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LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
977.381 M12p
Ill. Hist. Surv.
PAST AND PRESENT
OF
CHRISTIAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
BY HON. J. C. McBRIDE.
ILLUSTRATED.
"A people that take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote generations."-MACAULEY.
CHICAGO : THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING CO. 1904.
Dedicated to the Pioneers and to the Living Representative Citizens of Christian County.
PREFACE.
T HE undersigned, at the request of the publishers, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., herewith submits to the reader a brief history of many of the important events that have transpired in the County of Christian since its organization. He is satisfied that many events have transpired quite as important, if not more so, than the ones submitted, but having to depend upon information received from different sources, it would be impossible to gather all of the matters that should be included in a history of this character, and the limited space would prohibit chronicling the many other things that might be of interest to the public. The early events being beyond the memory of the most of the present generation, the reader can appreciate the difficulty in gathering them together.
The writer desires to acknowledge the valuable assistance received by him from the notes compiled by the late Dr. Calvin Goudy, in a former work edited or prepared by him. Had it not been for the preservation, by him, of the inci- dents pertaining to the early settlement of Christian county, it would have been almost impossible to have obtained a correct or extended idea of the early events. The writer also desires to acknowledge the valuable assistance ren- dered by the late A. D. Webb, in the preparation of the article upon " The Press " and for other assistance rendered : to John W. Dappert for the assist- ance rendered by him in the contribution of the article upon "Drainage." and to Miss Anna Lois Barbre, County Superintendent of Schools, for the valuable assistance rendered by her in the contribution of the article upon " Schools." He would also tender thanks to J. P. Walker, E. A. Miller, W. T Vandeveer, T. J. Langley, Mrs. Edward Forrester, T. W. Brents and W. O. Wilcox for valuable information received from them from time to time in the preparation of this work.
We are also under obligations to The Courier Printing Co. and Taylorville Journal for copies of their files, and to Mr. Benjamin Winters for copies of the paper called The Independent Press, published at Taylorville at an early day by his father, B. F. Winters, from the files of which papers much valuable information was obtained. The reader will doubtless realize the difficulty attending the compilation of a work of this character, and of selecting such as should be included. It has been classified as best the writer could so as to present to the reader as ready reference as possible of the chronicled events, and hope that it will prove beneficial to the public as a book of reference con- cerning the past of the county, covering the incidents, accidents and misfortunes
192858
iv
PREFACE.
of the past as well as its present resources. No doubt the work will be criti- cised, but in all criticisms I hope the reader will appreciate the difficulties that ' have surrounded the preparation of the work, and the difficulty attending the description of an event with which the writer had no personal acquaintance.
Whatever your criticisms may be, we desire to assure the reader that, with the light given us, we have tried to chronicle a fair and impartial statement concerning the organization, growth and prosperity of Christian county and its inhabitants. Hoping this will meet the approval of the readers and patrons of The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., I respectfully submit it to you for a fair and impartial consideration.
J. C. McBRIDE.
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COURT HOUSE
PAST AND PRESENT
OF
CHRISTIAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
INTRODUCTORY.
All history is a record of past events. Each day and each hour adds to the ex- periences of men and increases the amount of human knowledge. To "catch the shadow ere the moments fly" and tell of them through history serves to perpetuate the ex- periences of the past, and thus create a fund of human knowledge based upon all that has gone before. It is a work of love in that it bequeaths to those who are to come all the wisdom gathered from the experi- ences of those who were here yesterday but to-day are gone. Enough of human ex- perience lies buried 'neath the sod to have made the world many fold wiser than it is had it been recorded.
The early pioneers are nearly gone, and their names and what they did and endured will soon be forgotten, unless somebody writes. The record must be made lest we forget. The wisdom of the past must be preserved.
