History of Bureau County, Illinois, Part 9

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 9

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The newly published volumes of the United States census for 1880 give, with an accuracy of detail such as the world never before saw, the panorama of this vast west- ward march. It is a matter of national pride to see how its ever-changing phases have been caught and photographed in these vol- umes, in ways such as the countries of the older world have never equaled, though it would seem much easier to depict their more fixed conditions. The Austrian newspapers complain that no one in that nation knows at this moment, for instance, the center of

Austrian population; while the successive centers for the United States are here exhib- ited on a chart with a precision as great, and an impressiveness to the imagination as vast. as when astronomers represent for us the successive positions of a planet. Like the shadow thrown by the hand of some great clock, this inevitable point advances year by year across the continent, sometimes four miles a year, sometimes eight miles, but always advancing. And with this strik- ing summary, the census report gives us a series of successive representations and colored charts, at ten-year intervals, of the gradual expansion and filling-in of popula- tion over the whole territory of the United States. No romance is so fascinating as the thoughts suggested by these silent sheets, each line and tint representing the unspoken sacrifices and fatigues of thousands of name- less men and women. Let us consider for a moment these successive indications.

In the map for 1790 the whole population is on the eastern slope of the Appalachian range, except a slight spur of emigration reaching westward from Pennsylvania and Virginia, and a detached settlement in Ken- tucky. The average depth of the strip of civilization, measuring back from the Atlan- tic westward, is but 335 miles. In 1800 there is some densening of population within the old lines, and a western movement along the Mohawk in New York State, while the Ken- tucky basis of population has spread down into Tennessee. In 1810 all New York, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky are well sprink- led with population, which begins to invade southern Ohio also, while the Territory of Orleans has a share; and Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, the Mississippi Territory -including Mississippi and Alabama-are still almost or quite untouched. In 1820 Ohio, or two-thirds of it, shows signs of

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

civilized occupation; and the settlements around Detroit, which so impressed Darby, have joined those in Ohio; Tennessee is well occupied, as is southern Indiana; while Illi- nois, Wisconsin and Alabama have rills of population adjoining the Indian tribes, not yet removed, still retarding southern settle- ments. In 1830-Adams' administration now being closed-Indiana is nearly covered with population, Illinois more than half; there is hardly any unsettled land in Ohio, while Michigan is beginning to be occupied. Popu- lation has spread up the Missouri to the north of Kansas River; and, further south, Louisiana, Alabama, and Arkansas begin to show for something. But even in 1830 the center of population is in Moorefield, West- ern Virginia, not yet moving westward at the rate of more than five miles a year.

This is but a short scene in this wonderful drama of state building-populating a belt across a hemisphere, within certain lines of latitude indicated by the soil and climate, as the working grounds of what will some day be the most historic people that have ever lived.

Hon. John Wentworth says that the Black Hawk war, 1832, was what led to the real discovery and settlement of the Upper Mis- sissippi Valley. Evidently it was the march- ing of these soldiers through what is now this county, that first made known to the real pioneer people, those hardy and heroic advance couriers of civilization who eventu - ally came here with a fixed determination of staying, the wonderful country that awaited their coming.

As noticed in the preceding chapter, this county was carved out of Putnam County, and the Illinois River was mainly the dividing line. It was the topography of the country that not only fixed the boundary of the new county, but that compelled the people to

seek the aid of the legislature in bringing about the division that would enable those west of the river to have their own county seat and trading point of access without com - pelling them to cross the river and the often impassable roads across the river bottom in the approach to Hennepin.

Hence, as early as 1833 interested parties, living on this side of the river, began to at- tend the sessions of the Legislature at Van- dalia, praying the assembly for relief, and that a new county be created.

On the 28th of February, 1837, the follow- ing law was passed by the General Assembly of Illinois:

SECTION 1. Be it enacted, etc., That all that tract of country lying within the following boundaries. to-wit: Beginning at the northeast of Putnam Connty, running thence south on the east boundary line of said county to the center of the main chan - nel of the Illinois River; thence down the main chan- nel of said river to the place where the line divid- ing Townships fourteen and fifteen north intersects said river; thence west on said line to the west linc of said county; thence north on the western line of said county to the northern boundary thereof; and thence cast with said county line to the place of beginning, shall be created into a new county, to be called the county of Bureau, Provided, however, That the legal voters of the old county of Putnam. including also, the voters of the contemplated county of Bureau, shall be given for the creation of said county as hereinafter provided.

