USA > Illinois > Cass County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Cass County, Volume II > Part 17
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Howard B. Boone, m.d.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
Edwards would be the logical candidate of the Whigs for governor, and so became, so that party held no convention, and William H. Davidson was made the candidate for lieutenant-governor without any preliminary opposition. The first general election in Cass County was held Au- gust 6, 1838, the Whigs proving to be in the majority. The state at large, however, elected Thomas Carlin governor, although his vote in Cass County was only 188 to 335 for Edwards. John T. Stuart, a Whig, defeated Stephen A. Douglas for Congress by only fourteen votes. Stuart lived at Springfield, in Sangamon County, and as Cass County was associated with Sanga- mon County as a part of the Third Congres- sional District, he was known to many here. The election for state senator was also very close, but William Thomas, a Whig, was elected by a small majority. William Holmes, also a Whig, was elected as the representative to the legislature from Cass County, having the dis- tinction of being the first representative of this county. Had the convention system been in vogue at that time, and the Democrats nom- inated one candidate only, he would probably have been beaten, as the combined vote of Thomas Beard and Henry Mckean, his two op- ponents, both Democratic, was 312 to 20S for Holmes.
BIOGRAPHY OF A USEFUL LEGISLATOR.
William Holmes was thirty-seven years old when elected to the legislature, and had been for twelve years a resident of that part of Morgan County which was eventually made over into Cass County. He was born in Dutchess County, N. Y., February 7, 1799. His parents, John and Phoebe (Dougherty) Holmes, were natives of Connecticut, but had removed soon after their marriage, a few miles over the state line into New York, where they engaged in an attempt to farın, but scarcely a living could be extracted from the poor soil on which they had settled, and there was nothing in that rural life to at- tract their boy, William, or induce him to re- main at that sort of employment. He attained the rudiments of an education in the district schools of his native county and then started for a full course at the Poughkeepsie Academy, but after a few terms found he was without funds to proceed. He then left home and went into New Jersey where he taught several terms of school, and with the money thus earned and
saved, he made his way into the West, landing in Posey County, Ind. There he taught school for a short time, but that country falling far short of the western paradise he had heard so much of before leaving his native state, and learning there of the famous Sangamon coun- try in Illinois, he resolved to move once more farther west. He crossed the Wabash River, and followed the "Movers' Trail" through Illi- nois, until he reached the northern part of Morgan County. There he found a few settlers, among them being Archibald Job and Henry Hopkins. Mr. Holmes engaged board at the Hopkins home, and took up a claim adjoining that of Mr. Hopkins on the west. That same year, 1826, Joseph McDonald arrived in the neighbor- hood from Kentucky. He also took up a claim, but did not wait long until he went to the land office at Springfield and entered his land from the government. The state auditor's certi- ficate of land entries in the recorder's office shows that June 5, 1826, Joseph McDonald entered the east one-half of the northwest one quarter of section 11, township 17, north, range 9 west, eighty acres, and that on September 15, 1826, William Holmes entered the southwest one- quarter of section 5, township 17, north, range 9 west. Later he sold the one eighty acres to Mr. Hopkins, it being the claim on which Mr. Hopkins had settled. Mr. Holmes married Mary McDonald, daughter of Joseph McDonald on December 7, 1827, in the new brick house which Mr. McDonald had built on the land entered the previous year. This house is said to have been the first brick house erected between Beardstown and Springfield. It was a small house, but well built, from brick burned on the premises, and is still standing and in excellent condition. Two years after his marriage, Mr. Holmes entered the west one-half of the south- east one-quarter of section 31, township 18, north, range 9 west, upon which he built a sub- stantial frame house, and removed to it. There he and his wife lived the remainder of their lives. Mr. Holmes died at the old homestead, January 18, 1878, aged seventy-eight years, eleven months and eleven days. His wife had died seven years before, on June 19, 1871, at the age of sixty-nine years. He was above the aver- age in intelligence, and, coupled with a good education it is not surprising that the Whigs in sceking a candidate to represent them in the legislature, should select Mr. Holmes. He had. the year previous to his election, proven himself
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
sufficiently popular to beat his opponent for connty surveyor, William Clark, by sixty-seven votes. Mr. Holmes served but one term in the legislature, but during that term many meas- ures of importance to the people of Illinois were presented and acted upon, and those which ap- pealed to him as being beneficial to the people he sustained with his vote. Mr. Holmes intro- dneed and succeeded in getting passed the act, mentioned and set forth in a previous chapter, concerning flie location of the connty seat of Cass County at Virginia, reciting in a preamble that Beardstown had failed to comply with either the provisions of the original act, creating the county, or the subsequent act extending to if the time of payment of the $10,000 required to be donated in case the county seat should be located at Beardstown. The ambiguous legisla- tion concerning the county seat of Cass County has had as much to do, as has the natural rivalry of the two towns, Beardstown and Virginia, in engendering and continuing the hostile feeling and bitterness that has entered into the elec- tions on the question of the permanent loca- tion of the county seat; and which has been manifested ever since the organization of the connty in nearly every election for connty officers.
