USA > Illinois > Champaign County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois, Volume II > Part 49
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USA > Illinois > Piatt County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois, Volume II > Part 49
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(1)"The number of buyers is increasing rap- idly in this place. Every stage and hack is loaded down with passengers who are on the lookout for a place to settle. In this number are men of all occupations and professions. We are glad to see them come, as our town is to be peopled, and our county filled up with till- ers of the soil. We are confident that no bet- ter opening can be found in the State."-Ur- bana Union, May 11, 1854.
"People outside of Urbana are not really aware how crowded everything is here. Every- thing capable of holding a family is the domi- cile of at least two families. We, however, were not aware that the town was so crowded until a day or so since, while walking around, we noticed that an abandoned lime kiln, perhaps ten feet square, long since left to cave in, had been covered over with boards and is now the home of a family of Germans.
"But the embarrassment occasioned by the scarcity of houses, is fast giving way to the enterprise of our citizens. Large numbers of houses are being built in the outskirts of town, small of necessity, but very much needed.
"Houses of small dimensions, with no more than two or three rooms, rent for $10.00 per month readily. Everything, else is proportion- ately high. A barrel of flour cannot be had for less than $10.00 per barrel.
"This will show how great a necessity there is for acting and working men here. We want mechanics to prepare material and build · houses, and farmers to turn up the rich prairie and grow produce. The town demand one year from this time will be twice as great as now, and must be supplied either by our farmers or by those from abroad. No one need be afraid of raising too much."-Urbana Union, June 6, 1854. Y
(2)"The depot buildings of the Illinois Central Railroad at this point were commenced last week and will be pushed on to completion with the utmost rapidity."-Urbana Union, July 21, 1853.
Y
755
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
It will readily be conceded from what has been written in this chapter, that the construc- tion of the Illinois Central Railroad was then regarded as the greatest event in the history of the county, which time has proven. Well might the people hail its coming as deliver- ance from the thralldom of isolation and neglect.
At the time referred to, the corps of civil engineers in charge of the work upon the Illinois Central Railroad, consisting of Jeffrey A. Farnham, Nathan M. Clark, Charles Ball, Benjamin Hewitt and their assistants, had their offices and headquarters in a suite of unused rooms of the court house, in Urbana, from which they made daily visits to the various working parties engaged upon the work of construction between the Middle Fork and some miles below the present location of Tus- cola. These gentlemen were mostly Eastern men and well accomplished in the science of their profession. Colonel Mason, of Chicago, was the chief engineer of the road.
As the coming of the Illinois Central Rail- road was then the great looked-for event in
"Work on the Railroad .- The work on the tenth and eleventh sections of the Illinois Cen- tral Railroad is in a fine state of progress, and will, we are told, be, ready for the rail in a few weeks. This work has been under the su- pervision of N. M. Clark, engineer in charge, and from the first has been pushed along with a rapidity that reflects credit upon his ability as an engineer. The culverts between this point and Mink Grove (Rantoul) were completed last week, and if the work between that and the Kankakee was as far along, we should expect to hear in a few weeks the snort of the iron-horse."-Urbana Union, of Sept. 8, 1853. "The Illinois Central Railroad is nearly fin- ished to Spring Creek (Del Rey), forty miles from this place, to which point passenger cars will be run in a few days. We understand that a line of hacks will then be established to this place, designed to accommodate passengers be- tween here and Chicago. This will be a great accommodation to the people living in this vi- cinity, as it will make the trip to Chicago much more desirable than by the way of Bioom- ington."-Urbana Union, Nov. 24, 1853.
"The progress of the railroad. in our direc tion, is rapid. It is now only twenty-five miles to the end of the track, and the track-layers are putting down rails at an average of half a mile per day. We are glad to learn that the good work is progressing so rapidly, and that we shall soon have a connection with the rest of mankind, in some other way than by wagon."-Urbana Union, April 6, 1854.
