Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Kane County, Part 129

Author:
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago: Munsell Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 950

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The convergence of exactly due north lines, as they proceed toward the pole, also affects the range lines as they run from meridian to meridian. The surveyors running the range lines east from the established meridian would likewise find their lines deflecting, com- pelling them at intervals to run more carefully a true "correctional line" like that between Townships Forty-one and ' Forty-two, locally called a "base line," and which causes the fraction in each of the north sections of Town- ship Forty-one.

As soon as these surveys were made, enabling the settlers to locate the sections and quarters, the claimants began adjusting their claim-lines and fences to the Government lines, as far as practicable; and, when that could not well be done, agreeing with each other to exchange and convey lands after they had respectively obtained title from the Government, in such manner that each should finally retain the boundaries of his original claim. It was a task thick with perplexing difficulties and long de- lays, and full of tedious arguments and dis- putes. That agreements were reached amicably in most cases and fairly executed, is highly creditable to the good sense and just spirit that prevailed. Settlers also began filing their pre- emption notices with the Register of the Land Office at Chicago, in compliance with the act of Congress of February 5, 1813, providing pre- emption rights to settlers in "Illinois Terri- tory." This act authorized "every person, or legal representative of every person who has actually inhabited and cultivated a tract of land lying" within the Land District, to acquire a preference in the purchase of "no more than one quarter-section to any one individual," which shall be bounded "by the sectional and divisional line run under the direction of the Surveyor General." To obtain this preference the person was required to "make known his claim by delivering a notice, in writing, to the Register of the Land Office, wherein he shall particularly designate the quarter-section he claims." When it was made to "appear to the satisfaction of the Register and Receiver of pub- lic moneys of the Land Office," that the claimant was entitled to such preference, he could "enter" such quarter-section "with the Register of the Land Office on producing his receipt from the Receiver of public moneys for at least one- twentieth part of the purchase money." The act

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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

further provided that these terms must be com- plied with "at least two weeks before the time of the commencement of the public sales," or the claimant's rights should be "forfeited and the land by him claimed shall be offered at public sale with the other public lands." To fa- cilitate the just division of the lands among the settlers whose claim lines could not be equit- ably adjusted to conform to the Government divisional lines, the interested parties of a neighborhood would sometimes select one per- sou to represent them all at the Land Office and land sales, and this chosen representative would make the proper entries and payments, covering all the lands included within the claim lines of all the parties he represented, and obtain for each purchaser one of the dupli- cate certificates of entry that were issued by the Register of the Land Office, the other being sent by the Register to the Commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington to be re- corded. Having thus secured the Government title, he would prepare and have the proper parties execute the deeds necessary to convey to each person the land bounded by his claim lines, and deliver the conveyance to the grantee upon compliance with the terms that had been agreed upon. To obtain sufficient cash to se- cure the title to his claim was the one all-absorb- ing desire and effort of the early settlers and their families.

The act of Congress enabling the Territory to become the State of Illinois, provided that the lands therein, which should be sold by the Government "after the first day of January, 1819, shall remain exempt from any tax laid by order of or under any authority of the State, whether for State, county or township, or any other purpose whatever, for the term of five years from and after the day of sale." This exemption was a great relief to the first pur- chasers of lands for homes in the new county.

The "Land District" lying "north of the divid- ing line between Township Sixteen and Seven- teen north of the Base Line and east of the Third Principal Meridian, and extending north to the northern boundary of the State-which includes Kane County-was formed by act of Congress dated February 19, 1831; and it authorized the President to locate an office "where it will best accommodate purchasers and others," and to appoint a Register and Receiver. This Land Office was opened at Chicago soon

after, and the minimum price of Government land was $1.25 per acre. Many settlers pre- empted the quarter-section on which their build- ings and improvements were located, and "en- tered" and paid for it just before the opening of the public sale, and then endeavored, by every possible device, to prevent persons from entering or pre-empting the rest of their claim until such time as they could, in some way, procure the means to perfect title in themselves.

