USA > Illinois > Tazewell County > Washington > Early history of Washington, Ill. and vicinity > Part 11
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Sand Prairie Township Slaves Stolen
Mr. Shipman came here from Kentucky in 1826, but did not live in this township a great while. He moved into Elm Grove township where he spent the remainder of his life. He brought with him to this township a Negro man, his wife and children. He treated them kindly, and they in turn loved him. They all lived here in peace and freedom, carving new homes in the wilderness and preparing for fu- ture prosperity and pleasure. The quietude of the little set- tlement was disturbed one dark night by the appearance of some slave hunters. There were some men from Kentucky came up the river, left their boats at the mouth of the Mack- inaw, quietly came over and carried off the Negro family. They were all tied and hastily run to the river. It appears that Mose, the name of the Negro man, was a singularly constructed Negro, and it would almost seem, as an old set- tler said, that "he was part aligator". He had a double row of large sharp teeth. His hands were tied and with a rope he was led along. He pulled back considerable, and lagged
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behind as much as he dare do, all the while chewing on the rope by which he was led. Finally he succeeded in severing it, when with all is might he ran back to the settlement and informed the neighbors of the theft of his family. This aroused the ire of those sturdy pioneers and, being equal to any emergency, three of them saddled up their horses that gloomy night and set out for St. Louis, Mo., anticipating the destination of the thieves. These resolute men were Johnson Sommers, William Woodrow and Absalom Dillon. They pushed on towards that city and fortunately rode off the ferry boat just as the Kentucky would-be slave traders landed with the family of Mose. This was a singular co- incidence, but true, and with determination that plainly showed he meant what he said Sommers jumped from his norse, gathered up a stone and swore he would crush the first one who attempted to leave the boat, and the men, who could steal the liberty of their fellow men, were passive be- fore the stalwart pioneers. One of the pioneers hurried up to the city and procured the arrest of the men. We do not know the penalty inflicted, but most likely it was nothing, or, at least, light, for in those days it was regarded as a legitimate business to traffic in human beings. The family was secured, however, and carried back to this county where most of them lived and died. All honor to the daring hu- mane pioneers.
The following incident came to Peter Logan, whom I nave seen and my parents knew well. He was owned by a man in Arkansas, who gave him a chance to buy his own freedom and also that of his sister Charlott and her daugh- ter Nancy. When on their way north they were captured in Missouri and taken back. Their master said, "They are free and shall be privileged to go unmolested". They came and located near Tremont, where he was for many years in the employ of the Dillons and was known for miles around as Uncle Peter Logan. He could neither read nor write, but he could sing. Once at our home he asked father to read the Bible to him, which he did. He then sang "Jerusalem My Happy Home" and "The Year of Jubilee Am a Comin'" in plaintive tone that only the "bond-man" can express. Charlott's services were in great demand at all home and neighborhood feasts, for she was an excellent cook. Nancy was bright in school, and would get on a stump and preach a sermon to her white schoolmates. These colored people were honorable and were highly respected citizens through- out their long lives.
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Sanford P. Gorin's brought "Black Jack" with them when they moved here from Kentucky, where he lived dur- ing his lifetime and was laid to rest in their family lot in in the old cemetery in October, 1869, aged 52 years. When the slaves were emancipated he refused to leave the Gorins. He owned a team, farmed for himself and did some hauling. He was sexton of the Christians when they held services in their brick church. I first learned who he was when he drove past "Greenridge" school house with a wagon load of women and children (Gorins, Burtons, Wells, Eccles, Cranes, An- drews and Danforths (who were going out to their Uncle John and Aunt Ann Mcclintock's for a picnic in their grove on a balmy day in June. The children of the whole town found a friend in him, and he was respected by all who knew him.
Calvin Dunnington says my father worked for Sanford P. Gorin when a small boy. Something went wrong with the norses. Mr. Gorin came into the barn and took down a har- ness tug and began beating father. Black Jack was there and said: "Mars Gorin, you hit that boy one more lick and you will have me to lick, too". Mr. Gorin began on father, and Jack did his part and whipped Mr. Gorin. At Jack's death John Dunnington bought his old gray horses.
"Principles have achieved more victories than horsemen and chariots".
Mention has been made of the "Underground Railway" in connection with the work of anti-slavery. The origin of the railway name came about when the slave owners, in pur- suit of slaves, found that they had mysteriously disappeared. So the baffled southern men asserted that an "Underground Railway" must have been used to spirit the slaves away.
