History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois, Part 35

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 35
USA > Illinois > Bond County > History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois > Part 35

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The one was a chimera; the other is the foundation of States and the Ægis of civiliza- tion. The news of the attack and capture of Fort Sumter was known here dimly on Sunday afternoon. The next morning the daily papers brought the details, and the hu- miliation of the policy which would not be- lieve or act. A call was at once made for a public meeting in the evening. Empire Hall

was packed, and R. W. O'Bannon presided. Several brief, pointed speeches were made. The sentiment was that as war had actually begun, force must be met with force, National supremacy be maintained, National property protected, and the Union preserved. The hour for debate had gone by. Action was the alternative, and forty persons that even- ing enlisted to tender their services to the General Government. In two days more the ranks were filled, and on the third day the company departed for Camp Yates, at Springfield, to be mustered into service in the first regiment raised in the war.

By association and early residence, this re- gion was friendly to the South. But her conduct startled the people to a comparison of the claims of duty against the glamour of sentiment. Everybody lost his feet, and bowed to the whirlwind of feeling in behalf of the Union. At a later day, a lower set of principles came into prominence, and men gave to party what belonged to the country.

The history of the city during the war be- longs in part to a distinct chapter. But as the value of slavery as a preponderating sec- tional issue flung off disguises which misled no one who did not wish to be misled, and its disappearance, by changing public policy, consigned a proud party to disaster and a minimum of influence, a changed attitude was assumed by not a few. A lodge of the Golden Circle met in the city. Men met by moonlight for military drill. Speeches were made on the main streets, exhorting the peo- ple to resist the draft. Men left the station for Ohio to vote for Vallandigham. Others departed for Chicago to co-operate in St. Leger's conspiracy to capture Camp Doug- lass. Refugees from Slave States led furtive lives here, and used a freedom of speech not permitted at home. The war was denounced, because in camp the " Democrat boys" became

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

Republicans. Both the Democratic papers in the county were conducted by war-Democrats, and the elements of hostility to the war lacked coherence for want of leadership and public expression. About this time one B. F. Bur- nett came to town to gain a livelihood by so- liciting legal business. His success as a law- yer was not great, but he prated dolorously of the misery of war, the sorrow it brought to uncounted families, and the blessings of peace. He knew some law. and might have been a reputable citizen if he had not. He became a nucleus for disloyal manifestations -a fit office for a loose-tongued scoundrel. Secret organization provoked a rival organi- zation, and in the spring of 1863, a Union League Lodge was established here, meeting in the engine house of the car shops. The League decided to seek control of the city government, and all the measures were quietly made. A messenger was sent on Sunday to Alton to procure ballots, and the printer was taken from church to provide them. The messenger could not return until nearly noon of election day. The Democrats were igno- rant of what was devised, and only themselves attended the polls, and few ballots were offered. The Republicans seemed to have lost their interest in civil affairs. The train came in from the west, and with electric quickness the ballots were distributed, and by evening were in the ballot boxes. The result indicated that about half of them had been deposited by former Democrats, and the League ticket had a tremendous majority. The Democrats were dumb with amazement, and the Leaguers, delighted by their success, celebrated the result in a manner which left headaches the next morning. The astound- ing change in public sentiment was not fruit- less. Numerous volunteer associations arose to aid the Sanitary Commission, and in vari- ous ways to remember the boys in blue. But

here, as in all popular effervescences, the worst elements came uppermost. Efforts were made to hurry the League into measures to gratify personal malignancy, and they were promptly discountenanced and their authors vanished. Rumor magnified the strength and purposes of the League. About the county, measures were concerted for forci- ble resistance to a draft. A military organi- zation was maintained for the purpose. But it was known that boxes of Ballard rifles had been procured by the Leaguers to preserve the peace and the supremacy of the law. Bounty-jumpers skulked along the streets.

An emissary of the Golden Circle paid a visit to a Leaguer who was his personal friend. He said that he had heard that 5,000 stand of arms were in Litchfield. His friend gave an ambiguous assent. He exhib- ited to him a Ballard rifle as a sample of half the weapons, and then producing a Henry rifle, or a sixteen shooter, affirmed the second half of the arms were of that pattern. What report was made to the Circle has not been made public, but there was no longer danger that Litchfield would be molested, or the draft resisted.

