History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 18

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. ; O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 948

USA > Illinois > Union County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 18
USA > Illinois > Pulaski County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 18
USA > Illinois > Alexander County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 18

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).

haven, Penn., and occupying much the same position there that he did here.

The present local and assistant writer upon the Bulletin is Mr. E. W. Theilecke, who has oc- cupied his present place the last two years. He is quite a young man, who gives every evi- dence of usefulness and ability.

In as few words as we could possibly make it, this is history of one of the very few success- ful papers of the many started in Cairo. It leaves this as a demonstration and conclusion : When the papers of Cairo eventually come in- to exactly the right hands, they then, and then only, become permanent and valuable institu- tions.

Cairo Sun-A weekly Republican paper, started by D. L. Davis in 1869. After running it a few months as a weekly, it took the form of a daily paper, and in this shape in a short time was sold by Mr. Davis to the Joy Bros., who continned the publication until January 1, 1881, when, for some reason best known to the publishers, they voluntarily killed off the Sun and started a new paper, the News, which worked along in fair weather and in foul just one year, and ceased to exist January 1. 1882.

Radical Republican-Its name indicates its political proclivities, was issued for a short time from the Sun office. Its publisher was Louis L. Davis. It never had much vitality, and perished in 1880.

The Three States-Colored ; politics un- known. Died February, 1883.

Gazette-Colored ; W. T. Scott, proprietor and publisher. A weekly paper that is one of the few that has not ceased to exist.

The Camp Register-A daily sheet for sol- diers mostly. Was published during May, June and July, 1861.

The Daily Dramatic News-Was published by H. L. Goodall during the winter of 1864-65 in the interests of Crump & Co .. the builders and first proprietors of the Cairo Athenæum.

Cairo Paper-A vigorous and able Demo- 1

138

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

cratic paper, established by M. B. Harrell in 1871. Not liking the name, he changed it in a short time to Cairo Gazette, and thus returned to his first love in the Cairo papers. In this style the publication was continued until 1876, when it was sold by the proprietor and moved to Clinton, Ky.

Cairo Daily Argus-Independent daily pa- per, by H. F. Potter, publisher, and Walt F. McKee, editor. Was first issued in its present form November 15, 1878. Seventeen years ago, Mr. Potter took possession as owner and publisher of the Mound City Journal, which he has conducted from that day to this success- fully. Eight years ago, deeming his old fields of operations somewhat circumscribed, and looking about for an opportunity to enlarge them, he conceived the happy idea of a combi- nation of Cairo and Mound City interests, and so he issued the Cairo Argus and Mound City Journal, the work being done at the commence- ment in the Mound City office, with a local agent and office in Cairo, but no printing mate- rial in Cairo. In one year after starting this enterprise he moved his office to Cairo, and continued the publication, simply reversing the local office and the printing office as to their places. After the office was in Cairo a few months, the title of the paper was changed into the Argus-Journal, and was still issued at Cairo and Mound City weekly. Then, as above stated, in 1878, November 15, he issued directly the Cairo Daily Argus, and still continues to publish the Mound City Journal, which, upon the appearance of the Daily Argus, resumed its old name, and, certainly, a very high compliment to Mr. Potter's foresight, the Journal, through all its marrying and journeyings, retains every one of its old Pulaski County friends, and at the same time had so managed its Cairo patrons to the weekly paper that when the daily was started it already had its subscription list made up. Mr. Potter's past experience, his good, strong judgment, his energy and faithfulness to

his business, and his known integrity, deserve an ever-increasing success in his venture into a field where so many, so bright and so worthy have heretofore nearly one and all completely failed. He well understood all these failures before he looked toward Cairo as a field of operations. He had known Cairo as well daily for the past twenty years as though he had been a citizen during all that time. He knew, personally, all of these men, and had watched their wrecking, and, doubtless, it is well for him he had the benefit of others' sad experience, as it enabled him to lay his plans the better, and the caution he has displayed when he was eight long years in reaching the point of having a daily paper in Cairo shows a species of method, determination, sound judgment and persistence of purpose that is certainly a sufficient guaran- tee to the people of Cairo that they need not hesitate a moment in giving his concern their fullest confidence. We mean by all this that they need not fear to trust the man or his busi- ness, and they need not be influenced by the many failures in the lives of paper publications they have seen, and, therefore, class the Daily Argus as being only another one that, in a short time, is to follow in the already beaten track of the many.

