History of Bureau County, Illinois, Part 10

Author: Bradsby, Henry C., [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Chicago, World publishing company
Number of Pages: 776

USA > Illinois > Bureau County > History of Bureau County, Illinois > Part 10

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).

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

were busy looking over the morning papers, and in a hurry for an early breakfast. A mir- ror in one end of the room gave it the appear- ance of being miles and miles in length, and this illusion was fearfully real to the strange boy. Another thing he noticed was, that below were steam works, and this added to the bewildering immensity of the place. A gong suddenly started its deafening noise- the first the boy had ever heard-and instantly he supposed the steam works had exploded. The people started up. and the frightened lad bolted out into the office; there were the clerk and the bell boys, happy and serene. The sudden shock of the sup- posed explosion-the real could not have been more real or the horror more sudden and appalling-then the counter shock-instantly in looking at that calm and majestic face of the clerk, was the realization that the world was not a wreck, in fact, that there was no explosion at all, but only a hideous and hor- rid din, calling the boarders to breakfast. Did that terrible clerk know why the lad had rushed so headlong out of the reading-room and into the office? No, he was too immense to see anything short of a paste diamond, and, thank heaven, he thereby missed the funniest sight a traveling innocent ever presented.

In a moment the traveler rallied his scat- tered senses and demurely followed the crowd to the breakfast-room. A long table ran the length of the room, and the youth found a seat finally, after all else had been accommodated. Before him was a plate turned, a knife and fork, a glass turned, and on it a slim piece of stale bread, and he fur- tively looked up and down the long table, and this was all it contained. $2.50 a day ! and in all his life he had never seen hungry people set down to quite as slim fare as that ! A waiter, whose style was frightfully magni- ficent, poured out a tumbler of water and the

lad fell to work, just as he had been accus- tomed all his life, to eating what was before him, bread and water though it was. And when he had finished his glass of water the colored waiter again filled it, and in less than five minutes he had devoured all in sight and he could see no further usefulness for him there and he got up and walked out, feeling as though he would not begrudge the $2.50 for a home breakfast of honest fry and fatty biscuit. To this day he remembers a most peculiar look in the faces of the waiters as he passed out. What did it mean, anyhow ?

Among all the earliest settlers the men wore hunting-shirts. This was a loose frock, reaching half way down the thighs, with large sleeves, and open before, and so wide as to lap over when belted. It generally had a large cape and was made of cloth or buckskin. The bosom served as a wallet, to hold bread, jerk, tow for wiping the gun, or any other necessary article for the warrior or hunter. The belt, which was tied behind, answered several purposes besides that of holding the dress together. Moccasins for the feet and generally a coon-skin cap, completed the dress. In wet weather the moccasins were only a "decent way of going barefooted," and caused much rheumatism among the peo- ple. The linsey petticoat and bed-gown were the dress of the women in early times, and a Sunday dress was completed by a pair of home-made shoes and a handker- chief.

The people "forted" when the Indians threatened them. The stockades, bastions, and cabins were furnished with port-holes. The settlers would occupy their cabins and reluctantly move into the block-house when the alarm was given. Couriers would pass around in the dead hours of the night to warn the people of danger, and in the silence of death and darkness the family would

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

hastily dress and gather what few things they could carry or put their hands on in the darkness and hurry to the fort.

The settlers, as a rule, married young. Here were no distinctions in rank, and but little in fortune, and nearly the only source of amusement that was enjoyed by all was the wedding; this was anticipated from the time announced until the gay frolic was over, with the keenest anticipations by the whole people of the country for miles around. Any other general gathering of the people was either a log-rolling or a house-raising, where the men had to precede the night's roystering with a day of hard work. But at the wed- ding alone, it was different. All the world, at least every one who heard of the affair in time to get there, was invited. This would be the only invitation issued to even the closest friends, and the welcome was as cor- dial as the implied invitation had been uni- versal. At the cabin of the bride the people would begin to assemble at an early hour- the whole family, from the cradle to the white-haired sire and matron with weak and trembling voices and the bent forms of great age, tottering to the seats of honor by the favorite side at the fire-place, or, if the weather was warm, at the side of the door; and these dear old "grandsirs " would catch the infection of the occasion, grow gleesome and garrulous about the long ago, kindling the fires of nearly extinct memories, until their blood would once more course through their veins in a rush and flow that would lighten up their eyes with the erstwhile flames of their lusty youth. During all the fore- noon the people would continue to come, till about the hour of high noon. Cooking, chatting, joking and welcoming guests, with- out the slightest show of formality anywhere, gave all something to do or say. The young girls in some secluded spot-perhaps, if only

