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Over the Ambraw and Linn Grove road, came the Kentucky immigrant to Illinois, Matthew Busey; and his brothers, Isaac, Charles and Wilkinson, when they came to
the Big Grove, followed this trail thither- ward, as did Isham, Cook, the Webbers and many others from that State. As settlers gathered into the south part of the county, it was used also by them, until intervening settlers crowded them away from it. As late as 1860 much of this road was still in use.
The Okaw road had a similar history and termination. It was found to exist when Henry Sadorus came in 1824, and long served him and his neighbors when coming to the county-seat or to the early mills about the Big Grove.
More than sixty years ago the General As- sembly, by its act, authorized the laying out of the Shelbyville and Chicago road through this county, and empowered commissioners to determine its location. These gentlemen performed their duty by laying out the road along the east side of the Okaw by the dwell- ings of William Rock and Henry Sadorus to the upper end of the Okaw timber, from which point it followed the ancient trail diag- onally across the country to the south end of Market street, Urbana, along it to the timber north of town, and, by the way of the diagonal road then and now known as the "Heater" road, to the cabin of Jacob Heater, north of the Big Grove, from which point it continued northeast to Sugar Grove on the Middle Fork, and out of the county to its destination. This road, so laid out, was much traveled by people of the early times, who made journeys to, the thriving village by the lake, until the railroad age came apace, when it perished by its uselessness, being remitted to the section lines, like its early contem- poraries.
Other early roads, leading from timber to timber-notably one from Sidney, or Nox's Point, to Sadorus' Grove and westward, as well as one from Sidney to Urbana-have met the fate of those already mentioned, un- til now not twenty miles of diagonal roads survive.
Among the earliest proceedings of the Board of County Commissioners are those which took place upon the report of the com- missioners appointed by an act of the Gen- eral Assembly, charged with the duty of lay- ing out a road from the Big Grove to Pekin in Tazewell County. The report was received and approved, but from' the plat as recorded, no idea can be gathered as to where it was
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
located, except at the two extremities. The same may be said of the report as to the Chicago and Shelbyville road, above referred to. (1)
The roads now, and for many years, run- ning from Urbana northeasterly, known as the "Heater Road" and the "Brownfield Road," were not in use until after the loca- tion of the county-seat. A trail and, per- haps, wagon road affording communication from the settlements north of the Big Grove with those on the south, led from the Clem- ents farm south, crossing the creek at what was known as the "Clay-Bank Ford," run- ning to the neighborhood of Samuel Brum- ley and of Matthew Busey. Now a county road, and upon a section line, follows nearly the same route. The former road afforded pupils on the north side of the grove a road to the Brumley school house, in later times.
Until farms were occupied and enclosed, and travel confined to the legal roads, little work was done upon prairie roads. Here and there a culvert was put in at a slough cross- ing. No grades were thrown up and little pains were taken to close up the inevitable ruts made by passing vehicles. When a rut became too large for comfort, all the trav- eler had to do was to travel elsewhere in par- allel lines, where mud had not been made. By the repetition of this process roads often attained a great width. The liberty to go elsewhere always afforded comparatively good roads, at least in ordinary seasons, and it need hardly be said that the age of good roads in Illinois, for a time at least, passed with the fencing up of the roads so as to con- fine travel to one line.
It was a common practice for the early set- tlers, for the purpose of marking the best line for travel between two places or between two timber points, to mark the route with a furrow, to be followed until the track be- came plain. It was in this manner that the road from Urbana to Middletown, now known as the State Road, was at the first marked and traveled, the furrow, in this case, being made by Fielding L. Scott. The road as thus laid out by Mr. Scott, as early as 1836, be-
tween Urbana and Mahomet, is still in use. So Henry Sadorus ran a furrow from his cabin to the Ambraw, for his own use and that of the traveling public. R. R. Busey tells of the work of his father, who, in like manner, ran a furrow from his house to Linn Grove, and again from the present site of Sidney to Sadorus Grove. These lines were, of course, run without regard to section lines.
CHAPTER IX.
FIRST SETTLEMENT-BIG GROVE.
