USA > Illinois > Cass County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Cass County, Volume II > Part 34
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PROSE AND POETRY.
Publications in book form from Cass County include a "History of Cass County," by William H. Perrin, editor, published in 1SS2, but as some of the chapters on the general history of the county were by Mr. Shaw, the work is famil- iarly known as "Shaw's History."
Iu 1857 Benjamin F. W. Stribling, second son of Benjamin Stribling, one of the very earliest pioneers of Cass County, who located near Virginia, published a small volume of poems of his own composition, on various sub- jects of quite a wide range. It was published by the Beardstown Illinoisan and contained 238 pages. Just about that time the promoters of the Illinois River Railroad were striving ear- nestly to convince the people of Cass County of the utility and absolute necessity of building the railroad from Bath to Virginia at least. Mr. Stribling fired a broadside into the ranks of wavering denizens of the woods and prairies, which, if it did not aid materially in gaiuing subscriptions for the stock of the proposed road, gained some enduring fame for himself. The following is one of the verses :
"Then let us join to build a road That's good when dry and when there's mud. Come, rise np, boys, no more delay ;
Procrastination will not pay.
Let's pledge our faith and yellow dust
To build the road-we can, we must."
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Hm. Dufelmeier, and Family
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Frank Stribling will be remembered as a genial, wholesouled man, who loved his books and his fireside. He was also something of a musician. The writer had the pleasure on a number of occasions, to sit in his presence by the old, wide open fireplace, and hear him repeat some of his poems, and also sing them to some ancient tune accompanied upon his violin.
In 1906 there was published in Cass County by Elijah Needham, a book seller and stationer of Virginia, a small volume entitled "Adamı W. Snyder in Illinois History." It covers a period of the history of Illinois from 1817 to 1842, and was written by Dr. John Francis Snyder of Vir- ginia, a son of the Adam W. Snyder named in the title page of the book. It is an exceedingly well written review of the formative period of the great state of Illinois, its growth and prog- ress, and blended with it is a biography of the principal character, Hon. Adam W. Snyder, who was one of the earliest pioneers, and served the state as an able representative in the halls of congress, and in the state legislature in both house and senate. It also contains a brief no- tice of a number of the public men of that day, with many of whom the author, Dr. Snyder, had a personal acquaintance, and with some of whom he was quite intimately associated. This fact, as well as the excellent literary character and style of the work, enhances the charm and in- terest one has in perusing its pages, and learn- ing, as it seems, almost first hand, of the achievements of the great men of that epoch, who witnessed the birth of our state and helped to lay the foundations of its present greatness and glory. No collection of histories of Illinois is complete without a copy of this splendid though unpretentious volume. In August, 1907, a volume entitled "Historical Sketches," was published by the Virginia Enquirer. It is almost exclusively composed of biographical sketches of early settlers, and those who became more or less prominent in the county of Cass, with some descriptions of early conditions of the towns and villages; also that which is extremely in- teresting and especially worthy of preservation, the early and abandoned graveyards with the list of those who, it can be learned, were in- terred therein. J. N. Gridley, who for a third of a century or more was a practicing lawyer in this county, and for a great portion of that time was the master-in-chancery, is the author of most of the articles, and the editor of many of the others furnished to him for publication.
Dr. J. F. Snyder also contributed quite a num- ber of sketches, principally of a biographical nature. All of the articles are well written and graphically portray the scenes of the early times in Cass County, as well as give to this genera- tion an excellent characterization of the found- ers of the county, and will preserve for all time to come interesting historical facts which might otherwise have been consigned to oblivion.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CLIMATOGRAPHICAL AND METEOROLOG- ICAL PHENOMENA.
CLIMATIC CONDITIONS-DRY SEASON IN EARLY DAYS -LATER CONDITIONS-WIND STORMS-CYCLONES -DEEP SNOW OF 1830-31-SHOOTING STARS OF 1833-EXTREME AND SUDDEN COLD OF 1836- SNOW STORMS-CYCLONES OF 1845, 1855 AND 1856-WARM WINTER OF 1877-SLEET STORM, LATE FROST AND CYCLONE IN 1883-HEAVY FLOODS AND HIGH WATER-COLD DAYS-CYCLONE OF 1911-WORST STORM EVER ENCOUNTERED HERE -OTHER METEOROLOGICAL EVENTS.
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CLIMATIC CONDITIONS.