No portion of this country has changed more than the vast prairie region with the
Mississippi river running through near its centre. The northern and southern por- tions of this vast plain are undulating and much rougher than the central part, and have been changed less by the hand of man. But through the central portion occupying more than half the state of Illinois is a vast level plain containing the most produc- tive land in the world, which little more than fifty years ago was a vast morass or swamp, unfitted for the habitation of man or beast. The land was so level and the growing vegetation so rank that the falling rain could scarcely find its way to the sluggish streams. From a part of this semi-submerged country, Christian county was carved. Surrounded as it was by miles and miles of country of a similar nature, the isolation of the early settlers was al- most complete. It was only along the banks of the streams, which were bordered with trees and upon the more elevated re- gions, which were few, that it was possible for men to live.
PAST AND PRESENT
Tall grasses that would scarcely permit a man to see above them when riding upon horse-back ( the usual means of travel) grew nearly all over this vast plain, and to travel from place to place during the rai: .. season it was necessary to cross miles of this semi-swamp land and horses had often to swim with their riders. To travel with the ordinary wagon or vehicle was simply im- possible. The old canvas covered schooners were seldom seen by the early settlers, be- cause they could not be used. And the black loam formed from the luxurious de- caying vegetation of centuries was scarcely less penetrable than the water ; a horse could scarcely walk through it, and the surface would tremble for several feet around when- ever a man or beast would attempt to travel upon it.
Roads there were none and the trails led along the ridges and always sought the highest ground. It was seriously thought most of the prairie land would never be taken up or cultivated as it was too wet. Therefore most of the early settlers located along the streams, and when they visited a neighbor in some other part of the county, they encountered all the perils of the navi- gator as well as those of the cavalier, but it was not the elements of land or water that they feared.
They were neither sailors nor soldiers. but they were both, and the combination pro- (luced another sort of being that had the hardihood and courage of both combined with the indomitable pluck of an explorer in a new element. Had the north pole been sought by these early navigators in this new element of mud, it would certainly have been found: if there was no channel opened they would have opened one; if there was ice they would have produced a machine to navigate it, or they would have subdued and
transformed the elements as the early pio- neers did in this county and created an ele- ment with which they were familiar and then made that element subservient to the will of man. A machine to melt all the ice about the north pole would work no greater change than has been made in this county. These early settlers knew not how to use mud and so they transformed it into soil and reaped golden harvests. The Christian county pioneer has changed the nature and conditions of the soil and then reaped gold as a result.
What Christian county was could never be guessed by what it is to-day. The great- ness and productiveness of this county is more the result of what was done by the pioneers than what is being done to-day. But these changes required a peculiar kind of man, and the circumstances created the man here as it always has and always will. The Christian county pioneer was a man of a peculiar type. He possessed all the qual- ities of the pioneers of the mountain fast- nesses, the solid plain, the rolling hill top and added to them the conqueror of land and sea, and beside that the new element which he has subdued and transformed into wealth. He has found the rich alluvial mixture of land and water to be most precious, al- though simply Christian county mud.
And it is of these pioneers and what they did that we would write. It is of these men, yellow-skinnea, ague-haunted, poorly clad. big-hearted, generous-minded. fearless pio- neers that have subdued both land and water we would tell. It is the chronicle of a generation that is almost gone, and these pages and others like them will soon be all that will be left to tell the story. And how difficult that story! Each of these men was self-contained. Each of them was sep- arated by miles of almost inpenetrable
9
CHRISTIAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
morass from their closest neighbor and were compelled to live nearly alone. None of them dreamed of the wealth upon which they trod. None of them knew that the quivering mire that they learned to navi- gate was worth as much pound for pound as the most valuable food and only needed subduing. To tell all of the deeds, many of which have never been recorded, would be impossible, but we can tell a few things -only a few-and we hope we may give those who read, a slight impress of the early pioneers of one of the most valuable counties of the state. Truly these hardy men builded better than they knew.
EARLY SETTLEMENT.
