USA > Illinois > Cass County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Cass County, Volume II > Part 10
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The constitution of 1848, which went into effect on April 1 of that year, made many changes. It established a county conrt, and provided for the election of a county judge who should sit with two justices of the peace in each ! couuty for the transaction of all business com- mitted to that body by law, including the traus- action of the business matters of the county, which, under the constitution of 1818, had beeu transacted by the county commissioners. It pro- vided, however, that the legislature might, by law, direct the election of two justices of the peace by the people of the connty at large, to sit
with the judge in all sessions. The legislature immediately enacted a law defining all jurisdic- tion and duties of the county court in addition to the specific jurisdiction given by the constitu- tion, and provided for the election of two jus- tices to sit with the judge. The constitution further provided for the election of a county clerk, and that said clerk should be ex-officio recorder, with a further proviso that the General Assembly might, by law, "make the clerk of the Circuit court ex-officio recorder iu lieu of the county clerk." A law to that effect was also enacted by the General Assembly, so from that time on no recorder was elected as a distinct and separate official.
FIRST JUDGES AND ASSOCIATE JUSTICES.
In November, 1849, the first electiou of a county judge and his associates was held. From that time until that court was abolished by the constitution of 1870, the following persons held the position of judges aud associate justices : Judges : James Shaw, John A. Arenz, H. C. Havekluft, F. H. Rearick and Alexander Huffman. Associate justices : William Taylor, Thomas Plasters, Jacob Ward, Isaac Epler, Syl- vester Paddock, John M. Short, William Mc- Henry, G. W. Shawen, Jennings G. Mathis, Samuel Suiith, Andrew Struble and Jephthah Plasters.
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS UNDER CONSTITUTION OF 1870.
By the constitution of 1870, of which more extensive mention will be made under another chapter, this county court was abolished, and a provision made for the selection of three county commissioners to transact all county business. The law pursuant to that provision of the stat- ute, with subsequent amendments, is still in force and the county affairs have been conducted by that board wholly independent of the county court or county judge. The county commission- ers who have served Cass County under that law from its adoption to the present time are : William Campbell, John H. Melone, Robert Fielden, Luke Dunn, Robert Crum, Robert Clark, Thomas Knight, Louis C. Hackman, F. W. Gerdes. George A. Beard, Henry Garm, William Bnraker, Pius Neff, Oliver Decker, George W. Stout, F. W. Korsmeyer, Albert Krohe, George W. Chittick, Philip H. Bailey, Robert H. Arm-
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strong, Henry A. Bridgeman, James R. Sligh, Walter W. Dick, John C. Brech, John L. Martin, George F. Kuhlman, Angus Taylor, Robert Lou- den and William Roegge. The term of office is three years, but a number of the above named men served for two terms. F. W. Gerdes died while in office, in 1SS4, and George A. Beard was elected to fill the vacancy. Robert H. Arm- strong also died while he was a commissioner, and James R. Sligh was elected in 1903, to fill that vacancy. It therefore will be observed that the business of Cass County has been conducted by county commissioners or official equivalents ever since its organization.
ATTEMPTS TO CHANGE TOWNSHIP SYSTEM.
The constitution of 1848 provided for the man- agement of county business by a system called "township organization," if the people of any county should by vote adopt the system. The physical organization consisted of townships laid out and named by commissioners appointed for the purpose, and had no connection with the gov- ernment townships formed by the government land survey. There is a more or less elaborate system of local government and local officials. for assessing and collecting taxes, and a super- visor for each township, who all meet in a body " at stated times fixed by law for the transaction of the general county business. The constitu- tion of 1870 also contains the provision for adopting township organization, with some modi- fications made by the legislature in laws sub- sequently enacted. Several attempts have been made to change Cass County from the commis- sion form of government to that of township organization, but always resulted in failure by adverse vote of the people, except upon the first vote taken,
No petition can be found, nor any record of any order by the county commissioners for a vote, but there is a record of the vote as can- vassed, appearing under date of December 3, 1849, in the record of the county commission- ers' court, which shows the vote to have been 286 for adoption, and 17S against the adoption of township organization. Under date of Decem- ber 4, 1849, appears the record of the appoint- ment of three commissioners, namely : Francis A. Arenz, James Berry, and Dr. Charles Chand- ler, to lay out and name the townships of the county. This order of appointment recites that the election was held in November, 1849, but the
exact day is not given. On March 6, 1850, Francis A. Arenz, one of the commissioners ap- pointed, reported to the commissioners' court that James Berry, one of the aforesaid ap- pointees had died, and that being in doubt whether, under the law, the remaining two could legally proceed to perform the duties assigned them, they had done nothing. It does not ap- pear from any record that anything further was ever done in the matter, but the records do show that the business of the county was continued under the commissioners' court in the same man- ner as before the vote on the question was taken, until 1857, when a petition by Peter Rickard and others was filed praying the board to order an election on the question. The election was ordered and held, and the proposition for town- ship organization was defeated by a decided majority. No further attempt was made for fourteen years, and then on September 12, 1871, Keeling Berry and others filed a petition to again place the question before the people. The election was ordered and held with the same result.
