USA > Illinois > Knox County > Annals of Knox County : commemorating centennial of admission of Illinois as a state of the Union in 1818 > Part 21
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Claims Made for Village
Mr. Morgan Reece who collected a great many Indian relics claims that the village at the mouth of Court Creek was a village of the Sacs and Fox tribes, and that Black Hawk who was of that tribe had visited that locality. Relics have been found in that locality that were different from any others found in this part of the state, but were similar to arti- cles used by the Indians of the Southern states and on exhibit at the St. Louis Exposition of 1904 and were possibly brought to this locality after being captured in war or given as a pres- ent by some Southern tribe. One relic was made from a black hard stone. It was about 3 inches long and 2 inches wide and nearly an inch thick at the broadest part, in shape like the roof of a cabin with a hole through it lengthwise about where the ridge pole would be. This was picked up on the banks of Court Creek many years ago.
When Avery Dalton first came to the county, in 1830, there was a Pottawatomie village at what is now Maquon and near the present bridge across the Spoon River, they also had a burying ground near Maquon and large settlements up Spoon River. The Indian cemetery was just east of Spoon River and about on the present right of way of the Burling- ton railroad. Until 1832 there were more or less Indians in what is known as Kickapoo Grove near Elmwood. All of the Indians in that vicinity were of the Pottawatomie tribe. One of their chiefs who resided at Kickapoo Grove was a very old man at that time and was known as Captain Hill. He always wore a large silver cross suspended from his neck by a buck- skin thong; many of the Indians wore silver rings in their noses and heavy ear-rings. They were friendly and great beggars. They were in the habit of going to Shabbona Grove in the spring to raise corn, returning in August and Septem- ber. Mr. Dalton enlisted for the Black Hawk War shortly
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after the battle of Stillman's Run and his company with others formed a battalion of 200 mounted men who ranged over Knox, Warren and Henderson counties to keep back the Indians from the Rock River country. During the time they were out the Indians got through the lines but once and on that occasion murdered a settler in Henderson county. The company had no fights with the Indians. Most of the mem- bers of his company were from Fulton county.
Many Other Tales
David Dalton, a brother of Avery, was one of the first settlers of Persifer township and in his day was also a hunter and Indian fighter. There is one locality in the county which should be mentioned and a thorough examination of all that pertains to the earliest explorations of the state might throw some light upon the relics that have been found there. On the northeast quarter of Section 14, in Persifer township, about two miles north and west from the mouth of Court Creek where the latter empties into Spoon River, is a place where in past years many evidences of a battle between large numbers or of long duration have been found. The place is on the bank of Sugar Creek, and within an area of a few acres bullets have been plowed up and found lying on the ground by handfuls. Some few of them were once in posses- sion of farmers who reside in the neighborhood and they were of the large, old-fashioned kind, such as were used in the smooth-bore Queen Anne muskets of two centuries ago.
I had often heard of this so-called old battle field from those who lived in that vicinity. What called my attention to this particular locality was a map of the old French trails first traversed in this State. In looking for information on the subject of this articlest I had occasion to consult among other books the very excellent book written by Mr. Randall Parrish entitled "Historic Illinois." In this book is a map of the old French and Indian trails and one of them leads from the bend of the Illinois river where it forms the southwestern boundary of Bureau county and about where the principal town of the Illinois Indians was situated, almost in a straight line to a point on the Mississippi opposite the mouth of the Des Moines River. This trail entered Knox county at about the north line of Truro township and traversed the county in a southwesterly direction passing near the present city of Abingdon and through what are now Truro, Persifer, Orange and Cedar townships and crossed Sugar Creek according to the map at the exact locality of this battle field on Section 14. No other relics have been found as far as I have been in- formed, but the large number of bullets would amply justify the belief that a considerable battle was once waged at this
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place. The absence of other evidences, however, is not sur- prising.
Many other interesting facts about the Aborigines can be found in the Eva Chapin Maple sketch in Perry's History of Knox county ; in the Major McKee interview and the Judge C. C. Craig paper, on file in the Public Library in Galesburg; and in Chapman's History of Knox County. Valuable collections of relics were made by Hon. Rufus Miles, Robert Mathews, Dr. Bedford and others and many of these indicate a high degree of skill and workmanship. They are mute evidence of the existence here once of another people who had to give way to the onward advance of a superior race.
