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On the other sides of the town the unbroken prairie crowded closely upon the town plat and "lanes," or fenced in roads, were here as elsewhere in the county almost unknown. The "settlements" were, as described in former chapters, around the timber groves, isolated by the unbroken prairie and known only by the names given the groves.
The people found here were mostly those
(1)It would be safe to say that, at this time, all the records of Champaign County might have been easily carried in one wheelbarrow, and one small office room in the court house well served Mr. Webber as an office. It is remembered that the court papers pertaining to cases before the court, were carried to the court room at the beginning of each term, in one small trunk.
750
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
whose names have been given in former chap- ters, as those who early entered and occu- pied the lands. Kentucky, either directly or indirectly, furnished most of the original stock with which the county was peopled, and who occupied it at the date here written of; North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia were frequently represented, while Ohio and Indiana furnished their share, most of whom traced their origin to the other States named. The scarcity of families originating from New England sources was a striking peculiarity of the people. Probably not to exceed one hundred of the population merited the name of "Yankees," by which term they were designated and known.
In Urbana, fifty years since, society was somewhat divided along State lines. A large element of the young people traced their ori- gin to a North Carolina parentage, which had immigrated from the region of Tar River in that State. This element naturally, from old associations, or from their similar tastes, be- came segregated in their associations, some- what exclusive, from which another element, not counted in by these people, good naturedly called them "the Tar River crowd." The epi- thet was accepted and, not to be outdone in generosity, the name of "the Pea-Nut crowd" was, in turn, applied to the other element. The appropriateness of this latter name will be seen, when it is said that prominent among the latter element were Sam. Noel and Chal. Sherfy, both of whom were engaged in the sale of all sorts of goods, including the much esteemed peanut of commerce. These 'names were much bandied about and served to des- ignate unmistakably, the two elements of the little village society, for some years.
The exact number of people living here fifty years since cannot now be told, though it might closely be approximated by consulting the census returns before and since that date. It is probable that the numbers did not vary far from 4,500.(1)
The manner of life of the people then here was not unlike that of most remote settle-
(1) This table shows the population of Cham- paign County at each Federal and State cen- sus since its separate existence as a county:
1835
1,038
1865
21.124
1840
1,475
1870
32,737
1845
2,041
1880
40,863
1850
2.649
1890
42.109
1855
6.565
1900
47.642
1860
14,629
ments of that day, nor strikingly different from that of the earliest pioneers here as before written. Advancement in all lines had not been great, but all were living comfortable lives. Many-perhaps the majority-yet lived - in their pioneer log houses; but these had been made more comfortable by the addition of glass windows, the more careful closing of the spaces between the logs and by better floors. Better chimneys had been built and, · in many cases, the log-house had the cooking stove as a household convenience. So, many had built small but comfortable frame houses, mostly one story, and one case is remembered of a brick farm house, the first probably in the county. This was the home of James C. Young on Section 29, in Somer Township. The existence of a few saw-mills in the county, and the abundance of native timber, made it com- paratively easy to procure the lumber used in frame houses; while the presence of lime- stone boulders found in many places on the surface, and the ease with which they were converted into lime, furnished the other neces- sary materials. ,
Very few good barns had then been built in the county, and the log stable and contiguous hay-stack and corn-crib were seen near every house.
Fifty years ago the flax-brake, hatchel and flax wheel, the hand cards, spinning wheel and hand-loom were found in nearly every home, and told the story of how the people were then clothed. The best farmers and their sons appeared, when abroad, in "Kentucky jeans," made wholly, except the cotton "warp," by the wives and sisters at their homes, from flax of their own fields and from the wool from their own flocks; and these same wives and sisters prided themselves in their home- spun checked gowns, radiant with high colors and well set off upon forms not disfigured by "stays" nor corsets.
Thus attired in their home-spun fabrics, they had no need to feel embarrassed, nor did they so feel when they appeared in town, at church or in court. It was the apparel of all, and while people of today might stare, even beyond the bounds of good breeding, our pio- neer would have stared at one otherwise clad. (1)
(1) Archa Campbell first came to Urbana, as a transient ambulatory merchant in February, 1835, and found it convenient to pass the Sabbath
AGRONOMY BUILDING
BEEF CATTLE BUILDING (University of Illinois.)
