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USA > Illinois > Piatt County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois, Volume II > Part 28
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' The surface of the county is moderately rolling, enough in some places to give a very pleasant diversity to the landscape. A sys- tem of irregular ridges, running in a north- westerly and southeasterly direction, and pass- ing a little south of the chief towns, marks the shed line dividing the Vermilion water- shed from those of the Sangamon, Kaskaskia and Embarras Rivers; the western branch of the latter, which takes its rise near or within the corporate limits of the city of Champaign, however, making its debouch through this ridge a little south of the southern limits. This ridge and its spurs furnish the highest points of elevation in the county.
Artificial groves and orchards upon the prai- rie, which were planted and have grown up mostly within the last half century, by break- - ing up the monotonous views of an unbroken prairie, have greatly changed and improved the appearance of the country. Very little of this land is so low or so level as to fortid artificial drainage, and very little is so broken by bluffs or hills as to render it incapable of cultivation; so that the entire surface of the county may be considered as tillable land, or such as will eventually be brought into use as arable or pasture land.
Since the adoption in 1878 of the amend- ment of the State Constitution of 1870 (Sec- tion 31 of Article IV, commonly known as the "drainage section"), great tracts of land in the county, before then incapable of being culti- vated, have been drained by artificial ditches and by tiling, and are now reckoned the best, and have proven to be the most valuable, lands in the county. (1)
(1) The matter of drainage was, for many years, a serious question with the owners of wet lands in this county. The extent of lands needing drainage was a serious draw-back to the set- tlement of the country, the wet lands being avoided by home-seekers and investors alike. Soon after the year 1880 attention was attracted
In this connection it may be said in refer- ence to the wet lands of the county, that the county authorities about 1853, for the purpose of taking advantage of the Federal and State legislation giving to counties all of the swamp and overflowed lands within their borders, ap- pointed Benjamin Thrasher to examine all of the unsold lands in the county coming within the definition of the Federal act, as "swamp and overflowed lands," and to report a de- scription thereof to the County Court. This examination having been made, it was reported that 85,000 acres answered to this description. Subsequently the title to 35,957 acres was con- firmed to the county. These lands were sub- sequently sold and the funds used, in part, for the erection of a court house in 1860, the residue being appropriated to the school fund. It was upon these lands that the great work of drainage was mostly done.
Much has been said and written of the beau-
to the reclaiming of wet and overflowed lands, and, under wise and practical legislation. wonders have been accomplished The cost of these improvements have been immense, em- bracing work done by private individuals, by local districts organized by township authori- ties, and by and under the direction and su- pervision of the County Court. The records of the latter class, being within reach and intelli- gently kept, afford information of the cost of such drainage. We give below an abstract of the districts so organized, and the amount, in each case, of the assessments. It is putting the expense of other drainage very low to estimate at a sum as great, from which it will be seen that more than $1,000,000 have been thus expend- ed within the last quarter of a century in this county. The result is, that great ditches are in existence many miles in length, affording in most cases complete immunity from overflow and from the destruction of crops. The lands thus reclaimed are the most valuable for agri- cultural purposes, and average in value an hundred fold of the estimated value before drainage.
Name of District.
No. of Acres.
Assess-
Beaver Lake
13,822
$ 55,862.03
Kankakee
13,655
40,783.70
Big Slough Wild Cat
6,520
55,794.98
6,135
38,810.00
Dry Fork Mutual.
2,140
3,029.54
East Lake Fork
31,735
102,186.60
Embarras River
37,199
39,352.97
Hensley
1,723
446.70
Hillsbury Slough
13,091
32,324.21
Kaskaskia Mutual
7,688
5,866.68
Kaskaskia Spl
13,931
39,466.13
Little Vermilion
30,825
29,074,22
Long Point
6,975
17,331.65
Okaw
19,075
25,439.08
Two Mile Slough
23,732
63,242.07
Pesotum Slough
6,331
14,143.68
Willow Branch
1,029
3,180.00
Spoon River
9,960
30,382.62
Black Slough
12,000.00
Union Drainage, Stanton and
Ogden
1,239
761.84
Total
246,706
$596,298.70
ments.
