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USA > Illinois > Piatt County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois, Volume II > Part 39
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"The sons of Robert and. Catharine Carson, who came with the family to Champaign County, were Mathias, Robert and Charles; also Thomas B. Carson, a married son, who remained in Phildelphia.
"The daughters were Anna B., who married Thomson R. Webber; Catharine, who married William D. Somers; Mary J., who married David Cantner; Emma, who married John Wilson: Rebecca, who married Thomas Richards; and Sarah, who married Joseph Justice, and lived a short time in Urbana, afterwards returning to Pittsburgh.
"Robert Carson, Sr., died on his farm near Middletown, now Mahomet. September 16, 1841. aged 51 years. Catharine Carson died at Urbana, III., January 1, 1852, aged 62 years."
life of representative individual families of the early date. To this end the experience of two of those families, as told the writer by members thereof while in life, are here introduced:
First is that of Henry Sadorus.
Henry Sadorus, lovingly known by the whole country to the day of his death as "Grandpap Sadorus," was born in Bedford County, Pa., July 26, 1783, four years before' the adoption of the Federal Constitution. The spring of 1817 found him living, with his lit- tle family-of whom William. Sadorus (until of late also a venerable resident of the county), then about five years old, having been born July 4, 1812, was the eldest-on Oil Creek, Crawford County in the same State.(1) The "Western Fever," which has prevailed among Americans since the land- ing of the Pilgrims, attacked the elder Sa- dorus, and, from the native timbers of that region, he constructed a raft or flat-boat, upon which he loaded his worldly goods and his family, and, after the manner of that time, set out by water upon a long journey westward.
The flat boat was built upon the waters of Oil Creek, and down the adventurers set forth in pursuit of a home in the West, they knew not where. Following the creek to its junction with the Allegheny River, that stream soon bore them to Pittsburg and the Ohio River, by which means their frail bark in time landed them in Cincinnati, then the emporium of the Far West. One shipwreck alone, at the head of Blennerhasset Island, befell the travelers.
The flat-boat having served its purpose, was sold in Cincinnati for $1,700, in James Piatt's shinplaster money, making the trav- eler rich for the time, but in six months it shared the fate of its kind and was worth- less, Mr. Sadorus again being a poor man.
The family remained in Cincinnati two years, when Mr. Sadorus again drifted west- ward, stopping successively at Connersville, Flat Rock and Raccoon, in the State of Indi- ana, where they found themselves in the spring of 1824, still with a desire to go west. Early in that year, Mr. Sadorus and a neigh- bor-one Joe Smith-fitted themselves out,
(1)The facts here detailed were obtained by the writer from William Sadorus, while in life. William Sadorus died at his home near the vil- lage of Sadorus, June 18, 1899.
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
each with a team of two yoke of oxen and a covered wagon, suitable for moving their fam- ilies and goods. Thus accoutred they again set their faces westward, intending to go to the Illinois country, possibly as far as Fort Clark, since called Peoria.
, An almost trackless forest lay between them and their destination. They passed the site of the city of Indianapolis, then but recently selected as the State capital, where the foun- dations of the old capitol buildings had but just been laid. Crossing the Wabash River by a ferry at Clinton, Ind., the party soon en- countered the Grand Prairie. After entering Illinois, they met with only one house between the State line and the Okaw River, and that was the home of Hezekiah Cunningham, on or near the little Vermilion River, where he kept a small trading post for traffic with the Indians. On April 9, 1824, the party reached- the isolated grove at the head of the Okaw River, since and now known as "Sadorus Grove," and, as usual, encamped for the night, near the place which eventually became the permanent home of the Sadorus family.
A brief survey of their surroundings sat- isfied the party that a point had been reached which fully met all their demands for a home. So far as they knew, they were thirty or forty miles from neighbors, but were surrounded by as fruitful a country as was to be found, in which wild game abound- ed and where every want might easily be supplied. Accordingly they determined here to remain and to set about making them- selves comfortable. They found that the grove whose shelter they had accepted was three or four miles long and nearly equally divided by a narrow place in the timber, through which the Wabash Railroad now crosses the stream. So the two heads of fami- lies partitioned the tract covered by this grove between themselves, Smith taking the south end and Sadorus the north end-"The Narrows," as the line was called, being the boundary.