"The track of the Illinois Central Railroad is laid thirteen miles south of Bloomington."- Urbana Union, Jan. 12, 1854.
"The work of laying the track on the Illinois Central Railroad is progressing finely. The con- struction train now runs some distance this side of the Mink Grove (Rantoul), and from Ur- bana about twelve miles. A few days more and the snorting of the iron-house will salute our ears. It is expected that the road will be
this county, and the event which had attracted the writer from the obscure position of a "Hoosier Schoolmaster" to the Illinois prai- ries, curiosity as to what it was to be and as to where its nearest station was to be located, led him, only two days after his arrival, as stated in the opening of this chapter, on a tramp westward from the town to see the des- ignated site of "The Depot."
One can hardly ,imagine, looking at the Champaign of to-day, the uninviting scene of June 20, 1853. A leisurely walk of a half hour brought the writer, with an accompanying friend, to where a streak of turned up fresh earth, extending from a northerly to a south- erly direction, but having no visible beginning or end, gave a hint of a graded way. This was declared to be the newly graded line of the great interstate highway, which was not only to break up the isolation and silence which then, and for untold ages, had brooded over the surrounding prairie, but was to become the road over which would soon come the people and the wealth necessary for the devel- opment of these same prairies. Here was to be the road and here, upon a piece of wet prairie
finished to Urbana as soon as the middle of July. We anticipate a better time for our people when the road is finished, as then merchandise can be gotten without hauling fifty miles."-Urbana Union, June 6, 1854.
"The whistle of the locomotive may be dis- tinctly heard in Urbana."-Urbana Union, July 13, 1854.
"Last Monday morning we joined a company of our citizens at the depot for the excursion on the first train on the Illinois Central Rail- road from Urbana to Chicago. We noticed on our way up that each of the numerous stations is supplied with a passenger and freight house, although at none of them is there any prospect of any other improvements at the present. Kan- kakee, however, exhibits signs of a rapid im- provement. At the appointed time, viz., 2 o'clock, 50 minutes, we arrived in the metropolis of the Northwest, all apparently highly pleased with their journey. We found business of all kinds rather dull on account of the great panic occasioned by the cholera. Many of the mer- chants and business men have left the city, but will probably return as soon as their fright subsides, as there is really now no cause for fear existing.
"While in the city we enjoyed the opportunity of calling upon our excellent friends, Messrs. Scripps & Bross, of the Press, who are in every sense gentlemen of great merit. We also fell in with Sloan, of the Garden City, who con- ducts a sprightly little sheet which is a great favorite.
"On Tuesday evening we again took the cars and a few hours ride brought us to our own circle again, well satisfied with the excursion. "The road between this and Chicago, for a new road, is quite smooth; and the traveler, under the care of Messrs. Wyman and Thayer, the con- ductors upon the morning and evening trains, may make the trips with much ease."-Urbana Union, July 27, 1854.
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756
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
a quarter of a mile south of the road leading from Urbana to Bloomington, was to be the station which the authorities of the road called "Urbana Station." A little to the east and south lay the forty-acre farm of John C. Kirkpatrick, the northwest corner of which, enclosed by a rail fence, marked the junction of the center of University Avenue and the center of First Street, as now seen. Mr. Kirk- patrick's house occupied a place near the cen- ter of the tract, and was a small one-story cottage. To the northwest, bordering on the Bloomington road, was the farm of Curtis F. Columbia, and across the same road was that of James Myers. The former occupied a story- and-a-half house, and the latter a one-story frame cottage. Little ground upon either farm was enclosed, and rail fences served both. To the southwest, and near the junction of Neil Street and Springfield Avenue, at the northwest corner, was the farm of John P. White, an eighty-acre tract bounded on the east by Neil Street, and on the south by Springfield Avenue. A little farther west, and upon the south side of the latter street, was the forty-acre farm of David Deare. Both these farms were partly fenced and had very indifferent houses for the accommodation of the families. Upon the ground now occupied by the round-house, was a homely shanty, built of re- fuse ties and of small dimensions, but the home of the family of Patrick Murphy, whose name sufficiently describes his nationality. With his family were domiciled a number of boarders who were engaged upon the construction work of the road. At the deep-cut, a mile and a half south, about where is now the Catholic ceme- tery, were extensive shanties and stables for the accommodation of a large force of Irish laborers and teams employed in the work of grading the line there and to the south, the work north being ready for the ties and the culverts in course of construction.
