USA > Illinois > Cass County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Cass County, Volume II > Part 40
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DATE OF ORGANIZATION,
Philadelphia Precinct was organized Septem- ber 6, 1876, from the old precinct of Lancaster, which, up to that time, from a very early date, occupied the entire southeastern part of the county, but now was made into Ashland and Philadelphia precincts. The voting place of Lan- caster had been for a number of years at the Panther Grove schoolhouse, but now that two new precincts were formed, the voting places were changed from there to the town of Phila- delphia for the precinct of that name, and the voting place for Ashland was placed at the vil- lage of Ashland, although considerably away from the center of the territory. The first elec- tion judges for Philadelphia Precinct were Abra- ham Bailey, James Cunningham and John Mathis. These men were all highly respected citizens of their respective neighborhoods, and served as election judges for quite a number of years. They were all very early settlers.
With the exception of the northern part, the precinct is almost entirely prairie. In all prob- ability that was the reason it was not settled sooner. That accounts also for the polling place being placed at Panther's Grove schoolhonse, and
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
that it remained there until so late a day, as the southern part had but a scanty population.
PHILADELPHIA PLATTED IN 1836.
While Cass County was yet a part of Morgan County, Archibald Job and Charles Brady were appointed by the commissioners of Morgan County, school trustees for township 17 north, range 9 west, for the purpose of disposing of the school land, which consisted of section 16 ot that township, and after qualifying accord- ing to the law, they platted a tract of land in that section and called it the town of Philadel- phia. Their certificate bears date of July 9, 1836. By that time they had sold half of the lots in the little prairie town, Hon. Stephen A. Douglas having purchased a few. They were later sold for taxes. The town was never in- corporated, nor did it grow to any great extent. It hạd no schoolhouse until 1901, but in that year a very excellent building was erected on
the plat of ground set apart sixty-five years be- fore for a public park. When a postoffice was established in the precinct in which the town was located, it was not plaeed within the plat- ted ground, but at the residence of Dr. Samuel Christy, about one-halt a mile east of the plat, and was called Lancaster postoffice. When the precinct was divided and one part named Phila- deiphia, the postoffice went to the little cluster of houses upon the platted ground.
EARLY BUSINESS MEN.
Prior to the time the railroad came into and later passed on through Virginia, Philadelphia had a few stores and shops and did quite a lively business. In 1860 Joseph F. Black had a machine shop there, and Henry Bevis was a merchant, and from the very earliest time of the settlement of that neighborhood, there was al- ways a local physician until very recent days, but it is said that the advent of the telephone, the introduction of the automobile, and, in ac- cordance with modern ideas, characteristie of human nature to desire to have a city physi- cian, irrespective of knowledge of the same, or of expense, have finally resulted in shutting out entirely the country physician in many neigh- borhoods. An early merchant of Philadelphia was Miller McClane, who kept a general store in a log cabin on the present site of the name-
sake city of Brotherly Love, as far back as 1837. In the spring of the next year, while a public sale was in progress near McClane's store, a murder was committed by Nathan Graves, who shot a Mr. Fowle by the side of the store door, and in view of a number of persons. It was the first murder committed in Cass County after its organization, and its story is told in an early chapter of this book, dealing with the courts, bench and bar. This story, like all the other historical facts concerning this part of the county, is so interwoven with the other precincts that they have already been related, leaving lit- tle to be told of Philadelphia Precinct as an independent municipality.
There has been a blacksmith and general repair shop at Philadelphia for the greater part of the time of its existence. After the Spring- field and Illinois Southeastern Railroad came through and established a station there, it has maintained the semblance of a village. There are now two stores, and two grain elevators, and considerable business is done, a lot of grain and stock being shipped annually, these being the product of the surrounding farming country, which is equal to the best in the county. Phila- delphia is now listed as a station on the Balti- more & Ohio Southwestern Railroad, six miles from Virginia.
No church was built within the platted ground until 1869, when the Disciples church building was moved from Princeton to that place. Preaching services are occasionally held in the old church, but regular services have not been held for a number of years, even the Sunday school, formerly well attended and kept up in a flourishing condition, has now been practically discontinued. Yet Philadelphia Precinet con- tains a large number of intelligent, industrious and exemplary citizens. The day of the country church. except in the most remote districts, seems, like other things of the past, and the most of the people of Philadelphia are now associated with the city churches at Virginia or Ashland, which are easily accessible.
NO SALOONS.