SEC. 2. That on the first Monday in April next, there shall be an election held at the several pre- cincts in the present county of Putnam, and the polls shall be open to receive votes for and against the creation of the aforesaid county of Bureau. Said election shall he opened and conducted in all respects in the same manner, and hy the same judges as other elections in this State are; and if a majority of the votes given shall be given in favor of the formation of such new county, then the said county of Bureau shall be considered and taken as permanently and legally established with the aforesaid boundaries.

SEc. 3. That William Stadden, Peter Butler and Benjamin Mitchell are hereby appointed com- missioners to locate the seat of Justice for said new

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

county. Said commissioners or a majority of them shall meet at the town of Princeton on the first Monday of May next or as soon thereafter as may be, and he first duly sworn before some justice of the peace faithfully to take into consideration the convenience of the people, the situation of the set- tlements, with an eye to future population and eli- gibility of the place, shall proceed to locate the county seat of said county. If said commissioners shall select any town already laid off they shall require the proprietors or owners of said town to donate to said new county for the purpose of erect- ing public buildings, a quantity of lots of an aver- age value with the remaining ones, which together shall amount to twenty acres of land, or shall donate and give in lieu thereof not less than $5, - 000. And if said commissioners shall locate said county seat on land not having been laid off into town lots, they shall secure the title to not less than twenty acres to and for the use of said new county, and the court house shall be located on the same.

SEC. 4. That the legal voters of said county shall meet at the several places of holding elections on the first Monday in June next, and proceed to elect county officers, and returns of said election shall be made by the judges and clerks to the justices of the peace of said county; said justices shall meet at the town of Princeton, within seven days after said election, and proceed to open said returns, and in all things perform the duties required by law of the clerks of the county commissioners courts, and justices of the peace in like cases.

SEC. 5. That the county commissioners court shall meet at Princeton within ten days after their election, and being first duly qualified shall proceed to appoint a clerk, and lay off the county into justices' districts and order an election to be held for the purpose of electing additional justices of the peace and constables for said county, and all officers elected agreeably to the provisions of this act shall be commissioned and qualified as required by law; all officers shall hold their office until the next general election and until their successors are elected and qualified. Provided, That nothing in this section shall be so construed as to repeal out of office any justice of the peace or constable elected for the county of Putnam and living within the limits of said new county.

SEC. 6. Provides for the holding of courts at some suitable place, designated by the commission- ers, nntil a court house and county building can be provided. The Circuit Court to be holden twice a year.

SEC. 7. Provides for the new county to vote in all elections, except connty elections, with the districts to which the county belongs.

SEC. 8. Provides for the payment of $3 a day each to the commissioners selected above to locate the county seat.

Approved February 28. 1837.

CHAPTER VI.

FIRST THE EXPLORER, THEN THE TRAFFICKER, THEN THE TRAP- PER AND HUNTER-THEIR CURIOF'S HABITS AND CUSTOMS- CHILDREN OF THE SOLITUDES-WHAT THEY ENCOUNTERED- HOG AND HOMINY-THE SHIRT-TAIL AGE-11OUSES AND FUR- NITURE-SUFFERING FOR BREAD-ANECDOTES-SOME OF THE EXPERIENCES OF PIONEER CHILDREN-TO YOUR GUNS !!- EXPE- RIENCE OF A BOY AT FIRST HOTEL-ILE HEARS A GONG-SUP- POSES THE HOUSE BUSTED-TWO DOLLARS AND A LIALE A DAY AND EATS BREAD AND WATER-WITCHES, WIZZARDS AND THE HORRORS OF SUPERSTITUTION-HOW PEOPLE FORTED-WEDDINGS -DANCING AND ONE-EYED FIDDLERS-BOTTLE RACE-HOW PED . PLE DRESSED- SALUTE YOUR BRIDE-GOING TO HIOUSEKEEP- ING-ETC., ETC.

