USA > Illinois > Alexander County > Alexander County profiles, a compilation of essays on Alexander County history > Part 6
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From March 1848 to September 1854, the records show only pay- ments of indebtedness on building and for various repairs. In Sep- tember 1854, Lightner was ordered to secure plans for putting up Judges seats, bar, jury boxes, and a flight of steps from the road to the west door.
In March of 1860, the city council of Cairo offered the use of its city jail to be used as the county jail, and recorded fifteen chosen lots in block 48 for a proposed courthouse.
One prisoner of the Thebes courthouse was Dred Scott, a negro who made his flight to freedom in 1856. He escaped from the jail. traveled cross land to Jonesboro, and boarded an Illinois Central Rail- road train.
In June 1860, the commissioners ordered William Yost to call on S. Staats Taylor for the lots chosen. He also accepted the offer of the city courtrooms to be used as a temporary courtroom.
This brought an end to a colorful period of history in the justice of Alexander county. It had all started in America, Ill., where the first county seat had been set up in the home of William Alexander in 1818. In 1831, the America courthouse was finally finished. Then in 1833, the county seat was moved to Unity, due to its more central lo- catoin in the county. The Unity courthouse was finished in 1837. On March 2, 1843, the separation of Pulaski and Alexander counties was achieved. The county seat at Unity remained in Alexander county. Due to a fire that destroyed nearly all of the courthouse and its records in 1842, the county seat was moved to Thebes in March of 1845.
At present Alexander county courthouse is at Cairo. Since Cairo sent most of the prisoners to be tried at Thebes, the courthouse was moved to Cairo in 1860.
With the backing of the Thebes Woman's Club, Men's Club, and Town Board, the people of Thebes set out to make a museum out of the old county seat in 1966 Mrs. Leland Shafer, leader of Thebes Wo- man's Club, and Raymond Baugher, leader of the Men's Club, were the two main leaders in starting the project of making the courthouse a museum. Mrs. Shafer gathered as much information for historical purposes as she could. Documents and relics were hard to come by, for mostly only legends and family stories remained.
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Due to the aid of the Green Finger project in the state of Illinois, under the Nelson Amendment, the task of restoration of the museum has been lightened somewhat. The main problem that holds back this project is finances. So far, with the help of the Youth Corp, the mu- seum has been opened in the summer months. Through the youth and help of Green Fnger, the area has been cleared of brush and trees, making it possible to set up a 7-acre park there. They have also re- paired windows, restored original fire-places, and repaired a walk that leads from the top of the hill to the base.
Tom Booker, Associate Farm Advisor, said that the reason so much was being put into making the courthouse a museum was, the people of Thebes want the job and are willing to work for it, which is an important step in getting the job done."
The courthouse is open each afternoon and all day Saturday and Sunday. Mrs. Shafer reports that about 1,200 persons toured the building this summer, with no road sign. A sign has been designed and will soon be set in place on highway 3 at the Thebes Spur.
UNITED STATES MARINE HOSPITAL
By DEBORAH MORGAN
Captain John R. Thomas, our congressman in 1882, enacted a law appropriating sixty thousand dollars for the purchase of grounds and the erection of buildings for the United States Marine Hospital. In September of that year, Surgeon General Hamilton came to Cairo and he, together with Mr. George Fisher, the surveyor of the port, and Gen- eral C. W. Pavey, the collector of internal revenue, looked over the city to choose a site for the hospital. The site was not definitely de- cided on until some time in 1883, when the present grounds between Tenth and Twelfth Streets and Cedar Street and Jefferson Avenue were chosen and purchased from the Trustees of the Cairo Trust Property for the sum of fourteen thousand dollars. The grounds in- cluded seventy-two lots. The buildings are now practically the same as they were when they were erected. Although it was finished in 1885, it was not formally opened until some time in February of 1886 at its dedication.
The United States Government built the United States Marine Hospital, as its name implies, for caring and nursing of sick and invalid sailors of our navy, all river men, and those in government service on the inland waters of the country. Up to this time, these patients were taken care of by the Sisters of the Holy Cross at St. Mary's Hospital and for a time the Sisters conducted the new hospital under the super- vision of Doctor Duncan A. Carmichael.
