USA > Illinois > Morgan County > Jacksonville > Historic Morgan and classic Jacksonville > Part 4
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Quickly the line of march for the higher lands was taken. As soon as the place of blood was fairly out of sight, upon a hillside overlooking an extensive plain, they called a halt. The captain again addressed them as follows: "My friends, the deed is done. We cannot now recall it. I did it in self-defense. I have rid the world of a monster and myself of an inveterate foe. My conscience acquits me; so I regret not the act. My advice to each of you is to go your way and I will mine. You never will see me again ; let every man guard well his secret, and none other will know you were here." In the language of the sensation novelist, we might now say that, "then with the elastic bound of a buck, he darted down the hill, was in a moment out of sight, and has never been heard from in this country since." We suppose that, his object accomplished, he retraced his steps to Kentucky, where some of his descendants may still be residing, and for this reason we think it best to still preserve the mystery, as to name and motive,
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THE FIRST CASS COUNTY LAND ENTRY.
(for of this we have been apprised,) which in those days hung about the "Wild Hunter of the Prairie."
The news of the murder of Williams was speedily noised about. It went like the wind, but found each one of that little band safe in his respective home as innocent and ignorant as you please. Cotrill and the Percifield left the county with haste, and Morgan county has never been troubled with such desperadoes since. Friends and neighbors performed the last services of burial for Williams. Near the spot where he was shot the body was laid, and there was the grave of "the first man that ever settled in the valley of the Mauvaisterre." As near as we can learn, the site of the grave was on the left bank of Magee's Creek, in the county of Pike. Around that grave the weeds and grass grow in rich profusion. The winds of heaven sweep over it, and the wolf, unconscious of its existence, sets up his midnight howl by its side. No gaudy pillar of flattering epitaph points out to the traveler the spot of earth where lie the bones of the pioneer of the Mauvaisterre. This man was dreaded by the people of the county in which he lived, and was feared by his family, and was also a terror to his enemies. His death was attended by circumstances of a truly tragical and very singular nature, a detail of which has been given above.
Before taking up again the regular thread of our historic narrative we append to this tragic picture of pioneer life a quotation from Judge J. Henry Shaw's "Historical Sketch of Cass county," an oration delivered July 4, 1876, as it covers a period when that region was included in the bounds of Morgan county.
In 1821, there were but twenty families within the present limits of Morgan, Cass and Scott counties.
In the early years of the white settlements here, wheat was unknown, and Indian corn. the only breadstuff, was exceedingly hard to obtain, as mills were scarce. Jarvoe's Mill, on Cahokia Creek, was for a long time the only one accessible to our pioneers. In 1821, a small horse-mill was erected on Indian Creek by one hichard Shepard. Then a horse-mill was put up at Clary's Grove, Menard county. To these mills the boys of the families had to make frequent and tedious journeys to procure corn meal for bread.
The public lands were first offered for sale in November, 1823; so that all those who settled here previous to that time were only squatters on the public lands, and could hardly be termed permanent settlers. In fact, Thomas Beard, and his friends who lived with the Indians at Kickapoo village, were merely squatters, dependent up- on the Indians for the privilege of erecting their huts.
The first land entry was made by Thomas Beard and Enoch C. March, jointly. why entered the northeast quarter of 15, 18, 12. September 23, 1826. It was upon this quarter section that Mr. Beard's cabin was built. On the 28th day of October, 1827. Beard and March entered the northwest quarter of 15. 18, 12, which extended their river front down below the mound. Thomas Beard individually entered the west half, southwest, 15, 18, 12, October 10, 1827; and John Knight entered the east half, south- west 15, 18, 12, July 17, 1828. Thus there were three men who entered the entire > ction upon which the original town of Beardstown was located, in the years 1826, 1827 and 1828 So you will see that the stories current that Beardstown was laid out in 1824, and that the site was bought by Beard and March for twenty-five dollars, are not founded on record evidence.
