Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Edgar County, Part 126

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

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his business personally to attend to such mat- ters with a patriotic heart and a liberal hand. His right hand did many an act of purest char- ity of which his left hand knew nothing. Fre- quently were baskets, filled with food and clothing, left by him at the homes of soldiers' families in a way to leave them piously to guess that may be the good Lord had placed them there which He had, by the hand of this good man, His servant.

Col. Jonathan Mayo was a man of very supe- rior strength, and built on a large plan, both mentally and physically. He was here at the beginning and had much to do with organizing the county-in fact, more than any other man. He had fine executive ability and a memory of sufficient capacity to hold whatever was worth keeping, and his head held a more complete history of Edgar County, from the advent of the first settler up to the date of his death, than can be written now by any man. He was very rigid in his predilections, religious and otherwise, and his intellectual outfit was good enough for a United States Senator.

George W. Rives was a Virginian who came to Edgar County at an early day. He was an adroit politician, held the office of County Clerk, was appointed Internal Revenue Assessor by President Lincoln, was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1847, and of the General Assembly of 1849 and again a Repre- sentative in 1871.

The foregoing biographical sketches indicate the class of manhood possessed by the early settlers of Edgar County. In those days, when the only ways of going west-as such emigra- tion was called throughout the Eastern States -was on foot, on horseback, in wagons or in boats by the Ohio, Wabash and Mississippi Rivers-each way and every route fraught with peril and abounding in all sorts of hardships- it required manhood of heroic mold to become an early settler in Edgar County; and the lives of many of them are well worth knowing. When they came here they found this area a wild wilderness, with all that that term implies; when they left to go to their long homes, it was the fit abode of the nineteenth century man and woman, convenient and beau- tiful, abounding in everything needful for human happiness and civilized life on this planet. No generation of men is more deserv- ing than the one that was first here. This gen- eration owes to them a debt it can never repay,

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HISTORY OF EDGAR COUNTY.

except by an excellence of citizenship commen- surate with their heroic endeavor and accom- plishment.

CHAPTER V.

FAUNA AND FLORA.

EDGAR COUNTY LANDS-AREA AND SOIL CHARAC. TERISTICS-REAL ESTATE VALUES, PAST AND PRESENT-PROGRESS OF EIGIITY-EIGHT YEARS -- PRAIRIE AND TIMBER LANDS COMPARED-AGRI. CULTURAL PRODUCTS-LOCAL STREAMS-GEO- LOGIC FEATURES-EFFECTS OF GLACIAL ACTION- COAL DEPOSITS-WILD ANIMALS-FRUITS AND CLIMATIC CONDITIONS.

The exact area of the county is difficult of ascertainment, as there are many fractional sections and subdivisions of sections, owing in part to the diagonal line called the "Boundary Line." By a count of sections, however, a fairly close estimate may be made, which gives six hundred and forty full sections-amounting to about four hundred and ten thousand acres of land. The county is not an exact square, tlie southwestern and northern boundaries not being on direct lines. The length within the county from north to south, on a straight line, is about twenty-seven miles, and its width from east to west twenty-four miles. By changes made in the boundaries since the passage of the act of 1823 organizing Edgar County, Vermil- ion County projects beyond the main north line of Edgar, near the northeast corner of the county, in a way to look as if the two counties were fastened together by what, in carpentry, is called a "dovetail." This queer connection is not explicable by any record. Effort has been made to correct this line, but without avail, owing to complications involving land titles, etc. The south line is direct, except for a "jog" of two hundred rods in the section line where the "Boundary Line" crosses into Clark County. The east line is direct, being identical with the line dividing the States of Illinois and Indiana. The western boundary is straight except for the northern six miles, where Douglas County projects east a mile and three-quarters beyond the main boundary line.

The aggregate value of the real estate in

Edgar County is a large sum. Estimating the area of the county at 410,000 acres, and divid- ing it between woodland and prairie, as it was originally, a fair division on that basis would give 310,000 acres of prairie and 100,000 acres of woodland. The values of prairie and timber land differ a good deal, when averaged. The prairie lands are worth an average of $125 an acre or an aggregate of $38,750,000 for the whole county, while the woodland would not amount, perhaps, to more than $60 per acre, or a total of $6,000,000-making the total value of farm lands in the county about $44,570,000. The real estate within the cities and villages in Edgar County, when there is added thereto the real estate belonging to the railroads within the county, at a fair valuation would increase the aggregate of real estate values in the county to the sum of at least $48,000,000.