Philadelphia, like all the country precincts in the county, is entirely without saloons, having voted itself free of them under the local option law immediately after its enactment.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
CHAPTER XXXV.
PRINCETON PRECINCT.
LOCATION - BOUNDARIES - SOIL - LITTLE INDIAN CREEK-AN EARLY GRISTMILL-VERY EARLY SET- TLERS-A PROMINENT FAMILY-TOWN OF PRINCE- TON PLATTED IN 1833-A POSTOFFICE, STORE AND BLACKSMITH SHOP IN 1826-OTHER ENTERPRISES -FIRST PHYSICIAN AND FIRST MARRIAGE-BUSI- NESS IN 1SGO-PRINCETON HOME OF NOTED MEN -CHARLES BEGGS-JUDGE CYRUS EPLER-REV. WILLIAM T. BEADLES-OWNS A MADSTONE-STORY OF THIS WONDERFUL STONE-PRINCETON VILLAGE NO MORE-VOTING PLACE AT LITTLE INDIAN- FIRST SCHOOLHOUSE DESTROYED BY A CYCLONE- CHURCHES-MISSIONARY BAPTIST-CHRISTIAN- PRESBYTERIAN - METHODIST - ZION CHURCH - ZION CEMETERY-TIME HAS WROUGHT CHANGES.
LOCATION.
Princeton Precinct lies on the south side of the county adjoining the Morgan County line, and occupies a part of the sontheast quarter of township 17 north. range 10 west, and the sonth- west quarter of township 17 north, range 9 west. Virginia Precinct lies on the west and north, and Philadelphia lies on the east and a small por- tion on the north. The soil is of prairie and timber land. in about equal parts, the timber slightly predominating. It has but one water way, that is Little Indian Creek, a northern tributary of Indian Creek. It is a small stream rising in the prairie about two miles east of the village of Philadelphia, and flows sonthwesterly through Princeton Precinct and out into Morgan County from about the center of section 34, township 17, range 10. On this little stream was erected one of the first grist mills in Cass County, which has been mentioned among the early industries in a previous chapter.
VERY EARLY SETTLERS.
A number of settlers came into this part of Morgan County as early as 1826, and soon quite a settlement was formed along the creek, from which it became known as Indian Creek settle- ment. Among those settlers were : Jesse Allard, Alexander Beard, William Conover, Nathan
Compton, Capt. Charles Beggs, Rev. John Bid- dlecome, George Bristow, Peter Conover, John Dorsey, John Epler, Thomas Gatton, Jacob Ep- ler, John Hiler, Jacob Lorance, Isaac Mitchell, Samuel Montgomery, James Stevenson, who, in 1829, brought five grown sons with him, Wesley, William, James, Robert and Angnstus; James Tilford. and a few others who came, remained a time and then sold and moved on, leaving none of their posterity, and so are forgotten. Most of these people were from Kentucky, although that was not the native state of all, for a few had gone there from Virginia, Maryland and other of the older states, and then a few had gone into Indiana and from there had come to Illinois.
A PROMINENT FAMILY.
James Stevenson, above mentioned, purchased a farm from Thomas Gatton, which he had en- tered in 1826, and which is one of the best farms in central Illinois, including both prairie and timber land. He remained on that farm nn- til 1851. when he died at the advanced age of seventy-four years. His son, William Stevenson, retained the old homestead, and there reared a large family, engaging extensively in farming and stock raising. of which previous mention has been made in the chapter on agriculture. He was born in Scott County, Ky .. December 25, 1813, and was sixteen years old when he came with his father to this county. This young man was one of the hardiest, most intelligent and energetic of the offsprings of the old pioneer stock. It is the fortune of but few men to live in one locality from the time of its creation as a state through its growth into that of third in population, and second to none in its progress and achievements in agriculture, stock raising, coal mining, manufactures and the building of railroads : the invention, use and great develop- ment of the telegraph and telephone systems, and all the stupendous expansion of great cities and vast commercial interests. He was not in any sense a politician, nor songht or held any political office, but as a voter he had actively participated in the varying political strife and upheavals in the nation for three-quarters of a century. He voted for Harrison for president in 1836, and voted at every election held in Cass County from the time of its organization in 1837 until the time of his death, which occurred March 18. 1909, when he was ninety-five years, three months and sixteen days old. He passed
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
away at the old homestead where he had resided for four score years. His son, Charles Steven- son, who married a granddaughter of John Epler, one of the old pioneers previously men- tioned, owns and lives on the old farm. This family represents the only descendant of the early settlers now remaining in Princeton Pre- cinct.
