History of Bureau County, Illinois, Part 4

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 4

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).

To look at the world in these travails-to reflect how pure and stainless is truth, how it seeks modest seclusion and eludes notoriety, how weak it seems when assailed by the countless majorities, by panoplied ignorance, brute force and the wild fanatic and the relentless bigots, is to despair and conclude the creation itself is but a hideous nightmare. Yet looking down the long centuries, averag- ing the conditions of the people of the sep- arated centuries, and then indeed do her white robed victories assume the proportions of the marvelous. In return for the perse- cutions and frightful deaths and tortures that were lying in wait upon every foot of the pathway of these children of thought, they have given us the sunlight of the gilded civ-

ilization we now enjoy. "Return good for evil," saith the command of heaven; but here is more, for it is the freedom and joys, and noble hopes and pleasures that endure for- ever. It is the exaltation and purification of life itself far beyond the comprehension of the ignorant receivers of the heaven-sent boon. And above all, be it said in behalf of these great benefactors, no lash was ever raised, no law was ever enacted, no pain ever inflicted, no schoolhouse was ever built, no policeman ever starred, no judge was ever ermined, no sword was ever drawn, no diploma was ever granted, no tax was ever gathered, no contribution ever collected, and no mistake or crimes ever committed; but in pain and persecutions, in outlawry and poverty, in the cold garret and the hiding caves, they thought, invented and discovered, and their works are strong and great enough to lift up mankind, and bear aloft the freedom and glo- ries of this great age.

Immortals! You lived and died in obscur- ity, but few of your names known to men, yet we say, great immortals! and bow the head iu profound reverence and respect.

III.

If it is once conceded that all real educa- tion is wholly practical-the most practical thing in life-then is it not self-evident that the schools of every people should be npon a system adapted to their leading and special wants-the habitat of that people? Then, is not this further proposition true, namely, that the only way that real knowledge is diffused, placed in the hands of the average man in such a way that it may be of any intrinsic value to him, is to make it always experi- mental knowledge-through some of the five senses or all of them ?

Is is not a mistake bordering upon a high crime to teach the child error of any kind?

John H. Bryant,

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

How few grown people there are in the world who have not by experience, often sad and bitter, had to unlearn the lessons instilled into them, the errors that they once accepted as truths, either in the nursery or school room ? The average graduate even from our best modern institutions can count off these experiences in life by the score. He came from his Alma Mater stuffed with errors, and his future life was a success or failure just in proportion as he was successful in putting aside this costly ignorance. This is not say- ing that he got nothing at school of utility; but it is saying, that with the good, if any, he had to swallow the poison measured out by ignorance with the best intentions. He must learn to unlearn after he leaves school, and often this is the big end of his real edu- cation. At school he is set to delving among the classics, cultivating a taste for the abstruse and involved speculations of metaphysicians. and he sits in admiration at the feet of the inductive philosophers, contemplating the glories of their ethereal castles and the glit- tering splendors of their florid rhetoric. And weighted down with these tinkling cymbals, he enters the busy, practical world a "very learned man," who is certain to be inglori- ously unhorsed every time he comes in con- flict with "horse sense," as the slang puts it, when it chooses to describe one of more knowl- edge than education. Because the "very learned " may be without much knowledge, and the man who never entered a university or college may have a vast store-house of knowledge. Neither of these are always true by any means, but the first should never be true, and would not if the schools were founded upon the best system.

How to best educate the rising generation, how to improve our schools, is the prime sub- ject of importance to every one. And it is the duty of each who can to point out errors

and to suggest improvements; not to take everything for granted that is claimed by its friends, and not to rest satisfied that a thing cannot be mended simply because of its an- tiquity. The aged think everything was in- comparably better when they were young than it is now, and old and young think in some indefinite way that the ancient in everything was the best. The Free Mason can pay no higher eulogy to his order than to add to its name "ancient." The lawyer believes that in the black-letter of the law alone is the gar- nered wisdom of the fathers; and poets sing the glories of the mythical golden age. And all are more or less influenced to strive con- tinnously to get things again back into the ancient, beaten paths, believing the follies they detect are the result of the unfortunate departure from the wisdom of the fathers. And so we may trace the influence and author- ity of the ancient throughout every institu- tion and all the phases of society. Reference is made to this general peculiarity of the pub- lic bias in order to somewhat prepare the reader for a brief consideration of what is to immediately follow, and which is the lead- ing idea to which the foregoing is all intended to point.

