USA > Illinois > Tazewell County > Washington > Early history of Washington, Ill. and vicinity > Part 5
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of necessity, the board had to be let down, consequently all the light that was admitted in the room came down the ca- pacious chimney. As the chimney was not very high, but broad, it let in more light than one would suppose. I never have seen greased paper used for window glasses as I have often heard of, and read about, neither in dwellings nor school houses.
The cooking had to be done outdoors. Mother was fre- quently sick, therefore the brunt of it fell on sister, Nancy, who was young and coming from a slave state had never had many responsibilities resting on her. I realize now how trying a time she must have had. I have heard her and Carrie laugh years afterward of how bashful Nancy was, and coming from an older settled state was not used to the primitive ways persons had to resort to here.
The young men who broke the prairie were tired when evening came, and as soon as they ate their supper went to bed. They slept in the lower room, and the family slept above. The supper dishes were washed just outside the door. Nancy would take a light in to see to put them away, and one night she missed the shelf and dropped the whole stack of plates on the floor. How they must have felt the loss of those plates, for money and dishes were both hard to obtain at that time.
Cooking outdoors was no pleasure job. Just please bear in mind we had no stoves in those days. The bread had to be baked in iron skillets with iron lids. Coals of fire un- derneath and on top. As for boiling, that was accomplished whenever a pot or kettle could be made to set over the fire without upsetting and putting the fire out.
When it rained, and I have heard them say thunder storms were quite frequent during the summer, they had to turn an iron kettle over the fire to keep the rain from put- ting the fire out. Matches were unknown at that time; at least they were not obtainable where we were.
No doubt some who read this will think it was a hard way to have a family live as they first moved in. It was hard, coming from an older and improved section as they had, but they could do no better. Spring was upon them and they were compelled to raise a crop so as to have some- thing to live on the ensuing year. Their own land had to be broken so they could till it the next year.
Father rented land ten miles from home to raise his first crop. No tillable land nearer. By tillable land I mean prairie that had been broken. The first breaking of the soil it raised nothing but sod corn. The farm he rented was
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what is now known as the Chastine Major farm, a mile and a-half southwest of Danvers, McLean county.
He and my two eldest brothers, Elijah and Charles, took their provisions Monday morning and started for their work. Mother cooked everything she could for them. The middle of the week father came home for a fresh supply. There was a cabin on the land, and the family who lived in it al- lowed them to make their coffee at their fire. During the time of their absence, mother was left at home alone with five children, the eldest, sister Nancy, thirteen years of age. The country was a wilderness. The prairie had to be broken. Father secured the services of two young men named Crow to come from Sangamon county, fourteen miles south of Springfield, with their ox team and break up the ground.
Father was an inveterate smoker, and carried fire from Kentucky to Illinois, a journey of over two weeks' duration, by means of two pieces of thick bark, so as to have fire to light his pipe. He watched his bark, and when the under piece was near being burned through, he replaced it with a fresh one. He never neglected his fire. When he went to work on the farm he carried a fire and gathered bark and fuel and kept it burning all day, usually against a stump or log. The matter of keeping fire was a very important one. I have known a neighbor to come a mile of a morning to get fire to cook their breakfast. My brothers had a flint and steel by means of which they could take a bunch of tow and strike fire from the flint which would ignite as readily as powder, without the danger. They seldom had to resort to that, as they always tried to guard against losing the seed of fire. However careless they may have been in other things, in that they were always careful. 'Twas a common jest if a neighbor came in and seemed in a hurry, to ask if he had come for fire ?
The privations and inconveniences endured by the fron- tier settlers of this state would make some of our young women's and men's ears tingle, could they but hear them re- cited.
No railroad or telegraph service in .the United States. The mails were carried by stage or on horseback-in some places on foot, save where they could be carried by water. Letters that will reach their destination now in two days would have taken two weeks or more then. Postage was an item to be considered, as not every one felt able to keep up an extensive correspondence. A letter cost 25 cents, instead of 2 cents postage, and 25 cents was not always forth com- ing. Postage was paid at the end of the route instead of
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the start. I have known persons to come and borrow a quarter to get a letter from the office.