one room in the house, a sheet hung across the corner of the room-busy arranging the bride, and in the greatest glee, joking and talking, tittering and laughing ; the married people nursing their children, assisting in the cooking and preparing the long table (generally a couple of bare planks on wooden trussels), or exchanging sweet gossip with their neighbors ; the young men standing about the premises in quiet groups, trying to talk about the weather, crops, or a coon hunt, and all the time distracting their attention from each other's words by furtive glances toward the girls. If there was a low rail fence in front of the house they perched upon this. or standing with one foot on the third rail, busily whittling their riding switch; and further away down the line of fences were the young men's saddle horses and the family wagons standing hitched.

In the meantime there is at the home of the groom an assembling of the young men on horseback. They are to he his gay escort to the wedding, and one is selected before they leave the house to run the "race for the bottle." At the house of the bride are out- looks for this groom's cavalcade, and when discovered in the distance, the young folks, boys and girls, mount their horses and start to meet them, having first made their selec- tion to contend in the race on behalf of the bride and against the groom's man. They meet at some point where there is a long stretch of straight road and the riders prepare and the race is run. What fun alive! Whether old plow horses or burr-tailed colts, under whip and spur, they do their best, and the winner takes the bottle (generally an old black bottle gaily-rigged out in nar- row pink ribbons) and this, marching at the head of the crowd, he holds aloft-the prond and envied hero of the day. When this joyful procession reaches the house, the

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

groom is conducted to the bride, the preacher takes up his position in front of the door, the people press around, and all is hushed; the happy pair emerge, and just stepping out- side the door, stop in the close presence of the preacher and slowly and solemnly he asks "John, wilt thou?" and " Mary Jane, wilt thou?" and then by the authority of heaven and the power of the law, he impress- ively pronounces them man and wife. "Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder. Salute your bride !"

Then follows dinner, and immediately after that dancing. The afternoon, the eve- ning, all the night long until breakfast next morning, a single fiddle, the fiddler generally one-eyed and beating time with his foot, and away the high-stepping, fleet-footed dancing racers go; pirouetting, bounding like India rubber, whirling, double-shuffle, pigeon's- wing, the reel, the jig, the hoe-down, the walk - talk - ginger-blue, terpsichore ! what dancing, what life, what endurance! filling their innocent hearts with gladness and their legs with soreness and pain.

The "infair," the day after the wedding, at the house of the groom's parents, would be simply a continuation of this feasting and dancing for another twenty-four hours. Then, in a few days, the men all assemble and by night the cabin for the new couple is com- pleted and they move in, and commence the serious work of married life-and the wed- ding is over.

The tin grater, the hominy block, the hand- mill and the sweep, and the ox-mill and fiu- ally the water mill were the order of the coming of the mechanic arts in bread mak- ing. Nearly every family was its own tanner, weaver, shoemaker, tailor, carpenter, black- smith and miller. The first water-mill, or even horse-mill, was a grand advance in the solid comforts of civilization.

Amusements often are imitations of the business of life, or at least of some of its particular objects of pursuit. Many of the sports of the early settlers were imitative of the exercises and strategems of hunting and war. Boys were taught the use of the bow and arrow at an early age, and acquired con- siderable expertness in their use. One im- portant pastime was learning to imitate the noise or call of every bird or beast in the forest. This faculty was a very necessary part of education, on account of its utility in certain circumstances. The imitation of gobbling and other calls of the turkey often brought these keen-eyed denizens of the woods within easy range of the hunter's rifle. The bleating of the fawn brought its dam to her death in the same way. The hunter often would collect a company of mopish owls to the trees about 'him and amuse him- self with their hoarse screaming. His howl would raise and obtain a response from a pack of wolves, so as to inform him of their neighborhood, and thus guard him against their prowling depredations. This imitative talent was often used as a protection or a deception of the enemy in the strategy of war. The Indians would often when scattered about in a neighborhood, call themselves to- gether, by the turkey calls by day and the howling like wolves by night. And some- times a whole people would be thrown into the greatest consternation by the screeching of an owl.

