USA > Illinois > Knox County > Annals of Knox County : commemorating centennial of admission of Illinois as a state of the Union in 1818 > Part 4
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hearing him tell of riding over the site where Galesburg later stood, when the only road was the Indian trail from Henderson to Brush Creek, which crossed the goodly stream of Cedar Fork where Leroy Marsh's horse barn now stands.
With the Williamson's, came Daniel Green Burner, a na- tive of Kentucky, who resided in Sangamon County before coming to Knox. Abraham Lincoln boarded at Green Burner's father's home for four years in New Salem and he and Lincoln slept together. When the Burners left their home in New Salem to come to Knox County, it was Abraham Lincoln who drew up the deed of sale. Green Burner settled on Section 1 and from that time on through a long life he was closely iden- tified with this part of the township. He added many fertile acres to those originally taken up until he was the owner of more than one thousand. The widow and part of the family of his son, Milton, are now living in Cedar Township, a few miles north of Abingdon.
Settling as near neighbors to the Williamson's and Bur- ner's and coming the same year, was the Swartz family, which from that day to this have been prominent in the Brush Creek neighborhood. Albert Swartz and his sisters, Miss Mary and Miss Sarah Swartz, are still living on the original farm, now beautiful cultivated, which was occupied by their grandfather in its wild state, while their brother Thomas lives on his own farm across the road.
The seventh family to arrive that year was that of George Long, who came from Ohio. They spent their first winter in Knoxville, and the next year settled upon the farm on Section 12, where some wooded land then purchased is still owned by members of the Long family. Two sons of Mr. Long, George and William, when returning home from the mill at Hender- son, were caught in a snow storm and lost their way on the wide prairie where Galesburg now stands. They wandered
around, through the growing darkness until they came upon a little stream to the southward that they knew and so found their way home. The township is indebted to the Long family for many years of teaching in its public schools. George Long, the son of George Long, taught school as a young man and put his earnings into the first payment for an eighty acre piece of prairie land, paying for it $5.00 per acre. His sister, Martha Long, was a teacher in Cedar Township and Knox County for a number of years, and his daughter, Miss Jennie Long, taught in the public schools of the county for 38 years, part of the time in Cedar Township and for 29 years in the city of Galesburg. Another daughter, Miss Catherine Long, was prominent in W. C. T. U. work, for eight years being State Superintendent of its Department of Work for Soldiers
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and Sailors of Illinois. These two daughters are now living in Galesburg.
Largely through the efforts of their mother, Mrs. Geo. Long, a Sunday School was started in an early day in the Brush Creek School House and maintained through many diffi- culties. This Sunday School kept up more consecutive years of service than any country Sunday School in the Township.
An early wedding in the township was that of Miss Mary Long with Reuben Castle.
Settling on Section 11 along the road traveled by the pioneers in their trips to Knoxville for trade, was another worthy family, who, among the first to arrive in 1835, have descendants living in Knox County. This was Thomas Marsh and his wife, the parents of LeRoy Marsh, Mrs. Blair and Mrs. Crawford of Galesburg.
With them came Elisha Humiston and family who settled nearby. Mr. Humiston later moved on to Section 17. In the northwest part of this section is a small, fenced-in grave yard, known as the Humiston Burial Ground.
Before turning to other localities, mention should be made of Lewis Spurlock and Williams Bevins. Both came in '34 and settled on Section 23. So far as I know, none of their descend- ants are now left in the county, but they had a place in the community life in the early days for Lewis Spurlock was a great deer hunter and William Bevins was a great bee hunter, and the venison and honey they brought in for the little colony were much enjoyed. The Spurlock name is also associated with other parts of the township.
In the northwest corner of the township, near where War- ren Chapel now stands, Uziah Conger, coming from New York State, settled in the early thirties. His family of nine sons and one daughter grew up around him here, some of them marrying and living in the neighborhood for many years. Here were spent the boyhood of Edwin H. Conger, who, when Am- bassador to China, won the gratitude of the Chinese people for his valuable advice in helping settle the indemnity money question, after the Boxer uprising and who gave the rich and beautiful banner, presented to him by the Chinese people, to Lombard College. He was a grandson of Uziah Conger and the son of Lorentus, who served the county on its Board of Su- pervisors at the time of the Court House fight. Here also grew up Seth Conger, another grandson, later identified with business interests in Galesburg, whose son Frank L. Conger is at the present time cashier in the First National Bank of that city.
