USA > Illinois > Hardin County > History of Hardin County, Illinois > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
UNIV ILLINOIS AT CHAMPAIGN-UR. ANA
ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY
ILLINOIS HISTOR KHE SURVEY
1
HISTORY OF HARDIN COUNTY, ILLINOIS
WRITTEN BY The Historical Committee for the Centennial 19 39
PREFACE
-
H ARDIN County has contributed largely to Hlinois history and we cannot fully comprehend the story of our beloved county unless we know something of the trials and triumphs of the people who have given to Hardin County its prominence in the state and national affairs.
It is the aim of the authors to present the important facts in the history of Hardin County in chronological or- der and in a brief and tangible shape without making any attempt at rhetorical display.
Grateful acknowledgements are due the Historical committee composed of the following persons: E. N. Hall, R. F. Taylor, A. A. Miles, Robert Gustin and Sidney Haman for their untiring efforts in assembling and preparing the material and facts here presented.
The history of Hardin County has been written as a part of the Centennial celebration which was observed on Thursday, March 2nd, 1939 by the opening of court in regular session with Circuit Judges Roy Pearce, W. Joe Hill and Blaine Huffman sitting in a body with County Judge James G. Gullett. The early history of the county from the date of organization up to July 4, 1876 as had been prepared by L. F. Twitchell, Franklin Dimick, John Vinyard, Elihu Oxford, Edward Shearer and John Mitch- ell was read and ordered to be made a permanent record of the Circuit Court and of the County Court of Hardin County that it might be preserved for succeeding gener- ations.
The principal address was delivered by David A. Warford, a native of Hardin County but now an attorney at law of Marion, Ill. Many other former residents of the county made short talks.
The program for the evening was prepared and pre- sented by the schools of Hardin county under the direc-
I.
H219h
tion of County Superintendent Clyde L. Flynn. Musical numbers were furnished by the Elizabethtown and Rosi- clare grade schools and the Rosiclare High School. The spelling contest was conducted with great interest and enthusiasm and the winners were Mrs. Margaret Green Howse, first; Mrs. Ella McDonald, second; and Rucy M. Rash, third. Everyone enjoyed the program and it was de- cided to hold a more elaborate celebration on July 2nd, 3rd and 4th at Elizabethtown. 3
A meeting was called on March 28th for the purpose of getting plans under way for the celebration to be held on July 2nd, 3rd and 4th and the following executive com. mittee was selected with a representative from each pre- cinct of the county.
James A. Watson, Chairman; R. F. Taylor, Vice Chairman; Clyde L. Flynn, Secretary; and the following committeemen from each precinct: Otis Lamar, East Ros- iclare; W. C. Karber, West Rosiclare; Eschol Jackson, McFarlan; C. C. Kerr, Cave-in-Rock; R. F. Austin, Rock Creek; Chas. N. Hill, Battery Rock; Guy Hale, East Mon- roe; J. H. Banks, West Monroe.
It was decided that the celebration commence on Sun- day, July 2nd with a homecoming in all churches of the county and to be continued on the 3rd and 4th at Eliza- bethtown, the county seat town.
In view of the great task of planning and completing arrangements for this celebration the following commit- tees were appointed for the task: Finance, W. C. Karber, Otis Lamar, E. F. Wall, Jr .; Schools, J. H. Banks, Loren E. Denton, W. E. Jackson, Ray Oxford, H. W. Bear, Dora Young, Fred Wheeler, Evans Young, Walter W. Hamil- ton; Antiques, Grace H. Kenney, Essie Robinson, Etta Car- ter, Gwendolyn Oxford; Agriculture, Chas. N. Hill, Glen C. Smith, Eschol Oxford, M. J. Koch; Mines, A. A. Miles; Churches, R. F. Austin, L. T. Rash, Dewey Green, John Suits; Fraternities and Civic Organizations, Guy Hale, J.
II.
L. Hosick, Joe Frailey, Wiley Cochran, J. W. Hill, Winnie Lovier, Charlotte Gullett, Lena Travis, Gladyne Richards; Forests. W. D. Gissen, Forester; Publicity, C. C. Kerr, Sarah Porter; Registration, Otis Lamar; Concessions, W. E. Jackson, Chas. D. Ledbetter, Oscar Rice; Parades, Woodrow Frailey, Guy Hale. J. H. Banks, Chas. Hill, R. F. Austin; History, E. N. Hall, A. A. Miles, R. F. Taylor, Robert Gustin, Sidney Haman.