Throwing the tomahawk was another amusement in which often great skill was acquired. This instrument, with a handle a certain length, will make a certain number of revolutions in a given distance. At one distance, thrown at a tree, it will stick with the handle down, and at another distance with the handle up. Practice would soon enable the boy to throw it, and with his eye

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

so accurately measure the distance as to stick it any way he might choose. Wrestling, running and jumping were the athletic sports of the young men. A boy at twelve or thir- teen years of age, when possible to do so, was furnished with a rifle, and in killing game he would soon become an expert. Then he was a good fort soldier, and would be as- signed his port-hole in case of an attack.

Among the early settlers of the Missis- sippi Valley was a wide-spread belief in witchcraft. This was true at that time over nearly all the Old World. To the witch was ascribed the power of inflicting new and strange diseases, particularly incurable dis- eases on children; of secretly destroying cat- tle by shooting them with hair balls propelled from noiseless witch guns; and a great variety of other modes of destruction. Hunters, even to a recent date, had no doubt but that witches could put "spells " on their guns, or that men were changed into horses, whom the witches would bridle and saddle, and ride at full speed over hill, dale and moun- tain, and through the air to all parts of the world, to attend the witches' pow-wows at their distant places of rendezvous. They would return the poor human horse to his bed and sleep just before daylight; but, es- pecially in children's hair, would be found the witches' stirrups, that, the child would fully and painfully realize when these tan- gles were being combed out by the mother. The horrid and fatal powers of the witches were ample, their works abundant, their wrecks everywhere, calling up men's dread and fears, and appalling and weakening in their forces men's reason and intellect. States and Government invoked the laws to stamp out this terrible evil, and witches were hunted out, drowned, burned and executed in various ways. Accusers were encouraged, and it soon came to be a fact that to be ac-

cused was to be condemned. The victims would be thrown into the water, if they sank and drowned this proved they were innocent. if they swam ashore this proved their guilt, and according to law they were at once exe- cuted. A community which could make such laws were terribly in earnest, and certainly sincere and honest in their beliefs. They saw their own and their neighbors' cattle dy- ing of the murrain; and was uot this plaiuly the work of the witches? Cases of epilepsy, fits, insanity, strangefevers, in fact, the mul- titudes of diseases which they could not un- derstand, and if not witches' work, what could it be? The first victims were always old, ugly women, especially if they lived alone; then, when these did not furnish vic- tins enough, others were selected and exe- cuted. The ablest men then living had no doubt but that there were plenty of witches, and the most learned divines denounced them as satraps of the devil ; learned judges from the bench sent them to the rack and the gibbet. No one doubted, and many of the accused confessed, and told wonderful stories of their crimes and orgies, and would some- times even beg to be executed. People throughout the Christian world were thus murdered by the hundred thousand, and mat- ters had reached that climax that when one neighbor desired to be rid of another, all he had to do was to lodge a complaint against him of being a witch, until fathers deserted and denounced their own children, children accused their parents, neighbors suspected each other and horrid suspicions began to reach all, and the dark wings of death and universal gloom hovered over the world like a hideous pall, and by its growing intensity the public craze burned itself out and men began to sober up from the mad frenzy of the hour.

The first step toward a cure probably was

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

the appearance of the "wizards." These were men, witch doctors, who were supposed to possess all the evil power of the witches, but instead of generally exercising them for bad purposes they would cure those afflicted by witches, and in many occult ways thwart the spirits in their fell works. These witch doctors boldly stood in the way of the ma- levolent influences of the bad spirits. Hence they were called witch-masters, and from patient to patient they practiced their pro- fession as regular physicians. They would make "silver tea" (boil a silver coin in water) and give it to the sick cattle. They would carry to the bed-side their witch balls (made of deer and cow's hair) and in a strange manner, and muttering a wild jar- gon, pass them over the sufferers, and exor- cise the evil ones. One mode of cure was to make a picture of the supposed witch on a stump, and shoot at it a bullet in which was a small portion of silver. This bullet, it was supposed, transferred to the real witch a pain- ful, sometimes a mortal spell, on that por- tion of the witches' body corresponding to the part of the picture struck by the bullet. Other and many disgusting practices were employed as remedies, and the witch had but one way of relieving itself of any spell thus inflicted, and that was to borrow something, no matter what, of the family to which the witches' victim belonged. Thus often would an old woman only discover that she was a "suspect " when she had applied to borrow of a neighbor, and had been peremptorily refused. Cattle were sometimes burned in the forehead with a branding-iron, or when dead, burned to ashes. This, it was held, inflicted a spell on the witch, which could only be removed by borrowing as above re- cited. Witches would constantly milk their neighbors' cows. This, it was believed, they could do by fixing a new pin in a new towel,

