USA > Illinois > Montgomery County > History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois > Part 32
USA > Illinois > Bond County > History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois > Part 32
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In 1821, Melchoir Fogleman. John Norton and James Bland, his son-in-law, had their homes in South Litchfield. It is not possible to determine the order of their arrival. It ap- pears plainly that they located about the same time. There could have been only a few days or weeks difference in dates. Fogleman was a blacksmith, and brought from his North Caro- lina home the remarkable sum of $800 to Illi- nois, and after a stay of two years in South Litchfield, he removed to the neighborhood of Clear Spring, and in 1824 the Pepper Mill was built, the first water-mill in the region. Nor- ton and Bland disappeared from the local his- tory, leaving only their names. Spartan Gris- ham and Theodore Jordan lived with Fogleman, and were members of his family. Their descen- dants are still among us. Thus in 1820, Lock- erman's was the sole family in the township, and the population of the county is estimated at 100-nearly all in Hillsboro, and East Fork Townships. Lockerman lived on the southeast quarter of Section 15, near the spring. In the ten years ending with 1830, six families had settled in the township-fonr have been named and a Mr. Macaffee had settled where Newton Street now lives, and James Penter on Section 25, between 1825 and 1830.
Anthony Street, brother to James Street, made the gunpowder for the settlers at the Pepper-
Mill, and Spartan Grisham and Theodore Jor- dan had modest distilleries near by. and made whisky, which passed as a legal tender at 50 cents a gallon. Before the Pepper Mill was built in 1824, the people went to Old Ripley, or Edwardsville, to mill, and if those places could not be reached. corn was grated on the lower side of a tin sieve, or it was shaved off by a plane, or rudely crushed in a bowl, burned out in the top of a stump, by means of a wood- en pestle, suspended from a spring-pole.
The few families were within two miles of the east line of the township. In 1830, or 1831, John A. Crabtree located on the farm, where he lived in honor and usefulness until his death, a few years since. Wholly uneducated in books he possessed the masculine average common sense of his times, and like all other pioneers, was a life-long Democrat.
It has not been possible to determine the date of the arrival of Jesse Horn, but it is possible it was prior to 1830. Several young unmarried men were domiciled with the earlier families. They were sojourners rather than set- tlers, and a portion of them were but the spume which crested the tide of advancing settlements, and having a large region where to choose, drifted to other neighborhoods. Some of their names are remembered, but their history has been forgotten.
The James Copeland family appeared in the township about 1832, and the Forehands moved from Clear Spring to the bluff southwest of Truitt's Ford, not earlier than 1830. We can hear of no family here which did not come from south of the Ohio, and the earliest ones were from North Carolina.
About 1838, the first schoolhouse was built a hundred and twenty rods east of J. N. McEl- vain's. The first teachers are not remembered, but in 1843 John Fogleman taught one term. The usual terms were $2 per pupil for three months, payable in grain, pigs, a young steer or heifer, or wood, and sometimes in money. All
258
HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
the children attended. If their parents could pay, it was well. If they could not, nothing was said about it. Fogleman received about $40 for his school, and, after paying his board, had $30. The State had no public school sys- tem, and private schools alone were known here. The sessions opened in the morning and continued until night. The pupils were dis- missed in season to reach home before dark. The teacher's hours were the same as a farm laborer's-from sunrise to sunset, and if the school was not up to the " graded " standard, just consider how much there was of it. People were not afraid their children would injure their health with hard study.
John Corlew moved into the township in 1836. He was a commissioned officer in the Mexican war, and was elected Sheriff in 1848, and again in 1852, and since the adoption of township organization, has been altnost contin- uously Supervisor. William Simpson was an early settler in the southeast part of the town- ship. Ile was County Treasurer in 1871-73, but with this exception has attended strictly to the care of his farm. Ile came in 1831. By 1840, the township contained about eight or ten families. This year John Fogleman settled on his present homestead. Lewis MeWilliams arrived in 1843, and his brother Thomas in 1849, and a third brother, John M., probably about the same time. Ezra Tyler located with- in the city limits in IS49.
