History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 37

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 37
USA > Illinois > Pulaski County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 37
USA > Illinois > Alexander County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 37

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).

Her recollection is that the nearest carding machine, and where they had to go to get their wool carded, was at Jackson, Mo .- a trip that it took three days to make. Mr. Verble had a water grist mill seven miles southeast of Jonesboro. The only lumber then was cut with whip-saws. The woods were full of an undergrowth of the pea vine. A man named Griffin taught a school near the spring south of Jonesboro, in a small log cabin; afterward Winstead Davie taught the same school, and then Willis Williard taught there for some time.

Dr. B. W. Brooks lived about half a mile south of Jonesboro. He was a man pos- sessed of a thorough classical education, and had traveled and mingled with cultured so- ciety, and read and studied the best authors un- til he was an accomplished scholar and was a well-informed physician. His family were possessed of ample means, and it must have been a singular impulse for the fascinations of the wilderness that could have induced him to woo fortune here and spend his life among a rough and unlettered people. A

strong mind, a finished classical and profes- sional education, of polished and courtly manners, when he felt the necessity of so be- ing, it seems strange that he preferred the rough and hard life of a pioneer, and was often ready to lay all his accomplishments

aside, and with the keenest zest enjoy his un- couth surroundings. He was possessed of a fine vein of humor, and his practical jokes, sometimes very rough indeed, were inex- haustible. He had an extensive practice all over this part of the country, and his reputa- tion as a physician was wide and of the high- est order. He was one of the early County Commissioners, was a member of the Legis- lature, and filled numerous minor official positions. His love of fun and his keen sense of the ridiculous were evenly balanced, and it was the delight of his life to get some Yahoo into a conversation and put the whole village into a roar over his making-up with his new acquaintance and so shrewdly would he quiz the fellow that he would soon con- vince him that he was a native of the particular neighborhood that " greeny " had come from, and finally that they were close blood relatives. Often he would call a stranger into the tav- ern and agree to give him $5 to let him abuse him as much as he pleased for one hour. The conditions being that if the stranger tired of his bargain and did not stand out the hour that he was to give back the money. It is said he always got his money back in the course of ten or fifteen minutes, and sometimes a fight to boot; and the Doctor would enjoy one about as well as the other. One of the first Irishmen that came to Union County had the usual ready Irish wit and repartee, and he was a great admirer of Dr. Brooks, and many was the bout at chaffing that they had when the Irish- man would come to town. One day the Doc- tor told him how they caught the wild Irish, by putting potatoes in a barrel with a hole just large enough for them to get their hand in, and they would reach in and grab a po- tato, and with this in their hand they were tight and fast. By the time the story was told the Irishman was fighting mad.

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HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY.

In looking over some of Dr. Brooks' old papers are found the following graphic and interesting account of the high waters in the Mississippi: " The Mississippi commenced rising on the 18th of May, 1844, and con- tinued rising at the rate of two feet to thirty inches in twenty-four hours, until the 1st of June, at which time it stood within eight inches of the flood line of 1808. By the 10th of June it fell five or six feet, and left the farms in the bottom all free of water. The bottom farms had been more or less cov ered with water except that of Jacob Trees. On the 11th of June, the waters commenced to rise again, the flood coming down the Mis- souri and Mississippi Rivers, and this time it rose from one foot to eighteen inches in twenty-four hours. This rise steadily con- tinued until it overflowed the bottom land in Union County from eighteen to thirty feet deep. This was the depth of the water on the road to Littleton's old ferry, and also to Willard's landing. Stock, crops, houses and fences were carried away in the raging waters. The people made great efforts to save their stock, and called to their aid ferry and coal boats and all floating craft, but soon they found they could only hope to save a few of their household effects, and the stock was left to its fate and the people fled to the hills. This rise continued steadily until June 29, when it came to a stand. On the Ist of July it commenced slowly to recede. This was higher water than that of 1808 by ten or twelve feet. It was higher than was ever known, except in 1785, which Beck says in his history was the highest waters in 150 years. Mr. Cerre, one of the oldest French settlers of St. Louis, said: 'The flood was higher by four or five feet in 1785 than in 1844. In 1844, the steamer Indiana trans- ported the nuns from the Kaskaskia Convent to St. Louis. The boat received them from