The fact is, that the original town of Beardstown consisting of twenty-three blocks, fronting on the river, three blocks deep, reaching from Clay to Jackson Street, of which block ten, lying between the Park and Main Street, is the centre one, was laid out and platted by Enoch C. March and Thomas Beard, and acknowledged before Thomas B Arnett, a justice of the peace of Jacksonville, September 9, 1829, and is recorded on page 228 of Book B of the Morgan county records
Among the first settlers in Beardstown, after it became a town site, were Francis Arenz and Nathaniel Ware, who purchased an interest and became joint landed pro- prietors with Beard and March The town was named after Thomas Beard
The very first deed from March and Beard upon record, of lands within the present limits of Beardstown, was made before the town was laid out, and is dated August. 21, 1828, to "Charles Robinson, of New Orleans," for the consideration of $100, being for a "part of the fractional part of the northwest quarter of section 15, in town 18, 12; beginning at a forked birch tree on the Illinois River bank, marked as a corner, run- ning thence down the river meanders thereof, so as to make two hundred yards on a straight line, and from thence running out from the river at both ends of the above line by two parallel lines, until they strike the north line to the east balt of the south- west quarter of section 15, 18, 12, supposed to contain 12 acres."
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CASS COUNTY AND THE SANGAMO COUNTRY.
And immediately following this deed upon the record is this singular "deed of defeasance," executed by Charles Robinson.
DEED OF DEFEASANCE .- "I having this day bought of Enoch C. March and Thomas Beard and his wife Sarah a piece of land on the river below the ferry of the above Beard and having this day received from them a deed for the same I hereby declare thal it is my intention to do a public business on the said land between this date and the first day of October next year and if I have not upon the land by that date persons and property to effeet the same, or actually upon the way to do so, I will return the above deed and transfer back the land to them upon receiving the consideration given them for the same. The above public business means, a steam mill, distillery, rope walk or store. Witness my hand and seal this 21 day of August 1828
(Signed) "CHARLES ROBINSON. [SEAL,. ]"
Acknowledged August 21, 1828, before Dennis Rockwell, Clerk of Morgan Circuit Court; recorded June 29, 1829, Book B, deeds 180. This land is part of the original town of Beardstown.
Mr Charles Robinson, party to these deeds, still lives in this county. near Arenz- ville. On the 8th of February, 1872, he wrote a letter to the Chicago Journal, from which I make this extract:
"Fifty years ago, or in the summer of 1821, there was not a bushel of corn to be had in Central Illinois. My father settled in that year twenty-three miles west of Springfield. We had to live for a time on venison, blackberries and milk, while the men were gone to Egypt to harvest and procure breadstuff's The land we improved was surveyed that summer, and afterwards bought of the government, the money being raised by sending beeswax down the Illinois River to St. Louis in an Indian canoe Dressed deer skins and tanned hides were then in use, and we made one piece of cloth out of nettles instead of flax. Cotton matured well for a decade, until the deep snow of 1830."
The southern part of the State, referred to by Mr. Robinson as Egypt, received this appellation, as here indicated, because, being older, better settled and cultivated, it "gathered corn as the sand of the sea," and the immigrants of the central part of the State, after the manner of the children of Israel, in their wants, went "thither to buy and bring from thence that they might live and not die."
The section of country drained by streams heading in the Grand Prairie, and emp- tying into the Illinois River between Alton and Peoria, was known as the Sangamo country. By this name it was known in the south and east, and at the time of the set- tlement of the part comprised in Morgan county, it was the destination of all emigrants to the central or southern part of the State.
Emigration was great to the Sangamo country during the intervening years between 1822 and the "Deep Snow." To give the names of all who located during that time is impossible. The principal families, however, were those of Jonathan Atherton, Thorn- ton Shepherd, Rev. John Brich, James Mears, George Hackett, Elijah Wiswall and sons Noah, Thomas and Henry, Jacob Deeds, Daniel Daniels, William Jackson, Elijah Bacon, Jacob Redding, Montgomery Pitner, William C. Posey, John Redfern, Aaron Wilson, Daniel Richardson, William Hays, Jacob Huffaker, Sr., Mr. Buckingham, William Scott, Mr. Seroggin, Sr., Abner Vanwinkle, James Evans, Sr., James Green, Andrew Karns, Elder Sweet, and Peleg Sweet.
The settlers of 1819, '20, '21 and '22 have now been mentioned. Some further av. count of their privations should be given, and the difficulties they encountered in founding their homes. For this see next chapter.
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ILLINOIS INSTITUTION FOR THE BLIND AT JACKSONVILLE.
