Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Edgar County, Part 125

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897. cn
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago : Munsell
Number of Pages: 876

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HISTORY OF EDGAR COUNTY.

which runs through the county from the northern boundary in a direct line, but not ex- actly south. This line was to have been true with the cardinal points, north and south, using the sun at 12 o'clock, noon, as a guide -- that being the Indian way; but the start was delayed until 1 o'clock, and thus the Govern- ment got more land than the Indians were paid for. That could be readily excused, however, as the Indians' title to any of the land was very shadowy.

The land east of what was called the "Boun- dary Line" was subject to entry, and the set- tlers came upon it as early as in the spring of 1817. The following were the first settlers of Edgar County: Aloysius Brown, John Stratton, Remember Blackman, William Whit- ley and Anthony Sanders. Blackman came from New York, Sanders from North Carolina and Brown, Stratton and Whitley from Kentucky. They were all farmers and went to work to plant and raise crops the year of their arrival. Some of them removed from the county later, but the lands entered by Remember Blackman are yet held by his lineal descendants, a num- ber of whom are among our best citizens. There came also, in the fall of 1817, Jonathan Mayo and B. B. Reynolds; so there were seven fami- lies in the neighborhood where these frontiers- men located during that year. In 1818, Augus- tus Boland, George and Dan W. Beckwith (the latter the founder of Danville, Vermilion County), Daniel Lane and William Reed came and joined the settlement made the year before. Boland was a Connecticut Yankee and a sol- dier of the War of 1812. Reed was also a soldier of that war, and became the first Sheriff of the county. Lane was a New Hampshire man; the Beckwiths were natives of Pennsyl- vania, but removed to Illinois from New York.

The next year the Rev. Joseph Curtis came from Ohio; Jacob Jones and Samuel Littlefield came from Maine; Lewis Murphy from Vir- ginia, and Benjamin and Thomas Van Houtin from New Jersey. They located in the neigh- borhood, expanding it for miles; the next near- est settler of that day being the "next neigh- bor," no matter how many miles intervened. In 1820 James M. Blackburn, John Lycan and Joseph Lowry came from Kentucky, William and James Murphy from Virginia, Alexander McDonald from Tennessee, Otis McCulloch and Alonzo Lapham from New York, and James Dudley from Massachusetts, still further en-

larging the settlement. The next year Dr. Earl Murphy joined his brothers, William and James, while John B. Alexander came from North Carolina and Nathaniel Morgan from Kentucky. These were the only "newcomers" for that year. In 1822 there were eight more, viz .: Rev. John W. McReynolds, Laban Burr, Hiram Newlon, Edward Wheeler, George Board, James Henley, James Lowry and John, Thomas and David Gillam. The Gillams came from In- diana, Burr and Wheeler from New York, Henly and McReynolds from Kentucky and Newlon from Virginia. In 1825 Rev. William J. Mayo and John Brown came to this settlement from Kentucky, Robert Scott from Ohio, William L. Wilson and Andrew G. Fitzgerald from North Carolina. In the next year Col. David A. Mor- rison, John Wilson, John Summerville and William C. Trimble came to this settlement from Kentucky, Jonathan and Sanborn Basford from Vermont, Sylvester Barker from New Hampshire, and William Hurst from Ohio.

In 1818-20, John Ray, John Elliott, Alexander Ewing, Arthur Forster, Thomas Wilson, Thomas Rhodes, James Eggleton, James Love and James Knight came from Kentucky and Tennessee, and formed a settlement in the southeast corner of the county on Sugar Creek. They came at different times during the years 1818, 1819 and 1820, and were there when Hall Sims arrived with Thomas Jones, his father-in- law, in 1821.

In 1822 Eleven Tucker and David Role came from Ohio, Andrew Ray from Tennessee, and, in 1823, Abner Lamb and Thomas Hicklin came from Kentucky and settled in the same neighborhood. In 1826 Solomon Trogdon came there from North Carolina.

The lands west of the "Boundary Line" were meanwhile made subject to entry and, in 1822, William Means, Adriel Stout, David Crozier and William Beard settled in the woods north of Paris. They were from Southern Ohio. Samuel Vance, a Virginian, and Smith Shaw, who came from South Carolina, located on land now within the city limits of Paris, the same year.