IV.

Illinois being peculiarly the home of an agricultural people, and this particular coun- ty being the very heart of the rich garden- possessing already a large population and rich and intelligent enough for as good and extensive public and private society and edu- cational institutions as any rich and cultured commonwealth, the people are ready for all practical improvements that may be properly presented to them. What is their chief edu- cational interest then ? Clearly, it is the dif- fusion among the rising generations of a bet- ter and more general knowledge of the econ- omical geology of this section of country. 2

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

To be taught the effects of their soil and cli- mate; where so much wealth is created as there is every year in this county -- there is no estimating the money value of this knowl- edge. Let us illustrate: There is a county in southern Illinois that is splendidly adapted for raising apples. About forty years ago a man located there and started this industry, putting out extensive orchards and supplying the people with trees, and soon the orchards became numerous. The man had learned the business in a different part of the country, and supposed the best growing varieties where he formerly lived were the best in the new locality. Just now the fruit growers have learned that he was wholly mistaken. The result here is a generation whose ener- gies were misdirected, and whose losses can hardly be estimated-a severe penalty for the want of that knowledge of soil and cli- mate that the improved schools will some day impart. In the instance given, this knowledge by this single individual would have been worth more to the people than all they have paid for school purposes in fifty years.

Another large section may be found where for fifty years the people have been building houses, and yet the intelligent traveler can- not find a house containing the architectural beauty and conveniences of even the average better houses of some other localities. Upon looking into this strange fact it will be found that from the first the leading so-called archi- tect and builder who did the first and for years the large part of house building knew little or nothing of modern improvements ; was an ignorant stickler for the ancient, and he clung to the obsolete.

Another county may be found in the Mis- sissippi Valley where the tax books show more dogs than sheep. And the astounding part of the facts are that it is, or would be if it had the chance, the natural home of the

sheep-where they can be raised to the best advantage and with the greatest profit. But the sovereigns in the exercise of their divine privileges run to dogs. One distinguished citizen's name on the tax books was charged with $8 dog tax. and 50 cents for all other property. The barbarous instinct that breeds these wretched cur dogs and revels in their possession, costs that particular county nearly a million dollars a year, and has for the past seventy-five years.

The spot most celebrated for the produc- tion of fine horses, especially the fleet-footed coursers, is the Blue Grass region in Ken- tucky. The horse-breeders have made money and fame, and many years ago they com- menced an intelligent study of their locality and its especial adaptations. The constitu- ent elements of soil, water, grasses, and an understanding of the peculiar blue limestone rock that is found in all this region, was scientifically investigated. To get the par- ticular strain of horses adapted to their fav- ored locality they turned their scientific atten- tion to the study of the horse by long obser- vation and intelligent experiments. They hunted out effects, and then sought for the causes, and here, as everywhere in the world, practical knowledge of their surroundings has paid immensely. This part of their real education was with reference to their sur- roundings, to the immediate sources of their wealth, to their section of country, their home. Almost any work on the Kentucky horse will explain the difference in texture of the bone of one of their thorough-bred horses, or how much finer it is in texture than the common horse of other localities; that the bone is much heavier to the square inch, and comparatively approaches in fineness, compactness and strength to ivory. In a simi lar way the entire animal has been studied, and the results are known throughout the world.