In March of 1915, the Hospital, under the supervision of Dr. James M. Cassaway, surgeon in charge, began the care of morphine users, which totaled two hundred. The users had been unable to obtain the drug since March 1 of that year.
The hospital was closed in the latter part of 1915 and was moved to Kirkwood, Mo. The patients at that time were transfered to St. Mary's Hospital.
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Today the buildings and grounds are being used as the Alexander County Tuberculosis Hospital and the Tri-County Health Department.
From Lansden's History of Cairo is taken the following list of surgeons and past assistant surgeons in charge:
Duncan A. Carmichael 1885; James M. Gassaway, 1888-1890: Rell M. Woodward, 1890-1894; Ezra K. Sprague, March-Nov. 1894; Gassa- way, 1894-1897; Parker C. Kallock, 1897-1899; W. A. Sheeler, Jan .- May 1899; H. C. Russell, May-Dec. 1899.
John M. Holt, 1899-1901; James H. Oakley, 1901-1903; Gregario M Guiteras, 1903-1907; Julius O. Cobb, 1907-1908; Robert L. Wilson, 1908- 1910. Dr. James N. Gassaway, 1915, when Marine Hospital was closed.
THE BELLE OF CAIRO, ILLINOIS
By DEBORAH MORGAN
She was five foot two, brown-eyed, pug-nosed and the belle of Cairo. Illinois, when that town numbered nine thousand inhabitants and fifty saloons. Her name-Isabella Maud Rittenhouse.
Maud, as she was commonly called, lived in Cairo, a thriving steam- boat town on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, in the 1880's. At the age of twelve, Maud started a journal which she kept conscientiously until she was thirty. Later in her life she burned the first volume but kept the six others that followed. The six journals were all of the same size and were bound in red leather. Each volume contained at least 100,000 words; they covered the years from 1881 to 1895. In her very legible hand she told everything to her silent confidante. One amazing thing about her journals was that she wrote them all in pur- ple ink!
This series of six journals was edited and published in 1939 by her son-in-law, Richard Lee Strout, in the book "Maud", which became a best seller. The book is an interesting and accurate account of the life of a well-to-do and well-bred young woman in a small mid-western town during the 1880's.
In her journals Maud told about her many love affairs. The young gentlemen of Cairo seemed always to be falling in love with her, al- though she led them all a merry chase.
Maud was a constant theater-goer. She was probably the most excited person in Cairo when the doors to the Opera House were first opened. She attended the opening night performance on December 15, 1881. Her love of footlights was too strong to let her remain just a spectator, and she soon became Cairo's favorite amateur actress.
In 1884 Maud was accepted at the School of Fine Arts in St. Louis. While in St. Louis she became a very good artist, but she was very homesick for "dear ugly Cairo."
Upon returning to Cairo she set up her own art studio in the attic of the family's fifteen-room brick home on Seventh and Walnut Streets. Besides painting in the studio, she did all her writing there. Not only did she write her journal, but she also wrote for "Godey's Ladies' Book." She won a literary prize for a novel (about a place in North Carolina which she had never seen) called "A Candid Critic."
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The hectic and happy days in which Maud wrote her journel ended when she wrote the last entry in her fourteen-year journal on June 6, 1895. At that time Maud was preparing to marry an engineer-turned- physician-Dr. Earl Hugh Mayne. Dr. Mayne had helped with the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad bridge, which was an in- ternational wonder and the longest bridge in the world when it was built.
After their marriage Dr. and Mrs. Mayne moved to Brooklyn, New York. They became the parents of three daughters. Maud lived in Brooklyn until her death on March 8, 1946.
Editor's Note: House purchased by the Cairo Historical Society in 1968 and is currently in the process of restoration.
DARIUS BLAKE HOLBROOK-SECURING A FOUNDATION By JOYCE MURRY
Introduction
Darius Blake Holbrook was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He had been a prominent man in the city of New York for many years, and had great ability and large personal influence with all with whom he was associated.
Besides his work in establishing the city of Cairo, Illinois, and in securing the great land grant for the Illinois Central Railroad, he was associated with Cyrus W. Field in laying the first Atlantic cable.
