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These local jealousies were carried into lo- cal politics and, for some years, neither polit- ical ties nor personal qualifications were con- sidered by many voters in both towns; but the place of residence of the candidate-if in either town-often determined the choice of the town voters irrespective of other consid- erations. An inspection of the published re- turns of local elections, for several years, show the extent of this rivalry and its effect upon aspirants for office.
This was most noticeable in the returns of the November election, 1861, when a member of a Constitutional Convention was to be chosen in addition to county officers. Both of the principal political parties had a full set of candidates representing party principles, in- tensified by the admixture of the issues of the Civil War, then in its first year. Thomson R. Webber, of Urbana, and James B. Mckinley, of West Urbana, were the opposing candidates for Delegate to the Convention. Both gentle- men were unexceptionable in character and qualification, and entirely acceptable to their respective partisans. The returns of the elec- tion held in the two towns, however, show that partisanship in both towns was very large- ly disregarded and that local feeling, in the case of both candidates, controlled a large pro-
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
portion of the voters in their choice of candi- dates.
Candidates for county offices were, in most cases also, residents of the two towns, and shared in the local slaughter, although none were in any manner connected with the erec- tion of the new county buildings. The peo- ple of both towns seem to have been alike the victims of the. local mania, neither being exempt. Not until many years had elapsed, and the actors in early local contests had passed off the active stage, did this prejudice, even in politics, cease to show itself. Parties in making nominations for offices had to take it into account and reckon with it.
In 1868, Dr. John W. Scroggs, of Champaign, was elected to the General Assembly as Rep- resentative from this legislative district, and took his seat in January, 1869. With a view to settling many local questions-but chiefly that of the location of the University, which at the prior session had been located by the organic act in Urbana-Dr. Scroggs introduced a bill in the lower house, disconnecting all that part of the territory of Urbana lying west of what is now known as Lincoln Avenue, and attach- ing it to the corporation of Champaign. The news of the introduction of this drastic and far-reaching measure soon carried to Spring- field an influential lobby, by whose influence the committee to which the proposed law was referred, reported it back with the recom- mendation that the enacting clause be stricken out, which was done.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE AWAKENMENT.
REVIEW OF CONDITION-COMING OF RAILROADS AND TELEGRAPH LINES-THE LAND RAPIDLY TAKEN- INCREASE IN POPULATION-HINDRANCES TO POOR MEN -TALK OF DRAINAGE - EARLY FROST - BREAKING OUT OF THE WAR OF SECESSION- DEALINGS OF THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD WITH LAND PURCHASES-PRE-EMPTIONS-GRADED LANDS-SWAMP LANDS-CURRENCY-STATE CRED- IT.
The observer of the advanced condition of Champaign County at the beginning of the twentieth century, rich in all the elements which enter into the term Greatness, when
applied to a State or Community, will readily concede that a great advancement from its condition at the middle of the last century, as gleaned from the preceding chapters, has taken place. To no one cause can this change from the lethargic sleep which was imposed by Nature and circumstances be referred, but to many causes. The same soil and the same climate prevailed in both periods, and, with- out both of these, little progress would have been made.
The Age of Steam, which, in Illinois as else- where, came in to supply so many of the wants of the inhabitants, has been the most potent physical agent in the renaissance over which all rejoice. The half-century period here re- ferred to, at its beginning, saw nothing here but a frontier county with a population of 2,649; but without a railroad within one hun- dred miles which had advanced beyond the charter period; without schools, churches or any of the social organizations, aside from a few feeble church societies; without roads or bridges; remote from any public transporta- tion; with a population so sparse as to have failed to attract the attention of anybody but the ever-alert tax-gatherer and the census- taker-in fact, a county ignored and shunned, but with an expanse of undeveloped prairie soil which palpitated with its intrinsic wealth, and beckoned to the plow and the hoe as the means of necessary development. Fifty years ago the possibilities of Champaign County were unknown and untried, and only awaited the coming of population to roll back the inertia of ages.