The climate of Cass County is practically the same as that in all central Illinois. Local con- ditions vary somewhat in the prairie and timber upland from the Sangamon and Illinois river bottoms. The prevailing winds are from the south during most of the months of the year; the trade winds from the Gulf of Mexico no doubt largely affect the temperature during the summer and autumn. The mean temperature of the county is about 50.75 degrees and although we have had some extreme weather, both liot and cold, the mean temperature does not vary much. The annual rainfall is from 35 to 42 inches. The parts of the county other than the bottom lands have been subject to many violent storms, which have done a vast amount of dam- age to property and livestock, also causing the loss of a number of human lives.
The first dry season affecting the county oc- curred in 1820 when there were but few in- habitants and very little land in cultivation.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
The whole year was without much rainfall from April, 1820, to April of the next year, but the soil, being new and thus very productive, those settlers who had planted and sowed, reaped a fairly good crop. In 1845 a severe wind storm swept the county from the southwest over Little Indian Creek neighborhood in Morgan County to the northeast into Cass County. It was ex- tremely violent, destroying. barns and fences in Morgan County, and several houses in Cass County, one of them being the Walnut Grove schoolhouse near old Princeton, but no person was injured, although much damage was done to the timber, leaving a path through the heav- iest tracts of woodland. These paths could be seen for years afterwards.
An anecdote of the hurricane was told in the neighborhood long after time and weather had effaced the material effects of the storm. With some basis of truth, it was probably exag- gerated by the irreverent story teller of the time. In the path of the storm stood a cabin in which lived a family whose name, given as Tay- lor, is probably fictitious. The head of the household, however, was named Bill, and the other members of the family consisted of Bill's wife and several little Bills. The family had retired for the night when the storm arose, and the crashing of falling timber and flying clap- boards aroused the wife, who hustled Bill out, and about that time the door blew open and Bill braced himself against it and placed his arms in the loops made to hold the heavy bar. The storm increased; part of the roof blew away, and the wife thought it time to call for help from a source which in fair weather was usually ignored, so she told Bill to pray. Bill was not an expert in prayerful expression, but his instinct for self-preservation and for the safety of his family enabled him to ask the higher power to intercede and save them from utter destruction. But the storm continued with unabated fury and the family protector exerted more energy in trying to keep the door shut than he did in prayer. Suddenly a limb from a close by tree fell with a crash across the road, shattering some of the clapboards down upon the bed, and the wife besought Bill to pray louder. The storm, however, and Bill's courage and piety gave out about the same time, and except for a drenching rain which followed the wind storm no damage to the family by that time was done.
TORNADOES.
In 1857 a tornado swept over the southwestern corner of Cass County, blowing houses and fences away, passing over the place where the Wagner's Bridge schoolhouse now stands, in In- dian Creek Precinct, and took the log cabin schoolhouse off the puncheon floor, dashing the logs into the creek some distance away.
In October, 1858, a tornado or cyclone passed west of the town of Virginia, felling the trees in its path, but it did not encounter any houses until near the Needham schoolhouse, which had been built the year previously. The teacher, Archie Campbell, noticing the dangerous looking cloud approaching, sent the children to their homes, and he remained in the schoolhouse to watch the storm, feeling secure himself, as the building was very substantial. The storm. how- ever, took but little heed of its style of archi- tecture. its qualities for resistance, or its dig- nity as a seat of learning, but lifted it up from the floor above the head of the astonished teacher, and tore it into shreds. The floor was left intact with the desks and teacher sitting in his chair, but the remainder of the building was never found, although the school children made diligent search. Other houses northeast of the schoolhouse were also badly injured, but no lives were lost.
DEEP SNOW.
The deep snow of 1830-31 is, perhaps, the most noted meteorological event in the history of Illi- nois. It began snowing in the latter part of November, 1830, and continued, with brief in- termissions, until January, 1831. Then a cold rain set in which froze as it fell and formed a heavy crust on the snow. More snow fol- lowed with a severe cold blast lasting for two weeks or more. The average depth of snow was 3 or 4 feet on a level, but in many places it drifted from 7 to S feet deep, covering the fences and filling the lanes and roads until they were impassable. Much of the corn was yet in the field, and the snow covered it so deep that it was next to impossible to extricate it. Had the people expected anything like such continuous snow and stormy weather, they would have gathered their grain and fodder as soon as the first snow began to fall, but the oldest inhabitant had experienced nothing of the kind; in fact, the winter weather prior to that year from the
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
earliest settlement, had been extremely mild, so much so that many people were indneed to come to Illinois by stories of the excellent mild climate and short winters. Wild game suffered during the deep snow, for want of food, and many animals died of. starvation. From that year on, for several years, game animals were very scarce. The deer never were as plentiful thereafter. Game birds from the lack of food and continnous cold weather, died in great num- bers. Domestic animals suffered greatly for lack of sufficient food, and many of them also died. Altogether it was a disastrons winter for the settlers, and the narration of the conditions reaching back to the older states, retarded emigration to a great extent for some time,
SHOOTING STARS.