" He knew each pathway through the wood, Each dell unwarmed by sunshine's gleam, Where the brown pheasant led her brood, Or wild deer came to drink the stream." -JOIIN H. BRYANT.

T HERE is much of romance in the story of the first white men who came to the West, who saw what is now this county, when only the savage and wild beast held possession of this rich and beautiful spot of our continent. The spirit of adventure allured these pioneers into this vast wilderness. The first was the lonely adventurer who cared only for the chase and the eternal solitudes, and some- times the white men who had, from crime, but more often from an instinctive love of wild life, abandoned civilized homes and had hid themselves away from light, and become Indians to all practical purposes, preferring their barbarous freedom to the trammels of civilization. From the first landing of emi- grants on the Atlantic shores, there was

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

always a portion of the whites who looked upon the wild man of the country they found here. and at once they were ready and eager to abandon civilized life and become savages, and of these men often were the most danger- ous and cruel enemies of the white race. They would cast their fortunes among the Indians, become bad savages, marry a squaw and they and their half-breed posterity would wage the most cruel and vindictive warfare and murder, against the pioneers. When this class of first white savages was ever here will never be known, as one peculiarity of them was, they cut off all communication or love for their own race when once they aban- doned it, and they never returned. They would, as far as possible, hide every trace of white blood about them, and they never were visible except when sometimes their bodies were found among the dead, in skirmishes and fights with the settlers, as when a ma rauding expedition after loot and scalps had been overtaken by the just avengers and slain. These white savages generally attached themselves to a particular tribe, and remained with them and would seek the position of chiefs and rulers. Yet some of them, mur- derers and fugitives from justice in their native homes, would pass from tribe to tribe, the vilest of criminals and cowardly assassins, and thus like the wandering Jew, they found no place of rest. In this way there were white men possibly here 100 years before the discovery of the country by Joliet. They never returned to tell their white brethren of the countries they had seen. Hence the whites along the Lawrence only learned through the occasional Indians that visited their trading posts, that there was a great river in this part of the world, and that it emptied into the Pacific Ocean.

In a preceding chapter we have given an account of the discoveries of this country and

of the first attempts at settlement and the permanent possession of it. For more than 100 years their lodgement was temporary and sporadic, caused often by the change of empire and the national contentions of the French, English and the Spaniards. It was finally the Anglo-Saxon pioneers who came and "planted their feet, never to take them up." It was to traffic with the Indians, exchange those engines of civilization, trink- ets, whisky and eventually powder, with the untutored savage for his pelts and furs. They were backed by the pious missionaries of the Catholic Church, bearing the cross and the pictures of Calvary, that were the first genial rays of the sweetness of civilization, in the noisome wilderness. The footsteps of the hardy trapper and hunter accompanied these traders and churchmen, and the latter were finally the little nucleus around which gathered the oncoming hosts that have truly made the wilderness to bloom as the rose.

These men came in the hunt of homes for themselves and their children. The ad- venturous spirit started them, but when they looked upon the country they had dreams of its great future, and were content to fix their lot where there was so much to gladden and encourage them. The beanties and nat- ural wealth of the country pleased the eye, and the abundance of wild game gratified their passion for hunting and solved the problem, in one respect, in the struggle for life. They were surrounded by enemies, fierce aud formidable. The luxuriant vege- table growths rotting in the autumn sun was the breeding place, especially in the lagoons, marshes and wet prairies, and in the river bottoms, of malaria that poisoned the air. and carried sickness and death on its wings. The cunning and treacherous Indian with his horrid scalping-knife was everywhere in am- bush or in bold war paint to assassinate and

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

torture the old or the young, the innocent and defenceless. But these bold borderers flinched not from the perils that beset them on every side; even the women and children at times were called upon and did perform deeds of cool valor and heroism from which the strong iron nerves of men might well have quaked. These dauntless couriers blaz- ing the way to the heart of the wilderness for civilization, who slept with one hand al- ways on their trusty rifles, whose minds were ever keenly alive to the dangerous surround- ings, encompassed on every side with the limitless solitudes, like the lost mariner. " alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide, wide sea," must have had brave souls to thus endure and suffer and struggle through the great problem of mankind as they did, and lay the foundations for that grand structure for the millions of happy and prosperous people, who now are reaping where they sowed.

