History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 20

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 20
USA > Illinois > Pulaski County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 20
USA > Illinois > Alexander County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 20

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).

Gen. Schenck was stationed here a good while, and then seemed to loaf around some time after his post duties had ceased. Al- ways, when introduced, he would inform his new acquaintance that he was a near relative of Gen. Schenck's, of Ohio. For a long time,

he had been confidentially telling everybody in Cairo that he was expecting an important appointment from the President. He was watching the papers daily. One day, Gen. Sheridan and his escort fleet of steamers came up from New Orleans, and Gen. Schenek had a grand salute fired from the forts and all the guns in port, in honor of the great arrival. It so happened, that same day and about the same hour of Sheridan's arrival, there came news that California had gone Democratic at an important election just held. The 'correspondent of the Times sent a flaming dispatch to his paper, which was duly published, announcing that Gen. Schenck was then firing a national salute in honor of the California victory. Schenck would, after this, tell over and over again, how bis appointment had just gone to the Senate and while it was under considera- tion, the Chicago Times arrived, and, in the nick of time, forever ruined him. But there were many worse men in the army than poor Schenck, and if the correspondent's silly joke did really injure him, he has regretted it a thousand times.

A reporter named Pratt was for some time connected with the Cairo papers, com- mencing with the Democrat, and continuing longer in that place than anywhere else. He sometimes wrote little innocent pieces of poetry, and the whole thing, probably, may be estimated by the title of one of his pieces, which was called "A Crack in the Win- dow." When business grew dull in Cairo, Mr. Pratt we believe, went to some point in Missouri, and was there a member of the rural press.

John H. Oberly came here from Ohio, a young man, and by trade a practical printer. His first employment was on the Democrat, as general foreman of the press and job rooms; and after the retirement of Joel G.

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Morgan from the editorial chair, Mr. Oberly assumed this position, and for some time at- tended to both departments, and proving so successful a writer, he soon quit entirely the mechanical department, and became the gen- eral editor. With but limited school advanta- ges in early life, and having married when quite young, he was forced to early exertions for the support of a large young household, and at the same time prepare himself for those advances in his trade and profession that he has achieved. He was blest with one misfort- une to himself as a journalist; he could talk naturally well-we mean as a public speaker -and this soon inclined him to the stump, politics, and even some pretensions to state- craft, and he wasted some of the best years of his school life as a writer, in the State Legislature, and was afterward, by the ap- pointment of the Governor, one of the Rail- road Commissioners for the State of Illinois. His natural qualifications are good-much above the average. He is now engaged in publishing a daily Democratic paper in Bloomington, Ill., where, we learn, he is meeting with merited success. As a public, off-hand speaker, Mr. Oberly is much above the average-in fact, frequently strong, brill- iant and fascinating. This latter talent seems to have been natural to him, and he has put it to much use the past few years, being called to many parts of the State to lecture and address public assemblies. For his real development in either line, his tal-

ents have been too versatile, and in some re- spects this has been one of his misfortunes, as the human mind has always been so con- stituted that to achieve great success, it must focus upon one-single thing and burn itself out there, in order to invest it with those in- tellectual calcium lights that attract the world's attention. His social qualities and ties of friendship are strong, lasting and al- ways as true as steel; but, on the other hand, when his ill-will has been once aroused, he fills the warmest wish of Dr. Johnson, who said he "loved a good hater." He was always very popular with the people of Cairo, as is evidenced by the fact that they gave him every office, commencing with Mayor of the city, that he ever asked for. Mr. Oberly stayed in Cairo much longer than did the average writers or editors who were here and have gone; his success while here was, too, above the average of them; yet, purely as writers, there were several, at one time or another, that were his superior in point of cultivation, in their chosen line, a fact that leads us to the conclusion, that in the West the profession has hardly yet been separated and made a distinct and independent one ; that is, one where nothing but the most care- ful training , and preparation can qualify or enable the candidate to enter and compete for the high honors that it will, at some time, bestow.

A reflection that admonishes us to hurried- ly close this chapter.

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

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CHAPTER VII.

SOCIETIES: LITERARY, SOCIAL AND BENEVOLENT-THE IDEAL LEAGUE-LYCEUM-MASONIC FRATERNITY-ITS GREAT ANTIQUITY-ODD FELLOWSHIP-THE CAIRO CASINO-OTHER SOCIETIES, ETC.

"Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity."-Psalms, cxxxiii., 1.