Again, on September 6, 1877. Ernest Jokisch, James Buck and others filed a petition, and pursuant to the law the vote was ordered, and being taken on November 6, the same year, re- sulted again in defeat of the proposition. This apparently settled the question, and it remained peacefully interred for twenty-four years, when a new generation having come on, it was resur- rected and put before the board of county com- missioners in a petition filed by Levi Horton and others, on October 1. 1901, and once more the vote was taken with the result that the proposition to change to township organization was almost unanimously defeated. and up to 1914, has not reappeared. Thus, having so often registered their verdict one way on the question, it might well be concluded that the people of Cass County prefer the commission form of gov- ernment for county affairs at least. Neverthe- less the township system seems to have become most popular throughout the state for all but eighteen of the 102 counties of the state bave adopted it.
As noted previously the recorder's office was changed by the constitution of 1848 from an elective office to an ex-officio one, and the legis- lature, pursuant to the authority granted, made the elective circuit clerk ex-officio recorder. Whether elective or otherwise, the recorder's office is always an important and interesting
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
one. All title deeds and papers and many mis- cellaneous writings are there recorded and some curiosities are found among them.
FIRST DEED ON RECORD.
The first deed that appears of record, after the organization of Cass County in 1837, is from Benjamin H. Gatton and Lucy M. Gatton, his wife, to Pinckney C. Mills, dated September 7, 1837, stating that for a consideration of $1,500, it conveys "twenty feet off of the north side of Lot five (5), Block one (1) including twenty feet on Main Street and running back to low water mark on the Illinois River, in the town of Beardstown, county of Cass and state of Illinois."
ORIGINAL PROPRIETORS' FIRST DEED.
The first deed from March and Beard, the original proprietors of the town of Beardstown, to any of the lands within the limits of the original town, was made the year before the town was laid out. It bears the date of August 21, 1828, and conveys to Charles Robertson, of the city of New Orleans, for and in considera- tion of $100, a tract of land, "being a fractional part of the northwest quarter of section 15, township 18, range 12, beginning at a forked birch tree on the Illinois River bank, marked as a corner, running thence down the river with the meanders thereof, so as to make 200 yards on a straight line, and from thence running out from the river at both ends of the above lines by two parallel lines, until they strike the north line of the east half of the southwest quarter of section 15, township 18, range 12, supposed to contain twelve acres."
On the same day the grantee in the above deed, Charles Robertson, gave to March and Beard, a deed of defeasance, as follows :
"I having this day bought from Enoch C. March and Thomas Beard and his wife Sarah, a piece of land on the river below the ferry of the above Beard, and having this day received from them a deed for the same; I hereby declare that it is my intention to do a public business on said land between this date and the first day of October of next year, and if I have not upon the place by that date, persons and property to effect the same, or actually upon the way to do so, I will return the above deed, and transfer back the land upon receiving the consideration
given them for the same. The above public busi- ness means a steam mill, distillery, rope walk or store.
"Witness my hand and seal, this 21st day of August, 1828.
"(Signed ) CHARLES ROBERTSON (Seal)"
Charles Robertson, the party to those deeds, . lived for many years on an excellent farm about three miles east of the village of Arenzville. He is now deceased. In February, 1872, he wrote a letter to the Chicago Journal, which contained the following in reference to condi- tions at an early date in this part of Illinois.