As at that time each city, town and village, had to look to the legislature for everything pertaining to its organization and corporate status, citizens of Virginia and Beardstown strove to keep a member in the legislature who would be alert to their particular interests. Party lines were often wholly disregarded in the efforts of each rival section of the county, but it was not nntil Beardstown had, by reason of the large packing industries established there, which brought in a great many laborers and their families and thus increased the popu- lation and voting strength very rapidly, that it was able to elect a local representative to the assembly. Amos S. West, who had entered and lived upon a fine tract of land adjoining the Dr. Hall land in township 17, north, range 10. west, upon which was laid out the town of Virginia, was nominated for member of the legislature in 1840, and was carried into office on the ticket with "Old Tippecanoe and Tyler too" in the ex- citable campaign of that year. General Har- rison had in Cass County, or what in a few years thereafter became a part of Cass County, a strong supporter in the person of Captain Charles Beggs, of Princeton, who had com-
manded a company of cavalry in the famous battle of Tippecanoe, while he was a resident of Clark Connty, Iud. He had made the acquaint- ance of General Harrison when the was a dele- gate to the convention called to meet at Vin- cennes to form a constitution for the new terri- tory of Indiana organized in 1800. A close, personal friendship grew np between the two which lasted unbroken during the nearly thirty years Captain Beggs remained a resident of Indiana. There was but two years' difference in their ages, and, although Captain Beggs had, for himself, long passed the age of political am- bition, yet it was but natural he should join heartily in the "log cabin and hard cider" cam- paign for his old friend, General Harrison. The campaign was conducted in Cass County with that same degree of enthusiasm and hilarity as it was elsewhere. The great feature in rallies was the carrying of miniature log cabins by fonr men ; or hauling a large cabin on a wagon drawn by four or more horses or teams of oxen. These cabins were decorated with coon skins tacked up on the sides, or upon the door. The drivers of the teams were usually dressed in homespnn, and wore caps made of coon skins. If the cabin was borne on a wagon there was also, generally, a barrel of hard cider alongside of it, with a gonrd dipper to drink from. It was a noisy cam- paign, the rallies were largely attended, and the parades and processions were joined in by hun- dreds of men, carrying their long squirrel rifles, or whatever style of gun they happened to own. Along with the cabins in the procession were also a number of canoes, decorated in similar fashion. It was just the kind of a campaign that would excite and enlist the enthusiasm of the inhabitants of Cass County, most of whom had been backwoodsmen all their lives. The oppor- tunity of shouting and ultimately voting for someone who had started in life in the same humble manner as they was hailed with delight. However, with all their demonstrations, and the great popularity of their candidate. the Whigs were not able to carry the state. The state of- ficers who were to be elected that year, the members for Congress, and also the county officers, were to be voted for in August, while the presidential election did not take place nntil November. Cass County elected John C. Scott and Marcus Chandler, two Whigs, connty com- missioners, and assisted in electing Col, John T. Stuart again to Congress. In November they lost the state to Van Buren by a majority of
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
1,939, and the legislature was Democratic in both branches. Though grievously disappointed at their failure in the state, the Whigs were consoled by the fact that Van Buren had been defeated in the national election, and the de- tested policies of his predecessor, Jackson, repu- diated. At the political rallies it was not always as peaceable as at religious gatherings of subse- quent years. Many personal encounters oc- curred ; and it is said that these were the result of the drinking of something stronger than hard cider.
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ADOPT PRICE SCHEDULE.