Charles Ives and George Redmon came also in Barnbrut 1822, and Thomas Jones, William Whitley and Civila us limer some others, heretofore mentioned as having Grandfait une settled east of the "Boundary Line," removed into this settlement. Mr. Vance having pro- cured the establishment of the county-seat on his land, this neighborhood grew more rapidly than any other in the county, and the new town

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HISTORY OF EDGAR COUNTY.

of Paris soon had a court house, a jail and a Sheriff, a postoffice and a store, with a Post- inaster who was also a merchant, a mill run by the muscular power of horses or oxen, and a miller, a tannery and a tanner, a blacksmith, carpenter and "all sorts of people."

Soon after the county was organized a set- tlement was made at Grandview, southwest of Paris a few miles, in the woodland adjoining the prairie, but it was not particularly distinc- tive, as by that time the woodland part of the county was being occupied rapidly and the population increasing every day and every- where, except in the prairie. Aric Sutherland, Thomas Carey, Col. Tom Smith, the Dudleys, Darnells, John P. Gano, W. K. Payne, the Tates, the Steeles, the Smiths and others, were among the arrivals of this period.

CHAPTER III.

EDGAR COUNTY ORGANIZED.

ACT OF ORGANIZATION ADOPTED, JANUARY 3, 1823- PREVIOUS GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS-BOUNDA- RIES AS DEFINED BY ACT OF INCORPORATION- ORIGIN OF THE NAME-FIRST ELECTION AND COUNTY OFFICERS-COUNTY SEAT LOCATED --- NOTABLE ELECTION OF 1824-EDGAR COUNTY VOTES OVERWHELMINGLY AGAINST THE INTRO- DUCTION OF SLAVERY.

Edgar County was organized as a municipal- ity in accordance with the act passed by the State Legislature, and approved, Jan. 3, 1823. Previous to the organization of the Territory of Illinois, a strip along what is now the east- ern border of the State, and comprising a part of the territory now included in Edgar County. was embraced in Knox County, which chiefly lay within the present boundaries of Indiana, the region west of the Knox County line falling within the limits of St. Clair County. Simul- taneously with the organization of the Terri- tory of Illinois, by proclamation of the Acting Governor, Nathaniel Pope, this whole region, from the western boundary of Indiana, was assigned to St. Clair County, which extended northward to the Canada line. The subsequent

political changes brought Edgar County terri- tory successively within the jurisdiction of the following named counties: Madison (1812-14) ; Edwards (1814-16) ; Crawford (1816-18); and, after the organization of Clark County, which occurred the same year as the establishment of the State Government in 1818, it became a part of that county, which then extended to Lake Michigan, and from which it was detached by the act of January, 1823. The boundaries of the new county, as defined by this act, were as follows: "Beginning on the State line between Indiana and Illinois, thence west so as to run through the center of Township 12, twenty-four miles; thence north twenty-seven miles to the line between Townships 16 and 17; thence east twenty-four miles, to the said State line; thence south to the place of begin- ning." The fifth section of the same act also provided that "all that tract of country west of Edgar County that is not attached to any other county, and all that tract of country north of the said Edgar County, to Lake Mich- igan, be attached to Edgar County." The dis- trict referred to on the west included what now constitutes Coles and Douglas Counties, and that on the north the counties of Vermilion, Iroquois, Kankakee and Will, together with Champaign (part of which was afterward embraced in Vermilion), Ford, and parts of Livingston and Grundy. The region north of the present northern boundary to the Illinois and Kankakee Rivers, fell within the jurisdic- tion of Vermilion County for judicial purposes on the organization of that county in 1826.

The act creating Edgar County appointed William Kinkade, John Houston and John Boyd Commissioners to locate the county-seat, with the provision that the proprietors of the lands selected for that purpose, should donate to the county not less than twenty acres in one square block, to be sold for the purpose of raising funds for the erection of county buildings; and that, until such buildings should be erected, court should be held in the house of William Murphy. The same act provided that Edgar, Crawford and Clark Counties should constitute a district for the election of State Senator, and Edgar and Clark a similar district for the election of Representatives in the General Assembly; also, that the first election for county officers-to consist of a Sheriff, Coroner and three County Commissioners-should be held on the second Monday of April following.

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HISTORY OF EDGAR COUNTY.

The county was named for John Edgar, who was an officer in the British Army in 1775. He married an American wife, resigned his commission, and cast his fortunes with the colonists in their determination and effort to be an independent nation. Because of his mil- itary antecedents, his wife, who was a rich res- ident of Philadelphia, disposed of her estate and they came to the far western frontier. They located at Kaskaskia, and, by virtue of their wealth and high character, became lead- ing citizens in every way. General Edgar engaged extensively in merchandising and mill- ing, and at one time was the wealthiest man in Illinois. He held various offices and was a Major-General of Illinois Militia. His resi- dence was the best in the State, and his hos- pitality was princely and boundless. When General Lafayette visited the United States in 1824-25, he came to Kaskaskia and was enter- tained by General and Mrs. Edgar in their handsome home in as grand style as he was anywhere in the republic.