HORTICULTURAL BUILDING
LIBR RY OF THE UNIVERSITY of ILINOIS
751
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
The reader whose observation does not extend to a state of society approximating in these respects to the condition above described, may shrug his shoulders and congratulate himself that he lives in an advanced state of society. Well, that is true; but let no one speak depre- ciatingly of those people of very homely and humble ways. We have made progress; but while in our progress from those earlier times we may have gained something, it is by no means certain that we have not also lost.
Tariffs and prices current, market quota- tions and Board of Trade events troubled them not, for what they ate and wore was of home production, and the surplus products were either fed to their own or their neighbors' droves, so the prices paid or received by the farmer depended but slightly upon what was being paid in London or Liverpool.
Then, as now, corn, cattle and hogs were the staples of the country. The only advance seen in the half century has been in the man- ner of their production, the manner of mar- keting the products and the prices received therefor.
Before the coming of the railroads across the county there grew up a large trade between the farmers in this county and a man- ufacturer of woolen goods in Joliet. The farmers, instead of working up the wool grown by them at home, would load the clip of a neighborhood into a wagon and haul it to that thriving town, where it was exchanged with the manufacturer for jeans, dressed woolens and other heavy goods for men's wear, and for linsey-woolseys for the women. These journeys were made across the intervening unsettled prairies, a journey of one hundred miles.
Then no corn-planter had invaded the county and the reaper was unheard of. The corn crop was planted by covering the hand- dropped seed with a plow, and was cultivated by a one-horse cultivator or plow, while wheat and oats were harrowed in upon plowed ground
and harvested and threshed by hand. No ele- vators were there at hand ready to take the grain from the wagons, and no railroads to transport the grain and fattened stock to the markets of the country. The distance to Lake Michigan and the Wabash were too great to allow much exports of grain. So the corn was fed to cattle and hogs, partly fattened upon the wide ranges of free pasture, and the cat- tle driven on foot to the eastern markets. The hogs not needed for domestic use were driven on foot to Perrysville or Eugene, Ind., then the principal markets for this county, and the cattle driven likewise to the eastern markets.(1) Thus were the surplus products converted into cash.
At the date referred to few school houses were to be found in the county. (2) As pre-
(1)B. F. Harris, the venerable farmer and banker of Champaign, came to this county in 1836 and ever since then has been engaged in raising and shipping cattle. From his first com- ing he drove his cattle to eastern markets until the coming of the Illinois Central Railroad. His droves generally went to Philadelphia when not sold to drovers at home. He has personally driven nine. droves from his house on the Sangamon in this county to Philadelphia, and one drove to Boston.
Mr. Harris was an exhibitor of fat stock at the World's Fair held at the Crystal Palace in New York, in 1853, where his products received deserved recognition. Press notices below but speak of some of the affairs in which he has ex- celled.
"Champaign Against the World .- We learn , from the New York Tribune, that the best lot of common blooded cattle on exhibition at the World's Fair, were those taken to the New York market by B. F. Harris, of this county."- Urbana Union, November 10, 1853.
From the following extract from the "Cham- paign Times," of June 18, 1904, it will be seen that Mr. Harris, now a veteran of more than 92 years still keeps up his reputation as a pro- ducer of the best beef cattle:
"B. F. Harris of this city, the veteran cattle feeder of Central Illinois, is again congratulat- ing himself on the record he made this year. The matter is best described by the following extract from the Chicago Examiner of June 16; 'While the shippers discovered several weak spots in the cattle values yesterday a drover of 84 head of corn-fed sold up to $6.70. the high point of the season, and there
was an urgent demand such cattle. for
The deal embraced
a drove of 84 head of fancy short-horn steers from the feed lot of B. F. Harris in Champaign County, Illi- nois, noted in market circles for the excellency of its output. The cattle averaged 1,616 pounds, and went to fill an order for the Boston trade, which is exacting. The price per head was $108.27.'
