USA > Illinois > Hancock County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of Hancock County, Volume II > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122 | Part 123 | Part 124 | Part 125 | Part 126 | Part 127 | Part 128 | Part 129 | Part 130 | Part 131 | Part 132 | Part 133 | Part 134 | Part 135 | Part 136 | Part 137 | Part 138 | Part 139 | Part 140 | Part 141 | Part 142 | Part 143 | Part 144 | Part 145 | Part 146 | Part 147 | Part 148 | Part 149 | Part 150 | Part 151 | Part 152 | Part 153 | Part 154 | Part 155 | Part 156 | Part 157
"The concretionary and brecciated limestone which forms the upper division of the group is characterized by two species of fossil corals, the Lithostrotion mamillaris and L. proliferum, and an undetermined species of Aulopora. The specimens of Lithostrotion are almost invariably siliceous, and are found weathered out of the limestone in the debris of the streams that cut through it, in masses from a few ounces to forty pounds or more in weight. They are usually of a reddish-brown color on the surface, and a delicate pink or flesh color within, and at once attract the eye even of those who know nothing of their true character as fossils. The L. mamillaris is generally known as a petrified honcy-comb or hornet's nest.
KEOKUK GROUP
"Geodiferous Shales .- The upper division of this group consists of blue and brown calcareo- argillaceous shales and shaly limestone, and in this county is from thirty to forty feet in thick- ness. A good section of these shales, exhibiting the full thickness of the bed, may be seen just above the steamboat landing at Warsaw, and above the railroad grade. It is about forty feet in thickness at this point, and at the bottom is an irregularly-bedded argillaceous limestone; . passing upward into a blue clay shale. Running
through the bed, near the middle, there is a band of brown, cherty magnesian limestone, about two feet in thickness. Siliceous geodes, the crust of which is composed of chalcedony and crystalline quartz, are disseminated through the entire bed, but at this locality they are most abundant near the base. These geodes are lined with beautiful crystals of limpid quartz, calcite, dolomite, zinc blende, iron pyrites and arragonite, or with botryoidal forms of blue and milk-white chalcedony. In the north part of the county a few have been found that were filled with petroleum and asphaltum. For a detailed de- scription of these geodes the reader is referred to the report of Prof. Brush, of Yale College, in a previous chapter, to whom a collection of them was submitted for examination. This bed outcrops in the river bluffs, from the northern to the southern extremity of the county, and is also exposed on several of the creeks in the interior. Waggoner's creek, above Montebello, and all the smaller streams along the rapids, intersect this bed, and on several of them fine geodes may be obtained. Waggoner's creek has afforded the largest specimens yet found in the county, some of which are from fifteen to eight- een inches in diameter. At some localities the bed affords no good specimens, the geodes all being imperfectly formed, and at others many of the geodes are solid globes of quartz, with no cavity in the centre. Some of them are part- ly filled with water, which is sometimes quite bitter to the taste, from the mineral substances held in solution. The crystallized minerals con- tained in these geodes are by far the most at- tractive specimens in mineralogy to be found in the State.
KEOKUK QUARY ROCK
The limestones of this group that are quarried for building stone, are restricted mostly to the middle division, and comprise a thickness of from twenty-five to forty feet in this county. They are mostly of a bluish-gray color, in toler- ably regular beds, that vary from four inches to three feet in thickness. Some of the thickest beds are a light-gray color, and are as com- pletely crinoidal in structure as any portion of the Burlington limestone. The Mormon temple at Nauvoo was built of this limestone; and at Loomis' quarries, just below the city, where a part of the material for the temple was ob-
643
HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY
tained, the beds show the following detailed sec- tion :
Thin-bedded, gray limestones ... 6 feet 0 inches Argillaceous shale. 2 feet 0 inches Gray limestone, in two layers .. 3 feet 10 inches Clay shale. 1 foot 10 inches Light gray limestone (single
layer) . 3 feet 6 inches
Dark gray limestone .1 foot 10 inches
Cherty limestone .3 feet, 0 inches
Light gray limestone 2 feet 0 inches
"This quarry furnished a considerable por- tion of the material used in building the United States Custom Houses at Galena and Dubuque, and the equivalent strata are generally used as a building stone wherever they are found. It cuts freely, and, when free from chert, may be sawed with facility. All the ornamental stone work for the Mormon temple, even the stone oxen on whose backs the baptismal font rested, were carved from this limestone. These quar- ries will afford an inexhaustible supply of superior building stone for the whole region adjacent to the outcrop. The lightest colored layers are a nearly pure carbonate of lime, and are also valuable for the manufacture of quick- lime. Its outcrop is confined mainly to the river bluffs, and to Crooked creek, and Brunce's creek, in the eastern part of the county.
