History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 63

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 63
USA > Illinois > Pulaski County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 63
USA > Illinois > Alexander County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 63

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).

"Like the snow falls in the river,

A moment white, then melt forever."

Pulaski County is bounded on the south by the Ohio River, on the west by Alexander County, on the north by Union and Johnson Counties and on the east by Massac County. It embraces an area of 192 square miles, of which nearly 115 are more or less elevated upland and the remainder low alluvial bot- tom and swamp land, mostly situated along Cache River. All the county is timbered, and the bottom lands very heavily.

The surface configuration and growth of timber are by no means uniform over the whole county, but they vary considerably with the geological formations and with the proximity of the main water-courses, the Ohio and Cache Rivers. A feature in this county not found elsewhere is represented in the yellow loam region of the oak barrens in the central part of the county. These lands are underlaid with Tertiary strata. This peculiar soil is very deep, and is just now beginning to be known for its rich de- posits in plant food. It is a porous loam, and is but little affected by drougth or exces- sive rains, and in many of the fruits and garden vegetables is not equaled in the State. But we have spoken at length of the surface geology of this county in Part II of this work, when all the region formed a part of Union County.

The people of Southern Illinois, and par- ticularly those of Pulaski County, have not fully comprehended the natural advantages of their soil and its agricultural and horti- cultural advantages. Hence they have worked at cross purposes here for many years, and the development of the country has fallen behind what was its just due. Well may the farmers say " the fault, dear Brutus, is with ourselves and not our sires, that were underlings." The farmer will take his place among the earth's noblest and best only when he forces his way there by the su-

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perior intelligence, culture and elegance with which his mode of life is capable of sur- rounding itself. Understand your soil, your climate, and master the art of care and cul- tivation of those things for which it is best adapted, and at once your business will de- servedly take rank with the most exalted of the professions. The trades called the pro- fessions in some degree cultivate the mind and train it to think and grow, and as here- tofore the pursuits of agriculture were sup- posed to be the dull routine of physical ex- ertion -the mere hewer of wood and drawer of water-only for slaves and menials; where- as the truth is that an intelligent farmer- one who investigates, studies and comes to know the beautiful laws of nature, that are for his advantage and glory when understood -has before him in his daily labors the great book of knowledge to contemplate and study, and which, when studied, will, be- yond any other profession or pursuit in life, ennoble, exalt and expand the mind and soul, and ultimately produce that fine type of culture and polite society that is the charm and glory of civilization. The plow handle and pruning hook, the golden fields of grain, the sweet apple blossoms and the beds of fragrant flowers, the trees, the rocks, the babbling brooks, singing the song of spring time, and the unchangeable laws of God that produce, govern and create all these things for the good and joy and great- ness of man, are God's school, college and university, that excel man's poor devices for the education of men as the sunlight does the starlight.

Farmers and horticulturists who will com- prehend these vital truths will soon come to your county, and their coming will produce a revolution that will be an incalculable blessing. As an evidence that such men are here now, and that these things are begin-

ning to be talked about, we extract the fol- lowing from an address of Mr. Parker Earle, before the Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society, in New Orleans, February 21, 1883:

" The system of trade in orchard and gar- den products, which is rapidly growing, with the expansion of our railway interests, has already assumed great proportions. Every day in the year the tides of hortcult- ural commerce are ebbing or flowing over the great area of our country. Car loads and train loads of our various products begin to move northward every year with the opening spring, over our leading lines of railway, and this continues with the advancing sea- sons until the time arrives for the great cur- rent to set the other way. Hundreds of thousands of our people are directly en- gaged in producing or in the distribution of the great harvests of horticulture. And yet no man concerned in this vast production and traffic is guided in his operations by any such carefully compiled knowledge of the changing facts he is dealing with, as the merchant in cotton or the manufacturer of iron would consider of prime importance to an enlightened management. We have no system of collecting the statistics of our bus- iness, such as other industries employ. Are they not equally important? We should know the amount of annual planting of ber- ries and vegetables, and the acreage of or- chard and vineyard, and the condition and promise of all these crops, throughout our entire valley not only, but throughout the whole country. Without this knowledge, we constantly work in the dark. Every pro- ducer who has sought to plant with some ref- erence to the probable demands of his avail- able markets, and every merchant who has tried to follow intelligently the natural laws of trade in this season's transactions, has certainly felt a great want of knowledge of

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a wide circuit of facts upon which his suc- cess or failure must depend. In what way shall we meet this matter? We must in some way have a bureau of horticultural sta- tistics. If we have no machinery ready made for accomplishing this result, then let us in- vent some. I venture the suggestion that if there is no more effective way, that this so- ciety can itself organize such a bureau with sufficient completeness to give us great relief from our ignorance. If our Secretary could have a salary sufficient to enable him to em- ploy one or more assistants, he could, I think, make a beginning at least of this work, which would demonstrate its great value.