A brief survey of the surroundings of the situation will give a better idea of the actual condition of these pioneers: Illinois had then been a State in the Union six years, and Edward Coles, its second Governor, was still in office. Its population was then less than 100,000, and was confined to the southern counties. Neither Champaign, Vermilion nor
Piatt Counties had been established, and their territory-or the territory of the two former, and all north of them to the line of the Iroquois River-belonged to Clark County. There was then no Paris, Danville, Urbana, Charleston, Decatur nor Monticello, as county seats, not to speak of their younger and more brillliant rivals. Five years pre- viously, in 1819, by a treaty between the United States Government and the Indian tribes, the Indian title to this county, and to all south of the Kankakee River, had been relinquished, and only two years before the United States surveyors had performed their work, and the mounds by which the sec- tion corners were marked, were yet fresh. Not an acre of land which now forms the county had been entered, and so far as we are informed, only one white man's cabin. that of Runnel Fielder, two miles northeast of Urbana, was to be found in the same ter- ritory. Fielder had then been here two years and was a squatter on the public domain. The only residents of what is now Vermilion County were James D. Butler, at Butler's Point, near Catlin, and his neighbors, John Light, Robert Trickel, Asa Elliott and Dan Beckwith and Jesse Gilbert at what is now Danville, with Hezekiah Cunningham on the Little Vermilion.(1) The whole State of Illi- nois north of us was uninhabited by white men, except the military station at Chicago and a few miners at Galena, while wild In- dians roamed and hunted at pleasure over these prairies and through these groves.
Having so divided the beautiful grove of timber between them, the two pioneers pro- ceeded to make arrangements for a perma- nent stay in the place chosen for a home, by building for each a cabin. Smith, who had chosen the southern part of the grove, erect- ed his cabin upon the site of the first en- campment, and near where the old Sadorus home now stands, in the southeast quarter of Section 1. It was built of split linn logs, sixteen by sixteen feet, covered with split oaken boards, with linn puncheons for a floor. The roof, after the manner of cabin building, was laid upon, logs or poles, laid lengthwise of the cabin, each succeeding pole being a
(1)"The nearest white neighbor to Mr. Sador- us lived at Vance's old Salt Works, in Vermil- ion county," -- Urbana, (III.,) Democrat, Decem- ber 21. 1867.
.
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
little higher than the last, and converging towards the apex. These boards, for the want of nails, which were not to be had, were held in place by weight poles laid lengthwise over the butts of each course. The door was made of split boards held in place by wooden pins. The window was only a hole cut in the log wall to let in the light, subsequently cov- ered with greased muslin to keep out the cold.
The Sadorus home, which was built two miles north on Section 36, in what is now Colfax Township but within the grove, was less pretentious. It was built of the same material, ten by twenty feet, but entirely open upon one side-what is called "a half-faced camp." In this cabin windows and doors were entirely dispensed with.
Settled in these crude homes, the pioneers set about preparing for the future. The sum- mer was spent in the cultivation of little patches of corn and garden by means of a crude prairie plow and other tools which they had brought with them, and in hunting the wild game for their meat and peltries, the result being that, as the autumn approach- ed, the larders of the families were well sup- plied with the best the country afforded. The wolves, however, ate and destroyed much of their sod corn.
In the fall the heads of the two families, having well laid in table supplies, concluded to know what lay to the west of them. Fill- ing their packs with small supplies of pro- visions, with their rifles upon their shoulders, they again set out on foot together for the west, leaving their families housed as we have seen. They traveled as far as Peoria, where Smith determined to remove his fam- ily. Their course led them by the way of Mackinaw and Kickapoo Creek, through In- dian country. Returning as they went, after an absence of two weeks they found at their homes everything quiet and in order.
Smith at once sold his cabin and improve- ments to Sadorus, the consideration being the hauling by the latter of a load of goods from the Okaw timber to the Illinois River, which was paid according to agreement, and the south end of the grove, with all the im- provements, passed to Mr. Sadorus, who thus became the only inhabitant of the south end of the county. Thus came and went the first representative of the numerous and very re-
spectable family of Smiths, of this county. Mr. Sadorus and his little family were alone in the boundless prairie.
The Sadorus family lost no time in taking possession of the Smith cabin, which became its home then and-with the land upon which it was erected-is still the home of a member of that household, Mr. Allen Sadorus. Its comforts were exchanged in place of the "half-faced camp," and all claim to the upper half of the grove was abandoned. The land, thus occupied for a few months by this fam- ily, many years afterwards became the home of James Miller.
