History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 56

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 56
USA > Illinois > Pulaski County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 56
USA > Illinois > Alexander County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 56

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value as records of the people who wrote them. It is still uncertain whether the lan- guage was generally understood by the Mound-Builders, or whether it was confined to a few persons of high rank. In the mound where two of these tablets were discovered, the bones of a child were found, partially preserved by contact with a large number of copper beads, and as copper was a rare and precious metal with them, it would seem that the mound in question was used for burial of persons of high rank. The inscriptions have not been deciphered, for no key to them has yet been found; we are totally ignorant of the derivation of the language, of its affinities with other written languages. The Mound-Builders lived while the mammoth and mastodon were upon the earth, as is clear- ly proved by the carvings upon some of their elaborate stone pipes. From the size and other peculiarities of the pipes, it is inferred that smoking was not habitual with them, but that it was reserved as a sort of ceremonial observance. Our knowledge of the habits and customs of the Mound-Builders is very incomplete, but it is sufficient to show that at least a part of this country was once in- habited by a people who have passed away without leaving so much as a tradition of their existence, and who are only known to us through the silent relics which have been interred for centuries. A people utterly for- gotten, a civilization totally lost-was it through a great catastrophe in the history of the world, or was the ceaseless struggle for existence so severe that they finally suc- cumbed and pased away ?

The territory covered by the original Alex- ander County possessed attractions to these unknown races of people ages and ages ago. We class them under the general name of Mound-Builders. Of these people, Rev. E. B. Olmstead, of Pulaski County, says:

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HISTORY OF ALEXANDER COUNTY.

" They are supposed to have been a branch of the Aztecs, whose wealth tempted the cupid- ity of the Spaniards. Perhaps annoyed by the fiercer incursions of the red man, they returned to New Mexico, and are now known as the Pueblos, a people who live in stone houses, are agriculturists, shepherds, and know a few rude manufactures.

Only the earthen mounds and the exten- sive circumvalation at Old Caledonia re- main to give evidence of the existence of a once powerful race of people, as little known to us as the Druids of England, or the in- habitants of the land of Nod. At Lake Milliken, near the Mississippi River, are two mounds, one covering about an acre of ground, the other about half as large, which, when built, must have been seventy or eighty feet high. The lake itself is supposed to have been formed by excavations made to ob- tain the earth for the mounds. There are also a number of mounds at and near Mound City and Caledonia. At the latter place is a fortification, circular in form and 270 feet in diameter, with gateways at the north and south. In 1820. these works were sixteen feet high, according to the testimony of Col. H. L. Webb, and were covered with immense trees. It has been supposed by some that the French or Spanish erected the fort, but the facts do not favor the idea. It would be strange, indeed, that while the circum- stances which required the erection of all other similar works by Europeans in this country, were all well known as matters of history, the silence of the grave should rest on this one spot. If the workmen were not Mound-Builders, then they belonged to a race still more remote; for we know that if the noble red man never plants a tree, so he never cuts one down.

But few people had come here in 1819, at the time of the formation of the county.

In 1820, considerably more than one year after its organization, there were, according to the United States census, but 625 souls, and it must be borne in mind that in that enumeration was included nearly all of what is now Pulaski County, and in the last-named territory were the only towns of any impor- tance in the county -- America and Caledonia.

Then there was the town of Trinity, at the mouth of the Cache River, where there is not left one stone upon another to indicate the spot. Outside the towns named, and the settlements in what is now Pulaski County, there were, probably, not one hunderd peo- ple in the territory now composing Alexander. County. In fact, but very few, except those we have named in a previous chapter, in which we refer to the early settlers who came here when this was Johnson County and afterward Union County, and then Alexander County.

Trinity .- In 1816, James Riddle, Nicholas Berthend, Elias Rector and Henry Bechtle entered lands, extending from below the - mouth of the Cache to the Third Principal Meridian, and by a general subdivision estab- lished Trinity. No town lots were sold, but James Berry, and afterward Col. H. L. Webb, about 1817, carried on a hotel and trading business. Goods were re-shipped here for St. Louis, and rafts of lumber drawn. For some time this was the most pretentious and important town near the mouth of the Ohio River. In the days of flat and keel boats, this point rapidly grew in importance. The few steamboats then upon the river were wont to make Trinity an important landing point, both in their down and up trips. But at an early day, the sand bar in front of the place had soon grown until it kept steam- boats from landing at the wharf, and soon even flatboats and the keel boats, except in good stages of water, could not reach the landing.