.
FOSSILS
"To the palaeontologist this limestone presents a most interesting and varied field for study. It seems to have been deposited in a quiet ocean, where the delicate bryozoa and the beautiful and graceful crinoid flourish in great profusion, and their calcareous skeletons are found at- tached to the solid surfaces of the limestone, or enclosed in the shaly partings that separate the harder layers, in a most perfect state of preser- vation. The solid limestone itself is a complete aggregation of the remains of organic beings, including the Mollusk and the Coral, the Crinoid and the Trilobite, associated with the teeth and spines of fishes. A residence of a quarter of a century in the vicinity of some of the most pro- ductive localities of fossil organisms ever yet found in this formation, has afforded us an opportunity to study somewhat minutely its palaeontological features, and we feel fully warranted in the assertion that, excepting the
Burlington limestone, no sub-division of the whole palaeozoic series presents, in the same thickness of strata, so rich and varied a serles of marine fossils.
"Fishes appear to have abounded, both in in- dividuals and species, during the deposit of this limestone, more than at any other period of the lower Carboniferous era. Their remains are not generally distributed through the limestones like those of the Mollusk and the Coral, but are re- stricted to certain beds, where they are far more abundant than anywhere else. The fishes of the lower Carboniferous period appear to have been entirely cartilaginous, possessing no bony skeleton ; yet their teeth and the thorny spines with which they were armed are found, in some layers of the limestone, in great numbers. There are two beds of limestone in the Keokuk group in which these remains are far more abundant than elsewhere, one of which is at the top of the limestones and near their junction with the geodiferous shales, and the other is about twen- ty-five feet below this, and near the base of the quarry rock. The upper one was first observed in the vicinity of Warsaw, where only the upper beds of limestone appear above the surface; and the other one was found in the bed of the creek that intersects the bluffs just below Hamilton. Neither of these beds are above six inches in thickness, and from the lower one, at the local- ity above named, we obtained at different times more than a thousand specimens of teeth and spines on a surface not exceeding ten feet square. Forty-eight species from this horizon will be found figured and described in the sec- ond volume of the original Report, nearly all of which were obtained from these two localities.
CHERTY LIMESTONE
"At the base of the Keokuk group we find a bed of chert alternating with thin beds of light gray limestone, and attaining a thickness of from forty to sixty feet. The only outcrop of these beds in this county is along the base of the bluffs from a point about two miles above Warsaw to the north line of the county. It not only forms the lower portion of the river bluffs between the points above named, but extends entirely across the bed of the river, forming the serious obstruction to navigation known as the Lower Rapids. For economical purposes this rock is of little value, the limestones being gen- erally too thin to be of much value as a build-
644
HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY
ing stone. The cherty portion, which con- stitutes the greatest part of the bed, would make an excellent material to macadamize roads, and for this purpose it would prove of far more value than the. limestone.
"The following section of the upper portion of these beds, as they appear above the river level, just below Nauvoo, will afford a very correct idea of their general character :
Chert
3 feet.
Shaly limestone
2 6 inches
Siliceous limestone
2
6 66
Limestone 1
0
Chert 0
66
10
Limestone
1
0
Chert
6
0
Limestone
0
66
6
Chert
2
60
5 66
Limestone
1
66
6
Chert
1
6
Limestone
0
9
Chert
1
2
Limestone
0
66
S
Chert
0
66
10
26
66
2
"The limestones in this section are all light gray in color, irregular bedded, and contain more or less chert in nodules and lenticular masses. This chert approaches a true flint in hardness, and was used by the aborigines for arrow heads and other implements. In its fossils, this division presents no marked difference from the limestone above it, except that they are much more rare, and generally not so well preserved as in the higher and more calcareous beds. This is the lowest rock exposed above the sur- face in this county, and its outcrop is confined to the vicinity of the river bluffs between War- saw and the north line of the county, and here the lower portion of it is below the river level, so that there is but a partial exposure of the bed even here. Its entire thickness is probably not less than sixty feet, though in this county not more than forty feet is exposed at any locality that we have examined. The only fine examples of Spirifer striatus that have been met with in this county, with both valves of the shell together, were found in a band of limestone in- tercalated in these cherty beds about two miles below Nauvoo.