T THE Ideal League .- We go to school from the cradle to the grave, and this is one of the inexorable laws of our being. These schools or fountains of education are nearly in- finite in variety, and have little in common save the imperfections that pervade all. The schoolmaster and the birch twigs are the real schools only in name; in fact, it is doubtful if they are not a stupendous and prolonged mistake that has, to some extent, blocked the way of true education. Such old- fashioned schools were good training-rooms but nothing more.

A careful investigation of the controlling influences of the mind go far to demonstrate the fact that real education comes with our plays, our pleasures, our joys and that sweet social intercourse of congenial spirits, that is the mark of the highest type of our civilization. The mind must be developed as is the perfect physical nature. It is not hard, dull work that molds the child into beauty and strength, perfection and grace, but, on the contrary, too much of this dwarfs and warps and stunts the young into ungainliness of person and feature. But it is the happy, light young heart, the hilarious romp and that sweetest music in all the world, the rippling laughter of innocent childhood, that fashions that beauty of per- sons whose every movement is the " poetry

of motion." The child must have the en- ergy to play, and play with that abandon and bubbling joy that gives an exquisite rel- ish to existence itself. And just so is men- tal strength and beauty created. It is im- possible for it to come from the task-master and the rod. A strong, active, graceful and well-poised intellect is created only of the pleasures of life. It is impossible for knowl- edge to come to the mind in any other way. This is self-evident when you reflect a moment upon the fact that to the mind of culture, the most enduring pleasures of life are the acquisition of new truths. The activity of the mind depends upon the degree and in- tensity of its enjoyment. This is its food and healthy stimulant, and the improvement and new truths that come to it thus are its seeds of knowledge, that flourish and grow into such magnificence and wondrous beauty. Let us qualify this, lest the superficial may conclude we mean to say that mental indo- lence and rest is true education. We mean exactly the opposite. We mean that intense mental activity that comes of the keen zest of mental play-work, of that social and intellectual life that is made up of the associations of congenial companions "where youth and pleasure meet," at the weekly trysts of the Ideal League in the cozy parlors of Mr. and Mrs. George Parsons.

The Ideal League was organized March 13, 1883, and although one of the youngest

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institutions in Cairo, yet it is already the conspicuous figure in the intellectual and so- cial life of the city. As best stated by itself, " the objects of this association are musical, literary, dramatic and social enjoyment, the promotion of a spirit of good-fellowship among the members; the attainment of a higher mental culture, and a steady growth and progressiveness toward enlarged useful- ness." The officers are as follows: President, Mr. George Parsons; First Vice President, Mrs. W. F. Macdowell; Second Vice Presi- dent, Miss M. Adella Gordon; Secretary and Treasurer, Miss Fannie L. Barclay.

The charter members: Mr. and Mrs. George Parsons, Mr. and Mrs. W. F. Mac- dowell, Miss M. Adella Gordon, Mr. John Horn, Dr. J. A. Benson, Dr. E. C. Strong, Mr. Scott White, Mr. E. C. Halliday, Misses Mamie and Rida Corlis, Miss Fannie L. Barclay, Mr. E. G. Crowell, Mr. J. L. Sar- ber, Miss Hattie McKee, Miss Effie Coleman, Mr. F. W. Allen, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Wells, Mr. Marx Black, Mr. G. T. Carens, Mr. William Burkett, Mr. F. G. Metcalf, Miss Montie Metcalf, Mr. George E. Ohara, Mr. Edward Reno, Misses Phyllys and Katie Howard, Capt. T. W. Shields, Miss Ella Armstrong, Prof. G. A. M. Storer, Mr. Guy Morse, Mr. Henry Hughes, Mr. W. E. Spear, Miss Maud Rittenhouse, Mr. Will- iam Williamson, Mr. William Korsmeyer and Miss Bettie Korsmeyer.

The members added since the organization are Mr. Albert Galigher, Mr. James Lock- ridge and Mrs. Stephen T. McBride.

The Ideal League has simply supplied a long-felt want in Cairo. The membership was wisely limited to forty members, and this full number was made up almost from the first meeting. The real founders and or- ganizers of this pleasant and profitable club judged wisely when they determined that the

harvest was ripe and ready for the gleaners in Cairo. The necessity of limiting the member- ship of the club is easily understood when the fact is mentioned that the meetings of the Ideal League are, so far, parlor entertain- ments, at which there are only limited capaci- ties.

The work of the Ideal League speaks for itself, and while it is among the latest efforts of forming a literary and social club, it is al- ready crowned with that success that betokens a long and useful life, as well as a continual source of pleasure and profit to the young people of Cairo.

