USA > Illinois > Perry County > Combined history of Randolph, Monroe and Perry counties, Illinois . With illustrations descriptive of their scenery and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 18
USA > Illinois > Randolph County > Combined history of Randolph, Monroe and Perry counties, Illinois . With illustrations descriptive of their scenery and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 18
USA > Illinois > Monroe County > Combined history of Randolph, Monroe and Perry counties, Illinois . With illustrations descriptive of their scenery and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 18
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In 1814 James and Samuel Thompson reached Kaskaskia from the Abbeville district, South Carolina. James taught school in Kaskaskia three years, and settled on a farm in township five, range seven. lle commanded a company of militia in the Black Hawk war. He was a skilful surveyor. For twenty years he surveyed public lands for the United States government, and was county surveyor for several terms. In pursuit of his favorite occupation his foot prob- ably left its impress on every section of land in Randolph county. He was judge of the probate court from 1831 till the office was abolished by the constitution of 1848. IIe was county commissioner in 1820. Samuel Thompson was also a surveyor, and was employed in surveying the public land for several years. William and John Allen, originally 10
residents of Georgia, whenee they removed to Ohio, in 1841 came to Illinois, and settled in township five, range seven. In 1815 Alexander Gaston settled in the eastern part of the county, not far from the present town of Steel ville.
Andrew Borders, a native of South Carolina, then a young man of twenty three, came to the county in Isto, and began an unusually successful business carcer. He settled in the neighborhood of Sparta, where he died in 1861. lle brought with him to the county four slaves, whom he treated with great humanity and kindness, Samuel C'raw- ford reached the county from Tennessee in 1816. Three years later be made a settlement in the lower end of the Opossumden prairie. He was popular with the people and held several public positions. He was a justice of the peace for a time, and receiver of public money at the Kaskaskia land office. He was elected a member of the state senate in 18_8, and served till 1832. William Fowler, a soldier of the war of the Revolution, came from South Carolina in 1816, and made his home in the Harmon settlement John Layne, the same year, settled near the pre-ent town of Steele. ville ; James Slater, in the vicinity of Ellis Grove; Cor- nelius Adkins, in the lower end of Short's prairie ; and Emanuel Canaday, in the Steele neighborhood.
In the year 1817, among the settlers were several who became conspicuous and influential in the carly history of the county. Among these was Robert M. Mann. He was born in the Abbeville district of South Carolina and left that stit> for Illinois in 1877. On reaching Kentucky news of Indian depredations deterred him from proceeding farther, and he remained in Logan county, Kentucky, till 1817, when he came to Randolph county, and entered land near the present village of Preston, on which he lived until his death in 1855. John Mann, his oldest son, came to the county some years after his father. He served as county commis ioner for several years subsequent to 1842. Another son. Robert Mann, was an officer in the Black Hawk war ; in 1826 was elected a member of the state legislature, and also served as school commissioner. The other two sons were William and Samuel Alexander Mann. Col. Gabriel Jones in 1817 settled near Steeleville. 1le was born in Loudon county, Virginia. In 1510 be removed with his father to Barren county, Kentucky. He enlisted in the Kentucky troops during the war of 1812-14, and was at the battle of the Thames in Canada. Ou coming to Steeleville he taught school. He was active, energetic, and talented, and was appointed colonel of the militia and served in that position several years. From 1825 to 1828 he lived near Kaskaskia, and subsequently was in the mercantile business at Steeleville and Chester. He was the captain of a com- pany raised in the county for service in the Black Hawk war, and was made colonel of the regiment, distinguishing himself as an able and gallant soldier. He represented Randolph county in the state legislature from 1824 to 1826, and from 1-38 to 1840. He was elected a member of the county commissioner's court in 1822 and 1836. He was also mayor of the city of Chester. 1Ie lost his wife in the great storm which visited Chester in November, 1864, his house being swept away in the tornado.