It was a time of bitter trial. They banded together and treated very roughly any person endeavoring to obtain possession of or title to these lands. As soon as the Government sur- vey stakes were set, showing the section num- bers and sub-divisions, speculators, whom the people called "land sharks," swarmed over the county, noting in books prepared for that pur- pose the desirable quarter-sections, and then en- deavoring, by every scheme they could devise or concoct with others, to acquire possession and title. The settlers whipped them, rode them on a rail, burned their claim shanties, threat- ened to tie them to a log and float them down the river, and by every means drove them from the neighborhood. The Government land of- ficers usually favored the bona fide settlers and, as a rule, they secured the legal ownership of the lands to which they were fairly entitled.

CHAPTER IX.

EARLY SETTLERS AND THEIR STRUGGLES.

PROBLEMS THE EARLY SETTLERS HAD TO FACE -- BREAKING THE PRAIRIE SOD-PLANTING OF FIRST CROPS-HARVESTING THE WHEAT CROP --- STORING GRAIN AND VEGETABLES-"WILD-CAT" CURRENCY-THE BARTER METHOD OF EXCHANGE -MODES OF LIVING-HARDSHIPS OF EARLY HOUSEWIVES- A FISHING FROLIC- AMUSEMENTS -CHICAGO AS A WHEAT MARKET-PRIMITIVE ROADS-MARK BEAUBIEN AND THE OLD "SAU- GANASH."

Many of the early settlers had greatly im- proved their claims before the Government of-

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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

fered the land for sale. They had made ad- ditions to the first cabin or, perhaps, had built a more commodious and comfortable one; they had sunk a well, probably about twenty-five feet deep, to permanent and excellent water, and they had enclosed large well-cultivated fields with good staked-and-ridered rail fences. They had also provided better shelter for their stock and increased their herds, and many of them had planted fine orchards of fruit. The lives of both men and women were strenuous with toil and beset with many discomforts. Very few of them had a surplus dollar when they first came under the shelter of the original cabin, and had often struggled with the closest economy through the first winter. It was at once an urgent necessity to subdue the wild land, and fit the rich soil for cultivation, and it required a strong team to break the prairie sod. Neighbors could combine their forces and make a team of three or four yoke of oxen, and, with the strongest plow attainable, in turn do as much breaking for each other as they could. A few years later regular breaking teams, of four to seven yoke of cattle, with a plow made for this especial purpose, were organized, and did the larger part of this work for a whole neighborhood.

The breaking plow was, of course, heavy and strong in all its parts. By the attaching clevis it could be regulated to cut a sod from twenty to thirty or more inches wide, and two to four or five inches in thickness. Three inches was usually considered the best depth of furrow. It was equipped with a standing or a rolling coul- ter, the "land side" was high and thick and ex- tended well back and the "point" projected far forward, perhaps one-third the length of the beam. The share was broad and long and laid wide and flat upon the bottom of the furrow. It was edged with tempered steel, by frequent hammering drawn thin and then filed keen and sharp. When in good order, one of these big plows would sever a grub or red root an inch or two in diameter with scarcely a perceptible shock. The boys would kill some worthless dog, tan his hide, and cut it into strips of suitable width, and then braid them into a firm lash ten or twelve feet in length. Fine young iron-woods grew along the clay banks of the creeks, and they would select one for a stock that was about an inch and a quarter to an inch and three-quarters thick at the butt and some ten

feet long, straight and tapering evenly to the size of one's little finger and full of spring. These made a whip with which a stout boy, walking near the center of a seven-yoke team, could raise cruel welts and sometimes bloody stripes upon the backs of the leaders or of the beam oxen, and with which he often wickedly cut down many a luckless bird. They generally laid off the ground that was to be broken into "lands" either fourteen or twenty-one paces wide, and of course as long as the piece that was to be plowed, which was often a half mile or more. Sometimes they encircled the whole field. Around and around these "lands" or squares toiled the slow breaking-team, turning the broad furrows of grass and flower-covered sod. And toward the constantly diminishing area of grass and flower concealment converged the many reptiles and swarms of creeping, crawling, jump- ing creatures whose haunts were being de- stroyed, until the lessening space was fairly alive with the repulsive collection.