The construction of the Illinois Central Railroad across the county, from north to south, with its northern extremity resting upon the Great Lakes of the North, and its south- ern upon the Gulf of Mexico, was one of the two great events to which the awakening may be traced. By its construction the markets of the world were opened to the remote set- tlements of Central Illinois, and assurance given that its surplus products would be wanted and called for. Its food-producing ani- mals, instead of being driven, as in case of neat cattle and horses on journeys of months to Philadelphia and Boston for market, and its hogs, instead of being driven on foot to the Wabash towns for slaughter, were shipped from our doors with the interval of only a few hours until the market was reached. The
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
fruits and cereals, which before could only be sold at the termination of long and tiresome journeys by wagons, employing weeks of time, were dumped from the wagons into the eleva- tor at a nearby station, and the returns car- ried home the same day.
So with the merchandise brought in to sup- ply the wants of the country. No more semi- annual caravans of farmers to Chicago, bear- ing a few bushels of wheat with dried .apples, furs and feathers to exchange for salt, and the dreary return, encountering rains, floods and green-head flies; but the barrel of salt could be had at the near-by station, where the grain- buyer would take all the farmer had to sell and send him home the same day. The goods of the merchant were unloaded from the cars at the station in the morning and, before noon, were upon his shelves ready for the cus- tomer.
The people no more awaited the tiresome journeys of the wagons to Chicago, the Wa- bash towns, and to St. Louis, whence they traveled over muddy and dusty roads and re- turned with only as much as is now carried upon a dray a few blocks to the store,(1) but their order of to-day is filled tomorrow with goods from the second largest metropolis upon the continent.
The slow-going mail-wagon and horse-back carrier, with his horn, gave way to the mail- car and its army of clerks; and instead of reading our news from Chicago's stale dailies, half-a-week old, or from the New York and Washington weeklies, ten days after publica- tion, we read the news, at first late in the day of its issue and later with our breakfast cof- fee. (2)
With this railroad came the telegraph, never before known in all the eastern part of Illi- nois, and later the telephone, with all their
transforming power. In a word, the frontier settlement, without material progress in twenty years, but with immense possibilities, at once came to the front of affairs. Its vil- lages cleaned up their streets and put on met- ropolitan airs. New villages were laid out and new centers of trade created. Roads and bridges were constructed, wet lands were drained and other railroads invited. Churches and schools were built and all waste places made productive.
To employ the last lines ever penned by a great American poet:
"Out of the shadows of Night, The World rolls into light,- It is daylight everywhere."
The railroad which had been looked to as a deliverer from long and oppressive isolation, not only carried away the surplus products and brought hither necessary merchandise, but it also opened up a highway for immigration to the country and over this new highway pop- ulation poured in as it never had done before. The Federal census showed as a result an in- crease of population from 2,649 in 1850, to 14,- 650 in 1860-well nigh 500 per cent. The new acquisitions of population were, as a general thing, people from the Northern and Eastern States, with a large sprinkling of foreign im- migrants.(1) They came as mechanics, farmers and traders, and no more than five years had passed until the frontier country, having in the meantime been bisected from east to west by another railroad now called the Wabash- an event of little less importance than the coming of the Central-had reached a differ- ent plane from that occupied by it and its population prior to the age of railroads. But a few years elapsed until the population was many times increased, and, instead of showing here and there a single family of "Yankees," that aggressive element in American life was found in every neighborhood.
(1)The writer's first entry into Urbana as told in another chapter, was made as a part of a load of tinner's stock drawn from a Wabash town, by the sufferance of the generous wag- oner.
(2) "Since our last issue our town has been gladdened by the arrival of a daily mail from Chicago, which desirable event has been brought about by the indefatigable efforts of our excellent postmaster. J. W. Jaquith. We now receive the Chicago Daily Press the same day of its publication, by which means the latest news is always at hand. We would take this opportunity to suggest to those of our friends who love to keep posted in the news that they may, by subscribing to the Press, obtain one of the best dailies published in the West."-Urbana Union, August 17, 1854.
