USA > Illinois > Tazewell County > Washington > Early history of Washington, Ill. and vicinity > Part 4
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When we left there we were enroute to Washington, D.
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C. We were there during the time Surrat had his trial. I saw him. He was a young man about 25 years of age, medium size, rather pale looking. I heard one witness give his testimony. The lawyer asked him if he could give as correct a statement as he had two years past. He said he could, but failed to do so, as the lawyer had his former evi- dence in writing.
We visited the patent office, postoffice; also at the White House, but not in. Went to the senate chamber. Congress was in session. On going to the capitol we met a man. I in- quired if we were on the right street; he said, yes, just fol- low me. We kept close to him when the man opened the door to let him in, (I was right at his heels, but he shut the door-would not let me in) said pass on. (How did he know but what I was a member of the senate) ? We only knew two congressmen, namely, Logan and Butler. We heard Butler spout.
We left there and went to the navy yard. Were on two torpedo boats, also on the Monitor; saw the hole that the Merrimac shot through the side of the boat, just above the water, passing through four-inch iron and sixteen-inch tim- ber. The turret was sixteen feet in diameter with two large cannons inside. The turret was lined with six one-inch iron plating, riveted together to protect the guns. There were great furrows plowed out of the iron, the size of your arm. I undertook to count the spots that had been struck with can- non balls. I counted 400, got tired and quit. I saw them making anchors. It took six men to handle one. There were many cannons in the yard, captured in the army.
We departed from there to Augusta county, Va., my birthplace. There they were one hundred years behind the times. They used the wooden scoop-shovel yet. Well do I remember when I was a boy, I had all the milling to do on horseback. Father run a one-horse distillery. Every morn- ing I had to take a sack of corn to mill and return then a sack of rye and return before breakfast. Sometimes I would take wheat. The mill was one mile distant; had the South river to ford across. Many were the sacks that fell off in the river. If they had all been lying on the road at one time I think I could have walked on them to the mill. Many times I wished the mill was forty miles away, then they would have taken the wagon. But those days are past. While on my visit there in '67 one of my cousins hitched up four horses to go to mill. I asked how much of a grist have you? Said ten bushels. They had no two-horse wagons and when they
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went to church they all went horseback. If there were eight girls and four boys in one family, each had a saddle. On one occasion they were threshing wheat and the machine left the wheat in the chaff. They had wooden scoops to shovel the wheat in the fan. Said I, "Have you no iron scoops ?" "Yes, that man has one." "Well, send and get it." "He don't like to loan it." I answered, "If a man refused to loan a shovel with us we would 'drum' him out of the country." He did not send for the shovel.
There has been a change since the war. When I was a boy we had to haul our wheat and whiskey to Scottsville, 45 miles, or to Richmond, 110 miles. We crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains-3 miles across, now 7/8 of a mile through, seven years being spent in tunneling. We would sell whiskey for 3 cents per gallon. We also drove hogs to Richmond.
Very frequently they would drive hogs from Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio to Richmond, Va. The climate in Vir- ginia is mild, winters are something like our winter in Illi- nois in 1890. There we could go into the mountains, gather- ing whortleberries, plenty of chestnuts, persimmons, wild grapes and fruits of all kinds in abundance. Deer, foxes, opossums, fish and eels. The lond is not so good there as in Pennsylvania or Illinois.
In the year 1876 myself and wife attended the Centennial at Philadelphia. We were there five days; from 75,000 to 100,000 people there each day, yet not much crowded only in places. During the whole time I was on the grounds and in the city, I never saw a fuss nor any man arrested; no pick- pockets, no trouble of any kind; the utmost harmony and good feeling among friends and strangers prevailed.
On our return home we stopped to view the Niagara Falls, that wonderful cataract. I will only relate a little concern- ing it as seen by the writer. The extension of the falls is about three-quarters of a mile around; on the American side the water is ten feet deep as it pours over the rock, while on the Horse Shoe side it is over 100 feet deep. Fifteen hun- derd million cubic feet of water passes over the falls every hour, covering a surface three-fourths of a mile in width. This immense column of water pours through this passage, which is the narrowest portion of the river, at a rate of 25 miles per hour, and having a depth of 400 feet.
