USA > Illinois > Cass County > History of Cass county, Illinois > Part 2
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In 1778, the Illinois country was conquered from Great Britain by troops from the State of Virginia, under the command of General George Rogers Clark, which was an inde- pendent military enterprise of that State; and on the 4th day of July of that year, General Clark and his troops took pessession of Kas- kaskia, the capital of the British possessions west of the Alleghenies, and declared the Illinois country free and independent of Great Britain, thus making the 4th day of July the natal day of this State as well as of the Na- tion. In that year, Illinois was created a county of Virginia, and Timothy Dernanbrun was appointed by the governor, Patrick Henry, a justice of the peace, to rule over it; which was probably the most extensive territorial jurisdiction that a magistrate ever had.
In 1794, the legislature of the Northwest Territory divided it into two counties, Ran- dolph and St. Clair.
In 1809, Illinois was declared a separate territory.
In 1812, Madison County was organized from St. Clair, and then contained all of the present State north of St. Clair and Randolph.
In 1818, Illinois was admitted into the Union as the twenty-second State.
In 1821, Green County was formed from Madison County.
In 1823, Morgan County was formed from Green County, which included the territory now known as Cass County.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
During the first quarter of the present cen- tury, immigration to the Illinois country was retarded by frequent earthquakes; indeed, from 1811 to 1813 they were as severe as ever happened on this continent, and the few set- thers then here were in constant dread from these disturbances. New Madrid, a flourish- ing town near the mouth of the Ohio, was utterly destroyed and partially swallowed up. But in 1825, the Erie Canal was completed, and steamboats had been introduced upon the Mississippi and its tributaries, and immigration received a new impulse and flowed in vigorous- ly. This immigration excitement was called east of the Alleghenies, the " western fever; " and it carried many a good man off-west.
Another circumstance which prevented im- migration into central Illinois during the same period was, that all that portion of it that lay south of the Kankakee, east of the Illinois, west of the Wabash and north of a line drawn from the mouth of the Illinois eastward to the Wabash, including the present Cass County, was owned and in possession of the Kickapoos, a powerful and warlike tribe of Indians, who conquered this territory about the middle of the last century from the Illi- nois Indians. The Kickapoos, while friendly with the French, looked with extreme jeal- ousy upon the Americans, and discouraged their settlement in this territory. This wide scope of country, included the best and most fruitful portions of Illinois, and pioneers were anxious for the general government to pur- chase it of the Kickapoos, and open it to set- tlement. Several efforts were made by the government to treat with them for their lands, but being of a haughty spirit, no satisfaction could be obtained from them, until Gen. Har- rison defeated them at the battle of Tippe- canoe, which so diminished their vanity that they sought to treat, but Gen. Harrison re- fused. Shortly afterward they were again defeated by Col. Zachary Taylor, and in Octo-
ber, 1812, Col. Russell defeated them at Kick- apoo Town, on the Illinois River, the present site of Beardstown, and again, in November Col. Hopkins destroyed one of their towns on Wildcat Creek. They then sued for peace, and their chief, Little Otter, met Gen. Harri- son. The treaties of Portage des Sioux (Sept. 2, 1815) and Fort Harrison (June 4, 1816), fol- lowed. These treaties being indefinite in their results, the Kickapoos still retaining their lands, many of them religiously believ- ing and maintaining that they were granted them by the Great Spirit as their possession forever, and that he would be angry if they sold them; the following order was issued by the general government, addressed to Gov. Wm. Clark, Indian Superintendent at St. Louis, and to Gov. Ninian Edwards, Gov- ernor of the Territory of Illinois:
" DEPARTMENT OF WAR, Nov. 1, 1817.
"GENTLEMEN :- I have the honor to enclose you a commission, for the purpose of treating with the Illinois, the Kickapoos, the Potta- watomies and other tribes of Indians within the Illinois territory. The object of this nego- tiation is to obtain a cession from the tribes who may have a claim to it, of all that tract of land which lies between the most north- eastern point of boundary of the lands ceded by the Kaskaskias in August, 1803, the San - gamo and the Illinois rivers; and which tract of land completely divided the settled parts of the Illinois Territory from that part which lies between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, and which has been lately surveyed for the purpose of satisfying the military land bounties, a circumstance which makes the acquisition of this tract of country peculiarly desirable.