649
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
ties of our prairie landscapes in their natural condition, and much has also been said and written of their repulsive and dreary, un- changed sameness. Both descriptions have in them much of truth, depending upon the sea- son of the year in which the snap-shots of the scenes were taken.
No one who has traversed the unbounded rolling prairie of Illinois in summer, and wit- nessed the dazzling beauty of its flora, the magnificent exuberance of its vegetation, the limitless expanse of clear sky and rich earth, could write or speak otherwise than extrav- agantly of the impression produced; on the other hand, few could survey the same land- scape in winter, whether covered with an un- broken blanket of snow, with no diversification, save here and there the gentle swells of the drea'r surface swept by fierce, chilling winds, or behold it bereft of its snowy covering, pre- senting, in its place, the whole wide expanse blackened by autumnal fires, or sere and rus- set from winter's frost-oppressive in its barren monotony-and yet describe the scene in poetic language-especially if use had been made of the prairie roads as they were usually found in early times. The beauty and radi- ance of gentle and fruitful summer attract and stir the imagination in one view, while the desolation and grim bleakness of inhospitable winter repel' and depress in the other. As one has in terms of contrast described these scenes-"The mud, snow and dreariness of winter, and the balmy loveliness of summer"- the two seasons in Illinois which showed, in vivid forms, the extremes of the climate, and, as seen or experienced by the beholder, so impressed him.
Another season-the autumnal-with its in- variable and terrific accompaniment, the prai- rie fire, should not be forgotten for the reason that the accompaniment no longer exists, and its place has been taken by the autumn har- vest of abundant grain from the flelds where fires swept all before it but a few years since. These prairie fires have been well described by authors, and possessed all of grandeur and beauty, or terror and devastation, claimed for them, according as the observer was only the witness of the fires or the victim. In Cham- paign County, and from the doors and win- dows of residents yet in life, the prairie fires of story have been seen, time and again, year after year, and presented the same scenes of
beauty or terror to the beholder, according as he and his were safe from the devouring ele- ment, or being pursued by the hungry flames. (1)
As the prairie sod gave way, year after year, to the breaking plow, these phenomena grew less and less, and are now seen no more.
Although several attempts at the discovery of coal have been made within the county, none have been attended with success, and it is generally accepted as true that avail- able mines do not exist under the surface of Champaign County. Such is the theory of eminent geologists. Agriculture, so rich in its possibilities, seems to be the only natural resource of wealth open to its population.
At many places in the northeastern part of the county within the valley of the Middle Fork of the Vermilion, artesian wells have been sunk, from which a constant and abun- dant supply of pure water flows. Springs, ex- cept in the beds of creeks and rivers, rarely occur.
A feature of many landscapes of the county, quite noticeable before the prairies were broken and drained, were the many sink holes found, even upon the highest grounds. These holes varied in size from a square rod to an acre or more. They were sometimes several feet in depth below the level of the surround-
(1)The following editorial extract from the "Urbana Union," of November 9, 1854, describes a scene enacted upon the ground where Cham- paign City now stands, as seen from the edi- tor's door in Race Street, Urbana:
"The other evening a sight presented itself to our citizens which was grand in the ex- treme. At dark, a mile to the southwest of town. on a high ridge of prairie, there ap- peared a small patch of fire which was by the south wind swept towards the. north. As it ran along in a northerly direction on the ridge, it also spread slowly towards the summit, to the westward, the flames mounting upwards in beautiful forms. At the end of about half an- hour, the northern wing had spread two miles in that direction, when for a few moments the whole line danced for our amusement in the most appropriate manner, sending high up towards heaven its illumination and lightening up the varied landscape for miles around. At last the figure was finished and the scene closed by the flames becoming exhausted, when all again assumed its accustomed quiet."
The author, in the autumn of 1862, with a party of friends was passing from the county- seat to Sadorus across the prairie, when a line of smoke appeared over the ridge to the west, betokening the coming fire. The country was then all open and covered by the summer's growth of grass, well seared and dry from the early frosts. The fire soon appeared over the ridge bearing down upon the party like a de- vouring army. Fortunately the line of the Wa- bash railroad was not far away and, by a rapid application of the whip to the team, it was reached and passed to safety when the terrific flame was but a few rods away.