The town was startled by fires, clearly the result of gross carelessness or incendiarism, and there was a disposition to connect them with political troubles. That pretence was speedily abandoned The disappearance of specie as a circulating medium, the deprecia- tion of greenbacks, and the augmentation of the paper currency, inflamed prices and the city rushed into public improvements. Taxes went up like a rocket. A city hall was built. a schoolhouse was built, and the money was in good part borrowed at 15 per cent. The city was drunk on the excellence of its credit. Population rose to 4,300; wheat was $3.50, and corn 95 cents a bushel; sugar, four pounds for $1; muslin, 40 cents a yard, and

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CITY OF LITCHFIELD.

flour $19 per barrel. Those were good times, but they did not last. The people went wild on railroads. The sum of $50,000 was voted to the stock of a railroad west to Louisiana, Mo .; the same amount to the St. Louis divis- ion of the Wabash, and $75, 000 to the Spring- field & St. Louis road. Fortunately, only the second one was built, and the other sub- scriptions lapsed. The town gradually adapted itself to the changed conditions pre- vailing since the war. Population had fallen off, the decadence of prices was established, and the Granger element was about to begin its by-play.

The removal of the railroad shops was com- pleted in 1871, and the leading market for labor was closed. The spacious shops stood silent and tenantless. The city's opportunity had come; difficulty was but a goad to spur it on. Several parties here organized a com- pany to lease the shops for the manufacture of rolling-stock for railways. The stock was eagerly taken, and in 1872 the fires were lighted and the machinery set in motion. The new enterprise soon disclosed that it would do more for the city than railroad shops had done. But within two years a series of fires, not all accidental, perhaps, had raged on State street. The schoolhouse, the pride of the community, had gone down in flame and ruin, and now a conflagration burst forth in the car works. Fortunately, most of the works were saved, but the loss of property and time was still serious. The town was brought face to face with the imperative want of water for industrial and fire purposes.

It is proper to be specific by way of reca- pitulation. In April, 1867, a fire kindled in the rear of the hardware store near the south- west angle of the public square, had humbled to ashes three stores and most of their con- tents, bringing financial ruin to two of the owners, and causing a total loss of $25,000.

Fires mysteriously appeared in the rear of other business houses, and were discovered in season to avoid damage. In the fall of 1871, the alarm of fire again startled the town. A crown of flame rested on the Journal build- ing, and the rear rooms glowed with the yel- low radiance of a fire fed by dry pine. Five buildings crumbled to blackness in a couple of hours, and the losses were not light to bear. A year or two later, fire bells summoned the people to witness the conflagration of six bus- iness places, from the O'Bannon corner north on State street. The Criterion Mill, in the early morning, went down in smoke and flame, and the Gage Mill on a Sunday afternoon lay under a pillar of smoke. Pale flames trav- eled through the interior. The blaze broke white through the roof, and for a few mo- ments the people forgot the disaster in the presence of the magnificent spectacle In 1873, the car works had their baptism of fire. Brick walls and earnest labor checked the flames when their fury was but half glutted. All these fires. most of them compressed in- to two years, had touched only individuals. and any philosopher can maintain his equa- nimity in the presence of his neighbor's ca- lamity. The vagueness of each one's per- sonal interest in the general welfare, and it is only personal interest which moves the common mind, provoked only unsubstantial regrets. The losses did not directly touch the purses of the many. In whatever the public undertakes, it is seldom indifferent to its own advantage. It was so in Litchfield. But this complacency at the prevalence of fires was rudely shattered. The spacious schoolhouse, overlooking the city, and in its designs and proportions as beautiful as a poem, was the pride and the object of the personal affection of every citizen. For sev- eral days the teachers and their 800 pupils had been choking with the acrid odor of

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

smoldering wood. Like a gangrene, the perfume clung to the rooms. No smoke was seen, no fire discovered. A superficial survey detected no cause for the poison which had insinuated itself throughout the building. It was a Monday evening, about 6:30. A young married woman lay dying in the neighbor- hood. A lambent flame was seen quivering on the roof near the south chimney. Black smoke crowned the summit. Pale tongues of fire lapped at the woodwork. All the city rushed to the school grounds. The house burned like a flambeau. Nothing could be done to stop its destruction, and the people stood in speechless sorrow and saw the fire crawl downward from floor to floor, and ex- pire in the cellar for want of fuel. Each one knew the fire brought financial loss to him, and that with proper water works $40,000 would have been saved the city.