The driver was usually a sturdy barefoot boy, "in his teens," and back and forth in their midst he picked his wary footsteps, especially alert to avoid the dangerous "massasauga," that in- fested all the land. Right glad he was, when the narrowing "land" permitted him to walk in the smooth cool furrow on the opposite side from the team. And as these creatures fled from the narrow cover, he very often, almost severed the gliding snake, or scurrying gopher, with a stroke of that long terrible whip. The man at the plow had rather an easy time walk- ing between the steady handles down the long furrows, for the plow would stand alone; but throwing it out at the ends, hammering and filing the share and dragging it to place and setting it up for the next furrow was heavy work. The chains were all unhooked at noon, and the cattle grazed upon the prairie, yoked. while the men went to dinner. At sunset they were driven to the yard, unyoked and turned out for the night.

In such a team there usually was at least one yoke which had the vicious habit of dashing away as they were being unyoked. The moment the driver began raising the bow of the near ox to remove the key, no matter how gently he proceeded, they were seized with a strange frenzy of excitement. When the removed and he quietly and

key was

soothingly began to withdraw the bow, as

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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

it left the yoke and before it could be drawn from his neck, off dashed the near ox, either forward or backward, while at the same instant away sprang the off ox with the yoke swinging at his neck and, like a crazy beast, he plunged around and around the yard, the swinging yoke banging against the corners of the fence, and the narrow bow turning across his neck and choking him until exhausted and panting for breath he stopped and stood with protruding tongue and quivering flanks, while the driver stole softly up to him and warily prepared to dodge the swinging yoke if the animal should again break away-as he was quite liable to do -gently unkeyed the bow and removed the yoke from his neck. It seemed almost im- possible to cure this miserable habit if once acquired. At daylight in the morning the boy was up and away after the oxen, clad only in a "hickory" shirt and coarse cotton-cloth trousers. He was wet to the waist with the cold night dew, and the saw-edged wire grass cut his tough feet painfully, but the cattle must be in and yoked before breakfast at sunrise.

This first plowing killed the grass and flowers very thoroughly, but the mass of tough roots decayed slowly, and required fully a year or two for the sods to entirely disintegrate. "Back- setting" and "cross-plowing" this tough sod was very hard work for man and team.

The early breaking was often sowed or planted to some spring crop, and in the fall win- ter-wheat was frequently sowed upon the sod. Corn was usually planted upon sod with an axe. With a stroke of the axe, carried in one hand, a hole was made in the sod; with the other hand a few kernels of corn were dropped into the opening, and a shuffle and pressure of the foot upon the spot covered the seed. These movements were each so slight and so quickly done that the planter scarcely paused in his slow walk. No marking was done, and very little cultivation given, yet quite fair crops of corn were often produced. Wheat was the only cash crop, and was very nearly the farmer's sole dependence for money to meet his few cash obligations, and by and by when the land-sale occurred, to pay for his land upon which ab- solutely his all was staked. For a number of years after the first breaking, the land pro- duced very fine crops of plump heavy winter- wheat of most excellent quality. It was fre- quently sowed broadcast in the field of ripening

corn, by a man on horseback. The green fields of winter-wheat made rich pasturage for the wild deer.

There are few rural sights more lovely than a large field of clean wheat, its long full heads of ripening grain standing thick and even over the land, swaying gracefully in the summer breeze and giving such delightful promise of an abundant harvest very soon to be ready for the ingathering. And there is no keener finan- cial disappointment than that of the debt- laden farmer, who watches with pride and in- tense satisfaction this near fruition of his toil, when he awakens after an unusually hot July night ,to find a misty, "muggy" morning with- out a ripple of air, the warm stifling vapor hanging like a steaming cloud over his field. He knows all too well that his only hope of es- cape from the deadly blight is the coming of a cool breeze that will shake the dampness and heat from the grain stalks before the summer sun pierces the cloud, and adds its torrid ray. But the calm continues, and about mid-forenoon the mist rises and the full sunlight and heat bursts above the field revealing the whole prom- ising crop of wheat blighted and utterly ruined. Such was the frequent and disheartening ex- perience of many Kane County farmers during the 'fifties.