" If either of the tribes who have a claim to the land is desirous of exchanging their claim for lands on the west of the Mississippi, you are authorized to make the exchange, and your extensive local knowledge of the coun-
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
try will enable you to designate that part of it where it would be most desirable to locate the lands to be given as an equivalent. To other tribes who may not wish to remove, you will allow such an annuity, for a fixed period, as you may deem an adequate compensation for the relinquishment of their respective claims. To enable you to give the usual pres- ents on such occasions, you are authorized to draw on this department for $6,000.
" The contractor will furnish, on the re- quisition of either of you, the rations that may be necessay for the supply of the Indians while attending the treaty. Your compensa- tion will be at the rate of eight dollars per day for the time actually engaged in treating with the Indians; and that of the secretary, whom you are authorized to appoint, will be at the rate of five dollars a day.
"I have the honor to be, with great respect, "Your obedient servant,
"GEORGE GRAHAM, "Acting Secretary of War."
Under these instructions, such negotiations were had with the Kickapoo Indians, that on the 30th day of July, 1819, that tribe ceded to the United States all the above described tract of land. The final treaty was signed on
the part of the government by August Choteau and Benjamin Stevenson, and by twenty-three chiefs of the Kickapoos, who reluctantly placed their awkward but significant sign- manuals thereto. Among other things, and together with many presents and much amuni- tion, the United States agreed to pay them $2,000 a year for fifteen years, and assigned them a large tract on the Osage. From the date of the treaty they began to remove from the State, but very slowly and reluctantly, and in 1822 there were still four hundred Kickapoos remaining in Central Illinois, and up to 1821, quite a large number of them remained within the present limits of Cass County, and at their town on the present site of Beardstown. A few of them, who had connected with the French by marriage, re- mained in Beardstown and on the islands near by, many years afterward.
This purchase from the Kickapoos, opened the most beautiful portion of the State to set- tlers. That part of it now included in the counties of Cass, Morgan, Scott, Mason, Men- ard, Sangamon, Logan, Macon and some oth- ers, was known far and near, as the " Sangamo Country," and its fertile soil soon attracted great numbers of actual settlers, who made farms, laid out towns, built roads and bridges.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
CHAPTER II.
SETTLEMENTS OF THE COUNTRY NOT INCLUDED IN CASS COUNTY-SOME OF THE PION- EERS AND WHERE THEY SETTLED-THIE SANGAMO COUNTRY-ITS FERTILITY- PRAIRIE SCHOONERS-FIRST LAND ENTRY-BEARD'S FERRY-BEARD & MARSH'S ENTRY OF LAND-FIRST SETTLERS OF BEARDSTOWN- DEED OF DEFEASANCE-GOING TO EGYPT FOR CORN-AR- RIVAL OF OTHER SETTLERS-THE ENTRY OF LAND, ETC., ETC., ETC.
TN 1818 a man by the name of Pullam settled upon Horse Creek, a tributary of the Sangamon river, and later, in November of that year, Seymour Kellogg first settled the country afterward included in Morgan County, and it was at his house that the first white child of the Sangamo country was born.
The first actual and permanent white set- tler within the limits of the present city of Beardstown, was Thomas Beard, who came here on horseback when it was a Kickapoo town, in 1819, and made it his home as a trader among the Indians.
Martin L. Lindsley, together with his wife and two children, John C. and Mary A., and Timothy Harris and John Cettrough, settled in Beardstown in 1820, and afterward located in " Camp Hollow," a mile east of the present county farm, where Mr. Lindsley built a cabin, and the first white child born in this (after- ward) Cass County, was added to his family.
During the year 1820, a family named Eg- gleston settled on the site of Beardstown.
Major Elijah Iles, now a resident of Spring- field, Ill., landed in 1819 where Beardstown now is, on his way to the " Keeley Settle- ment," afterward named Calhoun, and now Springfield, the State capital. He says that at that time there was a hut at Beardstown, built of birchen poles, standing on the bank of the river, but unoccupied. As the Indians lived in tents, this hut was probably erected by the
French traders nearly a quarter of a century before the landing of Major Iles.
Archibald Job settled first at Beardstown, and then at Sylvan Grove, in the north edge of North Prairie, in the spring of 1821, sur- rounded by Kickapoo Indians.
There were other pioneers who temporarily settled here about that time, whose names we have not learned.