CHAPTER III .- 1819-24. Concluded.
Covering the same period as chapters I and II, but with greater detail. Annals of the earliest years in Morgan, as published in the Illinois Sentinel in 1867, by J. R. Bailey, now deceased, and couched for in 1884 by Haram Reeve, Esq., the oldest male resident of the county now living therein-Log Cabin Raising-Meal Grinding iu Hand-mills-Honey Hunters-The First Tavern, Bridge and Steamboat -Greene and Sangamon County Settlements.
Few are the men who live to-day And by experience know The toils and ills of frontier life Of sixty years ago. The hunt, the shot, the glorious chase And the captured elk and deer. The camps, the big bright fire, and then The rich and wholesome cheer. low sound is our sleep at dead of night, By our camp fire blazing high, U'nbroken by the wolf's low growl, And the panther's ringing cry. And so merrily pass the time, despite Our wary Indian foe ; In the days when we were pioneers, Sixty years ago.
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HILE the early general history of the state of Illinois, comprising its first ex- ploration by the French, the settlements of Kaskaskia and Peoria, and its sub- sequent organization as a territory and settlement by the hardy pioneers from Kentucky and other states; while these incidents of the early history of our state are familiar to the reading public, there is yet much historical detail con- nected with the first settlement, organization and growth of each county of the state that is unwritten, existing only in the memory of the remaining pioneers, or in the traditions preserved by their descendants.
Each county has had its local history, spiced with interesting detail and varied in- eident, the collection of which in the shape of local historical annals, would afford valuable and correct data to the future historian, and prove an interesting bequest to the generations to come after us in the possession of this beautiful and fertile land, the vast wealth and future resources of which are now just beginning to be developed.
To this end, in part, a meeting of the early settlers of the county was held in this city on the last Saturday of the month of May, 1867, for social re-union, organiza- tion, and to take steps for the collection of statistics, historical details and local incidents as data from which correct annals of the county might be compiled for preservation and transmission to posterity.
In aid of this object we have been courteously furnished by Mr. Huram Reeve and others, with a correct account, based upon the personal knowledge of our informant, of the first settlement made by white men in this county, with the leading incidents connected with such settlement during the first season.
At that early day the face of the country, although attractive in its wild beauty, presented an appearance different from that which now strikes the eye under its con- dition of cultivation and improvement. The surface of the country, prairie and timber, was covered with a luxuriant and rank vegetation. On low grounds and flat prairie the
28
PRAIRIE FIRES-THE SETTLERS OF 1820.
wild grass grew to a considerable height. The "hazel roughs" that crept out on the dry prairie knolls near the timber, and the young timber skirting the prairies, had a hard struggle for life with the autumnal fires, lighted by the Indians for hunting pur- poses, and, after the passage of such fires in the fall, presented a blackened and stunted appearance; and among this timber, already fire-girdled to his hand, the settler subse- quently opened up his first five acre field, and planted his first patch of corn.
The traveler exploring the country found the grassy surface unbroken except by a rarely met Indian trail, and in skirting the timber of the Mauvaisterre, Sandy or Apple Creek, he saw attractive points of timber, and enticing locations for settlement, but no smoke was rising where the house should stand; no bark of dog or low of cattle to be heard ; naught but nature clothed in the grand robes of her virginity, breathing solemn silence.
During the spring of 1820 the first settlement of white men (after the Kelloggs') was made in Morgan county, in the vicinity of where Jacksonville now stands. This settle- ment was made by Mr. Roe, who located his claim and commenced work on what is now known as the Becraft place, west of Diamond Grove.
Next came Messrs. John Wyatt and Wm. Wyatt, who commenced their improve- ment on the farm later owned and occupied by Cyrus Matthews, Esq., formerly sheriff of Morgan county. These settlements were made about the 1st of March, 1820, and soon after, during the same month, Isaac Reeve, Joel Reeve, Lazarus Reeve Jno. Reeve, James B. Crain, Martin Dial, James Deaton and his son Levi, and Robert James pitched their tents and selected their claims.