Before entering upon a history of the set- tlement of this county it might be interest- ing to many of our readers to know that the locality now composing Christian county at one time belonged to the colony of Vir- ginia, and was included in the territory that was authorized by the act of 1783 of the Commonwealth of Virginia to be conveyed to the U. S., and on March 1, 1784, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Hardy, Arthur Lee and James Monroe by virtue of the power vested in them by the commonwealth of Virginia conveyed to the government of the U. S. all that part of the Virginia commonwealth "lying and being to the northwest of the river Ohio," which included a vast territory now composing many of the states of the Union, including Illinois.
By an Act of Congress of May 7, 1800, this territory was again divided and it was enacted by Congress "that from and after the 4th day of July next all that part of the territory of the United States north- west of the Ohio river which lies west of the line beginning at the Ohio opposite the mouth of the Kentucky river and running
thence to Fort Recovery ; thence north until it shall intersect the territory line between the U. S. and Canada shall for the purpose of temporary government constitute a sep- arate territory and to be called the Indiana territory;" and by this name was this sec- tion of country known until February 3, 1809, at which time this territory was again divided, and on that date it was enacted by Congress "that from and after the first day of March next, all that part of the Indiana Territory which lies west of the Wabash river and a direct line drawn from said Wabash river and Post Vincennes due north to the territorial line between the U. S. and Canada shall for the purpose of temporary government constitute a sep- arate territory, and to be called Illinois." and thereafter on April 18, 1818, Congress passed an act authorizing the people of the Illinois territory to form a constitution and state government for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original states. This ordinance was adopted by the people of the Illinois territory on August 26, 1818, at Kas- kaskia, in convention assembled; a formal ratification took place and a constitution known as "the constitution of 1818" was adopted and became a fundamental law for the government of the people of the state of Illinois, and in this ordinance passed by Congress, the sections numbered 16 in every township, except where the same had been sold, and in that case other equivalent lands were granted to the state of Illinois, for the use of the inhabitants of such township for the use of schools.
While it is true that the constitution had been adopted and the state organized, yet the settlements throughout the state were very few, in the locality composing Chris- tian county, there were in fact no settlers
10
PAST AND PRESENT
to speak of, and this country was then occu- pied and used by the Indians as a hunting ground, but as localities along the Wabash, Mississippi and Illinois rivers grew more thickly populated, they gradually began to reach out into the more fertile prairies and localities of central Illinois. Some settle- ments had about this time reached the bor- (lers of Christian county and as these settle- ments advanced, the Indians reluctantly but quickly yielded to the civilization of the white man, and as has been said in former histories of this county "they perished when they came in contact with our civilization almost as the hues of sunset when you look at them through the telescope; or as the odor of the rose vanishes while you attempt to analyze it. Before they could be studied as men or as nations, as families or as tribes, either by their traditions and litera- ture, by their customs and affinities, they had disappeared, or at least had been so degraded as to seem to have fallen below the level of even scientific observation." However mysterious may have been their origin, they certainly recorded but few events of their progress or want of progress while they occupied this beautiful land.
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The manners and customs of their ances- tors are but traditional ; any history of these early people must be at best uncertain, and few events, except the accidental ones re- corded by the white man in his pursuit of this fee of civilization in his attempt to lay a foundation for the building up and sup- porting of a higher type of manhood are re- corded.
Whatever may have been the nature of the first denizens of the soil of America, or of the inhabitants of those who preceded the white man, there certainly exists a dearth of records as to their customs, their govern- ment, their religion or their homes, if they
had any, and as has been well said "a few mounds, some beads, a small variety of earthmade ware, stone hammers, implements for dressing skins and now and then one of their own idols of religious worship, to- gether with a few personal articles of luxury or dissipation or ornament, are all of their domestic or public life left to us. We find scattered in many parts of the country their gimlets, arrow heads, spear heads, saws, flesh scrapers, and hammers all made of stone, and demanding almost infinite patience for their manufacture. It seems a wonder that a people having power to concentrate the mind on such difficult work as shaping flint- stone should have been so barren in all the graceful and elevating arts. We alternately pity and despise them; admire their sublime stoicism and sicken at their cruelties: we praise their valor and denounce their sel- fishness.