The especial manner in which the county came to be named for General Edgar is only at matter of tradition. It is told that, when the General Assembly passed the act creating this county, Mrs. Edgar was at the capital and was given permission to name it, and she bestowed upon it her own name, saying, "My husband · gave this name to me; it is mine, and I give it to this new county-I name it Edgar."

Edward Coles was Governor of the State of Illinois at the date of the organization of Edgar County, and at the first election held on the second Monday of April, 1823, John B. Alex- ander, Elijah Austin and Charles Ives were elected County Commissioners, with official func- tions and powers quite like those of the pres- ent County Board. Jonathan Mayo had been appointed Recorder and Notary Public by Gov. Coles, and Clerk of the Circuit Court by Judge Wilson. ,Col. Mayo had to go to Clark County to qualify for these offices, after which he pro- ceeded to call an election and direct the qual- ification of the officers elect. Lewis Murphy was elected Probate Judge, and William Reed Sheriff. The County Commissioners chosen at this election organized by appointing Amos Williams Clerk of the County Court. The rec- ord shows that the first judicial act of the Court was upon the report of John Boyd and John Houston, Commissioners selected by the General Assembly of Illinois to locate the

county-seat. This report informed the Board that Samuel Vance had offered to convey to the county twenty-six acres of land, in a square block in Section One of Township Thirteen North, Range Twelve West of the Second Principal Meridian, on condition that the county-seat should be located thereon. The report was received and adopted, and an order was made locating the county-seat on the twenty-six acres named in said Section; the same to be in a square block, the center thereof to be a certain jack-oak tree blazed and marked "Paris;" the boundaries of said block to be by north and south, and east and west lines; Mr. Vance, the donor, to give bond for a deed in the sum of one thousand dol- lars; the deed to be made by April 15, 1823, and the land to be surveyed and platted in town lots before June 14, 1823, said lots to be sold at public vendue on the third Monday in June, and the town to be named "Paris." This name was proposed by Mr. Vance and accepted by the Court.

The County Court (or Board of County Com- missioners) at the same term divided the county into five political districts, or precincts, viz .: Pike, Fairfield, Wayne, Carroll and Rip- ley. These divisions were afterwards changed, by such alterations two additional districts being formed. The County Court had power to abolish and create precincts on its own motion, or on the petition of citizens requesting it to be done. These divisions seem to have been intended for election districts; yet the Court could designate a single location for two or more precincts and require the election to be held there.

At the June term, 1824, the Court ordered that the election in all the precincts, except Ripley, be held at Paris, by Smith Shaw, John Lycan and Williams Means acting as Judges. The area of this election district was greater than that of the county as it is now. This was a general election, and the General Assem- bly had directed that the question, whether or not a convention should be held to so alter the organic law of Illinois as to authorize negro slavery within the State, should be submitted to the people. Slavery had been excluded from the Territory of Illinois by the Ordinance of 1787, establishing a Territorial Government for the region north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi (see quotation from Article VI. of the Ordinance of 1787. on a preceding

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HISTORY OF EDGAR COUNTY.

page in this chapter), as well as by the Con- stitution of 1818 (Art. VI., Sec. 1), in language similar to that of the Ordinance, declaring that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servi- tude shall hereafter be introduced into the State, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."

This Constitution was not submitted to the people, but became the organic law of the State by the act of the convention and the act of Congress admitting the State, with the Con- stitution as adopted by the Convention. At the election, held August 2, 1824, there were 237 votes cast in Edgar County, all but three being against calling a convention to make Illinois a slave State. This almost unanimous expression of the electors of Edgar County against slavery, is the more significant in con- sideration of the fact that a large majority of the voters were born and reared in the slave States of Virginia, Kentucky and Ten- nessee.

CHAPTER IV.

THE PIONEER SETTLERS.

SOME OF THE EARLY SETTLERS-BIOGRAPHIES OF NOTABLE CITIZENS-THE ALEXANDERS, COL. J. M. BLACKBURN, THE SANFORDS, LEANDER MUN- SELL, COL. JONATHAN MAYO, AND GEORGE W. RIVES-EXAMPLES OF NOBLE MANHOOD-HAR!)- SIIIPS OF EARLY EMIGRATION, AND THE

CHANGES WROUGHT BY THE PIONEERS.