TOWN OF PRINCETON PLATTED.
By 1833 the mania tor laying out new towns all over the state had reached Indian Creek set- tlement, so a tract of land on the east side of the southeast quarter of section 36, township 17 north, range 10 west, was platted and called the town of Princeton. It was laid out on the west side of the highway that ran from St. Louis through Jacksonville northward to Fort Clark . On) Peoria Lake. There was already a small cluster of houses at that point. As early as 1826 there was a blacksmith shop and a general store kept by Mallory and Lewis. This was the first store in the part of Morgan County that later became Cass County. A postoffice had been es- tablished on July 26, 1826, and Eli Redding ap- pointed postmaster. By 1835 the village began to assume somewhat the appearance of a town ; there were two stores, a blacksmith and wagon shop, a school house, quite a number of resi- dences, a shoemaker and a tailor. The Mis- sionary Baptists had built a brick church. Two or three years later the Christian church built a new trame place of worship. Rev. John G. Bergen, who platted the town and filed his plat for record February 19, 1833, does not appear from any reliable data to have engaged in busi- ness at Princeton, but the Mallory store had changed hands several times, passing from Mal- lory and Lewis to Lewis, who, in 1834, sold to a man named Talmadge, who kept it but a short time and then sold to Parrot & Alcott. By 1840 Jacob Bergen, a cousin of the town proprietor, bought an interest in the store and continued it from the time that Mr. Alcott retired in 1840 until 1869. William Brown and William Kinner each had a store. Thomas Cowan had started a woolen mill or carding machine in 1834, and in 1836 John E. Haskell came from Maine and took charge of it. In 1840 Mr. Haskell moved the mill to Virginia. Clifford Wear was for a time a wagon-maker at Princeton, and in 1840 Wil- liam Brown was justice of the peace. Zirkle Robinson carried on a tailoring business.
FIRST PHYSICIAN AND FIRST MARRIAGE.
Prior to 1830 Dr. A. W. Elder had been a prac- ticing physician at Princeton, and married a daughter of Eli Redding, the postmaster. This is said to have been the first marriage of white persons in that part of Morgan, now' Cass County. Dr. George W. Goodspeed came and located at Princeton before going to Virginia. In 1800 the town had not increased in popula- tion in any great extent. In fact it was not so populous as it was back in the forties, and had the following business representatives : gen- eral merchants, Jacob Bergen and O. H. Flick- wer; merchant tailor, David Redpath; carriage and wagon maker, Hugh Elliott; physician, Dr. Robert Putman.
HOME OF NOTED MEN.
Old Princeton was the home and birthplace as well of some noted men in the history of Cass County. Among them, perhaps the most con- spicuous, was Capt. Charles Beggs, who has been casually mentioned in previous pages of this history. Charles Beggs was born in the most momentous period of the nation, October 30, 1775, in Rockingham County, Va., just eight months before the colonies declared their inde- pendence of Great Britain. His father, Thomas Beggs, went into the war that followed and died of camp fever in 177S. Charles Beggs grew to manhood in his native state and on August 1, 1797, was married to Dorothy Trumbo, and he and his young bride immediately set out for the new state of Kentucky to establish a home. The journey was made on horseback, the usual mode of travel of that day. Their route lay up the valley of Virginia, then down through the valley of the Tennessee, on through the Cumberland Gap and trom thence over the Boone trail to the county of Jefferson, where they settled and began the foundation of a permanent home. So thoroughly did he detest the evil of slavery, which he found on every side, that after a year in his new home, he resolved to cross the Ohio River into the Northwest Territory, which had been granted by his native state to the general government, and dedicated to freedom. He settled in Clark County, Ind., but was just barely located in his new home when he was sent as a delegate to the convention at Vincennes, called to form a constitution for the new territory of Indiana. There he met William Henry Harri-
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
son, who had been appointed governor of the new territory. They became close friends, and fought together in the famous battle of Tippe- canoe. Charles Beggs commanded a company of cavalry. He continued to live in Indiana long enough to see it become a state, was a member of its legislature, and by act of that body was appointed a commissioner for locating the connty seat of Clark County that was named Charles- ton in his honor. That was in 1806 and it has continued the county seat ever since. There he remained twenty-eight years, and when he was fifty-four years old concluded to move to Illi- nois. He came here in 1829 and located abont one mile west of Princeton, where he lived for forty years, dying on October 21, 1869, and is buried in the little cemetery adjoining the Zion church in Princeton Precinct. He had reached the age of ninety-four years, eleven months and twenty-one days.
