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USA > Illinois > Piatt County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois, Volume II > Part 36
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A fire-place was made by building up a wall against one end of the cabin, of mud cement and boulders, six or eight feet wide and about the same height, from which the chimney was built, four walls, three or four feet square, of sticks split from the oak, the interstices be- ing plastered up with common clay. Often, however, for want of stones out of which to make the back of the fire-place, it was made of clay by first setting firmly in the ground, where the chimney was to stand, posts or puncheons in the shape the fire-place was to take, and filling the enclosed space with moist clay firmly pounded down. When thus built a sufficient height for a fire-place, the chim- ney was topped out with sticks and clay, high enough to secure a good draught for the smoke, when the wooden molds in which the fireplace had been set were burned away with a slow fire, and the chimney was complete.
The opening upward, formed by the chimney, served the double purpose of letting out the smoke and letting in the light when the win- dow and door openings were closed to keep out the cold.
Many yet living will remember having often seen, hung upon the crotches of trees set up so as to reach out over the opening in the chimney above the house, the family supply of meat-hams and side meat-placed there to be smoked and cured for the next summer's use. Having no smoke-house or other con- venience for smoking the meat, it was most convenient thus to prepare it. Those who have used it thus cured, remember with gusto the delicious flavor given by the smoke from the fire of hickory wood below.
After the cabin had been completed, as above detailed, and as winter approached, the cracks between the logs were "chinked," by the insertion between the logs from the in- side, of triangular prisms split from the linn tree and fastened in their places with wedges driven behind them into the logs, the outside cracks then being tightly daubed with mud. This process was technically called "daubing."
Into a cabin thus built did Isaac Busey move, when, in 1831, he came here and bought out the possession of William Tompkins on the site of Urbana, the cabin, eighteen feet square, having been built by Tompkins some years be- fore; and into such a cabin did Matthew Busey move, when, in 1828, he bought out Sample Cole, at what is now known as the Nox farm two miles east of Urbana. So, also, Walter Rhodes and Matthias Rinehart, who came about the same time, and Col. M. W. Busey, who came in 1836, in their haste and under the necessity of having shelter, resorted to a similar expedient. Colonel Busey lived in a cabin about a mile north of Urbana built by a former squatter-one David Gabbert-on ground now used by the Smith Brothers as the site of their cold-storage plant.
As improvements progressed and time per- mitted, a better class of log houses were built. In the building of these better houses the logs were usually hewn upon two or four sides, well notched at the corners so as to fit each other closely, the cracks between the logs being well pointed with lime mortar. Glass and sash for the windows, lumber for the doors and floors, with an attic chamber, nails for the roofs and brick for the chimney
690
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
made the houses of the possessors comfortable and even inviting. Such houses were occa- sionally, in later times, covered on the outside with sawed weatherboarding and painted, giving them the appearance of frame houses. The house of Isaac Busey begun in 1832 but not finished until 1834-since known as the Wilkinson property, near the stone bridge in Urbana, but recently removed to what is known as Crystal Lake Park-is perhaps the oldest house in the city of Urbana; and this, and the farmhouse built by Charles Busey, which, until within recent years, stood upon the John Stewart farm, two miles north of Urbana, afford instances of these improved houses, still, or until recently, standing. It is related that Philip Stanford built a house of hewed logs cut from trees two and one-half feet in diameter, and hewed ten inches thick, as wide as the size of the tree would permit. This house is still standing upon what is known as the Roberts farm, six miles north of Urbana. Robert Trickle also built a house of this kind on Section 1 in Urbana Township, which was standing until within the last few years, being owned and occupied by Mr. Bow- ers. It was related to the writer by Amos Johnson and Robert Brownfield-both of whom are now deceased-that they assisted in the hewing of the logs which entered into the composition of these houses, and were also present at the "raisings."
