History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois, Part 34

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : O. L. Baskin
Number of Pages: 758

USA > Illinois > Montgomery County > History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois > Part 34
USA > Illinois > Bond County > History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois > Part 34

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).

Its history is but the simple monotonous story of the life of a little community, which had no startling or exceptionable incidents. If life here was quiet, it was intense and stern. All commercial and industrial facilities had been made the most of. It was not quite a fron- tier or pioneer town, but when it was founded the region around was sparsely settled, and large tracts of land were uninelosed and untilled. The people were rich in the prospective appre- ciation of their lands, but poor in actual wealth. They had clung to the timber along the streams, He and the more sanguine had excited the deri-

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

sion of their neighbors by saying that in half a century settlement might advance several miles into the prairie. Wheat sold at Alton for 20 cents a bushel above the incidental expenses of transportation on wagons. The best wealth of the town was the sort of people who gave it tone and character. No one hoped to get on by pulling a neighbor down. The latest arrival was welcomed and helped to make a start. Competing tradesmen were warm personal friends. There was a broad public sentiment which attracted population. There was prompt co-operation in each new enterprise. Each man thought he would best benefit himself by con- tributing to the common weal. Life was a good, earnest, manly fight with narrow fortunes. It was won by character, intelligence, industry, prudence and courage. And it needed to be

so. A greater progress than had cheered the last century was to be crowded into twenty years ; the full work of four generations of an earlier day, was now flung on one. A better Thermopyla was here, but the myriad Helots who died on Persian swords to lend deathless fame to their three hundred masters, had no representatives. Only a few men could do much, but all did what was possible. Through that year and subsequent ones, can be traced like a fairy ring, the example and influence of a few men from the East, who being full of go, sent their fiery energy and daring through the community. Their positive incisive traits were as strong as passions and beautiful as hope. They came to succeed and stay, and, believing in themselves, they did.

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CITY OF LITCHFIELD.

CHAPTER XIV .*

LITCHFIELD-INCREASE OF POPULATION-EARLY POLITICS-POLITICIANS AND POLITICAL QUES- TIONS-THE JOURNALS-DOUGLAS AND LINCOLN-INCORPORATION OF LITCHFIELD AS A CITY-THE FIRST MAYOR -SOME OF THE LATER BUSINESS MEN - PHYSICIANS-

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 AND ITS RESULTS-THE CITY DURING THIE WAR-FIRES-REMOVAL OF RAILROAD SHOPS-RECAPITULATION, ETC.

" Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out."-Richter.

B' Y the beginning of 1858, the population of Litchfield might have been a thous- and, nearly all drawn hither from a distance. They were poor, if reckoned by material stan- dards, but young, earnest, pushing, resolute, and able and willing to make favorable cir- cumstances if they could not find them. Their true power and wealth lay in their ca- pacity to work and their skill in their callings, and their readiness to multiply themselves by doing so many unlike things well. They had to succeed. The population was a busy one, and splendidly in earnest. Somehow they tore their way upward. The same man was in the course of the day a coal dealer, super- intendent of the foundry, melting three tons at a heat; ran a corn-mill, carrying the corn in the ear on his back to the second story, shelling it and sifting the meal by hand, sacking it for shipment; keeping the books of the firm, taking the time of the workmen, at- tending to the correspondence, and in the in- tervals doing the " chores " around the estab- lishment.

Everybody, not a railroad man, talked pol- itics, if not with wide knowledge, yet with zeal and earnestness. The Democratic head- quarters were at O'Bannon's store, and there on rainy days as well at sundry other times

were gathered Thomas C. Hughes, Elihu Boan, Stephen R. Briggs, Israel Fogleman, John A. Crabtree, with " Uncle Dick" as Mod- erator, smoking amicable pipes and turning over their oft-expressed opinions as to the is- snes then prominent in Kansas. All these had been born and reared in slave States, and cherished the views peculiar to the South.

They believed as their party believed, and small forbearance had they for any one who uttered to-day what the party would not utter until to-morrow. Next to being an Aboli- tionist, was the effrontery of believing any- thing until the party believed it, unless he was in Congress or had owned a " nigger." It was all the force of habit, and an endless diversion.

