History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 64

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 64
USA > Illinois > Pulaski County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 64
USA > Illinois > Alexander County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 64

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).

" In the name of God, Amen.

"I, Jesse Richardson, of the county of

McCracken, State of Kentucky, being at this time of perfect mind and memory, but in a low state of health, and calling to mind that, it is 'appointed unto all men once to die, and after death to come to judgment,' and having, therefore, settled all my worldly affairs," etc. He then proceeds to liberate his slaves, and gives them liberally of his worldly goods, that they " may live free and independent, and become prosperous and happy;" all of which was quite right and proper.

Deeds, wills and assignments are, at first. miscellaneously recorded together. Owing to the imperfect state of the records, caused by the fire already alluded to, we can give but few extracts that would be of any interest to our readers. As a general thing, however, the court records are not thrillingly interesting reading matter to any not immediately con- cerned with them, or to those " learned in the law." More copious extracts will be given in the chapter devoted to Mound City, from the time the seat of justice was moved to that city.

Caledonia remained the county seat until 1861. On the 13th of February of that year, the Legislature passed an act, authorizing the removal of the capital to Mound City, and Caledonia shared the fate of Unity, America and Thebes, and became another deserted metropolis. Few moldering relics now remain of its former grandeur to mark the spot where erst it stood. The eddying waters of the Ohio, as they roll by, sing its requiem, and the murmuring winds, sweep- ing over its deserted courts, howl the refrain of its departed glory. A sketch of all the dismantled and abandoned towns of Union, Alexander . and Pulaski Counties, would form an interesting chapter in the history of Southern Illinois.

Pulaski County remains under the original

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HISTORY OF PULASKI COUNTY.

precinct system of county gevernment, per- sistently eschewing the township system of organization. The wisdom of their choice is a debatable question, and one we shall not attempt to decide. There are strong argu- ments in favor of both systems. While the County Commissioners' Court is a smaller, and therefore, as a rule, a more controllable body, by outside" influences, there is little doubt that a Board of Supervisors is not only more directly expensive, but also that a thousand and one petty claims, of every con- ceivable character, having no foundation in law or justice, aggregating no insignificant sum, are constantly presented, loosely inves- tigated and tacitly allowed. The strongest argument in its favor is, that no county, hav- ing once adopted township organization, has ever been known to go back to the precinct system.

The county, as at present laid off, em- braces the following precincts: Mound City, Burkville, Villa Ridge, Pulaski, Ohio, Ullin, Wetaug and Grand Chain.

At the time of the organization of the county, in 1843, its population was probably abont 1,500 souls. The census of 1850, the first after it became a county, shows its pop- ulation to be 2,264. In 1860, it had 3,943; in 1870, it had increased to 8,752, and in 1850 to 9,507. Its largest increase was dur- ing the decade from 1860 to 1870, its popu- lation more than doubling in those ten years. Its increase from 1870 to 1880 is but 755, a great falling off, when compared to that of the preceding ten years.

The Clerk of the Circuit Court was Alger- non Sidney Grant, who, it will be remem- bered, figured in the organization of the town of America. His rank of seniority among resident lawyers of what is now Pu- laski County seems quite well determined. He was here when the territory was taken

from Union and became Alexander County, and by reference to the early history of that county it will be seen he was one of the first Clerks of the Circuit and County Court.

Of the lawyers, the first were Alexander P. Field, Judge Richard M. Young, Jeptha Hardin, Henry Eddy, William J. Gatewood, John Dougherty and Mr. Grant and a man named Boswell. Of a later date were Willis Allen, W. J. Allen and Henry W. Billings.

The Circuit Judges, from the creation of the county, were in the following order: Thomas C. Browne, Jeptha Hardin, Walter B. Scates, William A. Denning, Alexander M. Jenkins, Wesley Sloan, John Olney, J. H. Mulkey, William H. Green and David J. Baker.

In the early Circuit Court records of every county in Central and Southern Illinois, oc- curs the name of Judge Thomas C. Browne. He was one of the Supreme Judges who were required to do Circuit Court duties, and, judging from the records of these many coun- ties, Judge Browne must have led an active and laborious life, as small as his salary was for the immensity of the travel and labor he was required to perform.