The original value of the 410,000 acres of land in this county was about one-half million dollars, as it passed into the hands of the first purchasers from the Government. The first entry of land was in 1816, eighty-eight years ago. Ine government price was $1.25 per acre, or $50 for each forty-acre tract. The greatly increased value of real estate, since that period, was not supposable by those originally purchas- ing from the Government. Then all human affairs moved at a very slow pace, and often would be at a standstill for years at a time. All sorts of property owned by the early inhab- itants was proportionably as cheap as the land, and there was nothing to indicate the rapid progress of events in the future, or any great appreciation in values. If any one had pre- dicted what has already been realized, and is now looked upon as an every-day matter of fact, he would have been lucky to have remained on the outside of a lunatic asylum.

Whoever resides in Edgar County has the luck to live in one of the very best counties in the Mississippi Valley, which, in the superla- tive degree, is the agricultural region of the world-none better on earth. Edgar County is far and away above the average in this great valley, placed as it is in the midst of the farm- ing district, known throughout the Western Hemisphere, and much of the Eastern, as the "Corn Belt" -- a region which excels all others in the production of Indian corn, that cereal upon which a man can not only subsist himself, with his wife and children, but also feed to fattening all his farm animals.

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HISTORY OF EDGAR COUNTY.

The boundaries of Edgar County embrace six hundred and forty square miles of territory -- or four hundred and ten thousand acres- maybe something more, not less. When the early settlers entered this region they found it consisting of prairie and timber land, about in the proportion of three acres of prairie to one of timber-the prairie all fine and fertile and good enough for the gods to look upon or dwell in, and much of the timber land as good as the 'prairie for all agricultural purposes, when the woods were cleared away. The prairie was then covered with native grass, the lux- uriant growth of which, during the summer season, would hide a horse and embarrass his rider as they laboriously traversed it on errands of business, or in pursuit of the buf- falo and other wild game with which the nat- ural pastures abounded. Every autumn the rich summer crop of grass was consumed by prairie fires, and thus the hindrance to the fresh growth of grass the next spring was removed, the spread of woodland was impeded. and the extent of the prairie perpetuated and sometimes extended.

The early settlers "took to the timber" with much unanimity; partly, perhaps, for real, and partly for imaginary, reasons. They all came from localities abounding in timber, and were accustomed to frontier methods of construct- ing dwellings and other buildings from such material; generally needing no tools but an axe and an auger, in the construction of a house which would be a complete and comfort- able abode in all seasons, would endure for & century and require but small effort and little skill to make of it a veritable castle for the proprietor in case of assault by those eager and apt enemies of the frontiersmen, the Indians. Then the ready procurement of fuel was an important problem in those days, and was most easily solved by settling in the timber. "Log cabins," these border homes were called, and log cabins they were: rough and rude, many of them, but in them was bred and born a gen- eration of men and women who did more to make this country, and to save the Republic in the time of its greatest peril, than any of their successors may ever hope to accomplish. There was an air of solidity and sincerity about the log cabins of the early settlers, which betokened the nature of those who dwelt in them, and told a tale of sturdy self-reliance

and of an excellent, robust and enduring man- hood and womanhood.

Beside the conveniences of settlement in the woodland in those early days, were also the inconveniences of life in the prairie, among which were that the plows of that time were not a facile success in turning the prairie soil upside down for the planting of crops, and that in years of much rainfall, the natural drainage being insufficient, the crops were drowned out. There was also a fly of pestiferous breed, which swarmed in this region without number and with an insatiable thirst for blood, and being equipped by nature to procure it from all ani- mals used in farming, by their persistent and bloody attacks were capable of rendering the animals frantic, and the cultivation of a crop by ordinary methods well-nigh impracticable. And, then, the first settlers were inclined to avoid the prairies for hygienic reasons. They believed them to be unhealthy as places of abode, abounding in malarial conditions and unfit for the habitations of mankind.