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HISTORY OF ALEXANDER COUNTY.

The rapid formation of the bar set the signet of destiny upon Trinity. Apparently the chief notoriety now 'attaching to the spot where Trinity once stood is, from the number of times it was pointed out to us, that it is the spot where Wat Webb was born. But it is more apt to go into history as the " deserted village" of which Elias Rector was once one of the proprietors. Rector was one of the soldiers of the war of 1812. He was one of the two Illinois Colonels in that war. In his little regiment, less than two hundred volunteers, Willis Hargrave commanded a company of men made up, it is supposed, from what was then known as the Ohio Salina. Col. Rector and Capt. Hargrave were in the celebrated expedition up the Illinois River against the fierce and murderous Kick- apoos and Pottawatomies on the Illinois River. They were acting in concert, or, rather, that was the plan of the expedition, for the Kentucky forces, 2,000 strong. under Gen. Hopkins, had crossed the Wabash and were on their way to the country of the hostiles. But Hopkins' forces mutinied and returned, and he could not control them. The brave Illinoisians, however, pushed ahead. and burned villages, captured many Indians and killed a number more. In 1814, Illinois and Missouri sent two expedi tions into the Illinois River country, and Capt. Craig burned the large Indian village of Peoria. In this expedition, our forces en- gaged in repeated skirmishes and some severe battles, and Col. Rector was in all this war a most conspicuous and meritorious officer.

America-This town, laid out with much pomp and parade as the future great metrop- olis in 1818, by James Riddle, Henry Bechtle and Thomas Sloo, of Cincinnati, and Stephen and Henry Rector, of St. Louis. The agent of the proprietors was William M. Alexander, who resided at America. The

agent of Mr. Riddle was John Dougherty, father of William Dougherty, of Mound City, who resided in Trinity, and when that place started down the hill he removed to America. Alexander was a physician of great eminence. He was the representative of the district in the Legislature, in 1820, from Pope County.

From a diary of Gen. H. L. Webb, we ex- tract the following very interesting account of the early settlement and the people of the town of America, and what is now Alexander and Union Counties:

" A land company had purchased all the lands that did not overflow near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and all above Cache River, up to the old blockhouse known as Caledonia. Indeed, the company owned all or nearly all the lands from four miles above the junction of the rivers to fifteen miles above, along on the river. In the year 1817, Dr. W. M. Alexander pur- chased from James Riddle the one-half of his interest in Sections 9 and 10, two miles be- low Caledonia, and six miles above the mouth of Cache River; it being the nearest lands to the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers that was not subject to annual inun- dation from the rise of the rivers. This land company, together with Dr. Alexander, in 1818, laid off the town on a magnificent scale, on Sections 9 and 10, and called it America. It was then in Union County. Illinois had just been received into the Un- ion, and the Legislature set off Alexander County, and made America, conditionally, the county seat. The town at once came into notice, from its locality, being the first high ground above the junction of the two rivers. People in our own country, and, indeed, all over the civilized world, looking at a map of the United States, were at once impressed with the almost certainty that a large com

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HISTORY OF ALEXANDER COUNTY.

mercial city must grow up here, at the junc- tion of the rivers and the three States of Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri. At the time America was laid out, freighting busi- ness was yet mostly done in flat and keel boats and barges. All, or nearly all, the produce from the States adjoining was floated down in flat boats. The groceries, sugar, coffee, molasses and other merchandise was brought up in barges and keel boats. Only a few steamboats had been built, and com- menced to navigate. Indeed, it was yet an unsettled question with the mass of our citizens, whether the Mississippi could be successfully navigated by steam; so skeptical were the people that when Capt. Shreve, in his boat, the Washington, made the trip from New Orleans in twenty-four days, the city of Louisville gave him a public dinner. [See history of Cairo for full account-ED.] Peo- ple believed steamboats could only run when the river was full, and therefore could only make one or two trips a season. Therefore, when the town of America was laid out, no one, for a moment, thought of the necessity of a good, deep landing-place for steamboats, as a necessity for a town, the proprietors only being acquainted and accustomed to flat and keel boats and barges.