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Into this neighborhood also, at a somewhat later date, came Ralph Mount. Two of Mr. Mount's sons, Thomas and William, owned farms and lived for many years along the main road between Abingdon and Galesburg. It was one of his sons also who failed to return home at the close of the Civil War and his brothers and sisters, supposing him dead, divided his portion of the estate among themselves, when suddenly one day he arrived home all alive and well and they gave it back again.
Into this northwest section of the Township (Section 6) in 1836, came Francis Portus Goddard whose son, Uncle Jimmy Goddard, a veteran of the Civil War, lives there still.
In the central north portion of the township, in 1835, Benjamin Marks who came from Kentucky, was the first to stake a claim out on the open prairie. "You will freeze in win- ter," they told him, but the fierce winter winds blew the snow banks around and clear over his little cabin and kept it snug and warm. Benjamin Marks' son, Pleasant, has long owned the farm on which his father settled, adding to it many acres of his own and is proud to tell of this land having been in the Marks family for 83 years.
Other early names in this general locality are Garrett, McPherren, Lowrey, Nelson, Crawford, Belden, Bundy and Snyder, who later lived in Abingdon and added Snyder's addi- tion to that town.
Because of her long residence in the township, "Grandma Reed" should be especially mentioned. She and her husband, John Reed, settled in the edge of the timber southwst of Ben- jamin Marks' home in '36. The location was near an excellent spring and had been a favorite camping ground for the Indians before the Black Hawk War. After her husband's death, Mrs. Reed, who was born near Edinburgh, Scotland, continued to live in this part of the township, spending her last years in the home of her son-in-law, James Kays. She lived to be ninety-seven years old. James Kays' son, Reed Kays, is living on the Reed farm today.
The Dunlap family, prominently connected with the town- ship's life, came during the latter half of that first decade. Henry Dunlap, with his two sons, Edmund and Jackson, and his daughter, Mary, took the long journey on horseback from Kentucky to Illinois, Knox County and Cedar Township. They arrived early in '37 and settled just north of Cherry Grove, the father on Section 20, and Edmund making a home for his bride of a few months on Section 19, where his twin daughters, Alice and Ellen, still live. Edmund Dunlap paid $100.00 for his orig- inal one hundred and sixty acres. A few months later, Mrs.
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Henry Dunlap, with her children and Edmund's young wife, arrived to complete the home circles. They came by boat down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to Oquawka, bringing their household goods with them. They brought also a colored woman, whom Mrs. Henry Dunlap's father had presented to his daughter to be nurse for her first baby. Henry Dunlap, as the law required, went security for her good behavior. Aunt Phyllis, as she was generally known, lived to be very old and acted as nurse to four generations of Dunlap children.
So far as is known, the only one now living who remem- bers coming to Cedar Township in that first decade is J. W. Stephens, who, when a lad of thirteen, came with his father, in 1838, and settled on Section 16. Mr. Stephens is ninety- three years old, a tall, well-preserved man, whose memory is clear and who abounds in many and interesting reminiscences. His father, when he came, bought of Mr. Kays eighty acres of fenced and improved land for which he paid $10.00 per acre. The original Stephens' land is now owned by J. W. Stephens' son, Charles, and so has been in the Stephens family since '38. Mr. Stephens tells of his first trip to the village of Knoxville the summer of their arrival where he saw the old Court House, the one now standing, in process of erection. Its walls at that time were up about four feet.
The decade of the forties saw the township rapidly filling up. I will not trace its population farther with just one excep- tion. I want to mention Isaac Hunter, who, with his brother- in-law, Mr. Jordan, came from New England to Peoria in 1839 and on to Knox County and Cedar Township in '41, building a log cabin on Section 23. Here he lived for many years. At the time of his sojourn in Peoria in '39 and '40, it was a town of seven hundred inhabitants. Later Mr. Hunter drove a stage coach between Peoria and Rock Island but the story most often told of him is of how he and Mr. Jordan drove 1,000 sheep across country from Massachusetts to Illinois, the trip taking one hundred and twenty-two days.
Early Conditions and Experiences
Now that the township is furnished with inhabitants who have gotten a firm foothold it is time to hear a few tales that have come down to us of these early days.