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HISTORY OF RANDOLPH, MONROE AND PERRY COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
Ignatius Spregg, in 1817, came from Maryland and settled in the American Bottom. He was elected treasurer of the county, from 1828 to 1838, served as sheriff and became a citizen of Arkansas. In the latter part of the year 1817, James and llenry O'Harra came to Illinois and shortly afterward settled in the neighborhood of the present village of Ruma. They were of Irish descent, and their ancestors had settled at an early period in Frederick county, Maryland. In the year 1811 the family removed from Maryland to Nelson county, Kentucky, and thence came to Illinois. Curtis Conn, a native of Boston, Massachusetts, came to the county in 1817. Hle had lived several years in the West India islands, where he had been actively engaged in trade. After residing for a year in Kaskaskia he settled on the farm, a couple of miles north west of Chester, which Samuel Cochran had begun to improve in 1804. He was judge of the probate court ten years. Daniel Alexander reached the county in 1817 from Maine. Ile settled on a farm in the llughs settlement, and after living there many years went to Texas, where he was murdered. James McFarland, a South Carolinian, settled on the west fork of Mary's river, near where that stream is crossed by the Kaskaskia road, in 1817. Samuel Nisbet, also a native of South Carolina, settled the same year one mile east of where the village of Eden was afterward built William Morris became a resident of the Opossumden prairie, and William Givin and the Barrows and Houseman families located in the vicinity of Shiloh. At the point of the bluff, five miles above Kaskaskia, Henry Will began the improvement of a farm in 1827, and an im- portant settlement sprang up in his vicinity.
In the year 1818 the neighborhood south of Ruma re- ceived important additions in the families of Joseph and Thomas Orr, Benedict ITorrel, John Brewer and Norton, Samuel, Lewis and Thomas llull. Amos Paxton was also one of the pioneers in this part of the county. The Orrs were from Virginia. Joseph was a major in the militia. The Brewers and the Hulls came from Kentucky. One of the most useful and respected of the early residents of the county, the Rev. Silas Crisler, arrived from Boone county, Kentucky, in 1818, and began the improvement of a farm, on the old Shawneetown road, near the Harmou settlement seven miles north of Chester. Much of his time was devoted to the work of the ministry, and he was the founder and pastor of the Gravel creek church, one of the early Baptist churches in Ilinois. He died in 1851. Amasa Aldrich a native of Massachusetts, became a citizen of Kaskaskia in 1818. A few years afterward he settled on a farm north of Chester.
In 1819, a Tennessean, Alexander Campbell, came to the Irish settlement. Hle afterward removed to the neighbor- hood of Steeleville. One of his sons, Edward Campbell, was elected county commissioner in 1844. Another, John Camp- bell, was sheriff from 1838 to 1848 and from 1854 to 1856, and county judge from 1849 to 1853 and from 1856 to 1861. Eli Short, a soldier in the Kentucky troops during the war of 1812-14. who had received a wound at the battle of Tip- pecanoe, which troubled him during the rest of his life in 1819 settled in the prairie in the eastern part of the county which still bears his name. For many years he preached the
Gospel. One of his sons, Jefferson Short, was killed in the Black Hawk war. David Hathorn in 1819 settled near the site of Evansville, and afterward in the Opossumden prairie. James Baird came from Ohio the same year, and began the improvement of a farm three miles south of Sparta. Arthur Parks settled in the eastern edge of the Lively prairie. He was county commissioner from 1824 to 1826. Adonijah Ball made a settlement on Rock Castle creek in a region which no one had previously penetrated. George W Stratton came to the county in 1819 He first settled in the American Bottom, and shortly afterward purchased the land on which that part of Chester known as Buena Vista is now built, on which he lived till his death in 1845. Isaac Rust, a native of Maine, first came to Kaskaskia in 1819. In early life he had been a sailor, and after a few years tried the sea again for a year, and then returned to become a permanent citizen of the county. lle was a wagon-maker, and introduced an improved style of wagons among the Kaskaskia people. He also repaired boats, and rigged sailing vessels with masts, thus bringing his nautical knowledge into use. In 1836 he removed to a farm two miles east of Chester. Shelton Evans and Lewis Simmons settled in the point below Kaskaskia about the year 1819, and in 1825 removed to the Horse prairie, where the penitentiary is now built, above Chester. Benjamin A. Porter settled in 1819. He built a brick house and a mill. The mill burned dowo, but the house stood for many years afterward.
In 1820, numerous additions were made to the population of the county. Robert Bratney, who had been a soldier in the war of the revolution, and an early settler in Tennessee, settled near the mouth of Little Plum creek. With him came his son, Joseph Bratney, who had served under Jack- son iu the war of 1812-14. Martin Smith arrived from the state of New York. John Thomison began the improve- ment of a farm four miles west of Sparta. Alexander Alex- ander came from the ('hester district, South Carolina, and settled one mile south of where the village of Eden now is. Thomas, William and John McDill located in the neighbor- hood of the present town of Sparta. John Adams, a native of North Carolina, and one of the pioneer settlers of Ken- tucky, came to the neighborhood of Evansville, and in 1822 settled in the Horse prairie. John and Samuel Cochran settled in the vicinity of Chester, the former first living near the mouth of Mary's river, and afterward on the farm sub- sequently occupied by lsaac Rust, and the latter improving the Douglas place, two miles and a half east of Chester.