" The town of America was laid off and settled by a number of people-several hun- dred-during high water. In front of the town, for two miles, was a sand bar, making it impossible for steamboats to land.

" The settlers came in rapidly in 1819, 1820 and 1821. A brick jail and court house were built, and many frame houses and twenty-four double cabins, to accommodate the settlers, were built by the proprietors of the town. The new comers being generally poor people from the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and some from North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The

country back of the town had been settled up in 1817, by a company or family from Ken- tucky. Of these were Aaron Atherton, an old man of eighty years, and his sons Aaron, John C., Samuel, and their sons Aaron, Nathaniel, Talbot, and their sors-in-law Thomas Haward, William and Aaron Biger- staff, Langhame, Conyers, Warfords, Martin Atherton, Henry Johnson, D. Hollinghead, Giles Whitaker and 'many others, young men, in all probability one hundred. Eleven miles back of the settlement was a small settlement on Cache River, known as Russell's settlement, as he was the leader of it. This Russell settlement had been in the country some years. These were all good, honest people, and first-rate citizens. About six miles from the Russell settlement lived Levi Hughes, Esq., a wealthy man and a good farm- er, who had settled in the county in 1812. When a young man, he had carried the mail from Cape to the county seat of Johnson County-Elvira-twice a month, on horse- back; no roads but Indian traces. He reared a large family, and was much respected. I name these people whom I found settled when I first came to it.

/ " The persons who first settled in America were Dr. W. M. Alexander, Algernon Sidney Grant (a lawyer), R. S. Jones, Horace Jones, Phillip Wakefield, Alonson Powell, David H. Moore, John Bowman, James Berry, John Cowley, Samuel H. Alward, Nesbit Allen, Edmund Sutton, William King, William Price, George Cloud, Capt. L. Adams, David Hailman, John Bowman, Mr. Kenedy, Will- iam Holley, Mr. Abbey, John Barnet, Mr. Edwards, Mr. Marmon, H. Hoopaw, Riley Hoopaw, Mr. Heady, Nance and Tunstall. I name those as among the first settlers. Hundreds of others I cannot recollect. In 1819-20, the town was progressing well, un- der the circumstances. There was a large

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HISTORY OF ALEXANDER COUNTY.

immigration; the country back of the town unsettled; the few there were poor, and the best and most industrious among them mak- ing barely enough to support their families: The Ohio River, on which we depended to get our supply of breadstuff, got extremely low, so that loaded produce flatboats could not descend. Our bread gave out; we had plenty of wild game meat, bear, deer and turkey. Our people nearly all got sick with bilious fever, fever and ague, and many died. In the fall of 1819, I rode on horseback from the town nearly to Philadelphia, when I took stage for New York, to meet my family and take them out to my new home in Illinois. My family consisted of wife, two little daughters-one three years old, the other one year old-and one servant, a black woman, to be set free in Illinois, after five years' service. New York was then a slave State. I hired a coach from New York to Philadelphia. We crossed the mountains to Pittsburgh in a stage, and it took us four days and nights from Philadelphia to Pitts- burgh. A young man, a passenger in the stage, rode my horse, a favorite one that I took to Illinois. At Pittsburgh I purchased a flatboat, made it comfortable, loaded it with iron, nails, merchandise, and hired two men to work it. It was the 1st of November, and the Ohio very low. We were thirty days getting to Cincinnati, and the day after we got there the river closed with ice. I had expended, in getting from New York to Cin- cinnati, $500. My family remained all win- ter at Cincinnati. In the spring, I pur- chased and loaded a large flatboat, hired hands and ran it down myself, and sent my family on a new steamer just built and on her first trip to New Orleans-the Comet, Capt. Charles Byrnes. My family were to stop at Shawneetown, and remain with my friend Thomas Sloo, until I got there. (Mr.

