USA > Illinois > Stark County > Documents and biography pertaining to the settlement and progress of Stark County, Illinois : containing an authentic summary of records, documents, historical works and newspapers > Part 5
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Economic Geology .- Let us faney ourselves visiting Stark county, away back in the days when the foundations of the present coal beds were made. What do we behold ? An immense marsh stretching to the horizon-a wilderness of reeds and weeds, and mosses, inhabited, if we
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HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY.
may so speak, with amphibians, alive with ten thousand species of reptile ; but not a man in the whole great waste -- not even a bird flew hither to look in upon the loathsome wilderness. How many years this stagnant sea required its drying process to continue cannot now be determined with certainty. There are at least five to eight feet of vegetable debris required to form one foot of coal, and since there are three feet, representing the seam in this county, it must have required twenty-four feet in depth of rich vegetable debris to form our present coal bed. and the subsequent growth or carriage hither of sufficient material to make that natural hydraulic press which pressed this coal into its shape and texture. Volumes might be written on the formation of onr prairies, of our coal beds, of the great trains of sand and rock and forests which the drift brought hither to press down the original stagnant mass of vegetable matter, water and the animal life which they supported ; but where is the use of speculative writing ? Our reason points out one natural method by which our rich prairie soil and everything beneath it were formed, namely, an immense lake. gradually filling up of the same by sediment and shore growth, slow lifting up of lake bottom and annual decay of vegetable debris ; slower drainage and then the prairie.
The quaternary divisions of the county are the alluvium and drift. the former comprising all the bottom lands or stream valleys from a few rods to 6,000 feet in width; the latter comprising a series of brown and blue elays with sand or gravel mixings with granite bowlders of ancient rock-the uplands. This drift varies in depth from twenty to sixty feet. Through this formation an abundant supply of good water is reached before the bed-rock is tapped. Throughout the county there is no exposure of rock other than the lower series of eoal measures. Of this series No 7 shows on the north line of seetion 10, township 14, range 7, along the east branch of Spoon river. In this section the S. C. Francis shaft shows sixty-four and one- fourth feet. This was sunk in 1868, and from the record shows the following formation :
Yellow elay, 2 feet ; red sand, 2 feet : limestone (nodular), 2} feet ; clay. light colored, 7 feet : clay shale. 2 feet : sandstone, 8 inches ; blue elay shale, 8 feet ; dark colored clay shale, 53 feet ; coal, 2 inches ; blue clay shale, 12 feet : impure limestone, 3 inches ; clay shale, 8 feet ; impure limestone, 2 inches ; blue elay shale. 13 feet : dark colored elay shale, 3 feet : eoal, 2 feet. 7 inches ; clay (penetrated), 13 feet.
In section 32, township 10, range 7, the exposure was worked. In section 21, township 14. range 7, series No. 6 is far below the surface without a sign of outerop.
In the southeastern part of seetion 3, township 14, range 16, No. 6 coal appears in the bluff of West Braneh, along the ereek to the southeastern corner of section 16. This series has been worked along the western plateau, where there are several outcrops above water level of over four feet in depth with a regular elay partition of two inches in thickness.
In the southeastern part of section 3, township 14, range 6, No. 6 coal appears on the bluff of West Branch. Along the creek to the
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TOPOGRAPHY AND NATURAL HISTORY.
southeastern corner of section 16. this series has been worked along the western plateau, where there are several outcrops above water level of over four feet in depth with a regular clay partition of two inches in thickness.
The mine of No. 6 series in township 14, range 7. section 28. on the east bank of the East Branch, presents a shaft of over ninety feet. of which eighty-nine and two-thirds feet present the following strata: Yellow clay. 3 feet : limestone. 4 feet : light colored clay. 43 feet : light colored elay shale, 83 feet : limestone 23 feet ; elay shale, 10 feet ; coal, 2 inches : soft black slate, 4 inches ; clay. 41 feet : sandstone, 221 feet ; clay shale. 6 feet ; limestone, 4 feet ; light colored clay shale. 6 feet ; green clay shale. 23 feet : dark colored elay shale, 3 1-6 feet : impure limestone. 13 foot : dark colored clay shale, 23 feet ; coal vein, 3 to 6 feet, with a clay partition of 3 inches in depth. The slips or " horsebacks " peculiar here tend to retard miners' enterprise : but with the coming of the coal cutter and other modern appliances this obstacle will vanish.