"Fifty years ago, or in the summer of 1821, there was not a bushel of corn to be had in central Illinois. My father settled in that year twenty-three miles west of Springfield. We had to live for a time on venison, blackberries and milk, while the men were gone to Egypt, to harvest and procure breadstuffs. The land we improved was surveyed that summer, and after- wards bought from the government, the money being raised by sending beeswax down the Illi- nois River to St. Louis, in an Indian canoe. Dressed deer skins and tanned hides were then in use, and we made one piece of cloth out of nettles instead of flax. Cotton matured weil for a decade, until the deep snow of 1830."
The Egypt mentioned in the above letter is the southern part of Illinois. Its low lying lands, so frequently overflowed by the Ohio and Mis- sissippi rivers, and the fact that there were often good crops of both corn and wheat raised there when scarcely anything was grown in the central and northern part of Illinois, and the further fact that many people were obliged to. and did go down there for their breadstuff's and assisted in harvesting the crops. came to be known as Egypt. The pseudonym was thus fastened upon southern Illinois for all time when a town, which was called Cairo, was laid out at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
In 1SS1, J. Henry Shaw of Beardstown sold his residence to Charles E. Wyman, and con- veyed it with the following very unique deed, which is recorded in the deed records of this county. (Deed Record 40, Page 257.)
"I. J. Henry Shaw, the grantor, herein. Who live at Beardstown the county within. For seven hundred dollars to me paid today By Charles E. Wyman, do sell and convey
Lot two (2), in Block forty (40), said county and town,
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
Where Illinois River flows placidly down, And warrant the title forever and aye, Waiving homestead and mansion to both a good-bye, And pledging this deed is valid in law, I add here my signature, J. HENRY SHAW. (Seal) Dated July 25, 1SS1."
"I, Sylvester Emmons, who live at Beardstown, 'A justice of peace of fame and renown, Of the county of Cass in Illinois state, Do certify here that on the same date One J. Henry Shaw to me did make known That the deed above and name were his own, And he stated he sealed and delivered the same Voluntarily, freely, and never would claim, His homestead therein, but left all alone,
Turned his face to the street and his back to his home.
(Seal)
S. EMMONS, J. P.
Dated August 1, 1SS1."
The above is regarded as a perfectly good deed of conveyance under the laws of Illinois. The grantee. Charles E. Wyman; who was a lawyer in practice in Beardstown, accepted it as a good warranty deed. The grantor, J. Henry Shaw, was also a well known lawyer, as was also the justice of the peace, Sylvester Emmons, who took the acknowledgment. The wife of the grantor made a separate deed to convey her homestead and dower.
COUNTY RECORDERS.
The following named persons have been elected to and occupied the office of recorder : Nathaniel B. Thompson, 1837 to 1843, when Dr. Mahlon H. L. Schooley was elected. When the county seat was removed from Virginia to Beardstown, in 1845. Dr. Schooley resigned, and Levi L. Wood succeeded him and retained the office until the constitution abolished it as an elective office and provided as heretofore stated, that the clerk of the county court, or if the legis- lature so directed by law, the circuit clerk, should be ex-officio recorder.
CIRCUIT CLERKS.
The legislature having followed the suggestion in the constitution, immediately after the con- stitution of 1848 went into effect, made the circuit clerk ex-officio recorder, and since that
time the following named persons have been elected circuit clerk and ex-officio recorder : Thomas. R. Sanders, elected in 1848; Sylvester Emmons, elected in 1852; James Taylor, elected in 1856; Henry Phillips, elected in 1860; C. F. Diffenbacher, elected in 1868; Albert F. Arenz, elected in 1872; Thomas V. Finney, elected in 1876; Finis E. Downing, elected in 1SS0; Henry F. Kors, elected in 1892; Adolph F. Sielschott, elected in 1900; and Levi D. Springer, elected in 1908, who is the present incumbent. Mr. Springer is serving in his second term, and is a grandson of Levi Springer, a very early pioneer farmer and preacher so often mentioned by writers of early Illinois history.
SHERIFFS,
The men who have served Cass County as sheriffs since its organization are as follows : Lemon Plasters, elected August 7, 1837 ; John Savage, elected in 1841; Joseph M. McClean, elected in 1848; J. B. Fulks. elected in Novem- ber, 1850; William Pitner, elected in November, 1852: James Taylor, elected in 1854; James A. Dick, elected in 1856; Francis H. Rearick, elected in 1858; James Taylor, elected in 1860; Charles E. Yeck, elected in 1862 ; James A. Dick, elected in 1864; Charles E. Yeck, elected in 1866 ; Thomas Chapman. elected in 1868; Horace Cowan, elected in 1870; George Valkmar, elected in 1872; William Epler, elected in 1874; Adolph H. Sielschott, elected in 1878: John Direen, elected in 1SS6; John J. Beatty, elected in 1890; Louis W. Pilger, elected in 1894: Ernest P. Wid- meyer, elected in 1898; Fred E. Schweer, elected in 1902: James R. Sligh, elected in 1906; and Ernest P. Widmeyer, elected in 1910.
