USA > Illinois > Champaign County > A Standard history of Champaign County Illinois : an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, civic and social development : a chronicle of the people, with family lineage and memoirs, Volume I > Part 4
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"On the Sangamon were two well known fords with distinctive names. One at the village of Mahomet (or Middletown, as the village was known fifty years since) was called Bryan's Ford, from John Bryan, a contiguous land-owner, who maintained a ferry there. The iron bridge a few rods away has, for many years, furnished a better means of crossing the stream. The other, of historic fame, was known as Newcom's Ford, from Ethan Newcom, a pioneer who came to the county in the early '30s. It was at the crossing of the Sangamon River by the Danville and Fort Clark road, and, besides being a ford of the river, was a place where travelers camped in great numbers. It was near the line which divides Township 21 and 22, Range 8, and in later years it gave the name of Newcomb to another township, although the final "b" of the name, as thus used, is in addition to the spelling in use by the owner. Mr. Newcom spelled his name 'Ethan Newcom' where signed to a deed.
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
OLD "NEIGHBORHOODS"
"Then there were neighborhoods in the county which, from some peculiarity or other in their early settlement, took upon themselves peculiar names, most of which have been forgotten or fallen into disuse. Among these may be recalled the Kentucky Settlement, now in Rantoul Township. This was on account of the coming there prior to 1860 of B. C. Bradley and many other thrifty farmers from Kentucky. The settlement was a compact gathering of good families upon a hitherto unbroken prairie, so arranged that the social and school advantages enjoyed elsewhere were not suspended. In like manner the location about the ridge in Philo Township, which divides the waters of the Salt Fork from those flowing into the Ambraw (Embarrass), about 1856 became the home of a colony from Massachusetts and other Eastern states, among whom may be named E. W. Parker and his brother, G. W. Parker, Lucius, David and T. C. Eaton, and others of New England origin-which gave the neighborhood the name Yankee Ridge, which it bears to this day. So, the gathering upon the flat lands bordering the headwaters of the Salt Fork in Compromise Township, of a large number of Germans, who. distinguished themselves as good farmers and good citizens, has given their neighborhood the name of Dutch Flats, which it is likely to maintain."
Thus have the water courses of Champaign County had a large share in fixing local nomenclature upon many sections which have not been officially named either by the postoffice department of the general Government or the Legislature of the State.
ALTITUDES OF CITIES AND VILLAGES
The topography of the county has been thoroughly delineated by the State Geological and the United States Geological surveys, as well as by experts connected with the University of Illinois, especially by Prof. C. W. Rolfe of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History. Based upon such authorities, it is found that the altitudes of the incorporated cities and villages in the county are as follows: Ludlow, 770; Champaign, 741; Rantoul, 756; Urbana, 718; Philo, 737; Tolono, 733; Thomasboro, 731; Fisher, 721; Pesotum, 715; Mahomet, 709; Sadorus, 691; Ivesdale, 679; Longview, 678; St. Joseph, 676; Sidney, 673; Homer, 661.
ACTION OF GLACIERS
A consideration of these elevations and others in other portions of the county indicates a general inclination of the land surface from
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
northwest to southeast, although, as stated, there is a distinct water- shed which divides the Wabash system from that of the Illinois and the Mississippi. This general trend was determined by glacial action, the great ice sheet moving down from the north, scouring off the land, its successive onward stages being indicated by ridges or, geologically speaking, moraines, which rise above the surface of the surrounding country to heights varying from twenty to a hundred feet. The glaciers which moved across what is now Champaign County were portions of what have become known as the Bloomington and the Champaign sys- tems, the former, which plowed across the northeast corner, being bold and aggressive in character and leaving behind ridges from fifty to a hundred feet high. The streams have cut these into knolls or hills, creating the most considerable heights in the county-near Ludlow, from 820 to 830 feet above sea level; near Dillsburg, from 810 to 820 feet, and just east of Gifford and Flatville, 820 feet. The second moraine enters from Piatt County in a series of ridges which join the Bloomington system when well within Champaign County. The main ridge enters near Mahomet, is broken by the Sangamon River, its heights ranging from 750 to 670 feet, and after reaching out into the central parts of the county, breaks into three distinct ridges and passes over into Vermilion County. At Rising, where an altitude of 810 feet is reached, the large branch which connects the Bloomington and Cham- paign systems, is given off to the northeast. These moraines are the watersheds of the Wabash and Mississippi basins.