Jeptha Hardin held courts and practiced law in nearly all the counties of Southern Illinois. A. P. Field and Richard M. Young are noticed at some length in the chapter on the bench and bar of Union County. Judge Walter B. Scates was a resident, for many years, of this portion of Illinois. He became largely interested in coal mines, near Collinsville, and eventually was the principal owner of the Western Tele- graph Company. He resigned his position as one of the Supreme Judges of the State, and became a resident of Evanston, near Chicago, where he improved a magnificent estate, and attached to it was his noted deer and elk park, that for many years was a place for the

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HISTORY OF PULASKI COUNTY.

interested visitors to Evanston until finally, we understand, the Judge came near losing his life from a furious stag.

Judge Jenkins is noticed in the history of Cairo, and an account.of his death may be found in the Alexander chapter on the bench and bar.

Judge Wesley Sloan was intimately known to the people of Pulaski as a great Judge and an upright citizen. When he left the bench he retired to private life, taking with him the esteem and confidence of all.

The early judiciary of Illinois was marked as furnishing a higher order of talent,- larger minded men-than are to be found in the early political history of the State. Many of these early jurists will take their proper place in history as among the coun- try's best men. From the now old and deso- late town of Kaskaskia, they radiated out over the sparse settlements of the county, like rays of light and sunshine. They min- gled with the rude people, assisting, advis- ing and counseling them for their own good and benefit. They forecast and laid well the foundations for the superstructure of the civil polity of the State; and in looking into the imperfect records of their lives that are now attainable, the student of history is im- pressed with the fact that here, indeed, was Illinois most favored and fortunate.

In the history of Cairo and the Illinois Central Railroad, in this volume, we had occasion to tell much of the life and acts of Justin Butterfield, of Chicago, who was Commissioner of the Government United States Land Office in Washington, at the time of the building of the Illinois Central Railroad. It was much upon an idea of his, uttered in a speech in Chicago at a railroad meeting in which lay the key to the construc- tion of that most important enterprise. Some- thing of the man may be gleaned from the

following anecdote, as related by Hon. I. N. Arnold at a meeting of the State Bar Asso- ciation of 1881.

In December, 1842, Gov. Ford, on the application of the Executive of Missouri, issued a warrant for the arrest of Joseph Smith, the Apostle of Mormonism then re- siding at Nauvoo, as a fugitive from justice. Smith was charged with having instigated the attempt, by somne Mormons, to assassinate Gov. Bogg, of Missouri. Mr. Butterfield had sued out a writ of habeus corpus from Judge Pope, and Smith was arraigned for a hear- ing. The Attorney General of Illinois, Mr. Sanborn, appeared, to sustain the warrant. Mr. Butterfield, aided by B. S. Edwards, ap- peared for Smith, and moved for his dis- charge. The Prophet (so-called) was at. tended by his twelve apostles and a large number of his followers, and the case at- tracted great interest. The court room was thronged with prominent members of the bar and public men. Judge Pope was a gallant gentleman of the old school, and loved nothing better than to be in the midst of youth and beauty. Seats were crowded on the Judge's platform, on both sides and be- hind the Judge, and an array of brilliant and beautiful ladies almost encircled the court. Mr. Butterfleld, dressed a la Web- ster, in a blue dress-coat and metal buttons with buff vest, rose with dignity, and amidst the most profound silence. Pausing. and running his eyes admiringly from the central figure of Judge Pope along the rows of love- ly women on each side of him, he said:

" May it please the court:

" I appear before you to-day under circum- stances most novel and peculiar. I am to address the 'Pope' [bowing to the Judge], surrounded by angels [bowing still lower to the ladies]. in the presence of the holy apostles, in behalf of the Prophet of the Lord."

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HISTORY OF PULASKI COUNTY.

Another instance of Mr. Butterfield's in- finite and ready wit was an instance occur- ring in one of the Northern courts, held by Judge Jesse B. Thomas. Mr. B. became irritated by the delay of the Judge in decid- ing a case, which he had argued some time before. He came into court one morning, and said with great gravity: "I believe, if your honor please, this court is called the 'Oyer and Terminer;' I think it ought to be called the ‘Oyer sans Terminer;' " and sat down. The next morning, when counsel were called for motions, Mr. Butterfield called up a pending motion for a new trial in an im- portant case. " The motion is over-ruled," said Judge Thomas, abruptly; " yesterday you declared this court ought to be called 'Oyer sans Terminer,' so." continued the Judge, " as I had made up my mind in this case, I thought I would decide it promptly." Mr. Butterfield seemed, for a moment, dis- concerted, but directly added, " May it please your honor, yesterday this court was a Court of Oyer sans Terminer; to-day your honor has reversed the order, it is now Terminer SANS Oyer! But I believe I should prefer the injustice of interminable delay rather than the swift and inevitable blunders your honor is sure to make by guessing without hearing argument."