An amendment to the constitution of 1870, adopted in November, 1SSO, by a vote of the people, changed the term of sheriff from two years to four years, and made the sheriff and treasurer ineligible to re-election for a period of four years after the term for which he was elected expired. This amendment to the consti- tution modified Section S of Article 10, and by providing for an election for county judge, county clerk, sheriff and treasurer on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, A. D. 1SS2. operated to extend the terms of those officers one year ; thus what appears as a discrepancy in the time or term of office of certain officers mentioned in these pages is accounted for by reason of the extension of time given them by
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
this provision of the constitution as amended. The sheriff in counties not under township' or- ganization are also ex-officio collector of taxes. The constitution of 1870 provided for the elec- tion of a clerk of the county court, and also a county clerk ; and the legislature provided by law that the county clerk should also be the clerk of the county court, and while the two offices are held by one and the same person, the offices and duties thereof are entirely distinct. Since the organization of Illinois territory into a state in 1818, there has been elected in each county a county clerk who has had charge of the official bookkeeping, and acted as clerk to the county commissioners.
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' CLERKS.
The following is a list of persons who have served the county in that capacity: John W. Pratt, elected in 1837; M. H. H. Carpenter, elected in 1845; Lewis F. Sanders, elected in 1847, and re-elected in 1849; Allen J. Hill, elected in 1857 ; James B. Black, elected in 1873 ; J. F. Robinson, elected in 1882; A. M. Pendle- ton, elected in 1898; James Meade, elected in 1906; and Louis O. Skiles, elected in 1910. From the time the constitution .of 1848 went into effeet the term of office was four years, and it will be observed that several of the above named persons served more than one term, being re-elected at the expiration of the time of the official term.
ASSESSORS AND TREASURERS.
The following have filled the office of assessor and treasurer of Cass County :
Thomas W. Wilbourn was elected at the first election held in the county on August 7, 1837, but did not care to hold it after being honored by election to it, and soon thereafter resigned. On December 16. 1837, Isaac W. Overall was elected to fill the vacancy, and entered upon the duties of the office, but William W. Babb con- tested his election and was declared elected, and held the office until the' regular election in 1838, when William H. Nelms was elected his successor, Robert Gaines, who was elected in 1839, served until 1847, and was succeeded by John Craig who served until 1851. Martin F. Higgins was elected in 1851, but died soon after his re-election in 1853, and Phineas T. Under- wood was elected to fill the vacancy and served
until 1857, when Frank A. Hammer was elected and served until 1859. Those who followed him were: David C. Dilley, elected in 1859, who served until 1871; Philip H. Bailey, elected in 1871, who served until 1873; Jolin L. Cire, elected in 1873, died in 1881, while serving his second term, and the county commissioners ap- pointed John Rahn to fill the vacancy. Mr. Rahn was elected in November, 1881, to fill out the constitutional interim of one year. Under the constitution of 1870 a treasurer cannot suc- ceed himself. Henry Quigg served from 1882 until 1886; Adolph F. Sielschott served from 1886 until 1890; Henry Garm served from 1890 until 1894; John J. Beatty served from 1894 until 1898 ; Albert S. Coil served from 1898 until 1902; E. P. Widmeyer served from 1902 until 1906; F. E. Schweer served from 1906 until 1910; and J. R. Sligh served from 1910 until 1914.
Many, in fact the majority, of the officers of the county named in the foregoing pages were the pioneers or their direct descendants, who devoted their best efforts to building up the new county. They were universally men of excep- tional worth and integrity, oftentimes differing in national policies, but always kind and neigh- borly towards one another, and ever hospitable to the strangers who were daily coming in from the older states and foreign countries.
JOHN WILKES PRATT.