As the ability of the inhabitants increased and the facilities for getting material for building purposes multiplied, the character of the houses of the inhabitants changed for the better, and finally the presence of sawmills and brickyards made frame and brick dwell- ings possible. The first frame dwelling erect- ed in the county is believed to have been the small frame building, formerly situated upon the lot immediately east of the court-house square in Urbana, and in the rear of what was once known as the "Pennsylvania House." This was erected about 1834 by Asahel Bruer. long the host of this hotel, and was used by him first as a kitchen. Some person, for some reason unknown, marked upon the door of this building, with a paint brush, the letter "B," making a very conspicuous mark from which the building was long known as the "B House." This building did not exceed eighteen feet square in size, one story in height, and was
used at times as a school-house, a court- house, and for holding religious services.
The first brick building erected in the county was built by Rev. Arthur Bradshaw, about the year 1841, designed as a dwelling, and is still standing opposite the southwest corner of the public square in Urbana. The brick were made on a yard immediately to the right of the bridge which crosses the creek going north from Urbana, and are believed to have been the first manufactured in the county.(1) The names of the manufacturers of this commodity are given as Recompense Reward Cox and his brother, George Cox.
Fortunately most of the pioneers who set- tled this county were possessed of some me- chanical skill; otherwise, living at so great distances from towns where help could be ob- tained, their lot would have been worse than it was. Of course, all could with ax, auger and adz, construct a cabin home. Some were blacksmiths, of which craft these have been named: Isaac Burris, John Brownfield and several of his sons, Runnel Fielder and James Clements.
As will be inferred, the absence of suitable houses for the protection of those who first came to the settlements of this county, and the lack of pure water and nourishing food, were potent factors in causing sickness which, to a great extent, prevailed among the people. Miasma has been the foe of the pioneer, all the way from the rocks washed by the At- Jantic to those against which beat the waters of the Pacific. The Mississippi valley is acknowledged to have been the home of this element, and to have yielded the largest har- vest to Death on account of its presence. Champaign County, during the first fifty years of its existence as a county-and until the in- auguration of its great system of drainage, by which the excess of moisture more quickly found its way out of the soil than by evapora- tion-was no exception. The broad sloughs, which became saturated in winter and spring with water held back by the great growth of natural grass, generated the poisonous mias- ma which permeated every dwelling, and-as expressed by T. R. Webber, who knew the
(1) At an early day in the history of the county, Thomas Richards and Michael Firebaugh manufactured brick for one season at the Hick- ory Grove, which J. W. Richards, son of the former, believes to have been the first made in the county.
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COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE-UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
691
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
country-"Pale men and women and ague- ridden, pot-bellied children were the rule and healthy constitutions the exceptions." (1)
Of course, many-especially . the aged and the little children-soon fell victims to the climate. James Brownfield, father of Robert and Samuel, died within three years after his arrival as a permanent settler. Mrs. Isaac Busey did not live three years, while her hus- band, not a very old man, survived but fifteen years. John Busey, the son of Isaac, whose widow afterwards became the wife of Mar- shall Cloyd, survived his father but a short time. Neither Nicholas Smith, the father of Jacob; William Boyd, the father of Stephen; David Shepherd, the father of Paris; nor John Brownfield, the father John, who was one of the early Probate Justices of the county, sur- vived their residence here ten years; but, without reaching what is now recognized as a great age, succumbed to the noisome pestil- ence. So W. T. Webber, the ancestor of the large family of that name now and hereto- fore resident here, who came in 1833 as a permanent resident, died in 1838, at the noon- day of his life. These and many other names may be heard from, through their descend- ants, as victims who fell before the rigors of the climate or from the hardships of pioneer life.
