USA > Illinois > Cass County > History of Cass county, Illinois > Part 19
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43
James brun
THE NEW YORK PUBL' LE-ARY
Astor, Lerin and Tiden Fou g 'e x 150g
155
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XV.
PRINCETON PRECINCT-GENERAL DESCRIPTION-BOUNDARIES, TOPOGRAPHY AND SUR- FACE FEATURES-THE EARLY SETTLEMENT-PIONEER HARDSHIPS-FIRST MILL AND OTHER IMPROVEMENTS-WALNUT GROVE SCHOOL-HOUSE-PRESENT SCHOOLS-CHURCHES-OLD PRINCETON, AND ITS BUSINESS ENTER- PRISE-LITTLE INDIAN VILLAGE.
A S we travel along the highways that trav- erse this beautiful section of Cass County, it is difficult to realize that scarcely half a century ago these luxuriant plains were peopled by a few wandering savages and formed part of a vast, unbroken wild, which gave but little promise of the high state of civilization it has since attained. Instead of the primitive log cabin and diminutive board shanty, we see dotting the land in all direc- tions comfortable and elegant mansions of the latest styles of architecture, graceful, sub- stantial and convenient. We see also the bosom of the country decked with churches of all religious denominations, and well-built school-houses at close intervals. The fields are laden with the choicest cereals, pastures are all alive with numerous herds of the finest breeds of cattle, and other stock of improved quality, while everything bespeaks the thrift and prosperity with which the farmer in this fertile division of the county is blessed.
Princeton Precinct lies on the Southern border of the county, and is one of the smallest divisions, containing scarce fifteen sections or square miles; and a story told of the State of Rhode Island, may be applied to Princeton; that when the people wish to communicate with each other, they do not write letters or send messages, but go out in the yard and call to them. Although small in extent, it is in many respects, one of the best precincts in the county. Virginia and Philadelphia Pre- cinct bound it on the North, Philadelphia lies
on the East, Morgan County is its Southern boundary, and Virginia Precinct, a narrow strip of which extends to the south line of the county, bounds it on the West. It lies in township seventeen, and in ranges nine and ten. Little Indian Creek is its only water course of any note, and flows southwest, through a corner of the precinct. The land lies well, and is all susceptible of cultivation, an l when first seen by white people, contained much valuable timber, as well as prairie land. The Peoria, Pekin and Jacksonville Railroad, now a divison of the Wabash system, traverses it from north to south almost through the center, with one station, Little Indian, in the precinct, from which much stock and grain are annually shipped.
Among the earliest settlements in Cass County, made by white people, was that, in what now forms Princeton Precinct. From old Kentucky, that famous land of blue grass, fine stock, pretty women and good whisky, came the pioneers of this portion of the coun- ty. They were, so far as we could learn, Jesse Allard, Nathan Compton, James Tilford, James Stevenson, Jacob Lorance, Samuel Montgomery, Thomas Gatton, William Con- over, Alexander Beard, Isaac Mitchell, John Epler, and others. These families, with one or two exceptions, were, as we said, from Ken- tucky, and came hither in the usual pioneer style, on horseback, in wagons drawn by oxen, and even on foot. Some had left homes of affluence behind them, others were poor,
156
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
and all came for the purpose of bettering their condition, and laying up something for that proverbial rainy day. Mr. Allard came about the year 1826, and settled on the place now owned by Philip Buracher, of Virginia; Nathan Compton arrived previous to 1828, and was one of the pioneer school teachers. He married a daughter of one of the Bergens, bought a farm, but sold out afterward, and moved to Schuyler County. Tilford located, in 1827, on the place now owned by William Black, in Walnut Grove timber, township seventeen, range nine. He sold out in 1840, and moved away. James Stevenson, with five grown sons, Wesley, James, William, Robert and Augustus, came in 1829, and bought land of Thomas Gatton, who had pre- ceded him several years, and had taken up land in section twenty-six, township seven- teen. He was from Maryland, but had resid- ed in Kentucky several years before coming to Illinois. He opened one of the first stores within the present limits of Cass County, and was long a prominent business man. He has a son, Z. W. Gatton, residling in Virginia, who for years has been identified with the town.