The Hicks Family
Mother's parents, with their ten children, came from Barnesville, Ohio, to Tremont, Illinois, in the fall of 1837. Grandfather, Asa Hicks, Sr., came to Illinois on horseback during the summer and rented the Dillon farm one and one- half miles west of Tremont, in Tazewell county, for a term of five years, and paid one year's rent in advance. He re- turned to Ohio via the Ohio and Illinois rivers.
A committee of the Tremont colony of 35 families from New York City, three Harris brothers, selected this site in 1834 and the colony came out in 1835. They made some good improvements-a school house, church and postoffice -- which made Tremont a center of influence and of good so- ciety. The county court site was also located here in 1836.
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Laban Hicks and Joseph Hicks, brothers of my grandfather, were here, too, as was their sister, Mrs. Rachel Parsons. Laban built a hotel in this new town, Joseph was construc- tion boss on the grading for the I. B. & W. railroad, and their sister was assisting in the hotel, for they were board- ing these workmen. Grandfather's shipped their household goods and barrels of dried fruit to Pekin, the family coming overland with a five-horse team, one a saddle-horse from which the rider drove the team with one line. Israel, the oldest son, had been driving, and being tired of riding he got down to walk, when a dog from a home nearby ran out and started the colts they had with them. They ran past the team, frightening the horses into a run. Israel could not catch the line and his father got out of the wagon to try and check the team, but slipped from the wagon tongue and was thrown under the wheels. He expired in a few minutes. The whole country-side poured out its sympathy and assisted this grief-stricken family to bury their dead in the Friends cemetery near Bloomingdale, Parks county, Indiana. They resumed their journey the following day and a young man acted as guide to the Wabash river, which they crossed at Campbell's ferry. Then on via Danville, Bloom- ington and Stout's Grove. They crossed the Mackinaw river on a ferry boat, spent the night with relatives in Tremont and went to the Dillon farm the next day. It took a cour- ageous mother to battle with the trial of life and rear her large family, the half of them under ten years of age. Is- rael , in his 22d year, shouldered the bread-winning task. They were dutiful children and by constant labor and untir- ing industry in a few years the dark clouds of adversity were scattered. They lived at Tremont five years and one year at Pleasant Grove. There were many good people in that locality who became their life-long friends, among them the Harris, Lovejoys, Nichols, Fishers, Buckleys, Morses, Robi- sons, Greeleys Kelloggs, Matthews, Leonards, Dillons and Lacklands.
In 1843 they bought 160 acres in section 30, Washing- ton township, and moved to the house on the site of Miss Kate Unsicker's home on Walnut street while they improved their farm.
Pioneering brought one hardship after another, and re- quired great determination to succeed, as well as lending the helping hand.
They paid for this land with corn. The mother and her younger brothers shelled this corn on a hand-sheller, sacked
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it and Uncle Israel hauled it with a four-horse team to Wes- ley City, getting but 10 cents per bushel. On one of these trips he came very near perishing in a blinding blizzard.
Israel Hicks married Susan M. Humphrey, a daughter of Luke and Eliza Humphrey, Feb. 24, 1848.
One day grandmother and some of her children had been blackberrying and stopped at William Wilson's, the present home of Will Miller. Mrs. Wilson had died, leaving tive children. Mary, the eldest, twelve (later Mrs. Swisher of Eureka) was trying to make bread, her brother, John, (now in his 85th year) not two years old, was quite sick and their father away. She doctored the little fellow until he was quite better, looked after the bread, did other help- ful turns and gave them of the berries. A friend in need.
When Uncle Asa, Jr., was yet in his teens he went out hunting and shot a deer. With great pride he brought it nome. He was a good marksman and an untiring hunter. In later years he had many colonies of bees and sold honey in ton quantities. He was an efficient supervisor of Little Mackinaw township for many years.
Robert Kimble of Peoria (his wife and son James ac- companying him) made his third overland trip to California in 1859 with a drove of cattle. Uncle Elwood Hicks was a member of his caravan. Uncle returned in December, 1862, via Panama and New York City, N. Y. Elwood Hicks and Eliza A. Shoemaker, daughter of Elmore and Nancy Shoe- maker, were married March 5, 1863. Uncles Harrison and Milton were grain and lumber merchants, respectively. Grandmother, Anna Cox-Hicks, was a beautiful christian character and much beloved for her many virtues. Her life was a benediction. She died March 18, 1853, and rests in Washington's old cemetery.