The question of finance was the major problem in connection with the celebration and after due consider- ation the honorable board of County Commissioners, John Gintert, Raymond Rose and Chas. M. Austin agreed to underwrite the proposition for $500 which was guaran- teed by some sixty-five good loyal citizens of the county to be repaid by receipts from concessions and other sources of revenue. A. D. Paris was given the responsi- bility of securing donations from merchants, business and professional men and others of the county of which he did an exceptionally good job.
The work of this history is divided into well defined units of study, and each chapter is written by a different author who has endeavored to bring to the young citizens of Hardin County an appreciation of the dramatic history of their county.
The authors are deeply indebted to many citizens of Hardin County who have freely given advice, suggestions and material assistance in publishing this history of Har- din County.
Clyde L. Flynn.
III.
PREHISTORY OF HARDIN COUNTY
(Judge Hall)
Our committee has given me the privilege of writing the first chapter in the historical sketch of Hardin County; thereupon readers may excuse me for offering a few words by way of introduction.
History has been rather loosely defined as a record of past events; but it is far more than a mere statement of dry facts. History is the measuring of facts; an inter- pretation of events, trends, and movements which build societies, weld counties into states and nations, and de- velop mankind into higher and healthier degrees of en- lightenment. Wherefore history has been accorded a seat, and a favorite seat, among the learned sciences.
The Muse of History:
The Greeks believed that there were nine goddesses, called Muses who inspired and presided over the fine arts of learning, and that Clio, the Muse of history, was the wisest of the Muses. They further believed that Clio's inspired quill sketched the story of mankind, beginning with Deucalion, who not so many years before their own days, tided himself and family over the flood in his own ark, and so became the father of the Greeks, while the other nations; that is, "the heathens" grew up from stones. However Clio inspired wise men to write their own im- mortal story down to that of Glorious Athens.
So virtually all the other nations believed that man- kind came upon the earth about 4000 years B. C. and like- wise believed that they knew their history from the be- ginning; nevertheless in recent times it has been discover- ered that the time Clio first inspired men to write is what scholars have chosen to call the "Dawn of History." and that such dates are very far removed from the time of man's advent upon the earth.
1
As only about one-tenth of a mountainous ice floe may be seen above the surface of ocean waters, so it has been discovered that only about one-tenth of the story of man floats above that wave-line which we call the dawn of history. Hence scholars have recently learned that, when compared with the whole story of mankind, all his- tory is but modern.
What is Prehistory?
Such as they know of the story of the human race be- fore the Dawn of History, has been named "Prehistory." So I have that difficult but pleasing task of writing a sketch of that prehistory, which the hills of Hardin County could tell, if they would divulge secrets guarded within their cryptic caverns ten-thousand years and more.
Before 1900 scholars began to think of the Old World of buried cities and lost empires as a vast field for the study of this new branch of knowledge; but they have been surprised that in the short space of time since the World War facts have come to light proving that our own American Continent from Alaska to Patagonia is immensely rich in ruins and data for prehistory; hence this new science is just now sparkling with interest.
Our own Hardin County centers in this interesting field, and more or less takes its prehistoric coloring from the whole field. Prehistory cannot be written with the same degree of exactness in dates and locations that his- tory copied from original records can be written; but scholars very largely judge the prehistory of a certain place from that of the region in which it lies. They would say that the prehistory of Hardin County is practically the same as that of the Ozark regions, because it nestles in the arms of those mountains. Perhaps we should also think of the two main sources of prehistory as artifacts and traditions. Artifacts include the ruins and relics left by people who lived before the age of history. Traditions
2
include such stories, songs, folklores, and reminiscences as are orally handed down from one generation to anoth- er, or from one race to another.
Hardin County a Choice Site
That our own Hardin County with her beautiful in- terchange of hills and valleys, hanging cliffs and forest shelters, clear streams and sparkling fountains has fur- nished homes for three distinct races of mankind is not any more doubted by investigating scholars. These fav- ored attractions gave her a choice place, first place in the hearts of the nations. They turned their backs upon the swamp-cursed lands all about her to love her and wed her. Competent and conclusive evidences for these things are to be had, if the writer's humble efforts can arraign them before the court of prehistory.