The Republicans were few but conspicuous. Andrew Miller, H. H. Hood, D. C. Amsden, W. S. Palmer and H. H. Beach could not be overlooked in any community. They held caucuses, voted a straight ticket, and were uniformly beaten. Mr. Miller was suspected of being a train dispatcher on the Under- ground Railroad. Dr. Hood alone was an Abolitionist, and it was no festive thing to be an Abolitionist where one of your neighbors had been one of the hunters of fugitive slaves for the lowest motive men dare to acknowl- edge, and which if good, will excuse Arnold's meditated betrayal of West Point. Poli- tics or self love had no little to do with a

* By II. A. Coolidge.

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

condition of things which ultimately was no disadvantage. For twenty years the town had only forlorn friends beyond its own limits. There was a unanimous discrimination against its citizens in business and matters political, and for a quarter of a century, though Litch- field contained one-fifth the population, it saw but one of its citizens elevated to a county office. The noble consequence was that no one here was spoiled or made a bench loafer by seeking or holding an office.

In April, 1857, was begun the publication of the Litchfield Journal. The office was brought hither from Central New York, on representations and assurances which were coolly repudiated when they had served their purpose. The paper had a small circulation and little other patronage. The publisher did not grow quickly rich, and seven years after- ward he sold out and turned his attention to other things. He was so poor that no one would give him credit. He thus kept out of debt, though his subscribers did not, and the statute of limitation long since restored his books to white paper, or something even less valuable.

The spring of 1858 was phenomenal for mud and bad roads. Even good intentions will not pave a prairie road in March. The cars ran ricocheting along the iron rails, and the rain fell dense day after day. Farm work was delayed. In January the highways were hard and dusty, and many a plow was stir- ring. The frostless nights ushered in delicious days, and winter was side-tracked up North. February brought a change, and it was long ere we saw hard ground or a clear or warm day. Not a few improved the weather by falling ill, and potion glasses were a relief from the drip and mud. We learned in the schools which fools patronize, the mysteries of a Western winter. During the summer the car shop and the paint shop were built.

the Montgomery House enlarged, and the railroad continued its monthly issues of scrip in jocular payment of its employes. The Linder Brothers gave up business; Cum- mings & Son failed to meet their engage- ments; Henderson, Hull and Hawkins were embarrassed, and E. E. Litchfield owed more than he could pay. E. W. Litchfield built Empire Hall, and a brass band was formed. Our sorrows came not alone, but in battalions.

Senator Douglas, whose official term was about to expire, was a candidate for re-elec. tion. A chasm had opened between him and his party. Illinois had gone Republican at the State election two years before, and he could hope for no aid from the National Ad- ministration, and had grounds for anticipat- ing its hostility, whether covert or open. On the Legislature to be chosen in the fall depended his hopes, and if he would not fail, he deemed it essential that he should make a popular canvass. The central counties were the debatable region, and on their political complexion rested the prospect of success. Mr. Lincoln, the Republican candidate op- posed to him, gained the initiative before his return from Washington. And soon af- ter Douglas began his popular efforts, the terms of the famous forensic contest between them were settled. Their joint debate re- duced to the plainness of axioms the pending issues in the irrepressible conflict. Trumbull also entered the canvass, and in an address at Chicago, spoke of cramming the lie down Douglas' throat. Douglas' readiness and anxiety to meet his accuser on the hustings for a reply to this insult was well understood. The day that Trumbull spoke here, Douglas had an appointment at Gillespie. John M. Palmer was announced to follow Trumbull in the evening, from the Republican stand at the southwest corner of the public square. Several Democrats visited Gillespie to invite

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CITY OF LITCHFIELD.