ECONOMICAL GEOLOGY
"Building Stone .- Hancock county is well sup- plied with good building stone, and there is per- haps no natural resource of this portion of the State that is so lightly appreciated at the present time in proportion to its intrinsic value as this. In the early settlement of a country, the people are compelled to content themselves with primitive and cheaply constructed dwell- ings, but as wealth increases, and a taste for more elegant structures is generally dissemin- ated, these cheap primitive dwellings will give place to those of a more substantial character, and many of the quarries, now regarded as of little value, will become a source of wealth to their owners.
"The middle division of the Keokuk group will afford the greatest amount as well as the finest quality of building stone, and where this is easily accessible, no better material need be looked for. It is generally even textured, dresses well, and is well adapted for all the ordinary uses to which a building stone is applied. It is also tolerably even bedded, and affords strata thick enough for all the ordinary requirements of architecture. Some of the beds are susceptible of a fine polish, and may be used as an ornamental stone. It outcrops on all the small streams in the western part of the county, as well as in the river bluffs throughout the county, except in the vicinity of Warsaw, and for a distance of five miles below, where, by an undulation of the dip, it is carried below the surface, with the exception of a few feet of the upper layers. It appears again, however, on Rocky run, six miles below Warsaw, form- ing bluffs on that creek twenty feet or more in height. In the eastern part of the county it outcrops on Brunce's creek, north of Plymouth, and Crooked creek, in the vicinity of St. Marys.
"The arenaceous and magnesian beds of the St. Louis group will also furnish a building stone but little inferior in quality, and quite equal in durability, to that afforded by the Keokuk limestone. The Magnesian limestone of this group, especially, affords a most excellent building stone, and it has been very generally used at Warsaw and vicinity for many years, not only for foundation walls, but for the con- struction of entire buildings of the largest size. At the quarries a mile and a half or two miles below the city of Warsaw, this bed, although only about ten feet in thickness, has afforded
1
.
66
645
HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY
the largest portion of the cut stone used in the city and vicinity for the last twenty years. It is even textured, cuts easily when freshly quarried, and hardens on exposure to the atmos- phere. It is thick bedded at this locality, and is readily quarried into blocks of suitable size for ordinary use. North of Warsaw its outcrop is generally high up in the bluffs, or on the small streams that intersect them, and in the interior of the county it will be found on all the prin- cipal creeks that intersect the limestones im- mediately below the Coal Measures.
HYDRAULIC LIMESTONE
"At the top of the geodiferous shales, in the vicinity of Warsaw there is a bed of bluish-gray earthy limestone that presents the external char- acters of a hydraulic rock, and it occupies the same stratigraphical position as the hydraulic beds in Jersey and St. Clair counties. Its thick- ness is from three to four feet. An analysis of this rock by Messrs. Blaney and Mariner, of Chicago, showed a deficiency of lime and mag- nesia necessary to constitute a good hydraulic limestone, with a superabundance of clay ; but an analysis of a single specimen is hardly suf- ficient to determine its true value for this pur- pose. It is highly probable that some of the earthy magnesian limestones of this county will be found adapted to this purpose when an in- creased demand for such material shall require careful practical experiments to fully test the value of those rocks that seem most likely to answer such demand.
LIMESTONE FOR LIME
"The best rock in this county for the manu- facture of quick-lime is the concretionary and brecciated limestone, which immediately under- lies the Coal Measures, and outcrops on every stream of any size in the county. Its thickness ranges from ten to twenty-five feet, and it will afford an inexhaustible supply of material for this purpose. At Hamilton, Nauvoo and Niota, lime is manufactured from the Keokuk lime- stone, and the purest layers, when carefully selected, make a good lime.