They had no opportunity for the cultiva- tion of the arts and elegancies of refined life. In their trying ordeal, in their oppressive solitude, there arose a peculiar condition of society, elsewhere unknown. The little allowance of corn meal, often, that they brought with them, was too soon expended, and sometimes for weeks and months they lived literally without bread. The lean ven- ison, and the breast of the wild turkey they would then call bread, and the fat portions of the bear was meat. This was a wretched artifice, and resulted in disease and sickness, when circumstances compelled them to in- dulge in it too long. They would become gradually weaker and weaker, oppressed with a constant feeling of an empty stomach, and the poor women and children would pass the dull hours in watching the potato tops, pumpkin and squash vines, hoping from day to day to get something to answer the place of bread.

The writer has been told by those who had witnessed these things, that they had eaten the young pumpkins as soon as the blossoms would drop off the end. What a delight and joy, then, were the first young potatoes! What a jubilee, the first young corn, with its grains half grown, eaten raw or cooked! And how all this pleasure was intensified when the corn had become hard enough for the tin grater, and the glorions johnny-cake was turned piping hot off of the baking board. These were as the harbingers from heaven, bringing health, vigor and content to all.

The first houses, if they can be so called, were merely brush sheds, that were but the slightest protection against the elements, and none at all against the thieving Indians and prowling wild beasts, and at times the little family would be compelled to take their turns of standing sentinel during the night, while the others snatched the short sleep that exhausted nature made compulsory.

The furniture for the table for some years consisted of a few pewter dishes, plates and sometimes a spoon, wooden bowl, trencher and noggin, gourds from the hard-shelled squashes, and the cooking utensil was an iron skillet. These, with some salt, had been brought often on horse-back, and on this single horse often were the household goods, and the wife and child, while the husband led the way on foot with his rifle on his shoulder. Corn-bread for breakfast and dinner, and mush and milk for supper. Meat was always abundant; the wild hogs were nearly as abundant as the many varie- ties of game and fish that were easily ob- tained.

At first game abounded; deer and bear were in great abundance. Soon after the Indians had gone, and the country was occu- pied by the sparse settlements of the whites, the woods were filled with wild hogs. In the

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

winter, when they flocked, the prairie chickens were so abundant that at times the fences and trees were literally lined with them, and the beating of the air by their multitudinous wings as they arose from their perches or from feeding places would sound like distant thunder. Wild turkeys, quail, and the trees apparently full of squirrels, were all rather too contemptible for these hunters to waste their ammunition upon. When the bear had gone, the prize game was the graceful and bounding deer that sometimes grazed and frolicked upon the rich prairie grasses, the graceful and toothsome successors to their more noble congeners-the buffalo; as in the woods the wild hog had come in the place of the panther and bear. In the spring and fall the migrating geese, swans and ducks and other fowls at times filled the river and lakes, feeding upon the wild rice, from which in countless thousands they would rise and fly along in front of the lone canoe or the bat- teau as it came and went with the Indian or pioneer. Meat was always abundant and of easy access, until immigration came so plen- tifully that the domestic animals usurped the places of the wild game. It probably was the second crop of pioneers who depended mainly upon the wild hogs in the woods for their standard article of meat. Hominy- mills and the old fashioned lye hominy (the only kind that was ever fit to eat) were the chief reliance for bread, and the phrase "hog and hominy" was not a meaningless one. And for the information of posterity it is not amiss to tell, that there was once a period of time in the West that is fitly designated as the "hog and hominy" age.

In fact, men who were here as boys, and from whose memories we gather these facts, will tell you with a sly twinkle of the eye that iu their own case they associate another national characteristic of that age of "hog

and hominy," and that was the "shirt tail age." Some boys were, with the full knowl- edge of the old folks, ready to go "sparking" when the first pair of pants was ready to don. There certainly was not as much style among young people as we find now. There were more children then to the family than now, and much less for them to badger their brains about wearing.