The settlement in the lower end of Flat prairie was strengthened by the arrival, in 1820, of David Cathcart, John Dickey, and John McMillen, and the next year of Ebenezer Alexander and James Anderson. Ileacock prai- rie was settled in 1822 by Samuel Douglass, James Bean, Thomas McBride, James Redpath, and Elisha, George, Charles and Fortiss Heacock. The same year, the Grand Cote prairie, in the northeast part of the county, received as its pioneer settlers, James Coulter, John McKelvey, and Alexander McKelvey.
In the precinct histories will be found more minute men. tion of the pioneer settlers of the county. Of all of them it
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HISTORY OF RANDOLPH, MONROE AND PERRY COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
may be said that they were simple-hearted, brave, and generous, and their memories should be cherished as those who, on the soil of Randolph county, laid the first founda- tions of the great commonwealth of Illinois.
EARLY MILLS.
The first water-mill ever built in Illinois was near Kas- kaskia, on the opposite side of the Kaskaskia river, where now stands Reiley's mill. Prix Paget (the name is spelled " Pagi " in the deeds of conveyance) was the earliest pro- prietor of a mill at that place of whom there is any record. He erected a stone mill, and engaged in the manufacture of flour for the New Orleans and Mobile markets. Ile . met his death at the hands of the Indians. The mill was attacked by a band of Kickapoos, and Paget, with some negrocs employed in the mill, was killed. One negro made his escape, and gave the alarm to the people of Kas- kaskia. Paget's body was found eut in pieces, the head severed from the body, and thrown into the hopper. The old mill was about one hundred and fifty yards below the site of the present one. After Paget's death the mill was abandoned for many years. The structure crumbled to pieces, so that only the walls remained. About the year 1795 the mill tract came into the possession of General John Edgar, who rebuilt the mill with enlarged capacity. From the mill-pond, about three hundred yards distant, the water was conveyed by an arched culvert. General Edgar carried on the mill for many years, and it was of great service, both to the people of Kaskaskia and the pioneer American fami- lies who settled in the various parts of the county. It was resorted to from a distance of many miles. The mill ceased to run while still owned by General Elgar. After his death, it passed into the possession of a company composed of Jacob Feaman, Anthony Lessieur, James M. Wheeler, and Samuel Jones, who put it in running order. Daniel Reiley purchased it in 1842, and made important improve- ments. In 1855 he began the erection of a steam mill. He was actively engaged in running the mill till his death in 1867, and made Reiley's mill the center of considerable business activity.
A mill was built in early times at Prairie du Rocher. Henry Levins' mill ou Horse creek was a great convenience to the residents of that part of the county.
OVERFLOWS OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
An inundation of the Mississippi bottom in Randolph and Monroe counties occurred in the year 1725. Another, which made necessary the abandonment of Fort Chartres, took place in 1772. The flood of 1785 was the greatest of the last century. The French villages were reached by the water. The inhabitants of Kaskaskia and Cahokia were compelled to seek refuge on the bluffs. The next great flood was that of 1844, still remembered and referred to, not only by the residents of the American Bottom, but by people then living along the whole course of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Water many feet deep covered the bottom. Large steamboats sailed from bluff to bluff. The village of Kaskaskia was almost destroyed. The water stood five feet deep in the old hotel building, while the high water of 1785
had just reached the floor. Subsequent overflows have occurred in later years, but none so great or destructive. The annual rise usually washes away quantities of land at different points in the bottom, and the river from time to time has shifted its channel. The Mississippi each year has approached nearer and nearer to Kaskaskia. On the 20th of April, 1881, the neck of land separating the Mississippi and the Kaskaskia, above the village of Kaskaskia, was washed away, and about one-fourth of the water of the Mississippi now passes down the Kaskaskia. Three or four days after this eut off' was made, steamboats effected a pas- sage by the new chanuel.
MONROE COUNTY.