The Lyceum is an older society than the League, and, so far as we can learn, deserves the first place in history, but our investiga- tors and seekers after facts have thus far wholly failed to find the essential facts and dates that will enable us to more than state it exists, but whether as an intellectual vol- cano, that is, in a state of activity or not, we cannot say. So we must content ourselves with the statement of the fact of its exis- tence, and, with the farther remark that Cairo has in all her history to date to some extent neglected the improvement of this avenue of social and intellectual life. Cir- cumstances, and not the absence of an abund- ance and the best of material, has been the source of all this. It is to be hoped now, that this will no longer be the case, as the subject has the past winter and spring, by a fortunate circumstance, been brought so prominently before the people in discussions in social circles and much more so in the daily papers.

The Masons-The history of Masonry is more or less familiar to all the civilized, and, as the order claims, to many of the semi-civ- ilized, and even good Masons are to be found among barbarous peoples. Among its claimed chief merits and glories are its great

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age-the oldest organization in the world, antedating all sects, religions and even all organized social life since the coming of Adam and Eve. Again, it is sometimes given as the history of its foundation, that, as its name indicates, it was founded and organized among the workmen for mutual protection at the building of that historical structure-Solomon's Temple. But like everything else, it has adapted itself to the inevitable that follows the workings and growth of the human mind, and now they have attached to the order well-regulated benefit associations, and distribute much real and beneficial charity and aid to fellow-mem- bers and the widows and orphans of deceased brethren. The cardinal ideas of Masonry have, perhaps, always been a high morality founded on the Bible, and a law of mutual protection of a brother toward a brother.

A lodge was chartered in 1857, appoint- ing Charles D. Arter, William Standing, J. W. Mckenzie, John L. Smith, Robert E. Yost, C. Stewart and Robert H. Baird as charter members.

In 1874, the two Cairo lodges-the Delta and Lodge 237-were consolidated and formed under the name of the Delta Lodge.

The order of the Council was chartered October 5, 1866. The charter members were J. B. Fulton, J. W. Morris, George E. Louns- bury, Orlando Wilson, Charles Morris, W. H. Walker, E. P. Smith, L. Jorgensen, Most Foss, L. H. Elbrod, William Stand- ing, H. Elbrod, E. P. Smith, Charles Minni- que. Isadore Meiner, E. S. Davis, C. Ger- ricke, A. Harrick, S. J. Jackson, P. H. Pope, I. W. Waugh, C. S. Hartough F. F. Dun- bar, J. C. Guff, H. T. Bridges, S. Hess, William Perkins, J. Joseph and C. R. Wood- ward.

The Odd Fellows-The secret societies above now attach much importance to the

term " ancient," and the very warm stick- lers for this are the Masons, followed closely by the Odd Fellows. This last-named order came to Cairo October 13, 1857. The char- ter bearing that date is issued to John Green- wood, Abe Williams, G. W. Mckenzie, H. W. Bacon, John A. Reed, John Antrim and L. G. Faxon.

At the commencement of the late war, John Q. Harmon was the N. G. of the order, and for some reason unknown to us he returned the charter in 1861, and the society was no more a working Cairo institution.

On October the 3d, 1862, the following parties met and determined to have another organization effected and the beautiful prin- ciples of charity to the loved society once more in full operation here, to wit: F. Bross, J. S. Morris, H. F. Goodyear, M. Malinski, C. S. Hutcheson, I. P. McAuley, Joseph Mckenzie and C. M. Osterloh. On the 7th of the same month, at another meeting, the following additional members' names ap- pear on the rolls: John T. Rennie, W. V. McKee, and A. Halley. After this rest of nearly ten years, the members, it seems, went to work, determined to make up for lost time, and in a little while the member- ship had so grown that the I. O. O. F. ex- ceeded any society in the town in point of membership, and they had fitted up a nice hall and furnished it well. The society now is in a flourishing condition, and their ele- gant hall is on Commercial avenue, opposite Seventh street, and here, as of old, upon the sacred altars of their sires, the eastern wor- shipers turned their faces and devotions. So it is with many of the members, and their meetings are largely and regularly at- tended by nearly all the members, and from here every Christmas goes out to the widows and orphans of deceased members the holy remembrances upon that sacred day. No so-

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ciety is more liberal than this in the extent of its benefactions, and while the gifts go so bountifully, they are not charity doled out to those receiving it, but are dues from the so- ciety to those whose fathers and husbands were once brothers, and ungrudgingly they go to all-the rich as well as the poor. They have a fund called the widows' and orphans fund, that now amounts to something over $500, notwithstanding the almost constant drain made upon it. The money and hall furniture, etc., amounts to over $3,000. At the burial of any member of the order, the whole is, when agreeable to the relatives, taken charge of by the order, and $75 set apart to the family to defray funeral ex- penses.