The suspension wagon bridge, just below the folls, is 300 feet across the river. Seventy-five feet above the water pours over the dam a distance of 15 feet from the bank, leav- ing a passway for footmen between the rock and the sheet
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of water. That is a beautiful scene. You pay fifty cents to cross that bridge, while one mile below you can cross the railroad bridge for five cents. After leaving the falls we passed through Canada, Michigan and on to Chicago, thence nome to Washington.
A very melancholy affair occurred in Spring Bay town- ship in the winter of 1836-7. It is the time then known and yet talked of among old setlers as the cold snap. A man by the name of Butler and his daughter, a young lady, it being rumored she was engaged to be married, froze to death in the woods near their own home. The circumstance was thus: Butler and daughter had gone after some cows which had either straved away or to get some they had purchased. When they left home in the forenoon it was warm, though there was some snow on the ground. It had rained some in the forenoon, and the snow became very wet and slushy. In the afternoon, seemingly in the twinkling of an eye, it turned as cold as Greenland, as many old settlers can testify. He and his daughter were enroute for home with their cattle, but abandoned them as the intense cold overtook them, and endeavored to reach home. The most plausable theory seems to be, the girl froze first. Her father seemed to have stayed with her until she was entirely dead. He had cov- ered her face with his handkerchief. It is said that her clothes and lower limbs were covered very thickly with ice which had congealed from the slush that had splashed up from the soft snow ,until they had become so heavy she could not carry them, and no doubt this was the cause of her freezing before reaching home. When her father found she was dead it seems he had started to reach home, and succeeded in getting within a few hundred yards when he, too, succumbed. It seemed he had crawled some distance after he got down on the ground, past walking. Many think the vast amount of ice frozen to the girl caused her to give up first. If he had hurried home instead of staying with her, as it semed he did, and returned with assistance, both might have been saved. It is not easy to say just what one would do placed under similar circumstances. It was several days before the corpses were found, and then in the condi- tion described, doubled up and frozen stiff. All that could be done was to put them in large boxes, and remain there until the weather would permit to bury them decently and right. Doubtless there are some who may remember the circumstance when they read this notice. I think the mer- cury fell forty degrees in thirty minutes. John McCune and
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I went in the timber a few rods from father's house, and in three minutes after the wind changed to the northwest it froze our overcoats stiff.
Here I will relate a snipe story which occurred in the year 1853. Two friends from Virginia came to Illinois pros- pecting and visiting friends and relatives. Before returning, A. Cress and myself proposed having some sport catching snipes. They were at A. Cress' house. I was there also. In the evening Cress proposed to me that we go snipping to- night. Said J: "Boys, would you like to go and catch some snipes ?" They said: "Oh, yes. How do you catch them ?" Cress said, we take a sack and hold it in the slough (or ditch) and the balance of the company goes up the slough and drives them down into the sack. I then said I would go home and do my chores and come back, then we will all go. The moon was shining brightly. As we were about to start Cress said, "boys get a sack." One of them answered, "you had better take two sacks. What will you do when you get one full ?" Cress replied: "Perhaps we would not get more than one full." Finally we started, and as we passed through the apple orchard I cut a sprout to make a loop in order to hold the mouth of the sack open. There were ten or twelve in the company. After we had gone one-half mile we stopped. I took the sack and got down in the ditch to show them how to hold the sack. One of them said he would hold the sack if it took all the hair off. So he got down to work, but the sack laid too flat and one observed the "snipes" could not run in. Thomas Fauber remarked when they got started they (the snipes) would raise it up. Cress told the boys to go on the north and we would go on the south side of the slough, then meet about one-quarter of a mile from where they were holding the sack and drive them down the slough. One said he would hold the sack and the other would sit on the bank and watch them run in. The one on the bank said to the other: "Stand back a little. They will see you." Next the boys went home, but Cress and I went up the slough a quarter of a mile. I said we must go back or our friends will get lost. We followed down the slough. "Shew, shew," oen said, "be still, I hear one hollowing; they are coming." When we got back to them lo! and behold! there they were just as we had left them holding the sack just the same. Of course they smelt a snipe then.