The merchants had no way of getting their goods ex- cept by boat. Should winter set in early, and the river freeze before they got their goods, we had to do without many things which were absolute necessities. Shoes were one of the chief items. I remember having to stay out of school two winters on account of not being able to get shoes, the river having closed so early. Of course I had some kind of shoes to wear at home, but nothing fit to walk two miles through the snow, ice and mud.
Goods of all kinds were exceedingly high priced, and money hard to get. Common calico sold for 20 and 25 to 50 cents per yard, and other goods were high in proportion. Money being so scarce we had to resort to various expedients to live and be comfortable without incurring debt, which was a hopeless abyss to fall into those days.
Father brought sheep from Kentucky when he moved here. He took the wool from the sheep's back and converted it into wearing apparel without the aid of machinery, save getting it carded into rolls for spinning. We first washed it, and when dry picked it. That means we tore it all open and loose, picking out all trash and burs, ready for carding it into rolls.
Many housekeepers prepared a dinner and invited their neighbors for miles around to come and help them pick their wool. This was a social treat and alas, too often, a day of gossip with some. When carded into rolls we spun it into thread, then colored and wove it into cloth, and cut and made the garments at home. They were very warm and comfort- abe, and when everyone dressed in homespun we thought nothing of it. All were on an equality. I have worn my homespun flannel dress to church and felt just as comfort- able as I did years afterward dressed in silk. A neat calico dress was something extra, and one of silk was a height in grandeur but few could reach.
We also raised flax. Took it through the various pro- cesses (which was tedious and laborious) from sowing the seed to weaving the cloth, and made our table linen, towels, sheets and men's wear.
This, no doubt, reads very strange, but the reader must bear in mind we had very little money to spend.
Although the ground yielded abundantly, there was no market for grain. Father and brothers raised five crops of wheat before there was any market for it. They engaged to
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sell it for 371/5 cents per bushel in Washington. It had to be threshed with a beater, a machine that threshed it and left it in the chaff. It was then cleaned with a fanning mill, and delivered. The men who bought it went into bankruptcy, and they never received a cent for their wheat.
A few years later, in 1840 or '41, brother Elijah in com- pany with Abel Hingman, who lived on what is now the Eri Bogardus farm near Deer Creek, and Thaddeus Smith of Buckeye hauled wheat to Chicago, where he bought our first cook stove and various articles for the famiy. They each took a man and four yoke of oxen with a large wagon, and a two-horse team with a lumber wagon. They turned their oxen out to graze at night.
An ox is rather a cunning animal. It will eat all night and steal away to the brush early in the morning and lie hidden all day. They had only been out a day or two before their oxen hid, and they came back home hunting them. Although they were belled the hunt lasted several days. However, they finally found them in sight of their encamp- ment, eary one morning before they got to the brush. I think the trip occupied almost three weeks.
The praries were a vast uninhabited plain. The first set- tlers thought and said anyone would freeze to death who ventured to build and live on those prairies. Father located just in the edge of the forest, near ten miles from Washing- ton, then known as Holland's Grove, so named for William Holland, the first settler, whose house stood where Almon G. Danforth's now stands. (Peoria was known at Fort Dear- born). There was not a house or fence from our home to Washington, and we just took a straight line across the wide open expanse of country. The grass in places was as high as a man's head, and all stock could live well from spring until late fall. The settlers raised cattle, and drovers came from the region of Chicago and bought the young stock. I have known my father and brothers to sell young steers two or three years old for $7 to $9 per head . In that way they got money to buy what they could not do without. A milk cow with a young calf sold for from $7 to $9, and a good horse for $50. But $50 would buy 40 acres of the best land there was anywhere on these praries, which now sells for over $300 per acre.