While a brief life here awaited many, yet there are many instances of those yet living of men who came here fifty, sixty or more years ago, who have lived robust lives to a great age, surviving the pestilential period and the privations and hardships of pioneer life, as well preserved specimens of manhood and womanhood as our most favored locations can boast. Conspicuous among the latter class were Henry Sadorus, who died at ninety-three; Asahel Bruer, who died at eighty-four; Wil-
liam Sadorus, who died at eighty-seven; Thomas L. Butler, who died by an accident at the age of eighty-six; Archibald M. Kerr, who died at eighty-four; Thomas R. Leal, who died at seventy-five; Thomson R. Webber, who died at seventy-five; Andrew Lewis, who died at eighty-six; Fielding L. Scott, who died at sev- enty. The list of pioneers who, after stem- ming the hardships of Illinois pioneer life for fifty or more years, reached an advanced age in life, might be extended greatly if neces- sary. Some yet linger as living witnesses of the facts sought to be told in these pages, whose period of residence in this county goes back nearly three quarters of a century, con- spicuous among whom are B. F. Harris, of Champaign, who came to the county seventy years since, and who still lives at the age of ninety-two, in excellent health for one so old; George Wilson, of Sidney, whose residence in Illinois began at about the same time, and who is now over one hundred years of age. (1)
In this connection it is of interest to con- sider the cases of others not of as great age, but whose coming here antedates those above named. Roderic R. Busey, son of Matthew Busey, came here with his family in 1828, a child of five years, and still lives at Sidney, after a continuous residence of seventy-seven years. Another, Elias Kirby, son of Elias Kirby, Sr., came with his father's family to the Big Grove the same year, but a little later in the year; and, with the exception of a resi- dence in Iowa of about ten years, has lived here ever since. Allen Sadorus, who came as a child with his father in 1824, has lived here through all of the intervening period ex- cept during an absence in California of a few years. The brothers, Joseph and Thomas Brownfield, came as children with their father in 1832, and are here yet, in good health.
These individual cases of great longevity,
(1) In the trite poetry of the day the ague of our fathers was of this description: "He took the ague badly,
And it shook him, shook him sorely; Shook his boots off, and his toe-nails; Shook his teeth out, and his hair off; Shook his coat all into tatters, And his shirt all into ribbons: Shirtless, coatless. hairless, toothless, Minus boots and minus toe-nails. Still it shook him, shook him till it Made him yellow, gaunt and bony; Shook him till he reached his death-bed; Shook him till it shuffled for him Off his mortal coil, and then, it Having made him cold as could be, Shook the earth still down upon him, And he lies beneath his grave-stone, Ever shaking, shaking, shaking."
(1) "Sidney's Centenarian. - George Wilson, south of town, reached the unusual age of one hundred on September 14, and from present in- dications will live many years yet. He tells many interesting experiences of his younger days, which would make very interesting read- ing matter could it be compiled. He was con- sidered one of the strongest men in Sidney in his prime. He says that he can remember the time when he had to drive to Chicago with a load of wheat and bring back food and clothing, the trip taking about fourteen days. During the gold craze in the West. he went to Cali- fornia with some others, and was gone from this place about two years."-Sidney By-Way, September 16, 1904.
692
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
running through the miasmatic period of the county's history, are exceptions to the rule of short lives which followed early settlement here. Drainage and cultivation of the lands of the county, with better living and better houses, have driven away the miasma and in- stalled in its place a salubrious atmosphere, laden with life and health.
As above indicated, to the miasma of the country may be attributed most of the sick- ness which afflicted the early settlers of the county; yet not alone to that cause can be referred the mortality of the first comers. The Asiatic cholera had its inning among them about the years when it first ravaged, with its death-dealing fatality, this country to such an extent that it became one of the facts of general history. This disease first visited the seaboard cities of the land in 1832, and spread to a considerable extent. Its ravages among the soldiers at Fort Dearborn (Chica- go) form an important item in the military history of the Northwest. Little less startling and terrible was its visit to the settlements of the Big Grove in the summer of 1834. The few dwellers, then living remote from the avenues of information, knew of this malady only by highly exaggerated and alarming re- ports, and it needed but the mention of the dreaded name to fill all with horror. It can easily be imagined, then, what alarm took possession of the minds of the pioneers when the cholera actually appeared in the family of James Moss, living near the north end of the Big Grove, and within a few days took the father and three of his children. Mary Heater, the mother of Jacob Heater, the wife of James Johnson and two of her children also fell victims. There were others whose names are not remembered by those who yet re- member the circumstances.
