USA > Illinois > Champaign County > Early history and pioneers of Champaign County : illustrated by one hundred and fifteen superb engravings by Melville : containing biographical sketches of the early settlers, the early history of the county obtained from the most reliable sources and many graphic scenes and incidents from the bright and shady sides of pioneer life > Part 25
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surroundings satisfied the party that a point had been reached which fully met all their demands for a home, So far as they then knew they were 30 or 40 miles from neighbors, surrounded by as fruitful a country as was to be found, in which wild game abounded and where every want might easily be supplied. Accordingly they determin- ed here to remain and set about mak- ing themselves comfortable. They found that the grove whose shelter they had accepted was 3 or 4 miles long and nearly equally divided by a narrow place in the timber where the railroad now crosses the stream, so the two heads of families partitioned the tract between themselves, Smith taking the south end and Sadorus the north end. The "Narrows" as it was called, being the line.
A brief survey of the surroundings of the situation will give a better idea of the actual condition of these pion- eers: Illinois had then been a state in the Union six years and Edward Coles, its second governor, was still in office. Its population which was then less than 100,000 was confined to the southern counties. Neither Cham- paign, Piatt nor Vermilion counties had been established and their terri- tory and all north of them to the Wis- consin line belonged to Edgar county. There was then no Danville, Urbana, . Charleston, Decatur nor Monticello, not to speak of their younger and more brilliant rivals. Five years previously, in 1819, by a treaty between the U. S. Government and the Indian' tribes the Indian title to this country and to all south of the Kankakee river; had been relinquished and only two years before the U. S. surveyors had performed their work, and the mounds by which the section corners were marked were yet fresh. Not an acre of land had been entered which now forms this county and so far as we are informed only one white man's cabin. that of Runnel Fielder. two miles northeast of the site of Urbana. was to be found in the same territory, Field- er had then been here two years and was a squatter on the public domain. The only residents of what is now Ver- inilion county was James D. Butler, at Butler's Point, near Catlin, and his neighbors. John Light. Robert Trickle and Asa Elliott and Dan Beckwith and Jesse Gilbert at Dan- ville and Hezekiah Cunningham on Little Vermilion. The whole state of
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PIONEERS OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
Illinois north of us was uninhabited by white men, except the military station at Chicago, and wild Indians roamed and hunted at pleasure over these prairies and through these groves.
Having so divided the beautiful grove of timber between them the two pioneers proceeded to make ar- rangements for a permanent stay in the place chosen for a home, by build- ing for each a cabin. Smith who had chosen the southern part of the grove. erected his cabin near where the old Grandpa Sadorus' old home now stands. It was built of split linn logs, 16x16 feet, covered with split oak- en boards with linn puncheons for a floor. The roof. after the manner of cabin building, was laid upon logs or poles laid lengthwise of the cabin, each succeeding pole being a little higher than the last, and converging towards the ridge. These boards, for the want of nails, which were not to be had, were held in place by poles laid length- wise over the buts of each course. The door was made of split boards held in place by wooden pins. The window was only a hole cut in the wall to let in the light, subsequently covered with greased muslin to keep out the cold.
The Sadorus home, which was built two miles north on section 36 in Coltax, but in the grove, was less pretentious. It was built of the same material 10x20 feet, but entirely open on one side, what is called a "half-faced camp." Windows and doors were entirely dispensed with. Settled in these ernde homes, the pioneers set about planting and preparing for the future. The summer was spent in cultivating little patches of corn and garden with a crude prairie plow they had brought with them and in hunting wild game for their meat and peltries, the result being that as fall approached the larders of the families were well supplied with the best the country af- forded. The wolves, however, ate up much of their sod corn.
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In the fall the heads of the two families, having laid in for their families, concluded to know what lay to the west of them. Fill- ing their packs with a small supply of pro- visions, with their rifles on their shoulders, they set out on foot for the west again, leaving their families housed as we have seen. They traveled as far as lake Peoria, where Smith determined to remove his family. They went by way of Mackinaw and Kickapoo Creek, through Indian coun- try. Returning as they went after an ab-
sence of two weeks, they found everything quiet. Smith at once sold his cabin and im- provements to Sadorus, the consideration being the hauling of a load of goods from the O'Kaw to the Illinois river, which was paid according to the agreement, and the south end of the grove with all of its af- purtenances, passed to Mr. Sadorus. Thus came and went the first representative of the numerous and respectable family of Smiths of this county.