As for fruit, we had none only what grew wild-black- berries, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, wild crabap- ples, wild plums and grapes-all pretty sour fruit. Sugar sold high, but mother always put by some, so we were not
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entirely destitute of fruit. We knew nothing of canning. Our fruit was all either dried or preserved. Father kept bees, and we had an abundance of honey. Wild flowers grew in great profusion, so the bees could easily make honey.
William Holland of Washington had the first bearing orchard in reach of us. Sometimes father would bring ap- ples home with him when he went to Washington-and with what joy we hailed them. A lump of gold of equal size would not afford me half the pleasure now that an apple did then. Father sent to Tennessee for trees and planted out an orchard among the first of his improvements. How we did watch those trees when they bloomed and bore the first apples. I almost wonder we did not look the fruit off the trees before 'twas ripe. However, we all lived to enjoy the fruit from them in great abundance. I have often thought it was the best fruit, take it all through, I have ever eaten. Maybe 'tis a childish prejudice, lingering with me yet, but I think not. But the old orchard had shared the fate of all old orchards. I visited the old homestead a short time since and only six of the old trees remain. Alas, the old home so changed had I been set down there blindfolded I would not have known I had ever seen the place.
The ground yielded rich crops. We were sure of a plenti- ful harvest if the seed were put in the ground. No smut, rust, chinch bug, or any of the modern plagues to disappoint the tiller of the soil. Some one has said Illinois was the gar- den spot of the United States, and Tazewell county the flower bed. I have often thought it was not an exaggeration. The prairies were one vast sea of luxuriant grass and flowers, and did indeed present the appearance of flower gardens. But, alas, with the march of civilization, nature's fair face be- comes sadly marred. The flowers have, the greater part, been destroyed, and our forests are fast disappearing before the woodman's axe. The wild animals, most of them, have be- come extinct. Comparatively but few of any species remain.
Our birds of all kinds, songsters along with all others, have served so long as a target for the cruel sportsman's gun that a large proportion of the species have become en- tirely extinct-not one bird now where there used to be a hundred. "Tis a sad commentary on man; progressiveness.
The prairies seemed boundless. Stock of all kinds ran at large, feeding on the prairie grass. During the summer the farmers would set fire to the grass and make what they called a late burn. When the grass grew up in it the stock would gather for miles to feed on the tender grass.
After the settlers began to spread out on the prairies
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(the first settlements were all on the water courses) care and watchfulness were required to keep the fire from spread- ing and destroying fences-and sometimes stock yards and houses. Hunters from the little towns and villages would sometimes slip in and start a fire for the purpose of hunting. Game was plentiful. The whole community for miles would have to turn out and fight fire-sometimes all night. They would be scorched and blackened, and nearly exhausted when they got through. Woe betide the man or men who started che fire had they fallen into the hands of the settlers at such times. 'Twas a mean thing to do, endangering property for miles. The grass was so luxuriant it required hard work to stop a fire when once started.
Deer were plenty. 'Twas no uncommon sight to see eight and ten cantering over the prairies or through the barrens. Henry Meek of Walnut Grove, near the present town of Eureka, was one day at our house, and saw a deer and fawn standing a short distance off in the barrens. He drew up his gun and shot and killed the fawn, standing in our dooryard.
Brother Charles caught a fawn, brought it home and raised it. What a pet it was. Whenever the table was laid for a meal, watch close as we might, Billy would slip in and get a slice of bread. He lifted it so carefully none of the other slices were disturbed. Poor Billy, he failed to come home one evening, and that night a neighbor's dogs got after him and killed him. We mourned him sorely.
Wild turkeys, prairie chickens and quails were abundant. Brother Newton trapped the last named two in such numbers we grew tired of them. I have known mother to give some to the neighbors.
Wolves, too, were numerous, and bold-so bold they would come within a few yards of the house in the full glare of day and catch a chicken. Sheep had to be penned at night or some of them paid for the omission with their lives
Several years elapsed before we had either school or church. I think it was not earlier than 1836 the first school house was built in what is now called the Hardscrable bury- ing ground. The school house was built first-the cemetery started afterward. Mrs. Perry, an old lady, was the first one buried there. It filled rapidly, however. The teacher al- ways had the school pass out and attend a burial.