one for each cow milked, and hanging the towel over the door and then by incantations the milk would be extracted from the fringes of the towel, after the manner of milking a coW. Singularly enough, the cows were never milked by the witches, except when they had about gone dry for the want of proper feed. It is stated as a historical fact that the German glass-blowers once drove the witches out of their furnaces by throw- ing living puppies into them.

The Voudoo was brought to this country with the captured slaves from the jungles of Africa, and it is here yet, and in some form believed in by a majority of the negroes in the country. It is but another form of witchcraft. It is the negroes' horrid incanta- tion and magic, and in the cauldron where is boiled the voudoo, instead of "tongue of viper and leg of newt " are hnman remains, robbed of graves opened at midnight. Noth- ing, save the imagination of Edgar A. Poe, can equal in repulsive horrors the genuine voudoo. In the year 1790 a black slave was hung at Cahokia, who acknowledged that by his power of devilish incantations, he had "poi- soned and killed his master; but that his mistress had proved too powerful for his necromancy." In the same village another slave was shot down in the street for his diabolism. One of the first acts of the first civil Governor of Illinois, John Tod, was an order to the Sheriff to take from the jail a convict negro slave, to the water's edge, burn him and scatter his ashes to the four winds of heaven for voudooism.

The red children of the forest were as superstitious as the whites or blacks in regard to witches. The One-eyed Prophet, a brother of Tecumseh, who commanded at the battle of Tippecanoe, in obedience, he said, to the commands of the great Manitou, ful- minated the penalty of death against those

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

who practiced the black art of witchcraft or magic. A number of Indians were tried, convicted, condemned, tomahawked and con- sumed on a pyre. The chief's wife, his ne- phew, Billy Patterson, and one named Joshua, were accused of witchcraft. The two latter were convicted and burned; but a brother of the chief's wife boldly stepped forward, seized his sister and led her from the Coun- cil house, and then returned and harangued the savages, exclaiming: "Manitou, the evil spirit has come in our midst, and we are murdering one another! "

It is a sad confession that no civilized white man had the sense or courage thus to rebuke the murderers among his own people. Pity that this one-eyed savage could not have been employed and empowered as a mission- ary, to go among civilized people and save them from their own murderous superstitions. In the history of the world, the most revolt- ing cruelties have been the inflictions of superstitious ignorance, and were it not yet a matter of daily demonstration, one could not easily believe how long these prejudices held fast in people's minds, and how when they are crushed in one shape, they will duly appear in some other form. The fell mon- ster that has ever laid waste and made des- olate the earth, is the earnest bigot, full of error and superstition, holding toward heaven in supplication, hands dripping with the blood of innocent mothers and prattling babes.

CHAPTER VII.

THE NAME OF BUREAU COUNTY-HOW IT CAME-THE FIRST FIVE FAMILIES-WHO THEY WERE-BULBONA, JOHN DIXON, CHARLES S. BOYD, HENRY THOMAS-SOME LIVELY SKETCHES AND ANEC- DOTES-DEATH AND BURIAL OF JOHN DIXON-GURDON S. HUB- BARD-THE ANCIENTS-FIRST POSTMASTER-OLDEST LIVING SET- TLER-ABRAM STRATTON-HIS REMARKABLE TRIP IN 1829- SKETCH OF HIM-THE BRIGHAMS-TOTAL FIRST TAX BUREAU COUNTY-REMARKARLE CAREER OF JOHN H. BOYD-THREE BROTHERS-IN-LAW-DANIEL SMITH'S DEATH, THE FIRST IN THE COUNTY-IlIs WIDOW-ETC., ETC.