Among the early settlers of Edgar County, in addition to those already named, the more prominent were: General Milton K. Alexander, Washington Alexander, Abner Dill and his sons (Milton M., Solomon and John), Isaac Sandford, Hiram Sandford, John Camerer, Leander Munsell, Lawson Kimble, William B. Vance and Joseph Vance, Garland B. Shellody, Jonathan Young, Rev. John V. Bovell, the Whalens (Patrick and Michael), John Sheriff, the Tennerys (Thomas, James and Patrick), Elvis P. Shaw, the Hunters (John and Spen- cer K.), James Jones, William Metcalfe, Wil- liam Green, Paul Mullins, Thomas McCord, William Laughlin, George Moke, Sylvester

Barker, Thomas and James Pinson, R. B. Sutherland, Bennet Redmon, Michael Ogden, Michael O'Hair, John O'Hair, William Hanks, Martin Sizemore, James Parrish, John Par- rish, Peterson Yeargin, James Stewart, Wil- liam D. Marley, Firman James, Robert Brown, the Ogdens, the Laufmans, the Lycans, Henry Tompkins, Madison and William Johnson, Rob- ert Ray, George W. Rives, Robert N. Dickin- son, Jonathan Driskell, Hyslip Conkey, Col. Baldwin, James Gillespy, Reason Williams, Virgil Collins, Moss, Alexander Summerville, Daniel M. Triplett, John G. Lawrence, Isaac, Benjamin and David S. Curtis, Kelly Tucker, Osborn Tucker, Abraham Smith, Elijah Bacon, James Hannah, Samuel Scott, David Light, James Gaines, Stephen and Charles Parker, Thomas and Asa Littlefield, Matthew Jones, George W. Hawes, John McKee, Samuel McKee, William and Eugenio Hoult, Nathan Hartley, Joshua Garnes, Thomas Winn, Ensign Mitchell, Alvin K. Hildreth, Johnson, Abraham and Wil- liam Ross, Israel D. Sayre, John Chrisman, Horace Blanchard, William, William B. and Cornelius Shrader, Alexander Mann, Levi D. Gillis, Milton M. Burt, Richard Turley, John Shields, Joseph Hite, Edward Pinnell, W. O. Pinnell, J. R. Wilhoit, John Arterburn, William G. Culbertson, N. B. Stage, George and Jacob Harding, John Mayo, James and Jonathan McCown.

These men all helped to start this county on its way from a wilderness to its present proud position; and it may well be said of many of them, that they made their mark upon those early times in a way worthy to endure, and which is still to be seen. They were not all alike leaders. As it is now, and has ever been among mankind from the beginning, the few lead and the many follow. In frontier life, the men who lead are those who are equipped by nature for leadership, born to go before; and some are foremost in one way and some in another. A limited number may be mentioned here:

First in early prominence was John B. Alex- ander. He was born in 1765, near Charlotte, N. C., of Scotch-Irish parentage. While a boy during the Revolutionary War, he rode through the camp of Cornwallis' army on the way to mill, with corn to be ground for the making of bread. When twenty years of age he migrated to Georgia, where he married at twenty-one and remained until 1806, when he

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HISTORY OF EDGAR COUNTY.

removed to Tennessee, where he resided in several different localities until 1818. He then removed to Alabama and thence, in 1820, emi- grated to Illinois, where he settled in Novem- ber of that year on the Little Vermilion River, near where Georgetown is now. In the spring he established a store adjacent to the then recently platted town of Cambridge, afterward named Baldwinsville. The county was not yet organized and he was then a citizen of Clark County, of which he was elected one of the Commissioners. The seat of justice of Clark County was then located at Aurora, several miles southeast of Marshall, the present county-seat. Mr. Alexander was the first citi- zen of Edgar County to be elected to the State Legislature, being chosen Representative in the Fifth General Assembly, which convened at Vandalia on Dec. 4, 1826. Members of the Legislature, in those days, went to the State Capital on horseback and kept their horses there during the session. There were only two or three settlers on the trail which the member from the Edgar and Clark County District had to travel on his way to Vandalia-one near where Charleston now is, and one near where Shelbyville is situated; and if this early states- man missed these, he had to bivouac with the wolves and other wild beasts in the woods or on the prairie. At that session, Conrad Will, "the gentleman from Jackson County" for whom Will County was afterwards named, brought a "pack of hounds" with him for the accommodation of the members who loved the chase. Wolves and foxes were plenty, and he. would generally manage, some day during the week while the Legislature was in session, to capture two or three of these animals, bring them in alive and keep them until Sunday, when he would have a chase, and all the mem- bers who were so inclined could mount their horses and join in the sport.