Two years later, in the fall of 1833, came an- other strange phenomenon, called the shooting or falling stars. Those who happened to be abroad at two o'clock in the morning of No- vember 13, of 1833, saw an awe-inspiring sight, as myriads of meteors or stars or star dust, shot across the heavens, criss-crossing in wavering line and dancing like whirling snowflakes in an early autumn storm, brilliantly illuminating the sky with repeated showers in this great pyro- technic display until dispelled by the light of the rising sun. Many persons were terror stricken and thought the world had reached its end. Although nothing like it had occurred on the western continent so far as recorded, in magnitnde and brilliancy, it was not a new nor wonderful thing to students of astronomy. One of the earliest accounts of shooting stars relates that in 472 A. D., the sky at Constantinople ap- peared to be alive with flying stars and meteors. In some eastern annals we are told that in Oc- tober, 1202, "the stars appeared like waves upon the sky. They flew about like grasshoppers, and were dispersed from right to left." Hum- boldt describes a shower occurring in 1799, say- ing : "the sky was covered with innumerable fiery trails which incessently traversed the sky from north to south. From the beginning of the phenomena there was not a space in the heavens three times the diameter of the moon which was not filled every instant with celestial fire- works-large meteors blending constantly their dazzling brilliancy with long phosphorescent paths of shooting stars." The explanation of the phenomena is, as given by astronomers, that
aerolites, meteors and falling stars have a com- mon origin; they are produced by small bodies which, like our earth, are revolving aronnd the sun. These small bodies in great numbers form alinost a complete circle abont the sun. Their orbit intersects the orbit of the earth, and when they reach the point of crossing at the same time, there is a collision, and the small, luminons bodies appear to be falling to the earth. They may be seen annually ; in some years in greater numbers than in others. The phenomena oc- cnrs most generally abont the middle of No- vember, but shooting stars may be seen almost any clear night in the summer and fall months, in more or less numbers.
On December 28, 1876, at eight o'clock .P. M., the people of Cass County were startled by a loud report in the heavens. Those who were out of doors, and those who could get out in time, saw a singularly beautiful meteoric dis- play. A large luminous ball, with a fiery trail of twenty degrees or more in length, passed over from the southwest in a northeasterly di- rection, The sky was brilliantly illuminated as the meteor passed rapidly over, and a whitish green light remained for some time after the fiery ball had disappeared from sight. From the reports in the daily papers of the next day, the occurrence was not local, but was visible at about the same moment of time all over central United States from the Rocky monntains to the Alleghanies. No account was ever given as to what became of it for the reason, no doubt, that no one could learn its origin or destination. It came with a noise and a light.' It was but momentary in its passage over the earth, and by the time the last echoes of its noise were heard, its weird light had too disappeared. Awe inspiring in its grandeur of appearance, it will be vividly recalled by those fortunate enough to witness its dazzling race through the sky.