In the northern portion of section 1, township 13, range 6. a few shafts have been made to the depth of several feet. Near Modena. at a depth of about thirty feet. a 1-foot vein was struck. Westward. on section 4. the Jack creek beds have been worked, and in sections 2, 11. and 12, the out-crop appears in the banks eight to ten feet above water- mark.
Near the north line of section 14. Toulon township. about twelve feet above the water of a little, rivulet, the following formation may be seen : Sandstone : clay shale, 15 feet ; impure Timestone, clay shale. black slate, coal, average 3 feet : clay partition, coal. 13 foot : clay shale. partial onterop of sandstone. The strata above the three feet vein of coal is replete in its deposit of imperfect fossils. such as the cardinia fragilis, pleurotomaria gragrillensis, and fossils of fish. On the section coal and a strata somewhat similar to that given above, are outcropping. From section 10 along the courses of the river and tributary rivulets to sections 25 and 26. where the seam is over twenty feet above water-mark, the miner has left traces of his work. and backward from the stream on section 26. coal has been found at a depth of sixty-nine feet in solid strata. four to five feet in thickness. while just east the miners had to sink a shaft to a depth of ninety-six feet to reach the seam.
In Essex township, section 23. the following strata appears in a shaft sunk a few years ago : Clay. 21 feet ; clay shale, 8 feet : lime- stone, 1 foot ; clay shale. interslated, 13 foot : coal. 23 feet. with thin clay partition. Although this belongs to series No. 6, horsebacks or slips render mining for more than local use. noprofitable. A seam of series No. 2 coal is found on section 17, at the base of the bluffs of Indian creek, which was very little worked up to four years ago.
In West Jersey township. on section 19. coal of the No. + Illinois series has been struck at a depth of fifteen feet. Here the vein is from four to six feet deep, underlaid by about ten inches of impure cannel coal. and this by a clay bed. Fish and plant fossils abound here. including one almost perfect form of the palaconiseus. The teeth and imperfect form of a diplodus have also been exhumed. The coal
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HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY.
obtained is very good. On section 17 a one and one-half foot vein of the No. 2 series was found at a depth of lifty-nine feet. It lies in the bed of the creek, and is workable only at low water. On section No. 10. Toulon, a quarry yields abundantly of building stone of more than fan quality. On Walnut creek, in West Jersey township. a quarry on section 20 produced a fair hard sandstone, very well adapted to builders' uses.
The rock in sections 21 and 22, Osceola township, is a limestone six to twelve feet thick. of thin layers. This is an uneven, drab-colored. weather-proof stone, found in the first section, its lower strata resting thirty-nine feet above a two-inch coal seam and sixty-three feet above a two-feet seven inches vein of No. 7 series coal. As a stone For build- ing purposes, or for lime for building purposes, it cannot be excelled.
The sandstone measures of Elmira township are outcropping. and hidaen beds of this valuable rock abound. In section 16 is found a light-colored soft rock about twelve feet above a measure of No. 6 series coal. In Toulon township. section 14, the sandstone is below No. 6 series coal, but of a very superior quality. and approaching the Parma stone of Michigan in compactness.
In Essex township, section 14. a sandstone quarry of the finest grade has been worked for some years, while that on section 17 dfrom which the stone was taken for building the first stone house in the neighborhood years ago) yields plenty of good material for ordinary buildings.
Osceola. Elmira, Toulon, and West Jersey furnish the greater part of the coal supply ; Essex furnishes a little, and Valley less ; Penn and Goshen are reported non-productive in the matter of coal; but what future exploration may credit these townships with in this connection must be left to the future.
The miners' estimate of coal deposits is 1.000.000 tons of coal to every section or square mile per foot of thickness of seam. which. it placed at an average of a three-feet seam. as in this county, would give 108,000,000 tons to each township. or 864,000,000 tons to the entire county of No. 6 series coal alone, exclusive of series Nos. 1. 2. 4 and 7. some of which have not yet been explored at all. and others only par- tially. Allowing five tons per annum to each voter in the county in 1885. or 12,000 tons annually. there is a supply of No. 6 coal here to vield them fuel for 72,000 years.