Among those born at Princeton who attained to honorable position and distinction in life, was Cyrus Epler, a son of John Epler, who be- came a circnit judge, which position he held for twenty-four years, a greater portion of that time presiding over the Circuit court of Cass County.
William Epler, a brother of Judge Epler, while living in Nevada, where he had been a United States land and mineral surveyor, was a mem- ber of the first constitutional convention of Ne- vada. James M. Epler, a consin of these two, became an able lawyer and a member of the legislature from Cass County, and a state sell- ator from Morgan County.
George Conover, president and for a number of years cashier of the Petefish, Skiles & Co.'s bank of Virginia, is another Princeton man. John J. Bergen, for twenty years a leading mer- chant of Virginia, and for eighteen years cashier of the Centennial National Bank of that city, was born at Princeton.
There was also another who, although not born at Princeton, was brought here in childhood, and here grew to manhood, Rev. William T. Beadles, who became a Methodist minister and was made the presiding elder of the Quincy District, and is now chaplain of the Soldiers and Sailors Home at Quincy. His father died when he was small and his mother, MIrs. Lurena Beadles, who was born in old Virginia. came with others in an early day to the famous Illinois country. She will be remembered by the older residents now living who are acquainted with the people of Princeton, as the possessor of a "mad stone,"
which was used for the treatment of wounds caused by bites of rabid animals or poisonous reptiles. -
STORY OF THIS WONDERFUL STONE.
This stone has quite an interesting history, and particularly so as its record is not merely tradi- tional. bnt is well anthenticated by creditable witnesses. Mrs. Beadles' maiden name was Miller, and her family lived in Virginia prior to the Revolutionary war. An Englishman, who had been a great traveler, came ont to the new world shortly prior to that war, and reached Virginia. He was stricken with a severe illness in the vicinity of Jamestown, and was cared for and nursed through his attack by Mrs. Beadle's grandmother's family. Among ; other things which he gave the family in token of his grati- tnde was a "mad stone," one of several he had obtained while traveling through India. He said the natives called them "serpent stones," and ex- plained the efficacy and manner of nsing them in cases of the infliction of wonnds by the bite of rabid animals or snakes. In 1838, when the family was separating, the stone was severed into four parts, and given thus to the children. One of these parts fell to the mother of Mrs. Beadles. and was by her given to another dangh- ter. In 1858 that daughter gave it to her sis- ter. Mrs. Beadles, who retained it until 1SS0, when, having grown quite old. and not being any longer able to make use of it, she gave it to her son, Rev. W. T. Beadles. He kept it nntil the spring of 1914, when he gave it to his son, Dr. R. O. Beadles, of Ashland, Ill. There may be a number of persons yet living who were treated by application of the stone, as it was not an infrequent thing to happen that persons were bitten by the prairie rattlesnakes, for they were very numerous in the early days of old Prince- ton. Rev. W. T. Beadles testifies of his own knowledge. that of the great number of cases of its application it never once failed to cure. One special case he recalls that while he was pastor of the Methodist church at Potomac, Ill., he applied it to a wound caused by the bite of a rattlesnake. Other usual remedies had failed, and though the patient seemed to be suffering greatly, it counteracted the poison and a com- plete cure was brought about. The constituent elements of the stone are unknown, but whatever they are they seem to have the power to with- draw from the flesh and absorb the poison.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
There are too many well authenticated cases of cures to admit of any doubt of the power of this stone to perform its wonderful work.
PRINCETON VILLAGE NO MORE.
Old Princeton has disappeared from the map. The building of the railroad through from Vir- ginia to Jacksonville, in 1869, and the running of a line two miles west of Princeton, settled forever the question of its future as a town. The plat was vacated April 31, 1875. No other town or village was ever platted in the pre- cinct, though there is a station and postoffice known as Little Indian, on the Chicago, Peoria & St. Louis Railroad, but this is only a way sta- tion, with a store, and at present an elevator. John Asplund has had a wagon, blacksmith and repair shop at Little Indian from the time the station was established. No town lots were ever platted, and it has been a struggle between the people of that neighborhood and the railroad company to keep this station maintained. The voting place for Princeton Precinct is at the Lit- tle Indian station, having been placed there by the county board after the abandonment of the town of Princeton. It is five miles south of Virginia, and within a half mile of the Morgan County line. Many car loads of cattle and hogs, and large quantities of grain are annually shipped from this station.