In 1821, there were but twenty white fam- ilies within the present limits of Morgan, Cass and Scott Counties.
But when the reputation of the " Sangamo Country " for unrivaled fertility, and that the Indian title to it had become extinguished, and the lands would soon be surveyed and offered for sale by the government, had reached Kentucky and Tennessee, the sturdy and enterprising farmers of those States be- gan to remove thereto in great numbers.
There was at that time in common use, a craft known as the "prairie ship," or as some called it the "prairie schooner," and nothing similar to it ever floated or moved in or upon or between the waters of the earth. It was constructed with four huge wheels, upon which was a great bed or box, formed like a quarter of a moon, with the bend hanging be- tween the fore and aft wheels. The solid running gearing, well and fantastically ironed, the broad felloes heavily tired, the tongue arranged for a propelling power of either
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
horses or oxen, its high end-boards and curv- ing side-boards, ribbed and barred and riveted, glaring in red or blue paint, was not gotten up merely for show. It made no pretensions to beauty. It was thoroughly a substantial craft. What has become of the old " prairie ship," with the four horses before it, and the driver in his saddle on the near wheel-horse, twitching at a single rein ?
The old "prairie ship," with its great white cover and flapping curtains, looking at a dis- tance on the prairie like a ship on the ocean, was the great original of the emigrant wagon of the West. This craft was of vast capacity. It contained ample bedding for a large fam- ily, made up of all ages and sexes. It held cooking utensils, provisions, ammunition, tubs, buckets, besides the family. The wagon box or bed was fitted with flat iron staples, about eighteen inches apart, along its sides, and in those were placed ashen hoops which bended over from side to side of the wagon box, leaving a roomy space inside about five feet high and twenty feet more or less long, which when covered with canvas, looped over at the ends, made a comfortable room, high, dry and safe from storms. Upon the sides of the wagon box were cleats to secure the crow- bar, axes, spades, mattocks, chisels and augurs; and underneath hung the kettles, tar- bucket, water-bucket and baskets. An extra log-chain was coiled around the coupling pole under the wagon for use in emergencies, which frequently happened.
It was in these prairie schooners that most of the first settlers of Cass (then Morgan) County emigrated from the older States. These journeys were not altogether pleasure trips, al- though there were pleasant features connected with them, and they were usually terminated with every member of the family in robust health, sickness very rarely afflicting those who traveled in this way, yet they were sometimes attended with dangers, hardships and " hair-
breadth 'scapes," which were profitably re- counted by the participants in after life to the rising generation. There were but few roads and bridges at that time, and the prairies had to be crossed on Indian trails, the rivers forded where there were no ferries, and the creeks and brooks, where the banks were steep, were still more difficult to cross. In such case, sometimes a bridge was impro- vised, or a tree was felled across it, the limbs removed, the wagons taken all apart, and each separate piece and article of freight carried by hand across over the fallen tree, and set up and loaded on the other side, Sometimes a single "mover" would do all, this alone. But, for convenience, these "movers " would sometimes travel in com- panies or caravans, and in that case assist each other, and thus make the journey much more pleasant, safe and expeditious. It was a common sight upon the Illinois prairies in those days to see such a caravan, the white canvas tops of the prairie schooners looking in the distance like a fleet at sea under sail. These emigrants generally drove along with them a few head of cattle, or led some brood mares, so that in the new country they were prepared to raise cattle and horses. Some also brought in a coop lashed to the wagon, a few fowls, for the purpose of raising chickens in the new home.
Let us suppose several of these prairie schooners, in the early "twenties," have reached the northern part of Morgan County (now Cass), and, enraptured with the view, unhitch the teams and look around. The land was surveyed and offered for sale by the government for the first time in November, 1823, so that all those who settled here pre- vious to that date were only " squatters " on the public lands, waiting for the time to come when they could pre-empt or buy. Our im- aginary immigrants, having looked around find there is a navigable river, the Illinois, a
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
few miles distant, which will insure them a future market for their produce. They find good, rich prairie land for their farms, and plenty of timber for housing and fencing. They conclude this will do. Having selected the tract of land that suits them, they go to some distant town for a surveyor, who comes and gives them the numbers and metes and bounds. They then make a weary journey on horseback of a hundred miles to Edwardsville, where the government land office is located, to enter or buy the land. Having secured the land-the family having domiciled in the wagon in the meantime-the men-folks pro- ceed to build a log cabin, in the structure of which not a nail, or bit of iron or glass is used. The outside walls are made of round or hewn logs, fitted together at the ends and chinked with chips and clay between them. The floor is made of split logs. The roof is covered with rived weather-boards, kept in their places by poles laid across them. The chim- ney is made with logs and sticks and clay. The doors are made with split boards, fas- tened together with wooden pins, swung on wooden hinges, and fastened only with a wooden latch. Bedsteads are improvised of poles, and benches of split logs on sapling legs.