Archeology - The general prevalence in Illinois of the existence of ancient mounds has excited no inconsiderable interest in the minds of scientists since their discovery was first made. Nearly every county has these interesting vestiges of a numerous people long since gone to rest. about whose history there pends a veil-an impenetrable mystery -of whom the later Indian tribes possessed neither knowledge. myth nor tradition. Those in Stark county are as numerous as elsewhere, l'or spear and arrow-heads, Innan bones, and sometimes pottery have been found here. They are so common as to excite little interest among those who have resided in the county for any length of time, and are driven over and plowed up as if but a rise in the ground, not all that remains of the history of a past raee. A piece of native copper was
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TOPOGRAPHY AND NATURAL HISTORY.
found in blue clay, twenty-five feet below the surface. on Samuel Sturm's farm, one mile sonth of Bradford. In other places several evidences of the drift, as well as of prehistoric settlements, have been nearthed. T. M. Shallenberger. now of Nebraska. W. H. Adams, of Rochester. Peoria county. and others. have given the study of archeology some attention : but their research in this county has been limited to surface. rather than excavatory work. Prior to the removal of the Indians. they visited all their old camp-grounds and villages, and leveled even with the ground all the little mounds denoting the graves of their dead.
W. Il. Adams, in a paper addressed to the regents of the Smith- sonian Institute, and published in 1885, on the mounds in the valley of Spoon river. says: "On the north side of Spoon river, seventy- five yards distant, eighty rods west of the east line, and twenty rods south of the north line of section 12. township 11 north, range 43 east of the fourth principal meridian, is a round mound about thirty feet in diameter, called by those in the neighborhood a "hogback." On the highest of this hogback, at the surface. is some evidence of fire. The evidences of a former fire increase very rapidly. At a depth of twelve to sixteen inches ! found five skeletons, nearly all the bones of which were caleined by fire, and many of them entirely consumed. One of the skulls lay to the north, one to the northwest, one to the southwest, one to the south. and one to the northeast. With the bones were fragments of sandstone burned red. At or near each skull, and nearly on a line between the point of the shoulder and ear, was a water-worn pebble, except in one instance, and that was an angular piece of flint. The pebbles had not been acted upon by the fire, so that they evidently must have been placed there after the intense heat of the fire had subsided. From the appearance of the earth one would be strongly inclined to believe that the fire in this instance had been one of unusual intensity. From the position of the skulls to each other, the feet of one body would reach to his neighbor's head, if laid at full length. One of the skulls was rather thinner than those we usually find in other mounds. Some of the teeth evidently be- longed to a person of great age: others of the teeth were very small. but I cannot say that they belonged to an infant. The skulls were in fragments, the largest piece obtained being about two inches square. On another hogback, east of the one described, commencing on sec- tion 12. township 11. range 4 east, extending across the northwest cor- ner of section 7, township 11, range 5. and also some distance on sec- tion 6. township 11. are thirteen common round mounds, varying in height from eighteen inches to five feet. As far as examined these are burial mounds, and in one I found nineteen skeletons. This one was forty-five feet in diameter and five feet in height. The bones were in a fair state of preservation. I opened four or five of thi; group, and in each were found pieces of trap rock from one and one- half to two inches square ; pieces of burned sand rock, small water- worn pebbles, and in the largest mound a very small fragment of red pottery."
A stick of cedar was exhumed in March. 1862. and brought to
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HISTORY OF STARK COUNTY.
Toulon by E. S. Kincade. It was found while digging a well in the eastern part of the county, twenty-eight feet below the surface. While placing a sewer across Main St., Toulon, in June, 1884, one of the two trees, ent near the site of the court house, and placed there by Oliver Whitaker over forty years ago to bridge the slough, was unearthed. The piece taken out is about three feet in length. This was smoothed off and is held as a relic of the early years of the county.