This reminds us of an apt retort made by M. J. Inscore to Judge Dougherty. A case of considerable importance was pending be .. fore Judge Dougherty, and attorneys from abroad -- among others, Judge Mulkey, Hon. D. T. Linegar and Judge W. J. Allen -- were counsel. Several days had been consumed in hearing the testimony and arguments on points raised, and finally it came to the argu- ment of counsel. Judge Dougherty an- nounced they could have thirty minutes on a side and no more. Inscore remonstrated earnestly, insisting there were eminent coun-

sel from abroad, and the case was long, te- dious and important, and it would be impos- sible for counsel to do justice to themselves or their case in that brief time. The Judge was firm and Inscore persistent, when finally the Judge remarked, with much emphasis, that the best speeches of the great English bar had been made in thirty minutes. " Yes," replied Inscore, "I know; but those men are all dead."

The history of the bench and bar of Pu - laski County, from the removal of the county seat from Caledonia to Mound City to the present time, will be found in full in Dr. Casey's very interesting history of Mound City in this volume.

Schools .-- The educational history of the county should interest every reader of this work, more, perhaps, than any other subject mentioned. Nothing adds so much to the prosperity of a community, or to its civiliza- tion and refinement, as a perfect system of common schools. The early schools of this county, like the whole of Southern Illinois, were of the commonest kind. After the re- peal of what is known as the " Duncan law," the cause of education, for over a generation, was in anything but a flourishing condition, not only in the county but in the State. For nearly a half-century, the schoolhouses, books, teachers and manner of instruction were of the most primitive character, and very different from what they are at the present day. Then, too, there was an un- civilized element on the frontier, who be- lieved education was a useless and unneces- sary accomplishment, and only needful to divines and lawyers; that bone and muscle, and the ability to labor, were the only re- quirements necessary to fit their daughters and sons for the practical duties of life. A proverb then current was "The more book- learning, the more rascals." To quote a

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HISTORY OF PULASKI COUNTY.

localism of the day, " Gals didn't need to know nothin' about books and all that boys orter know was how to grub, maul rails and hunt." That senseless prejudice, born of the civilization of the time, has descended, in a slight degree, to the present, and yet tinges the complexion of society in some localities.

The pioneer schoolhouses, as a general thing, were poor, and are described in other portions of this volume. A few of these humble temples of learning-time-worn relics of the early days-are yet to be found in many portions of Southern Illinois-elo- quent of an age forever past. The pioneer teacher was a marked and distinctive charac- ter in the early history of the county, and, by common consent, was a personage of great importance. He was considered the intellect- ual center of the neighborhood, around which revolved all the learning of Greece and Rome, and hence he was consulted upon every subject, public and private. But he, too, is a thing of the past, and we shall never see his like again. He is ever in the van of advancing civilization, and flees, like a frightened deer, before the whistle of the locomotive and the click of the telegraph wires.

The county has, at the present time, thir- teen log schoolhouses, and twenty-seven frames, making a total of forty. There are two graded schools, the remainder being un- graded. There are employed, in graded schools, seven teachers-one male and six females; in ungraded schools, forty-eight teachers- seventeen males and thirty-one females; whole number of teachers employed is fifty-five. The number of pupils-enrolled in the county is 3,146; total population in the county, under twenty-one years of age, 2,897 males and 2,868 females; and the number reported between the ages of twelve and twenty-one years, seventeen males and

fourteen females unable to read. The value of school property in county, $14, 797; levy for school taxes, $13,510.89; bonded school debt, $994.90; average wages paid male teachers per month, $36.90; highest wages paid male teachers per month, $80; highest wages paid female teachers, per month, $50; total amount paid teachers, $9,609.

The county has made rapid advancement in the cause of education in the last decade of years. New and commodious houses have been built, and older houses repaired and refurnished, and every effort made to raise the schools to that high standard of excel- lence which the progress of the age demands they should be. Better teachers are now employed; better salaries are paid them, and many other needed improvements have been added.