"Mr. Harris necessarily was delighted with the result of his shipment, and to a Times re- porter said: 'I have 350 just as good or better to ship.'
(2)"In 1857 there were but forty-six schools in the county, twenty-seven of which were kept in log school houses, and the remainder in small frame school houses or in dwelling houses, with the exceptions of Homer, Urbana and Champaign."-T. R. Leal's Report.
in Urbana. He went to church, held in a small house standing in the rear of the "Urbana House," known for many years as the "B" house. While there he noticed many persons looking intently at his boots, about which there was nothing in particular except that he had that morning well blacked and polished them from a "kit" which he carried with him. The attention thus given to him he said was ex- tremely embarrassing, and taught him a lesson to dress in accordance with the customs of the country.
752
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
viously stated an old court house was then doing duty as a school house in Urbana, no house ever having been erected here for that purpose nor for some years thereafter. Here and there along the edges of the timber were to be found log school houses, which were then more numerous than the frame school houses. In fact, nó law was then to be found upon the statute books of the State providing for a general system of schools. The small revenue then accruing from loans of money arising from the sale of the school lands of each township, constituted the only certain fund for the employment of teachers, and that was insufficient for the support of any school. True, the law permitted the people of any school district, by the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the legal voters, to lay a tax not exceed- ing fifteen cents upon each hundred dollars' worth of property in the district, according to the assessed value, for the support of schools; but even with this uncertain aid, few schools could be sustained many weeks in the year anywhere. So, what was known as "pay schools" were maintained in places, where the teacher was paid by subscriptions made by patrons, which contributions supplemented the small public fund at hand, and thus kept up the semblance of schools in most settle- ments, for three or six months of each year. (1) These schools, it need hardly be said, were generally very elementary. Such a thing as a free school was almost unknown anywhere in the State of Illinois at that date.
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legal county superintendence of the schools was charged upon him. Fifty years since this office was filled by William Peters, of the Salt Fork, a man of excellent business qualifications as a farmer and one of more than average intelli- gence, but wholly unqualified to pass upon the merits of a candidate for the position of a teacher of youth. The same class of citizens filled this office from the organization of the county to 1857.(1)
X
(1) The following is a report of an examination of a teacher in the old times. The candidate called on the School Commissioner (whom he found in the yard), when the following conver- sation ensued: "I have engaged a school in your district, and understand that it is necessary to get a certificate from you before I can draw public money?" "Yes," said the Commissioner, "you can't git nothin' fer teachin' 'ithout a cer- tificate from me. Come in and set down. Do you see them show bills up thar on the wall?" "Yes." "Ware you to that show?" "No." "What big long word is that up thar on that show bill?" "That is Phantasmagoria." "Is that so? Well, anybody that can pronounce that word can teach school in this deestrict. I've been tryin' to pronounce it for some time and couldn't make it. I'll give you a certificate."-Leal's Report.
(2) When the writer first came to Urbana a school was being conducted in the old court house building previously referred to, by Wil- liam Sim and Noah Levering, two young men from Knox County, Ohio.
Mr. Leal's Report already referred to, which is now regarded as of the greatest value as affording a history of the schools of the countyY from its organization to 1873, gives the names of many of the early teachers in all the town- ships. For the purposes of this chapter, we here name only those teachers whose services ante-V dated the year 1853, as given by Mr. Leal.
In former chapters the names of several early teachers have been given.
In 1832 Claudie Tompkins, a son of the first inhabitant of Urbana, taught, a school in what is now known as the Stewart neighborhood, two miles north of Urbana, and at the same time Asahel Brewer taught in the Brumley neighborhood, two miles east.
Thomas Freeman taught in Ogden Township as early as 1839, and was succeeded in the same neighborhood by Sarah Laird and William Jeremiah.
The first school taught in Homer Township was taught by Abram Johnson in 1829. Its lo- cation was in the neighborhood where Moses Thomas first made his home, about three miles northwest of the village, near which were also settled Thomas Freeman, Isaac Burres, John Bailey and others heretofore named. The school
(1)The total revenues of the county for school purposes, for the decade ending with the year 1851, as shown by T. R. Leal's report to the Board of Supervisors, was $2,064 or a yearly av- erage of $206.40 all of which came from a dis- tribution of State interest on the school, college and seminary funds.