Storm, Flood and Drought .- The big snow of 1830 will be vividly re- membered by all the old settlers. The snow began falling on the night of the 29th of December. and continued to fall for three days and nights, until it reached an average depth of abont four feet. but drifting in places as high as from eighteen totwenty feet. Great suffering was experienced in consequence. The settlers relied for their daily food upon Indian corn which they were enabled to raise, together with wild game which was abundant at that time. Plenty of the former was raised to supply the wants of all until the next season's crop: but when the snow fell very little had been gathered. Game could not be had. The great depth of snow was a barrier to all travel, and it may be well imagined the sufferings of the people were very great indeed. This was the heavi- est snow that ever fell in Illinois within the memory of the oldest settler of this part of the State. According to the traditions of the Indians, as related to the pioneers, a snow fell from fifty to seventy- live years before the settlement by the white people, which swept away the numerous herds of butfalo and elk that roamed over the vast prairies at that time. This tradition was verified by the large nim- ber of bones of these animals found in different localities on the prai- ries when first visited by the whites. The deep snow is one of the landmarks of the pioneer.
The cold winter of 1842-3, commenced on Nov. 7, 1842, and con- tinned until May, 1843. This season of ice may be said to end the days of profitable hunting in Illinois.
The storm of June, 1877, swept across West Jersey. Elmira, and parts of Goshen. blowing off house roofs and rooting np trees. The connty is not in the storm trail.
The greatest flood ever known in the county was that of February 16. 1883. As a general rule bridges were swept away, and in the wreck of the bridge on the Toulon and Wyoming road three men nearly lost their lives. In the spring of 1831 there was a great flood conse- quent on the break of the " Big Snow," and in the fall of 1835 another flood.
The drought of 1886 has no parallel in the history of the county. It was broken on August 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th. On the night of the 15th a rain and thunder storm swept over the county. but at nine o'clock the moon peered down from a bright blue sky, while a rainbow of peculiarly brilliant colors illumined the west. The average rainfall during the fifteen years, including 1875. for the months of April. May. fune and July, was 15.69 inches, the minimum 8.59 (in 1884) and the maximum 22.16 inches (1883). For the corresponding period of 1886 the average was 4.82, or less than one-third of the average of the fif-
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teen years. The rainfall of July was only 1.5 inches, while the aver- age for the same month during the fifteen years was 3.84 inches.
Zoology .- Of the species of native animals that once roamed the flow- ery prairies and wild forests of the county, but few of the smaller remain, and none of the larger. Of the latter we cannot even find a specimen preserved in taxidermy. The buffalo which grazed upon the verdant prairies has been driven westward. With or before it went the beaver, elk, badger, panther, black wolf and black bear. Some animals which were quite numerous have become very rare, such as the gray fox, the catamonnt, otter, lynx, coon, and the Virginia deer.
There still remain many of the different species, mostly inhabiting the country adjacent to the Illinois and Spoon rivers and a few of the other larger streams. These are, however, fast disappearing, and be- fore long will be known only in history. as are the deer, the beaver, and the bison. Among those still to be found here, as tramps, are the gray wolf. the opossum, raccoon, mink, muskrat, the common weasel. the small brown weasel, skunk, woodchuck, or Maryland marmot. prairie mole, common shrew mole, meadow and deer mouse, and the gray rabbit. Of squirrels there are the gray timber squirrel, the fox. chipmunk, the large gray prairie squirrel, the striped and the spotted prairie squirrel, and the beautiful flying squirrel. The dark-brown and the reddish bat are common. Other small animals have been found here which have straved from other localities. An American eagle. weighing eleven pounds and measuring seven feet from tip to tip of wings, was killed by Robert Church, in October, 1867, near Indian creek bridge, on the Toulon and Lafayette road. The birds common to Illinois find a home in this county. and between residents and visit- ors, show themselves in multitudes. On December 18, 1884, a large wolf was killed by Jason Oziah, on the Nowlan farm, west of Toulon. On May 23, 1885, E. 11. Bates, of Osceola, presented County Clerk Walker with fourteen young wolf scalps, and received 824 bounty. In Spoon river and tributary streams the fisherman is sometimes rewarded for skill and patience; but like the wild animals the fish have almost disappeared.
CHAPTER II.
INDIANS OF ILLINOIS.
HE origin of the American Indian is a subject of deep inter- est to the ethnologist, even as it is one of instruction and entertainment to the general reader. The era of their establishment as a distinct and insulated people must be cred- ited to a period immediately subsequent to the division of the Asiatic people and the origin of languages. No doubt whatever can exist when the American Indians are regarded as of Asiatic origin. They are descended directly from the survivors of that people who, on being driven from their fair possessions, retired to the wilderness in sorrow. reared their children under the saddening influences of their unquenchable griefs, and, dying. bequeathed them only the habits of the wild, cloud-roofed homes of their exile. From that time forward the America Indian. as we know him, has existed.