(1)"J. C. Baddeley has just opened his store . at the Depot. From his reputation as a dealer he will call a large trade. We understand he is greeted with a perfect rush at his store just now. No wonder, when he has so fine a stock and sells so cheaply."-Urbana Union, October 12, 1854.
"It is remarked by all that the improvements in Urbana, during the past season, are unsur- passed by any town in the vicinity. More than one hundred buildings have gone up within one year."-Urbana Union, October 12, 1854.
767
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
Little time elapsed after the coming of the rail- roads until the last tract of government land had been entered and the new population were tak- ing up the railroad lands, which were thrown upon the market soon after the completion of the railroad to Champaign County. (1) The lands in this county were all of the best quality and were put upon the market at very low prices and on liberal terms. To effect early sale of these lands this corporation pub- lished, throughout the Eastern States, the most glowing descriptions of them and of their ca- pacity for the production of the grains grown in this climate. (2) The effect was to bring pur- chasers of every class, among whom were many entirely unused to the work of farming of any kind-especially to the farm-work of the Illinois prairies. Shortly the prairies of the county were dotted all over by the cabins and improvements of the new-comers, and the breaking teams of the new farmers became a distinct feature of every landscape. The prai-
(1) The reader will remember that, by act of Congress, approved September 20, 1850, a large amount of the public lands of the Government in this State were given to the State of Illinois to aid in the construction of a railroad from Cairo to the southern terminus of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, with branches from this main line to Chicago and Galena, which lands were in turn granted by the General Assembly to the Illinois Central Railroad Company, a corporation created for the purpose of con- structing this road. The Government at this withdrew all its lands within six miles of the line fixed upon for the road until the company should have selected the alternate evenly num- bered sections not already entered by private
persons. The law permitted selections to be made from beyond this twelve-mile limit, to replace all lands already taken up. Not until the company had made all its selections were the remaining lands again placed upon the market for entry.
(2)"Illinois Central Railroad Lands for Sale .- The lands of the Illinois Central Railroad Com- panv, situated upon and within fifteen miles of the Chicago branch of their road, and ex- tending from a point in Effingham County, known as the north boundary of township six, north of the base line, to a point in Iroquois County on the north boundary of township num- ber twenty-eight, north of the base line, are now offered for sale.
"The limits above mentioned , include' lands situated in the Counties of Jasper, Effingham, Cumberland, Coles, Moultrie, Piatt and Cham- paign, and a part of Iroquois, Livingston and Shelby.
"The character of these lands is too well known to require a description or comment in commending their quality. Persons having made application for any of these lands, and all others wishing to purchase or obtain in- formation as to the quality of particular tracts and terms of sale, are requested to apply at the office of the undersigned at the Urbana Denot. where plats of the land may be seen and information in reference to these lands cheerfully given. ... . "JOHN CAMPBELL,
"Land Agent I. C. R. R. Co." "Urbana, Oct. 12, 1854."
-From the Urbana Union, Oct. 12, 1854.
rie townships, like Stanton, Philo, Compromise, Colfax, Harwood, Crittenden, East Bend, Ayers and Brown, which up to the time of the com- ing of the railroads were practically without population, soon showed signs of life, while the prairie neighborhoods of the timber belts and groves suddenly became animated with the new population.
The whole amount of land donated to the Illinois Central Railroad Company by the State of Illinois was 2,595,000 acres, lying within fif- teen miles of its road.
The six years which elapsed between the coming of the first locomotive and the sicken- ing detonations of Beauregard's guns trained upon Fort Sumter, saw the population of the county trebled, even in the face of many ad- verse circumstances.