When the Danforth mill was erected in 1845 they wanted good seamstresses to sew the "bolting cloth". Mrs. James Marsh and mother did this task at 25 cents per day, this being the customary price per day for sewing. The mill was dedicated with a "home talent" play in which Dr. E. F. Wood most graciously acted the lady.
Mother learned to make men's clothing after she came to Tremont. The workmen on the I. B. & W. railroad were in need of garments and there were no "ready-to-wear" to buy. Her uncle got some garments cut from which she took patterns and in this way earned much toward the support of this fatherless family. After they moved to Washington sne assisted Lot White, the tailor, who had her make all
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button-holes and do much of the most particular finishing on garments. It was a help financially, too, that she could make all clothing for her brothers as well as for her mother and sisters. Mother, too, had learned to spin well, both cross-banded and twisted yarns, and to knit these threads into comfortable garments.
She assisted Robert Kelso in preparing the threads and in weaving coverlets, and she returned the compliment by helping mother to make eight coverlets for her mother's family. Such relics are now much in demand by antique hunters.
The all-day social gatherings of the pioneer ladies were wool pickings, spinning contests and quilting bees. Their "cards" made wool into rolls and bats; the spinning wheel, with the "wheelfinger" deftly used, brought these into threads to be woven into coverlets, blankets and cloth, for at that time "home-spun" garments were extensively used.
Miss Harriett Kingsbury, later Mrs. Laughlin; the Kice sisters, later Mrs. Bryan McCorkle and Mrs. John Kaufman, and my mother Asenath Hicks, later Mrs. J. Randolph Scott, could spin more hanks of yarn in a day than any of their rivals. In winding the thread from the spindle onto the reel for a certain number of threads the reel would click, thus tieing a loop around this group of threads, and so on until there were tied in groups 80 threads 54 inches long, making a skein; 17 skeins made a hank and 18 hanks a spindle.
When I was quite a little girl mother taught me to make rolls, to spin and to knit. She could also spin flax and showed me how to use the "heckel" in preparing flax to be spun.
Father had lived in Illinois ten years, and had gone through many trials and hardships. He had boarded, kept bachelor's hall and at times had families in his house who boarded him. Mother, too, had carried many cares after her father's death, helping to provide for those dependent.
Father was a member of the Presbyterian church of Washington, Ill., having united with this organization in its earliest infancy, and made great sacrifices to establish and maintain it. Uncle Patterson was a member of the church building committee and mortgaged his farm as surety. A financial crisis came and father borrowed money at 121% per cent and lifted his brother's mortgage to hold the site on which the church now stands. He was then a single man, but his brother had a family and father could not forbear making this self-sacrifice for them.
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Father and mothier were married November 25, 1847, by Rev. George Elliott, pastor of the Presbyterian church. (Rev. Elliott had earlier, that same evening, married Andrew Gerbrick, whose daughter, Mrs. Frances Brubaker, resides in Eureka, Ill.) They lived happily together for nearly 47 years. He died April 16, 1894, and she October 28, 1901.
Mother was complained of having married out of unity with Friends, and was disowned by their meeting. This is a method no longer practiced by the Friends or Quakers.
Father had a four-room house with a porch 18x8 on his farm and there they went to housekeeping December 9, 1847. In the new home the same spirit of energy and faithfulness pervaded her life; she was truly a helpmate. They began with small financial means, but made a success and were al- ways comfortable and good livers, ever sheltering and help- ing those less fortunate. Mother lived on this farm 49 years, which was in the Scott name 68 years.