An anecdoteis told -- of course it is not true, but it serves to illustrate some of the econo- my of the times-of a man who had too many children to array them in silks and fine linens. So, in the warm months of the year, he had prepared a gum for each and set them conveniently about the cabin. At the ap- proach of a visitor he would yell, "Gums !" when each would take to his retreat, and no other part of their person would ever appear above the top of the gum except the child's eyes.

Dr. Doddridge, in his diary, tells something of his recollections as a pioneer child; how he saw the first teacup and saucer, and for the first time tasted coffee. When six years old he had lost his mother, and was sent to Bedford, Md. Here he saw his first tavern. What a new world was this to him. It was made of stone, and more astounding still, it was all plastered inside, both the walls and ceiling. On going into the dining-room he was still more amazed and stupefied with wonder. He had never before supposed there was a house in the world but that was made of logs and had only one room; but here was a house and he could see no logs, and strang- er still, on looking up he could see no joists. Had all this been made by the hand of man or had it so grown itself, he could not, con- jecture. He was afraid to ask questions about it. When at the table he watched at- tentively to see what the "big folks " would do with their little cups and spoons; he imi-

HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY.

tated them and found the taste of the coffee exceedingly nauseous, but he continued to drink it as did the rest until the tears were streaming from his eyes, and when the tor- ture was ever to end, he could not guess, as each little cup would be again filled as soon as it was emptied. His distress grew to agony, and he dared not say he had enough. Watch- ing closely, he finally saw one turn his cup bottom upward and put his spoon across it, and then his cup was not filled any more, and this hint being acted upon stopped the pro- longed agony of the young pioneer.

The writer will never forget his first expe- rience in a big, fine hotel. He was sixteen years old, and had seen only the big prairies of Southern Illinois; had once been to St. Louis, distant twenty miles from the farm on which he spent his boyhood, but had helped drive some hogs to market, and they all camped during the trip and though be- wildered at the long row of big houses, he saw nothing of the inside of any of them. He had been dressed up in resplendent suit of "ready made," of the $10 pattern (cer- tainly the finest dressed lad in the world) and with $105 in silver, had been started to find his way alone and enter Jefferson Col- lege in Washington County, Penn. His first steamboat ride was from St. Louis to Pitts- burgh. He had been warned against all strangers, and with the weight of the silver in his pocket, sleeping with it clutched, and in dread of fell robbers all the time, his expe- riences in that twenty days from starting point to destination, would of themselves make a book of romance. He landed at Pittsburgh about midnight and the boat's porter shouldered his hair trunk, and for half a dollar landed boy and trunk in the Monongahela House. What a world! What an overpowering vastness and strangeness was here for him. He was at once taken to his

room and the experienced colored porter kindly showed him how to turn off the gas. When alone in his room, the door securely locked, he drew a long breath of relief and began a survey of his surroundings. His eyes saw a printed card on the door that was full of interest, as well as conveying some information that was stunning in its effects, the most distinct item of which he can now recall was that each guest would be charged $2.50 a day. Merciful heavens! what new planet was this, where money flowed in a golden stream that enabled people to pay $2.50 a day for board which in Illinois could be had for 50 cents a week! and he went to bed and eventually was overcome by sleep, to dream of traveling from new worlds to other worlds, where the humblest house would pierce the clouds, and its immensity fill all visible space; the men as large as the mam- moths of old, each with pockets as large as the boot of a Jersey coach, and all stuffed with gold. He was up and dressed, as was his habit on the farm, the next morning at early daylight, and hunted his way down stairs in some trepidation lest he was too late for breakfast. Upon reaching the hotel office, he saw the clerk, that marvellous de- velopment of the century, and the first look was like annihilation; there sat the " fronts" on a long bench, and the splendors of the marble tesselated floors and the awful grandeur of the general surround- ings were only equaled by the clerk and waiters, who were too immense to be ordinary mortals. The overwhelmed lad wondered if these great people knew or suspected he was fresh from an Illinois farm, and an expert at "splitting middles " in the corn rows. Was ever a boy in the hunt of an education so abashed ? He finally found his way into the reading-room, where some of the earliest risers had soon gathered, and

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History of Bureau County, Illinois, Part 9

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