The Smith cabin was "daubed" that fall, which means that the interstices between the logs were filled with chinks and mud to pre- vent the cold from intruding, and its founda- tions were banked with earth with a like purpose. A mud chimney was built outside with a fireplace opening inside the cabin, and carried up above the cabin roof with sticks and mud. A companion cabin, built subsequently, a few feet away, in like man- ner supplied with a mud and stick chimney and "daubed" as was the first, added to the comforts and conveniences of the family. A single window sash was bought in Eugene, Ind., a few years thereafter, and that, glazed with glass gave the family one glass window -the first in Champaign County-and in time other openings, answering for windows, were likewise supplied. (1)
These cabins did duty as the Sadorus domi- cile until 1838, about fourteen years, when the permanent home was erected.
Until 1834-more than ten years after the occupancy of this home-Mr. Sadorus was what is known as a "squatter" upon the pub- lic domain. On December 11th of that year, having gotten together $200, he entered the southeast quarter of Section 1, Township 17, Range 7, where his double cabin stood. That tract-with the eighty-acre tract lying imme- diately north of it, in the same section, en- tered on the same day by William Sadorus, a son of the family, then twenty-two years old -were the first entries of land in the grove or in that part of the county.
(1) Not until about 1837 were glazed windows in general use in this county and even some years thereafter, it was no uncommon thing to find families living in cabins without a single window thus supplied.
707
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
The journey to Vandalia, then the capital of the State and the location of the Land Office, was made by Mr. Sadorus in company with James Piatt, who had bought out one James Hayworth,(1) the first squatter on the present site of Monticello, and who was the nearest neighbor of the Sadorus household. Peace . was maintained between them by agreeing that the eight-mile slough should be the dividing line between their ranges, all the grass on this side belonging to Sadorus, and his herds, and all on that side belonging to Piatt-an Abraham and Lot arrangement that brought no disturbance from intruders for more than a quarter of a century.
It will be inferred that the term "neigh- bor" had a somewhat different meaning from that given it now, and it is a fact that "dis- tance lent enchantment to the view" of the few they had. As already seen, residents at Danville, Monticello, Urbana and on the lower Little Vermilion, were the nearest neighbors of the Sadorus family but it must not be supposed that the intervening distance pre- vented neighborly acts or cut off social in- tercourse.
Mr. William Sadorus, from whom the writer, received most of the facts here group- ed together, was twelve years old when they took up their residence upon the Okaw, and, .when he related the occurrences, in 1891, was in his eightieth year. He spoke with en- thusiasm of their neighbors of sixty years before and of the warm hospitality encoun- tered in every cabin; of the "raisings," the "huskings" and the "hunting circles," which brought the scattered settlers together and kept alive sociability. He remembered the Cook family, who settled in the west side of the Big Grove in 1830, and who, before being domiciled, buried the husband and father- one of the earliest deaths among the pioneers, and probably the first head of a family to fall. He also remembered the coming of Stephen Boyd, Jake Heater, the Buseys-Charles, Matthew and Isaac. The latter, he said, kept the first first-class hotel in Urbana, in his
cabin on the creek bank. He also remem- bered the coming of Mijamin Byers, the only Justice of the Peace in this part of Vermil- ion County when it was set off for the pur- pose of making the new county; of John G. Robertson and of the Webbers, of all of whom he had the kindest and most hearty remembrances. All were warmly spoken of by Mr. Sadorus for the friendships which grew up between them as pioneers, and ceased only at their death.
Although the Indian title to these lands had been extinguished by the treaty of 1819, yet as late as the year 1833 these wild men of the plains wandered at will and hunted over the prairies. Before the Sadorus family had built their first camp on the Okaw; they were visited by strolling bands of these red men. Their chief errands were to procure something to eat, and, said William Sadorus, they always got what they came for. This hospitality was not thrown away, for the red men were always the fast friends of the Sa- dorus family.
The Indians were of the Pottawatomie, Kickapoo and Delaware tribes. William Sa- dorus remembered Shemaugre, the Pottawat- omie chief, and said the chief never failed to call when passing through this country on his hunting expeditions, always dividing with the family his supply of game. Shemaugre then lived at the ford of the Kankakee River, near Bourbonnais Grove. He, however, claimed the Indian camping ground at the site of Urbana as his native place, and never failed in his visits to the vicinity to make it a stopping place. He was known by the early settlers better by the name of the "Old Soldier," a name for some reason assumed by him. His name is seen affixed to some of the treaties of the Indians with the United States Government, where it is spelled "Shemaugre." For some reason he was, in his later days, disowned by his peo- ple and, therefore, lived by himself when best known by our early settlers.