The frequent recurring fires, and the extent of the losses, gave emphasis to a desire for protection from further losses of a similar character. Protection was better and cheaper than insurance. There was forced or hurried eagerness to meet this general demand. Va- rious schemes were considered. The cost of providing cisterns and a fire engine was com- puted, and the annual outlay of the system was found to be 10 per cent on the cost of a different system which would afford greater protection, and in addition produce a revenue from its value to shops, mills and households. In 1873, the car works brought water here by railroad. Best & Sparks paid $1,000 to teams to draw water four miles to their mill. The desirability of a water supply was not questioned, and there was a unanimous desire to fling a strong dike across Long Branch, a mile south of the city, and from the capacious reservoir thus created, send water into the heart of the town, under conditions which would meet our varied requirements.

The sort of works demanded was in substance the Holly system, or the system of direct pres- sure on the mains equal to the maintenance of a column of water 400 feet high, and through 100 feet of hose would project a stream upward of 100 feet into the air. Estimates of the cost of such a system were made to include only the dike, the mains and the pumping machinery, and this estimate was promulgated as a fair statement by experts of the cost of the water- works. We make no excuse for the error in simple multiplication, which affected the cost of the dike 100 per cent. We have no comment on the suppression in the exhibit submitted to the citizens of numerous expensive items of cost, which, in the aggregate, were truly formidable. The facts speak for themselves. A few citizens knew the water-works could not be built within $25,000 of the explained estimates, and their voices were overruled and they reduced to silence. They would, at the proper hour, have appealed to the courts to prohibit the issue of bonds by alleg - ing a want of power to legalize them. They could not be blind to the mendacity or want of rudimentary capacity to make simple cal- culations on the part of those who held that it was none of the tax payers' business how they run things. Again, it was a matter of law against expediency, as if it can be expe- dient to do wrong.

People are easily deceived when they want to be deceived. There was no uncertainty as to the value of water-works, none as to the ability of the city to build them, but there was a broad, explicit prohibition of law against going into debt beyond 5 per cent of the last assessed valuation of property, and our municipal debt was at that time within $12,000 of that limit. But the debt was in great part nominal, and not virtual. Since the completion of the Wabash road, in aid of which the debt was created, tho assessed val-

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CITY OF LITCHFIELD.

uation of property had increased $800,000, and by the Railroad Aid Law, the State taxes on that amount were appropriated to paying the debt. This tax met annual inter- est, and left an excess of several thousand dollars as a sinking fund which would quite extinguish the principal at maturity. It

was this law which alone induced the city to issue $50,000 in bonds to secure the road. The bonds were against the city, but the State agreed to pay them. This debt then was treated as virtually canceled, and taking this view, and listening to the vehement as- surances of men in power that the water-works completed could not cost more than $42,000, or by adopting the higher plan, $55,000, and there was no intention of doing this, the citi- zens in various ways expressed their enthus- isatie approval of the project at an extreme cost of $45,000.

This was the plan approved by the com- munity, under the knowledge that the opera- tion of the Railroad Aid Law released them from liability for the bonds granted to a railroad.

True, in letter, they were bound; but in fact, the debt was to be paid not at their charges. But when, after expending nearly $20,000 on the ground dike an l facing walls, the authorities ordered the preparation of bonds for $50,000 additional, framed so as to give full effect to the legal inhibition against their issue, and so as to give the city ground to contest their payment, because issued in viola- tion of law; and the omission in the recital which was to do this was passed over in silence -- the thing became too flagrant. Yet at home complaints came too late. Nothing could be done to stop the authorities, and soon there was a wide suspicion that private objects were sought under guise of zeal for public ends. The works were completed by contract, and as well and economically as the public

is usually served by contractors. The work was done when labor and material were one- fourth dearer than two or three years later, when by comparison with the reduced prices, men, having their own aggrandizement only in view, bellowed about the town vague ac- cusations of fraud and veritable peculation.