Whiskey and brandy were not expensive ar- ticles at that time, but were very common mer- chandise, although the prices for the same were fixed by the county board of commissioners. The year previous to this election, at the March term of the County Commissioners Court of Cass County, the following schedule of prices was adopted : For taverns, each meal of victuals, 301% cents; each night's lodging 25 cents ; keeping horses over night, 50 cents; feed for one horse 25 cents; one-half pint of whiskey, 121% cents ; one-half point of brandy, 25 cents ; one-half pint of gin, 25 cents ; one-half pint of wines, cordials, etc., 25 cents. At the same time rates of charges for the Beard ferry across tlie Illinois River were also established, and were as follows: Horse and carriage, 3716 cents ; two-horse wagon, 50 cents; four-horse wagon, 75 cents; six-horse wagon, $1.00; man and horse, 25 cents ; loose cattle, 614 cents ; hogs, goats and sheep, 3 cents; each footman, the same as loose cattle. There is no doubt this high cost of living entered into the campaign. and was, by the Whigs, charged against the Van Buren administration. Lawyers, at least, might have had some legitimate grounds for complaint, when the fees received by them at that time are compared with fees paid lawyers of the present day. The County Commissioners' Court records show that at that term of their court which fixed the foregoing rates, they paid Hon. Stephen T. Logan $10 for appearing as counsel in three cases in the Circuit court.
Nothing of importance affecting Cass County occurred in the legislature elected in 1840. A petition was presented asking for the detaching of the "three-mile strip" from Morgan County and attaching it to Cass County, but little at- tention was given to it by the assembly. Col.
West was not a candidate for re-election, and at the next election, which occurred in August, 1842, the Whigs were again successful, but by a greatly reduced majority. Henry E. Dummer, an excellent lawyer and a high class citizen, residing at Beardstown, was a candidate for state senator, but, although he beat his oppo- nent in this county, was defeated in the district. John W. Pratt was elected to the legislature, and John Savage was elected as sheriff. W. H. H. Carpenter was elected to take the place of John W. Pratt as clerk of the County Commis- sioners' Court, the latter having been clerk of that body since the organization of Cass County. Robert Lceper, grandfather of Senator A. A. Leeper of Virginia, was elected county commis- sioner, beating his opponent, Marcus Chandler, by only four votes. The prize of political offer- ing of that year most sought after appears to have been that of probate justice. There were five candidates. Dr. Harvey Tate had arrived in Cass County in the spring of 1841, and hav- ing finally settled down in Virginia, concluded he would like to add something to his income as a country physician, and gain the distinction conferred by the position of probate justice, and so entered himself in the race, but found a sturdy opponent in the person of Alexander Huffman, a pioneer farmer of Monroe Precinct. They were both Democrats, and as the Whigs had a full ticket otherwise, Robert G. Gaines, a Whig, became a candidate. Beardstown, seeing three candidates from the eastern part of the county, thought it a good time to get in, and so Ezra Dutch, of that town, who had been a sea captain for twenty-five years, sailed into the political sea, hoping to exchange his title of captain for that of probate judge. Then came John Richardson, last, and as it proved, least, in point of votes. He was a nondescript as far as his politics were concerned. At least his party affiliation is not known. These five pa- triotic men made a lively campaign which re- sulted in the farmer candidate, Alexander Huff- man, being elected by a majority of eighty-two votes over the next nearest, who was Mr. Gaines. Dr. Tate was close after Mr. Gaines, there be- ing only five votes difference between them. Captain Dutch received thirty-seven votes, and Mr. Richardson twenty-eight votes. The entire Democratic state ticket was elected by large majorities. Thomas Ford beat Governor Dun- can, the Whig candidate, by nearly S,000 votes. There were no congressmen elected at that
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
election. By an act of the assembly, March 1, 1843, the state was reapportioned and divided into seven districts. The population of the state had reached 476,183, and that of Cass Connty had increased to 2,981, according to the censns of 1840. Stephen A. Donglas had moved from Jacksonville to Quincy, and being placed in the fifth district, while Cass County was in the seventh, the people of this connty had no further opportunity to vote for Mr. Donglas nntil 1860, when he ran against Mr. Lincoln for president.
In the meanwhile Mr. Pratt took his seat in the legislature and there fonnd a friend and neighbor, David Epler, who had been elected as a representative from Morgan County, but who resided on his farm in the three-mile strip. At the next term they received reinforcements in the person of Francis Arenz, who also lived in the "strip" at Arenzville, an unincorporated vil- lage of his own making. That term bronght suc- cess to their labors, and the connty of Cass rejoiced then and ever after, that a great sonrce of wealth was added to the county in the shape of eighty square miles of as fine land as is to be met with in all of Illinois.
A CASS COUNTY PATRIOT.