X
It will therefore be seen that the schools of the county, at that time-such as they were -lacked all supervision except such as might be given by each neighborhood to its own school. These local educational facilities were, in a manner, supplemented by seminaries which were conducted at Danville and George- town, in the adjoining county of Vermilion, to one or the other of which many of the young people of the county resorted from time to time, with great benefit. (2)
y
Few of the congressional townships of the county, having then the requisite fifty inhabi- tants to authorize the sale of Section sixteen, most of the school lands of the county remained unsold, and so continued for some years.
The only State supervision of the common schools was by the Secretary of State, who was declared by law to be ex-officio State Superintendent of Common Schools.
The law also provided for the election of a School Commissioner for each county, to whom was committed the care and sale of the school lands and the examination of teachers; but no
X
753
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
At the date referred to no such thing as a Teachers' Institute had ever been held in the county, and no organization or associated movement of teachers in the interest of com- mon schools had ever been had.
The reader will understand from what has here been told of educational facilities then in existence, that Champaign County was not then regarded as an "educational center."
At the date referred to there were church organizations in Homer, Urbana and Mahomet, and in the St. Joseph and Sidney neighbor- hoods. These were: in Homer, the Methodist
was taught in a log house which had only greased paper windows. It was a "pay school" and was patronized by fifteen pupils at $2.50 per term.
In 1831 when the territory of Champaign County was part of Vermilion County, the late James S. Wright of Champaign-twice elected a member of the General Assembly, once to each house-helped in the organization of the. first Sunday school of the county. It must have been near where the first day-school was taught. The next year the same neighborhood organized and maintained a singing school.
The first school taught on the Sangamon River in this county was taught by Charles Cooper in 1835. It was taught in a log cabin, 16 by 18 feet, located about half a mile south of the village of Mahomet. It was patronized by the Robertson, Maxwell, Scott, Osborn and Lind- say children. All these names will be recog- nized as 'those of pioneers heretofore named. In 1838 Henry Sadorus employed James F. Outten, afterwards County Clerk of Piatt County, to teach a school in his own house for the benefit of his own and his neighbors' children. The Piatt children attended this school. After this a Miss Lyons, a daughter of Dr. Lyons who laid out the village of Sidney, taught in a log school house north of the village of Sadorus. Thomas Hunter and Miss Julia Coil, afterwards Mrs. Dr. Leal, taught in the same neighborhood. Miss Mar- garet Patterson about 1843 taught a school in a log school house built by William Rock, about four miles south of Sadorus.
The first school taught in Sidney was taught by Andrew Stevenson (probably the same who was the second Sheriff of this county), in the winter of 1833. in the house of William Nox. George Acres and George Nox were also early teachers in that neighborhood.
Moses Argo, John B. Swearingen and Mrs. Joseph Peters were early teachers in St. Joseph.
Levi Asher taught a school at Lewis Kuders, in Kerr Township, during the fall and winter of 1837. Another school was also taught on the other side of the Middle Fork at Sugar Grove. C. W. Gulick, now of Champaign, was an early teacher in that part of the county.
Besides those already named as teachers in Urbana, there are remembered Mr. Parmenter, Mr. Standish and Samuel C. Crane.
Jeptha Truman, now of Kansas, but who came here with his father's family (John Truman), in 1830, remember, about 1837 or '38, attending a school at the town of Byron, an account of which is given in another chapter, which school was taught by "Billy" Phillips. It was taught in a log house which had before then been used as a store room. To it the children of Jacob Heater, Lewis Adkins, Charles Heptonstall, and of other families resident in the Big Grove, went.
Episcopal-which had a small frame meet- ing house, the only one in the village-the Baptist and Presbyterian; in Mahomet, the Baptist (having a small church) and the Meth- odist Episcopal; at St. Joseph and Sidney, the Disciples of Christ.