He died in New York City, January 22, 1858. His wife was Eliza- beth Thurston Ingraham; and their only child, now Baroness Caroline Holbrook Von Roques, married William Chandler, of the banking house of St. Johns, Powers & Company, of Mobile, Alabama.
Character
The second attempt to establish the city of Cairo seems to have been begun by Darius Holbrook. He was not an adventurer, a dreamer, or a man of merely schemes. Force of character, strong will, cease- less activity and enterprise, initiative, ability to bring others to see things as he saw them, were only some of his remarkable endowments.
These characteristics were noticeable at all times. Nothing within the bounds of reason seemed too hard for him. Where others drew back he pushed forward. He had no patience with men who floated with the current. He would take advantage of it if it carried him toward the goal of his plans but if in the other direction, he turned against it and buffeted its waves with a faith and belief that seemed unconquerable.
Project - Cairo
Darius must have known all about this place or geographical point before he came here. He knew of the attempt and failure of 1818. He knew or soon ascertained who were the owners of the lands between
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the rivers; for nothing could be safely done without first acquiring good titles to the lands.
He knew the low site, the river floods, the abrasians and inroads upon the shores, the need of strong levees and of the clearing off of the dense woods. He knew that while the geographical point was all that could be desired, the proposed city must have a secure founda- tion, a safe and enduring site.
It was more than starting and building a city. A site had to be first provided. But he seems to have firmly believed that he and those associated with him could bring moneyed men to such a belief in the feasibility of the enterprise as would lead them to make all necessary advances of means.
It was then as it was in 1818 and is now, a question of money. As the first promoters in 1818 left everything to the control and manage- ment of Comegys, so in 1836 to 1846, Holbrook seems to have been in- vested with unlimited authority. He was said to be not merely the chief representative of the companies, but the companies themselves.
If such was the case, it must have been due to the very general belief that what he wanted was needed and what he did not want was to be laid aside. He made two or three trips to London, and the great banking house of John Wright & Company became his company's fi- nancial representative in that city.
These bankers were at the same time the agents of our state for the sale of its canal bonds. Besides Holbrook, there were in London Richard M. Young, then one of our United States senators, and Ex- Governor John Reynolds, agents for the state and arranging with Wright & Company to take charge of the state's bond sales.
Daniel Webster was also there, and while there gave his written opinion to Holbrook regarding his company's title to the lands it had mortgaged to the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company to secure the payment of its Cairo bonds.
Holbrook did everything, was everywhere, saw everybody, legisla- tors and capitalists and other men of prominence and influence whom he supposed might aid him. He secured in London large sums of money and must have used, here in Cairo, more than a million dol- lars. He and his company had great faith in their enterprise, and they determined to obtain titles to the land almost regardless of the price demanded.
Holbrook worked on faithfully even after the failure of Wright & Company. He must have known, however, long before the end came that his attempt must meet a fate not wholly unlike that which came to the Kaskaskia people in 1818.
The great London bankers had turned against Wright & Company and brought them to bankruptcy, and he knew that if he could not raise money on his Cairo bonds at the outset in this country, he cer- tainly could not do it now that the whole financial world was in a state of suspense as to what would be the outcome of the monetary depression almost the world over.
Holbrook, seeing that he could go no further, set about finding what entirely new arrangements might be made by which he and those associated with him might save something out of the failed enterprise.
Obstacles to Overcome
A number of writers about Cairo have criticized him and some of them very severely. Not enough of the facts and circumstances, run-
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ning through a number of years, enable people to express a very satis- factory opinion as to those matters about which he was criticized.
The work which he had undertaken was difficult in the extreme: he seemed to have firmly believed that he could accomplish it. After the first two or three years he must have seen more clearly the diffi- culty of the situation. These called forth only greater efforts on his part; but when it became more and more evident that the situation was growing more and more doubtful, he may have resorted to measures which seemed more or less inconsistent with that straight- forward kind of conduct about which all men speak well but which many of them find it exceedingly difficult to follow when overtaken by unexpected embarrassments.
Observation shows that most men in times of severe financial trial and when failure seems impending, will turn aside here and there and do this or that and the other thing which they would have before se- verely criticized. Holbrook was determined that his enterprise should not fail, and it was a long time before he could see anything but suc- cess ahead of him. What he did at Washington and Springfield and New York, even as late as 1849, shows that his hope was not entirely gone, although his Cairo City and Canal Company had already sold out to the Cairo City Property Trust.