Mr. Stevenson was a native of Virginia, but like MIr. Gatton, had emigrated to Ken- tueky in the pioneer period of the dark and bloody ground, where he was forced to con- tend with the Indians for his very life. He bought land, as already stated, from Thomas Gatton, upon which he settled and upon which he died in 1851, at the age of ?4 years. His son, William Stevenson, now lives on the place and is noticed in another chapter, as. one of the most extensive breeders of short horn cattle in this section of the State. Lor- ance was originally from North Carolina, but like hundreds of other early settlers in South- ern Illinois, he had stopped for a time in Kentucky. He located on North Prairie, on section 25, township 17 and range 10, on the
place now owned by Wmn. Hemerron, who also lives on it. Mr. Lorance has one son still living in this region. Montgomery was from Adair County, Ky., and came here in 1829, locating on section 30, township 17, on the place where his son now lives. John Epler came here from Clark County, Ind., about the year 1831-32. In another department will be found an extensive sketch of the Ep- ler family, and anything said here would be but a repetition. Mr. Conover settled at Walnut Grove in 1832, on the place now owned and occupied by George Virgin. Beard set- tled here in 1826, on the farm now owned by his son, George Beard, of Virginia. Isaac Mitchell was from Logan County, Ky., and settled on the place in 1827, where Robert Taylor now lives.
Other pioneer settlers in township 17 and range 10, and many of whom were in what is now Princeton Precinct, were Peter Conover, Jacob Yaples, John Dorsey, a man named Chambers, George Bristow, a widow Cantrel, a widow Richardson, and Thomas Hanby. These were all among the earliest settlers in this region, and some of thein will be further mentioned in the history of Philadelphia Pre- einet. A few years later the " Indian Creek Settlement," as it was called, and a part of which still remains in Morgan County, and in the edges of Virginia and Philadelphia Pre- cincts, was further augmented by the arrival of the following pioneers: Jacob Epler, John Hiler, Charles Beggs, a man named Nancesy, Rev. John Biddlecome, William Kinner, a widow named Pratt, with four stalwart sons, and several more, whose names are forgotten. The first of these pioneers settled in the tim- ber, avoiding the prairie as they would a desert. It was not until all the timber-land had been taken up that emigrants began to venture out on the prairies. Single families tried it at first, then they came in groups of three or four, locating at different places,
157
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
until soon the prairie was thickly dotted with pioneer dwellings. Soon school houses were built, churches were organized, mills were erected, and the foundation laid for a pros- perous community, where shortly before had been a desert-prairie and wilderness. This remarkable development has been brought about within a comparatively short time, for looking back through the vista of fifty odd years, these broad plains were the grazing places of numerous herds of wild denizens of the forest and prairie, and the camping- ground of savages. Now the rich soil is broken everywhere, woods have fallen, pleas- ant drives, well-tilled fields, beautiful orchards and delightful homes, checker the view, speak- ing volumes for the enterprise of the pioneers of this portion of the county.
The people in the early days lived in the most frugal manner-corn bread and wild mcat being the principal diet during the first years. The clothing was cheap, and that for both sexes was made at home by the pioneer mothers, who were no more afraid of work than their husbands. In the words of Eugene Hall-
" They worked with the spindle, they toiled at the loom,
Nor lazily brought up their babies by hand;"
and all members of the household, male and female, men, women and children, were usually employed in some part of the manu- facture of this family clothing. It is still a mystery how the people lived and prospered in those early days. The manner of cultivat- ing the crops was so simple, the tools so dif- ferent and rude, and the distance to market so great, and thre prices so incredibly low, that we wonder how any one, even with the strictest economy, could prosper at all. The farmers of to-day, who have reduced agricul- ture to a science, and cultivate their lands al- most entirely by machinery, know little of
what that same work required here fifty or sixty years ago. The farmer now would expect to starve if he had to sell his corn at from six and a-half to twelve and a-half cents per bushel, and wheat for twenty- five cents, and haul it to St. Louis or Chicago, even at those figures. But times have changed, and the world, or the people who inhabit it, have grown both older and wiser.
The emigrant, when he locates in a new country, generally thinks of a mill, as the first improvement. He can do without fine clothes and many other luxuries, but he can not get along very well without bread. The first mill of which we have any reliable account, was built by John Epler, and was of the most unique and primitive style. This mill was run by horse power, but geared in a peculiar manner. Mr. Epler had cut off smoothly, a stump, into which he bored a hole. Upon this he fastened a shaft, which had a wheel at the other end, running upon a circular plat- form, and from this singular arrangement a shaft extended, which operated the mill. It was a great benefit to the community, and people came from the Sangamon country, camping all night, in order to secure the first turn in the morning. With a good team the. buhrs would grind from one to two bushels of corn per hour. This was the way the pioneers had of getting their bread. " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," was a text they could all appreciate. But other mills were built in the neighborhood as the increasing population demanded, and this trouble of procuring meal was forever set at rest.