It will be remembered by many yet living that the cholera again vished Illinois in the year 1854, when Chicago was the center and greatest sufferer. In that season it again made its appearance in Champaign County with marked fatality. It prevailed mostly among the track-layers engaged in laying down the iron for the Illinois Central Railroad, and those living near by, with whom the men came in contact, though some died in Urbana. More died then from this disease in the county
than at its first visit, but the panic created was not so great.(1)
(1)The incidents of the suffering and death of most of the members of a family of Prussian immigrants are given in a county paper of that day, of which the following is the substance:
"A family of Prussians, consisting of the father, mother, several children, and an aged woman, the mother of the wife, came down from Chi- cago on a passenger train as far as it then ran, and were set out on the open prairie, about where the village of Ludlow now stands. No shelter was afforded them. Their destination was Danville, where they hoped to find friends in the family of a brother of the husband. A hack from the termination of the run of the passenger trains was then running to Urbana, but did not afford facilities for the transporta- tion of the family and their belongings. Money
was sent by the father to Urbana, by the driver to employ a wagon to carry them forward. The next day it was returned with the information that no wagon could be had for that purpose. In the meantime several members of the family, including the aged mother, were attacked by the cholera, then prevailing along the line of the railroad, and among the men employed in its construction. The father. in default of aid from Urbana, from information received of the direction of Danville, with two of his little boys, set out for that place, hoping to reach Pilot Grove, the nearest settlement, in the direction of Danville, the first night. In this he was disap- pointed, and staid upon the prairie all night. The youngest boy with him was attacked dur- ing the night and died of cholera. The sur- viving boy was left in charge of the corpse, while the father proceeded to the settlement for assistance. All day he watched at the side of his dead brother and for the return of his fath- er. Near nightfall, getting no tidings from his absent father, the boy went in search of assist- ance, and found the house of a solitary farmer, to whom, by the aid of signs and the little of the English he had learned, he told of the mis- fortunes of the family. The good people into whose hands the lad had fallen, after having given sepulture as best they could to the body of the little brother who had died on the prai- rie, sent a messenger to Danville to inform the friends of the family of their misfortunes and need of assistance, set about finding the missing father. Not much time was spent in the search before his dead body was found, so much de- composed as to require immediate interment. which was then and there given the uncoffined remains.
The brother at Danville, no sooner received the notice of the condition and sufferings of his brother's family at the railroad than he came with a team and food for their relief, but with- out knowledge of the fate of his brother, who, as above told, was found to be dead and buried. H'e reached Pera, as the station was then called, with the aid needed, but to find the aged mother near death's door and the residue of the family in a sick and famishing condition. bear- ing the first news of the death of the little boy at Pilot and of the uncertain loss of the hus- band and father. Soon all, the sick and dying, were loaded into the wagon and started for Dan- ville, across the great stretch of prairie inter- vening. On the road the aged mother died and one child, a little girl, and were informally bur- ied out on the prairie, as had been the other members of the family. Upon reaching Dan- ville the mother also died, as did the brother who had rescued them."
"A Case of Cholera .- A case of Asiatic Cholera occurred in our place last week, which proved fatal. Mr. James Collins, of Indiana, was here on a visit to his friends, when he was attacked by the dreadful scourge and, in fifteen hours. was a corpse. He had been staying in Chicago on business for a few days before coming here."- Urbana Union. October 5, 1854.
693
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY ..
The lack of intelligent physicians and of ef- fective remedies, no doubt, had much to do with the fatality attending all diseases during the first twenty years of the settlement of the county. The first of the medical profession who appeared among the pioneers' was Dr. T. Fulkerson, an unmarried man who settled in the largest settlement in this part of Ver- milion County-that about the north end of the Big Grove-and made his home with the family of the Widow Coe, then living upon the southwest quarter of Section 27, Somer Township, and who is elsewhere named as an early settler. Dr. Fulkerson came in the spring of 1830, and must have had plenty to do in fighting the ordinary malarial diseases; for these maladies were entirely out of pro; portion to the number of people. Reports from those here at the time of Dr. Fulkerson's residence say that he remained in the settle- ment but a brief period, when he went west. A record of the Board of County Commission- ers in 1834 shows that, during that year, Dr. Fulkerson was prosecuted to a judgment for two dollars by the county authorities for his failure to work on the public road, so that he must have remained from 1830 to 1834, and may have been driven away by the legal pro- ceedings had against him. Although the res- ident population was small and the ability to pay quite limited, he could not have moved on for want of something to do in his line. He paid the judgment and it was accounted for as a part of the revenues of 1834.