POTTER'S CLAY
"The under-clays of the coal seams are almost the only clays in the State used for the manu-
facture of potters' ware, and are the only ones from which a good article of fire brick has been made. The under-clay below the lower coal seam on Williams creek, in the southeast part of the county, is about three feet thick, and ap- pears to be of good quality, suitable either for potter's ware or fire brick. There are probably many localities in the eastern part of the county, where this clay may be found equal in quality and quantity to that at the locality above named. Beds of soft material like this are seldom well exposed by natural causes, and are best seen by artificial cuts through the strata with which they are associated. The coal seams will always serve as a guide to those in search of these clays.
IRON ORE
"Nodules of carbonate of iron are dissemi- nated through the shale over the lower coal seam, and are found in considerable abundance along the beds of the small creeks that inter- sect the shale, but no deposit was seen that promised anything like a profitable bed of ore for the manufacture of metallic iron.
COAL
"The supply of bituminous coal in this county is quite limited, and the inhabitants, especially in the western and northern portions of the county, will have to rely mainly upon more highly favored localities, for a supply of this southeastern portion of the county, but the area over which it will be found to extend with sufficient thickness to be profitably worked is probably quite limited. A coal seam from twenty-four to thirty inches thick may be profit- ably worked by the ordinary process of drift- ing horizontally into the seam, and a thinner one is often successfully worked in open trenches, where there is only a few feet of superficial material. above the coal. This seam of coal, where it is worked in the vicinity oť Augusta, will probably average about two feet in thickness, and affords a coal of fair quality, and according to the usual mining estimates will afford about three thousand tons of coal to each acre of land, provided all the coal is taken out, and if it should be found to extend uninterruptedly of this thickness over any con- siderable part of that township, it would afford an ample supply of coal for this portion of the county.
646
HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY
"At the other localities where coal has been found in this county, it appears to occur in de- tached outliers of very limited extent, which afford only a thin seam, from twelve to eighteen inches thick, and the coal itself is .generally of an inferior quality. Such deposits are rarely of any considerable economical value.
SOIL AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
"The prairie soil which covers fully two- thirds of the entire surface of this country, does not present any very marked difference from its general character and appearance in Central and Western Illinois. It is everywhere productive where the surface is properly drained and thoroughly cultivated. Its deep chocolate-brown or black color shows that it contains a large per cent. of humus, the result of the growth and decay of vegetable and animal matter upon the surface for untold centuries, which were a necessary addition to the finely pulverized min- eral matter that constituted the original sur- face, when it was first drained from the waters in which the drift accumulated, in order to render it fit for the production of the cereals and fruits necessary for the support of man. The subsoil is a brown clay that does not ab- sorb water freely from the surface, and hence, where the surface is level the soil is too wet to be cultivated successfully without artificial draining.
"In the vicinity of the streams the surface is more rolling, the soil is lighter colored from the washing away in part of the vegetable humus that would be retained on a level surface, and the lands require no artificial draining. In the immediate vicinity of the river bluffs the soil is more sandy from an admixture of the sandy marls of the loess, which forms a dry calcareous soil that has proved to be admirably adapted to the growth of fruit. The most productive apple orchards in the county are those planted along the bluffs of the Mississippi river, and these lands, which have hitherto been considered the poorest in the county, are now considered the most valuable, and for the use of the fruit grower will command as much per acre as the best prairie lands.
"The cultivation of the Catawba grape for wine was undertaken a few years since by the German settlers at Nauvoo, and the marked success which attended the effort at that locality stimulated others to follow their example, and
this branch of horticulture has spread to such an extent as to place this county in advance of any other in the State, in the production of pure native wines."
MODERN CONDITIONS
Since the publication of the above extracts from Prof. Worthen's works in 1882, a period of thirty-eight years has elapsed, during which time' low lands have been drained and forests have been cleared off and uncultivable parts of the county have been rendered cultivable and productive, so that, at the present time, there are few, if any, counties in Illinois, or else- where, which contain more valuable or more highly cultivated farms than are to be found in this county. Hancock County is superior for agricultural purposes. Parts of the county are admirably fitted for horticultural purposes. Stock raising is conducted on a large scale, and very successfully. To Hancock County resi- dents, it seems to be one of the most favored spots of the world.