No other single agent has been so potent in the modification of the surface of the earth as have glaciers and ice sheets; and this statement applies with particular significance to central Illinois and Champaign County. When it is remembered that these ice sheets were hundreds and possibly thousands of feet thick, and were hundreds of miles in width and length, some adequate idea may be formed of their power to plow up and completely change the surface structure of the earth.
The debris which they brought from the Laurential mountains of Canada was distributed over Illinois generally, greatly to the enrich- ment of its soils. This material, which eventually became the wonder- fully productive soil in all the glacial areas, was transported in several ways. Much of it was pushed along mechanically in front of the advancing ice-sheet, so that when the forward movement began to be retarded, this material was left scattered along the edges of the advancing body. Much material was carried along under the ice-sheet and was ground and distributed over the glacial area. Other material, again, was carried to the surface of the ice-sheet, and often deeply imbedded in it. When the movement was finally checked, the superimposed mate-
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
rial becoming heated by the sun, worked its way through the ice and rested on the ground, the whole body of ice eventually melting.
Vast quantities of material were also carried by the streams which continually flowed from the melting ice. Much of the detritus was left on the broad, flat prairies, but much was carried into the streams which overflowed their banks, where it was deposited as alluvium.
The material which these glaciers brought into the State of Illinois, as the basis of her vast material wealth, goes under the general name of Drift. Its composition varies, but its main constituents are clay, sand and boulders. This drift is sometimes found stratified, but more gener- ally is without definite layer formation.
Without going into details as to authorities, it may be stated that, in North America, there seems to have been three great centers of glacial movement-one known as the Labrador ice sheet; a second called the Kewatin ice sheet, and the third, the Cordilleran ice sheet. The first sheet had its center of movement near the central point of the peninsula of Labrador; the second, near the western shore of Hudson Bay, and the third moved from the Canadian Rockies.
The ice sheet, the center of which rested on the Labrador peuinsula, moved northeast, northwest, south and southwest, the movement in the direction last named starting a large section of the vast body toward what is now the State of Illinois. The Labradorean sheet reached its extreme southern limit in southern Illinois, some 1,600 miles from the point of departure. The advancing front in Illinois took the form of a gigantic crescent, and its extreme southern reach, according to the most recent geological surveys, may be traced from Randolph County southeast, through the southern side of Jackson eastward through southern Williamson, east and northeast through southeastern Saline, northeastward to the Wabash through the northwest corner of Gallatin and southeastern White. That line also marks the southern limit of the prairie areas, and is coincident with the northern foothills of the Ozark Mountains, which trend east and west across the State through Union, Johnson, Pope and Hardin.
According to the more recent investigations, Illinois was subject to at least four ice-sheet invasions. In the order of time, these were (a) the Illinois sheet, which covered nearly the entire State; (b) the Iowan sheet, moving over the area bounded by the Rock River on the west, Wisconsin on the north, Lake Michigan on the east, and on the south by a parallel extended from the southerly bend of that body of water; (c) the Earlier Wisconsin, covering the northeastern fourth of Illinois, and (d) the Later Wisconsin, plowing out the western borders of Lake Michigan and extending some fifty or sixty miles west-
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
ward. The Illinois ice-sheet is the one, obviously, which included Champaign County in its operations. The details of its work, in this more limited area, have already been given.
SOIL
The surface of Champaign County, as a general thing, is composed of black prairie soil, from one to five feet in thickness. This prairie soil is underlaid by a yellow clay subsoil. Below this clay subsoil occur alternate beds of clay, gravel and quicksand of the drift forma- tion to the depth of from 120 to 250 feet, below which there are other alternations of shale, slate, soapstone and limestone, with one or more beds of coal.