.The prairie was regarded as a treeless and expansive waste, saturated with water until it was too wet for cultivation, the home of insects and reptiles, and the grass which it produced only fit for consumption by fire. This was the view of the early settler. Then these lands had no merchantable value: but changes have occurred, and now they are in brisk demand and worth from $100 to $175 per acre. The prairie soil is rich in all the elements needful for the production of all the cereals and grasses grown in this latitude and in com- mon use among mankind-its specialties being corn, oats and blue grass, which is the natural successor of the prairie grass. The wild plant, when not too luxuriant, furnishes good pastur- age and makes excellent hay; but it is as untamable as the Indians who chased the deer and buffalo over it, before it was trodden by the feet of the white man and his tractable herds. It was soon extinguished by the tramp of civilization, and the more useful tame blue grass took its place, as the untamed red man is succeeded by the civilized pale face.

The topsoil (or loam) of the Edgar County prairie is very dark, often to a depth of sev- eral feet, while next beneath is a stratum of clay of a yellowish gray color, usually abound- ing in pebbles of lime formation and frag- ments of mussel shells, which are a constant aid to the fertility of the soil. The lands bor-

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HISTORY OF EDGAR COUNTY.

dering upon the prairie usually produced a heavy growth of timber; there the early set- tlers found large trees of several varieties- white and black walnut; white, black, yellow and red oak; white and black ash; and maple, commonly called sugar trees-all of great use in those days in every way except for market. For that purpose it had no value, and it was destroyed without stint or care, only to be rid of it, and get it out of the way. Now, at the present prices of land and timber, this timber, as the pioneers first beheld it, would be worth more than the lands upon which it grew.

These woodlands are gently undulating, the soil being of a brown, friable clay, and very productive of all kinds of the grain and grasses that grow in this region, the specialties being wheat and blue grass. Such is the quality of most of the woodlands of this county. There is an area of perhaps ten thousand acres, in the south central part of the county, which is low and level, once known as "the wet woods" -flat as the prairie and well nigh as produc- tive, if managed skilfully-which was once heavily covered with the several varieties of oak trees, chiefly jack-oak however. The "creek bottoms," as the low-lands alongside the streams are called, are as good as any other, except for the inconvenience resulting from irregularities of surface of these tracts and the occasional overflow of the streams. There is no waste land in the county, even "the breaks" along the water courses being well adapted to blue grass pasturage where it is not easily tillable.

The prairie lands comprise what might be called the northwest three-fourths of the county, the southern boundary of this district commencing near the southwest corner of the county, and extending thence east in a tor- tuous way, the prairie sometimes jutting into the woodland a mile or more, until it reaches the east line of the county six miles north of the southeast corner. There are timber tracts along the streams which flow through the prairie, those on Brouillett's Creek and its trib- utaries comprising perhaps ten thousand acres, while there are lesser tracts of woodland, viz .: Mulberry Grove, Big and Little Hickory Groves, Culver's Grove and Pilot Grove. The presence of these groves in the very midst of the prairie, away from the water courses, seems inexplicable; not more so, however, than the bunches of thick growth of sassafras, in cir-

cular form, a few rods in diameter, here and there in the prairie not far from the woodland. These groves are of small trees and only use- ful to beautify a landscape, which, except for such decoration, would be cheerless on account of its monotony.

While Edgar County is in the valley of the Mississippi, it also constitutes a part of the Wabash valley, and its waterways are trib- utaries of the Wabash River. The configura- tion of the surface of the county is such that about three-fourths of the unabsorbed rainfall flows into the Wabash River quite directly, by way of Brouillett's Creek, Sugar Creek and Big Creek; and one-fourth, by way of the Catfish and Brushy Fork, into the Embarras River, and thence by that tributary, in a roundabout way, into the Wabash. Brouillett's Creek is the nat- ural main drain for the northeast third of the county. The lands drained by it are generally prairie, its tributaries reaching beyond the northern boundary and far toward the west. Along the banks, as the stream nears the east side of the county, there were a few heavy timber tracts. The name is French. The stream flows into the Wabash in Vigo County, Ind., above Terre Haute, and was named when the French occupied that region in "the long ago." Sugar Creek drains less than one-third of the county, in the south central and south- eastern part, as it meanders through the wood- lands southeast of Paris. This is an excellent scope of country. The stream derived its name from the forests of sugar maple through which it flowed, after it left the prairies in which it has its source. Big Creek drains the south- western portion of the county, perhaps an eighth of it, much of its watershed being prairie, its affluents reaching north into the fine lands about Grandview and west of that vil- lage. As this stream approaches the southern boundary of the county, it runs through an undulating area, and when a heavy downpour occurs, it will "get full" suddenly; hence the name "Big Creek." The Catfish has a well- defined natural channel, but is a stream with a slow current. It furnishes an outlet for the drainage of thousands of acres of fine lands. and passes out of the county near the middle of the western border, entering into Coles County. Brushy Fork is also a prairie stream, the channel of which was a mere depression in the surface of the earth, called a "swag" by prairie people a word not used exactly accord-