IN THEIR PERMANENT HOME.
The Sadorus family lost no time in taking possession of the Smith cabin. Its comforts were exchanged for the "half-faced camp," and all claim to the upper half of the grove was abandoned. The land thus occupied by the Sadorus family subsequently, 9 years thereafter, became the home of James Mil- ler. The Smith cabin was "daubed" that fall, which means that the interstices be- tween its logs were filled with chinks and mud to prevent the cold from intruding and its foundations were banked with earth with a like purpose. A und chimney was built outside with a fireplace opening inside the cabin, and carried up above the cabin roof with sticks and mud. A companion cabin, a few feet away, in like manner sup- plied with a mud and stick chimney and neatly "danbed" in time was added to the comforts and conveniences of the family. A single window sash was bought in Engene, Ind., five or six years thereafter, and that glazed with glass, gave the family one glass window-the first in Champaign county-and in time other openings answer- ing to window, were likewise supplied. These cabins did doty as the Sadorus domi- cile until 1838-fourteen years-when the permanent home was erected. Until 1834, more than ten years, Mr. Sadorns was a squatter on the public domain. On Dec. 11th, of that year, having gotten together $200 he entered the southeast quarter of section one, township seventeen range sev- en, where his cabin stood. That tract with the north eighty in the northeast quarter of the same section, entered on the same day by William Sadorns, then 22 years old, were the first entries of land in the grove or in that part of the county. The journey to Vandalia the then capital of the state and location of the land office, was made by Mr. Sadurus in company with James Piatt, who had bought ont James Hayworth, first squat- ter on the present site of Monticello and was the nearest neighbor of the Sadorus household. Prace was maintained between them by agreeing that the eight mile slongh should be the dividing line between their ranges, all the grass on this side belonging
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PIONEERS OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
to Sadorus and his herds and all on that side belonging to Piatt, an Abraham and Lot affair, that had no disturbance from in- truders for more than a quarter of a ceu- tury.
IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
It will be inferred that the term "neigh- bor," had a somewhat different meaning than from that given it now, and it is a fact that "distance lent enchantment to the view" of the few they had. As already seen residents at Danville, Monticello, Ur- bana and on the lower Little Vermilion river were the nearest neighbors of the Sa- corus family, but it must not be supposed that the intervening distances prevented neighborly acts or cut off social intercourse. Mr. William Sadorus, from whom I have received most of the facts here grouped to- gether, was twelve years old when they look up their residence on the O'Kaw, and is now in his SOth year, speaks with enthusi- asm of their neighbors of sixty years ago and the warm hospitality encountered in every cabin, of the "raisings, " the "huskings" and the "hunting circles" which brought the scattered settlers together and kept alive sociability. He remembers the Cook fami- ly which settled on the west side of the Big Grove in 1830, and before being domiciled buried the husband and father, the first death of a white settler of the county. He also remembers the coming of Stephen Boyd, Jake Heater, the Buseys, Charlie Matthew and Isaac, the latter he says, kept the first first-class hotel in Urbana in his cabin on the creek bank. He also remem- bers the coming of Noble Byers, the only Justice of the Peace in this part of Vermil- ion county, of John G. Robertson and of the Webbers. These are warmly remem- bered by Mr. Sadorus for the friendships which grew up between them as pioneers, and ceased only at their death.
The first additions to the population in the immediate neighborhood of the Sadorus family were Henry Ewing, who with his family, came from Connersville, Ind., two years after Mr. Sadorus came and built a cabin in the grove north of where the vil- lage now is. He staid a year and moved on west. William Marquis soon after came, took possession of the Ewing cabin, staid two or three years and cleared a small plat of land and then he too, went west. One Aikens Wright came about 1830 and settled west of the creek, a mile or more away. He was a desperado and had a bad reputation among his neighbors and finally moved away under compulsion. John Cook and family, the second permanent settler in the grove, came about the begining of 1839 and
settled on section thirty in Tolono township, where he died over thirty years since. The Millers, Isaac, James, Benjamin and John, came at an early day from Indiana, and en- tered land and became permanent residents. Before them came William Rock, in 1836, and settled on the land where he subse- quently died. Following him and settling lower down were Ezra Fay, the first New Light preacher in the conuty, who settled on the Ellars farm; John Haines, father of E. C. Haines; Lawson Laughlin and William Toler, his father-in-law, the first to be bur- ied in the Rock graveyard; and John O'Bryan, with his sons William, Joseph and Hiram. Fay afterwards moved to Lake Fork.