"The question of an annual exhibition of fruits, flowers and garden products by our so- ciety is one that some of you have given much thought to. You are aware that we held such an exhibition in St. Louis in Septem- ber, 1880, at the time of our organization, which was more attractive and complete, I can say with confidence, than any other similar exhibition ever made on this conti- nent. This magnificent collection was got- ten together and managed by a provisional committee to fitly inaugurate the birth of an organization destined to wield a powerful influence, as we then hoped and do now hope and feel assured, in molding the in- dustries and the finer culture of human so- ciety in the heart of this.

" Allow me in conclusion to call your atten- tion to two or three considerations of a gen- eral nature. I desire to have it impressed upon every mind that horticulture is one of the most important agencies for the enhance- ment of human welfare. Each branch of this profession is useful, dignified and en- nobling. It is altogether worthy of the de- votion of the best men of the world. It offers a field for the finest powers of the best en- dowed of mankind. Its problems are suffi-

cient for the best cultivated intellect; its arts will occupy the most cunning mind. We should seek to engage the noblest men and women in its interests. A great need of the times is to make rural life so attrac- tive and to make pecuniary profit in it so possible, as to hold our boys and young men on the farm and the garden. . Very mistaken ideas of gentility, of ease of life, of oppur- tunities for culture or for winning fame, draw a large percentage of our brightest boys into the so-called learned professions, or into trade. With proper surroundings of the home, with a proper education at school, with a proper administration of the econo- mies of the farm, with a sufficient under- standing of the opportunities for a high or- der of intellectual and social accomplish- ment in the rural life of this country, this need not and would not be so. A bright, high-spirited boy is not afraid of labor, but he despises drudgery. He will work hard to accomplish a fine end when the mind and heart both work together with the muscles; but he will escape from dull, plodding toil. Let our boys learn that rural life is drudgery only when the mind is dull; that the spade and plow and pruning knife are the ap- paratus with which he manipulates the won- derful forces of the earth and the sky, and the boy will begin to rank himself with the professor in the laboratory or the master at the easel. There is, indeed, occasions that we should, many of us, feel more deeply the glory of our art; that there is no occupation in life that leads the educated man to more fruitful fields of contemplation and inquiry. The scientific mind finds every day in our orchards and fields new material to work upon, and the cultivated taste endless oppor- tunities for its exercise.

" While I desire to see a taste for horticult- ure become universal in town and hamlet

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and country, and believe that every cottage and every palace in the land should have its flower garden and fruit garden, in the win- dow or out of the window, and something of the shelter and ornamentation of trees, yet I would not encourage either amateur or com- mercial horticulturist to plant one vine, flower or tree more than he expects to take some intelligent care of. There has been too much planting in ignorance and reaping in disgust. Especially should the planter on a commercial scale have a better knowledge of the environment of his business. We all need to know more clearly the conditions of great successes, and to understand what diffi- culties and hindrances are avoidable and what unavoidable. We want more business method in this business. We want scientific knowledge and accuracy instead of empiri- cism.

" But this will come. American horticult- ure is only in its youthful years. Its splen- did maturity shall see every home in this maginficent country sweetened and beautified by its blossoming and fruitful presence. Let us labor cheerfully, my friends, until not only

"' The guests in prouder homes shall see Heaped with the orange and the grape, As fair as they in tint and shape, The fruit of the apple tree;'

but the table in every cottage in the land shall be daily filled with an abundance of refreshing fruits and enriching flowers. And let us not rest until we have checked the de- struction of the great forests which God has planted, and have restored to the hills and to the plains some portion of that natural shelter without which no land can long be fruitful and no civilization be permanent.