The next day after his arrival in Urbana, being Sunday, the writer attended service at the only church building then here, and list- ened to a discourse from Rev. W. W. Blanch- ard, Congregationalist, whose business in the settlement was to organize the scattered mem- bers of his faith here into a church, which he effected a few weeks thereafter; the organi- zation so gathered being the germ of the present large and influential First Congrega- tional Church of Champaign.
The circuit preacher of the Methodist Epis- copal Church was Rev. John C. Long, who died here some years since. Rev. Hiram Buck was then the Presiding Elder, in charge of the Danville district.
The Baptist Church-which some years before had been organized among the resi- dents about the Big Grove at the school house east of Urbana, known as the "Brumley" school house, by Elder Newell-had changed the place of holding its meetings from that place to Urbana, and was then ministered to by Rev. Ira H. Reese, who was the first settled pastor of that church.
The Presbyterian organization had no stated pastor at this time. Two years thereafter it changed its location to West Urbana, and is now the First Presbyterian Church of Cham- paign.
While religious matters within the county, at this time, were weak and the people were almost destitute of church buildings, yet a move for the establishment of the "Urbana Male and Female Seminary," an educational institution to be located in Urbana, was then being much agitated among the people, and a considerable sum had been subscribed toward the enterprise.
The year 1852 marked an epoch in the his- tory of Champaign County. It was during that year that the Illinois Central Railroad, which had been incorporated the year before, after the running of preliminary lines of survey. became finally located upon a line which bisected the county from north to south into two nearly equal divisions. It also then became known that Urbana, the ambitious but impe-
754
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
cunious county-seat, was to be avoided by the line and that the most important station within the county was to be located two miles away from the court house, upon the almost untrod- den prairie. The county, which had been here- tofore remote from transportation facilities, and hence shunned and passed-by by the . immigrant seeking a home, was to be reached and served by the lines of the greatest rail- road corporation then existing upon the west- ern hemisphere, and placed within easy reach of the markets of the world. It then, for the first time, became within the possibilities that the rich lands of the county, which for a score of years had gone begging for purchas- ers at the bed-rock price of $1.25 per acre, would finally be wanted by somebody, some- time. The hopes of many who, years before, with faith in the future of so rich a section of the country, and a longing for the coming of a better time, when its merits should be appre- ciated, and when politically, financially and socially it should come to be something more than a "pawn," were apparently to be met. These hopes and prospects then soon began to attract attention, and a gradual coming of new elements to the county was seen.
In September, 1852, W. N. Coler, then a young lawyer, settled at Urbana, the second of that profession to come to the county, and, full of hope in its future, brought here the first outfit for the publication of a newspaper; and, on the 25th day of that month the first number of his paper, the "Urbana Union," was issued.
Work along the line of the railroad began in earnest and a real line of communication with Chicago and the lakes was opened. As an earnest of what might be expected in the way of immigration in the near future, already men were following the trail of the road- builders from the north and taking part as contractors or helpers. Many of these men became permanent and valuable citizens and great helpers in the development of the new county. The possibility of a railroad, though it had not brought to the county a single pas- senger nor a pound of freight, in 1853 had pro- duced the greatest unrest and expectation.
.
The mail stages from Danville and the East were generally loaded to their capacity with men whose attention had been turned hither by reports of the great things to be expected upon the coming of the road. The hotel
accommodations were taxed to their extremity by new-comers, and every house and hovel in the village was full. Rents of houses capable of sheltering a family were never so high before nor since that time, and the town began to realize its first boom. (1)
At the time here written of, not one person in fifty of all the people of Champaign County had ever seen a railroad or a railroad train; and, in common with the people the country over, who knew nothing of this new agency except what they had read in books and news- papers, were big with expectancy and curios- ity at the coming of the Illinois Central Rail- road. It was to be the event in their lives and in the history of their country. Few could go as far as Kankakee to see the wonder, so that every bit of news from the front was eagerly sought for, and any one who had been far enough north to have actually seen and heard the locomotive, was listened to with alacrity. News concerning the railroad found a promi- nent place among the news items of the one local newspaper, and constituted the talk on the streets and at the stores and shops. (2)
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