Walhoming, a Delaware chief, was also a frequent visitor at the Sadorus home. At one time, with several followers, he came over from the Ambraw River to the Okaw, bearing with them a keg of whisky which they had purchased from a trader, saying that they wanted to stay and have a big drunk, which they did; but all the time occupied
(1) Mr. George Hayworth was the first man to settle within the limits of what is now Piatt County. He came to Illinois from Tennessee with a colony of Quakers. Some went to Taze- well County, and some to Vermilion County, while Mr. Hayworth came to this county in the spring of 1822. He built a small log cabin on what is now W. E. Lodge's place in Monticello. -History of Piatt County, by Emma C. Piatt, page 214.
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
by them in this orgie they were perfectly peaceable. The supply lasted them several days, notwithstanding the leak in the other end of the keg made by Mrs. Sadorus to fa- cilitate consumption. At the
close of the spree, when no more whisky could be had, Walhoming and his friends gave an all-night exhibition of Indian dances, which the Sa- dorus boys witnessed with interest. Big John Lewis, a Delaware Indian, was one of the party. About a year after the big drunk Walhoming came again, this time sober, bringing with him twenty-two coon-skins, which he gave Mr. Sadorus, saying that they were to pay for the "big drunk."
At another time when Mr. Sadorus had gone beyond the Wabash to mill, and Mrs. Sadorus and her little children were left alone, a party of Indians came to the cabin, asked for Mr. Sadorus and were informed that he had gone to mill. They said that the white man's squaw would starve, but were assured that they had a plenty for the family. The Indians then left the neighborhood of the cabin for the chase and, in a few hours returned bearing the hams of several deer, which they had slain, and gave them to Mrs. Sadorus, who returned the favor by giving them a supply of corn and pumpkins for their own use. With mutual expressions of kindly feelings, the red visitors and the Sadorus family separated as they had often done before.
Before the Sadorus family came here the buffalo and the larger game had disappeared from the country, leaving only the bones of the deceased members of the race and their wallowing holes, as evidences of their for- mer occupancy. The bones have disappeared and the sink-holes in the prairie where they took their recreations, we are now engaged in tiling out and reclaiming for agricultural purposes.
Of deer, wolves, raccoons, minks and rab- bits, there was plenty at the time of the set- tlement of the country. Foxes and ground- hogs have come to the country since.(1) As
late as 1839 a lynx was killed by John Cook on the creek. The Sadorus men were great hunters in early days and William said they had hunted north as far as Spring Creek, in Iroquois County. In such excursions they would be gone sometimes as long as three weeks, camping out and living by the chase. Within a few years this passion for hunting, finding no gratification in the fields so long ago hunted over by them, Mr. William Sa- dorus sought out hunting grounds in Arkan- sas and other Western States.
When the Sadorus family first came to the grove their nearest post-office, and soon after their county seat, was Paris, Edgar County; but having no need of postal facilities they did not patronize the town for either purpose. The road officials, at Paris, at one time warned Mr. Sadorus to appear on the streets of Paris on a given day to work out his poll tax; but it being fifty-two miles from home, the mandate was disobeyed without any ill consequences.
Their first trading, and for fifteen years, was done at Eugene, Ind., with the Colletts, and afterward with Samuel Groenendyke. There each fall they drove their hogs. They raised from one hundred to three hundred hogs each year. Their herd had the run of the timber, and fattened on the mast until the corn hardened in the fall, when a "round- up" was had and the herd put in a field and fed until the packing season in Eugene, when a force sufficient was summoned and the drove taken to market. The pork brought from one dollar to two dollars and fifty cents per hundred-weight, and the trip con- sumed from ten days to two weeks of time. (1)
(1)"For fifteen years Mr. Sadorus hauled wheat and corn to Eugene, Ind., sixty miles from his farm, the nearest grist-mill, returning with flour and corn meal for his family's use. He hauled lumber from a saw-mill which was in operation where Hillsborough, Montgomery County Ind., now stands, twenty miles east of Covington, and ninety miles from Sadorus Grove. Once Mr. S., with two wagons, each drawn by five yoke of oxen, crossed the Wabash River in a snow storm, early in the fall, and came near losing oxen, wagons and even his life.