To the east could be seen the distinctive out- lines of the Big Grove, and faintly the few small houses of Urbana and its court house. No bush or tree was upon the intervening ground to obstruct the view. So to the west, the high ridge, now occupied by the finest residence property of the city, joined the unobstructed horizon at the north and south, all covered with prairie grass and flowers of the most gigantic growth. Especially was this true of the land now embraced in the park,
where a slough was conspicuous for its size and density of this kind of vegetation. Another similar slough diagonally crossed the square upon which is situated the First National Bank building and others of the best business blocks of the city, and along it grew the wild prairie grasses and plants in the greatest luxuriance.
The Springfield road-now so elegantly paved for more than a mile in length- stretched away through a vast prairie plain to the Sangamon timber in the neighborhood of the home of B. F. Harris, before a single dwelling was found, after leaving the cabin of David Deare, already spoken of. It was little more than an unimproved trail and gave `the traveler no hint, north or south, of any intended improvements.
The Bloomington road showed little more of human occupancy on the route to Middletown. At what was known as "The Ridge" was the hospitable, and, for this country then, the ele- gant home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Deane, where so many were made welcome, with but one little cabin by the wayside, east of it- that of Aden Waterman. Half way to the ford of the Sangamon River was the "tavern" of John Lindsey, made necessary to accom- modate the large travel which, each summer and fall, passed over that road.(1) The Bloom- ington road was then the stage road over which the mails were carried and over which was conducted, then and for many years before, the great line of immigration to the West. It had supplanted the Fort Clark road entirely.
The ground now occupied by the round house and shops was staked out for the building soon after commenced, which some years since gave way to the present buildings; but aside from this and the almost indistinct line of grading, no signs of the future station, nor of the coming of the thriving metropolis of trade and capital was visible. Prophecies as to the future were abundant, as to both the old and the new towns, both of an optimistic and of a pessimistic type; but the present, after half a century of realization, sees the former over- realized, and the latter entirely lost in the brilliant success of both towns.
At the period referred to (1853) the politics
(1) John Lindsey, the proprietor, called his house "The Banquet House," and upon a card which he had printed and circulated as an ad- vertisement, quoted from the song of Solomon, "He brought me to his Banqueting House, and his banner over me was love."
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757
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
of the county was very quiet, it being the year succeeding the triumphant election of Mr. Pierce to the presidency, at which the county cast 606 votes, giving the successful candidate 88 majority. The leading Whigs of the county may be named as W. D. Somers, Elisha Hark- ness, T. A. McLaurie, B. F. Harris, William Stewart, F. L. Scott, William Elliott, James S. Wright, John B. Thomas, M. D. Coffeen and Joseph Kelley. Those recognized as Demo- cratic leaders were: W. N. Coler, S. H. Busey, T. R. Webber, J. W. Jaquith, Henry Sadorus, Penrose Stidman, R. P. Carson, William Pe -. ters. Others in both parties were influential, but neither party had ever been very aggres- sive in the county.
The writer, upon coming to this county in 1853, found many of those who may justly be regarded as the pioneers of Champaign County still in life and occupying lands for which they held government patents. But thirty years had then elapsed since Runnel Fielder made his home in the Big Grove and Henry Sadorus, claimed to be the oldest citizen of the county, had been but twenty-nine years here. Fielder and his contemporary squatters were gone westward along with the Star of Empire; but there still remained the men who displaced these "avant-couriers" of civilization, living witnesses of the facts in our earliest history herein sought to be told.