the door of Pierre Menard's residence, the water in front of the house being fifteen feet in depth. Two hundred people went from Kaskaskia on the Indiana, and about 300 found shelter at Menard's, while yet others were sheltered in tents on the bluffs. The loss in the bottoms was at least $1,000,000. From Alton to Cairo there were 288,000 acres of land overflowed. In Randolph County is a document soliciting a grant of lots from the crown of France, and urging as a reason the great flood of 1724, which over- flowed the village and destroyed it. Great overflows occurred in 1542, 1724 and 1785, and in 1844. The Mississippi bottoms are now very clean, as everything is washed off and many of the small trees are killed."

Dr. Brooks died September 12, 1845, aged fifty-three years. His widow, Lucinda Brooks, survived and died in 1881, 16th of July, aged eighty-one years.

Mrs. Nancy Hileman came in 1817, with her father's (George Davis) family. She was then twelve years old, and for an active, healthy old lady, her long life here of sixty- six years tells a strong story in behalf of the health of Union County.

Elijah Willard came to Union County in the year 1820, a poor boy, with a scanty education, and he was the only support of his widowed mother and three small children. The coming of this family was the most val- uable acquisition to the community it prob- ably ever made. At aglance, this boy realized the imperative wants of a rude people, and he laid the foundations of society upon which have been reared the structure we behold to- day. He was the architect and founder that converted an almost unorganized and igno- rant gathering of trappers and hunters into a commercial and agricultural community, with all the arts and science of a splendid civili- zation. Before Elijah Willard came, the

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HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY.

people hunted game for food, and exchanged peltries and honey for the few articles of commerce that were necessary to their sim- ple, scanty lives. He saw that highways to the world's market were the only road to the change that must be brought among the peo- ple, and he therefore obtained leave and built the turnpike across the bottom to the river, and opened " Willard's Ferry," and showed the people that they could raise produce and export it, and that by selling and buying in the markets they could surround themselves with all the comforts of life. He not only pointed out the way. but he worked out his designs, and by opening the largest and best farm in the county demonstrated that there were higher walks in life than baiting bears and gathering coon-skins. He led the way, and the people followed, and he lived, short as was his great life, long enough to see the merchandise that could once be carried in its importation on a pack-mule, rise to such pro- portions that his annual sales were more than $100,000. When would the people without Willard have discovered that the key to civ- ilization and a powerful community of farın- ers, merchants, laborers, manufacturers, and the arts and sciences lay in the direction of the open doors of such markets as St. Louis, New Orleans, Cincinnati and New York? And he opened the way. We now look upon the great change, and how few know to whom they owe these blessings? In the little more than twenty years of his active life, he gave the people ideas and public improvements that will continue to be invaluable benefits for generations yet to come. He was the master spirit of Union County while he lived, and his influence will be here when we are all gone and forgotten. How incomparably greater is such a life than are all the Napo- leons, Bismarcks or Alexanders that ever lived! His life was as different and as much

greater than these men as it is better than the modern millionaires of the Gould kind who gather in colossal fortunes by gambling- pulling down and not building up a people. He had saved from a small salary $250, and with this he laid the foundation of the house of Willard & Co., and had so perfectly reared the superstructure that at his death his brother was enabled to carry out his designs.

It would only bespeak on the part of the people of Union County a just appreciation of the benefits the life of Elijah Willard has been to them to place in some of its public buildings a full-sized portrait of him .. No act could be more appropriate to his mem- ory. No public expression of gratitude could be more just.

