USA > Illinois > Marshall County > Old Sandy remembers: Evans Township, Marshall County [history] > Part 1
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LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
MAY 1 3 1983
FELINOIS INTESTINAL SURVEY L161-O-1096
.myers.
O
1968
NNIAL
181
TE
SES
Evans Township
Sandy Creek
Old
Sandy
lenona
Rememberss
Marshall
County
107 350
I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down, or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.
I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, Or babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.
I wind about, and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling.
And here and there a foamy flake Upon me, as I travel With many a silvery waterbreak Above the golden gravel.
And draw them all along, and flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
IN THE BEGINNING
"I am Sandy Creek." From my very beginning my land has been beautiful. Sturdy trees, many of oak, maple, elm and walnut dotted the hills, their long branches reaching to the sky. Tall, rich grass covered the ground, and on the ridges of the hills purple asters, golden rod, and brown-eyed Susans my ragged banks and broken rocks and found their way to Illinois. The heavy snows of winter melted into angry swollen streams in the spring, flooding my banks with broken branches and debris from the hills as they tumbled on their way.
Small groups of Indians of the tribe of Sacsand Foxes often set up their wigwams in my valley as they returned from fishing trips on the river to their homes in the northern hills. Pottawotomies, too, camped here on peaceful missions, such as gathering corn, beans, squash, and pumpkins from their fields near by. During the long winter I welcomed the Indian Braves who spent many days with me trapping mink, beaver, wild cat, raccoon, muskrat and deer. After they collected and cleaned many bundles of skins, they journeyed to Peoria to their friends, the French, who had a settlement there. In payment for the furs they brought back knives, hatchets, grain, molasses, trinkets, gun powder, fire arms and sometimes liquor. They rested again in my valley, then moved back to their villages in the north with their supplies.
Life was slow moving and peaceful then, and no white men were within many square miles of my valley.
In the early 1800's.wind of change and restless movement began to sweep over all the land. There was no work for the young men on the Atlantic seaboard after the War of 1812. Yet many immigrants were coming to the east- ern cities. Where could they go? To the West was the only answer, and I could feel in my very being that my peaceful valley would never be the same. Boone's followers had settled Kentucky and Tennessee. Restless Quakers and Dutch were over flowing from Pennsylvania into Ohio, Scotch-Irish immigrants were coming to the Carolinas. Scouts began coming to my area through the gaps and low ridges of the Blue Ridge Mountains to find the land they craved -- land for new homes for their growing families.
They found in me, Old Sandy, what new settlers always seek -- a clear stream of running water, trees for their cabin homes, and plenty of grass for their cows and sheep. From now on the white man must tell my story, for the activity that began around me continues to increase until it has reached far beyond my boundaries.
Lerden L. myers.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Chapter
I
Old Sandy
Chapter
II
How Wenona Got Its Name
1
Chapter
III
Country Life in the Middle Decades
12
Chapter
IV
Early Industries and Recreation
Chapter
V
Middle Decades of Sandy
Chapter VI Wenona and Its Enterprises
Chapter
VII
Wenona Fire
45
Chapter
VIII
Cumberland Cemetery 51
Chapter IX Our Churches 60
Chapter X Our Schools 79
Chapter XI Highways and Byways 91
Chapter XII
Wenona's Social Life in Early 20th. Century 95
Chapter XIII Ups and Downs of Wenona's Business 99
Chapter
XIV
Wenona's Stars 107
Chapter
XV
The Marshall County Flag 113
Chapter XVI Our Cemeteries 116
Chapter XVII
The Honor Roll 121
Wenona Business District 1968 130
Chapter XVIII
The Marshall County Place Mat
Conclusion
Bibliography
/
Chapter I
We, today, surrounded by every convenience and luxury of modern times, little realize what our forefathers endured in the settlement of this, our Evans Township. The youth of today will only know through the writings of our forefathers, their records, papers, manuscripts -- how our history began.