"Nothing is more true than the old saying of the philosopher that our lives are what we make them. In the city, the village or

the farm is this true, but it is pre-eminently true of the farm. If farming is only given over to ignorant and unkempt boors, it will to that extent be forbidding to the growing young men. If the rural population inform them- selves and pursue their business in the most ennobling way, their every movement guided by a type of intelligence that brings the best results of the best adaptation to the natural means surrounding them, it will become the most inviting pursuit for the best of our men and women.

"There is no foolish notion that more ur- gently needs to be exploded than the preva- lent one which makes a country life below the ambition of a young man of education and spirit, and which regards towns and cities as the only places in which men rise to distinction and usefulness. Farming is called a tame and monotonous vocation ; in- deed! but can anything better be claimed for the plodding, exacting and exhaustive pur- suits which nine-tentbs of those who live in cities are compelled to follow? It is a great mistake to suppose that the population of a city is made up of great capitalists, proprie- tors, merchants, manufacturers, and eminent lawyers and surgeons, and that it is an easy thing for a young man endowed with the quailty of "smartness" to achieve wealth and distinction, or even independence, in the fierce, pitiless whirl of city life. The wrecks to be encountered in city streets every day disprove it. Comparatively few persons amass fortunes in cities, and fewer still re- tain them. So true is this that it is safe to predict, in five cases out of ten, of a wealthy business man in middle life, that he will die penniless.

"Farming is not subject to these rapid and ruinous chances. In this pursuit, industry, economy and good management, aided by the increase which time itself brings, will

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insure a competence in fifteen or twenty years; and it is a property of substance ac- cumulated in farming, that, unlike fortunes acquired in mercantile pursuits, it lasts through life.

"Few thrifty, industrious farmers die poor; few prosperous merchants who continue in business die rich. The farmer's profits come in slow and small, it is true; and often he does not find himself in comfortable circum- stances till middle age. But it is in middle and old age he most needs the comforts of independence; and if he is wise enough to keep out of debt the moderate competency which he has managed to accumulate through his better years will come unscathed through the storms and convulsions that sweep away

towering fortunes in the business world."

We trust the reader will not understand us as saying, in the common cant of the flat- tering demagogue, when he prates about " the sturdy honest farmer," that it is of it- self, intrinsically and inherently, the only one great avenue of goodness and true no- bility. On the contrary it is not. Indeed, where ignorance rules, it is dull, hopeless drudgery, and there is nothing more enno- bling about it than there is in the routine life of a galley slave. Stupidity and igno- rance are punished here as well as in any and every other place in life. In the strug- gle for existence it is overmatched, and its superiors trample it most mercilessly under foot.

CHAPTER II ..

ORGANIZATION OF THE COUNTY-THE FACTS THAT LED TO THE SAME - ACT OF THE LEGISLA- TURE- ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COURTS -THE FIRST OFFICERS-REMOVAL OF THE SEAT OF JUSTICE -THE CENSUS - PRECINCT ORGANIZATION - LAWYERS-SCHOOLS, CHURCHES, ETC., ETC., ETC.

THE early history of Pulaski County, as we have stated elsewhere in this vol- ume, has been written in connection with that of Union and Alexander up to the date of its organization as an independent county in .1843. As a part of Alexander County, it was separated from Union in 1819, and so re- mained for nearly a quarter of a century. In the meantime, the population had in- creased to an extent that required, or at least admitted of, a division of the territory known as Alexander County. The following act, dated November 3, 1843, was passed by the Legislature:

AN ACT FORMING PULASKI COUNTY.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the people of the

State of Illinois represented in the General Assembly, That all that tract of country within the following boundaries shall constitute the county of Pulaski, viz .: Beginning at a point on the Ohio River in Range line between 2 and 3 east, of the Third Prin- cipal Meridian, and running north with and on said line to Cache River; thence down and with said river to the Alexander County line ; thence north on said last-mentioned line to the southeast corner of Union County; thence west along said line to Mill Creek; thence along and down said creek to Cache River; thence down and along the west bank of said river to the Ohio River, and thence up and along said river to the place of beginning.