Newton Street settled on his present farm in 1833, and has restricted himself to agricultural pursuits. About 1852, himself and John M. Paden had a steam saw-mill near his house. He feels the incurable illness of old age, but is still glad in his conversation to live over again the half a century he has been an inhabitant of South Litchfield.
The first burial-ground was the Crabtree Cem- etery, now in parts thiekly crowded with graves, and there rest the early forefathers. There beneath noticeable monuments lie buried Ste-
phen R. Briggs, long a Judge of the County Commissioners' Court ; Israel Fogleman, the general guardian and administrator, and John A. Crabtree, the model of consistent firmness and average working good sense. The ceme- tery was laid out in 1843, and the first inter- ment was Julia Parmelee, wife of John Young. The first church was the Union Church. near John Fogleman's, in 1853, and a burial-place is near it. The third church was the German Lutheran, near Henry Nemires, built about fifteen years since. The Methodist Chapel, at Hardinsburg, was the second one, erected in 1853 or 1854, and subsequently removed to the village of Litchfield.
At the close of this .decade, the township may have contained thirty families, chiefly in the east half. The high road from Hillsboro to Alton, ran along the south line of the first six sections, and a mile from the county line, the village of Hardinsburg was planned on Section 7. Seventeen blocks, of eight lots each, were laid out and several families had homes there. James Cummings kept the public house and afterward built a store and was appointed Postmaster. It was the only village between Woodboro and Bunker Hill, and was founded before the hope was entertained of a railroad in the vicinity. With the founding of Litch- field, its growth ceased. A part of its buildings were removed to the new town, and in two years the site of Hardinsburg was a plowed field again. In local history it still retains its place as a village, as the town plat has not per- haps been legally vacated. But the passer-by sees nothing to instruct him that this was once designed to be the metropolis of the west side of the county.
Few of the early settlers came direct from the South. The Foglemans, the Streets, the Padens, the Forehands and the Corlews paused near Clear Spring or Woodboro for a few years, before coming west of Shoal Creek. Brokaw and J. N. McElvain, David Lay and
259
SOUTH LITCHFIELD TOWNSHIP.
W. Meisenheimer eame during Fillmore's ad- ministration. Mount Olive, in Macoupin Coun- ty, a short distance from the county line, was a German settlement, and Germans began to buy lands in South Litchfield. They never sell, but keep adding aere to aere, and to-day are the owners of the southwest part of the township.
The four events which have marked deepest the development of the township are the con- struction of the Alton & Terre Haute Railroad in 1854 ; the city of Litchfield ; the Free Sehool law, and the road law. The first put the people in easy communication with the river cities ; the second afforded a local market ; the third ministered to the better worth of the growing citizens, and the last has improved drainage and given safe highways.
The Litehfield coal mine, the oil wells and brickyards, are in the north part of the town-
ship, where are also the water works and huge ice houses.
During the war, a few residents proposed to nullify all laws for re-enforeing the army by a conscription. They made furtive visits and urged a neighbor to accept the leadership. of the enterprise. They did not desire the draft enforced, as then they might have occasion to see Canada. The neighbor declined their over- ture, and the scheme was abandoned, and the authors went on voting the same old tieket from the force of habit. Wheat at $3.50 per bushel satisfied their loyalty.
The population of the township outside the city, is nine hundred and forty nearly, and the widle stretches of open land, which only a few years since were numerous, have now been reclaimed, and the last aere of speculators' real estate has passed into the hands of residents.
260
HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
CHAPTER XIII .*
THE CITY OF LITCHFIELD- ITS FIRST SETTLERS - LAYING OUT A TOWN -GROWTH AND DEVEL- OPMENT-PUBLIC SALE OF LOTS-CITY IMPROVEMENTS AND INCREASE OF BUSINESS-
POPULATION IN 1857-LITCHIFIELD'S FIRST CIRCUS-SOME OF THE PIONEER BUSI-
NESS MEN-THE MACHINE SHOP AND MILL OF BEACH-LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE OF EARLY LITCHFIELD, ETC., ETC.
" A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid."