"Seasoned lumber then sold for one dollar per hundred for inch and a quarter stuff; siding seventy-five cents. Wheat hauled to Danville, (when it became Danville, in 1827) brought 40 cents per bushel in "store goods." A fine three year old steer brought. $10. Pork driven to Eugene, Ind., sold at four cents per pound. Once Mr. Sadorus sold one hundred and two head of hogs at five cents; (per hundred weight); but the price dropped back to four cents. He has driven hogs to Eugene and sold
(1)"Wolves are numerous in most parts of the State. There are two kinds-the common or black wolf, and the prairie wolf. The former is a large, fierce animal, and very destructive of sheep, pigs, calves, poultry, and even young colts. They hunt in packs and after using every strategem to circumvent their prey, attack it with remarkable ferocity."-"Illinois in 1837," page 39.
709
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
In the course of a few years after this set- , tlement on the Okaw, Danville had a post- office and became their trading point. The first letter received by the family came through that office. A mail route was early established between Paris and Springfield, and the mail carrier generally, came by way of Sadorus Grove, always stopping at their house. The mail sack, however, was not un- locked between those two points.
In time Chicago came to be quite a trading point, and was visited by people from this region. In the fall of 1834 Mr. Sadorus made a trip there, probably his first. His son, Henry, then eleven years old, gave to the writer the particulars of this journey which are here given for the benefit of those who go there now on the vestibuled trains in three and one-quarter hours.
The trip to Chicago of those days was most comfortably made in companies of two or more wagons, and so this trip was made. Four wagons, each drawn by five yoke of oxen, con- stituted the caravan. Mr. Sadorus and Henry manned their outfit, which was freighted with oats. The other members of the party were Uncle Mathew Busey and his son, Fountain J. Busey; Captain Nox, of Sidney, father of Sol- omon Nox; Pete Bailey, of Salt Fork' and Hiram Jackson. The company met by appoint- ment at Poage's, north of Homer, and from there turned their faces northward, by way of Pilot Grove and Bourbonnais Grove, at which point they forded the Kankakee River. It rained every day on the way and they swam creeks and rivers eleven times. Each night they camped out and occupied twenty-one days in making the journey. Mr. Sadorus sold his oats, which had sprouted from one to two inches, to Captain Allen, in command of the United States garrison at Fort Dearborn, at fifty cents a bushel, and purchased for his re- turn trip salt, sugar, coffee and other family supplies.
It may be interesting to know that these goods were bought from Gurdon S. Hubbard, then, and for many years before and since, an extensive trader with the frontiersman and
Indian. He had stores at Chicago, on the Iro- quois River at a place called Buncomb, and at Danville, and was well known to the early set- tlers. The return trip was made by way of Spring Creek and Mink Grove to Urbana. Only one house was seen between the Kan- kakee River and Urbana-that of Charles Busey, two miles north of Urbana, on what is known as the John Stewart farm. Mr. Henry Sadorus, Jr., said of Chicago then, that it was "very scattering and its streets were as full of dog fennel as are those of Sadorus village now."
These trips to the northern metropolis were not uncommon, though attended with great labor and many hardships. Dr. W. A. Conkey, who, with his father's family, settled in Edgar County in 1830, but who as early as 1843 set- tled at Homer as a physician, as is told in an- other chapter, tells of his first visit to Chicago in 1832, he being then in his twelfth year. With an ox-team under the control of an older brother, the wagon freighted with flour, meat, butter, eggs and other articles of produce, the party made the trip by way of Danville and, probably upon the route known as "Beck- with's Trace." The road led through a little village known as Milford, by Bourbonnais Grove, which were the only settlements re- membered between Danville and Chicago. No trouble was had by the party in crossing streams until the deceptive Calumet River was encountered. It so much resembled a common slough that the team was driven into the water very unsuspectingly. The bottom was but the softest kind of mud. Soon the cargo and wagon was afloat, and it was with the great- est difficulty that the freight was rescued. Lit- tle damage was done to anything, and all was sold to Gurdon S. Hubbard, then the chief merchant of Chicago. The return freight was made up of salt and other family supplies. Other teams going to or returning from Chi- cago upon the same errands were everywhere seen. All camped out upon the trip. At that time Indians were very common in the coun- try and many were seen, especially about the Kankakee River.
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