That there were a widely different people here is not disputed ; for there are existing numerous evidences of a civilization akin to that of the lumbering districts of the Canadas. Michigan and Wisconsin. The question of prehistoric settlements on the Pacific coast and the statement of the partial occupation of the Mississippi valley by Cau- casians in the dim past, are points well sustained. M. L. Page du Pratz, a French savant, met, in his travels among the Natchez, the cel- ebrated and aged Indian antiquarian, Moncacht Ape, who. in 1745 crossed the Mississippi and reached the Pacific by the Columbia river. Moucacht related, among other experiences that, after visiting many nations. he shortly came to the last, a people one day's journey from the Great Water and about a league distant from the Beautiful river, who were hiding themselves in the woods from white-bearded men who came every year in a bark for a yellow, stinking wood, and to steal the young women for slaves. By this people the traveler was at once received as a chief by his own family, " because they thought with rea- son that one who had seen white men and many nations should have more mind than one who had never been from home and had seen none but red men." These bearded disturbers of their peace, the natives further informed him, went always clothed, no matter how warm the weather : their weapons also made a great noise and sent forth fire. and they came from where the sun sets. Seeing that it was the vel- low wood which seemed to bring them there, following the counsel of the old men, the people were fast destroying that odorous attrac- tion, so that they hoped in time they should be no more molested.
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INDIANS OF ILLINOIS.
Exceedingly curious to see these white-bearded men who were neither English. French. nor Spanish. Moucacht Ape entered heartily into a plan to attack those who should next come. It was now about the time of their annual arrival. All the families in the vicinity of their landing-place had retired from the coast lest their young women should be captured. Our hero had smelt gunpowder and was not afraid. Leaving their camp. near the Beautiful river, the warriors journeyved five days to a point on the coast where were two great rocks, between which emptied into the sea a shallow stream on whose banks grew the vellow wood. It was between the two roeks that the foreigners ran their vessel when they came ashore. Seventeen days the warriors now waited the arrival of their prey. All had been arranged in council for the attack. Presently they espied the vessel in the distance, and hid- ing themselves. they watched an opportunity four days more. At length two boats, containing thirty men, put off from the ship and entered the little stream between the rocks. When the strangers were well scattered gathering wood and taking in water, the natives fell upon them and killed eleven, the rest escaping. Having slaughtered the strangers like a savage, Moucacht Ape examined their dress and physique like a scientist. The bodies were thick, short and very white : the head was heavy, the hair short, and instead of hats they were cloth wound round the head. The dress was neither of wool nor bark. but of a soft stuff like the old cotton shirts of Europeans. That which covered the leg and foot was of one piece. Only two of the dead had firearms. with powder and balls. Joining some northern natives, who had come to assist at the slaving of the strangers, Mon- cacht Ape continued his journey along the coast until he reached their village, when the old men of the place dissuaded him from proceeding farther. saying that the country beyond was cold, barren. and tenant- less. Therefore he returned to his own people by the route he went. having been absent on the western tour five years.
Such is one of the many stories related by old Indians of a past age and handed down to the present race of savages.
The Illinois Indians were of the Algonquin family, and were divided into five tribes-the Peorias. Kaskaskias. Moingwenas. Kahokias, and Tamaroas. They had gained possession of their lands by subduing and driving away the Quapays. a Dakota tribe, and in 1640 they nearly exterminated the Winnebagos, after which time they held undisputed possession of the domains until 1656. when the Iroquois Indians began a long-continued war with them, which was soon followed by a hot contest with the Sioux tribe. The Illinois at this time formed one of the strongest Indian confederacies, and were expert bowmen, but not eanoemen. They would move to the broad plains beyond the Missis- sippi each year for a summer-hunt, and in the winter would spend four or five months on a southern chase - returning to rest at Kaskaskia. their beautiful city of arbor-like cabins, covered with double water- proof mats. Each cabin, as a rule, would contain four fires, around each of which the families would gather. The population of their city in its best days was about 8,000 people. Although they were con- stantly at war, and were greatly addicted to vice. they listened to the 4
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