Douglas here to speak in the evening. A rude stand was improvised against the north side of Empire Hall, where there was an open space about fifty feet by one hundred, thickly strewn with brick-bats. Douglas came, and proclamation was made that he would speak. When the hour came, no one was at the Re- publican stand, and several hundred persons were at the other one. Trumbull was not in the crowd, but a few rods away, where he could hear. Douglas knowing this, replied to the boast made in Chicago: his remarks were not reported, but it would be a charity to pretend that his language was parliamen- tary. It was vigorous, and uttered with a fiery vehemence and passion which manifested its earnestness. When he concluded, the Democrats shouted for Dick Merrick, who accompanied Douglas. The Republicans yelled for Palmer. The former claimed the stand: the latter clamored for fair play. They wanted Douglas to draw a crowd for their side. The shouting went on. If there was a lull, it was only to take breath. The brick-bats were suggestive. Some of the people laughed at the confusion, and some grew red in the face with anger or excite- ment. Finally, Judge Weir mounted the stand, and in a few sentences brought the meeting to a close. The Republicans ad- mitted the provocation under which Douglas spoke, and the boisterous display of feeling when he sat down, led to no serious results. A few days later was election, and the total vote of the Litchfield Precinct, and the 359 majority for the Douglas candidates for the Legislature, were so unexpected that the le- gality of the vote was questioned at Spring- field in an unofficial way, and the suspicion was removed only by the aggregate of the city election the following spring. During the year the removal of John P. Bayless, Post- master, was attempted on a charge of virtual

Abolitionism. Had the allegation been sus- tained, his official sin would have been unpar- donable. He was invited to reply to the charge, which he accomplished to the satis- faction of the Department, and he was not again molested in his office until Lincoln was seated in the White House.

The village organization had been dissolved, and in November a special charter was draft- ed, for presentation to the Legislature about to convene for the incorporation of the town as city. At a series of public meetings this draft was submitted to the citizens, and, be- ing approved, B. M. Munn went to the cap- ital to urge its passage. On the 19th of Feb- ruary, 1859, it became a law, and at the first election under it, in April, W. E. Bacon was chosen Mayor, and C. W. Ward City Clerk, and James Kellogg Street Commissioner. The next year Mr. Bacon was re-elected.

The new city had an onerous task. An entire code of ordinances was to be framed and adopted, and public opinion to be edu- cated to the knowledge and obedience to wholesome municipal regulations. The Council served with no compensation. The City Clerk received $60 a year; all other offi- cers accepted their fees in full of salaries, and sidewalks were laid at the expense of real estate thus improved. The first year a tax of $2,200 was levied for schools and munici- pal purposes, and at the close of the year the Treasury contained a few hundred dollars to the credit of the next twelve months.

The first stage of the transition period had been reached. The business fever of the day when people were daily arriving with their little accumulations to buy or build homes, was passing, and the hope of the peo- ple lay in their daily wages and employments here. Corn in the fall of 1859 sold at 10 cents a bushel, and the railroad continued its payment of " scrip," which was worthless in

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the city market. Debt was universal; but as frost pulverizes the earth for a future crop, so adversity prepared the people for a sounder prosperity. The class of adventurers, the Jeremy Diddlers, was weeded out. The men who conld not pay and would not work, drifted to other places.

A telegraph line had been built, and George H. Smith appointed operator. An effort to secure the location of the County Fair was unsuccessful, through a dishonesty not to be extenuated. The commercial influence of the town was rapidly fostering political impor- tance. A big Democratic majority in Litch- field was something bound to be respected, especially as the party was run by men who three years before were Henry Clay Whigs, and a fervent class not to be moderate in views or zeal.

In 1859, E. Southworth, wearied of failure to gain a livelihood on a farm where some calamity robbed him each year of the expect- ed fruits of his labor, and judging the future by the past, came to the city to become a lawyer. He had crossed the plains on foot to be. a miner in California; had taught school and tried farming. Here he read law fifteen hours a day. He preserved the hon- esty of common life, and circumstances bowed down to his energy. He was an officer at the beginning of the war; has served as Alder- man and Mayor, and been State Senator. He rose to the leading position at the city bar, and looks for promotion.

William A. Holmes, formerly of Morris- ville, N. Y., but later of Platteville, Wis., came here about the same date, in the vain hope that the milder climate of Central Illinois would stay, if not heal, the pulmonary dis- ease of his invalid wife. A man of social tastes, of warm sensibility, and ardent affec- tions, he never rallied after her death a year after his arrival. For a time he sought legal

business, but though a dozen years before distinguished by forensic ability, he shunned the court room and became distinctively an office lawyer, and confined himself to the preparation of court business. In the sus- pension of litigation which accompanied the war, he failed to improve his fortunes, and sought to dispel the gloom in which his days were shrouded by irregular indulgences. He died on that terrible New Year's day of 1864, in the absence of the early friend who alone here knew the secret of his earlier life, and had been glad and proud of his friendship. By temperament born to suffer, and in his pride strong to keep silence, he lost no friend and made no enemy.