It is natural to wonder whether or not the early settlers were troubled by Indians. There are indications that, at a still earlier day, the Indians had had favorite camping places on Cedar Township land, especially in the vicinity of Brush Creek. Leroy Marsh tells of plowing his father's farm when he was a boy and finding many arrow heads and once the skull of an Indian. There are some reasons for thinking they favored
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other localities in the Township but none were very pro- nounced. Indians frequently found their way to the homes of the settlers and often frightened them, but there is no record of their being distinctly hostile.
Something of the terror of the Black Hawk War days in '31 and '32 was felt by the pioneers of Cedar Township, al- though all alarms proved false. Mrs. Joseph Latimer, look- ing from her door just at dusk one evening, saw that some kind of visitors were approaching. They were coming single file almost completely hidden by the tall prairie grass. She instantly thought of Indians but her alarm was quieted when she saw Mrs. Swartz with her children. Lonely and afraid, they had come to spend the night, Mr. Swartz being away from home.
From the little settlement at Cherry Grove, the name given to the neighborhood where the Latimers first settled, consisting of three or four families, George Latimer and U. D. Coy joined the volunteer rangers in the Black Hawk War. George Latimer was first lieutenant when the little volunteer band was formed. How rank was determined at that time, I do not know but always after the Black Hawk War, these two men were known as Colonel Latimer and Major Coy. Each of the Rangers furnished his own horse. One hundred guns were brought from Rock Island to Oquawka and from there by wagon to Knox and Warren Counties. The men from these counties ranged as far as the Mississippi river in the vicinity of Oquawka. They were gone from home more than two months and did good guard service, although engaging in no battles. Each man was paid eighty-six cents per day for him- self and horse.
About the Indians
In the years following the Black Hawk War, the Indians almost all crossed the Mississippi either voluntarily or taken to reservation lands by the government. A large band of Indians very early camped in their westward journey on a hill south of Jonathan Latimer's home. A granddaughter of his, in a school composition when she was quite young, tells a little incident of this Indian Camp in these words: "One little Indian shot another, and the murdered boy was buried on the hill, with his head to the north and his heels to the south, with his pipe, tobacco, guns and his valuable trinkets, beads, furs and feathers also. Being a chief's son, there was a great "Pow- wow" at his death. My Aunt Emily attended the funeral and re- members distinctly about it." By Indian rule, the little boy who shot the other should forfeit his life but Colonel Sands, who was conducting the Indians westward, succeeded in ar- ranging a compromise whereby the parents of the boy that was killed received certain valuable gifts. While these nego-
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tiations were being made, the boy was kept in hiding in the Brush Creek woods.
A very large company of Indians, estimated at from five hundred to seven hundred, accompanied by government offi- cials, on their way to western reservation land, crossed the township, camping over night by Brush Creek. Leroy Marsh, then a little boy, visited the camp which was about half a mile from his father's farm and was badly frightened by their yells to each other. One of the government teamsters, accompany- ing the Indians, was taken ill and left at the Marsh home where he was cared for for several weeks.
The log cabins of the first settlers have been often de- scribed. The more pretentions ones had two large rooms with an intervening space, roofed, and enclosed on one side. Each room had its large fireplace with cooking accommodations and a bed or beds and trundle beds, a spinning wheel and sometimes a loom. The construction of such dwellings was not a lengthy process. Neighborly helpfulness was universal. Mr. Stephens tells an incident which illustrates this. Wm. Kays had eight daughters and one son. Two married daughters were early left widows and returned to their father's house with their children. It is easy to see that the family were undesirably numerous, considering the log house accommodations, so a day was set, the neighbors all came early, cut and hauled the timber, and in one day put up a log cabin of the double kind just mentioned, so that one daughter and her family had one end and the other, the other. In like manner, when Alexander Latimer's log house burned down, the neighbors gathered and helped him put up another. Here again in one day, the trees were cut down and the building erected. The next day, he put down the puncheon floor, cut some windows and made some furniture and that evening the family moved in. Alexander Latimer's one chief regret in connection with the burning of his log cabin was that a number of letters written by Abraham Lincoln to himself were destroyed. He had served under Lin- coln in the Black Hawk War and was greatly attached to him.
Soon after Jonathan Latimer came, his horses strayed away and he was gone several days hunting for them. The finishing touches had not been put upon his cabin and their only door was a bed tick hanging down from the top, weighted at the bottom with straw. So plentiful were the wolves at that time that during the three nights of his absence, Mrs. Latimer had to keep a bright fire burning in the fireplace to keep the hungry animals from coming in. Wolves were great pests to the early settlers, especially in their propensity to carry off the sheep, for almost everyone owned some sheep, upon which they depended for the wool to be carded, spun and woven into blankets and clothing. Panthers were not uncommon and old
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and young avoided paths which led through thick underbrush at night. Deer were also plentiful for a time, as were many kinds of small game.