Thus the " first families " of Cass County started in life, and most of the great farms within its borders had such a beginning.
The first land " entry " (i. e. purchase from the government,) was made by Thomas Beard and Enoch C. March, jointly, upon the north- east quarter of Section 15, in Township 18, Range 12, September 23, 1826. It was upon this fractional quarter section that Mr. Beard's cabin was built. It was placed upon the steep bank of the river, at the present foot of State street, near where he afterward built his brick hotel. In the following spring it was discovered that this cabin had been built over a den of snakes, and thousands of them,
of many kinds, came out upon the opening of warm weather.
The first licensed ferry across the Illinois river was established June 5, 1826, by Thomas Beard, and a license was granted him by the county commissioners of Schuyler county, upon his paying six dollars per annum into the treasury of that county. That ferry is in operation yet by the assigns of the Beard heirs, at Beardstown, where it was first lo- cated. There was at that time no road from Beardstown through Schuyler county, but blazes on the trees was made out as far as where Rushville now stands. Schuyler county had been organized, and the county seat had been located near where Pleasant View now is, and, strangely enough, that was named Beardstown, too. Why this was so named, so soon after Thomas Beard had named his town, is now past finding out. But the location was soon after removed to Rushville, or Rush- ton, as it was first called.
Thomas Beard's ferry-boat was managed by himself alone, the propelling power being a pole in his strong hands. It was so small that only one wagon and two horses could be crossed at one time, and then very little stand- ing room was left for passengers.
On the 28th day of October, 1827, Beard and March entered the northwest quarter of section 15, township 18, Range 12, which ex- tended their river front down below the great mound.
Thomas Beard individually entered the west half of the southwest quarter of section 15, township 18, Range 12, October 10, 1827; and John Knight entered the east half of the southwest 15, 18, 12, July 17, 1828. Thus there were three men entered the entire sec- tion upon which the original town of Beards- town was located, in the years 1826, 1827 and 1828.
The original town of Beardstown consisted of twenty-three blocks, fronting on the river,
1
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
three tiers of blocks deep, reaching from Clay to Jackson streets, of which block ten, lying between the Park and Main street, and State and Washington, is the central one. It was laid out and platted by Enoch C. March and Thomas Beard, and acknowledged before Thomas B. Arnet, a justice of the peace of Jacksonville, Sept. 29, 1829, and is recorded on page 228 of Book B of the Morgan County Records, a transcript of which is in the Cass County Records.
Among the first settlers in Beardstown, after it became a town site, were Francis Arenz and Nathaniel Ware, who purchased an interest and became joint landed proprie- tors with Beard and March. The town was named after Thomas Beard.
The first deed from March and Beard upon record of lands within the present limits of Beardstown, was made before the town was laid out, and is dated August 21, 1828, to " Charles Robinson, of New Orleans," for the consideration of one hundred dollars, being for a "part of the fractional part of the northwest quarter of Section 15, Township 18, Range 12, beginning at a forked birch tree on the Illinois river bank, marked as a cor- ner, running thence down the river meanders thereof, so as to make two hundred yards on a straight line, and from thence running out from the river at both ends of the above line by two parallel lines, until they strike the north line of the east half of the southwest quarter of Section 15, Township 18, Range 12, supposed to contain twelve acres.
Immediately following this deed upon the record is this singular " deed of defeasance," executed by Charles Robinson :
DEED OF DEFEASANCE.
"I having this day bought of Enoch C. March and Thomas Beard and his wife, Sarah, a piece of land on the river below the ferry of the above Beard, and have this day re-
ceived from them a deed for the same; 1 hereby declare that it is my intention to do a public business on the said land between this date and the first day of October, next year, and if I have not upon the land by that date, persons and property to effect the same, or actually upon the way to do so, I will return the above deed, and transfer back the land to them upon receiving the consideration given them for the same. The above public busi- ness means a steam mill, distillery, rope-walk or store. Witness my hand and seal, this 21st day of August, 1828.