At one time while breaking prairie I noticed a joint snake on the land I was breaking. Thought I, Mr. Snake I'll catch you when you undertake to pass over the broken ground. Sure enough I came on to him. He could make no
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headway unless he would strike a root or grass. Well, I caught it, tied a string around its neck and staked it to the ground until I was through with the land. Then I took my snake in my arm, led my horse and drove and ox team. As I was walking along the snake slipped out and down and the horse stepped on it and killed it.
I will hore describe the joint snake. They are about eighten inches long, resembling a garter snake, only more green and very solid. I have struck them one blow and it would break in three pieces. The head and body would crawl away. The body would not break-only the tail. They seem to come apart without any blood. I have heard some say the head would come back and gather up the pieces. I doubt the truth of that, for I have found the body afterwards all healed over as thick as the end of my finger. They are very harm- less, making no attempt to bite a person.
In the early settlement of the country we would have frequent wolf and deer hunts. We would arrange it thus: We would notify the people, far and near, that on a certain day we were to hunt; would hoist a pole and put a flag on it; select some elevated place on the prairie for the pole. We would go on horseback, armed with clubs and dogs (guns were prohibited). In those days people mostly lived along borders of the timber. They would form a circle and drive direct to the pole, chasing the game ahead of us. They would run north, meeting men and dogs, turn and run south, see men and dogs coming, would run back and forth until they would get tired. By the time the game were all chased up, they were fatigued and easily captured. I was at a chase in Tazewell county. The place of meeting was near Tremont. Our company caught two deer. On our way down there Thomas Cress rode up to one and knocked it down with an axe handle. When we got to the ring we had chased up five deer and one wolf. The deer all got away, but we captured the wolf.
At another time we had a hunt in Woodford county. We had enclosed seven deer and after we got them enclosed in one-fourth mile, two of the parties broke ranks and were go- ing to claim and take them. Two deer ran out where they made an opening in the ranks and we lost all of them, but had the sport just the same. The dogs chased them some time after they were enclosed.
While chasing wolves, many a man would get thrown from his horse. Snow on the ground and the sloughs were
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not frozen. Riding in a gallop, "down" would go the horse, but the rider would go on until he struck the ground. The wolves were cute. They would run in swamps where you could not reach them with a horse. If you would start a prairie wolf near the timber, in every instance he would make for the prairie. They were numerous then, but all gone now. . There are some grey timber wolves yet in the timber. Very fortunately when on the prairie, if you would run down a wolf and have nothing to kill it with, we would take our stir- rup off the saddle and kill it; also snakes and badgers. I have done that a number of times.
Just here I will relate a circumstance that occurred in our immediate neighborhood in Woodford county in the spring of 1857. An old man by the name of Goins was sick. Old Dr. Wood of Washington was attending his case. He was able to be up and around the house. He and his wife got into a quarrel. She struck him over the head with a stick of stove wood and opened the scalp to the skull. The doctor was sent for and dressed the wound, continuing to make visits for several days. Finally the old gentleman died and was buried. The people were not satisfied. The coroner had the body taken up and two doctors examined the head by re- moving the scalp and sawing off the skull. They found the skull cracked about five inches long and immediately under the skull where it was broken the brains were mortified. I was as a witness and one of the jury in the case. Of course Mrs. Goins was arrested, and kept in jail at Metamora from April until the August term of court. When her case was called one lawyer said to another there was a little matter he wanted attended to before he would try that case. During the time they were getting ready the old lady got up and walked out of the court room. No one said anything. She got into a vehicle which was in readiness there for her and the driver drove away in speed. In the space of one-half hour her case was called, but the "prisoner" was gone. The sheriff hustled around, sent out parties in pursuit and offered $50 reward, but they could not, or did not find her. (Did not try very hard). Of course, it was plain to be seen that it was understood between the lawyers and sheriff to let her get away. Her two sons agreed with the lawyers to give them $200, providing they would clear their mother. Lawyers Henry Grove of Peoria and Col. Robert Ingersoll were the men employed to clear her. Afterwards the Goins refused to pay the lawyers and they sued them. Their plea was they had no trial and they did not clear her. We did not only
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clear her, but we cleared her out of the country. They had to pay.