Willis Willard. -- Jonathan Willard, a sol- dier in the war of 1812, came down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh, and landed at Bird's Point in 1817. From here he went to Cape Girardeau, where he died tbe same year, and left his widow, Nancy, with four children -Elijah, Willis, Anna and William. The widow with her children came to Jonesboro, and in great poverty commenced the serious struggle for life. Elijah was old enough to commence clerking in a store in Jonesboro, and in a few years he bought out his employer and associated with himself his brother Wil- lis. In 1836, Elijah was made Internal Im- provement Commissioner for the State of Illinois. He died in 1848, of consumption.

The Williard family is of English origin. and dates back in this country to the first col- onists of Massachusetts, Simon Willard hav- ing landed in Boston in 1634.

Willis Willard was born in Windsor Coun- ty, Vt., March 20, 1805. He died May 12, 1881. He was but eleven years old when he came West, and had but little schooling. and but few opportunities for educating him- self in this new country. His mother came-

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to Jonesboro in 1820, and he was a clerk for different merchants until he was twenty-one years old. He took charge of his brother's business at his death, and rapidly rose to be the greatest merchant in Southern Illinois. He continued to merchandise for forty-three years, and the fame of the house of Willard & Co. extended over the entire country. He sold goods and operated extensively in real estate. At one time he owned 13.000 acres of land in Union County. He retired from active business in 1873, the owner of 4,000 acres of the choicest lands in the county, and other property. making a total of over $500,000.

For a long lifetime, he was the foremost man, not only in his county, but in Southern Illinois, in every enterprise tending to pro- mote the material and intellectual interests of the people. He erected many of the best business and private houses in Jonesboro. In 1836, he built the first steam saw and grist mill that was ever in the county. In 1853, realizing the wants of Union County, he built at his own expense a female semi- nary in Jonesboro, and sent to Boston and brought two lady teachers to take charge of the institution. For years this was a flour- ishing school, and gave the people excellent facilities for educating their daughters, with- out being compelled to send them to the dis- tant and expensive seminaries of the country. His enterprise and benevolence went hand in hand. He was not a politician, and although often tempted and persuaded, could never be induced to accept office; yet, in local politics, he often took a deep interest, and here, when he so desired, he wielded a master hand. He was a consistent Democrat all his life, but in political friend or foe he respected honor and worth, and despised all frauds and shams. and for pretentious demagogues he had neither respect nor patience.

In 1835, he was married to Frances Webb, and of this marriage there were eleven chil- dren, five of whom died in infancy. Henry, the eldest, who had become a successful mer- chant in Jonesboro, died in 1865, aged twenty-eight years.

Willis Willard's princely fortune was the accumulations that come of those sterling business qualities and sound judgment that wronged no man, but tended to aid and build up all around him. His word was never questioned, his good advice and ripe judg- ment was freely extended to all, the humblest as well as the highest. To his many em- ployes, he was a most generous master, and a duty well performed was not overlooked, but remembered and rewarded. After a life of unremitting toil and tireless energy. the declining years allotted him were spent in that quiet retirement which he so well had earned. And when the summons that awaits us all finally came, he folded in peaceful content those once strong and bounteous hands upon a breast stilled of the desires, hopes, loves and hates of this world, and went peacefully to his fathers. May his memory linger for aye, as a benison to the good people of Union County.

Mrs. Nancy Willard, the mother of Wil- lis Willard, died February 12, 1874, aged ninety-nine years ten months and five days, one of the noblest women that ever came West. Left poor, with four young chil- dren her whole life was her children's, with a devotion that never ceased, and in the rising fortunes of her children and grand-children was her whole life-thought and labor. For half a century she was widely known as "Mother Willard," and probably above all women that ever lived in Union County de- served that appellation of love. She was wise, earnest, active and charitable; she was the friend, the " mother " indeed of all who