At the Big Grove were John Brownfield and his sons, William, Benjamin, John, Jr., Joseph, James and Thomas, and his kinsmen, Robert, John R., Samuel and Joseph, all of whom came early in 1832. Matthew Busey, the patriarch of a large family of sons and daughters, among whom may be named, of the sons, Fountain J., Roderic R., Isaac, John S.,and, of the daugh- ters, Mrs. Stamey, Mrs. Phillippe, Mrs. Beck and Mrs. Littler-whose coming dates in 1829 -still lived. Stephen Boyd and his son, James W. Boyd, came in 1831; Asahel Bruer, in 1828; James Clements and several sons, 1834; Paris Shepherd 1836; John, Elisha and Isaiah Corray, sons of William Corray, 1833; James Myers, 1837; Daniel O. Brumley and his brothers, William H., and others, sons of Sam- uel, 1830; Tarleton L. Truman and his brothers, Gideon and Jephtha, sons of John Truman, who came in 1830; James Kirby and his brother Elias, sons of Elias Kirby, 1829; Jacob and Har- rison Heater, 1828; William H. Romine, 1837; Simeon H., John S., Samuel T. and Matthew D.
Busey, sons of Col. Matthew Busey, who came in 1834, but had died in 1852; Thomson R. Webber and his brothers, William H. and George G., who came in 1832; and we may also name Matthias Rinehart, his son, Martin, and his son- in-law, Walter Rhoades, 1829; Lewis Adkins, with a son of the same name; William Adams, James T. Roe, 1831; Collins and his son, Hiram; the Somers brothers, besides Dr. Wins- ton and William D., living in Urbana. As previously told, there were James L., John L., Abner W. and Waitman T. Somers, living north of the Big Grove; John Gilliland, Jacob Smith, James Johnson, James C. Young and his sons, Walter and John C. Kirkpatrick, 1849; Penrose Stidham, 1848; George W. Burton, 1852; David Cantner, 1839; William S. Gar- man, 1850; Archa Campbell, 1839; Edward Ater, 1830; Albert G. Carle, 1847; Zachariah E. Gill, 1852; the Gere brothers-Asa, John, James S. and Lyman -- who came about 1846; the Harvey brothers-William, Moses D. and Samuel A .- who came to Urbana in 1839; Asa F. Hays, 1851; Barnard Kelley, 1850; Thomas Lindsey, 1841.
In the Salt Fork Settlement, besides those already named as residing in the village of Homer, there were Hiram Rankin, 1832; Abra- ham and James Yeazel, 1835; Harrison W. Drullinger, 1830; James and Benjamin Bart- ley, 1832; Moses, Benjamin, David and Alex- ander Argo, 1835; John K. Patterson, 1836; David Swearingen, 1831; Samuel Mapes, 1834; Thomas Richards, 1832; Michael Firebaugh, 1837; John J. Swearingen 1839; Thomas Swearingen, 1835; Joseph T. Kelley, 1831; James S. Wright, 1830; David B. Stayton, 1830; Randolph C. 1830; Wright, Wil-
liam S. Coe, John Bailey, James Hoyt, Christopher Moss, William Peters and his sons Joseph and Robert, 1830. Thomas L. Bueler, 1828; Giles F. McGee, 1852; Dr. W. A. Conkey, 1843; Noah Nox, 1828; Benjamin Coddington, 1830; John H. Strong, Ambrose Strong; Ori- son Shreeve, 1834; James Freeman, 1832, Wil- liam Parris, John B. Thomas, 1830; Dr. Har- mon Stevens, Lewis Jones, John R. C. Jones.
The Sangamon settlements had lengthened out northward so as to have reached nearly to the extreme limit of the timber growth, but had spread little to the adjacent prairie. Most of those named in another chapter as among the prchasers of land direct from the Government, were still there and in the occu-
758
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
pancy of their pioneer homes; however, in a few cases the cabin had given way to a better house of the frame and clapboard variety, lathed and plastered, with good brick chim- neys.