We know that when the White Man came, he settled in Hardin County, pitching his log hut near a fine spring.
Hardin County was dotted with many settlements with their churches, schools, and water mills a hundred years before what was called the "Big Flats" had any settlement other than a hunter's shack on the highest and driest lands here and there. "Many of those who did try to settle in the flat lands," pioneers said, "had the 'shakes' till they turned yaller, and had to pull stakes for the hills of Har- din County."
One is naturally led to conclude that these same con- ditions prevailed when the Red Man came before the White Man, and that they also existed when the Mound Builder came before the Red Man. These mountains promised not only natural shelters, wholesome waters, and good health to each coming race of men, but they offered the more immediately pressing needs of food and sustenance. The heavy forests of Hardin County abound- ed with nuts, fruits, and honey, the bluff ranges with game, the grassy glades with deer, and the streams with
3
fish; while acres of wild rye stood in the valleys, bushels of acorns lay under trees, and wild sweet potato roots 'in the ground, all waiting to be pounded into meal for hot johnnycakes and jumped-up hoecakes for all three races of mankind.
Indians called the oak "The King of Forests," and no doubt Mound Builders held that wonderful tree fam- ily in like esteem, for kettles filled with acorns and with acorn meal have been unearthed buried in ancient city- sites and in mounds. Perhaps these were borne by the fruitful oak 3000 or more years ago. In fact the heavy mastfall from Ozark Oaks gave man meal for his bread and also fattened his meat till only a few years ago when a heartless commerce discovered the oak was prized for furniture; then it was swept from the forests. However to use the fine figure of the Hebrew poet, prehistoric Har- din County was "a land flowing with milk and honey."
Why a Hunter's Paradise
There were yet other conditions favoring prehistoric Hardin County for the abode of man, and we are now ready to consider proof that these existed at the time the ancient Mound Builder occupied our county. Pioneers very early observed that deer and other ruminant ani- mals here had migratory habits. These passed the sum- mer months very largely on the plains to the north, but they returned to Hardin County and other Ozark regions for winter quarters. No doubt there were more than one urge for those movements. In winter seasons rains, snows, and icy swamps naturally drove them to lands provided with natural shelters; but without doubt deergrass fur- nished the main urge, for strange to say, it drove animals from the hills in summer and invited them back in winter.
This unusually rank grass covered the Ozark ridges from knee high to shoulder high to a man. It was some- what of the nature of sorghum cane; when growing it was
4
succulent, puckery in taste, and altogether unsavory for pasturage. However in late fall deergrass ripened and sweetened; then bowing down and curing under frosts and snows, it provided that most valuable ruminant fam- ily with the best winter forage an All-wise Creator ever gave to tide them over the bleak days of winter. Hence up till later pioneer days large herds of animals left our hills in summer to return here as soon as winter proven- der was needed. Herds of buffaloes were among those migrating; but they were not forest animals; they were the first to go, when the powder and lead of the White Man came. Judging from the lay of the lands as well as from other inferences, we may safely aver that these movements and advantages existed for Hardin County 2000 years ago at the coming of the Red Man, and 5000 years ago at the coming of the Mound Builder. But the most competent evidence is yet to be considered.
Hardin County's First Race
So far as is known now the Mound Builder was the aboriginal race of Hardin County. The Mound Builder is the least known, yet the best known of any ancient racc. Judging from tradition, he is the least known; no ditty, no psalm, no poem, not one word has come down from his lost race or from his vast American Empire. Neverthe- less judging from artifacts, the Mound Builder is the best known of the prehistorically ancient. His imperishable earthworks have told a wondrous story. His vast em- pire was built upon river commerce. City sites, mounds. pounds, playgrounds, etc. lay along or near all the rivers, but wherever a river ceased to be navigable, he ceased to build. In his mounds and buried factories are found the most exquisitely ornamented pottery ever made by man, and the finest cloth known to the weaver's art, as well as the most beautifully bedecked clothes known to the art of needlecraft.
5
A few mounds were left in Hardin County and ad- joining counties, but most of them have been ploughed down, till hundreds, maybe thousands have been lost since the coming of White Men to the Ozark plateaus. For- tunately there is a public sentiment now seeking to pro- iect at least the more conspicuous mounds and other earthworks which have come down from that ancient race. Monks Mound near East St. Louis which covers about 13 acres of land and is still 100 feet high is protected by our own state. So also the Great Serpent Mound of Ohio pre- senting a gigantic but beautiful serpentine figure almost a mile long is protected by the state of Ohio.