The first schoolhouse in the precinct was the Walnut Grove school on section 25, township 17, range 10, and was built in 1833. It was used for school purposes until destroyed by a cyclone in the summer of 1845.
CHURCHES.
The first church was that of the Missionary Baptists, erected at Princeton in 1835. Three years later a Christian church was built and remained until 1869, when it was taken to Phila- delphia Precinct. The Presbyterian church was organized in 1830, but occupied a large barn on the Jacob Lorance farm until about 1835, when it used the brick schoolhouse which was erected near where the schoolhouse known as the Zion school stood until recently, that is just south of the present Zion Church building. Som years later a Methodist society was established and a union church was erected. It is the one now in use, on the northwest corner of section 36, township 17, range 10. There is a small 15
cemetery adjoining the church lot on the south which is known as Zion Cemetery, and in it lie many of the first settlers of that historic com- munity. About 1880 a Swedish church was built near Little Indian station in the northwest part of section 35, township 17, range 10, but no regular services have been held for a long time.
TIME HAS WROUGHT CHANGES.
When the Three Mile Strip of territory was added to Cass County from Morgan County, it was divided by a line north and south about the center east and west, and the west part called Arenzville Precinct, and the eastern half called Princeton, with the voting place at the town of Princeton. Many changes have taken place since then, and not one voter now remains who first cast his vote in Cass County at Old Prince- ton. Scarcely anything remains about the old site to indicate its early prospects of becoming an inland city. The schoolhouse and church are gone, the pioneer settlers have for years been mouldering in the little graveyards, the second generation sleep by their side, or are scattered to the four corners of the earth. The third generation moved away, leaving only strangers to read the meager history of the hardy race in the simple epitaphs upon their crumbling tombstones.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
RICHMOND PRECINCT.
SITUATION - BOUNDARIES - EARLY POLITICAL AC- TIVITIES-LUCAS PRECINCT THE ORIGINAL NAME -CHANGED TO RICHMOND - THREE WATER COURSES - MIDDLE CREEK-CLEARY'S CREEK- PANTHER CREEK - VARIETIES OF SOIL - MUCH WEALTH AMONG THE FARMERS-EARLIEST SET- TLERS-THEIR DESCENDANTS-BIG SNOW RE- CALLED-TOBACCO AND COTTON ONCE GROWN EX- PERIMENTALLY-SCHOOL DISTRICTS-CHURCHES -BAPTIST-METHODIST EPISCOPAL-CEMETERIES - NO VILLAGES - PRECINCT POLLING PLACE - SHICKSHACK KNOB.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
SITUATION.
Richmond Precinct was a voting precinct of Morgan County before any part of that county was ent off to form Cass County. It occupies the extreme northeast corner of the county and is bonnded on the north by Mason Connty, sep- arated by the Sangamon River ; and on the east by Menard County, separated by the middle line dividing range S, the western half of this range lying in Cass Connty. The precinct was called Lucas before it became a part of Cass County, and was treated to the disconrtesy of having its vote rejected on the question of forming the new county of Cass, at the vote taken in April, 1837. The precinct of Lucas had voted against the formation of the new county ; not that the voters of that part of the county did not want a new county, or desired to remain a part of Morgan County, for they were in the farthest part of Morgan from the county seat, but because the act of the legislature had not included within the boundaries of the proposed county the south half of township 17, which they, with others, had petitioned for. The Jacksonville promoters of the proposition hoped that if the county conld be created with the boundaries offered in the bill presented for ratification, that then they would be forever secure as a connty, and also retain the Three Mile Strip, so would not permit the vote of Lucas to be counted. The rejection of that vote, together with the vote of Meredosia, another remote precinct, decided in favor of the creation of the county of Cass, and Lucas, with the rest of the north end of the county had to submit. When the new county officers were elected for Cass County, in August, 1837, and met soon after, one of the first things the connty commissioners did was to create new voting pre- cincts, one of which was Richmond, made out of the old precinct of Lucas with some territory added, and to it they gave the name of an em- bryo town which had been platted and staked along the banks of the Sangamon River by a man named Thomas Wynn, who cherished the fond hope that in a short time the Sangamon River would be cleared of its brnsh and fallen timbers, and would be navigated by numerous steamboats from Beardstown to Springfield. With this optimistic view in mind, he had caused a board to be erected upon the bank of the river, on one of the river front lots of New Richmond, bearing the legend, "Landing for Boats," but a freshet came and washed away
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