COMING OF THE SQUATTERS-RUNNEL FIELDER FIRST . PERMANENT DWELLER-THE SITE OF HIS HOME- WILLIAM TOMPKINS-ELIAS KIRBY-JOHN LIGHT -JOHN BROWNFIELD-THOMAS ROWLAND-ROB- ERT AND JOSHUA TRICKLE-LACKLAND HOWARD SARAH COE-JACOB HEATER-MATTHIAS RHINE- HART-JAMES CLEMENTS-JOHN S. BEASLEY- MATTHEW AND ISAAC BUSEY-COL. M. W. BUSEY -WILLIAM T. WEBBER-NICHOLAS SMITH-SAM- UEL BRUMLEY-JOHN TRUMAN-ASAHEL BRUER- S. G. BRICKLEY-STEPHEN BOYD-ELIAS STAMEY- PATHETIC STORY OF THE ISHAM COOK FAMILY- TOWN OF LANCASTER-TOWN OF BYRON.
As is usual in all American pioneer settle- ments, the first white men who made their homes upon these lands were what are com- monly known as "squatters;" that is, without personal rights in the soil they occupied, they set up their homes upon the unpur- chased lands of the United States. This was done to a considerable extent before any en- tries of lands were made within the bounds of what has since become Champaign County. This was the practice with all comers, for the land office, where the legal right to oc- cupy public lands could alone be obtained, if open at all, was many miles away, and the pioneer had not always the means in hand to purchase lands.
As has been seen, the surveys of the lands were completed in the year 1822, and the traditions gathered from those who came here to stay and did stay and become per- manent dwellers and land owners, name this as the year in which the first white man's home was erected, and the same authority recognizes Runnel Fielder and his family as the first white dwellers within Champaign
(1) At a meeting of the County Board, held in March, 1834, William Peters, Daniel T. Por- ter, John G. Robertson Mijamin Byers. Philip M. Stanford, William Nox and John Whiteaker were appointed Supervisors of the roads of the county.
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
County. He might have belonged to a body of the surveyors, and have become entranced by the immense possibilities in waiting for the country. Or he might, perhaps, have been one of that army of restless men who have been the real pioneers in all the West, who first spy out a land, learn its qualities by ex -; perience, and then move on to other untried fields. If the latter, it is probable that the Fort Clark road, which led the traveler by a way only a few hundred yards north of where he settled, was followed by him from some of the settlements east or southeast, in his quest after the unknown in the Great West.
Runnel Fielder, some time in the year 1822, planted his family stake and set up his home upon a bluff near the creek on the south, or right hand side, about four miles from Urbana, in a northeasterly direction, very near the northwest corner of Section 12, and but a few rods from what is now known as the "Blackberry Schoolhouse." The site and the building were well known to all comers here as late as 1855, and the fact that it was the first white man's house in the county is well and authentically. attested by the testimony of a cloud of witnesses. The writer well remembers seeing the Fielder house, which stood at the crossing of the creek by the old road, now discontinued.
Fielder was a squatter upon the land upon which he erecte/s his home and upon which he lived, for the records show that another entered this land. He did enter the eighty- acre tract immediately east of his home place on June 27, 1828, which was the first entry of any public lands in or around the Big Grove, and lacked but little in point of time, of being the first entry of the public lands of Champaign County.(1) Fielder soon after this em grated from the county and, it is probable, found another home in Tazewell County Ill., about 1831, for the records show that, on March 30, 1832, he executed a deed which conveyed the land entered as shown
above, to Isaac Busey, the deed being exe- cuted in that county.
Only three years before Fielder came, the Indian treaty which abrogated the title of the red man to our land was entered into, and few of the original owners had then left the country. It is said that Fielder's only neigh- bors or visitors were the Indians who yet roamed and hunted here. The territory here was yet in the County of Clark, while the entire north part of the State, all north and west of the Illinois River, constituted the County of Pike, the residue of the State be- ing divided into twenty-two counties. At this time Illinois, as a State, was only four years old and yet under the administration of its first Governor, Shadrach Bond. The Federal Government was not yet thirty-five years old, and then under the administration of its fifth President, James Monroe.