The list of names of these early settlers, whom the writer found here in 1853, is well begun by the name of John G. Robertson, who is named elsewhere as a resident of the Big Grove as early as 1830, but who, as early as 1834, moved to the Sangamon; Jonathan Max- well, who about 1830 was the first to make his home there; also John Bryan, who came about the same time. Of the other pioneers, then residing in the county, it will be proper to name Mr. B. F. Harris, 1835; Solomon Osborn, 1834; James S. Hannah, 1834; Isaac V. Wil- liams, 1834; Joel Hormel, 1834; Jacob Ham- mer, 1834; Fielding L. Scott, 1835; J. Q. Thomas; George Boyer; William Stewart; Adam Kerr; Joseph T. Everett; William H. Groves; Jesse B. Pugh; Robert Fisher; Augus- tus Blacker; Jefferson Trotter; William Pea- body; Benjamin Huston; Samuel Huston; Jesse W. Pancake; Nicholas Devore; Thomas Stephens; John Phillippe; Alfred Gulick; Abel Harwood; John H. Funston; John R. Rayburn; Robert P. Carson; William Dawley; Samuel Koogler; B. F. Cressap; John Lindsey.
Of those grouped in and. about Sadorus Grove are to be named those always first remembered in connection with that locality: Henry Sadorus and his son, William, the former then seventy years old, the patriarch of the county in years as well as in citizenship. The name of William Rock, a contemporary of the Sadorus men during most of their resi- dence, comes next to mind; then Walter Bea- vers, 1837; John Cook, 1839; the Miller broth- ers-Isaac J., James, John and Benjamin, 1837; William Ellers; the O'Bryans-William, Joseph and Hiram; E. C. Haines; the Rices- ' Bloomfield H., David and Arthur; Zephaniah Yeates; John Hamilton and his sons, Miles and Carey; John P. Tenbrook; David L. Campbell; Hugh J. Robinson; Paul Holliday.
It is particularly interesting at this distance of time to review the names and subsequent history of the young men of Urbana of the years 1853 and 1854, found here by the writer upon his coming, or who joined the array soon thereafter. Very few old men, or men of advanced years, were then to be found here. Best remembered of those young men then
here, or coming soon after, were: William H. and James W. Somers-the former twice elected Clerk of the Circuit Court, now promi- nent at San Diego, Cal .; the latter, in 1861, ap- pointed by President Lincoln to an important government position at Washington which he held under all the succeeding administrations, with repeated promotions, for near thirty-five years, but lately deceased; Samuel T .. Busey, subsequently Colonel of the Seventy-sixth Reg- iment, Illinois Volunteers, and Member of Congress; William N. Coler, subsequently Colo- nel of the Twenty-fifth Illinois and Member of the General Assembly, now a resident of New York City, whose son, Bird S. Coler, has achieved a national reputation; William Sim, long a prominent druggist of Urbana, now de- ceased; James J. Jarvis, who became a Colo- nel in the Confederate army and is now a wealthy resident of Fort Worth, Texas; Wil- liam B. Webber, since then a member of the General Assembly of Illinois, and now a prom- inent attorney of the Champaign County bar; J. C. Sheldon, since then chosen a member of both houses of the General Assembly, with six years of service therein; Nathan M. Clark, who since then was elected both as Sheriff and County Clerk of the county, and who served with distinction as Captain of a com- pany in the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Illinois Volunteers for three years, losing an arm at the battle of Kenesaw Mountain, and who died in 1869; Thomas R. Leal, who after- wards, for sixteen years, filled the office of County Superintendent of Schools for this county, and was regarded as the father of our present high-grade school system, being for eight years a member of the State Board of Education; Henry M. Russell, then the pio- neer groceryman and baker, and now the old- est continuous business man of the county; Joseph W. Sim, for many years afterwards a prominent lawyer and Judge of the County Court; George W. Gere, for nearly forty years prominent as a lawyer here, and now at the head of the bar of the county; Jasper W. Porter, now serving his fourth term as Clerk of the Circuit Court of Champaign Coun- ty; Dr. Joseph T. Miller, then just commencing a medical practice, which has lasted over half a century, and which he still continues; Dr. C. H. Mills, also a young practitioner in medi- cine whose popularity has outlasted the half century; Dr. James Hollister, who for many