His selection of an assistant and editor has been equally fortunate with his other move- ments in the establishment upon a permanent basis of his paper. We refer, of course, to Walt F. McKee, than whom no more reliable man lives. He has resided in Cairo since boy- hood, and during nearly all that time has oc- cupied responsible and confidential positions for organizations and institutions, which are known to give trust only to the most trust- worthy. Mr. McKee entered the office of the Argus with but a limited knowledge of the bus- iness, but as his employer foresaw he would learn, and he has learned until to-day he is quite as well informed of the duties of his position as are those who consider themselves

139

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

the par excellence leaders and teachers in this most trying and arduous profession.

We gladly dismiss this long column of dis- mal failures, consisting of over thirty papers, only three of which are now living to gladden the eyes of their friends. But should we drop the subject and pass to other themes, and say no more than we have said of the men who were the actors and doers in this curious news- paporial world, the list would be but a skeleton, and not a pleasant one at that.

The Bohemians .- We confess we can find no other word under which we can group the au- thors, correspondents, editors, reporters and contributors, who were of and at one time a part of Cairo, so well as the one we have adopted. Could we group these as one fair picture and show the people who it is that has come and gone, attracted to Cairo, some of them, in the hunt of permanent homes and bus- iness, others brought here as war correspond- ents at the time when Cairo was the great central news point in the United States, others here permanently as the representatives of many, in fact, nearly all the great leading daily papers of the country. We say, had we the pen and the necessary facts to make this grouping, the people would rise from the perusal amazed if not delighted. But the knowledge of these men by the writer of these lines is imperfect, as some of them he never knew, and many others, whom he vividly remembers the faces and their peculiar cast of mind, their names have passed out of mind.

The first man nearly in point of time, cer- tainly in point of fame, who visited Cairo "to write," was Charles Dickens. He was here in 1842. He took his notes, went home and wrote Martin Chuzzlewit. So far as his attempt to describe Cairo itself is concerned it is like everything else Dickens wrote-fiction. But there are some things he said he saw here that can hardly be in his usual strain of extrava- gance. For instance, any old settler can tell

you that the first crash in Cairo had come be- fore Dickens' visit and that like a stricken city the decimation of people from 2,000 to less than fifty had come like a cyclone from a cloud- less sky. The historian, too, has no hesitation in telling you that the few left could not oc- cupy the houses, and that when the canal com- pany failed they were left with almost nothing to do. Still there is scarcely a doubt that no matter how bad Dickens found matters, his pen would have been palsied if he had not " lied just a little." The writer has not seen the work in which he tells how Mark Tapley visited Cairo and had the agne, and how he and his companion were visited by the leading politi- cian and stump speakers of Southern Illinois ; how the stump speaker talked in the ‘ Home- in-the-Settin'-Sun " style, and then spit over the prostrate Martin, at a crack in the floor ten feet away and hit the crack, and assured him he might lie easy on his blanket, as he would not spit on him, etc., etc. When we read all this rather coarse kind of stuff as a boy, we thought it rather smart and funny. Mark and his friend, it seems, came to Cairo in order to have the chills-all the way from England. A long dis- tance to come for what they could have pro- cured a much stronger article of thousands of miles nearer home. But they were here for that purpose, says the veracious author, and while here they described the kind of acquaint- ances they associated with and formed. Now any Cairoite can to-day go to London and find, if his tastes so run, an infinitely worse crowd, more vile, more squalid, dirtier, and in short the very abomination and indescribable dregs of humanity. What a traveler's eyes sees de- pends upon the traveler, much more than on what is spread before him, panorama-like as he moves along. Out of all the Southern Illi- nois and Cairo people the traveler met and associated with here, there is not the picture of one that any here would read and say that is so-and-so, even Maj. Challop, the Home-in-the-

140

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

Settin'-Sun fellow, the leading politician with whom the travelers conversed in a very idiotic fashion on Government, is an unrec- ognizable, not known to a living soul ; but when the traveler walked ashore and describes the empty building (they were certainly here in 1842), and says " the most abject and forlorn among them was called, with great propriety, the Bank and National Credit Office. It had some feeble props about it, but was settling deep down in the mud, past all recovery." That is not a very extravagant picture of the real case of Holbrook's bank and where it went to. So deeply was that South Sea Bubble bur- ried, exploded or evaporated, about the very time Dickens penned these lines, that its ghost has never been seen even in the region or at the hour when " graveyards yawn." And if Dickens was right about its settling in the mud and ooze, so be it. One thing is certain, this is the only real account of what did ever be- come of that enormous swindle.