The ordinary yield of wheat was from twenty to forty bushels to the acre. Oats, barley and rye produced bountifully. Properly cultivated corn made from fifty to eighty bushels to the acre and continuous replanting did not appear to exhaust the soil. Three or four hundred bushels of "Pinkeye" or "Neshannock" potatoes, were often dug from an acre's planting, and the pestiferous Colorado beetle or potato-bug was unknown. Early in June the farmer, or his boys or girls went along each third or fourth row of young corn, and in each third or fourth hill pushed a pumpkin seed into the soft earth, "When the frost was on the pumpkin, and the fodder in the shock," what innumerable loads of great red and yellow pumpkins covered the field. A full load of a wagon-box with side- boards, could be bought in the towns for one dollar. They furnished excellent and abundant food for all farm-stock during the fall. Large and luscious water-melons and musk-melons were raised in great abundance, usually on some piece of low rich ground hidden in the midst of the corn-field.

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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

All farm work was done by hand and with the crudest implements. The plow of the pioneers was an iron-share and land-side, with a wooden or strap-iron mold-board. Later our farmers used a cast-iron mold-board, set so squarely against the furrow, in an effort to make it scour, that it was a terrible draft for the team, and drawn at a fast walk would fre- quently turn the sod a complete somerset. Gradually this gave place to the long, easy-slop- ing, polished steel moldboard of today. The harrow was a rough heavy triangle or square with bars across, set with uneven blacksmith forged iron teeth or wooden pegs, and was usually made on the farm. All sowing was done by hand broadcast. The shovels, hoes, rakes, etc., were entirely hand-made, very heavy, rough an 1 dull, and wearisome to use. Grain was cut with the cradle, which was then a comparatively new harvesting implement, for many settlers brought sickles with them from the East. The older "turkey wing" and the new-fashioned "grapevine" or "muley," were each hotly cham- pioned as the best cradles. Of course, the grain was raked and bound by hand, the bands being made by forming with a dexterous turn of the hands, a knot with the heads of a good hand- ful of straight grain stalks, and so dividing it as to give a double length to pass around the bundle, and being drawn tight, twist the butts together, and turn and tuck the ends in a bow under the band.

At harvest time every available person in the community was urgently needed to secure the crop. Literally many people worked night and day, and often on Sunday. `Frequently the shocking was done by starlight, the stacking re- sumed after supper and continued far into the night. Breakfast was over at sunrise; lunch- eon was served at about ten o'clock; from twelve to one was given to dinner and rest; luncheon again about four or five o'clock; then work until sunset and finally supper, was the usual day's routine in the harvest time. Jugs of water were always accessible in the field, and many farmers furnished whisky also, which could be bought at any grocery store for eighteen or twenty cents a gallon. Swinging the cradle from sunrise to sunset with three or four strong men pressing steadily behind or leading away in front, with the utmost possible reach of the cradle into the standing grain and laying each cut evenly into the swath, and all

with cadenced step and stroke that had to be met and equaled, was indeed laborous toil. To rake the grain cleanly and bind it firmly and evenly and keep up with a good cradler, re- quired a mighty active handy man, and it was considered an annoying feat to crowd the cradler by raking the grain from the fingers of the cradle before it was aid in the swath. So there usually was strife in the gang, and an effort to crowd and "push" each other.

During the first few years of the occupancy of his claim, the early settler's most strenuous efforts were necessary to produce enough for the immediate pressing needs of his family; then, to improve somewhat the comforts and con- veniences of living, and gradually to enlarge his facilities for raising larger crops with which to pay for his land at the Government sale. The first small crops were frequently threshed with a flail of his own manufacture, or trampled out by the colts upon a closely-cut grass sod, and the carefully swept up grain was winnowed in the breeze upon a sheet of cloth. The first threshing machine was a terror; they called it a "squirt machine." It was simply a wooden cylinder and concave, each set with iron teeth not too firmly fastened in place, and that some- tines flew out with fearful velocity, The straw, chaff, dirt and grain were hurled from it in a mass. The heavier grains of wheat came flying from the cloud of stuff and rattled around like bird shot from a musket, and it was a fright- fully wasteful affair. A separator and straw carrier. however, was soon devised and attached to it.