This population which so eagerly pressed in upon us was mostly unused to the ways of Illi- nois farming and entirely unseasoned to the western climate. Assured results followed this condition of the new-comers. The glowing pic- tures of Illinois farming, with which the Illi- nois Central Railroad Company (1) tempted them
(1)The following extract from a pamphlet. which was given a wide circulation, will further serve to show the visions of wealth held up to all comers:
"Assume that on his arrival he is penniless. Labor here is always in demand. He will easily find employment. One or two years so spent will give him a knowledge of the country, have seasoned him to the climate, and if he has been prudent, left him with two or three hundred dollars with which to commence operations. He purchases a quarter-section and pays down two years' interest, say fifty dollars, he gets a yoke of oxen and a plow for, say, one hundred dol- lars, and lives on the balance of his means until he can raise a crop. In June he breaks up, with the assistance of his neighbors, whom he pays in kind, say twenty acres of prairie, then pur- chases the right to cut rails from the neigh- boring timber, and hauls them on his ground. In September he harrows his twenty acres and plants it with wheat. He then earns some money by assisting in harvesting. pays for his seed and buys some necessary tools and perhaps half a dozen calves and pigs. During the year he
fences his twenty acres.
In the spring ne
In July he some herds' grass throws among his wheat
and clover. say, three hundred bushels of wheat, gets a crop of. which are worth $200. Having in June broken up another twenty acres, and pursued the same process, he attains the same results. In the meantime his calves feed on the unbroken prai- rie and on the clover sown in his first wheat patch, which he plows up in April and plants with Indian corn, so that the second years he has, besides his three hundred bushels of wheat, some one thousand bushels of Indian corn, worth $400. With the means thus afforded, he may easily, on the third year, break up forty instead of twenty acres, and he will have, by pursuing the same course on the fourth year, his six hundred bushels of wheat and two thou- sand bushels of corn. His calves will have be- come a herd of cattle. He will have a fenced
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768
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
from their little eastern farms to the prairie farms, where they were led to believe the new holdings, with all necessary improvements, would be paid for by two or three crops at farthest, were found to be overdrawn by a large margin, especially when the agues and fevers and fiuxes, which arose from the newly broken prairie sod to confront the unaccli- mated at the outset, are taken into the account. They found themselves, when domiciled in their new homes, remote from neighbors and from the school and church privileges to which they had been accustomed; remote from the scant timber, so essential then in the improve- ment of the farm; remote from a market town and, withal, in common with all others, hand- icapped by the want of a reliable currency. They came, perhaps, from New York or New England homes, whose atmosphere was ex- empt from malaria, with stalwart frames and ruddy cheeks, flushed with inflated hopes and expectations to make farms upon undrained lands, only to fall victims to climatic ailments before the first frost and to enter upon the rigors of an Illinois winter, where the unim- peded blasts from over the bleak expanses of the open country dealt out to new-comers their unwelcome greetings. Or, the neophyte agriculturist may have planted his first crop for the harvest of 1858-a year well remem- bered as one of both flood and drought of ex- treme severity-when corn was unplanted until near the end of June, and then only planted in the mud; intermixed with which was a period of almost universal sickness in the rural districts, insomuch that, in many isolated families, there were not enough well persons to care for the sick.
Added to these natural obstacles, unwise laws laid upon the new farmer of that day the most onerous burden of protecting his crop against the incursions of his neighbor's herds. A legal fence-which was interpreted to be a "good and sufficient fence"-must sur- round his farm before he dare plant a hill of corn, else his crop went to feed and enrich the owner of the cattle which fed upon the
farm of eighty acres, and eighty of unbroken prairie for his future operations. He is inde- pendent. He may build himself a frame house, cultivate a kitchen garden, and if he has done as he should, will have an orchard of various kinds of fruit in full bearing, and a family, growing up about him. He will easily have met the two payments that have come round for his land, and be prepared to extend his operations."