The city of Litchfield, lying two-thirds in North Litchfield Township and one-third in South Litchfield, and two miles from the west line of the county, is forty-two miles due south of Springfield, and twenty-six miles east, and thirty-four miles north of St. Louis. It is 310 feet above St. Louis, and is poput- larly held to be the highest point on the rail- road between Alton and Terre Haute. Its waters of drainage flow in three cardinal di- rections and find their way to the Mississippi through Cahokia Creek and the Kaskaskia River. The town site is nearly level, one or two gentle mounds alone breaking the mo- notonous level.
The first settler within the limits of the town was Isaac Weaver, who in 1842 occu- pied a cabin at or near the entrance to the public square. But in 1835, Evan Stephen- son entered the southwest quarter of Section 4, in South Litchfield, and in 1836, Joseph Gillespie entered the east half of the south- east quarter of the section. In 1838, G. B. Yenowine entered the west half and the south half of the east half of the northwest quarter of the section, and Isaac Ross entered what remained of the northwest quarter and ali the northeast quarter, while not until 1849 did John Waldrop and Ezra Tyler enter the west half of the southeast quarter of the section, Tyler taking the south forty acres.
But Weaver's cabin was the first building, though, in 1847, Royal Scherer had a cabin on the southeast slope of the mound now owned by W. S. Palmer. Scherer was un- married and did not occupy his hut. This year Ezra Tyler settled on his land, and the next year Ahart Pierce moved into his log house, placed on the mound, partly on the street and partly on the grounds of W. H. Fisher. In 1849, Mr. Pierce and Caleb W. Sapp entered the southwest quarter of Sec- tion 34, in North Litchfield, the south half, of which became the nucleus of the present city. Weaver's rights of pos- Session were extinguished by purchase, and Sapp and Pierce divided their purchase, the former becoming the owner of the south half, which extended from the Wabash Railroad half a mile east along the Indianapolis and St. Louis Road, with a uniform width of a quarter of a mile. Ezra Tyler had the east half of this tract in September, 1850, which in May, 1861, passed to J. Y. McManus, who also bought the west half. This extinguish- ed Sapp's title, who had built him a house on the south side of the public square, and the remains of his well are still easy to recog- nize.
In April, 1852. Nelson Cline bought the east forty of the Sapp purchase, and a year later he sold the west six acres to Y. S. Etter, who also purchased the forty acres lying imme- diately west of them. The same year George
*By H. A. Coolidge.
James De Motherson
LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS
263
CITY OF LITCHFIELD.
F. Pretlow bought out Etter, and when the initial plat of Litchfield was laid ont in the fall of 1853, it covered only Pretlow's forty- six acres and the thirty-four acres recently owned by Cline.
In the summer of 1853, residents of the present city were Alfred Blackwelder, near the site of the Weipert House, burned in 1880; Jacob Scherer, on the mound in the north- western quarter of the city; his brother, Ralph Scherer, a quarter of a mile east of him; Nelson Cline, two doors east of Fred Stahl's; Ahart Pierce, on the schoolhouse mound; J. Y. Etter, between Martin Haney's restaurant and the Wabash Railway; O. M. Roach in a diminutive room in Cummings & McWill- iams' addition; Ezra Tyler, in the southeast part of town, and J. W. Andrews on the Davenport estate. The site of the town laid ont for building purposes was a corn field, and when Simeon Ryder and Hon. Robert Smith, of Alton, Hon. Joseph Gillespie, of Edwardsville, Philander C. Huggins, of Bunker Hill, Josiah Hunt, Chief Engineer of the Terre Haute & Alton Railway, and John B. Kirkham, formed a syndicate to pur- chase the sites of prospective stations along the line of the road then in process of con- struction, they bought out Mr. Cline. They agreed to lay out a town on the eighty acres owned by Pretlow and Cline, and after reserving the land needed for streets, public squares, and railroad uses, to reconvey to Pretlow one-half the lots and blocks on his forty-six acres, in full payment for the remainder. Mr. Kirkham was made the agent of the syndicate, but in a few days he was replaced by P. C. Hug- gins, who retained his position through suc- cessive purchases of additional land to be laid out in village lots, until E. B. Litchfield, of Brooklyn, N. Y., became the sole owner of the company's interest in the city. The rail-