The only white residents in the north half of the State were the soldiers garrisoned at Chicago and a few miners about Galena. Fielder's nearest white neighbors were the settlers upon the Little Vermilion, near what is now Indianola, or possibly farther away in Indiana. His position here was very remote from civilization and its privileges. It was evident, however, from what he left behind him, that he and his family aspired to some- thing better, for he planted an orchard, the first in the county, upon the land entered by him, some of the trees of which, aged and decayed, were standing but a few years since. This land was subsequently owned and occu- pied by James T. Roe, a son-in-law of Isaac Busey, the purchaser from Fielder, but it has long since passed to other hands.
Fielder cultivated lands near by his home and was probably the first to break the prai- rie sod of Champaign County. A son of this pioneer, Charles Fielder, taught a school near the north end of the Big Grove as early as the winter of 1827-28, and was, most likely, the first person to follow that calling in the county. (1)
(1)Fefore the establishment of the Danville Land District, about 1836, all of the lands in this county, west of the range line which di- vides Ranges 8 and 9, were subject to entry at the Vandalia Land Office, and all east of that line were subject to entry at the Palestine Land Office; after the office' was established at Dan- ville, all the unentered lands of the county were subject to entry at Danville .- Peck's "Gazet- teer" (1837), page 78.
(1) James Kirby, who came to the county in August, 1829, is the authority for the statement in regard to this school.
Solomon Nox, a resident of the county for many years, and who came to the county as early as 1827, related his experience to the writer as a visitor at the Fielder home shortly after settling at what is now the village of Sid- ney. As a boy he was sent to the woods to hunt for the cows late in the autumn He soon became bewildered, and wandered he knew not
666
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
It is a well established fact that, about the same time or soon after, the second fam- ily of prospective citizens made its appear- ance in the persons of the family of our William Tompkins, whose home was made upon the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 8, in Urbana Township, and near the southwest corner of the tract-the exact spot being what is now known as Lot No. 7, of Hooper & Park's Addition to Urbana, in the rear of the Courier building. Here, upon the bank of the creek, within a patch of hazel brush and small timber, this family, the near- est neighbors of the Fielders, established its home and became what will always be known as the "First Settlers of Urbana." The house was of unhewn logs, not more than twenty feet square, chinked and daubed for winter, probably covered at first with elm bark and at best with split boards.(1)
It is claimed by some that Tompkins was upon the ground before the coming of Fielder, but the evidence adduced seems to prepon- derate in favor of the conclusion above stated, that Fielder preceded Tompkins. In any event, there was little difference in the times of their arrival.
The place chosen by Tompkins for his dwelling had long before then been a favorite camping ground of the Indians, who continued to so use the vicinity for ten years thereafter. It was said that this was long a central point for, the gatherings of those parties who hunted on the Sangamon, the Okaw, the Ambraw and the Vermilion timbers, and the ground showed the uses to which it had been put when first occupied
where. Following a trail which he struck for the want of knowing what better to do, he was led across the creek and out upon the prairie. This trail he continued to follow, he knew not how long nor in what direction. Late at night, after hours of weary travel, little Sol came to a stack of straw to which his path led him. Tired and almost famished he crawled into the friendly shelter afforded by the rick and went to sleep and was, after the coming of daylight, aroused by the arrival of some girls who came to the neighborhood for the purpose of milking the cows. He was discovered and taken to their home near by and cared for. He learned then that he had wandered eight miles from his home and had brought up at the Fielder home, at the Big Grove.
(1)This cabin was standing as late as 1855 and was then used as a carpenter shop, and be- fore that time as a stable for William Park's cow. It was pointed out to the writer in 1853, by old residents, as the oldest house in Urbana.
by the whites.(1) In places in the vicinity the corn-hills, remaining from the recent crops of corn grown by the Indians, were plainly to be seen by those who first settled here.
Tompkins, like other early settlers of the county, must have occupied this land as a squatter, for the records show no entry of lands by him until February 5, 1830, when he entered the eighty-acre tract where he lived, which embraced all the territory in Urbana bounded on the north by the city limits, east by Vine Street, south by the alley north of Main Street and west by a line running north from the stone bridge. He also, on November 1, 1830, entered the eighty-acre tract lying immediately south of this tract, bounded on the north by the first entry, east by Vine Street, south by the city limits and west by the alley next west of Race Street. Before this last entry Tompkins had im- proved and fenced about twenty acres, which lay mostly south of Main Street.