Jolın Wilkes Pratt, who has been mentioned in connection with his very efficient efforts in securing to Cass County the three mile strip. was the first county clerk of Cass County. Mr. Pratt was born December 3, 1806, in Alleghany County, Md., a son of Thomas G. and Christiana Pratt. Ilis mother was a cousin of John Tyler, President of the United States in 1844, who suc- ceeded to office after the death of President William Henry Harrison, he then being vice president. Thomas G. Pratt was in affluent cir- cumstances, and a highly respected and influen- tial citizen of his native state. He gave to his son, John W. Pratt. every opportunity for secur- ing an education in the best schools of the day. The son being possessed of a strong intellect and an appreciative nature. readily acquired a very liberal education. He subsequently was graduated in a law course and was admitted to the bar in the state of Maryland. Entering with energy upon the practice of his chosen profes-
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
sion, he was rapidly rising to distinction, when, in 1823, he contracted a severe cold which soon apparently developed into pulmonary consump- tion. His activity in his profession, and fre- quent public speaking, in which line he was be- coming quite famous, aggravated the incipient disease, and the symptoms became alarming. In the hope that a change to a more favorable climate might be beneficial and arrest the prog- ress of the disease, he removed to Florida, but finding that he was not improving, he returned to his native state.
While Mr. Pratt had been struggling with the theories of property rights as elucidated by Mr. Blackstone, some of his neighbors had emigrated to the then far off Illinois country in the hope of securing some tangible property in that land from which had come fabulous accounts of its surpassing beauty and fertility. In 1826, Louden L. Case had gone to Illinois, and entered land in township 17, range 11, in what was then the northern part of Morgan County. He had written back favorable accounts of the coun- try, and induced a relative to take the journey westward. Mr. Pratt, despairing of regaining his health in his native place, and believing that a trip overland to the West would be of great benefit to him physically if not financially, bid farewell to the scenes of his early successes and ambitions, his family and friends, and in com- pany with Mr. Case, started on a long and tedious journey on horseback, in the year 1835, when he was but twenty-nine years old.
After an uneventful journey of some weeks, the party come to Morgan County, and made their way to Beardstown on the Illinois River. In July of the same year, Mr. Pratt purchased of Loudon L. Case a 40-acre tract of land in town- ship 17, range 11, in sections 14 and 23. This land was near the farm of John Savage who had come from the state of New York and entered land in the same township in 1830, and had be- come a prosperous farmer and leading citizen of Morgan County .. On November 26, 1836, Mr. Pratt was married to Emily, the eldest child of John Savage. His health had greatly improved, and after having spent a year of quiet life on a pioneer farm, he moved to Beardstown, where, on September 6, 1837, his first child was born, whom he named after the child's paternal grandfather, Thomas G. Pratt.
In the spring of that year the northern part of Morgan County had been set off and consti- tuted the new county of Cass. Mr. Pratt had
been very active in securing the result, and when the first election for county officers occurred, which was in August, 1837, he was elected county clerk. By successive elections he con- tinued in that office until 1842, when, intending to become a candidate for member of the Gen- eral Assembly, he resigned the office, and was appointed clerk pro tem until the next elec- tion which would occur in August of the same year. At that election, William H. H. Carpenter was elected his successor as county clerk, and Mr. Pratt was elected to the legislature over his opponent, Joshua P. Crow, an able man, and an excellent citizen and prominent farmer then living on the farm, now and for many years past, known as the William Campbell farm, on the State Road, west of Virginia. At that election Thomas Ford was elected governor. He had been placed on the Democratie ticket in place of Colonel Adam W. Snyder, who was the regular nominee of the party, but had died in May previous. Ex-Governor Joseph L. Duncan, who, as governor, had signed the bill creating Cass County, was the opponent of Mr. Ford, on the Whig ticket. The total vote in the county was but GS9, a gain of only 193 votes in five years. The Whigs had been in the majority in the county since its organization, and although Mr. Ford was elected governor, Cass County gave his opponent, the ex-governor, a majority. The legislature convened at Springfield, Decem- ber 5, 1842, and Mr. Pratt took his seat along with Newton Cloud, David Epler and William Weatherford, representatives from Morgan County. David Epler lived in the three mile strip, and was favorable towards Cass County. Then began the effort to have this strip de- taelied from Morgan County and added to Cass County, an account of which, together with the successful activities of Mr. Pratt in that con- nection, are given elsewhere. Mr. Pratt was re-elected to the legislature in 1844, and success crowned his efforts in his long fight for the pos- session by Cass County of the hotly contested three mile strip.
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