At the eastern end of the timber on upper Sandy the Thomas Brooke family in 1824 built the first log cabin. It is not recorded why they came, but with this family came the Patrick Cunninghams, the Joseph Smiths, Horace Gaylord, Alva Humphrey, Able Estabrook, William Hart, Samuel Hawkins, and George Hollenback. With these people also came the family of Benjamin Darnell. According to record in Wilkes County Court House, North Carolina, Darnell was a merchant trader who traded household needs for cattle, bought land in Wilkes County for feeding his stock and, with the land inherited from his father he owned about a thousand acres. In a letter he said he was going to Illinois, because he wanted more fertile land for his family and wanted to better his conditions. It is likely, then, that the whole group of families came from somewhat the same area and for the same reason. Following the routes the scouts had used, these people, with their personal possessions traveled in cumbersome covered wagons drawn by oxen, their stock either tied to the wagons or herded along by the young men on horseback. Facing the great west with its dangers during the weeks on the trail took courage ....
It was nearing the fall of 1829, when they reached this fertile, rolling, prairie and staked out their claims. Not much can be learned about that first winter and its problems. The Darnell's daughter died on Dec. 18, 1829, and was buried on the Darnell claim.
In the spring of 1830 Joshua Evans came, and taking his claim on the north side of Sandy Creek, paid Patrick Cunningham with a mare worth one hundred dollars to build him a cabin on this claim. He lived here all his life, leaving his heirs on the land. The Joshua Evans cabin was built in what is now the yard of Dell Kemp's farm home. The first white children born at Sandy were Jarvis and Lucy Evans, and, to the family credit, Jarvis was educated, finished Quincy college and became a Methodist minister in 1854. In fact the area was eventually named Evans Township in memory of this well known old settler.
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In 1831 Thomas and Elizabeth Darnell Judd, having heard from her father at Sandy of the great opportunities in the new state of Illinois, left their home in Wilkes County, North Carolina, and with ox team, covered wagon, and six children began the long trek. When they arrived, they se- lected land across Sandy Creek and built a log cabin. To this day the land is owned by a Judd descendant, Ralph French. Many more men came in 1831; among them James Reynolds, Thomas Dixon, John S. Hunt, John Darnell, Lemuel Gaylord, John Griffith, Stewart Ward, four Jones brothers, Justis, Ira, Barton, and Abram and Jeremiah Hartenbower,
The winter of 1830 and 1831 was the coldest and snowiest in the memory of the new settlers. Food was scarce too, and the cabins not always able to keep the families warm. One story of that winter is as follows: The father went for help for the care of his sick child. While he was gone, the baby died, and the starving wolves that roamed the prairie howled so close outside the cabin that the frightened mother put the dead baby on the rafters, pushed a chest against the door as a barricade and watched all night for fear a desperate wolf might leap through the window covered only by a hide.
ยท One incident of that winter is told as happening near Magnolia. A man came on horseback to the mill for a sack of meal. As he was on the way home, his horse fell exhousted in the snow. While he went for help the wolves attacked the horse, tearing holes in its side. The horse was rescued and lived. That winter it was said that pigs froze in the mud when the temperature dropped 80 degrees in an hour.
Rattlesnakes were common then and in summer of 1830 Joshua Foster claimed he killed 53 of the "varmints."
In those days doctors were scarce on the frontier, but elderly women went out nursing, bringing with them herbs and other home made remedies used by their mothers. A good mid-wife was about the most important person in the settlement and, when she arrived at a cabin, her word was law, and everyone stepped lively. But the old cemeteries with their many little graves tell a sad story of the hardships of the settlers and the lack of medical skill.
In May 1832 the people of Sandy Creek were warned that Black Hawk and his warriors had crossed the Mississippi, near the mouth of the Rock River and were sending bands of scalping Indians not only up that river, but also to the south and southeast into the Illinois River country. When a massacre near Indian Creek occurred, and several women were abducted, the settlers resolved to build a fort. Every able bodied man with ox, gun, and spade repaired to the Benjamin Darnell farm, now owned by Virgil Mann, dug a deep trench into which were inserted split logs ten feet high, then the dirt was packed tightly around the barricade fence. The exact dimensions of the fort are not known, but it must have been of considerable size, for the men built cabins inside for seventy persons, dug a well, had room for the wagons and other materials of the colony. There were fifteen heads of families, about thirty children and some unmarried men. The men, except in inclement weather, slept in the covered wagons within the fort. One man was on guard outside the fort each night. The only Indians seen, however, were a friendly family who were afraid of Black Hawk and wanted to come to the fort for protection.