Much of the loose materials found above the rocky beds of Cham- paign County are composed of what is called "drift," which consists of clay, sand, rounded and water-worn masses of granite and porphyry, together with the red sandstone of the Lake Superior region, all of which have been swept southward from their native beds with a force sufficient to obliterate the angles from the hardest fragments; and these have been rudely intermingled with the surface materials of the formations over which they were transported. This drift, as it was deposited, filled up the beds of the ancient valleys and covered much of the remaining surface to a greater or lesser depth. The transporta- tion of this "drift" for such a long distance is probably due to the slow but powerful movement of immense glaciers from the frozen regions of the north, in the same manner as the glaciers of the mountain regions of Europe are now slowly melting and sliding and dragging with them huge masses of mountain rock, wrenched off with Titantic force by the departing ice.
ORIGIN OF THE PRAIRIES
Nothing in the New World was more interesting to the European than the broad prairies between the Mississippi and the Ohio. In 1817 Governor Edward Coles, then a young man returning from a diplomatic mission to Russia, stopped in France and England. He was a Virginian, but had traveled through the West and had himself been greatly charmed by the rich grandeur of the prairie lands. The French and the English never tired of his graphic descriptions of them, and among his charmed auditors was Morris Birkbeck, a prosperous tenant farmer of England, who was thereby induced to come to America and settle in Edwards County, southeastern Illinois. In later years Dickens went into raptures over his first sight of a "western" prairie, revealing his sentiments in his "Notes on America."
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
When the first French explorers reached the Mississippi Valley, they were amazed at the great sweep of timberless areas, although they originally applied their word, "prairie," to describe the flat bottom lands of the river valleys. Nor is the application of the word to such tracts inappropriate, as it has been shown by geologists that the forma- tion of the prairies of central Illinois is identical in character with the formation of the bottom lands along the Mississippi, the Ohio and other smaller rivers.
When the first settlers came to the Illinois country they are said to have found about one-fourth of it timbered and the remainder timber- less, or prairie lands. They designated the largest timberless area the Grand Prairie, and it was virtually limited by the great watershed which divides the basins of the Mississippi and the Ohio. It extends from the northwestern part of Jackson County through Perry, part of Williamson, Washington, Jefferson, Marion, Fayette, Effingham, Coles, Champaign and Iroquois, crosses the Kankakee River and extends to the southern end of Lake Michigan. Champaign County is therefore almost in the center of the Grand Prairie of Illinois.
The origin of the prairies has been a debatable question for many decades. Three general theories have been advanced to account for their existence at the time of the coming of the earliest settlers into the limits of Illinois. One explanation is that the great prairie fires which annually swept over the Grand Prairie effectually kept the trees from making any headway. But there are two scientific explanations which seem to go more to the bedrock of the matter.
Says a late writer on this subject: "Professor Whitney holds to the theory that the treeless prairies have had their origin in the char- acter of the original deposits, or soil formation. He does not deny, in fact 'admits, the submersion of all prairie lands formerly as lakes or swamps; but he holds that while the lands were so submerged there was deposited a very fine soil, which he attributes, in part, to the under- lying rocks, and in part to the accumulation in the bottom of immense lakes, of a sediment of almost impalpable fineness. This soil in its physical, and probably in its chemical, composition prevents the trees from naturally getting a foothold in the prairies.
"Professor Lesquereux holds to the theory simply stated that all areas properly called prairies were formed by the redemption of what was once lake regions and later swamp territory. He points out that trees grow abundantly in moving water, but that when water is dammed the trees always die. His theory is that standing water kills trees by preventing the oxygen of the air from reaching their roots. He further shows that the nature of the soil in redeemed lake regions is such that
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
without the help of man trees will not grow in it. But he further shows that by proper planting the entire prairie area may be covered with forest trees.
"As rich as was the soil of our prairies, the first emigrants seldom settled far out on these treeless tracts. Most of the early comers were from the timbered regions of the older states and felt they could not make a living very far from the woods. Coal had not come into use and wood was the universal fuel. There was a wealth of mast in the timber upon which hogs could live a large part of the year. Again, our forefathers had been used to the springs of New England, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, and they did not think they could live where they could not have access to springs. The early comer, back in the '30s, therefore, rode over the prairies of central Illinois, and then entered 160 in the timber, where he cleared his land and opened his farm."