When father enlarged his home, before his marriage, Mathew Crane, the father of James R., Thomas, Joseph, George, Charles, William and Jane, (later Mrs. Benjamin Miles, mother of the Miles brothers of Peoria) made the built-in cupboards and clothes closets, and Thomas Whitten built the stone wall for the cellar under the living room, which was 16 feet square. Father procured these stones and those used in the foundations of all his farm buildings from a ravine on his timber land. There were two fireplaces, with a mantle piece over each. In the living room there was a grate, in which coal was the fuel used, it being hauled from a coal bank near the Illinois river. The one in the kitchen was deep, and large back-logs were rolled into it; the and- irons held up the long fireplace wood. There was a crane in this on which the bright copper tea-kettle and the cooking vessels were hung in preparing the meals. Here they also rendered lard, etc. They had a "Rotary" cook stove and did not use this primative method of cooking. Mother, also, had a Dutch oven which her mother's people had brought from Georgia to Ohio in 1805 and from thence to Illinois in 1837. (This was an iron vessel about 6 inches in depth and 12 inches in diameter, having short legs and an iron lid). It was used to roast meats, bake bread, pies, cake, corn-pone, etc., by placing it on a bed of hot coals and covering it with the same. Father had one, too, in which he roasted meat and potatoes for himself and for men who helped with farm labor when he kept bachelor's-hall.
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There were not even matches, and fires were lighted by the spark from a flint igniting tinder in a tinder box. They were careful to keep fires alive and not, as it sometimes happened, have to go to their neighbor's for live coals.
Father had a half-dozen split-bottomed chairs and mother two rocking chairs, of the same kind (made by the Asa H. Danforth Furniture Co., and now owned by their children). A walnut drop-leaves dining table, a walnut stand with a drawer, a large mahogany chest of drawers and look- ing glass, with frame of same wood, a nice clock on the mantle, high-posted bedsteads corded with rope and with canopy tops and valences, brass and glass candle sticks, a perforated tin lantern, in all of which were used "home- made" tallow candles. On the living room floor was an all- wool rag carpet with a braided rag rug before the fireplace. Good books and papers, viz: The Herold of Truth, Water- cure Journal, The Messenger of Peace, Phrenological Journal, New York Independent, Louisville Courier-Journal, Christian Era (in the latter Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriett Beecher Stowe, was run as a serial), a dasher churn, a wash board and tub, clothes rung by hand. This is the picture of my parents' home set up 80 years ago, in which a housewife did all of her own work of every kind, even to browning the family's supply of coffee and grinding it in a mill upon the side wall near the cupboard in the kitchen.
James Smith, Sr., was the contractor with his son, James Jr., as boss when our home was enlarged in 1862 by adding five rooms, two halls and a portico. Of the carpenters and workmen on that addition which included George Blackwell, Levi Stumbugh, Mr. McFarlane the plasterer, George E. Lee who put in the stairway, Mr. Walters who did the graining and varnishing, William Jones is the only man now living, to my knowledge, who assisted there. The west half of our bank-barn was built in 1850 an set on very large log piers. The east half was built in 1875 when these piers and the full foundation was made of stone. Mr. Pierce was the boss on the west half and Peter Dorward on the east part.
Josiah Moore was a "waterwitch" and with forked peach-tree limbs, one branch in each hand, he located a spot for our stock well, by the limbs turning down in his hands as if drawn by a magnet. It has proven to be a never-failing well.
Father had a stock well on the east 80 acres of the farm where he put up a watering trough in the road for the convenience of the public. This was the route most people
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took in hauling their grain or going to Washington, which was the "trading post" for the surrounding country, and it was much appreciated by all in their long drives. James Lane carried the mail between Deer Creek and Washington for many years before the former town was served by the Lake Erie railroad.
George Duncan was living with father when he was married and continued to make his home there for some years, when he married (a sister of Mrs. Joseph Kidd and Mrs. William Monroe) and moved to Deer Creek township.
Robert Anderson also farmed with father and later built a large square house three miles south from ours which he sold to John Voorhees.
Rodger Jenkins did his first farming here on father's farm, bought land nearby and made life a success.
Father was always among the first to buy the most ap- proved farm and home conveniences. He owned the first McCormick reaper in our neighborhood; used four horses on it, a man to drive and one to rake the grain from the plat- form. With this he not only cut his own grain, but did reaping for many of his neighbors. Among them was Mr. Naffziger, Sr., the father of Valentine, Christian and Peter. They were then single men.
The next machine was a self-rake, then the Walter A. Wood self-binder, now the "combine". The first hay rake was an all-wooden one that revolved, making winrows; the next a sulky rake with metal teeth, the driver being provided with a seat on which to ride; then the loader.
Father and Uncle Joe Kelso had the first portable hay stackers, with a fork to be used either on the stacker or in the barn, operated by horse power with ropes and pulleys. Driving a horse to elevate the hay to the stack or barn loft was one way of getting outdoor life and exercise that gave me strength.