Log cabins soon began to give place to more pretentious houses. In 1840, Jonathan Latimer began the construction of a commodious brick house, which was long considered a fine dwelling. It was built in southern style with a wide hall ex- tending through it from north to south. He had chosen a rarely beautiful building site and had planted two long rows of maple trees which soon formed a handsome avenue leading to the house. The lumber used in the house came from his own timber and the bricks were made from clay dug on his farm and burned in two kilns he had made. The first brick burned he sold to buy window glass and to pay for the sawing of the black walnut lumber and the oak shingles.
Watson Barber, living just north of Louisville, hauled lumber on wagons from Chicago and put up a frame house for himself. This house was torn down only a few years ago-
Mrs. Joseph Latimer and Mrs. Swartz used to go on horse- back fifteen miles to Henderson to trade before there was a store in Knoxville. Knoxville being nearer and of growing im- portance, soon became the trade center for Cedar Township people. Heavy, wide-gauge wagons, drawn by either oxen or horses, were used at first but lighter and less clumsy vehicles must have soon come into use. Horseback riding was uni- versal. The women were expert riders, often carrying farm produce to market in this way and bringing back goods in exchange. At one time, Mrs. Jonathan Latimer marketed so much maple sugar of her own making and lindsey-woolsey of her own weaving that when the trading was finished she still had fifty dollars to her credit.
Stoves were rare. There was occasionally a square-boxed heating stove to be found but cook stoves did not come into the township until the very last of that first decade. Then one was hauled down from Chicago by Mr. Garrett. J. W. Stephens, at that time a boy in his teens, tells of going to see this stove as a great curiostiy.
For laundry purposes in the very earliest days, any good sized stream was sufficient. Mrs. Swartz and Mrs. Jonathan Latimer would carry their washing down to the creek where together they washed the clothes. When these were dry and ready to iron, they would carry the clothes to one or the other cabin and visit while they ironed.
The Markets
The nearest markets where the Cedar Township farmers could dispose of their grain, corn and stock were at Oquawka,
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about forty miles distant and especially at Peoria some fifty miles away and Copperas Landing, below Peoria. Mr. Stephens says he has hauled many a load of corn to Peoria, and sold it for fifteen cents a bushel, taking it out in trade. Mr. Stephens spent one winter helping run the saw mill at Old Henderson which sawed the logs for the old First Church at Galesburg. As a young man, he sometimes came to Galesburg for evening entertainments and it was not easy to take the ride home with- out getting lost, as all was open prairie to his home some six or seven miles south. To use his expression, "there was not a stick from there to Galesburg."
In case of sickness, home remedies were mostly used. Knoxville was the nearest place where medical aid could be secured. In the Fall of 1836 Joseph Latimer's youngest son, David, was seriously ill. He was taken to a doctor in Knoxville who asked that he be left in his care for a few weeks. Seeming improved in health, his brother-in-law, Major Coy, with the best conveyance obtainable at the time, was sent to bring him home. When well on their homeward journey, the young man complained of feeling faint and asked Major Coy to help him to alight. There, sitting by the roadside, death came quickly and with no one to call upon for help, Major Coy lifted his brother's body into the conveyance and went on alone to the sad home coming.
These are some of the experiences of those early days in Cedar Township. While some were hard and some were sad, the pleasant part predominated for the exuberance and strength of youth was in the newly settled country.
Schools
The history of the township's schools and churches began with its settling. From the day when A. D. Swartz and Azel Dorsey joined Hiram Palmer in 1829, religious services have been maintained. The services were held first in Mr. Swartz's house, where also, four years later, a church organization with seven members was effected. From this humble beginning grew the strong Methodist Church of Abingdon which later founded and fostered Hedding College. But before that day, there was a school at Cherry Grove, the outgrowth of another church organization, which was far-reaching in its influence. In Chapman's History of Knox County is this sentence, "The first church and school house erected in the county, was at Cherry Grove in Cedar Township in 1832, and Major Coy said he cut the first log for this church and school house." It was a log building and stood just southwest of where Cherry Grove Cemetery now is. Both religious services and school were held in this building. The school and church were always so closely associated that their story belongs together.