INDIANS,
Although the Indian title to these lands had been extinguished by treaty in 1819, yet as late as 1833 these wild men wandered at will and hunded over these prairies. Be- fore the Sadorus family had built their first camp on the O'Kaw, they were visited by strolling bands of these red men. Their chief errands were to procure something to eat, and they always got what they came for, says Wm. Sadorus. This hospitality was not thrown away for the red men were always the fast friends of the Sadorus fan- ily. The Indians were of the Pottawatomie, Kickapoo and Delaware tribes. William Sadorus remembers Shemaugre the Potta- watomie chief and says the chief never failed to call when passing through this country on his hunting expeditions, always dividing with the family his supply of game. Shemaugre then lived at the ford of the Kankakee river near Bourbonnais Grove. He claimed the Indian camping ground on the site of Urbana as his native place, and is still remembered by many of the pioneers of the Big Grove as the friend of the early white settler. He is remembered by many as the "Old Soldier," a name some- times assumed by him. His name is seen affixed to some treaties with the United States government as "Shemaugre." He was disowned by his people and lived by himself when known to our people.
Wallhoming, a Delaware chief, was also a frequent visitor at the Sadorus tiome. At one time he, with several followers, came over from the Ambraw river, bearing a keg of whisky, which they had purchased of a trader, saying they wanted to stay and have a big drunk, which they did, but all the time peaceable. The supply lasted them several days, notwithstanding the leak in the end opposite the spiggot, which Mrs. Sadorus had made to facilitate consumption. At the close Wallhoming and his friends
PIONEERS OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
gave an all night exhibition of Indian dances, which the Sadorus boys witnessed with interest. Big John Lewis, a Delaware, was one of the party. About a year after the big drunk Wallhoming came again, this time sober, bringing with him 22 coon skins, which he gave Mr. Sadorus, saying they were to "pay for big drunk."
At another time when Mr. Sadorus had gone beyond the Wabash to mill and Mrs. Sadorus and her little children were left alone, a party of Indians came to the cabin, asked for Mr. Sadorus and were informed that he had gone to mill. They informed the white man's squaw that she would starve, but were assured that they had plenty. They then left the cabin for the chase and in a few hours returned bearing the hams of several deer which they had siam and gave them to the family. Mrs. Sadorus returned the favor by instructing the boys to go to the corn shocks in the corn fields and roll ont a supply of yellow pumpkins, which had been put there to save them from the frost. With mutual expressions of kindly feelings the red visit- ors and the Sadorus family separated as they had often done before.
The cabin of Mr. Sadorus was always made a stopping place by Shemangre and Wallhoming and their hunting parties, but not a single act of hostility or of thievery was ever perpetrated by them. Win. Sa- dorus remembers the call at their cabin of an Indian named Tom Jelloway and his daughter, on their way to some western point where the daughter was charged with having killed a squaw, and whither the father was voluntarily taking her to meet the charge. The result of the trial he never heard.
Shemangre died and was buried on the banks of the Kankakee, where he had lived.
GAME.
Before the Sadorus family came here the Buffalo and the larger game had disap- peared from the country, leaving only the bones of deceased members of the race and their wallowing boles, as evidences of their former occupancy. The bones have disau- peared and the sink holes in the prairie where they took their recreation-, we are now engaged in tiling out and reclaiming For agricultural purposes. Of deer, wolves. raccoons, minks and rabbits, there was plenty at the time of the settlement of the country. Foxes and groundhogs have come to the country since. As late as 1839 a lynx was killed by John Cook on the ereck. The Sadores men were great hunters in early days and William says he has hunted north as far as Spring Creek, in Iroquois county.
In such excursions he would be gone some- times as long as three weeks, camp- ing out and living by the chase. Within a few years, his passion for hunting, finding 10 gratification in the fields so long ago hunted over by him, he has sought out hunt- ing grounds in Arkansas and other western states.
POST-OFFICE AND STORES.
When the Sadorus family first came to the grove their nearest post-office and their county seat was Paris, Edgar county, but having no need of postal facilities they did not patronize the town for either porpose. The road officials at Paris at one time warned Mr. Sadorus to appear on the streets of Paris on a given day to work his poll tax, but it being fifty-two miles from home the mandate was disobeyed.