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needed aid and comfort. She sought and cared for the poor orphans with ceaseless anxiety, and it is said in her just praise that no human being ever appealed to her for aid in vain. In every relation of life she was conspicuous and great; a loving mother, a dear friend, an earnest, good Christian, full of charity and forgiveness for all. For sev- enteen years before death, she was blind; her other faculties were unimpaired. Her end was peace and joy. She had wanted to fill out the even hundred years of life, but the summons came only a few days before the full century was reached, but she was ready and willing to go; she had prepared for it more than fifty years before it came. A long life, a valuable life, a life the world could but illy have spared. What a sweep of great events and changes that one life witnessed. She well remembered the sur- render of Yorktown, and the rejoicing over the acknowledgment of our nation's inde- pendence by Great Britain, in 1783. She was sixteen years old when our national Consti- tution was adopted, and thirty-one years old when Napoleon ceded to the United States the French possessions in America. She was forty-two years old when Napoleon was ban- ished to St. Helena, and fifty-three when La- fayette visited America. She had seen Illi- nois grow from a wilderness of wild beasts and Indians to a great State of over three millions of people. She had seen those who saw the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock, from the Mayflower. Blessed " Mother Willard!" Hail, and farewell!

The manner of home life and labor about the cabins of the early settlers is to some ex- tent well illustrated by the following account of a piece of goods shown us by Judge Daniel Hileman. It is a cotton-linen bed spread, and made sixty-five years ago in this county by his mother and sister. With their own

unaided hands these good women planted the seed, both of the cotton and the flax, tended, gathered and did everything in the prepar- ation of the fiber in order to make it into cloth, and then wove and bleached it, and although it is now sixty-five years old, it is as white as driven snow and soft and strong of texture, and as smooth as any goods that can be made by the best of modern improve- ments. The nimble fingers that so deftly spun and wove this now interesting relic have been still upon their pulseless bosoms these many years, and, we confess, in con- templating the piece of goods we were car- ried back to those ancient days when the humble cabins of our fathers, each and all presented these scenes of " the good dames, well content, handling the spindle and the flax." This relic, telling its simple story of the dead, is now more precious than fine gold; of itself it is a history of the domestic life of those brave and hardy people who im- periled their lives in the preparation of this smiling land of happy homes for us and ours, and it is hoped that when Judge Hileman's family can no longer keep and care for this precious memento it may go into the care of the Government, the State, or some historical society, or, perhaps best of all, into the care of Union County, and be encased in glass, with a carefully prepared history of it, even to the minutest details, where it may be kept as a reminder and a monitor for the genera- tions to come in the future centuries.

There are not many facts now attainable by which we are enabled to write the history of the growth of those ideas that have carried our people forward in civilization. We can only guess. mostly, about those important events that worked strong influences upon the general mind. They were a people that made as few records for our study and in- spection as possible. It seems strange, that

B Ir Mason

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among all those early pioneers there was so little care for what their posterity might be able to learn about them. That there was no Herodotus to jot down the details of every movement of the people, and realize that the most trifling and tiresome details would now be of intense interest. So far as we can now learn, in the three counties of Union, Alex- ander and Pulaski, there were only two men who wrote down their observations and ac- counts of events that passed before their eyes-Dr. B. W. Brooks and Col. Henry L. Webb. Dr. Brooks' papers and records are scattered, and many, doubtless, lost; and we almost accidentally came across his account of the high water of 1844, which we publish else- where. And we are indebted to Mrs. M. M. Goodman, of Jonesboro. for some invaluable reminiscences of Col. Henry L. Webb, which he had written out concerning the early set- tlement of what is now Pulaski County, and for the perusal of which we refer the reader to the history of that county, in another part of this work.