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On June 20th, 1835, at the home of Joseph Latimer, a little company met and organized a Cumberland Presbyterian Church with thirteen members. Joseph Latimer and John Howard were elected Elders and George G. Latimer, clerk, an office he held until his death, thirteen years later. The records of this mecting and those that followed are in the pos- session today of one of Geo. Latimer's descendants. Quaint old records they are and interesting reading. The brethren and sisters are carefully watched over and reproved by the church when their steps go astray. The little church, full of zeal and purpose, in 1836, the year after its organization, erected a frame building which stood about eighty rods northeast of the school house "in a beautiful walnut and sugar maple grove, just at the edge of the prairie." It was here that Cherry Grove Seminary was started, by this young church, in 1837.
Cherry Grove Seminary
Its beginning was small but the hopes of its founders were large. They hoped the school might develop into a college and in 1840, a charter from the state for a first class college was obtained. A graduate of both Cherry Grove Seminary and Knox College, in later years, compared the curriculum of the two young schools and found them almost exactly the same except that more Latin and Greek were taught at Cherry Grove. In 1841, Rev. Cyrus Haynes, a college graduate and an experienced and capable teacher, took charge as principal. Let me quote from Perry's Knox County History : "For eight years, under Mr. Haynes' management, the school prospered. In his time, a considerable addition was built, adjoining the church, to afford more room for the school. In 1849, a large, substantial, two-story frame building was erected, the lower story for a Chapel and church purposes, the upper story ar- ranged for recitations and other school uses.
"Mr. Haynes was followed by a succession of strong, wide- awake teachers among them Rev. J. M. B. Roach, C. H. Baker, Rev. J. C. Wagamon and others, all of whom did good work and under whose management the school continued to prosper. There came to the school a fine class of young people, earnest, enthusiastic and loyal. There was a successful literary society, the Upsilon, and a semi-monthly paper, "The Cherry Leaf," edited by the students. Also, in later years, music was taught. The school was in a sense under the advice and patronage of the Rushville Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. There were students from a large part of Western Illinois and they came also from Iowa, Missouri and Kentucky. A very large percent of those who were students here made a good record in after life, some remarkably so.
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"There were grouped about Cherry Grove Seminary grounds and within a half mile, ten or twelve houses where these students were boarded or boarded themselves. Besides these, home from a mile to a mile and a half away, took stud- ents to board when it was necessary. In maintaining Cherry Grove Seminary, all the community joined heartily. Many sacrifices were necessary and were made cheerfully. In some respects, the burdens fell heaviest on the women, who, with meagre facilities for doing so and very small pay, had to care for the students and see that they had as comfortable homes as possible while at school. Some of the students were poor and some of the young men were studying for the ministry and were to be encouraged in every possible way.
"Among the many unselfish and devoted women who helped in this, one is worthy of especially mention because of her long service and her helpful influence. When Cherry Grove Seminary was started, George Latimer with his father and brothers, Jonathan and Alexander, were among the active leaders in the move and gave much of their time and liberally of their means in forwarding the enterprise. George Latimer's home was but sixty rods from the Seminary and Church build- ing and every interest that pertained to either, always received a cheerful and hearty support from Mrs. Latimer. She was with the foremost in entertaining comers and goers and al- ways, of course, without a thought of pay. When the school was started and from that time on, her home was always full of students and at almost a nominal price for board. Her sym- pathy for and helpfulness to young men were a marked feature of her life. Here Dennis Clark, who for eighteen years served so acceptably as judge of the Knox County Court, lived for twelve years. He always held Mrs. Latimer in grateful esteem and affection. In 1848, Mrs. Latimer's first great sorrow came. In the space of two weeks, her husband and three child- ren were taken by death, two of the children being buried in one grave. Left with the entire care of a young family, in addition to her household duties, she now took the management of the farm. Her only son was but ten years old. Besides her watchful care and training of her five children, her man- agement of the farm and stock upon it was equal to that of the best farmers in the neighbood. Meanwhile, she in no degree relaxed her interest in the school. Her only son, after attending Cherry Grove Seminary, graduated from Knox Col- lege and the Law School at Albany, New York. Without com- ing home from Albany, he went directly into his country's service. In the Fall of 1864, while on shipboard off Fortress Monroe, returning from an expedition into the Carolinas, he died of yellow fever and was buried at sea." What it meant to this widowed mother to have her only son fall in the service of his country, just when he so well prepared for the work of
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