Not one of these fellows could be induced to make and stand to a single specific charge. They proved their statement by numberless repetitions-a sort of evidence better for a certain class than positive proof.

The works cost $77,000 against the $45, - 000 they were to have been built for. But they stand, and have not in eight years failed in their duty for an hour. They are worth all they cost, and more, and the clamor about them which had no higher origin than a per- sonal difference about matters disconnected with public affairs, would have died away had it not been kept alive by the city's repu- diation of her bonds. Noisy advocates for the works refused to pay taxes to meet any part of the indebtedness, and the Council, by resolution, refused the payment of interest. Suit was instituted, and in the court of last re- sort a decision was obtained that the issue of the bonds was illegal. The vast majority of the citizens desire their payment, and the de- cision defeats their wishes.

This narrative of our shame had not been written or been true, had not the opinion crept into officers that their delegated powers were a franchise to be exercised according to their caprice. They forgot their represen- tative position, and spurned conference or opinions from a tax payer. They never for- got self, and no offense was so great as the assertion that the people had any rights not vested in them.

In 1870, the population had fallen below three thousand seven hundred. The variance in population is the exact criterion of the in-

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

dustries of the town. In 1880, the total was reported at 4,343, and this was known to be too small. In 1881, the Jacksonville road had been extended to the city, a second coal shaft had been opened, oil had been found, the Planet Mill was in_course of construction,

the car works were over-crowded with work, and 100 buildings were erected, as the pop- ulation had risen to 5,250, and the city had again rehearsed the old lesson that the peo- ple are the city, and that their future would be what they willed it to be.

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CITY OF LITCHFIELD.

CHAPTER XV .*

LITCHFIELD-EDUCATIONAL HISTORY-THE CITY SCHOOLS-GRAMMAR SCHOOLS-BOARDS, PRIN- CIPALS, TEACHERS, ETC. - THE PRESS- ESTABLISHMENT OF THE "JOURNAL"-THE "MONITOR" AND OTHER PAPERS-BANKS AND BANKING-COAL INTERESTS OF

LITCHFIELD-THE DIFFERENT SHAFTS AND THEIR EXTENT AND CAPACITY -THE SANITARY CONDITION OF THE CITY.

A SCHOOL fails in its office if its educa- tional value to its pupils is not greater than the wages paid its teacher. If it be true, as the wise affirm, that education is the awakening of the mind to think and reason correctly, rapidly and persistently, to improve the heart and enlarge the understanding, the office of a school has specific limitations. All its instruction should be subordinate to education. Whatever be the amount of knowl- edge imparted in scholastic studies, it is true that the only positive instruction obtained in a school, which, under all circumstances is available and used precisely as it was learned, is reading and the multiplication table. The lumber of text-book rules becomes in actual life dry and pithless. They teach only to swim on dry land. The man needs the result of scholastic training; the proc- esses are but as the scaffolding to a builder. At last education makes a man more valuable to his community than to himself.

The city north of the railroad was included in School District No. 1, of North Litchfield; the territory south of it belonged to the Crab- tree District, in South Litchfield, whose schoolhouse stood a few rods south of the residence of Samnel Stratton. District No. 1 used the Lutheran Church, near the south- east corner of Scherer's Addition, for a school-

room, and here B. S. Hood, of Jerseyville, taught a school for six months, in the sum- mer of 1854. Lusk Wilson taught there-a winter term in 1854-55 and a summer term of 1855. The Cummings building was erect- ed in 1856, and the west half of the second floor, was the schoolroom for several years, and H A. Wells opened there the winter term of 1856-57. He continued in charge of the public school until 1860. Julia Palmer was first assistant in the Scott & Long building, then standing on the north side of Division street, a few yards east of Jackson. Hannah Skillman was the second assistant in the house two or three doors below the store of Thorp & Leach. For a term of six months. Mr. Wells received $360 and his assistants each $200. This was the first school of the Litchfield School District, created by the city charter, the Council exercising the combined powers of Trustees and Directors.