Mr. Reeve settled on Sandy, southwest of the Diamond Grove' on what has since been known as the Deed's farm. Being a blacksmith he brought with him his anvil, hammers and bellows. As the season advanced and the plows of the infant settlement began to need sharpening, Mr. Reeve extemporized the first blacksmith shop in the open air, the interlocking stumps of two saplings being his anvil block, the bellows rig- ged to stakes driven in the ground, the fire place of the most primeval construction. This airy shop became at once a public institution, and from far and near the settlers trudged there through the high grass, to get their little jobs of smithing done.
The persons above named made their settlements in the immediate vicinity of the present location of Jacksonville, scattered around as attractive locations had caught their fancy. Mr. Deaton and his son made their claim about four miles west, on what is now called the McCormack place, on the Meredosia road, and Mr. James also settled in the same neighborhood.
During the same spring, 1820, but somewhat later, settlements were made in two other neighborhoods. Mr. Swinnerton, Mr. Olmstead and Mr. Pierce fixed their loca- tion and commenced improvements at Olmstead's Mound, since known as Allison's Mound; and on the north fork of the Mauvaisterre settlement was made by Samuel Scott. The Messrs. Kellogg were on the north side of the creek, and the first improve- ment was commenced on what is known as the Huffaker place, by Isaac Edwards. Mr. Buchanan settled on the head of south fork of the Mauvaisterre the same spring; also Mr. Roberts and sons at Island Grove.
Thus the first settlements of white men made in Morgan county in the spring of 1820, were in three distinct neighborhoods, the pioneers who first attacked the primeval forests with the all conquering axe and turned the first furrow in the virgin soil, having chiefly emigrated from Madison, St. Clair and other southern counties.
The little band of pioneers during this first spring, comprised, with a single excep- tion, only males-the pioneers and their sons; the women and smaller children not be- ing removed to their new homes until late in the fall. Jas. B. Crain, however, brought his family with him, and Mrs. Crain was the only white woman in the settlement dur- ing the first summer, being, it is claimed, also, the mother of the first white child born in the county.
BUILDING THE LOG CABIN HOME-EIGHTY-FIVE MILES TO MILL. 29
The first steps and subsequent proceedings of the pioneers in making their settle- ment, are well worthy of record. After selecting a location suited to his fancy, the first act of the settler was to pitch his camp. For this a site was selected under shelter of the timber, near a spring or running branch. The team was unhitched from the wagon, and after being carefully belled, was turned out to browse upon the swelling [buds. The next care was to provide a camp for protection from the weather during the season. The ringing sound of the axe then awoke the forest echoes, and rails were split for the erection of a rail cabin. A "board tree" was selected, felled, and in the absence of a cross cut saw, butted off with the axe into four feet cuts. These being opened and hearted with the maul and wedge, were rived into clapboards for covering the rail pen cabin, the boards being held to their place by weight poles laid on them as each layer was placed, the eave pole being pinned fast and each succeeding weight pole, up to the comb, being kept from slipping toward the eaves by blocks placed at each end and in the centre between them.
The rail cabin being raised and covered, a door was cut out, jams pinned on and a clapboard door made and hung with wooden or leather hinges, to be fastened when closed, with a wooden pin. Dry grass was then collected for underbedding, clapboards nailed over the cracks between the rails, or bed quilts hung up over the walls to keep out the driving rain. The summer camp was then completed.
The settler next proceeded to mark off the boundaries of his claim, each settler being entitled to claim, under the rules of the frontier, three hundred and twenty acres. The claim lines were marked by blazing the trees with an axe through the timber, and driving stakes into the ground at short distances through the prairie. The lines thus established were respected hy new comers, and if they did not happen to correspond with the government surveys when made, the claim title of the settler, to parcels cut off or divided was not affected, and transfers were often made between neighbors after the land had been entered, in order to make the old claim lines good to each particular owner.
The next step was to mark out five or ten acres of ground, as the help of the settler might justify, in the young timber skirting the prairie, as a patch for the first crop of corn. The timber land was selected as being better fitted for immediate cultivation and more easily broken than the tough, wild prairie sod. The work of making rails for fencing was now commenced, to be followed by the clearing, grubbing and break- ing of the ground, and planting of the crop. The corn having been planted in the fresh soil required but little further attention for some time, enabling the settler to finish his fencing, which was usually done at this period and during the intervals of working the crop. This was the experience of the pioneer settlers of Morgan during the first season.