631

HISTORY OF EDGAR COUNTY.

ing to the dictionary definition, but denoting a water-way which moves slothfully over the prairie sod, or percolates through it to the run- ning stream which is its outlet-in other words a "slough." An artificial channel has been made for this stream, which is deep and ample enough to make it a sufficient outlet for a large area, once comparatively worthless because it was generally submerged many months each year. In this big "swag" willows grew in many places, and being a tributary of the Embarras River, it was called Brushy Fork.

In the forests of Edgar County the early set- tlers found in primitive profusion all kinds of hard-wood that are found anywhere in this latitude. These included all the varieties of the oak, ash and walnut, and from these the earlier improvements in the way of buildings and fences were made, from the log cabin and rail fence to the more elegant dwellings, barns, etc., and the more sightly plank fence. There were also the sugar trees, from which maple sugar and syrup were made to last the year round; the beech, hickory, poplar, linwood. cottonwood, sycamore, sassafras and mulberry ; red and white elm; honey locust and coffee- trees of stately size; and of lesser growths, there were birch, ironwood, dogwood and crab- apple, the pawpaw, plum trees, hazel-bush and wild grapevines. Owing to the fertility of the soil there was not much open woodland. Wilń fruit abounded, especially where the woodland met the prairie; there were grapes, blackber- ries, dewberries, strawberries, plums and black haws, and, as if nature knew the sweet tooth of mankind, there was a wealth of wild honey to be had by going for it.

The country abounded in game. The buffalo had gone prior to the advent of the first set- tlers, yet not so long but that the skeletons of those last slaughtered by the Indians, or which had died otherwise, were still sound and bright, where their living owners had left them. Deer were plenty, as were wild turkey, squirrels and rabbits. In the streams fish were waiting for the hungry or for the sporting angler. Bear and wild hogs were too scarce to be counted on; yet such game existed within the county, and was sometimes killed by the dill- gent hunter.

There were also wild animals of the "baser sort." There was a superfluity of wolves, an occasional panther and bob-cat, many foxes,

skunks, opossums, raccoons, mink, muskrats. weasels, and all "the push" of unworthy animal life which lives in this latitude, including snakes-"rattlers," yellow and brown; copper- head and black racer-all bad since the fall of Adam, and especially obnoxious to the early settlers, who were, almost to a man, squarely and severely orthodox in their religious views.

There is nothing in the lands of Edgar County which is- special or distinctive, when considered geologically. In common with the other lands of this belt of the valley of the Mississippi, this county is within the scope of glacial action; and the land, as we see it, is supposed to be the result of ages of glacial work-i. e., the conveying of vast masses of soil-or the materials of which soil is made from the frozen North into this latitude, where solar heat melted whatever was meltable, the solid matter being left while the fluid ran away to the sea, which, at that period, was much nearer this region than it is now. In that age it is the opinion of geologists that the sea extended as far north as where Cairo is now. It is also supposed that this creation of land was assisted by a process of elevation, oper- ated from beneath the earth's surface, or, per- haps, by the shifting of the axis of the earth, or the relative position of the earth towards the sun and other planets. All this is "guess work," of course; but nothing better than a wise guess is obtainable, and these theories are reasonable and are supported by such testi- mony in nature as convinces the learned in. geology, and upon which they rest their opin- ions. Big boulders are found here and there in the prairie, which are not natives of this region, and there have been Mastodonic remains discovered in several places.