It may not have been strictly accurate to speak of Holbrook as having begun the second attempt to start a city here. Breese, Gilbert and Swanwick seem to have first moved in the matter and to have sold to Holbrook, late in 1835 or early in 1836, an interest in their land en- tries here of August and September, 1835, and this seems to have been the first introduction of Holbrook to the proposed scheme. From that time forward, he became the leading spirit of the enterprise, long drawn out and beset with many difficulties.
Conclusion
From January 16, 1836, to February 10, 1851, there is the period of something over fifteen years, during all of which Holbrook never swerved an inch in his devotion to the city of Cairo. The very best years of his life he had put into his attempt to establish it; therefore, one must readily agree that the Cairo of today owes its existence more to Darius Blake Holbrook than to any other man.
HISTORIC COURTHOUSE AT THEBES MONUMENT OF DAYS GONE BY By JANA OGG
Henry Barkhausen, an architect who once served the king of his native Germany in that capacity, was one of the early settlers of Alex- ander County. After losing his job in Germany, he moved here in 1838, settling on a section of land at the foot of a series of bluffs, which is now the village of Thebes.
After Alexander County was organized separately from Pulaski County in 1843, and the courthouse at Unity burned, the county seat was moved to Thebes.
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In January of 1846, L. L. Lightner, who had been appointed to draw plans for the building, drew up a contract, and Henry Bark- hausen, by virtue of his education and experience, was given the con- tract to build a courthouse. This courthouse, still standing today as a monument to the ability of its builder, was completed in 1848.
The walls are of unhewn sandstone, laid in mortar. The timbers are of local lumber, hand-hewn to size, the boards for the floor and the roof were hand sawed, and the hand shaven shingles were split from native timber.
The walls were plastered inside and out with plaster made of local material. Lime from near-by deposits of limestone was burned and mixed with sand and hair.
After being burned, the lime was stored in a pit and allowed to ripen for an entire winter. After more than one hundred years this outside plaster has shown almost no deterioration.
The building has a front porch in southern colonial style, and the contract price was $4,400.
The building was built on the brow of a bluff overlooking the Mis- sissippi, and at once became a landmark to help rivermen guide their boats in the treacherous channel through the "chain of Rocks." the break of the Mississippi River through the Ozark range of hills. Al- though it has suffered from lack of care, it is still well known to river- men, and it still helps them guide their boats.
After being finished, the Thebes courthouse played an important part in history. According to legend, it is the site of Abraham Lin- coln's first speech, while he was still an unknown lawyer, and it holds the echoes of the voices of such men as the "Little Giant", Stephen A. Douglas; the Union General and United States Senator from Illinois, John A. Logan; and others of more than local fame.
Recorded history says Dred Scott was imprisoned there, escaped, and made his way over the "Devil's Backbone" road to freedom and safety at Anna, where he caught a train to the north.
Later his name was written permanently in history by the Dred Scott trial decision.
To reach the courthouse, prisoners, lawyers, judges and witnesses had to go by steamboat around the point, and thirty miles up the Mis- sissippi to Thebes.
There everyone unloaded and made the steep climb up to hill to the courthouse, beautiful in its simplicity.
As evening drew near, the crowd came back down the long hill, minus the prisoner, who was locked safely in the dungeon with two foot thick walls of earth and rock dividing the cells.
If the river was low; gorged with ice, as it often was; or if a sud- den storm whipped up- well, justice had to wait another day.
The delays of this system became intolerable and so in 1860 the county seat was moved to Cairo.
Since then the old courthouse has gone through various stages of use and disuse. It has been used as a Methodist Church, a library, a town hall, and a residence.
In recent years it has stood empty and ghostlike-its windows broken-its stone steps askew-its paint peeled-a monument to a day that has all but been forgotten.
Edtior's Note: The Thebes Woman's Club chose the Court House as a crub project and, with the help of civic organizations and citizens of Thebes, it has undertaken restoration of the building. A museum is housed there, also.