TEMPERATURE VARIATION,
Although the temperature of Cass County, like other portions of central Illinois, is about an average of 51 degrees, yet it has been subject to many very sudden changes. The temperature often runs as high as 100 degrees in the shade during the summer months. thus continuing for several days. In the winter it often drops sud- denly without previous warning to a very low degree. This peculiarity of climatic conditions is very distasteful to some people who regard
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
these changes as undesirable for a residence district. The conditions, however, are usually so generally favorable, and the climate so de- lightful for such a large portion of the year, that few people having settled here and become accustomed to the environments ever leave on account of occasional discomfort. The most remarkable fall in temperature recorded or re- membered in this part of Illinois, occurred De- cember 20, 1826. Several inches of snow had fallen in the early part of the day, but the temperature was so mild that the snow soon melted, and in the afternoon a light, warm rain began to fall. About 2 P. M. it began to grow suddenly dark, from a heavy cloud rising in the northwest. A strong wind swept over the land with a bellowing noise and almost instantly the temperature fell to the freezing point. Those who were away from home hastened to get to shelter from the cold; but no one anticipated the change would be of such marked character. Those who were at some distance from the house in the fields or away from home on the road, suffered greatly. Dr. Charles Chandler, founder of Chandlerville, was out on one of his professional calls, up the Sangamon bottom, several miles east of his home. Although used to hardships and all kinds of weather, he found it necessary to stop at the first place where he might warm himself. This was at the general store kept by Henry T. and Abner Foster, about six miles cast of the present site of Chandler- ville. After warming up, the doctor again started for home, but soon found himself freez- ing again. He stopped at the next house, and at the next, until, before he reached his own home, he had been compelled to make four stops; and then when he did arrive to within a short dis- tance of his own door, his horse, exhausted by the cold and the rapid gait at which he had been urged on, fell and threw the physician to the ground. Fortunately members of his fam- ily saw him coming and ran out immediately and dragged him into the house, he then being almost frozen to death.
Small, shallow pools of water, caused by the rain and melting snow, froze in waves as the water was blown about by the wind. Chickens and small pigs running through the slush and mud were frozen fast to the ground. At Beards- town, where Thomas Beard was then running a ferry across the Illinois River, the ice formed so rapidly that the ferry-boat could not be propelled, as the long poles used to push the
boat would freeze fast in the slushy river water, and the boat finally had to be abandoned and the ferrymen taken to a cabin on the bank of the river. Two young men were frozen to death near Rushville. One of them was found sitting with his back against a tree, his horse's bridle over his arm, and the horse frozen in front of him. The other was partly kneeling, a tinder box in one hand, and a flint in the other. Both eyes were open and peering at the tinder and flint as if intent on striking a light. Many other unusual casualties were reported. There appears to have been no thermometer record of the drop in temperature, but the ice froze in the streets to a thickness of 6 inches in one hour, and by the next morning ice was more than a foot thick. On January 28, 1873, the temperature fell to 40 degrees below zero. Snow covered the ground to a depth of 16 inches, and that day is said to have been the coldest ever known in Illinois. Other very sudden and re- markable changes have occurred in the tem- perature, but none so extreme as the two cases mentioned.
In 1855 a very severe snow storm prevailed over the entire central and northern portions of the United States. The snow was packed heavy and deep in Cass County, and its inhab- itants were shut in from the rest of the world for several days. However, there was no rail- road in Cass County at that time to be block- aded, but the stage coach travelers spent the time at the wayside inns. The winter of 1877 was extremely mild; really no winter at all. It rained at frequent intervals during the entire winter months, and the roads were almost impassable the entire winter through. Many country people went to their towns on foot, and others contrived to make a two-wheel cart out of the fore part of the heavy wagon, and even with that light vehicle it was all that two horses could do to pull through the mud with the necessary store goods the farmer tried to take home to his immured family. Those who lived near the railroads were better off, using them for making their market trips to town.
SLEET STORM, LATE FROST AND CYCLONE.