road was completed no farther than Bunker Hill from the western end, when Thomas A. Gray, County Surveyor, in October, 1853, laid out among the standing corn the origi- nal plat of the town. Gillespie was also laid out and Messrs. R. W. O'Bannon, T. W. Elliott, H. E. Appleton, James W. Jefferis and J. P. Bayless, and W. S. Palmer, of Ridgely, Madison County, having decided to remove to a point on the proposed road, drew straws to determine whether to locate at Gillespie or Litchfield. The fates willed in favor of the latter town. Accordingly, in Janu- ary, 1854, Mr. O' Bannon bought the east half of the block facing on State Street and lying between Ryder and Kirkham streets for $120, on time. Any part of the east front would now be a bargain at that price for a single foot. This was the first purchase in the pro- posed town. He at once began arrangements to build a store on the southeast corner of his purchase. Mr. Jefferis appears to have been the second purchaser, and Mr. Appleton and Mr. Palmer must have secured lots soon after. Mr. O' Bannon obtained lumber for the frame of his store in the neighborhood, but the other lumber was obtained at Carlinville. His store was completed and occupied April 24, 1854, and Mr. Jefferis had his dwelling, now the south part of the George B. Litch- field House, nearly ready for his family; but Mr. Elliott, by bringing here the material of his home at Ridgely, managed to get his family placed in it May 5, 1854, and thus he was the pioneer settler of the town, though his home was antedated by the Jefferis house. Mr. Jefferis' family came three days later than Mr. Elliott, whose home stood nearly on the ground now covered by the Parlor Shoe Store. The fourth building was a rude blacksmith shop, on Mr. Southworth's corner. W. S. Palmer, in May, began the erection of the west half of the building the first door above
0
264
HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
L. Hoffman's bakery, but as Mr. Palmer went to the woods and hewed out the framing tim- mer, he did not finish his store until fall. The next building was erected by E. Tyler, for a grain warehouse, on the side of the "O. K." Mill.
There was not time to build houses, and rude structures and small buildings were drawn over the slimy prairies on runners from other points. Thus J. P. Bayless brought here on rollers one-half of what had been a blacksmith shop at Hardinsburg. It had no door, floor or window He placed it on the corner north of Mr. E. Burdett's shop and made it do for a home for several years. Up to this date Mr. Tyler supplied meals and lodging to the men who were founding the town. As to roads, the great highway from Hillsboro to Bunker Hill ran a mile south of the town, and the route from Edwardsville by way of Stanton to Taylorville, entered the town near its present southwest corner, and ran diagonally to the half-section line of Section 34, in North Litchfield. The road was laid out by striking a furrow on one side for several miles and then returning with a furrow on the opposite side. The road lay between these shallow ditches, and marked the route well enough for the few people who were condemned to use it.
Mr. Pretlow dying in the spring of 1854, the lots owned by him were kept out of mar- ket for a whole year. Mr. O'Bannon, wishing a quiet home, bought a couple of acres of Mr. Pierce on State street, between Division and Third streets, and built his present home on the gentle swell, during the summer of 1854, and placed his family in it during the fall, while it was unfinished.
Mr. Appleton built a wagon shop just in the rear of Jefferis' blacksmith shop, during the fall, and used the rear portion as a dwell- ing. Mr. Palmer and Mr. Mayo, his
brother-in-law, put a stock of general merchandise in the store just built by the former, and the east end was also his family residence. There had plant- ed themselves here by the latter part of 1854, six families, and the town consisted of about a dozen buildings, of which one was a wagon shop, one a blacksmith shop, and two were stores. By November, 1855, the number of dwelling-houses had increased to eleven, and the town seen under a December sky had an uninviting aspect. The population must have been at least one hundred, for when need comes, folks can be compacted together as close above ground as in it.
By October, the railroad was opened as far as Clyde, and in January the Pretlow estate was sold by his executor. The sale was held in the store of W. T. Elliott (the firm of R. W. O'Bannon and W. T. Elliott was so ad- vertised by a sign over the door) and the day is still widely remembered for the dense rain which prevailed. The embankment for the railroad had formed a dike across State street, and interrupted its drainage. A miniature lake was formed, and it was the policy of parties owning land just west of the town plat, to have the dyke maintained, in order to force the location of the passenger station in their vicinity, where, in anticipation of a decision in their favor, a side-track had al- ready been graded. Mr. O' Bannon, Mr. Bay- less, and others, cut the dike, and thus averted the location of the passenger house a quarter of a mile to the westward.