It has also been ascertained in recent years that certain lands in the eastern part of the county contain valuable reservoirs of oil, and productive wells have been drilled in those regions, from which the owners of the lands have realized satisfactory profits.
HANCOCK COUNTY MOUNDS
The following extracts are taken from Gregg's History of Hancock County.
"There are numerous mounds throughout Han- cock county, as in many other sections of the State and the whole Mississippi valley. They are found chiefly on the bluffs bordering the river and the smaller streams. In some in- stances they are in the open prairie, but most of them are in the timbered lands, and often covered with large trees. They are mostly small, of various sizes and elevations, from a few feet in height up to fifteen or twenty, and from ten to forty or fifty feet in diameter. It is very rarely that one is found in this county to exceed these measurements.
"We know of but two exceptions. One of these is the Gittings Mound in the north part of the county, and though possessing all the characteristics of the smaller ones, covers near- ly a section of land, and is perhaps fifty or more feet high. Mr. Gittings' farm lies on it,
1255340
647
HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY
and it is without doubt a mere natural eleva- tion of the prairie. The other is what is known as the 'Big Mound' in Appanoose township. This mound is situated about seven miles east of Nauvoo, and in the open prairie. On the east, south and west of it, the prairie is quite level for several miles, but on the north it is approached by the broken timbered lands skirt- ing the river bluffs. We are not aware that any accurate measurement of this mound has ever been made; but from the best observation we could make, by standing on its top, and also on the prairie at its base, we judge it to be not less than forty to fifty feet high, while it is about one-fourth of a mile in diameter."
The above mound in an early days, was part of the farm of Amos Davis, who chose it for the site of his fine residence, barn, stables, and two or three large orchards.
Mr. Gregg quotes from Prof. Worthen as fol- lows :
"We should not omit to mention that, in dig- ging the well for Mr. Davis on the summit of the Appanoose mound, a piece of timber, said to be a species of cedar, was found at a depth of thirty feet from the surface. Many similar dis- coveries have, however, been made in other places where no mounds exist."
Mr. Gregg further says :
"Excavations have been made into numbers of these mounds, and in most instances human skeletons have been found, together with vari- ous art utensils, such as knives, tomahawks, stone axes, beads, pottery articles, etc."
TREES, GRASSES, FRUITS AND FLOWERS
In the foregoing extracts from Prof. Wortlı- en's works, sufficient mention has been made of the varieties of trees found in Hancock County in an' early day. These varieties of trees are still to be found here, though not in such profusion, since so many thousands of acres of land have been denuded of their forests to render them fit for cultivation. It is well to state, however, that in an early day, many large groves of sugar maple grew in the wooded parts of the county, and that the early settlers did not fail in the late winter or early spring- time, when' the sap began to rise, to convert the sap into maple syrup and maple sugar, which took the place, in part, of the more ex- pensive cane sugar. Collecting and boiling down the sap was an arduous enterprise, and yet
thoroughly enjoyed by those engaged in it, who tlius took a sort of vacation from the work of their farms, living in camps, with a bountiful supply of food, and often of certain fiery beverages which have passed into oblivion with the eighteenth amendment to the National Con- stitution.
The first act in the maple-sugar-making drama was the preparation of spiles, in which the small boy was permitted to participate. But the assistance of the small boy was generally dispensed with when the spiles were completed, and he was not as a rule permitted to take part in the labors and orgies of the camp life at the maple groves.
In an early day the cottonwood tree was a prominent feature of the prairie landscape, growing singly, or in clumps of two or three or more, and attaining large proportions. One of these trees stood in isolation about three miles south of Carthage, and was called the "lone tree." It must have been as old as the state of Illinois, and was probably older.
There were some large groves of wild plum trees in the county, such as the grove four or five miles southwest of Carthage in the brakes of Bear Creek, in which several varieties of plums were represented. The fruit was de- licious and was used by the early settlers for preserving and other like purposes.
Skirting the tracts of timber and covering the open spaces in the woods were hazel bushes, furnishing hazel nuts, and the woods contained an abundance of nut-bearing walnut and hick- ory trees, and it was the custom of the early settlers to lay in a sufficient quantity of these nuts for use during the winter season.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.