759
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
years sustained a high reputation as a profes- sional man; Chalmers M. Sherfy, then in the mercantile trade, afterwards County Treas- urer and for a long period prominent in the banking and business circles of Champaign; Myron S. Brown, then employed by H. M. Russell in his grocery and bakery, afterwards Assistant Surgeon of the Twenty-fifth Illinois Regiment, for many years, and until his death in Danville in 1900, a prominent physician both in Urbana and Danville; George W. Flynn, a printer, also at one time (in 1853) in the em- ployment of Mr. Russell, afterwards and before the war one of the proprietors of the "Urbana Union," then Deputy Sheriff under Sheriff Clark, became Adjutant of the Twenty-fifth Regiment, Illinois Volunteers, serving three years, when he became one of the owners of the "Champaign Gazette," and from this con- nection united in the organization of the Illi- nois Printing Company at Danville, at the head of which he remained until his death in 1888; George N. Richards, also a printer and one of the publishers of "The Union," after- wards holding a like position as one of the establishers of "The Constitution" before the War of the Rebellion; upon the breaking out of the war became an officer in the Twenty- fifth Regiment, where he served three years, after which he became one of the publishers of "The Gazette," now occupies the position of Judge of the County Court of Benton County, Mo .; John S. Busey, elected a member of the General Assembly in 1862, and long an influen- tial citizen of the county, where he died in 1886; James S. Mccullough, came here a lad in 1854, served three years in the Seventy- sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteers, from which he retired with the loss of an arm, was County Clerk from 1873 to 1896, and is now serving his third term as Auditor of Public Accounts of this State; Hugh J. Robinson, then in the employ of the firm of Culver & Gere, en- gaged in the manufacture and delivery of rail- road ties along the line of the Illinois Central Railroad, came in the autumn of 1852 and now a successful farmer of Sadorus Township, has been twice elected to the lower house of the
General Assembly; Solomon J. Toy came about the beginning of 1854 and at once be- came the deputy of Thomas A. McLaurie, dis- charged the duties of County Clerk during that term and was afterwards twice elected to the office, the duties of which he discharged until succeeded by Captain Clark in 1865, later was prominent in business at Paxton and at Den- ver, where he died; Edwin T. Whitcomb, was a lad here in 1853, but after service as a sol- dier in the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Reg- iment, was twice elected and served as Clerk of the Circuit Court, his brother, Alonzo L., then a boy, has since become a physician; L. A. McLean, a lad of the town in 1853, served several years as Deputy Circuit Clerk under O. O. Alexander, for many years has been prominent in the politics of the county as one of the editors of "The Herald," and, from 1892 to 1900, as its manager; Calvin C. Sta- ley, who came in 1854, became a well known lawyer of the county and has honored the bench of the County Court since his election in 1890; Frederic E. Eubeling, with his parents (a German immigrant family), came in 1853, served three years in the army, has been a most successful business man, for many years serving with great credit upon the Board of Supervisors; A. P. Cunningham, came in 1853, was a Lieutenant in the Seventy- sixth Regiment during the war, and, after many years of successful business as an assistant cashier in the Grand Prairie Bank and, as a druggist in both towns, died in 1893; Thomas B. Carson, twice elected to the General As- sembly of Illinois, and for many years prom- inent and influential in the politics of the county; William G. Brown, twice elected Clerk of the Circuit Court, and for near forty years a useful man in the court house; Robert A. Webber, for many years Secretary of one of our Loan Associations, and a prominent ·business man until his death in January, 1905. Three of those boys-James M. Goodspeed, Charles B. Taylor and William E. Stevenson -have become prominent as ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church in this vicinity.
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