I may not be quite correct in regard to date. The house was a rude structure, built of hewn logs, a stick chimney without jams (I doubt if you who read this will know what jams mean). Said chimney rested on an immense oak beam
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stretching from one side of the house to the other. A dirt hearth extended entirely across the room. Puncheons formed the floor. The windows were a log sawed out on either side of the room, almost the length of the room, filled with six by eight glass, two panes deep. We did have glass, not greased paper, as some tell about. The writing accommodations were a broad shelf fastened to the wall the length of the windows, made to slant slightly from the wall out.
Our seats were slabs with holes bored in each end and wooden legs inserted. Sometimes, if the slab was thought to be too long, a middle hole was bored and another pin in- serted to strengthen it. If the middle peg happened to not be sawed off quite as short as the others 'tis easy to imagine the occupants of the bench in perpetual motion. One end would wriggle around to the middle of the room. The other end would be almost in the fire. We were kept constantly readjusting our seats. There were six or seven of those benches. Their height was such (I think about a foot and a half maybe two feet) that the smallest children's feet did not reach the floor by several inches. I wonder we did not every one have spinal disease, or become humpbacked. When we wanted to write we gathered our skirts around us and by a dexterous movement whirled our feet over the bench and landed them beneath our writing desks. We had no steel pens. The teacher made our pens from goose quills. Sometimes we had shocking to write with.
I forgot to mention the capacity of that school house fireplace. It was wonderful. I believe a half a wagon load of wood could be, and was, piled in it many times. A huge back-log six or eight feet in length, with any amount of smaller wood in front, made a hot fire, yet notwithstanding we shivered with cold sitting so near it our faces were in danger of being blistered. And, reader, we walked two miles through snow, and ice, and rain, and mud to school-some- times taught by a teacher who did not have as good an edu- cation as some of her pupils. Miss Nancy Parker, whose father lived near where the Buckeye church now stands, was the first incumbent. The last years of my attending school there I went alone. 'Twas a lonely road, through timber, thick with underbrush of a species of oak that does not shed its leaves until spring. I was afraid to look either to the right or left of me, for fear I might see a wolf or some other horrible thing that could do me harm. Snakes abounded, and some of them were very poisonous. Sister Margaret and I were on our way to school one morning when we saw two
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snakes. It was a point with us to kill every one we saw. I stood to watch them that they did not get away, while she went in search of a stick. Before she returned I glancd to one side of the road in a little ravine exposed to the sun ('twas eary spring) and saw a pile of them. I can call it nothing else, as I remember it now, for it was as large as a bushel basket. You may think this is a pretty big snake story, but it is a true one nevertheless. We did not kill any snakes that morning, but hurried on to school. They were of the garter snake species, but they are all snakes to me. When I think of it now I almost wonder anyone would send a child so far alone, but that was a part of our pioneer edu- cation-to overcome difficuties and conquer obstacles. Our motto was to go ahead.
The school house burned down one night, and as other neighbors had moved in, who thought the school was too far from them, it was rebuilt a half-mile nearer to us. However, the new neighbors would not patronize the school, so brought up a dissention in the neighborhood and started another school.
The first settlers hung together. They had passed through too many trials and hardships to desert each other then, so they tore the school house down, after having one term taught in it, and rebuilt on the old site. We gained what knowledge we could with such teachers and equipments as we had.
There were no pubic funds. Schools were made up by subscription, each patron subscribing so many pupils. Father always subscribed two or three more than he could send in order to raise the teacher's salary and to insure a school. Sometimes he took in the children of others who lived too far away to make the trip daliy, and boarded them in his family so they could have the advantages of school.
The teachers "boarded round." That is, they spent-or were to spend-a week with each patron of the school. Some got more than a week of the teacher's society, while some did not get their full week. It depended on whether the teacher was favorably impressed with her or his surround- ings when they went to a new place how long they stayed. And yet they had to be fertile in giving excuses, so as not to give offense.