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The only food within the Fort was corn meal and meat, When some settlers deciding not to go to the Fort went to friends at a distance away from Sandy, they left their cattle and swine in a compound for the folks of the Fort to care for and use if there was a need for them. Whether this stock in the compound was used is not recorded, but it was good insurance against dire food shortage. It is interesting to note that the Joshua Evans family did not leave his home and go to the Fort. Four men from Sandy enlisted in Captain Wm. Howe's Rangers to fight Black Hawks1 warriors, but, in a few months reace was restored, and the settlers happily returned to their cabins and welcomed their soldiers home. Just inside the Cumberland Cemetery entrance is a monument erected by Darnell and Judd descendants to commemorate the building of the "Old Fort." On this monu- ment is stated the exact location of the Fort on the Virgil Mann farm.
Poverty was prevalent in the country in the 1830's. In fact actual money was scarce all over the states. The tools with which the people worked were quite primitive. The gun, axe, spade, iron wedge, maul and wooded mould-board plow were the implements used to work the woods and fields. Women had to gather dyes from poke berries, walnut hulls and other plants, save their wood ash and grease for soapmaking, melt the sheep tal- low for candles, and raise the material for all their clothing and food. Flax was raised, the stray treated, then srun and woven into linen cloth for the summer dresses, shirts, trousers, and underthings. Wool from the sheep each family raised was sheared in the spring, washed, dried, picked, carded, and then spun and woven into flannel, lindseys, and jeanes for the warm clothes of winter. Spinning wheels and looms were important tools in the cabin.
A story comes to mind that was passed on by a Wenona resident long since gone who had to wear the Lindsey Woolsey britches his mother made him. "You couldn't tell by my pants whether I was coming or going, but I had one consolation -- all the boys had to wear the same kind."
Each settler devised his own mill to grind the corn and wheat. A large mortar, holding about a bushel of corn, was hollowed out of a big log, and, with the help of a good pestle, made of hard wood or stone, a grown boy could make enough corn meal for each day's use.
The meats were pork, wild turkey, prairie chicken, ducks, deer, and, in the fall, bear meat. Succotash, adopted from the Indians, was a favorite vegetable along with squash and dried pumpkin. Plenty of fruit could be found in the woods.
Furniture in the cabin consisted of a strong, roomy, homemade table, and, if you were well-to-do three or four splint bottom chairs. Otherwise you "made do" with plenty of stools made of puncheon slabs mounted on stout legs. The bedsteads were ouite crude. Four posts were set up, then transverse poles extended crosswise and fitted into the log wall of the cabin. This bed supported the thick tick filled with dried prairie grass, and, if one came from the East, he put a fine feather bed on top for sheer comfort. Sometimes a housewife might have a few pieces of delft pottery to adorn the mantel above the fireplace. Pewter and tin plates and tin and iron spoons were most common table settings. An iron pot with heavy flat
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top on which live coals were placed, served as an oven. Tea kettle and iron kettles hung on a swinging tram that swung over the fire when cook- ing.
The settlers knowing how a light in the window of their cabins might mean rescue to some wanderer in the bitter weather, made it a habit to burn a candle in the window.
In 1833 the community was organized as Sandy Precinct, part of LaSalle County, and on March 30th the first election was held. The Jus- tices of the peace that were elected were Justin Jones and Richard Hunt. The constables were Burton Jones and George Martin. For elections Thomas Judd and George Martin were chosen clerks and Alvin Humphreys, Joshua Evans, and Horace Gaylord were judges. In the first state election on August 4th, 1834 sixteen votes were cast.