After a careful investigation of the subject, some of the most eminent geologists of Illinois have arrived at the conclusion that the extensive prairies of the West, with their peculiar soil, have been formed in the past pretty much as prairies on a smaller scale are being formed at the present day. The black, friable mold, of which the prairie soil is composed, is due to the growth and decay of successive crops of coarse swamp grasses, submerged in spring, and growing luxuriantly in summer, only to be submerged again, and returned, in a rotten condition, to the annual accumulations before made. It is not difficult to believe that in a few hundred years, more or less, as the great sheet of water that once covered the entire valley of the Mississippi and tributaries, gradually receded to the present water courses, and left the prairies in the condition of alternate wet and dry swails, that a black, mucky soil was produced to the depth now found upon the prairies. In process of time, by more complete recession of the waters, the surface of the prairies became dry, and adapted to the wants of animals and men. The fact of there being no trees on the prairies is accounted for on the ground that such a condition of the soil as is here described is not favor- able to their growth, as may be often noticed in the marshy spots of timbered regions.
WATER SUPPLY
The splendid water supply of Champaign County is accounted for by the presence of the glacial drift, which forms the striking feature of the surface geology of Champaign County. Miss DeEtte Rolfe, who has written much and well on this subject, explains the matter thus: "Irregularly interspersed in this drift are long strips and beds
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
of gravel which have their outcrops on the flanks of the moraines. These, being surrounded by the dense clay, form pockets which become reservoirs for the storage of water. It is on these reservoirs that the county must rely for its water supply. The water obtained from them is of good quality, except in the somewhat rare instances where the outcrop of the gravel bed is so situated as to be exposed to contaminating influences, or in those cases, which should never occur, where the wells themselves are contaminated. As these gravel beds are distributed through the drift at different depths, the well, even on adjoining lots, may vary in depth. The quantity of water furnished by a well is governed by the size of the gravel bed from which it draws its supply. The deep wells of the county generally draw from the beds deposited between the two sheets of drift; their difference in depth depends on the irregularities of the first drift surface."
What is termed the "Artesian Water Region of Illinois" extends a short distance into the northeastern portion of Champaign County. It is simply a stratum of water-bearing sandstone, overlaid by a thick stratum of tough clay, which confines the water to the sandstone level. Wherever holes are drilled through this overlying clay, the confined waters of the sandstone rise to the surface through the outlets, furnish- ing an economical and valuable supply of water for agricultural pur- poses. This stratum of sandstone is called the St. Peter's, and is supposed to be the same stratum that supplies artesian water to the counties of LaSalle, Grundy, Will and Cook.
Clay and sand are the only elements underlying the Champaign prairie-sod that can be used for building purposes. Of the clay, a fair quality of brick and drain tile are being made in several places. The fire-clay, soapstone and limestone are covered too deeply with "drift" to admit of their being economically brought to the surface. Our chief sources of building stone and lime must continue to be the quarries of Kankakee.
SWAMP LANDS RECLAIMED
Until about forty years ago a class of Champaign County lands was as carefully avoided as the prairies of an earlier period; like the prairie lands, they also proved of unusual value. For years the swamps and lowlands were considered as tracts which were worse than valueless ; as so many pestilential breeders of malaria and other diseases. But in the early '50s much Federal and State legislation was directed toward the policy of donating such overflowed lands to the various counties. The result was to direct the attention of the county authorities more
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
particularly to the subject, and cause them to consider whether after all they should not attempt to reclaim the swamp lands to conditions of productiveness. In 1853 Benjamin Thrasher was appointed to exam- ine all the unsold lands in the county coming within the definition of the Federal Act as "swamp and overflowed lands," and to submit a report thereof to the County Court. He reported that 85,000 acres in Champaign County answered to that description, and nearly 36,000 acres of such land was subsequently confirmed to the county. These lands were sold and the funds used, in part, for the erection of a court- house in 1860 and to increase the school fund.