The evolution of the plow has been as great a marvel as that of almost any other piece of farm machinery. The woden-tooth "A" harrow was ofter used with a weight on it. Breaking corn stalks on a frosty morning, using a long neavy pole with a team at each end was an early way of clearing a field, after which the stalks were raked into wind- rows with a ponderous revolving wooden rake. They were often burned in the evenings. Next came the stalk-cutter and from that time on the stalks were not burned, but plowed under.
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There were few carriages or buggies, and wagons were seated by placing iron pieces over the top of the wagon-box on both sides, near the front and the back of the box, and a hickory strip laid in the fold of the irons to allow of some spring for the seats placed on them.
In October of 1848 father, mother, Anna Hicks who was mother's sister, William Sample, his wife and two sons Hugh and Theodore made an overland trip to Barnesville, Ohio, and Washington, Pa., in a covered wagon fitted up with springs. Their travels were of six weeks' duration over miles and miles of corduroy roads and bridges. There were many stretches of swamps filled in so as to make travel possible. This was their first visit east, after coming to Illinois eleven years earlier. The Sample family had located, some years prior to that date, on a farm known as "Sample's Corners" near the Buckeye church. On their return in December thev stopped Saturday night at Sam Stumbaugh's, north of Deer Creek, Ill., where Theodore, about two years old, was severe- ly scalded by causing a cup of hot coffee to be spilled on him. He bore this scar through life, as he did others that came to him. At the age of sixteen years he enlisted in the 14th Ill., cavalry as buglar, but threw his bugle away when cross- ing the Ohio river. When asked why he did it he said, "I took that method of getting into the army; now I am in and that is all I want". He was a messenger and after sev- eral almost miraculous escapes was captured and was in An- dersonville prison, Ga., five months and twelve days. He came from that "pen" a skeleton of his former self, was ex- changed and honorably mustered out of the service of the Civil war. He served the T. P. & W. railroad, beginning as brakeman, and held all the positions-baggageman, freight and passenger conductor, yardmaster and depotmaster at Logansport, Ind., and retired as a pensioner several years be- fore his death. The family moved from "Sample's Corners" to their Washington home, the house now owned by Miss Kate Wohlgemuth, when Hugh, Theodore and Sarah attend- ed school in the seminary. While William and Theodore Sample were in the Civil war the family moved to El Paso. Hugh was a very capable man and was assessor and sheriff of Woodford county, and Sarah was an efficient teacher there until her death in 1875, Hugh having died in 1871.
Father in hauling farm produce to Peoria, crossed over the Illinois river on the ice, if was frozen over, as was cus- tomary. In those days Peoria had no bridge over the Illi- nois river, and crossing was by ferry at the foot of Walnut
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street, near where the Mckinley bridge now stands. Peoria's bridge was a "toll-gate" with James Tart as gatekeeper for many years. Father's sister and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Officer, came from Pennsylvania on a visit, and they had to cross the river from Peoria in a skiff and land far into what is now East Peoria. For years there was a long levee from the river bridge some distance into East Peoria, but that has disappeared by "made land" filling the swamp.
Father would let a lot of ear corn roll out of the cribs onto the barn floor, bring in a number of loose horses, then go into the loft above them and by using a long whip drive them around and around. Thus they tramped the corn from the cobs. This shelled corn was for stock feed.
When on our way from school we children stopped at Jesse Cooper's to see the corn sheller that was being used by Elias Wood-two horses traveling on an inclined moving bridge, called a "treadmill".
Father had been the "Shepherd boy" on his father's farm and knew the sheep business well. He was successful in raising them and at one time he sold over a thousand head, but kept fewer thereafter. It is truthfully said that "where one sheep goes the rest will follow", be that wherever it may be. I have seen father try to stop the flock from crossing the pasture bridge, when the leader would come with a bold defiant jump and leap past him- then there was no hope of stopping the rest. They are most interesting animals, especially the lambs at play. Sheep- snearing time was an interesting time, too. There were al- ways a number of shearers, George Woodcock, Henry Bliss and Thomas (Tom) Seaman being on the force for many years. "As a sheep before her shearer is dumb" it was rare for one to offer resistance in the hands of the shearer. Father folded the fleeces, one at a time, in the wool press. He frequently sold this crop to Sol Bennett of Peoria, de- livering it in great hay rack loads.
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