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

We have no hesitation in attirming that the school children could be much more easily taught the elementary principles of the eco- nomical geology of this portion of the valley so as to comprehend them tolerably well, than they can be taught to grasp the understand- ing of the English grammar, or the majority of things now tanght in the public schools. A competent teacher rambling about the hills and streams and highways with his pupils would at once see that he is in a practical way giving the young and naturally inquisitive mind the very food its hungry nature eagerly craved. If he was competent to really teach he would at once see before him a method of giving to his school information and some real knowledge that never could come in the lesson tasks of the school room, that mental stupefying routine process of committing to memory. They would learn geology exactly as a boy learns to be a carpenter or black- smith, assisting in the work; and this educa- tion. in the free air and sunlight, would be holiday playing with the keen zest of inno- cent childhood. There is no recitation here, no task, no stupid committing to memory, to be forgotten next week or next year, or at least very soon after leaving school. But there is gaining insight into some of the physical laws by the young mind, real knowl- edge, none of which will or can ever be for- gotten. This is the difference between infor- mation and knowledge.

The geological history of a country deter. mines its agricultural capacity, as well as the amount and kind of population it will event- ually contain. It carries us back to a period when the material of which the earth is composed existed in a state of fusion, so in- tense that the solid elements we now see were in a gaseous state, and the process of cooling

eventually formed the rocks, the base on which the thin earth's crust rests; rocks formed by the cooling of molten mineral matter as they are now formed by matter thrown out by existing volcanoes. These changes have been going on through count- less ages, or better, through geological peri- ods, immeasurable cycles, that tell us of the eternity of the past as well as the eternity of the future; the story of ceaseless changes, and that nothing is ever annihilated. A chemist may resolve a grain of sand into its original elements, but it still exists in another form. Life and death are but a part of the ceaseless changes in everything, a mere mode of motion, a great law of matter, working like the law of gravitation. All natural forces are manifested by motion. Each min- eral assumes its peculiar crystallization with perfect certainty. This may be regarded, so far as we can investigate, as nature's first beginnings of organic creation, the first result of that great law that culminated in the high- est forms of life.

Millions and billions of years have passed since the first organic life appeared in this world, and since the highest type of life- man-came, there are indubitable evidences that millions of years have again passed away. We are taught this by the incontest .- able records of geological history.

The system of rocks is, first, the igneous rocks or formations, then the stratified rocks, originally made of a sediment deposited in the bottom of the ocean. Sometimes the stratified rocks have been subjected to the ac- tion of heat and their condition thus changed into what are called metamorphic rocks. Thus sandstone is converted into quartz rock or quartzite, limestone into crystalline mar- ble, etc. This process usually obliterates all traces of the fossils that are to be found in stratified rocks, and makes it often impossi-

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

ble to determine the relative age of the meta- morphic rocks.

These are the three distinct classes of rocks which enter into the formation of the earth's surface ; the simplest distinctions, which any child can learn as readily as its alpha- bet, and that contain the most interesting story in the universe, and are a great store- house of knowledge.

The manner in which the stratified rocks are formed, the successive beds accumulating in regular order, one above another, repre- sent distinct periods in the chronological his- tory of the earth, and in these enduring leaves of history are found the fossils of the ani- mals and plants that existed during the period of their formation. Thus the geologi- cal chronology of the earth is not only its correct history, but the only possible history of the various creation of plants and animals. And from the earliest corals of the primeval ocean down through all succeeding periods to the present time, there is the evidence that cannot be questioned, that in all animate life, as in the mineral and its various crystalliza- tions, the same general plau or law in the formation of the four great sub-kingdoms of existing animals, played its resistless forces.

Some of the stratified rocks, especially the limestone, are composed almost wholly of the calcareous habitations and bony skeletons of the marine animals that lived in the ocean during the time these were in process of for- mation, with barely enough mineral matter to hold the materials together in a cemented mass. A similar process is going on now un- der the water, and thus making the imper- ishable records for those to read who may, many millions of years from now, come after us. The links in this long chain of geologi- cal history are joined together by the unerr- ing characteristics of a common origin, that weaves them into a complete chain of organic

existence-the astounding story from pro- tozoa to man-the complete result of creative energy, that has worked forever and will never stop.