The living but seldom realize in what light their humble lives may be reflected upon posterity. They know that they are deeply interested in the story of their fathers, but they never dream that such will also some day be the case of their own descendants about them. To their minds their fathers were important, great and good men, while they themselves and their surroundings are insignificant and wholly worthless. Hence the vagueness and imperfection of any his- tory of the human race that can ever be writ- ten. And just here comes in the one great- est loss to the human race. To know the true history of mankind is to have nearly all knowledge; for, indeed, this "history is phi- losophy teaching by example." It is not the dates and days of supposed great events that constitute any part of history. Battles, earth-

quakes, floods, famines, the birth of empires and the death of kings, are interesting events to know, but they are little or no part of true history, because real history is an ac- count of the human mind-how it has been affected, what influenced it to march forward in the path of civilization, or caused it to recede or stand still and stagnate. It is the doings of the mind, and not so much the acts of the body, that constitute history. And what data has the student now for the gain- ing of this divine knowledge? Could such a book be written, it would be worth a million times all that ever yet came from the print- ing press. The present century has produced two or three minds that were great enough to grasp this truth, and the work of re-writing the world's history has now commenced. And the scant materials will some day be worked out and fashioned by great minds. If we had a complete chronology, or the full statistics of all the nations that have lived, there would soon come men who could write almost the true history-the tragic story of the ebb and flux of civilization. Hence the loss, the irreparable loss, of all those details and statistics about a people that constitute, not their history, but their chronology-the instruments and materials which, in the hands of a real historian, can be made into history-a text-book superseding all the school books, the schools, colleges and uni- versities in the world. True, with all the materials ready to hand, no mere chronicler could then write history, because he must be a philosoper, indeed, in order to trace cause and effect upon the general mind; not only such things as had strong effects, but to go deep enough to attach cause and effect together. wherein circumstances or events are to the ordinary mind, not only widely separated, but so distant as to apparently have no pos- sible connection.

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By all this disconnected moralizing we only desire to impress upon the reader that some time it may be many years after he has passed away, there will come the future his torian, who will be prying into the circum- stances of his times, and even with a sharper interest than we are now turning over, perusing and gathering up all the details of those who have preceded us, and putting it in a story for the pleasure and instructions of the yet unborn generations. Preserve old files and records and papers; then, and yet more, when- ever there is an accident, an unusual season, an event of any kind, even trifling circum- stances, go and do as Capt. Cuttle, “ when found, make a note on't."

An extended account of the two railroads passing through Union County may be found in the chapter on railroads, in the history of Cairo, in another part of this volume. A fact illustrating how the most trifling circum- stances sometimes produce important results is given in the first operations of building the Illinois Central Railroad. The engineers had surveyed the line just where the road runs. The people of Jonesboro, that is, a few of them, became solicitous about the road not being surveyed through Jonesboro. A self-appointed committee of two or three of the people of that ancient town waited on the engineer, Ashley, and had an extended interview with him. They explained what they wanted, and insisted that from the "pass " where the road would cross the hills north of this, a shorter and as good a line could be found via Jonesboro, as by the survey made. Mr. Ashley finally agreed that if the town would pay $50 to defray the expense of a survey by that route, he would order one made. The committee reported to the people, but so confident were they that the road must touch their town, that they would not contribute a cent for the survey. They

felt certain the survey as made and this offer of a new one, was only a weak attempt to get money from them for nothing. They re- fused to give the money, and the result is the town of Anna came into existence, and has finally outstripped the old town in the race of life. Had the road been built through Jones- boro, it is easy enough to believe that it would have had many more people in it to- day than there are now in both the towns. For many years, Jonesboro was the leading town in Southern Illinois. It has lost that prestige. It is possible it could not have kept in the van under any circumstances, but one thing is certain, had the road been built there it would have made a thrifty, rich and prosperous little city. This would have greatly benefited the whole county, as it would have tended to bring people here of energy, capital and enterprise, and the farm- ers of the county would have kept pace to some extent with the prosperity of the town. In the end, Jonesboro lost the Central road, and in years after subscribed $50,000 to the Cairo & St. Louis Railroad, that now passes through the place, but as if fate was against it, there has sprung up several little towns about it that more or less divide the trade of the place instead of helping to build it up.

Schools .-- In another chapter we have spoken at some length of the early schools in the first settlement of the county. They were somewhat slow to come, and they did not seem to grow and flourish to any great extent when they did come.

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History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 37

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