Following our narrative by the dates in hand, we shall be led to consider the settle- ments on the north side of the. Big Grove, made later than those of Fielder and Tomp- kins, but where the residents were more nu- merous.
In August, 1829, Elias Kirby came to that settlement, with his family, from Ohio. Among them were his sons James and Elias, the latter of whom still lives, a citizen of the county since that time, and upon land but a short distance from where the family home was made in that year.
From a member of this family (James, long since deceased) it was learned that they found much of the land on the north side of the grove, which was soon thereafter legally entered by those who became permanent resi- dents, occupied by squatters, with small im- provements. Of this number he named John Light, who occupied land in Section 2, Ur- bana Township, of late owned by William Archdeacon. Light soon after sold out his
(1) "The Indians used often to camp ou the creek near the west end of Main Street, Urbana, from which cause the bones of their game ac- cumulated on that spot in great quantities. The annual recurrence of prairie fires bleached the bones to whiteness, and the place took the name from the early settlers, of 'Bone Zard'; hence the name of the creek running past that point."-"Archa Campbell's Address to an Old Settler's meeting, May 16, 1870.
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
improvements to James Moss, who entered the land February 4, 1830.
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After selling to James Moss the land in Section 2, just mentioned, Light located upon another tract farther north, this time fixing himself upon the east half of the northwest quarter of Section 35, in Somer Township, a mile away and near to or upon the prairie. He had not been here long until he was bought out by a homeseeker from Kentucky, John Brownfield, who entered this land at the land office at Palestine, Ill., where most of the lands hereabouts were bought from the Government, September 2, 1830. This land, with other tracts near by, upon the death of John Brownfield, July 6, 1863, passed by de- vise to his son Thomas Brownfield, who yet owns the property and removed from it only . a few months since. The family came from Kentucky, arriving September 25, 1831, and, first and last, this early squatter's home has been the home of the family for more than seventy years.
Another squatter named Smith, before 1828, occupied some land in Section 6, in St. Jo- seph Township, until bought out by Thomas Rowland, who entered it and considerable other land in the years 1828 and 1829, and was living there when the Kirby family came. Rowland sold his land in Section 1 to Robert Trickle, who came to this county from near Butler's Point, in Vermilion County, and en- tered lands in Section 35, Somer Township, May 23, 1829. Mr. Trickle and his brother Joshua came to the settlement sometime be- fore this date. They sold out some years thereafter and Joshua removed to the Middle Fork timber, in that part of Vermilion Coun- ty which, in 1859, became Ford County, and where he lived until his death. Robert re- moved to Wisconsin, where he died.
Lackland Howard, another of the squatter class, at an early date, before 1828, came to the settlement and occupied land in the southwest quarter of Section 35, Somer Township, which he sold to James Clements, a brother-in-law of John Brownfield. Howard then left the settlement and went west.
When the Kirbys came, as above stated, Sarah Coe, a widow, lived on the west half of the southeast quarter of Section 27, and the record shows that she entered this land January 21, 1829, while James R. Coe, her son, entered another forty-acre tract in the
same section, September 20, 1833. About 1838 the Coe holdings were sold to Isaac Busey, and the family removed to Missouri.
The lands in the southeast quarter of Sec- tion 28 were first settled by John Whitaker, who lived thereon in 1828 and entered the east half of the southeast quarter, August 20, 1831. Whitaker sold out to Jacob Heater, April 4, 1834, upon the return of the latter from his term of service in the Black Hawk War, his wages as a soldier furnishing the means of purchase. Heater lived this land until about 1854, when he sold to W. N. Coler, and emigrated to Iowa, where he died. Coler soon after sold to Richard Marriott.
The farm in Section 21, Somer Township, . known as the Adkins farm, which gave the name to the point of timber known as "Ad- kins' Point," was before 1830 settled by Levi Moore, who in 1831 entered 240 acres in that section, which, about February, 1835, he sold to Lewis Adkins, who settled there with a numerous family of sons and daughters, whose members, for many years thereafter figured quite conspicuously in the social and business affairs of the county. These lands, with others entered by Mr. Adkins, were sold about 1854 to J. B. Anderson, and are now mostly owned by John Thornburn and his son. The. Adkins family, except the daugh- ters who married and settled here, went to Iowa and the name in this locality has well nigh disappeared from use.