650
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
ing prairie, and, in the early times, afforded water for the greater part of the year, thus becoming useful to the early stock raiser and traveller. Various causes for the existence of these holes have been advanced, but it is thought that none are more reasonable than the claim put forth in favor of the wild buf- falo which, for ages, roamed over these plains bfore the coming of the white man. The same variety of ponds are, in the remote West, to this day called "buffalo wallows," which name, originating when the habits of the animal were well known in those regions and upon the grounds where the work of ex- cavation was going on, may well be received as authoritative: (1)
Early discoverers and explorers upon the American continent always pursued their in- vestigations with reference to the mines of the precious metals which might be found to exist in the newly found country. The suc- cesses of the Spanish conquerors in Peru and Mexico seemed to have inflamed the imagina- tions of all who turned the prows of their vessels to the westward, and the money which fitted out many exploring expeditions was fur- nished solely with reference to the possible mineral wealth which might be developed thereby.
The early French and Spanish explorers of the interior of North America were always on the lookout for mines of the precious metals. The Company of the Indies, to which the King of France gave great privileges in the Louisi- ana and Illinois countries, about 1700, and the South Sea Company, represented by John Law, who succeeded the failure of Com- pany of the Indies, and also failed in the great financial disaster known as the "Mississippi
Scheme," about 1718, were very largely moved by the hopes of finding, in the Mississippi, valley somewhere, the mines whose fabled wealth had fired the hopes of all Europe in the seventeenth century. In the particular case of the companies above mentioned, our Okaw River was settled upon as the one which rolled over "golden sands," which suspicion, it is said, caused it to be carefully scrutinized from source to mouth by eager Frenchmen. (1) Gold was not found by these men, for the reason that they did not look for it in the right place. While digging into the yellow clay of its bluffs, where they hoped to de -. velop the wealth of the country, they over- looked the rich prairies which border this stream from end to end, and out of which the men of this day, and of another race, are now turning up golden crops of useful cereals.
Another physical feature, not to be omitted in this meager description of Champaign County, is the presence, here and there upon the smaller water-courses, of what was known to the early comers as "beaver dams." By this term it will be understood reference is had to those obstructions to the flow of the water, in early times, which were created by the wild beavers, once very numerous through- out the temperate zone of North America, and a fruitful source of revenue to the early hunter and trapper on account of the value of their furs. (2)
(1)"In 1715, a man by the name of Dutigne, who loved a joke, wishing to amuse himself at Cadillac's (Governor of Louisiana) inordinate passion for - discovery of mines, exhibited to him some pieces of ore, which contained certain proportions of silver, and persuaded him that they had been found in the neighborhood of the Kaskaskias. This was enough to fire Cad- illac's overheated imagination. Anticipating the realization of all his dreams, he immediate- ly set off for the Illinois, where, much to his mortification, he learned that he had been im- posed upon by Dutigne, to whom the decep- tive pieces of ore had been given by a Mexican, who had brought them from his country. Af- ter an absence of eight months, spent in fruitless researches along the Kaskaskia, he returned to Mobile, where he found himself the laughing-stock of the community."-"Colonial History of Louisiana," by Charles Gayarre, page 164.
"Silver is supposed to exist
in St. Clair county, two miles from Rock Spring, from whence Silver creek derives its name. In the early times, by the French, a shaft was sunk here, and tradition tells of a large quantity of the precious metal being obtained."-Peck's "Gazetteer of Illinois," (1837), page 14.
(2)"The favorite haunts of the beavers are rivers and lakes bordered by forests. When they find a stream not sufficiently deep for
(1)"A peculiar custom of the buffalo was "wal- lowing." In the pools of water the old fathers of the herd lowered themselves on one knee, and with the aid of their horns, soon had an excavation into which the water trickled, form- ing a cool, muddy bath. From his ablution each arose coated with mud, allowing the patient successor to take his turn. Each entered the "wallow," threw himself flat upon his back, and. by means of his feet and horns, violently forced himself around until he was completely im- mersed. After many buffaloes had thus im- mersed themselves and by adhesion, had car- ried away each his share of the sticky mass. a hole two feet deep and often twenty feet in diameter was left, and, even to this day, marks the spot of a buffalo wallow. The delectable layer of mud soon dried upon the buffalo and left him encased in an impenetrable armor se- cure from the attacks of insects."-"Historic Highways of America," Vol. 1, page 105, (A. H. Clark & Co., Publishers.)