Messrs. D. and O. Quick came here in 1860. and remained but a few months. They did not distinguish themselves at the bar. Lit- igation was of the simpler kind and afforded but small opportunity for lawyers. Hugh Colton, a young Irishman, needed toning down. He was impulsive, and had not learned that an orator at the bar succeeds quite as surely by being a profound lawyer as by his rhetoric. His stay here was not a long one.

George L. Zink passed from a lawyer's office in Steubenville, Ohio, to a pedagogue's chair in Gillespie, and in 1865, came here to begin the practice of his profession, bringing his political principles from the sanguinary field of Perryville. He had the legal cast of mind, was a hard student and a forcible speaker. When he became associated with R. McWilliams, he entered at once on a lu- crative practice. Subsequently, he was a member of the legal firm of Southworth & Zink, and on its dissolution opened an office in his own rooms. In 1868, he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, and four years later went into the Greeley party, and in 1878 was sent by the Democrats to the Legislature.

Shelly

LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS

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CITY OF LITCHFIELD.

Robert McWilliams flitted from Shelby- ville to Hillsboro, when J. M. Davis was most intolerant of the presence of a second lawyer in the county. Whether from constitution or abstemiousness, the plan of drinking him out of the county was a failure, and Mc Will- iams had clients and success in the courts. He was a Republican, and the time came when he re-enforced his exhortations by en- listing and raising a company and going into the field. At his own request, he was relieved from service just prior to the battle of Nash- ville; but his Irish temperament would not let him come home until he fought through that decisive affair. About 1866, he removed to Litchfield, and asserted himself at the bar, in real estate operations and politics. He has just closed a term as a member of the Legislature, and the charity of the reader will not deem this much of a stain on a lawyer. Somebody must go to the Legislature and be misreported.

George A. Talley, who completed his legal studies in McWilliams' office, and on his ad- mission to the bar became his partner, re- mained a few years, and then removed to Chicago. Though young in his profession, he had earned a high reputation for honesty and thoroughness. He had the aptitude of a student. He learned to know before decid- ing or giving opinions. He knew the law that others knew, and much that they did not. He cherished an honest judgment, and his departure was sincerely regretted.

There is an inevitable meanness in every grand event, and homeliness of detail in each heroic life which time does not wholly erase. We go a thousand miles away to get the mountain's height, and we are too near the men and things of which we write. The present tense is the fit one for our task. A fine ear would still detect the echoes of the first ham- mer strokes in the town. The writer was a

part of what he writes, and as the sentences grow, the events return in their freshness, and he is moved by his recollections as he was moved by the events themselves, and he cannot compose a history of the city on per- spective, and, like a Chinese draughtsman, leave the background and shadow out. Any one can be wise for yesterday, for he has re- sults to guide his judgment. But Litchfield scarcely has a yesterday. Its history still retains the morning freshness of to-day. The incidents of its first years are as freely can- vassed as those of the present. Each feeling and prejudice has been nursed to keep it warm.

Dr. Gamble was the first physician. He dwelt in a log cabin half floored, a couple of blocks west of the Methodist Church, and left but a faint record. H. H. Hood transferred his office from Hardinsburg to Litchfield in the summer of 1854. A man of decided opinions, active, persistent and inflexible, he is familiarly known to all. Dr. John Grin- sted came in 1856, from Woodburn, and, opening a drug store, practiced as a physician until advancing years compelled his retire- ment. In 1857, Drs. Strafford and Speers located here from St. Louis. Speers so- journed but a short time, but Dr. Stafford, much reduced in health, remains here. He never gained the position to which, by his skill, he might properly have aspired. Dr. Ash was here a year or two, but the field was too unpromising, and he removed to Brigh- ton. Dr. John Skillman, from Alton, sought employment here, and then returned to Alton, but came back to die. His history is com- prised in his Alton life.