Political affairs were attracting attention from the voters throughont the whole conntry. The Whigs had not redeemed their pre-elec- tion pledges ; hard times had not disappeared as rapidly as had been promised, and the middle of the Tyler administration found the people as dissatisfied as ever. President Taylor had died within a short time after his inanguration, and the vice president, succeeding. had not car- ried out the policies of his predecessor. John J. Hardin of Jacksonville was the candidate of the Whigs for Congress in the seventh dis- trict under the new apportionment, and Cass County was a part of that district. The elec- tion was held in August, 1843, and Hardin was the only Whig elected of the entire congressional delegation from the state. It was a noticeable fact that for several years the seventh district was the only one that could succeed in electing a Whig to Congress. Colonel Hardin served but one term, when the distinguished Edward D. Baker succeeded him. Baker was a Whig, and although the Whigs were opposed to the policy of the Democratic administration which, as they charged, nnnecessarily bronght on the
war with Mexico, yet, when war was declared, Baker resigned from Congress, went home and raised a regiment and was commissioned its colonel. After the Mexican war, he moved to Galena, Ill., from which place he was sent to Congress. Later he moved to California, and then on np into Oregon, where he was again made a member of the national legislative body, this time being sent as a senator from the state of Oregon. While he was holding that position, the Civil war broke ont, and he again resigned, raised a regiment and was again commissioned a colonel. He immediately went to the front, but was killed at Ball's Blnff, October 20, 1861. Colonel Baker was well and favorably known to many Cass Connty people, who held him in high esteem. He was a member of the state legislature in 1837, which passed the act creat- ing the connty of Cass.
In the meantime, however, a question of local interest was absorbing the attention of the voters of Cass County. An election had been called for September 4, 1843, in accordance with an act passed by the legislature for that pur- pose, to vote upon the question of whether the county seat should or should not be moved to Beardstown. At that time, under the law, the recorder of deeds was elected as a separate and independent officer, and at the regular election held Angnst 7, of that year, Dr. M. H. L. Schooley of Virginia had beaten C. H. C. Have- kluft, a young lawyer of Beardstown, for that office. This encouraged the citizens who were favorable to Virginia in the belief that they would be successful in the election on the county seat question, but in this they were greatly mistaken. for when the vote was taken, they found that Virginia had lost by a vote of 453 for removal to 2SS against removal. This was a serious blow to Virginia, but it was not felt immediately, as Beardstown did not get ready to remove the records for some time. A conrt- house had to be built, which was done by Beardstown without cost to the county, in ac- cordance with the promise of the Beardstown adherents made before the election, and in ac- cordance with the provisions of the act calling the election. At the March term of the Com- missioners' Court, 1845, the deed to the county was presented, showing the acquisition of the lots, and a certificate showing the completion of the jail and courthouse; and the records and archives of the county were removed to Beards- town, not to be returned to Virginia nntil 1875.
PARIS A. BRANDON
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
A period of general business depression fol- lowed in Virginia, and real estate values depre- ciated materially. Many merchants followed the seat of government to Beardstown, others went elsewhere, believing that Virginia had lit- tle prospect for future growth or prosperity. Dr. Schooley would not follow the recorder's office to Beardstown, as it was of little value to him financially, so he resigned, and the place was filled by Eli Wood, elected to fill the va- cancy in 1845, who continued as the recorder until the constitution of 184S abolished the office, and made the circuit clerk ex-officio recorder.
MORMON TROUBLE.