In February, 1883, came a great sleet storm that covered the trees and everything else in sight with heavy ice. The disturbance was general throughout the central West, and the changing temperature from cold warm
Charles Frank
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
melted the snow that covered the ground, another change converting melting snow to a sheet of ice, covering the earth and bending the trees almost to the ground with its weight, doing great damage to forest, fruit and orna- mental trees, many of the limbs being broken. May 18, 1883, opened as a very mild day, with a strong southerly wind blowing, which, as the day wore on, increased in force, until about 4 o'clock P. M., when a light rain set in, but it ceased by nightfall. About 8 o'clock P. M., a heavy cyclone, which had seemingly been dip- ping down along the southern part of Morgan County and reaching over into Sangamon County, returned to the northern part of Mor- gan Connty, rising above the city of Jackson- ville, and again swaying to the earth completely destroyed the village of Literberry. Then it passed on into Cass County, taking a northeast- erly direction almost in the identical path of the cyclone of 1845, doing immeasurable dam- age to fences, barns, honses and ontbuildings and leveling and tearing up by the roots great stretches of timber through which it passed. No lives were lost in Cass County, although ten were killed and twenty-four injured at Lit- erberry. One family in Cass County had a very narrow escape. George W. Leonard, who now lives at Virginia, resided with his wife and one small boy on the William Melone farm in township 17, range 9. He also had a hired man living at his house, and it is to him that the family owe their escape. All had retired and Mr. Leonard was asleep when the peculiar and dreaded sound of the approaching storm was heard by the farm hand, who had previ- ously lived in Kansas, where he had passed through enough experience in cyclones to learn to heed at once the angry mutterings of that kind of storm. Jumping out of bed and get- ting himself into a few articles of clothing, he called loudly to the others of the household to run for the cellar. Mrs. Leonard, already aronsed by the thunder, threw some bed clothes around her, and Mr. Leonard, more asleep than awake, caught np the infant boy, and wrapping the child and himself in a bed-quilt, hurried with the others into the cave outside, which had served for a cellar, just in time to sit in personal safety and hear the roaring, frightful, hideons storm catch up his house and tear it into a million parts. It was hurled for miles over the prairie, together with everything in it. The storm left them with not even a stitch of
clothing, nothing to wear but the bed clothes wrapped about them. Nothing was ever recov- ered. This was the most disastrons wind storm within the memory of the oldest inhabitant of that time. The spring had opened propitiously for the farmers, and they were well along with the usnal spring work. Oats were growing splendidly, and corn was up from four to six inches. The next night after the cyclone, the temperature fell very low, with a heavy frost, which cut the corn to the ground, and killed all the garden vegetables that had been left unpro- tected.
HEAVY FLOODS AND HIGH WATER.
There have been a number of periods of extreme high water in Cass County, which have done great damage to persons and property. In 1826, the year in which Thomas Beard estab- lished the first ferry across the Illinois River, the Mississippi and Illinois rivers were higher than had been known for forty years. In 1828 the waters were very high and surrounded the Mound village, creeping close up to the foot of the great mound and flooding all the bottom: lands. Four years later the whole Mississippi valley was submerged; the river at St. Louis being 54 feet above low water mark. The great- est flood in this part of the country that has ever been recorded, as one person said who wit- nessed it, since the days of Noah, occurred in 1844. Every river west of the Alleghany moun- tains, and north of the Gulf of Mexico, seemed to rise simultaneously. More than 400 people were drowned, and many horses, cattle and other animals lost their lives. In the city of Beardstown the water was one foot deep on Main street, and the place became an island with water 10 feet deep between it and the bluffs on the east. Many towns and villages in the Mississippi valley were inundated and washed away. It was the most disastrous flood that had occurred in Illinois from its remotest history up to that time. The high water of 1844 has been a term of comparison for high stages of water ever since. The frequent recur- rence of the floods and high stages of water along the Sangamon, Illinois and Mississippi river bottoms has greatly retarded the develop- ment and improvement of the naturally fertile and valuable lands, but in .recent years many levees have been constructed which have pro- tected the lands from the dangers of an extraor-
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
dinary freshet, and the lands, under-drained by tiling, and surface-drained by open ditches, together with pumping stations, have been re- claimed, a wide expanse of splendid alluvial soil nnexcelled in prodnctiveness anywhere upon the globe. It is somewhat surprising to find upon investigation, how frequently since the settlement and platting of the city of Beards- town, that place, along with a great portion of the Illinois bottom, has been subject to high stages of water, and threatened with innnda- tion. Yet the energetic people of Beardstown have always met the emergencies with a judg- ment and courage that has prevented any serious damage to person or property. In 1849 the flooded condition of the river again brought the waters up to a level with Main street. The years 1852, 1856 and 1858, saw the waters rise almost as high as in any previous year. Often, in such stages of water, large steamboats passed upon the east side of the city. There have been a number of other floods and periods of high water extending from above Chandlerville along the Sangamon valley to Beardstown and on down the Illinois valley. At such times drainage ditches would overflow and levees give way, entailing thousands of dollars of loss upon the unfortunates who inhabited the low lands. The last, and the highest since 1844, occurred in April of 1913, when the waters rose to within a few inches of the high water mark of 1844, and, as indicated by the Meredosia gange. Of the twelve drainage districts in Cass County, there was not one but what suffered damage to its levees through their being washed away. In some places the lands were overflowed to a depth of 4 and 5 feet. There was not only great financial loss, by reason of the necessity for rebuilding the levees, and clearing out the ditches, but the farmers within these districts were unable to get in any crops until so late that year that they did not mature well, and were of little marketable value. Beardstown's
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