Churches .- In the pioneer days of South- ern Illinois, it was not thought necessary that preachers should be educated men. It was sufficient for them to preach the Gospel from a knowledge of the Bible alone. They made their appeals warm from the heart, painting the joys of heaven and the miseries of hell to the imagination of the sinner, and terrifying him with the one, and exhorting him, by a life of righteousness, to attain the other. The earnestness of their words and manner, the vividness of the pictures they drew of the ineffable bliss of the redeemed, and the awful and eternal torments of the unrepentant, clothed in their rude, wild elo- quence, were irresistible, and the rough sons of the frontier trembled before them, as the strong oaks of the forest are shaken by the sweep of the hurricane's blast. Above all, they inculcated the sublime principles of justice and sound morality, and were largely instrumental in promoting the growth of in- tellectual ideas, in bettering the condition and in elevating the morals of the people.

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HISTORY OF PULASKI COUNTY.

To these old-time evangelists are we in- debted for the first establishment of Chris- tian institutions throughout the country.

They have passed away, with the civiliza- tion of the period in which they lived and labored, but they have left behind them the record of a mission well and faithfully per- formed. May their sacred ashes repose in peace in the quietude of their lonely graves, until awakened by the archangel's trump in the last day.

The first preacher in this county, of whom we have any account, was a Methodist preacher named West. He was one of those self-appointed missionaries of the frontier, who went from place to place. intent only on showing men the way to better things by better living, that finally they might reach that best of all-a home in heaven. Elders James Edwards and Thomas Howard were also early preachers in the county. Elder Howard was a man of generous mind, and co-operated freely with ministers of other de- nominations. He believed that in "things essential there should be unity, in things not essential there should be liberty, and in all things charity." He was one of the founders of Shiloh Baptist Church, in the west part of the county, in what was known as the Atherton settlement, one of the oldest, if not the oldest, church organization in the county. Another Baptist Church was after ward formed in the Sowers settlement-now Pisgah-and one at Caledonia. About the same time. or shortly after, a church was or- ganized and a house built near Calvin's, called Mount Zion. Rev. William Echols, a zealous minister and worker in the cause of the Master, was the light and life of this church as long as he lived. Thus, as popu- lation increased, churches sprang up in all the different settlements of the county.

The following extract is from an article

written by Rev. E. B. Olmstead, and is pertinent to the subject: " Protracted and camp meetings were common; people came to them from far and near. The meetings gave occasion for social enjoyment not other- wise attainable. Little matters of business were adjusted on the week days; what little politics there were was freely discussed, and on Sunday, when most people were as- sembled, it was not uncommon for notices to be read of horses or cattle strayed from this or that settlement, belonging to this or that person, and thus the ox or ass was pulled out of the ditch on the Sabbath Day. The preaching was of the faithful. earnest sort. The hearers were men and women who, what- ever may have been their moral character, believed in the Bible as the Book of God, and never took refuge in atheism or intidel- ity. The spirit and animus of these meet- ings naturally encouraged the development of the emotional nature of the heaters, and led to some extravagances; but the doctrinal pabulum was sufficiently strong, in the less . exciting times, to counteract that kind of sentiment." This is but similar to all the early religious history of the country. Christianity has kept pace with all other im- provements of the nineteenth century. " The good old paths the fathers trod " are not adapted to our present refined tastes, and we must needs broaden and smooth them for our especial benefit and use.

The county is well supplied with church organizations and commodious temples of worship. Every village and hamlet, and nearly every neighborhood, has its church and Sunday school. There is no lack of religious facilities, and if the people do not walk in the " straight and narrow path," they have but themselves to blame for any short comings laid up against them.

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HISTORY OF PULASKI COUNTY.

CHAPTER III.

ABOUT EARLY LEADING CITIZENS-GEORGE CLOUD, H. M. SMITH, CAPT. RIDDLE, JUSTUS POST -PULASKI IN WAR-BLACK HAWK, MEXICAN AND THE LATE CIVIL WAR-

HISTORY OF THE MEN WHO TOOK PART-A. C. BARTLESON, PRICE,

ATHERTON-MR. CLEMSON'S FARM, ETC., ETC.

O NE of the leading citizens of the county was George Cloud, the first County Surveyor. Another was David Moore. Among the early Sheriff's was Mr. Perry, an engi- neer on the river for a long time.