There were, of course, no granaries or barns, and the threshed grain was stored usually at the place of threshing in cribs made of rails so laid that the thin edge of each rail was toward the outer side, and the crib was flaring, larger at the top, thus excluding the rain. The bottom, also, was of flat rails laid closely together, and raised a foot or more above the ground, and the whole was lined with straw. The sides and ends were laid up cob-house fashion, and the straw lining arranged as the grain was poured into it. When the grain was all in, rails were laid across a few inches above it, and the whole nicely roofed with straw, topped off with wild hay. The grain was excellently preserved ex- cept from the ravages of mice. Corn was cribbed in the same way, the straw lining being omitted. Corn was husked in the field and,

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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

during the winter, the cattle foraged on the nub- bins and stalks. As there were no cellars, the potatoes were kept over winter in fine shape, by smoothing a circle some six or eight feet in diameter on some dry place in the "patch" and piling the sound freshly-dug potatoes upon it in a pyramid, covering them with a layer of straw like a thatch, and shoveling upon this a thin banking of earth. At the foot of the mound a shallow ditch was dug encircling it for drainage, and the whole was covered with coarse wild hay to shed the rain. As winter approached more covering was put on to ex- clude the frost, but with care not to make it too warm, and in spring the potatoes were fresh and nice as when first dug.

Up to about 1860 there was no reliable cash market for any of the products of the farm ex- cept wheat. Coin alone was legal tender money, and there was not enough of it in circulation here to do one-tenth the necessary business. The few coins that were obtainable were nearly all of foreign mintage, the stamp entirely ob- literated by wear, and the piece very thin and light-German, Spanish and English coins, old- fashioned shillings, sixpences and the like, with now and then a sovereign or half-sovereign. Dealers put varying value upon these pieces. United States coins rarely got into general cir- culation. "Red-dog," "wild-cat," "stump-tail" and "shin-plasters" were the euphonious names applied to the crude stuff that circulated as currency, and counterfeits abounded. The bills of different banks had as many different values, and these values fluctuated from day to day. At every payment of money, the "Bank-note Re- porter," issued weckly or oftener, was consulted and the percentage value of each bill computed. It would be impossible to exaggerate the be- wildering and worthless variety of bills and tokens that were in circulation, not alone in Kane County, but throughout the western coun- try.

These conditions necessarily caused barter to be the usual method of exchange. Every store in the early days kept a general assortment of articles needed by the settler, and would take from him, in trade, almost any product of his farm -- the difference between the merchant's and the farmer's position being that the farmer fixed the price of both articles, and "charged" the balance that usually occurred up to the latter. Each six or twelve months the mer-

chant footed up these balances and took the farmer's note, drawing ten per cent. interest, for the sum due. He would accept dressed pork at about eight to ten shillings per hundred, and potatoes at twelve to twenty cents per bushel. He took chickens at sixpence to a shilling each, eggs at four to eight cents a dozen, and butter at seven to twelve and a half cents a pound. He charged from a shilling to eighteen pence per yard for calico; for sugar, ten to fifteen cents a pound, and about "two bits" a pound for loaf-sugar. Other goods bore pro- portionate prices. As to the quality of the brown sugar and the butter, "the less said the better." Their inferiority was equal, but the prices widely divergent. Every artisan and professional man took "store pay" for part of his bill, and wood, a cow, a pig or "farm truck" for a good portion of the balance. The want of market is well illustrated by the argu- ment used to deter farmers from giving the right-of-way or assisting in the construction of the "Galena & Chicago Union Railroad" (now the Chicago & North-Western Railway), which was, that it would supersede the "Frink & Walker" stage lines, and so destroy the demand for hay, oats and corn to feed the stage-horses, and there was no other cash market for these products.

How the settler's wife managed to endure the hardships and inconveniences of those times, and make her family at all comfortable, is a marvel. The log house was about four- teen by sixteen feet in size, and had a low loft for beds, reached by a ladder or open steep narrow stairway in one corner. After the saw- mills were started, a "lean-to" for a sort of sum- mer kitchen, and perhaps another for a bed room, was added. The water was "hard" and she had to "soften" it for washing with ashes; she made her own soap; at first she "dipped," and later, she "molded" her own candles. There were no canning processes then, and she dried such fruit as she could get. She often milked the cows (out of doors) and always cared for the milk and cream and butter, and frequently " churned. Some of the more thrifty people had a little hole under the middle of the floor, reached by a trap door, called a cellar, and a few built out-door cellars; but the majority of the log houses had neither. Ice in summer was unknown, and in winter everything froze solid. There was no wire screen made, and even mos-

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Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Kane County, Part 129

Author: Publication date: 1904 Publisher: Chicago: Munsell Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 950

Author:
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago: Munsell Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 950