While the neighboring counties of Randolph and St. Clair contained the great bulk of the early French population of Illinois, Monroe was the chief seat of the pioneer American settlements. The American inhabitants of Illinois at the beginning of the century were about eight hundred in num- ber. Of these not many more than a hundred re-idel in what is now Randolph county, and less than thirty in St. Clair. Monroe county contained the balance. The settle- ments at New Design, at Bellefontaine, in the American Bottom and around Whiteside's station and Piggott's ancient fort, were thrifty and vigorous. Portions of the American bottom wer. as densely populated then as now. From this it may well be judged that an important part of the early history of Illinois is inscribed in the annals of the pioneer settlements of Monroe county. These settlements bare the brunt of savage deprelations during the Indian war which raged from 1786 to 1795. Many of the pioneers foll victims to the tomahawk and scalping knife of the savage aud many families were massacred. The Moore locks and White- sides became the most noted Indian fighters in tl . West. Afterward, when these dagers were over, population had increased, and astate government was organize 1. the county, in the person of one of her early citizens, furnished Hinois her first governor. The gubernatorial chair was twice sub- sequently filled by men who began their distinguished careers in this part of the state, and the first native-born citizen of Illinois to represent the state in the United States senate first saw the light of day in an old house which is still standing on the soil of Monroe county.
The first American colony to settle within the territory now comprised in the county, arrived in the year 1782, and was composed of James Moore, Shadrach Bond, Robert Kidd, Larken Rutherford and James Garretson. Their wives and children accompanied them, and they came to make a permanent settlement. Crossing the Allegheny mountains, they floated down the Ohio to its mouth, and then propelled their craft against the strong current of the Mississippi till they reached Kaskaskia some time in the autumn of the year 1781. From this place the country was explored in different directions, and all of the party fixed on locations now in Monroe county, as the most eligible place for settlement. The French inhabitants had clung close to two or three villages, and had made little progress toward clearing the wilderness, or extending their settlements
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HISTORY OF RANDOLPH, MONROE AND PERRY COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
over any considerable territory. These Marylanders and Virginians adopted a different policy. With the true Saxon instinet of ownership of his own homestead and lordship over his own acres, each immigrant selected a location where he would be likely to experience little trouble from neigh- bors and remain master of his own domain. The hill traes between the French villages of Kaskaskia and Cahokia and St. Louis passed near a beautiful spring, a high, healthy ground, to which the French had applied the name of Belle- fontaine. Ilere Moore, Garretson and Rutherford deter- mined to make their settlement. The rich soil of the Miss- issippi bottom attracted the attention of other members of the colony, and there Kidd and Bond made their homes. Kidd clung closest to the French villages, and settled at a distance of but a few miles from Prairie du Rocher. Bond chose a location farther north. These settlements were made in the spring of the year 1782.
James Moore, the leader of this colony, was a native of Maryland. Ile was a man of vigorous traits of mind, ready resources, and was accustomed to the exigencies of pioneer life. Not long after his arrival he was employed by Gabriel Cerre, a wealthy merchant of St. Louis, to take goods and trade with the Indians in the western part of Tennessee. lle was thus engaged for a number of years, during which time he made his headquarters at the French Licks, as the place was then called, where now is built the capital of the state of Tennessee. His place of settlement was a short distance south of the site of the town of Waterloo where the spring, which attracted him to this locality, may still be observed.
James Garretson first made an improvement near the Bellefontaine. Claim 516, survey 720, a mile northeast of Waterloo, was granted to him as an improvement right. Ile afterward remove to the American Bottom, and for many years his home was in the present Moredock precinct. He was an honest, upright citizen, unambitious and unas- sumiug, and always refused to hold public position. Ile was a brave man and an excellent soldier, and did his part toward protecting the settlements from the attacks of the Indians. His brother, Samuel Garretson, was killed by the Indians during the winter of 1788-89.
Robert Kidd had been one of the soldiers in George Roger Clark's expedition to Illinois in 1778, and had taken part in the capture of Fort Gage. He made a quiet and unpretentious citizen of the great commonwealth of which he was one of the founders, and died at his home in the American Bottom in the southern part of the county in 1849. Kidd lake, near the head of which he settled. bears his name.
Larken Rutherford had also been a soldier under Colonel Clark. He was a large and athletic man, and was bold and fearless in his disposition. At the storming of Fort Sack ville in 1779 he exhibited much bravery. Soon after the year 1800 he removed to the present St. Clair county, and settled north of Belleville. During the latter years of his life he was a zealous member of the Baptist church. In the organ- ization and government of the church he took an active part. He was honest in his views, and while vigorously observing his own duties, was rigid and exact in expecting the same
from others. A difference of opinion he would not tolerate. He was a member of the Richland Baptist church in St. Clair county, and in 1809 took offence at some views ex- pressed in a sermon by James Lemen on slavery, of which Lemen was a strong opponent. Rutherford brought the matter before the church authorities, and the result was a division not only of the Richland church, but of the Baptist association, which was continued for many years.