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OUT ON THE PRAIRIE By. W. B. Elliott
During a week of September in 1919 the Swedish Metho- dist church of Center Prairie of this county celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the dedication of its edifice. The cele- bration was very well attended at each meeting and a fine time was enjoyed by all. The former ministers who were present during the services were Rev. Bendix ,of Chicago; Rev. H. W. Willing, of Cleveland, Ohio; Rev. N. W. Bard, of Mckeesport, Pa .; Rev. A. J. Strandell, of Donovan; Mr. and Mrs. John P. Miller, of Chicago.
One of the features was the following interesting histor- ical address by W. B. Elliott.
When the first people came to Center Prairie, the land was densely covered with prairie grass and blue stem which grew in many places as high almost as a man's head when on a horse. This had been going on for ages so that the soil was covered and filled with vegetable matter and there were no ditches and small water courses to carry off the water as now and the land was very wet and untillable, there being, many large ponds which are still remembered by people now living. The result was that Center Prairie was not the first part of Victoria township to be settled up. The first settlers who came settled in the timber surrounding the prairie They did this far many reasons. They had generally come from the hilly regions of New England states and New York, Pennsyl- vania and Ohio and had been used to timber as wind breaks. In fact on the prairie where the sweep of the wind was un- hindered with the buildings that they were able to put up in those days, man and beast would surely have frozen to death. The writer of this article in his youth had the experience when sleeping in the loft of a log house of awakening in the morning with a thick covering of snow upon the bed covers and which had come in between the logs where the chinks had fallen out and under the clapboards. They did not know they could dig wells here in those days, and so the first settlers settled near springs. Neither did they know that the land was un- derlaid with coal and so they burned wood and had to be near it, for the fire-places with which they used to heat their homes and cook their simple food, took lots of fuel. All their building material must be near at hand in growing timber. It was the only material they had to fence with also.
The Prairie Fire
It was very dangerous to live on the prairie on account of the 'frequent prairie fires. I very well remember hearing my
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father tell how, when he was was a small boy, his father, Thomas Elliott, tried to plow around the house and stable and also burn the grass for a distance about the building which was known as back firing. When he had seen a fire in the distance he told how the onrush of the wall of flame was so great that it made all his efforts unavailing and jumped to the house and stable so that grandfather had difficulty in saving even his family and beasts. Being burned out in those days was no funny experience, with nothing to rebuild with except growing trees, and with no neighbors for miles around and winter coming on, for these terrible fires always came near winter when the grass had died and was dry. On this occasion my grandfather cut poles and built two pens, one in- side the other while grandmother gathered leaves and filled the space between them and in this they lived until they could erect a log cabin.
Were Hardy Pioneers
The early settlers who thus settled in the timber around Center Prairie and who later themselves or their descendants helped to make Center Prairie what it is were hardy pioneers, who came overland with their families in wagons from the older states. I shall only attempt to enumerate a few.
Thomas Elliott first settled in Persifer township in 1837 where the writer's father, Burgess Elliott, was born. He moved later to Victoria township near the present home of James Cook and it was while he was living here that he under- took and got out and delivered on the ground the long hewn timbers for the Methodist church which was built in Victoria in 1854. It was here he lived when he had a contract to de- liver railroad ties between Altona and Galva for the C. B. and Q. R. R.
The Wilburs settled just west of Delbert Patty's place in the thirty's and a daughter, Phoebe, married Peter Sornber- ger and they were the first couple married in Victoria town- ship in 1838, on Easter Sunday.
Luther Rice settled in the timber about two miles south from the Center Prairie church, about 1842, and was the pro- genetor of a numerous family, among whom was Foster Rice, who built a log house where Charley Larson now lives about 1857, and Cyrus Rice, who built the Robert Young house in 1857, where J. L. Huber now lives, which was another of the first frame houses on Center Prairie. Alvin Rice still owns a part of his grandfather's land. Perhaps the earliest settler on Center Prairie proper was Thomas G. Stuart, who patented the N. E. Quarter of Section 27 in 1838, which old patent the writer recently saw at the Exchange Bank at Victoria.