The provisions brought with them by the settlers were intended to last till fall- when the corn crop would be made; but it happened that Mr. Deaton and his son ex- hausted their supply of corn-meal and bacon sometime about the first of June, compell- ing them to leave their partly made erop and travel a distance of eighty-five miles, to Edwardsville, to renew their supply. The journey had to be made chiefly in the night to avoid the green-head flies of the prairie, which at this season would in the day time almost bleed a team to death. Shaping their course by the stars, and without a road or trail, they started on the trip, provisionless and hungry. Their first camping place was on Apple Creek. The country had been pretty well cleared of game by Indians, but here they were fortunate enough to kill a squirrel, which they roasted at their camp fire. During the next day they succeeded in killing a deer near where the town of Jer- seyville now stands, and thus they were enabled to reach Edwardsville in excellent time and good spirits.
Although at this period game was exceedingly scarce, having been killed out or driven off by Indians, bees were abundant, and in the fall after the corn crop had been made, the first settlers reaped a rich harvest in honey and wax, the latter constituting
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BEE HUNTING, CABIN RAISING, MEAL GRINDING.
at that time, in connection with furs, the circulating currency of the frontier. An average of from six to eight bee trees a day was considered ordinary luck by the bee hunters, and the Messrs. Wyatt, who appear to have excelled in this line of woodcraft, were known to have found as many as twelve bee trees in a day. Diamond Grove was a favorite haunt of the wild bee, the surrounding prairies blooming with a succession of wild flowers, affording them a rich field for the collection of wax and honey. If the land did not literally flow with honey, it afforded a convenient and welcome source of revenue to the pioneer settlers.
As the fall approached, house logs were chopped, clapboards rived, puncheons for flooring split, and preparations made for erecting log cabins to shelter the families of the settlers during the coming winter. In raising the cabins the entire force of the little colony would be assembled, thus lightening the work of "raising," and each set- tler soon found himself the proud possessor of a log cabin prepared to shelter his wife and little ones in their new wilderness home.
The patch of corn having been safely "laid by," the cabin built and a good supply of honey and wax collected-the latter to be bartered at Edwardsville for necessaries, the team was hitched up, the trackless prairies and unbridged streams again traversed and the family safely landed at their new home.
As the new corn began to harden it was made into coarse meal for family use by rubbing the ear on a tin grater until the grains were rasped off close to the cob. This meal made a bread very sweet and palatable, but the work of grating was very laborious When the new corn became hard enough to grind, a small hand mill was put up at Dia- mond Grove, by Isaac Fort Roe and Jedediah Webster, and upon this "mill privilege" the surrounding neighbors depended mainly for grinding their meal during the first win- ter, the nearest regular mill being eighty-five miles. The hand mill was primitive in construction and its manipulation was tiresome work, as some of the youngsters of that day, now grown gray-headed, will doubtless remember. Two stones of the kind known as "lost stone," some two feet in diameter, were procured. These were dressed into millstone shape and a hole drilled through the centre of the one intended for the upper stone. With a simple contrivance by which to regulate the grinding space between the two stones the upper stone was made to revolve on a pivot. A hole was drilled on the top side and near the outer circle of the upper stone and in this hole a wooden peg was driven.
This was the handle by which the stone was revolved, being thus turned exactly like an ordinary millstone with the right hand, while the left hand managed the shelled corn and represented the hopper, dropping the grains slowly into the hole in the centre of the stone, to be ground into meal. The labor involved in grinding a bushel of meal by the above manual process can only be correctly appreciated by those who have tried it.
We have already described the first hand-mill. We might add that it could be changed into a horse mill by fixing it firmly between two posts and attaching a sweep to it. Another contrivance for making meal was the mortar; this was made by burn- ing or excavating the end of a stump or log. As the hole in the stump or log became deeper, it was narrowed until it came to a point. A pestle was made to fit closely into this aperture; in the end of the pestle an iron wedge was fixed. When the pestles were made of great weight they were attached to a sweep, made like a well sweep; by this means they could be raised and dropped into mortars. Meal was made in this manner by simply breaking or pounding the corn until it was thoroughly pulverized. The mortar in this country was probably the invention of the Indians, as it was in use when discovered by the white men. The hand-mill is spoken of in the Bible, and is probably as old as the world.
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