Before 1828 Matthias Rhinehart lived on the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 26, Somer Township, which he, to- gether with his son-in-law, Walter Rhoades, entered February 4, 1830. It was at the home of these parties, upon this tract, that a post- office-the first in this part of Vermilion County-called Van Buren, was established by order of the Postoffice Department. Wal- ter Rhoades lived upon this tract until about 1857, when he sold to A. M. Fauley.
Dating quite early in the history of the first settlement of the county, Philip Stanford settled upon the east part of Section 27, So- mer Township, and was about the first set- tler in that neighborhood. He was there in 1829 when the Kirby family came, and made his first entry of land where he lived Octo- ber 9, 1829. His house was built upon or near the Fort Clark road, upon which, and past the Stanford home, flowed every year a
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
great tide of immigrant wagons, carrying fam- ilies to the more thickly settled portions of the State. It is remembered, and often told, that Stanford's was favorite camping ground, convenient water, shelter and feed favoring the resort, and that the adjacent prairie and grove were lighted up by these transients every night. Stanford sold to Isaac Busey in the 'thirties and became a resi- dent of Danville.
James Clements, with a numerous family, came about 1834 and bought out Howard, as before stated. He subsequently entered other lands in the neighborhood and died many years since, leaving a considerable estate in lands and many descendants.
Early in the 'thirties, James Brownfield came from Kentucky with his family of four young sons, Robert, Joseph, Samuel and John R. He became the owner, by purchase, of land in the west half of the northwest quar- ter of Section 35, upon which he made his home. He died about 1840, and his estate wa's divided among his sons, Robert becom- ing the owner of this tract, upon which, after marrying the daughter of his neighbor, James Clements, he made his life-long home. Rob- ert died in 1878, leaving a large family, con- sisting of one son (Henry M.) and several daughters. Samuel died some years earlier, leaving no descendants, while John R. re- moved to Missouri, with most of his family. One son of the latter (Henry) now lives in Sidney Township.
John S. Beasley, who came here about 1854, as a permanent resident, and who died here, was upon the ground at an early day in the history of the county, and entered much land as early as 1830, mostly in Somer Township.
Returning to the south side of the Big Grove, we again quote the statement of James Kirby to the effect that, when he came to the county in August, 1829, while many had al- ready fixed their homes around and in the edge of the north side of the grove, only Will- iam Tompkins had chosen the south side for his residence; and he upon the site of the present city of Urbana. He is entitled to the distinction of being called its first permanent citizen.
Matthew Busey came the same year and, following the example of other immigrants, bought the cabin and squatter's right upon a choice location. He found one Sample Cole,
with only a squatter's right, occupying a frail cabin upon the north end of the west half of the northeast quarter of Section 15, Ur. bana Township, which he purchased and of which he at once took possession, remaining
. there until his death in 1863. He remained, like Cole, with only a squatter's right until December 5, 1829, when he entered this and an eighty-acre tract in Section 10, north of and adjoining the one first entered. The farm has long been known as the "Nox farm," for it fell into the hands of Solomon Nox, a son- in-law of Mr. Busey, and is now occupied by Mr. Brady and his family. Within a few feet of the site of the Cole cabin the cars of the Danville, Urbana & Champaign Electric Rail- road now pass hourly, and but a few rods north is the track of the Peoria & Eastern Illinois Road, over which thunder daily its trains. Quite a change from the days of 1829!
Sample Cole, upon selling out to Matthew Busey, at once fixed a new home upon the west half of the northwest quarter of Section 5, Urbana Township, which he entered on December 5, 1829.
From the fact that Cole and Busey entered their lands the same day and were near - neighbors, it may well be presumed that they bore each other company upon their long journey to Palestine, nearly a hundred miles away, where land entries were then made. Cole subsequently entered the east half of the northeast quarter of Section 6, Urbana, immediately adjoining the former tract.
Again, being led by the dates of the com- ing of early settlers and by the dates of entries of land as indicative of settlement, we continue the narrative of the making of settlements upon the south side of the Big Grove, in what is now known as Urbana City and Township.
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