chautauquas held for a week in a big
tent in somebody's pasture. Then in the winter there were lecture courses
at the opera house. Churches gave Biblical plays. In one play I got too
close the curtain, my flowing sleeve caught and I almost went right up
Avith it . . . .
'n/e went to Sunday School quite faithfully in all kinds of weather.
Many of the people, now gone, I can see in my mind's eye in their family
groups always in the same pews. One lady kept her rocking chair in the very
front comer of the church facing the congregation where she vrauld sit and
rock all during the service. There v.'as one man who would shout 'Amen' every
so often, and another v^ho v;ould pray a tearful prayer v/hich always got on my
nerves. He is the one who always said 'there was music in the air' which
has been proven to be so true. Another of his ideas was that there were no
dark-haired angels. This man's sons vrere full of devilment and tried to
play pranks on him. He was of the holiness faith and believed in foot wash-
ing. He v;as going to that sort of a meeting one time when his boys inked
his shoes on the inside. Great v;as his surprise when he took off his shoes.
An expression of his when he became a bit excited v/as 'Yes, Yes' and from
what I was told he used it a plenty on this occasion.
"I could go on v/ith many more memories of our happy family, but
uppermost is that what we did all together brought the most happiness.
.... and there is awe at realizing that there is a God v/ho is vratching
over us, capable of knowing our every need."
\'!e could follovf diaries on and on but eventually we would come to
this same conclusion. Men and vromen of the past in our county of Marshall,
in this state of Illinois, looked to a very real God. They brought a strong
faith and established it on the ground of this county. From border to bor-
der churches sprung up as homes and humble dvvellings could no more house the
congregations. Before those first formal churches, circuit riders had ridden
well, "bringing bread of life" to hungry souls meeting in houses, barns or
shops. Now, they were building churches, progress was afoot and the churches
led the vray.
As churches vrere built by every hamlet and in between, they were
the centers of spiritual life in that pioneer day, but we fail to catch the
essence of the past if we measure our forebears by what we read about them
in old church records and on cemetery tombstones. IVhile they undoubtedly
all stood up to be counted, each in their favorite little church on Sunday
morning, their lengthening shadows cast upon all walks of life testimonies
- 77 -
of their faith in action that vraited not for "Sunday-go-to meetin'
clothes" nor shined up boots. IThat more could be said about a past
generation in answer to the plea, "Take thought on remembering me",
than to say that we feel across the heavens has already rung the
answer to their noble, unselfish lives "Vfell done, thou good and
faithful servant". May we be as worthy to enter into our reward.
- 78 -
ACKNCVLEDGEIvlENTS
Over a year ago v;hen we asked permission to compile some
amusing anecdotes and stories about the early settlers, little did
we realize the attempt might in the future lead to material for a
full-fledged book.
This Heritage Sampler is a challenge to the people who care
about Marshall County and all the history and lore vri. thin its borders.
We hope they v;ill read it and realize this little volume is not com-
plete. It touches on merely a few aspects of the county's histoiy
from a fevi contributors.
It is hoped the reading of these sketches will bring to
mind other history or lore of the county and challenge the Historical
Society to continue compiling more gems into another book. V/e ovre it
to our forebears to fit them into the lively past.
If your heritage means enough you will help our efforts to
glean from the comers of dim memory the fast-disappearing story of
our pioneers. Many facets could have sparkled in this book. With
your help they may be written later. 17e hope students of history vail
be inspired by the romance of our county's story, Liay it challenge
some one to explore our heritage further.
VJe want to express our appreciation to all the members of
the Marshall County Historical Society who assisted us in compiling
this book. Especially do vie yri-sh to mention the encouragement and
contributions from Maude Uschold, Eleanor Bussell, Florence Ong Grieves,
Mrs. Hattie Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Rupert Nurse, Dr. Selden Myers, Russell
McKee, Mrs. Kenneth McKee, Ray Litchfield, Nellie Thompson, Roscoe Ball,
Mr. and lilrs. VJayne Buck, Mrs. Lester Lewis, Mrs. Alvin Foster, Llr. and
Mrs. John Doyle, Helen Raffensperger, Lester Leigh, Maxine Tomlinson,
Myna Swanson, Dr. Warren Lapp, James Berry, Mrs. Frank Gray, Wilbur
Griffin, Butch Hayes, Linda Monk and Alan Beckman.
Compiled by
Ralph and Delight Wier.
ILJLJjrOJS HISTOBICAIi SVUVJUi
UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOISURBANA
9773515T139 COOl
TAKE THOUBHT , , ON REMEMBERING