Prehistoric Tolu
However tempting this subject is in its general sur- vey, I must turn to the Mound Builder in or at the door- ways of our own county. Prehistoric Tolu, Kentucky which stood facing the hunting grounds of our county was an amazing example of Mound Builder's work here. Tolu was a walled city like ancient Jerusalem and Babylon. White pioneers found the walls of that prehistoric city broken down and covered with debris in places. For 200 years pioneers and their progeny have hauled building stones from that wall. Many other stones have succumb- ed to disintegration, yet there are foundation stones in that wall which are estimated to weigh a ton and more. Moreover a subway led under that wall and under the ground to a spring of copious waters almost a quarter of a mile away and which was securely hidden from the eyes of strangers by a high creek bank and willow growths. South of that city something like a hundred acres are cov- ered from three to five feet deep with chippings from river shells. I examined these studiously and found a number of shells which are not to be seen in the Ohio river in our day, and if I interpret geology correctly they belonged, or at least some of them, to shell animals that
6
are extinct in our age. We may safely conclude that Ancient Tolu, whatever name Mound Builders knew it by, was a busy trinket factory, a mint, and banking center; because as their artifacts prove, they used a shell money system. Indians might have borrowed the use of wam- pum from them.
Prehistoric Corrals
On the north edge of Hardin County, and which at one time was within its limits, are yet to be seen the wreckage of The Pounds walls. These walls extending east and west from the gateway were really one wall al- most a quarter of a mile in length. Oldest men whom I questioned in my boyhood days agreed that this wall was six feet thick; but some believed that this wall and the one around Old Stone Fort on the same mountain trend were originally eight feet high, while others believed they were as much as ten or even twelve feet high, especially near the gateways and at the ends.
These were at first believed to be Indian forts; for the wreckage of eight or ten have been discovered in our Ozark ranges. Some Philadelphia scholars came to Shawneetown in pioneer days and proceeded to make a thorough examination of The Pounds. Their verdict was that those structures were pounds built for corralling ani- mals. One mark that they relied upon for their conclu- sion was the site of an old buffalo wallow, which may yet be seen just below the only spring on The Pounds. An old buffalo trail and a wallow is to be seen at Old Stone Fort, as well as in other places where similar inclosures were built. Evidences are rather conclusive that these pounds were built by Mound Builders to entrap buffalo, deer, and perhaps wild sheep and goats. A number of gaps in bluffs near the center of our county were also closed by high rock walls, no doubt for the same purposes of entrapping animals when they annually came to our
7
mountains for winter shelter and deergrass provender.
Uncle John Bishop, who taught the writer to hunt in his carly teens, pointed out two bluff-gaps in the Rock Creek bluffs, where walls had been thrown down by men in search for building stones for chimneys, flag stones for walkways, etc. He furthermore said that there were a half-dozen such walls or parts of them inclosing gaps in those bluffs when he himself was a boy.
Uncle George Joyner, a pioneer settler of Stone Fort, in answer to boyish questions of the writer told of driving deer into Old Stone Fort, and of the advantages of that in- closure for corralling animals. The South Fork of Saline river hugs closely to that bluff, and as it follows a north- easierly course there for more than a mile it has or did have a high bank on the north shore. Animals coming to that high bank in seeking to elude drivers or pursuers, naturally followed up the stream, but instead of finding a crossing, they encountered a bank growing more precip- itous, till at length it turned into a bluff; then farther up they came to the gateway into the inclosure. When they entered that, they were inclosed by a bluff on the south a hundred feet high, and a half-moon shaped wall on the north joining hard at the bluff edge on the west. Cer- tainly no ancient Nimrod could have selected a better site for corralling animals anywhere else in those mountains.
The Ful Man's Grief
Should a frightened animal jump over the bluff, it could be followed by what pioneers called "The Fat Man's Grief." This is a path leading down the bluff so narrow that : fat man who attempts to descend by it may be brought to grief. Strange to say, there is a fat man's grief on the western limb of The Pounds bluff, one in Johnson County and another in Jackson County, all leading down from walied corralls. No doubt those narrow passages were selected or worked out to permit men, but not ani- maks to descend the bluffs.