Their first trading, and for fifteen years, was done at Eugene, Ind., with the Colletis and afterward with Samuel Groenendyke. There each tall they drove their hogs. They raised from 100 to 300 each year. Their herd bad the run of the timber and fattened on the mast until the corn hardened in the fall when a "round up" was had and the herd put in a field and fed until the packing season in Engene, when a force sufficient was summoned and the drove taken to market. The pork brought from $1 to $2 .50 per cwt., and the trip consumed trom ten days to two weeks of time.
In the course of a few years Danville had a post-office and became their trading point. The first letter received by the family came through that office. A mail route was early established between Paris and Springfield, and the mail carrier generally came by way of Sadorus Grove, always stopping at their house. The mail-sack, however, was not unlocked between those two points.
In time Chicago came to be quite a trad- ing point and was visited by people from this region. In the fall of 1834 Mr. Sadorns made a trip there, probably his first. His son Heory, then eleven years old, gives me the partienlars of the journey, which I give for the benefit of those who go there now on the vestibule train in 34 hours. The trip to Chicago of tho-+ days was most comfortably made in companies of two or more wagons and so this one was made. Four wagons, each drawn by live Joke of oxen, constituted the caravan. Mr. Sadorus and Heury manued their ontfit which was freighted with oats. The other members of the party were Unele Mal Busey and his son Fountain ..: Capt. Nox, of Sidney, father of Sol Nox; Pete Bailey, of Salt Fork, and Hiram Jackson. The company met by appointment at Poage's, north of
PIONEERS OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
llomer and from there turned their faces northward by the way of Pilot Grove and Bourbonnais Grove, at which point they forded the Kankakee river. It rained every day on the way and they swam creeks and rivers eleven thines Euurb night they camped out and occupied twenty-one days in making the journey. Mr. Sadorus sold his oats, which had sprouted from one to two inches, to Capt. Allen, in command of the Garrison at Fort Dearborn, at 50 cents a bushel, and purchased for his returo trip salt, sugar, coffee and other family supplies. It may be interesting to know that these goods were bought of Gurdon S. Hubbard, then and for many years before and since an extensive trader with the frontiersmen and Indians. He had stores at Chicago, on The Iroquois over at a place called Bancomb and at Danville, and was well-known to the early seulers. The return frip was made by way of Spring Creek and Mink Grove to Urbana. Only one house was seen between the Kankakee river and Urbana, that of Charles Busey, two miles north of Urbana, on what is known as the dohm Stewart farm, Mr. Henry Sadorus says of Chicago then, that it was "very scattering and its streets were as full of dog-fennel as ale those of Sadorus village now."
William Sadois relates a similar trip to Chicago in 1840, in the big Pennsylvania wagon, loaded with sixty bushels of wheat. This trip was made by way of Trickle's Grove on the Middle Fork and Bourbonnais.
Before 1840 small stores had been opened at Urbana and Homer, and these became their points of trade. When a post-office was established at Urbana it became their post-office. Not until the opening of the Great Western railroad, now the Wabash, about 1855, was a post-office bearing Mr. Sadorus' name, established dear him in the town laid off by his son William.
L'ibana was their voting place until the establishment of Sadorus precinct in 1854. Mr. Sadorus proudly says that at their first election there, the voters were all democratic but one, and might perhaps have remained -o, but Dr. Somers converted Ike and John Miller to the republican party in 1856, and thus the republicans got a foothold in their timber.
EARLY COURTS.
When the county of Champaign was established in 1533, courts were opened in due time and Mr. Sadorus, as the record will show, wook an early part in the proceedings. lle well remembers the early judges, Ilarlan, Treat and Davis, and the early sheriffs, Saulsbury, Stevenson, Cox, Ater, Lewis and Stidham.
SOCIAL EVENTS.
As before stated, the early settlers were, though living far apart, very sociable among themselves and hospitable to all strangers. The young people gathered together from considerable distances for coro "buskings" and "raisings" and celebrated the conclusion of the work with a dance. Whiskey was plenty at twenty cents a gallon and did not produce near as bad a drunk as the highly taxed and drugged article of this day. Mr. Sadorus built a log barn 30x60 feet at one time and called his neighbors from the Big Grove, Salt Fork, Monticello, Lake Fork, and away down on O'Kaw, to help to raise it. It took two days to do the work but the young people danced all night the second night. A barrel of whiskey and large amounts of provisions were used, but no bad drunks nor tights resulted. Melinda Busty (afterwards Mrs. Bryan) of Urbana, was one of the company.