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Burned To Death
He died about 1845 and left his estate by will to his wife, Catherine. In 1850 Catherine burned a brush pile near the house to prepare ground to sow tobacco seed and the house caught fire and Mrs. Stuart was burned until she died trying to save money in the house and was buried just west of the creek on the S. E. Quarter of the old homestead. She was the mother of four boys: Tom, who kept the homestead; married Eliza Gladfelter, was crippled in the war, died at the old home and was buried in Thomas' grave yard, now the Center Prairie Cemetery. Elija, Peter, William and one girl, Katie, who married Van Winkle and was the mother of Henry Van Win- kle, who lived for many years north of Four Corners.
Perhaps the next settler in line who settled on Center Prairie was Josiah Patty and Beka Patty his wife, who built a log house on the southeast quarter of Section 27, where Phillip Gibbs now lives, he having purchased the land from Richard J. Barret in 1839. Mr. Gibbs still has the old patent. Their children were James, William, Sarah, Nancy, Robert, George and Josiah.
John Arnold, a blacksmith, first came in Knox County and Victoria township in 1836, but did not buy the old Arnold place where Gust Swanson now lives until 1840. He did black- smithing there until 1853, when he moved to Victoria. John Arnold and his wife had ten children. In fact in those days the hardy pioneer family that did not consist of ten was the exception and not the rule. Thomas Elliott and his wife were the parents of fourteen children.
Perhaps the first family who settled on the flat prairie to the north was that of Thomas Durand, for whom Jonas Hed- strom, the tailor and preacher, made a wedding suit, who owned the Conley place where Martin Gibbs afterwards set- tled in 1850, and the two eighty-acre pieces that now belong to Alex Ingles and Wm. England. This land he bought in 1841 and as there was no timber near he fenced the half section with a sod fence, the remains of which may still be seen after a lapse of nearly eighty years. He was the grandfather of John McNaught and Mrs. Cornelius Stephenson of later times. These were the N. W. Quarter Section 13 and the S. E. Quarter Section 12.
Arrival of Swedes
From this time on settlers came in increasing numbers. Especially about 1850 the Swedes began to arrive in large numbers. Among the early settlers were J. L. Jarnagin, 1845; Dalgren, 1846; Adolphus Anderson, 1847, and John Saline, 1854 . Then came in 1855 Peter Anderson, Lars Ostrom, John Chalman, Sam Coleman; in 1857, Peter Skoglund, step-father
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to Mrs. Catherine Larson, who is still with us, and Sievert Larson, to be quickly followed by Noah Swickard, Lars John- son, William Hammerlund, John P. Anderson, father of Frank Anderson, who still lives on the old homestead, and who shipped the first car load of frozen beef to Chicago and the man who invented the refrigerator cars that make it possible to ship fresh meat almost all over the world, as also Eli and Shid Johnson, Theodore Hammond, Joseph Cain, James Thomas, Jonas Olson and many others.
Poor Facilities
These were a hardy race who willingly bore the hardships of a pioneer life and bravely withstood the rigorous winters of the bleak and open prairies for the sake of founding their new homes and establishing their families in a new country. They early felt the need of education, as most of them had had very limited opportunities for securing an education, so that almost with their coming they set up log school houses, cov- ered with clapboards and floored with puncheon, which was poles split and the split side hewn and laid up as a floor. There was a fireplace in one end of the room and seats around the wall, made of slabs or split logs with four sticks in for legs upon which the children sat with their feet dangling from the floor as they studied the old Webster's spelling book, before the time of the far-famed McGuffey's speller. It was in such an institution of learning that Burgess Elliott, who was born in Knox county in 1837, as well as others of that time, secured the rudiments of an education. Not long after the first settlers came here, Old Salem, which was started in 1836, became too crowded and the settlers were so far away that they built a small square house on the corner near Tom Stuart's.
William Robinson, a cousin of John K. Robinson, was one of the early teacher's here. This school house soon became too small and it was proposed to build a new one and there was great rivalry as to where it should be built, but as this was near where Salem school now is, and most of the patrons lived east on the prairie, it was finally determined to put it where it now stands, and so the school house was built here in 1856. The sawed lumber was hauled overland from Rock Island and Peoria and the framing timber was got out by John Saline and Charles Appell. John Saline did the the build- ing of it. There was much discussion as to what it should be called. Some wanted to call it Stuart's Prairie and others Anderson's Prairie, but a compromise was made and it was named Center Prairie and Center Prairie it still is. The first teacher was one John Fleeharty, from Galesburg, who taught in 1856. The next winter, John Van Buren, a brother of
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George Van Buren, who still lives in Victoria, taught, and 'tis said of him to this day that he was one of the best teachers Center Prairie ever had. The next year, 1858, Miss Mary Garrett, a daughter of old Captain Garrett, who later became Mrs. McIlravy, and still lives in Victoria, taught the school, as she did for several terms thereafter. She, like all teachers of that day, boarded at Thomas Elliott's, and with other families who had children.