Another event in 1845 which brought some dis- tinction to Beardstown, or, as the popular phras- ing would express it, made it visible on the map, was the gathering there as a rendezvous of the state army under Brigadier General John J. Hardin, to march into Hancock County to quell the Mormon disturbance, designated in some histories as the Mormon war. Thomas Ford was then governor of the state, and felt, in his patriotic zeal, that duty called him to the front. He marched with a company of infantry and some artillery from Springfield to Beardstown, passing through Virginia, where he halted with his soldiers tor the night. The infantry camped on the public square and the artillery on the brow of the hill a little east of the present site of the Christian church. The governor made the Dr. Pothicary tavern his headquarters, and the next day he and his soldiers moved on to the rendezvous at Beardstown. The Mor- mon disturbance did not last long enough to merit the name of war. A mob had attacked the jail at Carthage, in Hancock County, where Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, had been placed, he having surrendered himself to the authorities to escape the citizens who had be- come incensed against him, largely on account of polygamous views held by the sect. Smith was killed, and the mob continued its attack upon his despised followers until the Mormons were driven out. Very few if any Mormons came into Cass County at that time. Some itin- erant disseminators of the gospel of the Book of Mormon as interpreted by the Urim and Thum- min occasionally found their way into Cass County, but an invitation to move on from the hardy orthodox pioneers was generally suf- ficient, and they "traveled" without taking any
converts with then. Sylvester Emmons, a law- yer ot Beardstown, finding the practice of the law not as remunerative as his needs in life required, concluded to engage in the newspa- per business. For that purpose he went to Nauvoo, the Mormon stronghold, in the summer of 1845, and started an anti-Mormon weekly paper. He, however, published but one issue, when he precipitantly retired from that par- ticular journalistic field, and returned to Beards- town. The Mormon troubles were the legiti- mate fruits of political pandering to a religious sect by the two dominant parties for its vote. Without any special provisions in the constitu- tion, and without restriction upon the legislature in that respect, cities, villages or towns were granted charters with almost unlimited powers. Nor was it necessary, under our first consti- tution, that the subject of an act should be expressed in the title. The Twelfth General Assembly, that met in 1840, composed of Demo- crats and Whigs, passed with shameless una- nimity an act granting to Nauvoo, or in reality, to Joseph Smith, a charter for the incorporation of Nauvoo as a city. The charter conferred power upon the mayor and city council to estab- lish their own courts and militia, and to enable them to organize a government that would make them wholly independent of the state govern- ment. The driving out of the Mormons from Nauvoo, and the agitation of the subject of Mormonism, destroyed the influence of that sect in politics at least for years thereafter. It also caused a division in the church itself. A large body of the members who believed in polygamy went, under the leadership of Brigham Young, to Utah territory, and established Salt Lake City, while another, but much smaller body, went to lowa, under the lead of Joseph Smith, a son of Joseph Smith killed at Nauvoo, and main- tained the church organization of Latter Day Saints. They claimed to have abandoned polyg- amy. Joseph Smith, who claimed to be the or- ganizer and head of the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints, died at Independence, Mo., December 12, 1914. A few representatives of that church reside at Beardstown.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN DEFEATS PETER CARTWRIGHT FOR CONGRESS.
In 1842. John W. Pratt, of whom a biography previously appears in this work, had succeeded Colonel West in the legislature, and was re-
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
elected in 1844. He was an able representative, carefully attending to all the interests of his constituents, but his chief distinction was his secnring for Cass County the three-mile strip. While his colleagues, David Epler and Francis Arenz, were exceptionally efficient as legislators, particularly in their assistance to Cass County, they were never really representatives of Cass, both being elected from Morgan County, and their terms expired before the election which gave Cass County its first representative after its enlargement. The Hon. Edward W. Turner was the first representative from Cass Connty after its present boundaries were fixed. Francis Arenz, who had been elected in 1844 as a Whig, was again nominated by that party in opposition to Mr. Turner, who was a Democrat. The pre- vious general election, that of 1844, was a seri- ous disappointment to the Whigs, the idol of that party. Ilenry Clay, having been defeated by James K. Polk on the issue of the annexa- tion of Texas. In that year the small cloud which had appeared in the east during the elec- tion of 1840, in the form of the Free Soil party, or the Liberal party, was growing portentous. It had nominated James G. Birney for the sec- ond time for the presidency, and although that party never succeeded in electing a state or con- gressional officer. or secured a single electoral vote for its candidates for the presidency, yet it was recruiting to the abolition or anti-slavery cause so rapidly from the Whig ranks that it foreshadowed the ultimate extinction of that party. There was, however, a full state and county Whig ticket arrayed against a full Dem- ocratic ticket in Cass County in 1846. Upon that ticket were some persons well known then. who afterwards became distinguished. On the Democratic ticket appeared the name of Augus- tus C. French for governor. and the eccentric and famous politician-preacher, Rev. Peter Cart- wright, as a candidate for Congress. The can- didates for the county offices were: sheriff, W. J. De Haven : coroner. Harvey Springer ; county commissioner, Thomas Plasters. On the Whig ticket, for governor was Thomas M. Kil- patrick of Scott County, who had served three successive terms in the state senate: and for Congress was Abraham Lincoln. On the county ticket were: sheriff, John Savage; coroner, James Logan : county commissioner, Henry Mc- Henry. Cass County gave a majority for the Whig candidates, but the Democrats elected their candidate for governor and member of
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