The next physician reported to have settled here for the practice of his profession was Dr. James H. Lyon, who came a little later and made his home with Mijamin Byers, the Justice of the Peace, at his cabin two miles east of Urbana. Dr. Lyons remained at the Big Grove but a short time, but made his permanent home at what was then known as "Nox's Point," now the site of the village of Sidney, where, as elsewhere told, he after- wards platted that town. Dr. Lyons raised a family there and was elected a member of the General Assembly. One daughter became the second wife of M. D. Coffeen, of Homer, the leading merchant of the county. Dr. Lyons is represented to have been a stirring, public spirited man', and very useful to the new community. Many of his remote descendants reside in the county.
Dr. Harman Stevens came to the vicinity of
Homer in 1835 and, after the establishment of the village, removed to that place and there practiced his profession many years, and un- til he became an old man, when he removed to Saline County, Ill., where he died.
Dr. William A. Conkey, a native of Massa- chusetts and the son of an early immigrant to Edgar County, located at Homer about 1843, and continued to practice there for a consid- erable time, and later for a time at Eugene, Ind. He finally abandoned his profession for that of merchandising and subsequently en- gaged in farming near Homer. He now lives a retired life in the village of Homer, having reached the age of eighty-four.
Dr. John G. Saddler was the first of his pro- fession to locate in Urbana, which he did in 1839, but remained a few years only.
The coming to this county in the autumn of 1840 of Dr. William D. Somers, of Surrey County, N. C., supplied the vacancy made by the removal of Dr. Saddler. Dr. Somers was afterwards better known as the able and elo- quent attorney of that name, for about 1846 he abandoned the profession of medicine for that of the law, which he followed with great success for nearly fifty years, abandoning it only when the weight of years bore heavily upon him. (1)
Dr. Winston Somers, brother of the last- named, came to Urbana in the autumn of 1843 and practiced medicine to the time of his death in 1871. The clientage of Dr. Winston Somers was large and scattered over a large territory. He was often called to the Sanga- mon, Okaw, Ambraw and Salt Fork timbers, and even as far as the Middle Fork. These journeys were made many times on horseback, armed with the traditional saddle-bags of the pioneer physician hung across the horse, con- taining the most commonly used medicines
(1) William D. Somers, when better known in after years as the first lawyer in the county, often referred to the years of his practice as a physician for incidents illustrating some point. In the writer's hearing he once told of a call he once had to visit a sick bed at the Sangamon timber. He left his home on Main street, Urbana, after nightfall. driving a horse attached to a single buggy. The night was dark and he had no guide but the unfenced road, which was little more than trail over the prairie. He drove, as he believed, in the direction of Middletown for some hours, but no signs of the settlement appeared. Finally he found himself lost and could only proceed by giving free rein to his horse and trust to his sagacity, which he did. After some hours of this travel he found himself back at his own door, just as the day was breaking, having wandered, he knew not where, all night long.
694
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
and surgical instruments, not forgetting the blood-letting lancet. It is told of Dr. Somers that he once performed successfully the am- putation of a limb when he was compelled to use a common hand-saw. The case was an urgent one and made this resort a necessity, but a life was saved.
Dr. N. H. Adams came to Middletown at an early day, and was the first resident phy- sician in his township. He died fifty years ago. Dr. C. C. Hawes was 'also an early prac- titioner there and died many years ago, having led a useful life. Dr. Crane commenced prac- tice there about fifty years since, a young man, and gave great promise of a life of use- fulness, when, by an accident, his life was terminated in July, 1856. On the Fourth of. of the general use of neighborhood mills, told July of that year, some persons were engaged in the succeeding pages. (1) in firing an anvil, when the thing was ex- ploded. A fragment injured Dr. Crane, who (1) The story of one of these journeys, told by Mr. Sadorus himself and first published in Lothrop's Champaign County Directory (1870- 71), we append: was sitting some distance away, and in no way engaged in the sport. From this injury he died a few days thereafter.
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