Shadrach Bond was born and raised near Baltimore, Maryland. He lived on his farm in the American Bottom for many years till his death at an advanced age. He was the uncle of Shadrach Bond, the first governor of the State of Illinois. He was several times elected to the legislature of both the Indiana and northwestern territories. He was a representative in the territorial legislature which convened at Cincinnati in September, 1790. For several years he was one of the judges of the St. Clair county common pleas court. In these public positions be discharged his duties in a con- scientious manner, and was held in high estimation by the people. His education was limited, but he possessed a strong mind and an excellent heart. He was not ambitions for wealth. In his younger days, as was the case with most of the early pioneers, he spent a considerable part of his time in hunting, and was considered an excellent woodsman. IIe was one of that class of men who improve with age, and the longer he lived and the better he became known, the more his character was esteemed.
All the members of this band of pioneers left descendants who have since been identified with the State of Illinois, and of whom some have reached positions of influence and dis- tinction. The families of Bond, Garretson, Moore, and Kidd, are all represented by some member living either in Monroe, or an adjoining county, and the land on which Moore settled at the Bellefontaine has never left the family, and is now owned by heirs of the original pioneer.
Soon after these hardy adventurers from Maryland and Virginia had prepared the way, a New England man fol- lowed. This was Captain Nathaniel Hull, born in Massa- chusetts. Ile was one of the first to make his way overland from the Ohio river to Kaskaskia, and his track was the one usually taken by subsequent hands of immigrants. He set- tled under the bluff below Chalfin Bridge, and became a prominent citizen of the new community. His store, and the post-office there established, were in all probability, the first in the county. He served as magistrate and county judge. With all his good qualities he was a man of eccen- trie notions, and asked to be buried in an upright position, standing as in life, overlooking from his grove in the bluff above his house, the fertile expanse of the American Bottom.
Another of the early pioneers, William Biggs, became the first sheriff of St. Clair county, which then included Monroe, and filled other important public positions. He was born in Maryland, served under Colonel Clark in the war of the Revolution, and coming to Illinois settled at the Bellefon- taine. Ile was taken prisoner by the Indians, who killed his companion, Vallis, in 1788, and effected his escape by paying a ransom. He was accompanied to Illinois by his two brothers. George Biggs settled southwest of Waterloo
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HISTORY OF RANDOLPH, MONROE AND PERRY COUNTIES, ILLINOIS,
where he received a grant of land ineluded in elaim 777. The Huff and Moredock family came in the year 1786, and first settled near the Bellefontaine, but afterward removed to the American Bottom. The murder of Mrs. Huff by the Indians, on the route to Illinois, instilled such deadly hatred of the savage race into the breast of her son, John Moredock, that he never lost an opportunity of avenging his wrongs.
Piggott's fort, or the fort of the " grand ruisseau," as it was called by the French in the American Bottom, not far from the bluff, west of Columbia, was established about the year 1783. James Piggott was a native of Connecticut, and early in the war of the Revolution engaged in the privateering service. He removed to Pennsylvania, and commanded a company of Pennsylvania troops at Brandywine, Saratoga, and other battles. His health becoming impaired by severe marches and hard service, he was obliged to resign his cap- tainey, and with his family followed Colonel George Rogers ('lark to the west, and was placed in command of Fort Jeffer- son which had been established five miles below the mouth of the Ohio, and on which the Indians made a desperate assault. In 1790 there were seventeen families, and forty- six inhabitants, at Piggott's fort. They addressed a petition to Governor St. Clair, praying for grants of land to the set- tlers. It was likely on this petition that Congress, in 1791, passed the act granting to every settler on the publie lands in Illinois four hundred aeres, and to each enrolled militia- man one hundred aeres. Governor St Clair, under whom Piggott had served in the war of the Revolution, appointed him the presiding judge of the St. Clair county court. In 1795 he established the first ferry across the Mississippi at St. Louis. This has been continued ever since, and is now known as Wiggins' ferry. The license was issued by Zenon Trudeau, lieutenant governor of the province of Upper Louisiana. He died at this ferry, opposite St. Louis, in 1799.
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