Dr. R. F. Bennett located here in 1862, and has gained a large practice, and possesses a modest fortune. He has been twice May- or, and twice an Alderman. Of Dr. Neff it is proper to say that he is better remembered

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

for his financial transactions than for his pro- fessional successes. Dr. Colt, forced by the failure of his health from service in the gun- boat fleet, came here in 1863, and has reached an enviable rank in his profession. He loves the science of medicine, and the rod and gun, when he can steal a day with them. Dr. Backwelder went with Sherman to the sea, and finally settled here, and has a large list of patients Dr. Clearwater was for many years the country physician. His practice was enormous, and his fees would have been large had he exacted them. His reputation is built on his success in healing his patients. Dr. James, after serving in Price's army, came here. He lost his health, tried farming, and went to Virginia to die, but regained his health, and now attends to professional duties. Dr. Leach was the first homeopathist, and since his removal, ten or twelve years ago, has not been seen here.

Early in the " sixties," Ben Davis, the " snapping doctor, "made semi-monthly visits. His audience room in the Cummings Build- ing contained several backless benches, on which were seated a score or two of patients, as grave and silent and patient as "mourners" at a religious assembly. Davis circulated about the apartment, snapping his fingers like castanets, and professing to heal diseases by occult magnetic influences imparted from himself. The cures did not follow. His visits have been nearly forgotten, and the burly Ben is dimly remembered.

Only by an effort can the names of several other physicians who tarried here be recalled.

In the long, honorable list but three names have fallen to the ground. Drs. Alexander, Skillman and Grinsted have died. It is the best evidence of their worth and skill that, with the increase of population, the bills of mortal- ity in 1881 were but little larger than in 1857, with only one-eighth of the present population.

In 1860, Litchfield was a microcosm. Not a speech at Washington, not an editorial by Greeley or Medary, or an utterance of the Charleston Courier, which was not re-echoed here. Not a general interest could be touched and not affect some business here. Politics was a study for each one. Supreme attention was paid to the presidential canvass, and there was much whistling to keep up a show of courage and hopefulness. Lincoln was elected, and the outlook was toward clouds and darkness. All classes here desired peace, and petitioned for the passage of the Critten- den resolutions.

For some reason as inscrutable as a prize conundrum, a delegate Democratic State Convention was called to meet at Springfield to deliberate on public affairs and offer sug- gestions. A county convention was accord- ingly held to appoint delegates. The writer drafted and presented resolutions to the effect that as the Republicans already were in power in the State, and were about to go into power in the nation, and, therefore, would be responsible for the administration of public affairs, it would be time enough for Democrats to give advice when it was asked for; as the Democratic party when in power had not averted the present danger, it was not clear how any advice they could give would now meet it; and hence the county should send no delegates to the proposed State Con- vention. Every member save Jesse M. Phillips and B. M. Munn, was in favor of peace and a peaceful policy. Those two gentlemen breathed war and battle. The resolutions were adopted and fully met the views of the people -a fact whose significance became ap- parent within a few years.

The Peace Congress was held, and accom- plished nothing it was convened to accom- plish, and much that was not anticipated.

Wrongs it might have redressed, but it

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could not change the fixed purpose of the South, which, by dividing the party, had caused the election of Lincoln, and then plead the consequences of its own act as a pretext for the consummation of a policy pursued for years. The Southern members of that Con- gress did not seek means of pacification. Their solicitude was to learn if the Yankees would fight. The answer covered more than the question. We quote the verbal version of it. as told by a member of the body:

" If, on a summer morning, in the season, you visit the wharf of any of the little sea- ports near Boston, you will see many little undecked boats newly arrived from the fish- ing-ground with their night's catch. The owners are marine farmers. They gain their livelihood by fishing. The sea and their boats are their patrimony. Enter into con- versation with the fisherman who is tossing his catch on the wharf. Dispute his asser- tions; call him a liar. . Mister, I can prove what I say.' Spit in his face, and, as he wipes off the saliva with his brown arm, he will reply: ' Mister, look out!' Abuse his State, and ' Mister, my State supplies your shoes, your clothes and your markets.' You cannot anger him or provoke him to a breach of the peace. You conclude he has no spirit. But touch one of his fish, and in a moment he'll thrash you within an inch of your life." The Southerner stood on the principle of per- sonal honor, a shadowy thing, while the Northerner stood by the rights of property.

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History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois, Part 34

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892? Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago : O. L. Baskin Number of Pages: 758

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : O. L. Baskin
Number of Pages: 758