8
Uncle William Winters, of Civil War fame, now in his nineties, and Uncle Owen Curry his nephew in his eighties tell of corralling deer in The Pounds. One day they drove two into the gateway, which they left guarded by two trusty dogs; but when the deer discovered that they were hemmed. they jumped over the bluff into the tops of the timber below. One jumped into the fork of a small hickory tree, which splitting down a little way held the deer fast, where it died before they fell the trec. They did not find the other at all. They believe that the boughs of the trees and underbrush bore it un- crippled to the ground, securing its escape.
The stones in The Pounds wall before they were bat- tered and broken were of a flag-stone nature weighing from about 50 to 75 pounds. They are of the same con- sistency as those under the bluff in a drainway about a quarter of a mile from the wall. In that day long before it was discovered that steam could lift the lid of a teaket- tle, those thousands of stones were either carried around and up that steep bluff-way, or were drawn upon the bluff by thongs and ropes. Both means might have been used, but either or both required an immense amount of labor.
Mound Builders Not Indians
It was once written in our histories that these pre- historic structures were the workmanship of Indians for forts, but this conjecture is a historical error. Nature built the only fort an Indian ever wished for, because am- bush was his fort. Neither was he a builder. He did not build anything or work at any trade. Looking upon all labor as menial, he pursued his chase or war-path, leaving even his improvised tepec to be built by squaws and papooses. Neither did Indians build the massive walls of ancient Tolu, or dig its subway to that city's water supply. They did not build the stone bison traps and pounds found
9
in Hardin County and in every other county in these Ozark spurs and ranges.
The Mound Builder was altogether a different man from the Indian. He was a larger man than either In- dians or Caucasians. He had a long head, which ethnolo- gists call a dolichocephalic head, while the American In- dian had a round head with a cephalic index of 80 and more. It is now believed that the two races came from different continents; and that oft-repeated question of "How did the Mound Builders first and the Indians later come to America?" have been recently and rather con- clusively answered.
Geodetic surveys prove that the mighty centrifugal forces of the earth are gradually inching the massive land divisions towards the equator, leaving more room towards the poles for seas and bays. The artic coasts are known as sinking coasts. They believe that 8000 years ago Mound Builders could have crossed by way of Greenland and Labrador dry shod to America. They probably be- longed to that ancient stalwart Neanderthal Race. Their cranial and skeletal measurements are similar. It might have been that prehistoric race of gigantic men that Moses referred to when he wrote. "In those days there were giants upon the earth."
Animal Ascendencies
Mound Builders came to our country in time to build an empire in the Mississippi Valley before what Zoologists call "The Buffalo Ascendency." This was one of the strangest freaks known of the animal kingdom. How- ever scientists claim that prehistoric Hardin County has known two of these freaks (I may call these for the use of a better term). The saurian ascendency first reigned su- premely here. Along the shores of our rivers where our homes and towns now stand there stalked big oil-tank lizzards a hundred feet long and beside which an elephant
10
would have appeared a mere midget. Furthermore flying from spur to spur of our Ozark hills, maybe all the way from High Knob to the Ben Taylor Tower, were pterodac- tyls, which had wing-spreads outmeasuring the wings of our largest air-planes and beak-like jaws and teeth more dangerous in appearance than those of alligators. It is said that man had not come to live in our county at that time, and the writer knows one man who is pleased that he missed that ascendency of brontosaurs, dinosaurs, and pterodactyls in prehistoric Hardin County.
However the American Bison ascendency played a rather conspicuous role on the stage with all three races of men in our hills. Early white men standing on a bluff or other prominence have estimated that they have seen herds of buffaloes like a sea on the plains, and having, they believed, a million head. Perhaps in order to break up such overcharged herds, they had a habit of dashing into a panic stricken rush called a buffalo stampede. Pioneers claimed that this was the most fearful sight ever witnessed on the Great Plains of America. Under the thunderous roar of a buffalo stampede, it is said that the earth trembled as if it were in the throes of a mighty quake.
Early historians believed that Indians drove Mound Builders from their vast empire in the Mississippi Valley, but some later scholars believe that it is more probable that they were driven from their homes by the untamable buffalo ascendency. What few they could trap in moun- tain pounds in Hardin and her sister counties did not effect their mad onrush.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.