The remaining sections of the act, which is a rather long one, are omitted. These, when divested of the " said whereases," with which they are encumbered, require the peo- ple to meet at the usual places of voting

yours Respectfully OK. A. Hight

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HISTORY OF PULASKI COUNTY.

within the specified territory, and vote upon the question as to whether " the said county shall be so constituted." It further stipu- lated that the election returns should be made to the County Commissioners' Court of Alexander, the Clerk of which should send a copy of the proceedings, in the event the vote was favorable to the formation of the county, to the Secretary of State, and to the proper officers of Massac County. It further stipulated that the Clerk of Alexander County should furnish a copy of the proceed- ings to Henry Sowers, Thomas Lackey. Jr., and Thomas Howard, who are named in the act as Commissioners to locate the seat of justice of the said county.

These Commissioners were required to meet at the house of Thomas Forker, and proceed to examine the different eligible sites, and to decide upon the one best adapted for the county seat. A donation of not less than ten acres of land was the con- dition upon which the site was to be ac- cepted as the seat of justice of the new coun- ty. The report of the Commissioners was to be made to Thomas Forker, and the general election was to be held at Caledonia. Will- iam A. Hughes was appointed for the occa . sion, and authorized to act as County Clerk, and, as such officer, the election returns were to be made to him. The county was assigned to the Third Judicial District. The public debt of Alexander County was to be divided between it and Pulaski, and the school fund distributed according to population. The new county was to vote with Union and Alexander for State Senator, and with the latter for Representative in the Lower House of the Legislature.

The county was named in honor of Count Pulaski, a Polish nobleman, born in 1747, and a soldier of renown. He took a conspicu- ous "part in the war for the liberation of

Poland, and when further resistance became hopeless he went to Turkey and thence to France, where he offered his services to Ben- jamin Franklin, our representative then at the court of Louis XVI. He arrived in Philadelphia in the summer of 1777, and entered the service of the United States as a volunteer, but was afterward made a Brig- adier General by Congress, and appointed to a command of cavalry. He was one of the most brilliant cavalry officers in the war of the Revolution, and continued in that branch of the service until his death, which occurred October 11, 1779. No excuse is deemed necessary for this digression. It is always of more or less interest to the reader to learn the origin of the names of places he reads about, particularly those of historical significance. The name of Count Pulaski will ever be venerated by American citizens, for the assistance rendered us in the dark hours of our struggle for independence.

According to the provisions of the act for the formation of the county, the Commis- sioners appointed to select the seat of justice met, and after "mature deliberation," decided upon the town of Caledonia. The required donation of land was made by Col. Justus Post, and the first deed recorded in Pulaski County is from "Justus Post and Eliza G., his wife;" and the consideration is " the permanent establishment of the seat of jus- tice on the premises." It " bargains and grants," in the town of Caledonia, Blocks No. 2, 3, 25, 26, 35, 36 and Water Blocks F and G, embracing one .79 acres of ground, which was accepted in lieu of the originally required ten acres. The deed for the same is acknowledged before Thomas Forker, Justice of the Peace. A court house was erected on the land donated by Col. Post Building court houses in those days seems to have been a great undertaking, as, in the

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case of this one, the county was authorized by an act of the Legislature in 1847 to bor- row $600, "to finish the court house of Pu- laski County. It further authorized the county " to levy a tax to build a jail." At first the county officers, we learn, did not keep their offices at the county seat; just where they did keep them we did not learn. Like the first Postmaster of Effingham, they kept them, perhaps, in their hats. At any rate, the Legislature, by an act passed Feb- ruary 21, 1845, legalized the official acts in the "portable " offices of Pulaski County. In the same year (1845), the records of John- son and Alexander Counties were ordered, so far as pertaining to this county, to be transcribed and certified.

The records of Pulaski County are very imperfect. In November, 1879, a fire oc- curred in Mound City, the present county seat, in which a large portion of the records were destroyed; in fact, nearly all of them, up to 1860, were lost by this calamity.