Sloo was Register of United States Land Office.) I took my family, on a small boat attached to my barge. to America, where we landed February 29, 1820. In the autumn of that year the town became very sickly, but few people in the town or country escaping, and during the time of this universal sick- ness a steamboat from New Orleans came up as far as Cache Island, and was moored in- side the Cache Island bar, at the mouth of Hess' bayou, about three miles below the town of America. On the trip up the boat lost many passengers and some of her crew by yellow fever. The fever was raging vio- lently at New Orleans when the boat started on her voyage. Her engineer, a man named Lough, and some of the crew were still suffering with the disease on board the boat. The sick engineer was brought to the town to be cared for; he died in a few days, and the fever was communicated to many of our sick people, and in most cases proved fatal; indeed, so general was the sickness, that on the day Lough died and was to be buried, there were two other persons dead, and in our whole population there were but three men, besides myself, well enough to dig the graves and bury them.

" On my arrival at America, I was induced to form a partnership with Dr. Alexander, and with the money furnished by the pro- prietors and our own we purchased a general assortment of merchandise and provisions to supply our people; as nearly the entire male population were in our employ in cleaning and clearing up the principal streets and lots, and to build houses to let to people immigrat- ing to our town. The County Commission- ers had contracted with Alexander to build a brick court house and jail, the jail to be built first. We burned the brick, put up the jail and finished it. A number of houses had been built, and the town was flourishing and

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HISTORY OF ALEXANDER COUNTY.

settling up rapidly, until the sickness came, and the low water and this stopped its prog- ress. The sickness drove many from the town to hunt healthier places, and the low water prevented flatboats and other vessels from descending the river, and cut off our only source for getting breadstuff; and this low water, for the first time, showed us we had built our town where there was no place for steamboats to land; the sand bars in the entire front of the town presenting insuper- able barriers, and the citizens at once became discouraged, and by 1821 our town came to a standstill. We could not hold out induce- ments of its becoming a great commercial city, as we were led to believe was the case when it was laid out.

" It remained the county seat until the year -- , when it (the county seat) was re- moved to near the center of the county, to a place called Unity, where it remained until the county was divided, and Pulaski County formed, and Caledonia made the new county's seat of justice. The new county seat of Alexander county was Thebes.

" In the year 1821, Mr. Nicholas Berth- end, of Shippingsport, Ky., and the house of Gordon, Tunstall & Co., of New Orleans, and an Englishman named Charles Briggs, pur- chased a one-fourth interest in the lands ly- ing about the mouth of Cache River, from Riddle, Bechtle, Sloo & Co., with an agree- ment that they should put up stores and warehouses at the mouth of Cache River, for the accommodation of steamboats, and for the purpose of shipping from there the mer- chandise brought up by the steamboats to all towns and places of business above the mouth of the Ohio. When this company purchased the property, they had an agreement with the firm of Riddle, Briggs, Sloo & Co., that they would not sell or lease any of their lands or property to any other person, but in consider

ation of their erecting the necessary stores. warehouses, taverns and dwelling houses and make all necessary improvements to accom- modate the commerce and freighting business above and below, they guaranteed to them a complete monopoly, and put all their lands under the care and control of the new com- pany. The company at once built a large and elegant warehouse and tavern, a large and elegant storehouse and dwelling house, and all other necessary buildings for their laborers and employees. This was in the year 1822. This extensive business was con- ducted by Charles Briggs, an English gentle- man of fine business capacity. The place and business were a great success, under Mr. Briggs' management, but it did not, by any means, meet the expectations of the company. In 1824, Mr. Briggs withdrew and went to New Orleans, and put the control of the town in the hands of a clerk, named John M. Lear, a good man, but unfitted for the management. The business at once declined. In 1826, Lear died at Trinity. I was then a member of the State Legislature, and had just returned from the capital, when I found a letter from Nicholas Bethend, offering me the sole con- trol of affairs at Trinity; he to furnish as much additional capital as I might think was needed. I was to have, for my services, one-third the profits. I took charge of the place and its business, but the town then had a bad name. It was the stopping place of persons of all descriptions, good and bad, and previous to my taking charge it had be- come known as a resort for gamblers, thieves and all kinds of rascals. It often occurred that large numbers of flat and keel boat men congregated there-they really did as they pleased, and honest citizens, in visiting the place, feared for their lives and property. In low water and winter time, the steamboats that could not continue their trips landed at

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HISTORY OF ALEXANDER COUNTY.