651
.HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
One of these dams was found by the earliest comers constructed across the western branch of the Salt Fork, about four miles north of .Urbana. As described by those who saw the work for many years, it fully met the descrip- tions written and published by observers of these works elsewhere. At first the animals ·were killed and their possession and work in- terfered with. As fast as any damage was done by curious intruders, they repaired the same, until, their numbers being lessened by the hunters, the home was abandoned and finally the last of this interesting and intel- ligent animal, with his contemporary, the wild Indian, moved westward. This dam has been perpetuated in memory by giving its name to a drainage district organized upon the ground for the recovery of the adjacent lands.
This section of the State of Illinois, espe- .
cially in the years before the planting of orchards and artificial groves, was subject to very great extremes of heat and cold. The open prairie, during a season of the former, was not a place of safety; the timber belts and groves, however, afforded a mitigating in- fluence that saved the lives of many pioneers. This must afford some explanation of the par- tiality with which they regarded those loca- tions when seeking their early homes.
One occasion in the history of the country is well remembered by such of the pioneers as survive, as affording the most striking in- stance of the extreme cold to which the coun- try could be subjected. It happened upon the 16th day of December, 1836. Many reminis- cences of this strange phenomenon have been related by the pioneers to the writer, from their memories, but the event is best de- scribed by Rev. E. Kingsbury, the pioneer Presbyterian pastor of Danville, in a com- munication written by him for a Danville paper in December, 1857, twenty-one years after the happening of the event, which will be availed of here to tell the story.
"The weather on Monday was quite warm
their purpose, they throw across it a dam con- structed with great ingenuity of wood, stones and mud, gnawing down small trees for the purpose, and compacting the mud by blows of their powerful tails. In winter they live in houses, which are from three to our feet high. are built on the water's edge with sub-aqueous entrances, and afford them protection from wolves and other animals. They formerly abounded throughout northern America, but are now found only in thinly or unsettled re- gions."-Century Dictionary, page 496.
and fast softening the heavy snow. On Tues- day it began to rain before day and continued until four in the afternoon, at which time the ground was covered with water and melt- ing snow. All the small streams were very full and the large ones rapidly rising. At this crisis there arose a large and tumultuous look- ing cloud in the west, with a rumbling noise. On its approach everything congealed. In less than five minutes it changed a warm atmos- phere to one of intense cold, and flowing water to ice.
"One says he started his horse in a gallop in the mud and water and, on going a quar- ter of a mile, he was bounding over ice and frozen ground. Another, tnat in an hour after the change he passed over a stream of two feet deep on ice, which actually froze solid to the bottom and remained so until spring. The North Fork, where it was rapid and so full as to overflow its bottoms, froze over so solid that night that horses crossed next morning, and it was thus with all of the streams.
"Mr. Alvin Gilbert, with his men, was cross- ing the prairie from Bicknell's to Sugar Creek, with a large drove of hogs. Before the cloud came over them the hogs and horses showed the greatest alarm and apprehension of dan- ger. And when it actually came upon them, the hogs, refusing to go any farther, began to pile themselves in one vast heap as their best defense on the open prairie. During the night half a dozen of them perished, and those on the outside were so frozen down that they had to be cut loose. About twelve others died on the way to Chicago, in consequence of be- ing badly frozen, while many others lost large pieces of their flesh. Mr. Gilbert and his young men rode five or six miles distant, all of them having fingers, toes or ears frozen, and the harness so frozen that it could not be unhitched from the wagon, and scarcely from the horses.
· "Two men riding across the same prairie, a little farther west, came to a stream so wide and deep that they could not cross it. The dreary night came on, and after exercising in vain to keep from freezing, they killed one horse, rolled his back to the wind, took out his entrails and thrust in their hands and feet, while they lay upon them. And so they would have used the other horse, but for the loss of their knife. Mr. Frame, the younger
652
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
and more thinly clad, gradually froze and died in great agony at day-break. The other, Mr. Hildreth, at sunrise, mounted the remaining horse and rode over the ice five miles to a house, but so badly frozen that about half of each hand and foot came' off.