They gave us their country and left us none of their customs. We use the maize which they sometimes cultured and stupefy ourselves with the smoke of tobacco, which they taught us to consume. These are their sole contributions to the world's progress in profit and comfort. Is it strange that we should forget them, or that we should readily persuade ourselves that such an idle unprogressive people should scarcely have a right which an enterprising. ambitious and needy race should respect ? Their whole ideas, habits, wants, aspirations and beliefs were so different from those of our race that we can scarcely arise to any sympathy with them or their interests.
This portion of country was known in an early day as the "Black Hawk hunting ground, and was widely noted as a fine hunting region. Game of all kinds was very abundant." and many tribes gathered upon this hunting ground to hunt the buffalo and
11
CHRISTIAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
deer that roamed over and fed upon these beautiful prairies.
The whole life and energy of the Indian tribes who occupied this, as well as the great northwestern country, were devoid of all ac- quisitions for the future, destitute of all ideas of morality, their minds were barren and uncultured, except to prepare themselves for battling one with another.
No pretensions of the cultivation of a higher and nobler part of man, no ideas of the beautiful or conceptions of their future welfare seem to have existed among them. and the poet has well said :
"Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind,
Sees God in the clouds and hears him in the wind ;
His soul, proud science never taught to stray,
So far as the solar walk or milky way."
It seems that the Indian when not at war with the white man, admired him, seems to have recognized his superior ability and readily yielded his happy hunting ground to the strong arm of culture and civilization.
It is said "even after a few of the settlers had located here, there still remained as resi- dents of the county a fragment of the Kick- apoo tribe : 'Basseina' the chief said this land was theirs ; that they had occupied the ter- ritory of South Fork 'more moons' ago than there are tracks of the buffalo upon the plain, or feathers upon the wild fowl's back."
An amusing anecdote is related in con- nection with one of the pioneer settlers of this county by the surveyor general when passing through this section in 1818; "he had formed the acquaintance of young Mar- tin Hanon, and wishing to play a joke. he went to the chief and told him Hanon was about to enter some of the land he was measuring off, and that he wanted a wife;
upon hearing this news the young squaws gathered around the young candidate for matrimonial honors as if they meant busi- ness. All of them wanted a white man 'if he would hunt': the surveyor relieved him- self of the difficulty by informing them, much to his regret, that Hanon was a 'poor hunter,' and so would make a sorry. hus- band."
The temptations for the settlement of most parts of Illinois, including this county. were great. The richness of the soil, the beauty of the country and the tales of pros- pective wealth existing here that were told to the people of the eastern and southern states were many and magnified, but these accounts of this wonderland worked like magic and caused many people to leave their homes for the settling up of this country.
Many were the hardships endured by the early settler ; perhaps all of the hardships that were undergone will never be known, but it is at least certain that many people came, but few remained.
Many of them after reaching this prairie country filled with malaria as it was, re- mained some of them six months and some perhaps a year, becoming discouraged by the many hardships endured, sickness and often death brought on by exposure, readily sacrificed their all to get out of this country and return to their native home. It is al- most impossible for the inhabitants of the present day to conceive of the sickly condi- tions, brought on principally by malaria, that existed upon these prairies at an early day, especially during the fall of the year.
The writer well remembers that even as late as the year 1865 when this county had been partially broken out and to some ex- tent subdued, that during the fall of that year nearly every family and every member of the family upon the prairie between the
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PAST AND PRESENT
South Fork and the Chicago & Alton rail- road were more or less afflicted with fever and ague which caused the people as a rule to have what was called "every other day chills," and in nearly every householdl these chills would come upon alternate days, so that one member of the family would miss to-day and chill to-morrow, and the sick of to-day would administer to the wants of the sick to-morrow.