Trinity, and put off their freight and pas- sengers, and from thence they were re-shipped in keel boats and barges, and the passen- gers were compelled to travel by land to their destination. '

"In the year 1829, I purchased, in com- rany with James Berry, the entire interest of Gordon, Tunstall & Co. and Nicholas Berthend, including all the real estate on which the town was built. The business was flourishing, and we made money. Mr. Berry kept the principal hotel. A man named Carlisle also kept a public house. Many steamboats laid up with us during the winter and during seasons of low water. Our busi- ness continued large and profitable until 1831, which year I purchased Berry's inter- est. when he removed to the town of America (still the county seat). In the month of December, 1831, I went to Louisville, to pur- chase goods and to get a tavern-keeper to supply Berry's place, and while in Louisville the river closed with ice, and I was com- pelled to return by land-by stage to Smith- land, Ky., and horseback from there. When I was within twenty miles of home, I met a number of gentlemen on horseback, who had landed at where Trinity had been. The en- tire town, stores, warehouses, taverns, and, indeed, all the buildings, had been des- troyed by fire. The fire occurred on the night of the 31st December, 1831. It had been set on fire by a trading flatboat man, who had the day before landed at Trinity and sold liquor to my servants and negroes, and my agent had had him arrested and fined. He threatened vengeance, and that night crossed his boat over to Kentucky, and it was supposed he came over in the night and fired the buildings. There were a few inches of snow on the ground, and the weather was cold. Nothing was saved. Books, papers, money, goods, and all the

household furniture were burned. Fortun- ately, the wind blew a gale from the south. I had built a large billiard room, to accom- modate passengers, and this was to the south of my other property, and in it were stored many buffalo robes that had been sent me by Choteau, to sell on commission. My family had saved some bedding, and they quartered in the billiard room. I estimated my loss at $50,000. A boat lying at the landing had furnished my family provisions to live upon. The nearest place to take them was America, six miles above. I removed to my farm, and attended my store in Caledonia. In the spring, the Black Hawk war broke out. and as I was in command of the militia, and as I was ordered, I raised a company of rifle rangers and marched to the frontier, on the Illinois River."

For the valuable memoranda of Col. Webb, we are indebted to Mrs. M. M. Goodman, of Jonesboro, a grand-daughter of Col. Webb.

Wilkinsonville, or Fort Wilkinson, as the present traditions concerning the place des- ignate its name, was brought into existence about the time of the close of the war of 1812. Gen. Wilkinson ascended the river with a large body of troops, and landed at the head of Grand Chain. He erected ex- tensive barracks, with large brick chimneys, the remains of which can yet be found. Quite a settlement gathered about the place, and a number of improvements were put up by citizens within the camp grounds, and it took the name, finally, of Wilkinsonville. When the army was moved away, it fell into decay, and now there is nothing to indicate the spot, save the three or four hundred graves of soldiers and citizens who were buried there, and the other little mounds spoken of above as the remains of chimneys or buildings. The last solitary inhabitant of the place was Mr. Cooper, who named his son Bonaparte.

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HISTORY OF ALEXANDER COUNTY.

Caledonia .- When the town of America was abandoned, one of its proprietors, Capt. Riddle, and a man named John Skiles, laid out the town of Caledonia in 1826. This was another mushroom town, of great expecta- tions, and the lots were at first rapidly sold, and at good prices. The proprietors, how- ever, both died, and soon the prosperity of the place was arrested, and on the 13th of February, 1861, by an act of the Legislature, Caledonia and America were vacated.

Unity, the second county seat of Alexander County, was laid out in 1833. A court house was erected and a jail and a few log houses for officers of the county and residents were put up. It had a slow-going kind of existence, which moved along until 1842, when the court house and many of the county records were burned. Its location was near the geographical center of the county, and about equi-distant from the Ohio and Missis- sippi Rivers. When the county seat was

moved from Unity to Thebes, its growth and prosperity were stunted, but, unlike its pre- decessors, it was not wholly given up to the cutting plowshare of the husbandman, the wheeling bats and the hooting owls.

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History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 56

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