prairie grass.(1) The effect of his condition of the law of Illinois upon its settlement is unknown, but could not have been otherwise than highly deleterious. The cost of fencing a farm during the years prior to 1860 was gen- erally greater than the cost of the unbroken land; yet the fencing of the land was impera- tive, else no crop could be raised in the neighborhood where cattle were raised. Those much about the courts before that date will remember the hardship to the poor homemaker of the application of this law. Under it the advantages were all in favor of the man who had been in the country long enough to have accumulated a herd of stock, and against the new-comer who had exhausted his means in paying for his land or, perhaps, in only mak- ing his first payment. With native timber miles away,(2) northern lumber beyond his reach or impossible of obtaining for want of trans- portation, and his better situated neighbors' herds all around him, the lot of this unfortu- nate homeseeker was a hard one. The shifts resorted to by the latter to avoid the effects of a merciless and unwise law were numerous and often unavailing. Fences made of poles nailed to posts; or, perhaps, in part of sods from the prairie and piled into a wall, were
(1)The first session of the General Assembly of Illinois, on Feb. 4, 1819, passed an act of ten lines which, in terms, adopted the common law of England and all the statutes of the British Parliament made in aid of the common law which are of a general nature and not local to that kingdom, making a few exceptions, as the law of Illinois, which is true to this day by vir- tue of this and subsequent acts. One provision of that common law required the owners of stock to keep them within their own enclosures, and made such owners liable for any damage committed by them to the crops of neighbors, regardless of whether the injured crop was pro- tected by a fence or not. Had this provision not been held by the Supreme Court of Illinois to be one of the provisions excepted by the legis- lative act as local to England, and therefore not in force here, the settlement and reclamation of the county would have been much aided. That court, in the case of Seeley vs. Peters, 5 Gilman, 130, by a divided court, held that, under the law of Illinois, the owner of stock might, at his pleasure, allow the same to run at large, and that the owners of crops must fence against it, or accept the consequences.
(2) In early times and before substitutes for fencing or northern lumber had become avail- able, most of the native timber tracts of the country were subdivided by their owners and sold in tracts of five acres or a greater amount, to the owners of prairie farms, to enable them to fence and otherwise improve their lands. This fact in the history of the timber groves and belts accounts for the almost universal destruc- tion of our native timber. It will also account for the many subdivisions shown by our map- makers, of the tracts formerly covered by tim- ber.
769
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
common. So, fences made from slats rived from an oak log and nailed to posts set in the ground were made. In either case the fence was quite transient and often a delusion, so far as protecting the crop was concerned. It was not a "good and sufficient fence," and if the crop contributed to the wealth of the neighboring owner of the herd, the law granted no relief.
In many cases the new farmer depended for protection to his crop upon the watchfulness of himself and family- or, as the term in use expressed it, upon "herding" the neighbors' cattle away from the crop. This involved the services of the younger members of the fam- ily from planting time until corn gathering, together with the aid of the family dogs, in driving off the intruding stock, besides beget- ting ill-will and lawsuits between neighbors, the charges being that of "dogging the stock," or possibly the charge of killing the dog had to be met by the owner of the stock driven off. The records of the court present many in- stances of bitter legal contests over contro- versies between neighbors who, otherwise, would have been friendly and helpful to each other.
The revision of the laws of the State, ef- fected in 1874, under the present Constitution, changed the rule by requiring the owner of stock to care for the same, and laying upon him the burden of any damage they may do to his neighbors' unfenced crops. Added to the benefits of this law, the manufacture and sale of barbed wire and of woven wire fences in their various forms, has much aided, not only in cheapening the improvement of farms, but in fostering friendly feelings among neigh- bors. These causes have likewise perceptibly changed the character of much of the liti- gation in our courts.
The law previously cited must always be looked upon, in its severity and ill-effects, as next in cruelty to what is known as the "Black Code" of Illinois.
Lack of drainage has been elsewhere cited as an obstacle to the improvement of the country. How great an impediment this lack proved to be, can only be understood by those who learned from actual experience or obser- vation. The many mile stretches of unbroken cultivated farms, now seen upon every hand in this county, afford no hint of what was wit- nessed upon the same landscape before the
era of drainage. In but few instances could an entire forty-acre tract be cultivated. Here and there on every tract were "sink-holes," "sloughs" or "draws," which could not be cul- tivated because of the overflow; so the farmer plowed to their margins, turned about and avoided them, so that, upon the best cultivated farms, until a few years since, were invari- ably found more or less of these uncultivated patches, which were useless except for the cutting of prairie grass, but which now, hav- ing been tapped by a tile-drain or open ditch, are the best lands the owner has.
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