Quinine and other fever and ague reme- dies were in great demand and were sup- plied to this country by cart loads, and these remedies were even more bitter and unpalat- able, if possible. than "Kirk's Malarion" of this day. So great was the destruction of the health of many of the early settlers, so distressing this everlasting fever and ague that came upon many of the people, so dis- couraging was it to the father and mother to see their entire family afflicted with this dread disease, that in many cases valuable farms, partly paid for, were abandoned that they might return to their old home and health, and as much as they coveted the fer- tility of the soil of this great prairie. they could not endure the hardships.
The most of the earlier settlements were made along the streams and on the higher lands, which was more beneficial to the health of the inhabitants; the prairies were subdued by the people who after becoming acclimated, gradually pushed out into the higher spots upon the prairie lands. The lands most valuable of that day are the cheaper lands of to-day.
These people were a great distance from market, for the products they raised; they were compelled to drive their hogs to the markets of St. Louis or other places equally (listant and haul their grain to these points, returning with wagons loaded with groceries and provisions.
The generations of the early settlements of Christian county have practically all passed away, and it is impossible at this late dlate to gather very many of the incidents and anecdotes of the carly settlement, ex- cept the few that have been noted by some of the prior generations for the purpose of being published, and in giving the incidents, anecdotes and customs of the early settle- ments, we have taken most of them from the notes and writings of Dr. Calvin Goudy, which we think will prove interesting to our readers. It is said by him "The first men of our race so far as is known whose glad eye looked upon the beautiful prairies of Illinois now embraced within the bound- aries of Christian county, were a band of hunters and trappers, who left Vincennes in the fall of ISII and following an In- dian trail traversing this county in a north- westerly direction to the Illinois river and stopping for the winter at Peoria Lake to trap, bunt and fish. They were Frenchmen and belonged to the Mission at Vincennes. On their return trip the following spring. they were robbed of a portion of their furs and peltries and two of the members siain by the Indians.
FIRST SETTLEMENT AND EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
"The honor of being the first white resi- dent of the country now comprised within the limits of Christian county belongs to Martin Hanon. He was a native of Ten- nessee, born in April. 1799, near the city of Nashville. He came to the territory of Illinois with his father. Michael Hanon, in the year 1812, and settled in Gallatin county where he resided until his father's death in 1817. The year following his father's death, young Martin in charge of his mother
13
CHRISTIAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
and family emigrated and settled in Chris- tian county in the fall of the year 1818. At first he pitched his tent on the south side of a large fallen tree ; their meat in one end of the sack and their provisions in the other end were balanced in the crotch of a tree until a log cabin was extemporized. The scent of the meats soon attracted a pack of hungry wolves, and they were only kept at bay by occasionally throwing a fire brand in their midst."
The wolves of that day, going in great bands as they frequently did, were very an- noying to the early settlers, sometimes at- tacking people, frequently attacking stock, especially after night. It is said by Mr. WV. A. Goodrich that even as late as 1840, it was dangerous to cross the prairie after night between here and Mount Auburn, es- pecially along about Buckhart Grove where the wolves were so numerous; that they fre- quently attacked men upon horseback and one who was so unfortunate as to come in contact with a band of these ravenous wolves was indeed in great danger of losing his life.
"Martin Hanon first settled and improved what afterwards was known as the Squire Council farm. John S. Sinnet, a brother- in-law of Hanon's and Claiborn Matthews with his family, Jacob Gragg, Eli Alexander and Kenchen 'the well digger' all came to and settled in the county November 21, 1818, only a few days after Hanon. Their nearest neighbor in this county in 1820 was Ephraim Cooper, living on the north fork. Martin Hanon, realizing that it was not good for man to be alone, soon after im- proving his claim, determined to take unto himself a wife. He went down into Egypt. wooed and won one of the fair daughters of that land, and was married in Shawnee- town on the 10th of October, 1823, to Miss
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