In a letter from John Dougharty (no rela- tion of Gov. Dougherty) to Capt. Riddle, dated America, October 12, 1824, occurs the following:

" This place (America) becomes more dull every day; we are about to lose what few in - habitants there are in this county, and if we should lose the whole of them it would be of little consequence, as the majority of them are of no advantage to any county. Many families are going out and gone to the South and West, making about one-fourth of the whole; and those better informed on the subject than myself calculate on as many more in their room. May heaven send those of a better quality! I will have to turn to farming or will have to look somewhere else for a living than off this miserable popula- tion."

Commenting on this rather gloomy letter of Dougherty's, the Rev. Olmstead says: " Heaven, alas! did not answer the prayer of John Dougherty. The emigrants met no immigrants; every sail set to catch the breeze was southward bound."

Another letter from John Cloud to James Riddle, of Cincinnati, is dated America, De- cember, 1827: " I am glad to have the op-

portunity of informing you that Mr. Skiles and Mr. Whipper safely landed their boat at this town on Wednesday last. The same evening Mr. Skiles came to my house and I told him the situation of your lands. The next morning he went to Trinity to converse with friend Webb. He will write you the substance of the conversation. They have opened a store in this place in a house known by the name of Allord's House, which I rented to them as agent of the Brownsville Bank. They will live with me. Believing them to be gentlemen, I shall use the utmost of my endeavors to promote their interests, as well as the interests of this place. After a cruel scene of inebriation, which commonly causes drowsiness, this deserted place may awaken to that meridian of day that we may live to see and rejoice at."

But no effort could arrest the decay and dry rot that had fixed upon the drowsy young metropolis, and, as told elsewhere, it per- ished from the face of the earth.

The writers of these letters from which we have given the above extracts, together with David Moore, first Sheriff, James Berry and William Wilson, merchants, are buried at the town of America. Capt. Riddle, Col. Justus Post and John Skiles are buried at Caledonia. The reduction of the army at the close of the war of 1812 had changed the occupation of Col. George Cloud. Col. Jus- tus Post, Col. E. B. Clemson and H. L.

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. HISTORY OF PULASKI COUNTY.

Webb, and was the cause of each of these rather remarkable men of their day coming to Southern Illinois and engaging in the avocations of agriculture and city building.

In the Cairo Argus of July, 1876, Reverend E. B. Olmstead, of Pulaski County, says: " Each principal settlement had its school. Of course, at that early day, they were sub- scription schools; but in the year 1825, the Legislature appropriated money to pay one- half the salary of teachers. A man named McIntyre taught in a log schoolhouse north of the Clavin place, to which scholars went from Caledonia, and among them the chil- dren of Capt. Riddle; and from near Cache River, among whom was H. M. Smith, our present State's Attorney, the former having to walk three miles, the latter six miles. There were no patent seats, no blackboards, no series of school books; under such diffi- culties were the foundations o an educa- tion laid in former days. Another of the early teachers was William Hazard, at Cal- edonia.

"About 1830, the price of wheat was from 20 to 60 cents per bushel; corn, 20 to 25 cents; bacon from 3 to 5 cents per pound; harvesters, 75 cents a day; binders, 50 cents; and common laborers, 30 cents per day.

"As slavery was prohibited in the North- west Territory, a system of apprenticeship was adopted. The slaves of the original set- tlers might be held ninety years, but their children were to be free at eighteen and twenty-one years of age, but many living in Illinois on the Mississippi River held their slaves absolutely, as citizens of Missouri, and crossed them over once a week to preserve a legal title; in this way George Hacker held forty slaves.

" No young lady," he says, in speaking of the good old times, "played on the piano, but she could bring music out of the spin-

ning wheel. Her pull-back was a pull at the loom. The young women planted their own cotton, cultivated it, picked and ginned it, spun and colored and wove it, and made dresses without consulting Madam Demorest or Harper's Bazaar, and without a sewing machine, and when the young man came around on the gay young horse, with a new saddle and a broad breast girth, " to see the boys," he would look approvingly on the striped and cross-barred superfluous and ex- tra dresses, and other feminine gear hung like banners on the inner wall, the very proofs and evidence of industry and skill and genius. The girls of that period were strong and healthy, and no one of them was ever known to faint under any provocation what- ever. They could sing treble, and some of them could have, perhaps, sung bass. They knew nothing of falsetto, but could bring the cows home in that key if they were half a mile away. The young men did not aspire to become teachers or drummers, or try to make a fortune on a capital of $4 in chromos, or to bang doors and slash around generally as brakemen on a railroad train.

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History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 64

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