The man next in order, and, perhaps, the next in celebrity, who was at one time a tempo- rary resident of Cairo, was W. H. Russell, bet- ter known all over this country as Bull Run Russell. the celebrated war correspondent of the London Times. He was stationed here in 1861, and because he was an Englishman, or because he represented the far-off London Times, or because this country just at that time was deeply engaged in playing sycophant for fear of the growl of the English lion, or may- hap for all these reasons combined, our mast- fed military commanders in and about Cairo were doing the very best toadying to this John Bull that they could conceive of. They must have supposed that Bull Run would write to the Queen, and especially mention the fact that Colonel or General So-and-so was a great friend of England, and the only way to keep him in a good humor and prevent his getting "mad" and eventually eating Britain's Isle, would be to recognize him or the United States, or both, and

not to recognize Jeff Davis, who was all the time hanging on a " sour apple tree." For all this coarse, clumsy, and rather disgusting syco- phancy, Russell wrote to the London Times fairly taking the hide off these fellows, describ- ing them, giving the names of many of the most prominent, as coarse, vulgar, ignorant louts, who smelt of the stables, even through all their new, cheap tinsel and military toggery. He criticized unmercifully, and, no doubt, justly, their display of military knowledge in every department. In the high privates of the army he thought he could plainly see the germ from which a strong army might be made, but evidently in the commanders he could not speak of them without thinking of the toady- ing they had just been giving him, and his patience was at once gone.

As to the natives, or the home talent, or the native casual Cairoites, we may divide them, for convenience' sake, into the two fol- lowing natural divisions: the ante-bellum crowd, and then the remainder to the pres- ent day.

And of the first, we may designate M. B. Harrell, L. G. Faxon and Ed Willett as the three names that always come to the lips when speaking of the early newspapers. Certainly, three more distinct characters, in the same line or profession, never met. They may be said to have practically been here together from the very first, and of all these, Harrell, so far as we can learn, was here some time before the other two were. He must have been here early in the "forties." His brother, Bailey Harrell, was one of the very earliest leading merchants here, and "Mose," as he is more widely known than by any other designation, was, perhaps, a boy about his brother's store when he was quite young, and it is reasonable to suppose that he took his first lessons in composition in copying or finally writing advertisements for the store.

141

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

We only claim to be guessing at all this, but if here was where he got his education, then he went to a school that has been seldom equalled. In the old files of a Cairo paper, we find an advertisement of B. S. Harrell's store, and the whole thing convinces us that either Mose or Bailey wrote it.

There were but two merchants here, rivals, and both doing business under the same roof. One was a Yankee, the other Harrell. The Yankee brought on a large stock, and adver- tised in the Cairo Delta, that he had bought his stock for cash, and could, therefore, sell lower by far than any one else. In the very next paper, Harrell's advertisement appeared, in these words: "Now, these goods I can and will sell lower than my competitor, for the simple reason that I bought them all on credit, and that, too, without the slightest intention of ever paying a cent for them."

Mose was here during the long reign of idleness, when the whole community was given over to practical joking and fun of all kinds. He was the first telegraph operator, when but a single wire stretched its way to this then outside of the telegraphic world. He says he was at last relieved from the ar- duous duties of receiving the two or three dispatchs that sometimes came daily, “ for shutting up the office" and going courting one night. It is much more probable that he was discharged for some of his pranks, of which his supply was inexhaustible, as the following specimen may show: A boat had landed on its way from New Orleans to St. Louis. Among the many deck passengers who sought the top of the levee for supplies, bread, bologna, etc., was one poor fellow whom the boat left. He had failed to reach the wharf in time to get aboard. He was in sore distress; his family were on board the boat, and what would he do? Mose, of course, met him like a good Samaritan;