In the summer of 1860, Mr. Wells sudden- ly disappeared, leaving his bills uncollected and his few debts unpaid. The next year, he as suddenly re-appeared. In explanation of his flight, he professed forgetfulness of his departure. His life was a blank to him. He had a lucid moment at Niagara Falls and was astonished to find himself there; then he again became unconscious of his movements for an unknown period. When reason returned

*By H. A. Coolidge.

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

to him, he was in mid-ocean on a vessel bound to England. Friends told him that he sought their party at the Falls; he journeyed with them to Quebec, and when they said they were going to England, he declared that he, too, would go. He was transferred to a homeward bound ship, and came to America. Of his wanderings for a year after he landed on native soil, he gave no clear account. He arrived here in the fall of 1862, coming from the West. He said he had just been dis- charged from military service. His subse- quent conduct throws much doubt on his ver- sion of the history of his flight.

In the fall of 1860, the grammar school was opened with two departments. Samuel Taylor, of Terre Haute, was elected Principal, and Sarah G. Perrot, assistant; the three ward schools were conducted by Hannah Skillman, Julia P. Palmer and Mary Gill- ham. The schools were notoriously insuffi- cient for the instruction of the children in the city. This fact was very widely re- gretted, and the schools were not distin- guished for educational value.

The Litchfield School District had vainly tried to obtain possession of the avails of the levy made in 1857, by District No. 1, to build a schoolhouse on the northwest corner of Block 68, where L. Settlemire's residence stands, the site having been given by E. B. Litchfield for that purpose. The Litchfield School District contained nearly 95 per cent of the property of the present district, and the holder of the school funds-not the Township Treasurer-declined to recognize the legality of the claim. An act of the Legislature was obtained on the joint re- quest of all parties apportioning that build- ing fund to the City School District and District No. 1, in proportion to the amount raised by each, and, after some delay, the parties who had borrowed it liquidated their

indebtedness, and the city district used its share to support its schools.

For 1861-62-and the public schools were maintained only six months in the year, the summer schools being private ones - the wages of the Principal were fixed at $45 per month. while his four assistants were allowed $27. George C. Mack was chosen Principal and Mrs. Abby Paxton. now Mrs. H. H. Hood, was his assistant, and two teachers in each ward school. All applicants for positions in the schools were specially examined by Prof. Miller, of Hillsboro, at the request of the School Board, and it, was thought Litchfield school officers were becoming particular when the certificate of the County Superintendent was not a sufficient guarantee of pedagogical qualifications. But the board was not content with the learn-as-you-please style of teaching.

Mrs. Paden declining her appointment, Mrs. Stevenson was elected to fill the vacancy. The disbursements during this school year were $1,863.76, which included $780.24 for seats, repairs and payments on grammar school building, and the liabilities amounted to 82,097.71, chiefly for teachers and balance due on house and loans from the general fund. The fiscal statements were made up in March of each year, before the close of the schools and before the receipt of the school tax or the State fund.

For 1862-63, Mr. Mack was again employed as Principal. Miss J. N. Lauder was his as- sistant and five teachers were employed for the three ward schools; two of the five were termed assistant teachers, and their wages were fixed at $15 per month. Mr. Mack did not complete his term and a Mr. Morrison was appointed in his place. Miss Lauder ap- pears not to have accepted her appointment, as Mrs. Stevenson's name is borne on the rolls as assistant in the grammar school. The disbursement from the school treasury for the

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year, for school purposes, was $1,622.41, and $511.50 were drawn from it and expended on the streets, and the district liabilities were $2,028.61. Probably the School Board be- lieved the money would do more good on the streets than on schools. Like matrimony, the schools were accepted "for better or worse," and if it was illegal to use school funds to improve streets, no one objected to it.

For 1863-64, eight teachers were employed in the four schools. P. H. Pope. Principal, and Miss Hyde, his assistant. The expendi- tures were $1,470; liabilities, $1,493, and the treasury showed a balance in its favor of $2,078.24.

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History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois, Part 35

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