The earlier sales of lots on State street had been made at the rate of $30 for sixty-six feet front. The price in May, 1854, was increased to $50. There were no apparent natural ad- vantages for the creation of a prosperous town. It was not known that the railroad shops would be located here. Shoal Creek was a serious barrier to communication with
265
CITY OF LITCHFIELD.
the country to the east ; and, on other sides, the prairie still spread, with here and there a settler who was toilsomely breaking, breaking the virgin sod. The site of the plat had been bought in midsummer, 1853, at $S or $10 per acre, and the plat gave two acres to eight lots and the surrounding streets. At the Pretlow sale one half the lots in the west part of the town were sold by public outcry, and it is in- structive to note the purchasers and the prices paid. But few of the buyers have represen- tatives in the city. The terms were one-third
down and the balance in one year. The Pret- low estate, after the original plot had been re- corded, consisted of Blocks 6, 8, 10, 12, 22, 24, 26, 28, the west half of Block 20, Lots 2 and 3, Block 4, Lot 10, Block 3, and Lots 2, 4, 6 and 8, in Block 33. One familiar with their location will readily understand how sadly the withholding this real estate from sale and improvement delayed the growth of the town. The influence of this was fully seen in the two years immediately following the sale.
PURCHASERS.
LOT. BLOCK.
PRICE.
W. T. Elliott & Co.
1
28
$164 00
John S. Stewart. .
100 00
James Cummings.
3 &4
200 00
T. C. Kirkland.
5
140 00
J. W. Andrews.
6
118 00
T. C. Kirkland.
98
160 50
S. C. Simmons.
8
28
100 00
S. C. Simmons.
1
26
56 25
Addison M'Lain
2
37 00
William Holloway.
3
26 00
David Corlew.
4
37 42 00
R. H. Cline
5
37
60 25
Peter Shore.
6
37
50 00
T. C. Kirkland.
37
66 00
Peter Shore. .
8
37
197 25
W. C. Henderson.
2
33
100 00
L. Sweet. .
4
33
57 00
James Cummings.
6
33
80 00
L. Sweet. ..
8
33 52 00
James Cummings.
1
3.2
92 00
James Cummings
T. L. Van Dorn.
3
42 50
A. MeLain.
4
54 00
Benjamin Hargraves.
5
22
77 00
T. L. Van Dorn.
6
60 00
PURCHASERS.
LOT. BLOCK.
PRICE.
J. W. Andrews.
22
67 00
J. W. Andrews.
8 20
100 50
John M. McWilliams
3 20)
111 00
T. C. Kirkland.
1 20
80 00
L. F. MeWilliams.
5 20)
86 00
John S. Roberts.
G 20
155 00
J. W. Wade.
4
60 00
P. Shore.
3
4
51 00
H. H. Hood.
1
12
77 00
T. L. Van Dorn.
12
60 00
Jolin S. Stewart.
3
12
41 00
O. F. Jones.
4
12
55 00
W. M. Bronson.
5
12
50 00
W. M. Bronson.
6 12
50 00
H. H. Hood.
7 12
137 50
Charles Davis.
8
12
83 00
Isaac Baker.
1
24
31 00
J. B. Kirkland.
1
6
39 00
A. J. Thompson
3
36
35 50
J. L. Wallis.
1
36
37 00
A. J. Thompson.
1
8
28 00
R. M. Gamble
8
18 50
R. M. Gamble.
3
8
17 00
W. H. Furdown.
1
8
16 75
William Allen.
24
17 50
J. W. Jefferis.
3
24
15 00
Samuel Harris.
4
24
17 00
Joseph Davis.
5
94
16 50
Joseph Davis.
6
15 00
J. W. Jefferis.
7
24
13 50
John C. Ilughes
1
10
20 00
R. II. Cline.
2
10
20 00
T. D. Whiteside.
3
10
20 25
J. P. Bayless.
4
10
20 25
Don Wade.