The first school house in the precinet, and, in fact, in all that region of country, was a log building, about 18x20 feet, of the usual pioneer type, and was built in the fall of 1833. In this old log school house, where the floor
" Was naked earth, with weight-pole roof, That seldom proved quite water-proof;
158
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
With slabs for seats, with rough split-pegs, In two-inch auger-holes, for legs,"
the youth of the neighborhood learned their A B C's. It was constructed mostly of bass wood, and finally was treated to a plank floor, a shingle roof, and was heated by a stove, the first stove ever in this part of the county. It was known far and wide as Walnut Grove schoolhouse, in consequence of standing near a body of walnut timber, on section thirty-one, township seventeen, and range ten. Joel C. Robinson was one of the first teachers in it; he taught there in 1835-36, and afterward went to Kentucky, near Louisville, where he was shot in a difficulty with a pupil. Among those who attended at this old school house, were the children of Samuel Montgomery, John Epler, Isaac Mitchell, Jacob Lorance, James Stevenson, Nathan Compton, Charles Beggs, and others. The house stood and was occu- pied for school purposes until June, 1844, when it was blown down in a wind storm. Previous to this, however, other school houses had been erected in the precinct, and the loss of this pioneer relic was not, after all, a serious backset to the cause of education.
School houses now dot the country through- out the precinct, and the facilities for receiving a good common school education are excel- lent. For the usual term each year, good schools are taught by competent teachers, and every means employed to furnish knowl- edge to the masses.
The first church building erected in the precinct of Princeton, was at the village of Old Princeton, in 1835, and was Missionary Baptists. Afterward a Christian Church was built about 1838, but both of these have past away, and there are now but two churches in the precinct, viz .: Zion Presbyterian, and the Swedish Church at Little Indian.
Zion Presbyterian Church first held its ser- vices in Zion brick school house, and in Jacob Lorance's barn, which was sufficiently large
for church service, having a partition with folding doors in it. The church building now standing, is owned jointly by the Metho- dists and Presbyterians, who use it in com- mon. The Presbyterian Church Society was organized April 25, 1830, by Rev. J. M. Ellis, then living at Jacksonville. The first elders were: Jacob Lorance, Benjamin Workman, and Samuel Montgomery. Rev. W. J. Fraser was the first regular pastor. Among the first regular members were: Jacob and Isabella Lorance, Delilah Richards, Benjamin and Margaret Workman, Mary Tilford, Samuel and Mary Montgomery, James and Harriet Stevenson, Daniel and Susan Stone, Morgan and Sarah Green. The Methodist Society was not organized until some years later.
Old Princeton .- The village of Princeton was laid out by Jonathan Berger, February 19, 1833, and was the second town laid out in what is now Cass County. It was located on the east half of the southeast quarter of section 36, township 12, range 10, and was, at the time it was laid out, in Morgan County. Bergen, the proprietor of the town, was one of the early settlers of this section, and a stirring, energetic man.
The first goods sold at Princeton, was by Stephen Mallory, or the firm of Mallory & Lewis, who opened a store about 1826, sev- eral years before the town was laid out. Mal- lory sold out and returned to Kentucky, whence he came, and Lewis carried on the business until 1833-34, and then sold out to Talmage, who shortly after sold to Parrot & Alcott. After continuing the business about three years, Alcott bought out Parrot and took Jacob Bergen in as a partner, about the year 1836. Alcott retired about 1840, and Mr. Bergen continued the business up to 1869. Wm. Kinner opened a stock of goods at Princeton about 1838-39, and Wm. Brown started a store there also about 1840 and took Kinner's stand. Thus Princeton became
159
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
quite a thriving little town, and did a large business. Thomas Cowan and Henry Murray were early blacksmiths of the place. Wm. Brown was the first Justice of the Peace in this whole section of country, and was com- missioned as such in 1840. The town in- creased until at one time it had some two hundred inhabitants.