showed him the wire and the poles, and ex. plained that it was made on purpose to send things to St. Louis. The institution was new then, and little understood. The man listened, and begged Mose to send him on at once. Mose explained to him how he would have to jump at each pole, and the man thought he could do it. The dupe was then prepared for the trip by his friend. The bread, cheese, bologna, etc., were made into a pack and carefully tied upon his back. The telegraph-climbers were placed upon his feet, in order that he might climb to the wire and get on. But for the life of him he could not climb the pole; he worked by the hour, sometimes digging into the pole and sometimes in his own legs, and only from sheer exhaustion did he finally give up in despair. Mose then told him to go up town and find Corcoran, who was the keeper of the ladder that was used by the ladies to climb with when they wanted to travel hy tele- graph. The poor fellow hunted until he found Corcoran, and told him what he wanted. He was informed that the ladder had been broken the day before by Barnum's fat woman going up on it, and finally per- suaded the dupe that the wire was considered dangerous ever since the fat woman and her seven Saratoga trunks had passed over it, and that he had probably better wait until another boat came along, and then he could go to St. Louis in peace and safety.

Mound City at one time-very foolish it all now looks-concluded to rival Cairo, not rival, but simply distance and build all the great city up there. They probably found some man, as Cairo found Holbrook, and at it they went, spending money right and left at an immense rate. Whoever was running Mound City was smarter than the one that ran Cairo, because, as soon as matters were under full "headway, he imported a news-

142

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

paper outfit, came to Cairo, and hired M. B. Harrell at a big salary to go up there and abuse Cairo. Although the salary was large, Harrell earned every dollar, and more too; for instance:

" We attended a meeting of the Cairo City Council Monday night. The room being well warmed, and a bottle of Fair's Ague Tonic being provided for each Alderman, and an ounce of quinine for the Board gen- erally (from which the Clerk would occasion- ally take a spoonful). The fever and ague by which the majority were at the time afflicted, interfered only immaterially with the busi- ness. If anybody wants to see 'great shakes,' let 'em attend a Cairo Council meeting."

Or this:

" The Cairoites, in imitation of the Yankee at sea, have provided themselves with a good supply of soap, so that, if the river over- whelms them, they can wash themselves ashore. If they should "be compelled to use it, the town of Columbus, just below, would be overflowed by an awful nasty sea of soap- suds."

Or again:

" A fire company has been organized at Cairo, and where's the necessity for it? In case of a fire, just let them knock the plugs out of the levee sewers, and the river water will fly all over the village."

Cairo employed Faxon to stand in front of these projectiles, and do the best he could to defend Cairo, but this all only resulted in the two rival towns coming out like the Kilkenny cats, only so much the worse that there evi- dently was not so much as the bob-end of a tail left to either. It was all quite comical at the time, and no doubt the people of the two towns looked forward eagerly each week to see what next was coming. The serious side of the story was, that often the worst of these squibs were taken up and reprinted

over the North, as true pictures of Cairo and Mound City, as drawn by their own people. Up to the war, this trio, Harrell, Faxon and Willett, were the Cairo and Mound City editors. They started papers, changed sides, and bobbed around, but it was one contin- uous circle, and generally all on the Cairo press, and they seem to have indulged, to their hearts' content, in lampooning each other and each other's towns, when they hap- pened to be in different villages.

The compositors of that day seemed to deem it a duty devolving upon them to fur- nish their full quota of unaccountable human beings. They had probably caught the in- fection from 'either Willett, Faxon or Har- rell. A few specimens:

A printer who worked here as early as 1848, was said to have been the fastest hand- pressman of his time in the United States. He was said to have worked off 800 impres- sion of a sheet 24x36, on a Washington hand-press, in two hours and twenty minutes. This was equivalent to an impression every ten and two-fifths seconds. It is probably well there were no other such pressmen, or there would never have arisen the necessity for the perfected Hoe press.

A compositor in the Sun office in Cairo, in 1850, named Frank Urguhart, could set 15, - 000 long primer and brevier in ten hours, and always got roaring drunk after supper, but would appear at his case as usual the next morning, ready to do as big a day's work as ever. He was wholly worthless, however. He married a Cairo girl in a short time after he came here, lived with her two weeks, then abandoned her and has never been heard of since.