As is said elsewhere, nearly the entire sur- face of Illinois is drift, loess and alluvial de- posits; reddisli-brown clay forming the subsoil through this county, except beds of clean gravel that are found in certain locali- ties ; loess being found along the streams, as it is a recent deposit of fresh water. A large portion of the drift came from a distance by the waters and glaciers, those crystal ships that once moved over Illinois, bearing their rich cargoes of food-plant and spreading them about for our enrichment. No sailors walked their glittering decks, no pilots direct- ed their course or took their reckonings. It was nature's free and untrammeled commerce, carrying its boundless wealth to the oncom- ing generations.

Soils are composed mainly of mineral mat- ter in a finely comminuted condition, to which is added the vegetable and animal matter ae- cumulated on the surface. If there are no superficial deposits then the soil is formed by the decomposition of the rocks. If the rock is sandstone it will form a light sandy soil ; if a clay, shale or argillaceous rock, a heavy clay soil will be the result, and if a limestone a calcareous soil.

In the drift deposits will be found no valuable deposits of mineral wealth. It was ignorance of this fact that so often allured some of the early settlers of the country into patient and expensive hunts for silver and lead mines. Their education on the subject of soils was so imperfect that they could not see that the lead-producing regions of north- western Illinois and portions of Wisconsin and Iowa, were in the driftless region.

The Government surveys pronounce this the most interesting portion of Illinois. Its

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

present and prospective resources, salubrity of climate and beauty of location are not sur. passed in the world.

The general configuration of the face of the county, its groves, streams, soil and gen- eral characteristics, have been the delight and admiration of all beholders. The fertile, rolling prairies, the timber skirting the streams, and the magnificent natural groves, standing like islands over the rich expanse of prairie. The streams wind in long and grace- ful curves ; the soil is deep, rich, warm and light. The staple products of this rich re- gion, corn, grasses, fruits and potatoes, grow in boundless luxuriance.

Green River enters the county about twelve miles from its northwest corner, flows south with crooked windings through Greenfield Township, and then turns westward through the north part of Gold to the west county line, cutting off from the corner of the coun- ty Fairfield and parts of the two townships above named. In these two townships are the Green River swamp lands. Big Bureau Creek comes in from Lee County, near the northeast corner of Bureau. It flows in a general southwest direction to a point a short distance west of the city of Princeton; from thence it takes a south course for ten miles, and turns nearly due east, and empties into the Illinois River, some five miles from where the south boundary line of the county strikes that river. The stream has very little alln- vial land along its course. The prairies rise in rather abrupt swells from the banks of the creek. About Tiskilwa and on the Illinois River there is considerable rich bottom lands, covered with fine heavy timber. Little Bu- reau Creek has a tributary west of it, which rises in the northern part of the county and forming a junction a few miles southwest of Princeton. Coal Creek aud Brush Creek are also drainage outlets of the county.

On the southeast corner of the county, the Illinois River forms the boundary line for a distance of sixteen miles. There is a broad alluvial bottom along the Bureau side. The lowest bottom is mostly a swampy, grassy plain, interspersed with sloughs, and ridges of river sand, and subject to inundations when the Illinois river sends out its floods over the low banks. One of these sloughs is Lake DePue, which communicates with the river at its southern terminus. The town of Trenton is built upon the west of this lake, half a mile from its outlet. At ordinary stages of water, boats pass through this out- let and land at Trenton.

The heavy portion of the timber is along Big Bureau, south of Princeton.

Big Bureau Grove, in the western part of the county, has quite a body of good timber.

Crow Creek, in the town of Milo, and Pond Creek, west of Tiskilwa, have only scattering timber.

Dad Joe's grove is in the north western part of the county, is on a very high elevation, and since the first discovery of the county has been a conspicuous landmark.

The grand undulating sweep of the prairies, and the great abundance of orchards and beautiful shade trees and the numerous cul- tivated groves, and improvements that dot the county thickly over, present to the eye as tine landscape scenery as can be found in the world.