A wool carding machine was started by John Camp, about 1836, and was operated for several years. It had a tread-wheel, and the power was furnished by oxen, placed upon this large wheel. About the year 1841 it was removed to Virginia, where it did good service for a number of years. Clifford Wear, a wagon-maker, plied his trade for a long while ; a shoe-shop was also carried on by a man whose name is now forgotten. Zirkle Robinson carried on tailoring, and all other branches of business common in a country town were established. But the time came when it began to decline, and as steadily as it had grown, it now faded away. The town of Virginia was rising into a place of note ; a railroad was built which left Princeton out
in the cold, and it was finally vacated April 31, 1875. Princeton is blotted from the map, and may now rank with the lost cities of the plain ;- Sic transit gloria, etc.
Little Indian Village, or Station. is located on the Peoria, Pekin & Jacksonville Railroad, about four miles south of Virginia. It stands on the northwest quarter of section 35, town- ship 17, range 10, and is but little else than a shipping station on the railroad. It has never been laid out as a village, and, indeed, makes no pretensions to that dignity. Jacob Epler was the first white man to locate near the place, and afterward James Stevenson settled there. A burying-ground was laid out very early, where the water-tank of the railroad now stands. Human bones were exhumed, when the road was being built, and were buried at Zion Church, about a mile distant.
Little Indian merely comprises a railroad station, a shipping point, one store and a Swedish church. Mr. Stevenson is the agent of the railroad here, and has been over since its completion and opening to business.
-
4
. ...
.
-
160
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XVI.
RICHMOND PRECINCT-PHYSICAL FEATURES-INDIANS-PIONEER TIMES-EARLY SET- TLERS-SCHOOLS, CHURCHES AND STORES.
' It was all a wilderness, a wild waste."
CUCH are the expressions that everywhere meet the ears of the inquirer seeking in- formation of the early settlement. To the generation of to-day the phrase has become trite and nearly meaningless, but the thought- ful observer can not fail to notice that it is far otherwise to the man who knew the country when it was houseless, roadless and pathless --
" Where nothing dwelt but beasts of prey, Or men as fierce and wild as they."
The present generation knows nothing of trackless forests, unbridged streams, pangs of hunger, days of struggle and nights of fear. We can not get any degree of experience of pioneer life in our day; no adequate idea can possibly be presented; it is lost only as we see some of the effects of those early trials and hardships in the wrinkled brows, scarred hands, and tottering limbs of a few of the old pio- neers, who leaning upon their staffs in the helpless infirmities of age, are to be spared but a few short summers at most. We are apt to forget in the whirl and hum of the nineteenth century, with one invention hurry- ing another out of date, that there ever was any necessity for pioneers. The man who opens up a new country to-day, can not be called a pioneer in the true sense of the word. In seeking a home in the West, the traveler sits in a palace coach instead of an ox cart, and is hurried over streams and rivers, through State after State, with the swiftness of an eagle's flight; his pockets are crammed with
maps and information of the great railroad corporations, which offer him land on a long time and easy payments. Deciding to buy land, his household goods and a house framed and ready to be put up, are shipped almost to his door (!) at reduced rates, while improved implements and all the advantages of a pioneer experience of a hundred years, unite to make his work effective. In ten years he is in the center of civilization, con- bining more privileges than the proudest and oldest community of New England knew, when the pioneers of this land were young. What difficulties they encountered, and with untiring fortitude overcame the hardships that so numerously were heaped upon them, it is the purpose of these pages to relate. When they sought the untried country of the West, they launched out like a mariner, on an un- known sea; following a wagon track till that ceased, they passed the frontier and entered an nnmapped wilderness, guided only by compass and deed; arriving at their destina- tion without protection or shelter, they built a house of such material as the scrubby tim- ber permitted, unassisted by mill or machin- ery. Their log house, with mud to make it tight, the rude doors, and for a time, win- dowless, and chimneys made of a tottering mass of mud and sticks, the remains of which here and there are seen, was their home. The fitful flame of the hickory was their light and fire, the babbling brook furnished them water till the spade penetrated the unsounded depths, securing a purer source of God's sparkling liquid. But all this is of the past.
*By J. L. Nichols.
161
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
About us are gathered the fruits of their toil in a civilization to which the world elsewhere is a stranger, and, looking back along the way over which the pioneers have strolled and toiled, we can say with a full and overflowing heart of gratitude, " Well done, thon good and faithful servants."