In the same year surveyors of the United States government sur- veyed all the area and divided it into sections. The layout of the claims which the settlers had staked out was so at variance with the surveyor's lines that something had to be done to avoid land disputes. A meeting was held and Thomas Judd, Joshua Evans and James Caldwell were named as a committee who drew up a set of resolutions that each settler kept such land as he originally claimed; and that upon entry of said claim after the land should come into the market, the settlers would deed to one another ac- cording to their original claims. This explains the peculiar division of farms at Sandy. When these lands were surveyed by the government in 1834 Evans was the most thickly settled section in Marshall County.
On June 19th, 1834 a law was passed giving to each active settler the right of pre-emption of 160 acres of land provided his family lived on the land until "said land" was brought to market. Two families could share 160 acres, each one having 80 acres. The settlers under these conditions could buy their land at $1.25 per acre. For early pioneers, an orchard was considered conclusive evidence of actual settlement. When this was not done, a speculator from the East had a much better chance of getting the land away from the settlers when it was put up for sale. For some reason the Sandy settlers had not planted orchards, so they had some mis- givings about being able to buy their claims.
President Van Buren in the spring of 1838 declared all lands east of the third principal meridian and south of the north line of Sandy Precinct "be offered at public auction to the highest bidder." The elec- tion would take place at Danville in September of 1838. Sandy settlers when they heard of the proclamation, rigged up wagons able to contain about three men and their camping outfits, and the men were on their way to Danville well before the appointed time. With them went the dollars that the pioneers had been hoarding for a long time. Those going were Wm. Brown, Justis Jones, Joshua Evans, George Beatty, James Caldwell, Sam Cox, Vincent Bowman, John Hunt, Joseph McCarty, David Griffin, and Thomas Judd. Luck was with these men, for no speculators came to the land auction, and the men hurried home with the proof that the land was now their own.
With the land now secure, improvements began at once. Orchards were laid out, and fences constructed. At first the men tried digging
5
ditches for fences piling the sod up at the banks of the ditches. The cows pulled the sod down and got across the ditches so they had to cut down trees, make rails and build rail fences which were used until after the Civil War.
Another one of the pioneers coming to Illinois in 1835 from Bourbon County, Ky., was William Swartz, settling near Sandy Creek, where he developed a good farm, experiencing the hardships and privations of pioneer life. The old homestead was owned and occupied by the Swartz descendants until 1963.
With the growth of Sandy, need for products promoted some indus- tries. Two saw mills were set up, one on the Evans land, one on the Dent land. John Evans set up a turning lathe so the ladies could have propor- tioned and attractive table and chair legs and splint bottom chairs. Now parties began too, social life centering around the school, home and church. Marriages were on the increase and the young men generally chose their mates from their own pioneer area.
In these days corn shucking bees were big social events. The corn would be plucked off, husks and all hauled home and dumped on the floor of the barns. The neighbors came, divided into teams and started on equal piles of corn. The captain of the winning team was carried on the shoulders of his team to the house where a bountiful meal was ready and the girls and women dressed in their prettiest served the winners first. Such home made pleasures made the hard work worth while.
Everyone was astir about the presidential election of 1840. An occasional newspaper would somehow get to Sandy from Galens, Springfield, Chicago or Vandalia, and everyone in the neighborhood got to hear the news. No secret ballots were yet in use, so at the polling place a voter stuck his head in the window, the clerk called his name, set it down under the name of the candidate of the right party, and at the end of the day the votes were tallied. Both Whigs and Democrats voted in 1840, their first pres- idential election, and eight votes went for Martin Van Buren the Democratic candidate, the rest for William Henry Harrison the only Whig ever to become president. For the first time in his career Abraham Lincoln's name was on the ballot as a presidential elector for the Whig party. At this election two Revolutionary War Veterans voted, one Lemuel Gaylord now buried at Cumberland and Joseph Warner buried at Cherry Point.
In 1840 and 1841 Thomas Alexander and M. Clarkson came from Kentucky and brought a herd of thoroughbred cattle-"as fine a herd of shorthorns as could be found in the celebrated blue-grass country." To Mr. Alexander, also, the community was indebted for the fine blooded horses which he brought from Kentucky. Proof that Sandy was no longer a frontier was given by the fact that Mr. Clarkson left the wooded area in 1845, built for his family a fine house several miles south of Sandy on the fine rich prairie. He was the lone resident in that area for years.