"How general or extensive the change was is not known; but the Illinois River, as' two men in a boat were crossing it, froze in, and they exercised to save their sives until the ice would bear them up. The dog that accom- panied them was frozen to death.
"On the east side of Indiana one man had fifty head of hogs frozen to death. Many sim- ilar facts might be narrated, but the above are sufficient to show that the change was great, sudden and general."
Another account of some of the incidents which happened in this vicinity in connec- tion with this event, found on page 140 of Emma C. Piatt's "History of Piatt County," as related to her by Mr. Ezra Marquiss, well known to many of our citizens, will be found interesting:
"It was raining the forepart, of the day and I had been gathering hogs. 1 reached home about ten o'clock, ate my dinner, and started out to see how the weather looked. As I went out of the south side of the house, which - was 16x18 feet, it was still raining. I walked slowly to the west side of the house to find it snowing, and by the time I had reached the north side, the slush on the ground was frozen over."
The same work further on says:
"William Piatt was pitching hay with a pitchfork when the storm struck him. Almost instantly it seemed to him, the handle of the fork, which had been wet with rain, was cov- ered with ice. Nathan Hanline says he was riding when the storm reached him, and be- fore he had gone a mile the frozen slush would bear up his horse. Mr. William Monroe, while going with Mr. James Utterback to East Fork, was so nearly frozen that, when he reached a neighbor's, he had to be helped off the horse. His clothes were actually frozen to the hair of the horse."
The same author names several citizens of what is now Piatt County, who lost their lives upon the prairie by being frozen to death in that storm.'
Indian traditions, given the early settlers of this county, tell of a very deep snow which
fell here, and which, on account of the length of time which it kept the wild animals from access to the ground, caused the death of many. Immense herds of the buffalo and elk, then roaming over the prairies, were de- stroyed, and their bones were pointed out as evidence of the truth of the traditions thus told. When this occurred was, of course, un- certain, as the wild men made no records, but from accounts given it was thought to have been from fifty to seventy-five years before any white occupation.
The "Deep Snow" of our pioneers' recollec- tion occurred during the winter of 1830-31, and was not the result of one snow storm alone, but of many storms of snow and sleet, with- out the intervention of a "thaw" during that winter. The accumulation was made up of many layers of snow, and, altogether, gave that winter the reputation of having been one of great severity, when many "snow bounds" were experienced.
Geology of Champaign County.
The writer cheerfully utilizes the following essay upon the geology of Champaign County, prepared at his request by Miss DeEtte Rolfe:
"The characteristic features of the surface of Champaign County are the direct result of the immense ice-sheet which once covered it. It is really a great plain, gently undulating and sloping to the south and east. Crossing it are ridges, or moraines, which were built up by the glacier to a height of from twenty to one hundred feet above the surrounding country. These are parts of two large sys- tems-one crossing the extreme northeast corner, and the other running parallel to it through the central part of the county, and sending a branch north to unite the two-and extend for a considerable distance over the State.
"The first, and much the more conspicuous of the two, enters south of Penfield and leaves the county just west of Ludlow. It is the southern or outer belt of the great Blooming- ton System, which can be traced from the Wabash River, north of Danville on the east, through Bloomington to Peoria, and north into Dekalb County. It is bold in outline, from five to eight miles wide and from sixty to ninety feet high. Its sides are steep and are
Ludlow
forstand
Middle Fork
Dickerson
Tomlinson
Howard
Fisher
Dewey
Prospect
Rantoul
Billsburg
Gifford
Penfield
Shiloh Centre
River
Thomasboro
Fork
Flatville
River
Salt
Mahomet
Leverett
Sangamon
Rising
Salt Fork
Pratheys Ford
Champaign
Oggen
Bondville
ostatky
URBANA
Mayview
St. Joseph
Seymour
er
hopp
Mira
rk
Savoy
Deers
Salt
Home
Sidney
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