The Big Storm
She was staying a week at Moody Robinson's when they had the big storm, May 14, 1858, about five o'clock in the af- ternoon. It came from the north and blew Robinson's new frame house off the foundation and lodged it against the well. It lifted the roof off of Foster Rice's house and blew a log out over the door so that Mrs. Rice had to put a blanket over Foster, who was holding the door to keep him from drowning. It blew the windows out of Peter Anderson's house; in fact, the double log house of Thomas Elliott, made of the logs of Old Salem school house, was the only one in all this region that withstood the storm and all the neighbors stayed that night at Thomas Elliott's as it was the only dry place in the neighborhood. They lay about two deep all over the floor and 'tis said that none who were old enough to remember ever forgot that storm. Mrs. Robinson's geese were blown away till she never found them. Wagons were picked up and carried to the creek and washed away. Noah Swickard's new frame house, where Alvira Johnson now lives, was blown off the foundation, and at Rochester a house was blown in the river and carried away. The young men of the neighbor- hood went the next day to Walnut creek and swam around in the tops of the trees among the limbs which were twenty or thirty feet from the ground when the waters receded.
To these schools came the boys and girls that were to make this wilderness a teeming land of plenty. Such men as young Arnold, son of John Arnold, who afterwards became a notable lawyer of Peoria, and Jonas Olson, the crippled orphan boy who afterwards became Galva's most famous attorney and member of the Illinois Legislature and above all a life- long friend of all who knew him. 'Tis said that although he had to walk two miles to school with a crutch, he was one of the most happy pupils, as well as one of the most industrious. It is handed down in school lore that he was a mischievous boy and while studying the old M. C. Guffey's spelling book one day he ran onto what he thought was a bad word and spelled ut in a loud whisper so that the whole school could hear, d-a-m dam, n-a na, t-i-o-n shun, damnation, and he still asserts that what the teacher, Mary Garrett gave him, fitted
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the word. At these school houses were held many famous ex- hibitions, singing schools and spelling schools. Thomas Stu- art who was said to be a very poor reader was the most fam- ous speller of all this region, always standing up till all the teachers even were spelled down.
Center of Patriotism
So it was at this school house that the patriots of '61 met to encourage the boys to enlist in their country's cause. One of the most famous songs and one that always aroused the boys to the highest pitch of enthusiasm and which fitted the great leader, Abraham Lincoln, was "We are Coming, Father Abraham, Fifty Thousand Strong."
Center Prairie and the immediate neighborhood did not lack any in patriotism, as evidenced by the list of boys who wore the blue. Among them were August Carlson, Robert Young, Tom Stuart, Oliver Willy, Bill Larson, George Elliott, George Newberg, Adolphus Anderson, John P. Anderson, Nehemiah Coleman, Aaron Bothwell, Sam Cain, Jimmy Topp, Jonas Empstrom, Lee Shannon, Bill Thomas, Jonas Johnson, John Case, James Alderman, John Labar, Noah Swickard, James Jarnigan, Spencer Jarnagin, John P. Peterson, Ward Todd, Wm. Linday and Nat White. Of these famous sons of Center Prairie and surrounding territory who fought in the army blue, only three, George Newberg, August Carlton and George Elliott are now living.
In the World War
A history of the patriotic activities would be incomplete in this year of grace did it not include a list of the boys of the World War who wore the khaki of the army and the blue of the U. S. navy. The honor roll that stands out in front of this church contains a list of men, who risked their lives that democracy might live. They are:
Glen Ostrom, Raymond Wall, Arthur Swanson, Roy Gibbs, Lew Gibbs, Charles Carlson, Sgt. Harold Elliott, Ray- mond Elliott, Charles Warrensford, Forest Cain, Machinist's Mate 2nd, Edward Elliott, Paul Mustain, Clem Cravens, Ralph Mustain, George Todd, Ervin Moshier, Earnest Brown, Ber- tas Mackey, Clarence Spencer, Fred Steinman, Robert Kneer, Earl Brown.