The land-marks of pioneer times are fast passing away with those that placed them, and all is change.
Richmond Precinct is bounded on the north by Sangamon river, which in pre-historic times formed a broad surface of bottom land on each side of its present course, and there is but little doubt that the original channel once ex- tended from bluff to bluff, and as the waters gradually settled and were withdrawn, the present bottom lands were gradually formed.
In 1882, the water, owing to the heavy rains of the winter and spring, covered the entire bottoms, leaving scarcely a perceptible spot above the vast ocean of water; in conse- quence of which a large portion of the bottom land the past year has been without cultiva- tion. These overflows are not uncommon, however, for they occur nearly every year, but not to such a height, bringing so much ruin and destruction to the settlers, as the past year. The water during the year was higher than it was ever known by any of the settlers, but Shick Shack, a chief of the Pottawatomie tribe, pointed out a high water mark to Philip Hash, one of the first settlers, that reached nearly one third of the way up Shick Schack Knob, one of the highest hills of Richmond Precinct; whether he saw this himself or whether it was simply a matter of tradition, can never be ascertained; but this we know, should such a flood as that occur at the present day, every building on the bottoms, and Chand- lerville with all her trees, bridges and im- provements, would be swept down the Illi- "ois River, and not a trace of human existence left in the course of the torrent.
The surface of the precinct we find is con- siderably broken after entering what is called the upland; there seems to be nothing but a. succession of hills, as though some mighty force had collected those majestic heaps and then promiscuously threw them together, some falling upon each other, and others sparingly strewn over the remaining surface. These hills may be called the Alps of Illinois, with a scenery as beautiful as any elevated upland in the State. Amid these apparent mountains where a half century ago the foot of a white man had scarcely trod, there are now beau- tiful homes, cultivated fields and grazing herds.
The farmer, long toiling in subduing his fields, improving his buildings, would not ex- change his hilly home for the sunniest and fairest of Illinois prairie; the hills are no longer obstacles to the owners and tillers, but a source of pleasure and satisfaction. Many of the farmers have become wealthy, some have retired from active labor and removed to some quiet village; others arc quietly enjoying life on the scenes of their pioneer struggles.
The timber, where in an early day there was but little, is now quite numerous. Puncheon Grove, about the centre of the precinct, was the principal source of timber from which many of the earlier cabins were built, and is yet one of the best localities for good useful timber.
In the Spring of 1826, Mr. Philip Hash, be- ing of a roving, hunting turn of mind, found himself on the bottom lands of the Sangamon river, as the first white settler. He hastily constructed a temporary cabin, and at once began preparing for a crop. The Indians were then his only neighbors, and it was here that his little son, Zachariah Hash, now one of the oldest and most esteemed citizens of Chand lerville, first made his acquaintance with them, and learned considerable of their lan- guage. The following year a man by the
162
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
name of Richard Chowning came from the South and located near the cabin of Mr. Hash, on the land now owned by the widow Tan- trum. He having a large family of boys, be- gan at once the cultivation of tobacco, a crop which he had always cultivated as a business. He sold his crop at Springfield at a handsome price, and after continuing on the bottoms a few years, he moved to parts unknown, none the poorer for his short sojourn on the Sanga- mon Bottoms.
Robert and Eaton Nance and Peter Dick, with his two sons, Levi and Henry, were added to the little colony about 1829, and others soon followed, among which were John Witley, John Lucus, James Fletcher, Thomas Jones, Joshua Nance and Cary Nance. This made up a happy, lively and prosperous colony. But previous to the coming of the last named settlers, the community were con- siderably agitated and scared over the float- ing reports that the Indians were preparing to attack and massacre the settlers; they all left their cabins and took refuge at Clary's Grove, where a few settlers had located, but after remaining three weeks in a military state of defense, they all returned to their deserted firesides and resumed their usual labors. The Indians were of a friendly character, and never molested the settlers ex- cept by the annoyance of begging, which they practiced to no small extent. To show their native customs in heaping drudgery upon their wives one incident will suffice. An Indian and his squaw came to the cabin of Philip IIash, when Zachariah was a boy, and begged a bushel of corn; being very cold and wintry, Mr. Hash gave them the corn, and invited them into the cabin to shell it, that it might be less bulky and burden- some to carry. They both sat down upon the floor, before the fire-place, and silently began their work; the Indian, after shelling an ear or so, broke the silence with an "och," and
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.