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GOOSE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD- HORSESHOE LAKE
By JEFF PATTON
Foreword
Man is a creative being, always trying to improve on and build things. Often in his strife for progress he destroys many of nature's beauties and creatures, and, when the project he desired is completed, it is not always equal in majesty to that which he destroyed.
But this is not always the case. In some instances man actually helps nature and her off-spring. By his ingenuity and skill he can succeed where nature has failed and bring from the biblical rock of neglect a torrent of beauty and usefulness. Such is the saga of Horse- shot Lake.
The story of Horseshoe Lake begins many years ago with the mighty Mississippi River. As it threads its way southward to the Gulf of Mexico, the river twists, called an ox-bow, was cut off from the main channel This ox-bow was like the ancient Roman god Janus, for it had two faces. It contained water only during the rainy season and almost completely dried up during draught periods.
In 1927 the Illinois Department of Conservation decided to make Horseshoe into a game refuge for Canadian geese. For this purpose the department purchased 3,500 acres, which included all of the island and most of the lake. Much of the land on the island was then put into a grain crop to provide food for the expected birds. A dam was constructed across the south end, and in this way the lake was en- abled to hold water all year long.
The lake was thus made into a veritable paradise for the birds and they soon began to converge on it from their natural wintering grounds on sand bars and islands of the Mississippi.
As the number of geese increased so did the number of hunting clubs in the area. When the annual harvest of geese became excessive, the Conservation Department became alarmed, and, in 1939, it began a long term management program. In 1945 the season closed after only five days with a harvest of 5,000 geese. In 1964 the entire Mississippi Flyway was closed to goose hunting, but in 1947 only the 18,000 acres adjoining Horseshoe was closed to the taking of this mag- nificent bird.
The Department sensed the need for expansion and in due course bought land in nearby areas. This increased the size of the refuge at Horseshoe to approximately 7,000 acres.
With these measures being enforced the goose population in- creased steadily until by 1954 it had swelled to 170,000. The special protective zone was therefore abolished, and in its place there were now special hunting regulations. The population continued to in- crease and presently during the season it will vary from 150,000 to perhaps 200,000.
Beginning in 1961 Illinois and Wisconsin established "kill quotas" which prohibit an excessive kill of geese.
The economic importance of the hunting season in this area can- not be overstated. The net income of the more than thirty private hunting clubs in the area totals many thousands of dollars and forms
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a large portion of the residents' incomes. Restaurants, hotels, motels, and filling stations in the area also do a tremendous volume of busi- ness during the season which begins in middle November and ends about the first of January or as soon as the quota is reached.
Preparation for the season begins many months before it actually starts when the hunter phones in for reservations at the clubs. As the first geese begin to arrive, the farmers rush to harvest their crops, dig their pits, and set up their blinds.
Opening day nears and the hunters begin to flood in. The club owners pray for rain and moonless nights, for it is under these condi- tions that the honkers fly best.
The long awaited day finally arrives and long before dawn the roads are crowded with the cars of hunters on their way to the clubs. Shooting begins with the rising of the sun and most club operators insist that the hunters be present at least 45 minutes early. The operator briefs the hunters. "Don't shoot until sunup. No high shoot- ing. Be careful and everyone will get two geese." They then receive their pit numbers, pile into the jeeps or trucks, and are carried swiftly into the fields. As the sun rises the men open fire. One pit gets two, another three! Many club operators now use two-way radios and in this way keep in touch with observers who watch the different fields. As the hunters get their geese they stand up, and the observer picks them up in a jeep. They are returned to the club house. Hopefully this will be a good day and everyone will "shoot out" by 3 o'clock clos- ing time.
This is repeated over and over again throughout the season.
Horseshoe appeals not only to the goose hunter but to the angler as well. The lake is amply stocked with crappie, bluegill, and large mouth bass. Anglers flock to the lake in the summer, and in the win- ter a disappointed goose hunter often finds consolation in the fine fishing.
In recent years there have been numerous improvements around the lake. All of the lakeside roads have been either blacktopped or im- proved. New campsites have been installed. Also a large pavilion, equipped with twilight lights to permit nighttime parties, has been erected on the lakefront.
All in all it is not hard to see why Horseshoe is as famous as it is in the sports world. And it is easy to understand why thousands of sportsmen every year converge on Horseshoe Lake, Illinois-Goose Capital of the World.
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