In April 1843 the question of being attached to Marshall County was submitted to the voters of Sandy Precinct. The great distance from the county seat of Ottawa seemed to be the only argument in favor of the pro- position, but that was enough and every vote was cast for the same. Ben- nington township did the same. There was not then a single inhabitant in the townships of Osage or Groveland in LaSalle County.
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A SAMP MORTAR
SAMP was a coarse meal made from dry corn and cooked in var- ious ways by pioneers for every- day food. A mortar was made by hollowing out one end of a log, forming a basin for kernels of corn which were pounded with a pestle fashioned of hard wood.
After early settlers built their cabins, the samp mortar could be heard resounding through the woods, usually in the evening or early morning.
If a finer meal was needed, it was ground between two flat circular stones in a hand-quern, then sifted. Johnnycake and corn pone were made by adding sour milk, buttermilk or water; soda, salt and shortening. An egg might go into the pone but not us- ually in the johnnycake because it was preferred drier for better preservation when traveling. Thus the name "journey cake" from whence "johnnycake" derives.
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ASH HOPPERS AND LYE SOAP
Pioneer women made their own soap. They saved and rendered bacon rinds, cracklings, old lard and other fat scraps, then boiled them with rain water and wood ach Ive "strong enough to float an egg, " stirring for hours until thick enough to pour into a soap barrel or other con- tainer. If salt was added, it helped harden the harsh, gelatinous mass do it could be cut into chunks. A little sassafras improved the scent.
To get the lye, an ash-hopper had to be built of boards placed up- right, edge to edge, to form a bin shaped like a wedge. Wood ashes were put into it all winter. In the spring, water was filtered through them and the strong lye seeped to the bottom where it drained into crocks or other vessels, ready to be used tor making soap or hominy.
A "ReCeet for Washin Cloes," given to a young bride by her grandmother over a hundred years ago, called for shaving "one hole cake of lie sope in bilin water." It got clothes clean but was murder on the hands.
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SCHOOLS
In the winter of 1832-1833, a man by the name of Ansen Bryant came to Fort Darnell and prorosed to teach school. They fixed un a cabin in the old fort for him, and he taught a short time during the winter. The names of the pupils who attended the school were: John Dent, Minerva Dent, Enoch Darnell, Larkin Darnell, Benjamin Darnell, Alfred Judd, and William Evans.
In the fall of 1833, the necessity of a more ample and convenient school room was agitated, and the citizens decided to build a school house.
The site chosen was near the residence of Lucy Gibson, which in later years was known as the George Martin farm. The size was agreed upon and each of the families was asked to furnish his portion of logs for the building and deliver them upon the ground. This was promptly done, and raising of the building was done in one day, the cracks calked and daubed with clay. The school house had a puncheon floor, runcheon door, stick chimney, slab seats and desks, and a long fireplace.
Fuel was contributed by each family in proportion to the number of children sent. The teacher boarded around with them and was mid by subscription,
One of the first schools on record in this community was one taught by Thomas Gallagher in 1842-1843 and was known as the "Sandy Grove" school. It was located on what was known as the Marion French farm on Sandy and was often referred to as "Brush College."
In 1846, Thomas Judd Jr. taught school, and an agreement was made and signed by John G. Hunt, Jacob Myers, and James Beatty, in which the trustees agreed to pay Mr. Judd ten dollars a month for teaching. One half of his pay was to be paid in cash and the other half in livestock, grain, or store goods at one-half price.
The well established tradition of fine support for the schools of Wenona community began with the defining of the school districts in Evans Township in 1851.
The new school completed in August 1864 was a two story building. Trustees of the district were: William Hamilton, Joseph Warner, and F. H. Bond. It was a district school with two derartments, and two teachers. The building was outgrown almost before it was completed, and at a meeting in February 1866. the district voted to enlarge.
By 1881, the school was again badly overcrowded and new pro- visions were made for the primary grade.
In 1892, the Wenona grade school was built and originally served both high and grade school students. It was reconstructed following a disastrous fire in 1907. This building stood in what is now the "City Recreation Park."
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