The membership now is 128. Since the organization, in different years, there have been received 232 members.

There was at one time two consecutive years when no death occurred in the mem - bership or their families, and at the expira- tion of the two years, and then during three months, two members and the wife of each were buried by the organization.

Knights of Honor meet in the I. O. O. F. hall, on the second and fourth Tuesday evenings of each month. While this order is comparatively a modern one, yet it may be classed among the most flourishing of the country. The order throughout the United States is composed of the Supreme Lodge, and, as its name indicates, is the supreme authority over all others. Then the Grand Lodge, that has a State jurisdiction and supervision; then the subordinate lodges, and these are the local ones.

When a member joins this society, a cer- tificate is issued to him, called a widow's and orphans' fund certificate, the amount of which is $2,000. The ages for receiving new members is between eighteen and fifty

years of age. There are three degrees, called Infancy, Youth and Manhood, and the last only is entitled to any benefits. Half-rate certificates are issued, and upon these only half-rate assessments are paid and $1,000 only is paid upon death occurring. Assess- ments only one in twenty days, and the rate upon each death to those between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, $1; forty- five to forty-six, $1.05; forty-six to forty- seven, $1.10; forty-nine to fifty $1.50.

The present membership of the Cairo so- ciety is 105, and the enrollment 140.

The society was organized February 24, 1879, with the following charter members: W. M. Williams, W. R. Smith, Elmer Krauth, L. H. Saup, James F. Miller, G. M. Fraser, Henry Baird, C. F. Rudd, N. W. Hacker, W. H. Axe, James A. Phillis, George B. Ramsey, Oscar Haythorn, A. G. Royse, Charles Pink, M. W. Parker, F. F. Gholson, M. T. Fulton, Thomas B. Farren, W. B. Pettis, George B. Sergeant, John S. Hacker, Frank Cassidy, George W. Chellet, Charles H. Baker, Henry Winters, Charles Ediker, H. C. Loflin, C. W. Dunning, H. Meyers, Henry Elliott, P. W. Barclay, R. H. Baird, Ru. dolph Hebsacker, William Smith, C. B. S. Pennebaker, J. George Steinhouse, J. G. Arrington, George W. Yocum, and James Quinn.

The first officers in the election held by the society were C. W. Dunning, P. D .; W. M. Williams, D .; James F. Miller, V. D .; James A. Phillis, A. D .; Herman Meyers, Guide; C. H. Baker, R .; A. G. Royse, F. B .; Charles Pink, T .; H. Winters, C .; R. H. Baird, G .; and W. B. Pettis, S.

The present (1883) officers of the lodge are Samuel J. Humm, P. D .; Charles Cuning- ham, D. ; T. B. Holmes, V. D. ; George B. Ram- sey, A. D .; R. S. Yocum, R .; A. G. Royse, F. R .; A. G. Errington, T .; J. F. Miller,

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Guide; C. B. S. Pennebaker C .; Rudolph Heb- sacker, C .; Charles D. Young, S.

The trustees are Herman Meyers, Oscar Haythorn and E. A. Buder.

The deaths among the members since the order was founded have been James W. Stew- art, January 31, 1881; S. S. Tarrey, July 3, 1882; James W. Gash, November 2, 1882; Gerge R. Lentz, May, 1883.

The finances of the order are cash, $600, and in property, $206.95.

The Cairo Casino -A German benevolent and social society, was organized on the 14th of December, 1867. As the name indicates, the order is benevolent, and by various means distributes its faid, first to the families of those who have been members, and the sur- plus to those worthy and in need of their as- sistance. It is peculiarly a German institu- tion, as its name further indicates, and the casinos of America are offshoots of the fa- therland. While a large majority of the names of those who founded the Cairo Casino are German, yet a careful examination of the list will show names that are American, En- glish, Italian and French. Among the main purposes of the club are music, lager beer, wine and au annual picnic and dancing and that species of social life so characteristic of the German race when they meet in family groups, in which may be found all ages from the infant to the octogenarian.