But few counties in the State present so poor an opportunity for an examination of its geological formations. With the excep- tion of the Illinois River and a small ravine near Tiskilwa, there is hardly an outcrop of rocky formation in the county. The excava- tions along the line of the C., B. & Q. road, which runs through the county a distance of forty-five miles, present some of the clay aud gravel-beds only. The Rock Island & Chi-

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

cago road traverses the ronghest portion of the county, and the same is true here as on the Bureaus and their tributaries and Green River; and yet all these streams and railroads traversing the county in every direction, show no natural section of rocks. Most of the first bottom on the Illinois is subject to overflow, and but little of it can be cultivated, but such as is dry enough, yields enormous crops of corn. From forty to fifty feet above the first bottom of the Illinois River, and lying along its western bluff range, is the second bottom. This is from a few hun- dred yards to half a mile wide, and its sur- face is a sandy and marly clay, intermixed in places with marly-mixed gravels. It is a regular river terrace, and the traveler, from the car window, obtains a fine view of the valley of the river, stretching away with its dark serpentine belt of timber, and glimpses of the slow-moving, shining water. In the diluvial epoch, when the water spread all over the bottom, the river, lake-like in its expanse and slowness of current, must have presented a body of water larger than the Mississippi River even in its high stages of water.

The lower valley of the Big Bureau has also a narrow alluvial bottom, back a few miles from its confluence with the Illinois River. This bottom is narrow, crooked and covered with timber. The deposit is rich and marly, and when cultivated is very productive and inexhaustible.

The swamp lands of Green River are allu- vial deposits, but are more or less of a peaty nature. It is black mud, muck and impure peat.

The Illinois River bluffs show the loess in the deposits. At places these bluffs rise to a height of nearly one hundred and fifty feet. The exposures show also a marly, partially stratified clay and sand. Between

Bureau Junction and Peru there are several places where landslides have taken place, and the formation is more easily recognized. One of these is a marked feature in the landscape; at a distance it presents the ap - pearance of a heavy outcrop of white sand. stone. A closer view shows it to be a heavy bed of sliding, crawling sand. It is a white, yellow-banded sand, marly in its composition, and exhibits the most marked lines and bands of stratification. The ontcrop is about thirty feet in thickness. It may be found in the bluff, near the railroad track, three miles east of Trenton. The caving sands have crawled down the hill almost to the railroad track.

The yellow and blue clays are found nearly all over the county in a thick deposit. The digging of the artesian well in Princeton, shows these to be seventy-nine feet thick, be- fore the rock was reached. This first rock reached was only a thin bed, only three feet thick, and then was reached a hard-pan clay of a depth of 114 feet was passed through. The record of this well is very imperfect, and it is not at all certain that the thin rock passed was a regular stratified deposit. It may have been a detached mass sticking in the drift, and therefore the real depth of these clays may be nearer 200 feet than sev- enty-nine feet.

In many of the high prairie ridges are de- posits of gravel, clean and finely assorted: the largest quantities so far found are be- tween Tiskilwa and Sheffield, and along the railroad track northeast of Princeton. De- tached boulders of red and black granite are found on the prairies.

VI.

Coal-Measures .- The northern boundary line of the Illinois coal-field passes through the north part of Bureau County. Accord-

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

ing to the geological map, the line commences at a point on the east line of the county, ten miles south of the northeast corner of the county, nearly due west of Homer station on the Illinois Central road; thence west, but bellying a little south, until it crosses the track of the C., B. & Q. road a little south- west of the village of Malden; thence it bears off a little north of west until it inter- sects Green River at the northeast corner of the township of Gold; thence down Green River to a point north of Geneseo. All of Bureau south of this line is underlaid by lower coal measure deposits. This is about two-thirds of the county. As the county lies on the northern limits of the coal-fields of the State, the deposits are somewhat irregular and detached. Sheffield mine is one of the oldest and most prosperous mining enterprises in the State. The mines at this place were opened more than thirty years ago, about the time of the construction of the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad, and have always been an important coaling point on this line. The seam is reached by an inclined plane, carried down to the level of the coal, about forty feet below the level of the surface. This is the No. 6 seam, and is geologically identified with that at Kewanee. It has an average thickness of four and a half feet, and no trouble occurs from water. This deposit has been considered local and limited, but has been very productive, and presents uniform- ity and persistence. The main entries are now advanced to a great distance from the original dump, and, aside from local ine- qualities, the seam is continuously good.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Bureau County, Illinois, Part 4

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