Mr. Alexander was one of the first County Commissioners of the new county, as well as the first Postmaster in the county. In 1825 he returned to his farm on the Little Vermilion, where he resided a few years and then removed to Danville. He died in 1850. His career gave evidence of his manhood and the respect and confidence which his fellow frontiersmen reposed in him. He had twelve children and left many lineal descendants, some of whom were citizens of this county, whose traits were faithfully fashioned after their ancestor.

Milton K., a son of John B. Alexander, was born in 1796, in the State of Georgia, and removed with his father to Tennessee. In 1814 he was a Lieutenant under General Jackson in the Seminole war. He was married in 1819 to Mary A. Shields and, in 1823, came to Paris, built a double log-house on the premises now occupied as a residence by his daughter, Mrs. Angeline McMillan, and in one apartment of the building set up a store the first store in' Paris, but not the first in the county. He succeeded his father as Postmaster, was County Clerk, was Colonel of the regiment of Illinois militia, Aid-de-camp of Governor Reynolds and a Brigadier-General in the Black Hawk War. He was elected by the General Assembly a member of the first State Board of Commission- ers of Public Works, which inaugurated the system of internal improvements authorized by act of the Legislature of 1837. Mrs. McMillan now occupies, as her home, the house General Alexander built, in which he lived and where he died in 1856.

Col. James M. Blackburn, a Kentuckian, was one of the foremost men in all public enter- prises, and was equally to the fore in public and private charity and the promotion of relig- ious work. He was Colonel of a regiment in the Black Hawk War. He lived a long and useful life, and did as much to promote the early settlement of the county as any citizen, and knew as much of the hardships endured in the beginning. The first death among the settlers was that of a Mrs. Bledsoe, and Col. Blackburn went to Durkey's Ferry, on the Wabash River, a distance of fifteen miles, had a coffin made there and carried it to her home on his horse, that his neighbor might have decent Christian burial.

General Isaac Sandford and his son, Hiram Sandford, were prominent in all the business ventures of the times. Hiram became President of the first banking institution in the county, and was also a principal factor in the con- struction of the Paris & Danville Railroad, and in the extension of the same to Vincennes and Cairo. He sacrificed a large fortune in these enterprises, from which the people of the Wabash Valley along the line of that railway have received large benefits. He never seemed to regret this sacrifice of his large property interest, but remained the same clever, genial gentleman until his death in 1885. Edgar County received a larger favor from Hiram

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HISTORY OF EDGAR COUNTY.

Sandford than from any other citizen, when the pecuniary value of the favor is taken into account.

Leander Munsell was a man of great public spirit and liberality in every right way. He came to Paris from Ohio and engaged in mer- chandising, building, contracting and milling. He erected the first steam mill in the county just east of the original plat of the town of Paris, the first brick store-building in the town (now owned by Mr. Henry Henn) at the south- east corner of the public square, and the first court house in the square. He also built the court houses in Coles, Shelby and Macon Counties. He was a born leader of men, an ardent Whig in politics and a Methodist in his religious belief. His ideal of an American and a statesman was Henry Clay. When Mr. Clay was a presidential candidate in 1844, Mr. Mun- sell wagered the lot at the northeast corner of the square, where Jones' department store now is, with Bennett Redmon against $500, that Mr. Clay would be elected. When the wager was lost, Mr. Munsell conveyed the lot to Mr. Redmon and saved his honor. He never hesi- tated, after he had once entered into a con- tract, to consider whether it was technically valid or not, as he always intended to perform it anyway. The church suspended him for a time, either because he made the bet or because he lost it; but after a while his connection with the church was resumed; he was too manly a man and too fervid a Methodist to go elsewhere, when disciplined under the rules of the church which he had overstepped in his zeal for the political principles in which he intensely believed, as he did in their great champion, Henry Clay. He was a member of the first Republican State Convention held at Bloomington, May 29, 1856, and there proposed the name of William H. Bissell for the gov- ernorship. In 1861, when armed secession undertook the destruction of the Republic, Mr. Munsell devoted his influence and his purse to the preservation of the Union. He purchased material for the uniforms of the first company of volunteers raised in Edgar County, sent a tailor to Springfield to take the measures of the men, met the pecuniary expense of making the uniforms, and gave the Captain an ample purse for the use of the sick and needy of the company. During the war, while he lived, he took a leading part in supplying the wants of the families of the absent soldiers, making it

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Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Edgar County, Part 125

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897. cn Publication date: 1905 Publisher: Chicago : Munsell Number of Pages: 876

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897. cn
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago : Munsell
Number of Pages: 876