The persons who originally met together, as mentioned above, to organize, are the fol- lowing: Robert Breibach, Charles Feuchter, Phillip Laurent, F. M. Stockfleth, Ferdinand Koehler, Jacob Walter, Charles Helfrick, A. Korsmeyer, John Scheel, Frank Pohle, Louis Koehler, Amandus Jaekel, Baltus Reiff, Au- gust Kramer. William Alba, W. T. Beer- wart.

The first officers of the society were Robert Breibach, President; Charles Feuchter, Vice

President; Phillip Laurent, Treasurer; F. M. Stockfleth, Sec .; August Kramer, Assist- ant Sec.

On June 15, 1873, the society obtained a regular charter, with fifty- nine regular mem - bers. Since that date it has lost eleven members by death and thirty of the charter members either removed from Cairo or re- signed their membership. Sixteen new members have joined, and its present mem- bership is thirty-four, and of this number eighteen are active and worthy members of the society, who were of the charter members, as follows: Charles Feuchter, Charles Hel- frick, Herman Schmitzstorf, John George Keller, Jacob Walter, Louis Herbert, John Koehler, Herman Meyer, Jacob Kline, John Reese, Henry Wallschmidt, Henry Hasen- yeager, Louis Driestmann, Henry Walker, Leo Kleb, Jacob Goldstein and Jean Ogg.

Turner's Society .- As early as 1856, there were Germans enough to start in this society, with a charter membership numbering forty- five, with Henry Aspern, President, Dr. Kick- bach, Sec. The society purchased five lots and erected a high, close fence about the same, and built cheap, temporary frame houses as a place of protection to their prop- erty. These improvements were hardly more than completed, when the floods of June, 1858, came and washed everything away, leaving their lots as bare as the old bald head who ever secured the front seat at a per- formance of Fisk's Blondes.

The society then rented the third story in the Springfield Block, where they chuckled, took swei glass and sang "Wacht am Rhine," when the fire came-burned the block and everything in the world the society had; but not wholly demoralized, the Turner-Phoenix rose from the ashes and again purchased lots on Fifteenth and Cedar streets, and again

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fenced with a high fence and built a plain but neat building, and when they had the grounds all improved in good shape (this was in 1861), the soldiers came and made quite as clean a sweep of everything belonging to the club as had the water or fire. And finally, to add insult to injury -- to kill out effectually what could not, or would not be crushed, the head society in the United States sent a formal circular to each member, notifying him that all Turners must join the Republican party,

when each one returned the circular, sent back their constitution and charter and dis- banded, sine die.

One of the original and active, but finally indignant members, remarked to the writer, as he finished the above account, that after the last election, especially in Cincinnati, every Turner society in the United States, Germany and Holland, had probably returned their charters and made things, “donner and blitsen" all around the sky.

CHAPTER VIII.

CAIRO-HER CONDITION IN IS61-1878-1883-THE EBB AND FLOW OF BUSINESS AND POPULATION -WAR AND THE PANIC WHICH FOLLOWED-STEAMBOATS-MARK TWAIN-PILOTS-SOME STEAMBOAT DISASTERS-AND A JOKE OR TWO BY WAY OF ILLUSTRATION, ETC.

TN a previous chapter we brought the so- cial and political life of Cairo as fully as we could, to the year 1863, when again the prosperity of the town had ascended into another zenith. But the most solid advance- ment the city has really ever made was from the latter part of 1859-60 and the early part of 1861. During this period, there was no similarly situated town in population, wealth or manufactories in the world that equaled or approached Cairo in her commercial im- portance and glory. The Illinois Central Railroad had been long enough completed to begin to manifest her importance in the commercial world. The road was a young and mighty giant, and was in the hands of men who could comprehend the wants of the great empire to be developed, and with large and generous ideas, they turned their atten- tion to the Delta city, and her mingling waters of the Mississippi and Ohio as they went singing to the sea. Here was the termi- nus of the road, as well as the terminus of continuous navigation in the finest system of

rivers in the world. They saw here the cen - tral and attractive point for the greatest scope of country, unparalleled in its wealth of soil and climate; they saw the rich wilderness that was to bloom into immeasureable com- merce and productiveness, and to develop some day into that superb type of civiliza- tion that pushes forward the human race- resources incalculable, and a growth of wealth immeasureable, all pointing to this spot as their natural place of meeting and exchanges. Here were mines, not only inex- haustible, but ever growing and increasing in their yield, and not to be dug and delved for into the primeval rocks that retain the bowels of the earth, but spread with the un- sparing hand of Omnipotence over all the fair face of the earth and the waters. Here were the greatest rivers the greatest railroad and the meeting of the three sister States of Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri.

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History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 20

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