It was upon these lands that the great work of drainage was accom- plished nearly twenty years thereafter. In 1878 the State Constitution was amended by the addition of the drainage section, which authorized the formation of drainage companies, the digging and tiling of ditches, and for purposes of regulation and systematic work it divided the suh- merged lands into districts, with supervising officials. Soon after the year 1880 the system and the work were in operation. Since then the cost of these improvements has been great, having been estimated at con- siderable over $1,000,000. This embraces expenditures made by private individuals, by local districts organized by township authorities, and by the authority and direction of the County Court. The lands thus reclaimed now embrace some of the most productive and valuable tracts in the State. Some of the most important of these drainage districts are known as the East Lake Fork, Two-Mile Slough, Beaver Lake, Big Slough, Kankakee, Embarrass River, Wild Cat, Hillsbury Slough, Spoon River and Little Vermilion River.
STANDARD CHAMPAIGN COUNTY CEREALS
The soils of Champaign County seem to be especially formed to raise corn and oats. The elements were what they should be, as fur- nished by Nature, and the husbandman has not allowed the necessary ingredients to be exhausted. The result is that year after year corn and oats are bumper crops, and grain dealers throughout the country have long considered the Champaign County cereals as standard. In the production of corn the county not only leads the State but the United States. The figures vary considerably, as in other sections of the State, one of the most productive years being that of 1915, in which the county raised 13,742,000 bushels of corn and 11,928,000 bushels of oats, valued together at $11,219,924. In 1916, the yield dropped to 8,131,644 bushels of corn and 9,124,920 bushels of oats, the total value of which was $9,699,037-$6,505,315 for corn and $3,193,722 for oats.
MODERN SANITARY DAIRY BARN
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
In that year, also Champaign County led all the counties of the State in the yield and value of its oats, and, on the whole, has but one serious competitor in Illinois, McLean County. The county has a large acre- age in winter wheat-nearly 30,000 acres, and has made a good start in alfalfa and timothy seed.
DAIRY PRODUCTS AND LIVE STOCK
Its dairy products comprise milk, cream and butter in the following quantities (1916) : 70,884 gallons of milk and 69,866 gallons of cream, valued respectively at $19,139 and $69,886, and 98,876 pounds of butter, at $36,584. In the central division of counties, to which the State Board of Agriculture assigns Champaign, the county ranks fifth in the annual sale of butter, which brought, on an average, 37 cents in 1916.
For the raising of live stock Champaign County possesses unusual advantages, on account of its abundant and pure water supply, its equable temperature and the adaptability of its soils to the production of nutritious grasses. Its horses, especially, are hard to beat, eitlier in quality or quantity. In this regard it stands second among the central counties of Illinois, and fifth in the entire State. In the raising of horses McLean is the star county of the State, having 49,757 in 1916, as compared to 25,424 in Champaign. In May, 1916, the latter had, also, 13,339 beef cattle, valued at $233,551, 6,719 dairy cows, at $537,520, and 25,115 hogs, valued at $375,210.
BIRDS AS INSECT DESTROYERS
The farmer has no greater enemy to his crops and to his consequent well-being than the obnoxious insect, and there is seldom one which does not retard some form of vegetable life if allowed to flourish unchecked. Consequently certain varieties of the feathered tribe are the farmers' most useful friends; which they are, and what kind of obnoxious insects are their specially favored diets are thus told by O. M. Schantz, president of the Illinois Audubon Society :
"It is with very mixed feelings that I come to this meeting of the State Farmers' Institute to talk to the people of southern Illinois about birds. I am not a farmer and do not belong to this part of the country, but my wife was born in Carbondale and my mother-in-law in Metropolis, and I have heard of southern Illinois ever since I married into this interesting family of which I am a member. [Applause.]
"The State of Illinois is 378 miles long in its greatest length and
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
210 miles wide. Owing to its length and its peculiar position, it has almost as great a range of climatic influences, geographical influences, and so on, as any State in the Union. Therefore, its flora and fauna, its animal and vegetable life are extremely varied. The northern part is entirely different in its geography and its animal life from the south- ern part. By its location, part of it touching Lake Michigan and the rest of it being tributary to the great Mississippi Valley, except for the water fowl of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, more migratory birds pass through the Mississippi Valley than through any other part of the United States.
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