"(Signed) Charles Robinson. [SEAL]" The certificate upon this deed shows it to have been acknowledged August 1, 1828, before Dennis Rockwell, clerk of the circuit court of Morgan County; recorded June 29, 1829, in Book B of deeds, page 180. The land described in the deed from March and Beard to Robinson is part of the original town of Beardstown.
Mr. Charles Robinson, party to these deeds, now dead, was until recently a resident of Cass County, near Arenzville. On the 8th of February, 1872, he wrote a letter to the Chicago Journal, from which we make this extract:
"Fifty years ago, or in the summer of 1821, there was not a bushel of corn to be had in Central Illinois. My father settled in that year twenty-three miles west of Springfield. We had to live for a time on venison, black- berries and milk, while the men were gone to Egypt, to harvest and procure breadstuffs. The land we improved was surveyed that summer, and afterwards bought of the gov- ernment, the money being raised by sending beeswax down the Illinois river to St. Louis, in an Indian canoe. Dressed deer skins and tanned hides were then in use, and we made one piece of cloth out of nettles instead of flax. Cotton matured well for a decade, until the deep snow of 1830."
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
The southern part of the State, referred to by Mr. Robinson as "Egypt," received this appellation, as here indicated, because, being older, longer and better settled and culti- vated, it "gathered corn as the sand of the sea," and the immigrants of the central part of the State, after the manner of the children of Israel, in their want, "went thither to buy and bring from thence corn, that they might live and not die."
In the early years of the white settlements here, wheat was not to be had, and corn meal, the only bread-stuff, was exceedingly hard to obtain, as mills were scarce. Jarroc's Mill, on Cahokia Creek, was for a long time the only one accessible to our pioneers. In 1821, a small horse-mill was erected on Indian Creek by Richard Sheppard. Then a horse- mill was put up at Clary's Grove. Still later, Ogle's water mill was built on Indian Creek. To these mills the boys of the families had to make frequent and tedious journeys on horse- back, to procure corn meal for bread. The corn for this purpose had to be shelled by hand, as there were no corn-sheller machines then. Each boy could take but one sack, containing two or three busliels of corn. If the sack got misplaced on the horse, or fell off, the boy was in trouble, as he had not strength sufficient to replace it. For this rca- son, several boys of a neighborhood would club together in going to mill, and thus light- en their labors and responsibilities. When at the mill, the boys must wait their turn, and when great numbers were in before them, would have to frequently stay all night at the mill, and sometimes two days, depending upon parched corn for sustenance after their lunches, which they had brought with them, had become exhausted.
Reddick Horn, a Methodist preacher, settled at Beardstown in 1823, and entered lands near the bluffs; after Cass county was formed he became clerk of the circuit court.
The Cottonwood school house, in the San- gamon bottom, was built in 1830, and is still known by that name.
The exact date of the arrival of each of the settlers is very hard to obtain, as those of them now living differ in their recollections of those who have precedence; but, by tak- ing a conspicuous event, as, for instance, the deep snow, which occurred in the winter of 1830-31, it becomes more easy to decide who then lived in the different neighborhoods. At the time of the deep snow, upon the Sangamon Bottom road there were the follow- ing named settlers : The first above Beards- town was Solomon Penny, in Section 10, 18, 11, where Richard Tink now lives. The next was John Wagoner, who lived where the Bottrell farm is now. Above him were the Carrs-Elisha, William and Benjamin-and their father; Elisha lived on the present Ken- dall farm. Next above the Carrs was Grandpa Horrom. Then Jerry Bowen, where Calvin Wilson now lives. Next, the widow Stewart. Next, Shadrach Richardson, on the present Brauer farm. Then Thomas Plaster, Sr., where Jeptha Plaster's farm is now.
These were all that then lived below where Chandlerville is now, on this road. The first above these was Robert Leeper, on the Cleph. Bowen place. Next, William Myers ; next, Henry McHenry; and in their order above him were Peter Dick, John Taylor, William Morgan, 'James Hickey, Amos Ogden; and then Isham Reavis, who afterwards moved below Chandlerville. James McAuley and Elijah Garner settled in 1832.
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