E. F. Walker a compositor who worked immediately before and during the early years of the war, was quite a character. For six months or more he was planning a

143

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

week's hunt in the neighboring woods of Missouri. Practicing great economy, he finally found himself the possessor of $80, He bought a $1.50 shot-gun, four ounces of powder and a pound of shot. He then sup- plied his commissary department with a half- dozen pigs' feet, a pound of crackers, two gallons of whisky, a horse-blanket and a second-hand wheelbarrow. Thus equipped, on the morning of July 4, 1862, he bade the office boys good-bye. and started for the ferry-boat. He halted his wheelbarrow be- fore every saloon on the ‘levee, stepped in to take a drink and bid the boys good-bye. The ensuing night, he tumbled into the office, drunk as a lord, swearing he could not get off, because the ferry-boat refused to carry his ammunition! Next morning, he and his wheelbarrow were again making the rounds of the levee. The day again closed on a drunken Walker. He explained that the ferry-boat multiplied itself so often, and ran in so many different directions, he was afraid he might take the wrong boat and lose his wheelbarrow. On the third day, he got drunk again, but, to ,the end that he might start early and sober, he slept all night on the wharf in his wheelbarrow. The fourth and fifth days were a repetition of his first and second, but on the seventh day he kept himself drunk all day and all night, waiting, he said, for the arrival of a ferry-boat that was not given to the insane habit of running ' sideways. ' Early on the morning of the eighth day, he happened to leave his wheel- barrow and accouterments unguarded. Re- turning to search for them, they were not to be found. Ed Willett had trundled them across the wharfboat, and to this day they lie on the bottom of the Chio River, where he dumped them. Walker, having only 40 cents of his $80 left, couldn't secure another outfit, sobered up, and returned to his case

again. He was abundantly satisfied with re- sults, however, and always afterward, when speaking of festive occasions, would 'declare his ' great seven days' hunt in the Missouri bottoms' the happiest interval of his exist- ence. Walker was a congenial sonl; some- what erratic, but always harmless. He has long since passed over to the happy hunting ground, for the full enjoyment of which, it is quite apparent, he was only preparing him- self in his great hunt here.

In the early days of the war, Jimmy Stockton, afterward editor of the Grand Tower Item, was a compositor in M. B. Har- rell's Gazette office. At the time the officer in command of the post in Cairo had tried to suppress the Gazette, and had ordered the editor to submit all matter to him (a full ac- count of which we give in another column), and the way Harrell got around the dilem- ma, so tickled poor Stockton, that he got more than glorious. He had spent the even- ing at Dr. Jim McGuire's, and had repaired to his room rather late, which was on the fourth floor, just above the composition room.

The printers reported the following cir- cumstances: About 11 o'clock at night, a compositor, working at his case, heard a whiz, and saw a dark object flit past his win- dow, which was in the third story. Hasten- ing down stairs to see what had happened, what was his amazement to find Jimmy Stockton, stretched at full length on the top of a pile of empty barrels, and sound asleep! While leaning out of the fourth story window, he had lost his balance; fall- ing a distance of about twenty feet, he struck the roof of a two-story addition, and rolling off, alighted on the barrels and went to sleep. But for his limberness, he would have been crushed to a pulp, but no serious injury was sustained. "Well, now, do you know," said

144

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

Jimmy, when the boys had finally aroused him and got him down off the barrels, "that I dreamed I was on top of a tall ladder; that a sow uptripped it-and now I come to think of it, it wasn't all a dream, boys! but where's that -- sow-and the ladder ?"

The fever of life has passed with poor Stockton, and; to those who knew him best, the memory of his big heart and warm soul will always come sunshiny throughout their lives.

It was poor old Sam Hart, peace to his re- mains, who was hard of hearing, and was always imagining, when he could not hear what was being said, that the other boys were talking about him, and over this he was in constant hot water. He was getting old, and was very nervous and sometimes peevish. He would imagine more than enough, but then the others, perceiving his oddities, would constantly add to his sources of worry and vexation. Matters finally culminated in Hart making up his mind absolutely to challenge to the death Joe Wiley, as he appeared to be about the worst, and was the fittest, in the old man's estimation, for an example. He called upon his friend, another 'printer, and told him his unalterable resolution, and re- quested his assistance. This was promptly given, and all the minutiæ arranged for the combat, which was to take place just outside the Mississippi levee after sundown. Two immense horse-pistols were procured, and the parties were to repair to the spot in a state of scatteredness, for fear of drawing the at- tention of the police. It seems all were in the joke except poor Hart. Parties were placed for the fight, and Hart was awful nervous, and he told 'his friend he expected his time had come. When the weapons were handed them, it was with difficulty Hart could hold his in both his hands, so very nervous had he become. They were ordered

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.

History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 18

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892? Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. ; O.L. Baskin & Co. Number of Pages: 948

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. ; O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 948