There has not been much investigation of the subterranean sort in Edgar County, and there is a plentiful lack of information as to what is underneath the surface in the county. Excavations have been made, however, in many places, which reveal the formations to a depth of thirty or forty feet. Below the top soil, which is from ten to twenty feet thick, is a blue clay of unknown thickness. Within that stratum is found a copious supply of excellent water. There are occasional gravel beds, mostly in the woodlands; but gravel is found in some places in the prairie, especially where the land is somewhat undulating, in quantities available for making graveled roads.

632

HISTORY OF EDGAR COUNTY.

That bituminous coal exists under the sur- face, in Edgar County, is very certain. A coal mine is being operated in the county near the east line. The excavation for the shaft is one hundred and twenty feet deep, and the vein is over four and a half feet thick, of good, clean coal and much used for fuel in Paris. Another vein over six feet thick lies below the first vein some three hundred feet.

There is stone in the towns of Paris, Hunter and Ross-a limestone not suited for building, but affording good material for making roads.

Usually water, in ample supply, is found within a few feet of the surface, but in a few localities it has to be sought much deeper. There are some springs, but they are neither many nor copious.

The prairie, which was absolutely treeless, except the groves to which allusion has been made, has now the appearance of cleared and improved woodland. Fruit and ornamenta! trees and hedges have been planted so exten- sively all over the county, that, notwithstand- ing the clearing of the woodland, there is really more growing wood in the county now than when the first settlers began to clear their farms. Orchards of apple, peach or pear trees grow to bearing very soon; but the trees are not robust, and are generally of few years and full of the troubles to which fruit trees are subject in this latitude. This area, evidently, was never intended by nature as a fruit-pro- ducing region. There are meteorological hin- drances "too numerous to mention." It is too far north, or too far south. It is too high, or too low. The climate is unfavorable-too unsteady. If the winter is mild, the trees will begin to prepare for a crop of fruit and the spring frosts will catch it; but if the winter is cold, there is danger from the later blizzards. The altitude is only five hundred feet above sea level in this part of the Mississippi valley, and the cold waves, which start from the North, are Iiable to rush around over the Northern States from November till May, naturally seek- ing low altitudes. These waves too often find this locality-the altitudes being higher both east and west-and travel through it with tre- mendous rapidity, frequently lowering the mer- cury in the thermometer fifty degrees in a few hours. The people here are compensated, how- ever, for the discomforts, disappointments, and losses occasioned by the sudden and severe changes in the temperature. The freezing and

thawing of the surface of the earth is good for the soil; makes it friable and easy to culti- vate, and adds to its fertility and productive- ness.

CHAPTER VI.

INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS.

MANY EARLY PIONEERS DRIFT TO THE FAR WEST- ARRIVAL OF A NEW CLASS FROM THE OLDER STATES-LACK OF MARKET FACILITIES BEFORE THE ADVENT OF THE RAILROAD-A PERIOD OF DEPRESSION - THE CIVIL WAR - BENEFICIAL EFFECT OF UNDER-DRAINAGE OF FARM LANDS- MODERN METHODS OF CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL AND HARVESTING CROPS DESCRIBED-COMMODI- OUS FARM BUILDINGS AND OTHER IMPROVE- MENTS.

Many of the first settlers of the county were infatuated with frontier life because of the larger freedom that belongs to it, viz .: the wide range for domestic animals; abundance of game; white neighbors not near enough to be in the way-with now and then a band of Indians in sight; therefore, they removed to the Far West beyond the Mississippi. Also many were drawn over the mountains to the Pacific coast by the golden allurements of 1849 and '50. But a steady stream of immigration from the older States flowed in, and not only made up for all such removals, but also rapidly increased the population and wealth of the county. All the lands had been acquired from the Government before any one could come into the county by railroad. When the St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute Railway was constructed through the county in 1855, the population numbered more than 10,000, and the aggregate value of property was more than $2,000,000. The county subscribed for $100,000 of the stock of that railroad company and paid for the same within a few years, the growth of the county in population and wealth in the meantime mak- ing the burden easy on the people. Such growth had been strong and steady, from the first set- tlement in 1817 up to the period of the Civil War; but values of all sorts of property, real and personal, were very low. Markets for the products of the farm were remote and difficult

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Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Edgar County, Part 126

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