The first term of the Circuit Court con- vened in Caledonia in May, 1844. Hon. Walter B. Scates, Judge; J. M. Davidge, Clerk, and B. B. Kennedy, Sheriff. The following were the first grand jurors, as re- turned into court by the Sheriff: Isaac Dement, Samuel F. Price, Joseph Evans, John Steen, Charles Stephenson, William Echols, George W. Howell, N. M. Thomp- son, Leaman T. Philips, Thomas Tucker, John C. Etherton, Samuel Parker, Daniel Arter, D. Thornton, J. B. Sanders, George Augustine, A. F. Young, J. B. Malin, Elijah Axley, A. Youngblood, Hugh McGee and C. R. Vanderbett. On the traverse jury were H. R. Thomas, William Byrd, S. F. Rand, John C. Meyer, John Benton, J. M. Timmons, Henry Castol, A. B. Bankston, Aaron Ather- ton, George Tucker, M. K. Concine, A. Hun- saker, James Dillow, James Hughes, Will-

iam Murphy, Eli Morris, Moses Kitchell, George Boyd, Reuben Cain, William Fork- ner and Hiram Boren.

Willis Allen was Prosecuting Attorney. The first Common Law case tried was Wiley Davidson vs. Jones & Davis, in which John Dougherty appeared as attorney for the plaintiff. A judgment was taken by default. In the second case, W. A. Denning was an attorney. Gilbert Leroy was also an attor- ney at this term of the court. -- Davis and Timothy Barlow also appeared as attor- neys. The Judge appointed J. M. Davidge Master in Chancery.

At the term of court held in September, 1847, Hon. William A. Denning, Associate Judge of the Supreme Court, presided; S. S. Marshall was Prosecuting Attorney; James M. Davidge, Clerk, and Henry M. Smith, Sheriff. In 1849, Hugh Worthington was Sheriff. In 1852, W. K. Parish was Prose- cuting Attorney, and Henry M. Hughes, Sheriff.

The first County Judge was Richard C. Hall, who served until 1847, when he was succeeded by James M. Davidge. In 1857, N. M. Thompson was elected County Judge, and M. R. Hooppaw and Isaac R. Baker, As- sociates. Ephraim B. Watkins succeeded Davidge as County Judge in 1861, with George Minnich and Caleb Hoffner as Asso- ciates. Washington Hughes was School Commissioner. In 1864, George Minnich was elected ;Sheriff, and Hugh McGee Dis- trict Justice. In 1865, A. W. Brown was County Judge, and W. L. Hambleton, Asso- siate. George S. Pidgeon came in as County Judge in 1869, and Obadiah Edson and Caleb Hoffner, Associates, and E. B. Wat- kins, County Clerk. In 1872, Henry M. Smith was State's Attorney; Benjamin Glen, Circuit Clerk, and A. M. Brown was ap- pointed County Judge, to fill vacancy caused

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by the resignation of Judge Pidgeon. In 1873, G. L. Tombelle was County Judge; John Weaver, County Treasurer; Daniel Hogan, County Clerk, William M. Hathaway, County Superintendent of Schools, and Romeo Friganza, William B. Edson and J. S. Morris, County Commissioners. In 1875, D. J. Britt was Assessor and Treasurer, and E. B. Stoddard, Surveyor. In 1875, Robert Wilson was Sheriff; James R. Drake, Coro- ner; B. L. Ulen, Circuit Clerk; Louis C. Smith, State's Attorney, and Louis F. Crane Assessor and Treasurer. In 1877, A. M. Brown was County Judge; Daniel Hogan, County Clerk; A. S. Colwell, County Super- intendent of Schools; John Weaver, County Treasurer; Albert Wilson, Sheriff. In 1879, N. M. Smith, County Judge; John Weaver, County Treasurer, and Henry Lentz, Survey- or. In 1880, Louis F. Crane, Sheriff; Reu- ben Wilkins, Coroner; James Anderson, State's Attorney, and B. L. Ulen, Circuit Clerk. In 1881, Joseph P. Roberts, States Attorney, and S. A. Hight, County Superin- tendent of Schools. In 1882, the following officers were elected, and are, at the present writing (1883), still in office: Louis F. Crain, Sheriff; Henry M. Smith, County Judge; John A. Waugh, County Clerk; Mrs. Hettie M. Smith County Superintendent of Schools; John Weaver, County Treasurer, and Samuel H. Graves, Coroner. We could not suggest a most appropriate name for Coroner, for truly it is a grave office.

The second instrument recorded in the Clerk's office is one signed by Jesse Rich- ardson. It is " the last will and testament " of Mr. Richardson, and is a solemn docu- ment, as all such papers should be. It is draped in a funeral pall, so to speak, and begins with the solemn invocation:

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History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 63

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