The Religious Side
The early settlers were not satisfied to rest at mere phy- sical and intellectual betterment, but above all they were relig- ious. At first they met at the homes to hold worship and as soon as school houses were built they took the place of churches until churches could be built, so that when old Salem school house was built they began to hold meetings there and
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camp meetings in the grove, just north, and later the Swedish people held camp meetings on the opposite side of the hollow from the American. Then when the Center Prairie school house was built they used it for a meeting house, both the Swedes and the English speaking people. Louisa Anderson, now Mrs. William Seward, tells me that she was baptized at the school house. Many of the inhabitants of the prairie had helped to build both Methodist churches in Victoria, but were so far away and had only oxen to drive, that they early began to feel the need of a church on Center Prairie and when Peter Newberg and Exstrand started the movement to build a church on Center Prairie they found willing hearts and hands to help. "Exstrand was a very bright young man," says Jonas Olson. "Perhaps I am partial to him because he was a cripple like myself. He walked with a crutch." They were ably assisted by the English people and Swedes alike, one of the most earnest workers being Peter Skoglund. The land where the church now stands was purchased by Adolphus Anderson in 1855 and he broke it up. In 1857 he sold it to Lars Johnson and he in turn sold it to Wm. Hammerlund in 1858.
For a consideration of fifty dollars, Hammerlund sold a piece of land eight and one-half rods north and south and seven rods east and west to the Swedish Methodist Episcopal church of the United States to be for and under the control of the Swedish Methodist church in Victoria township, Knox county, Illinois. The money to build it was contributed by popular subscription. Many volunteered to haul a load of lumber back from Galva when they went up with grain and produce. The mason work was done by Swenson from Knox- ville and the carpenter work was done by Peterson Herdine, who lived in Galva for so many years. But the building of this church in 1869 was not without some opposition. Peter Chalman, who had formerly been presiding elder of the Swed- ish M. E. church of this district, assisted by John Wilson, a cabinet maker, and full of gab, as Andrew Hartman expresses it, and who came to be a real free shouting Methodist and who, wearing no suspenders, in the heat of his discourse, is said to have shed his raiment, organized about three quarters of a mile south of the school house a Free Methodist church. The money was raised by popular subscription, but not enough was raised to pay the debt and so the trustees paid the debt and tore down the church after some fifteen or twenty years. In this church the English Sunday school was held for many years. Thus Center Prairie has been supplied since a very early day with ample church facilities and I hope that future historians of the county will take cognizance of this fact in writing the early church history of Knox county.
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The Cemetery
One of the things neglected here, as in all newly settled districts, was the early setting apart of a plot of ground for a public cemetery. The early settlers buried on their own premises. The Tabors buried on what is now the John Saline place, the Stuarts on the Stuart place, the Arnolds on the Arnold place, the Cliffords on the Dr. Craven's place where old "Bobby" Armstrong's first wife, who was a Clifford, is buried. It was not until about 1858 that the family of Jim Thomas who owned the farm where the Center Prairie ceme- tery is located, lost several children with diphtheria and buried them there and when he sold the place to Olof Bowman he re- served the present plot for a burial ground and later, at the suggestion of William Messmore, deeded it to Knox county for a public cemetery. Center Prairie owes a debt of gratitude to John Thomas for this generous gift and can best repay it by seeing that it is always properly kept up. The present neat appearance is due largely to the good work of William Eng- land, Charley Larson and Victor Larson, who were selected by their neighbors to solicit funds and have it taken care of.
As To Utensils
The early settlers had very few of the comforts of life as we view them now. There were few simple cooking utensils. The writer has an old kettle that his grandmother has baked many a corn pone in by placing coals under the kettle on the hearth of the fire place and putting coals on top. All the clothes were made of wool or flax raised in the neighborhood and spun and woven into cloth. Much of the carpet woven in this locality by Aunt Margaret Larson, Adolphus Ander- son's first wife, was made on the old loom of Mrs. Thomas Elliott, that she used to weave the woolen and Lindsey-Wool- sey out of which she made the clothes and blankets to keep her family warm. It is only within the last few years that this loom has been destroyed.
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