I will give here a little memoranda of the weather during the following years I have kept an account of:
1877, coldest day. Nov. 28, 10 degrees above zero. 1878, coldest day, Dec. 22, 15 degrees below zero.
1879, coldest day, Jan. 3, 27 degrees below zero. 1880, coldest day, Dec. 29, 15 degrees below zero. 1880, warmest day, July 14, 89 degrees above zero. 1881, warmest day, Aug. 4, 102 degrees above zero. 1881, warmest day, Aug. 10, 106 degrees above zero. 1881, coldest day, Jan. 11, 12 degrees below zero. 1882, coldest day, Dec. 7, 12 degrees below zero.
1883, coldest day, Jan. 4, 6 degrees below zero. 1884, coldest day, Jan. 6, 24 degrees below zero. 1886, coldest day, Jan. 10, 12 degrees below zero. 1886, coldest day, Jan. 11, 15 degrees below zero. 1886, coldest day, Jan. 19, 10 degrees below zero. 1886, coldest day, Jan. 23, 18 degrees below zero. 1886, coldest day, Feb. 2, 14 degrees below zero.
1886, coldest day, Feb. 3, 14 degrees below zero. 1886, coldest day, Feb. 6, 20 degrees below zero. 1887, coldest day, Jan. 2, 24 degrees below zero. 1888, coldest day, Jan. 10, 10 degrees below zero. 1888, coldest day, Jan. 7, to zero.
1888, coldest day, Jan. 15, 14 degrees below zero.
1888, coldest day, Feb. 10, 22 degrees below zero. 1889 and '90, just to zero.
Anyone wishing to observe it, they will find two and not to exceed three Saturdays in the year but what you can see the sun some in the day, morning, noon or night. I have noted this for the last thirty years.
Before bringing my autograph to a close, I will finally remark, not as boasting, that I never sued a man, never was sued, never chew tobacco,, never was drunk, never smoked a cigar, never carried or owned a watch, never took the Lord's name in vain, to my knowledge, not withstanding all, I feel that I am an unworthy servant.
DAVID KINDIG.
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"In the Early Days," a Historical Sketch Written by Miss Belle Harlan
Miss Belle Harlan, who came of one of the prominent early families of Illinois who were residents of Tazewell and Woodford counties, wrote a little pamphlet entitled, "In the Early Days", which is one of the very best "true to actual conditions" of the early history of this locality. Miss Har- lan spent her last years in Washington, Ill., living at the home of her niece, Mrs. L. J. Danforth. She died on Nov. 30, 1917, at the ripe old age of 85 years.
My father moved from Christian county, Kentucky, in the fall of 1833. Coming here at that early day the country was little better than a wilderness.
In recounting some of the privations and hardships in- cident to frontier life, the younger members of the family have evinced so much interest, and been so anxious to hear more of those early days of trial and self-denial, that I de- cided to commit some of them to writing that they might be preserved for their perusal, after those who participated have passed from earth and earthly scenes.
I write from memory alone, and cannot be exact in re- gard to dates. Indeed, in many things I cannot give dates at all. It will be a plain, simple story of the early settle- ment of the country. I do not know as I should have un- dertaken it, but that several have said to me when talking of those early days, "You ought to write those things down; there are so few living now who know anything about them".
Father (James Harlan) with his family, which con- sisted of himself, my mother and seven chidren: Elijah, Charles, Nancy, Caroline, Newton, Margaret and Isabelle or Belle, the writer of these lines, spent the winter of 1833-31 in Sangamon county., Ill., with his brother (Uncle Silas Har- lan). In March of '34 we moved to Tazewel county and rented a log cabin on the Mackinaw river. In those days there were nothing but cabins to rent, so we moved into it and proceeded to erect a home to live in, which was built on his own land just in the edge of the timber. Said house con- sisted of hewn logs, clapboard roof and puncheon floor.
This was before my recollection, but I have heard mother and my older sister tell how they moved in without window, doors or chimney. Cooked outdoors, put boards across one corner of the house and piled the bacon on them-
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a novel meat house. My earliest recollection of our old home is a large room of hewn logs with north and south doors and south windows. This was biult just in the edge of the forest.