In this way acquaintances were made and kept up, marriages were contracted and life-long friendships formed. Win. Sadorus in 1838, when twenty-six years old, married Mary Moore, of Lake Fork, Shelby county, and settled on land be bad entered four years before, building for himself a log cabin as was the custom everywhere, but receiving the aid of his neighbors.
SCHOOLS.
No schools were opened in the settlement until 1839, when a man named Hooten taught a family school in Mr. Sadorus' kitchen tor a short time. Mr. Sadorus sent his son William to a school at Georgetown, Vermilion county, and while he was there the surveyor was engaged in plating and laying out the town. It afterwards became the seat of the Georgetown Seminary and quite an educational centre. Henry Sadorus was also seut to a school ten miles this side of Danville
The first public school in the settlement was taught by John Hamilton, in 1840, in a log school-house, built about one mile north of the village, in the upper end of grove. tt is said this school was taught before a Door had been laid or a window put in the house and before it had been "chinked and daubed."
RELIGIOUS.
William Sadorus says that the first sermon preached and the first religious exercises held in the Grove was by Peter Cartwright, but he can not give the date. He was followed by Arthur Bradshaw, who was appointed to the Urbana mission in 1839. llis field embraced the territory for a long distance down the O'Kaw and Ambraw.
PIONEERS OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
The settlers prepared a set of puncheon benches, which were hauled from house to house, where appointments were made by Bradshaw. The timber was of linn and so was light and easily handled. These ap. pointments were not very frequent but were well attended.
PERMANENT HOME.
In 1838 Mr. Sadorus built for himself and family a very pretentious permanent home, after having lived in their cabin home four- teen years, It was a two-story frame build- ing about 50 feet front by 20 feet, attached to which was an ell of considerable size. It had for its supports big granite boulders, gathered from the fields. The siding was hauled from Coal Creek, lud., while other portions of the sawed lumber was brought from Moses Thomas' mill near Homer, while some was brought from Heptonstall's mill, a short distance below Urbana.
This house was roomy and afforded the host better facilities for extending that hospitality to strangers for which he was noted. This home and that of William Rock, three miles farther south, were ju their time the best on the creek and were often the scenes of social gatherings and always of generous hospitality.
MILLS.
The first milling facilities enjoyed by the settlement were a choice between a mill in Morgan county, Illinois, and mills beyond thej Wabash in Indiana. These were in part supplied by a horse mill made by Mr. Sadorus in 1830. It was made of dressed boulders and run by horse power. It would grind only a bushel of corn in two hours or four or tive bushels in a day. It would grind but not bolt the grain and was better than to go one hundred miles east or west to mill. They subsequently resorted to John Brownfield's mill in the Big Grove and to Thomas' mill at Homer.
CRIME.
The only homicides were the killing of De Haven by Patterson, in 1858, and later the killing of John Rice, by Thompson Laugh- lin. Dr. Haven was killed by a weight thrown by Patterson and Rice by a gunshot. Patterson was tried and sent to the peni- tentiary and Langhlin was tried and ac. quitted.
CONCLUSION.
In the course of time, here as everywhere rise in our country, the secinsion of the frontier gave way to the forces of civiliza- tion, and the iron horse ploughed its way through Sadorus' Grove about on the line of the "Narrows," adopted by Sadoros and his fellow pioneer, Joe Smith, as the line between their possessions and across the
land entered by William Sadorus in 1834. In the period of the state internat in- provement craze in 1837 a line was run through the grove for this road about half a mile north of the present location, but nothing more came of it, until eighteen years afterwards, in the fullness of time, the Wabash road was built and now its thirty trains a day thunder past William Sadorus' door and through the silvan shades where he and his father, almost seventy years since, first broke the solitudes which prevailed since Creation's morn.
Mr. Sadorus, now a patriarch of almost eighty years, lives with his third wife not far away from the point where they first pitched their camp on April 9th, 1524, while his brother Henry, younger by twelve years, lives a mile away. A dense population has taken possession of the adjacent timber and prairies and elbowed the hunters and their game therefrom.
The old pioneer, Henry Sadorus, died July 18, 1878, aged almost ninety-five years and now with his faithful wife who died thirty years before, sleeps in the little cemetery near his home, but immediately upon the banks of the stream he loved so well and so long. His name is borne by his township and village and will never be forgotten.
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 3 0112 031890293
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