5
10
20 50
W. II. Furdown.
6
10
17 75
S. C. Simmons. .
10
23 25
J. C. Ilughes.
8
10
38 50
1
--
One of the lots would to-day sell for 300 per cent more than the sixty-six did at that sale, which was at least four times greater than the value of half the town site before it was laid out.
In 1854, "Nigger Dan," from Carlinville, built a hotel which is now the east part of the Phoenix House. He was able only to in. close the building, and such as it was, it was the first house of entertainment in the town. The next year, E. W. Litchfield supplied means to finish it. I have not been able to learn his real name or subsequent history. Dr. Gamble was the first physician, and lived
.
1
1
20 00
Peter Thompson
36
36 00
John P. Bayless.
60 00
266
HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.
on a half-floored house west of the Methodist Church. Dr. H. H. Hood, who first opened an office at Hardinsburg, was the second one, and had his office (in August) at J. M. Mc- Williams store, which was between the Phœ- nix House and the Central Hotel. On No- vember 24, of this year, the railroad was opened to Litchfield and the sale of the Pret- low property soon following, the town received an impetus which it has not since lost, though panics, fires, the war, and the removal of the railroad shops, have each given a breathing time to lay wiser plans and build its prosperi- ty on a more stable basis.
By the close of the year, eight or nine fam- ilies had homes in the city in addition to six or seven families on farm lands when the town was surveyed. We can enumerate R. W. O'Bannon, W. T. Elliott, H. E. Appleton, Jas. Jefferis, J. P. Bayless, W. S. Palmer, "Nigger Dan," and probably G. Evans. T. G. Kessinger came in not much later. In the spring of 1855, Messrs. E. W. Litchfield, E. E. Litchfield, E. S. Litchfield, George H. Hull, and the three Dix brothers, and C. F. How, came from Central or Western New York; all related to E. C. Litchfield, who had become practically the owner of the town site. Several additions to the town were laid out. James Cummings removed his store and con- tents from Hardinsburg, and placed it just west of the cigar factory on Ryder street. He was the first Postmaster. The original plat of the town which bore the name of Huntsville was never recorded. It was the purpose to have the name of the post office the same as the name of the town, and as there was a post office called Huntsville in Schuyler County, the name of the town was changed to Litchfield in honor of its virtual proprietor. Up to this date, the present townships of North Litchfield and South Litchfield were a part of Long Branch (Elec-
tion Precinct), and I have heard an early resi - dent say, that a dozen ballots would be cast at an election.
The railroad being open to Alton, Messrs. E. W. Litchfield and C. F. How began tim- idly the sale of lumber, buying a carload or two at Alton and unloading it where State street crosses the railroad. E. E. Litchfield bought the Tyler grain warehouse, and, remov- ing it to the site of D. Davis' grocery store, converted it into a store and began the sale of dry goods. A year or two later, he went out of dry goods and became a hardware mer- chant. James and William Macpherson erected a flouring or grist mill and a residence just north of the Planet Mills' office. These were the first buildings south of the railroad. In the fall, ground was broken for the railroad shops, but when S. E. Alden arrived in No- vember, there were but eleven dwellings and a few shops or stores in the place. W. T. Bacon, from Adrian, Mich., had formed a partnership with Messrs. How & Litchfield to deal in lumber, and had projected a planing- mill. The winter of 1855-56 was an open one, and the tide of emigration setting in deep and steady, building went on during the entire season, and a hundred dwellings and other buildings were put up by the close of 1856. The passenger station had been com- pleted and the round-house with thirteen stalls had been inclosed, and the foundation laid for the machine-shops. The town had been incor- porated as a village; R. W. O'Bannon, Presi- dent of the Board of Trustees. The public houses had increased to four; The Mont- gomery House, now the Phoenix, by A. C. Paxson ; the Litchfield House, opposite Wood- man's lumber-yard, by Mr. Johnson, the nu- clens of the Central Hotel, by J. Hawkins, and the beginning of the Palace Hotel, by R. Chism. The Methodist and Presbyterian Churches were built, but not quite completed.
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