Wooden hinges, wooden latch, with a string hanging outside to lift the latch. The whole door was a rough wooden frame, with clapboards nailed on. A stick chimney at one end of the room with a wide open fireplace, wide enough to take in a backlog three feet long and two in diameter with smaller sticks in proportion piled on in front of the andiron.
No exaggeration, those fireplaces would take in enor- mous quantities of wood. Their capacity seemed almost limitless. Our houses were cold. We sit by a blazing fire, with our face almost blistered, while our backs felt as if en- cased in frost. This is a digression. An opening left in the upper floor in the back end of the room to be reached by a ladder. This upper room served as sleeping room for vari- ous members of the family. The room beow contained two beds, one on either side of the ladder. Father and mother always occupied one and if a stranger came to spend the night, which was a frequent occurrence, the other bed served as a "guest chamber". Mother always hung up curtains to insure some privacy. Those who slept upstairs had to as- cend the ladder if the President occupied the guest cham- ber. I have often heard sister Carrie give one night's ex- perience in connection with having company, and her sister Nancy's trials in avoiding scaling the ladder. She always had a hearty laugh whenever she referred to it. Major Cullom, father of Senator Shelby M. Cullom, came to spend the night; no unusual thing for a neighbor man to go several miles to spend the night with a neighbor. Nancy was bashful and sensitive, and declared she would not go up the ladder to sleep. Accordingly they carried bedding to the kitchen. We had a kitchen by this time, and they made their bed and retired. The kitchen had a wide fireplace and clapboard door. Said door did not fit very close and shut from the outside. Wolves were so numerous every one had to keep several hounds to protect their flocks. We had four. 'Twas the fall season and they had got in the kitchen to lie by the fire. Whenever they heard a noise on the outside they dashed pell-mell over my sisters, sprung the door out at the bottom, passed out barking and howling as only hounds can. Pretty soon they would want to return to their comfortable quarters. They could not push the door in so as to enter, but stood outside scratching and whining until
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my sisters would have to let them in or bid adieu to sleep for that night. This was repeated off and on all through the night. Carrie said she told Nancy after that time she could sleep with the hounds if she wished, but she, Carrie, would scale the ladder. This all transpird before my recollection. But this is digression number two. I will return to the house. The roof was clapboards laid on small logs reaching from gable to gable. The boards over-lapped each other. I think they were about three feet long, and were held by means of long poles or small logs laid on each lap, called weight poles. The chimney was built on the outside, com- posed of split sticks laid up and filled between with wet clay. A pole was inserted some distance above the fireplace to hang the pot-rack on. Woe betide the housewife if the pot- rack took fire, which it frequently did, and burned in to, letting pots and kettles with all their contents down into the fire, upsetting the family dinner and drowning the fire- not mentioning the temper of the cook. Oh those were the days that tried men's-no, women's souls. Digression num- ber three. I want to say something about how those clap- boards were made, but I fear I cannot make it pain.
ยท A log was selected with a straight grain, and sawed in able length. The boards were split by means of an instru- ment called a frow, which I shall not attempt to describe, and a wooden bench so constructed it would hold the boards while they were being shaved with a drawing knife. The bench was called a shaving horse. Shingles were made in the same way.
Puncheons were logs split, and the undersides at the ends hewn off so they wold lie on a sill, making is possible to walk across the floor without falling. The opening be- tween the logs were chinked and daubed. That is, as large a piece of wood as possible be fit in and the remainder of the opening was filled with mud. In time, and not so long a time either, rain and wind would loosen the filling and it would all fall out, and had to be replaced, or the inmates had to take the weather.
We sometimes got out of bed in a good-sized snowdrift. Sometimes had to cover our heads to keep the snow from our faces. We had very heavy snows in those early days, and it laid on the ground a long time; much longer than it does now, and more of it. I once went with father and mother to spend the day at a neighbor's. The only window the cabin could boast of was a clapboard hung on leather hinges to let down over a large opening between two logs. Being a cold day and the window at one side the fireplace,
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