"To each are compensations given

That make conditions nearly even." * * * * *

"And tales were told Of Indians, bears and panthers bold, Till on each urchin's frowsy head The bristling hair stood up with dread." -JOHN H. BRYANT.

TN the year 1828 there were five families Lin Bureau County, coming here in the order named: Bulbona, John Dixon, Henry Thomas, Reason B. Hall and John and Justus Ament. As it is now ascertained that the first white man to settle in Chicago was a black man named Baptiste, so the first white settler in Bureau County was the swarthy half-breed, "Old Bulbona " (Bourbonnais). Gurdon S. Hubbard had lived hereabouts in the service of the American Fur Company as early as 1818.

In June, 1827, John Dixon and Charles S. Boyd passed through what is now Bureau County, on their way from Springfield to Galena, with a small drove of cattle for market at the lead mines. It was then an unoccupied wilderness from Peoria to Galena, and the only guide on the journey was a wagon track, made a few days before by a party who had gone from Galena to Peoria-probably the first wagon that had ever left its mark in all this vast region of northern Illinois. There was not a white settlement passed in all the country from

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

Peoria to Galena, and to all appearances there was not a white man in the great Northwest. The wigwams, the teppees and the Indian villages at long distances apart were the only human signs on a route of one hundred and fifty miles.

Alex. Boyd, the oldest son of Charles S. Boyd, boru on the 3d day of July, 1817, and who recollects coming with his father's family to settle in the county in 1830, and who is now a citizen of Princeton, gives many interesting incidents, as he has heard his father relate them, of Mr. Boyd's trip with beef cattle to Galena. He lived in Springfield, the nearest neighbor of Mr. Todd, Abraham Lincoln's father-in-law. Alex. says he can well remember seeing Lincoln sneaking over to Todd's to see Miss Mary Todd, whom he afterward married. Mr. Todd had a negro servant, named Josiah Hinkle, who wanted to accom- pany Boyd on bis trip to Galena, and Mr. Todd finally consenting, he did so. Another man, whose name Alex cannot remember, was hired to go, and this constituted the force. It was a long and tedious trip; the streams were crossed by swimming the cattle and horses, and the men would grab the tails of some of the last brutes to enter the water, and holding on, would thus be ferried over, the great trouble being to protect their scant supply of provisions. Boyd disposed of his cattle at Galena, receiv- ing the most of his money in silver. This was carried on a pony that he led on his return. When the party reached Dixon they found much difficulty in making a bargain with the Indians to ferry them across that the Indians would keep or try to carry out. They could easily agree upon the terms, but the contracting Indians would sneak off, and thus end the bargain. Boyd could not get any supply of provis-

ious, and once, when he was not observing, a buck jumped on his pack horse (the one carrying the money) and started off down the river, whooping and yelling and under full whip. Of course he thought his money all gone, but in the course of half an hour the buck returned and delivered up the horse, and the money had not been dis- turbed. They finally got the Indians to carry them over in canoes, and swim the horses. But the trip was wearing out the horses, and the provisions were gone, and the men hegan to suffer for water. A small dog had followed them in all the long trip, and one night, when they had gone into camp, and to bed supperless, they talked the situation over and concluded to kill the dog the next morning and have something to eat. And they slept with sweet dreams of roasted dog for breakfast. In the morning they found the dog dead. He had died of starvation. As already remarked, they were now suffering greatly for water; and Alex. tells us of his father's device to supply their thirsty throats. Getting up early in the morning (the drier the weather the heavier the dew) he stripped off his shirt, and holding it spread before him, ran at full speed through the tall grass, and thus gath- ering the dew from the grass, he wrung the garment, and had a drink of water. The others, seeing this original device, followed the example, and thus a general supply was secured.

Charles S. Boyd's brother-in-law, John Dixon, was then living in Peoria. He was the general county official-County Judge, County and Circuit Clerk, and pretty much every thing else officially, and with all these offices and faithful work on the tailor's bench combined, he eked out a slim subsis- tence for his family. John Dixon had mar- ried Boyd's sister, Elizabeth, and when Boyd

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History of Bureau County, Illinois, Part 10

Author: Bradsby, Henry C., [from old catalog] ed Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Chicago, World publishing company Number of Pages: 776

Author: Bradsby, Henry C., [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Chicago, World publishing company
Number of Pages: 776