After the first school house was built a short time the neighbors began to think about having preaching. In the course of time two young Methodist circuit riders as they were then called, sent an appointment to preach at the school house during the week. Father aways wanted to en-
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courage anything that was for the good of the community, and moreover he had a high regard for religion and religious services. He stopped the plows to attend the service. One of the ministers read the parable of the rich man and Laza- rus. The other got up when he was through and said the brother had read an interesting portion of Scripture, but really he had not known before it was between the lids of the Bible. Fther was indignant at such ignorance traveling over the country attempting to teach the way of life to others. This is only a specimen of the church privileges the first settler had for a number of years.
The church always found a friend in my parents. Their house was a home for ministers, or teachers, or any one who came to the neighborhood and was homeless. Indeed, their hospitality knew no bounds. No beggar or applicant for charity was ever turned from their door unaided. More than one destitute orphan child was taken into their family, fed and clothed and schooled, or cared for through a long lin- gering fit of sickness-without compensation other than the approval of conscience.
Indeed, I have thought since reaching a more mature age that my parents were too hospitable. I think, sometimes, they almost wronged their own family in caring for those who had no claims upon them-only the common ties of hu- manity. Their aid was sought far and near in sickness and trouble, mother being sent for often times before the physi- cian. I remember in connection with one famiy in particu- lar, who lived on the Mackinaw river, with what dread we children would see their old gray mare emerge from the for- est coming to the house-fearing mother was sent for, which was ofter the case. She always went and remained minis- tering to their needs until she became so exhausted and sick that she was compelled to return home. How anxiously we watched for her coming, and as soon as she appeared we pro- ceeded with all haste to prepare something palatable for her to eat, knowing well that rough corn bread, fat bacon and poor coffee, or maybe sage tea, had been her fare while there. And, indeed, there were many other place where she was called to go and she went to all, aiding in every way she could. Then, when all was over, and the sufferer slept the sleep of death, she furnished whatever was necessary to fit them for the grave, for we had some neighbors who were very poor.
Vegetation was very rank, and consequently there was a great deal of malaria, and much suffering from malignant attacks of fever. Fever and ague were expected each fall
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(especially by the dwellers along the water course) with as much confidence as the seasons were expected to roll round in due course. Physicians were a long way apart. Calomel was thought to be the sovereign remedy for an attack of either fever or ague, and the neighbors from all around came to father for calomel. In my mind's eye I can see the phial, as it hung against the wall, and see him portion it out on the point of a penknife. He always gave careful directions, and I do not remember of any bad results ever following his prescriptions. Happily for the human system the calomel age is past. Calomel, bleeding and blistering were resorted to for every ailment. I have no doubt many a life was sac- rificed on account of physicians not knowing better how to treat the diseases of the country. A fever patient was not allowed a drop of cold drink of any kind, but must slake his thirst with warm teas. We would think it cruel now.
The climate was very changeable, and more subject to extreme changes than now. I will mention one incident to show something of their severity. Nearly all the milling was done on horseback, with one or sometimes two sacks of grain across the horse's back. Rain had been falling for some time, and father feared the Mackinaw river would be so swollen it could not be crossed. He and brother Charles, accompan- ied by Parry Stephens, a neighbor lad, took their grain on their horses and crossed over to Ashburn's mill, traded their grain for flour and started home. The river had risen so fast the horses could get over only by swimming. Father told the boys to hold fast to their horses, even if they had to let the flour go. He wore an overcoat with a large cape, which was drenched with rain. When about midway in the stream the wind changed to the north, turned the cape straight up at the side of his head and froze it stiff before they reached the bank. Their mittens were frozen fast to the bridle reins. They got safely to land with their flour, but had to stop at Mr. Stephen's, a distance of one and one-half miles, to warm and thaw out. Chickens froze fast to the ground. That was always spoken of as the sudden change.
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