USA > Illinois > Cass County > History of Cass county, Illinois > Part 20
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
pointing to the palm of his hand, as though it hurt, said to Mr. Hash: "Hurt Indian; squaw no hurt;" and she without a word, or without even lifting her eyes from her work, completed her task, shouldered the sack of shelled corn, and then followed her master on a dog trot homeward toward the wigwam.
It is said by some of the early settlers, that there was a custom prevailing among the Indians that when they married, the Indian presented his wife with the shank-bone of a deer, and she in turn presented her husband with an ear of corn, the ceremony indicating that he will furnish the meat, and she the corn.
The first crops that the early comers prin- cipally raised, were mostly wheat, buck-wheat, sod-corn, cotton and melons ; the latter article was very largely raised. In those days people buried them some four feet in the sand, kept them till Christmas, when they had, what was called their melon-breakings," which were among the liveliest entertainments of pioneer times.
Cotton was considerably cultivated till after the big snow in 1831. Previous to that people raised enough for their summer cloth- ing, and plenty for their quilts and bedding in general.
People in an early day did nearly all their teaming and farming with oxen. Many of the settlers were not able to own horses, and those that were, were not able to use them during the greater part of the day in the fly season, as these green-heads were so numer- ous that a horse could not resist them, but would lie down and roll in the harness, or under the saddle, or do anything to shake off the blood-sucking swarms that would literally cover its body.
Rattlesnakes at this time were very num- erous on the bottom lands. Mr. Hash had one field of oats in which he killed over forty of these venomous reptiles. They were so
163
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
numerous that he was unable to secure har- vest help, and consequently had to do it all himself, and did it without accident or harm, though often binding bundles under which the drowsy rattlers lay coiled.
Till 1832, there was no physician nearer than Beardstown or Petersburg. Dr. Chand- ler then came and did a humane work among the early comers. He traveled night and day, giving all of his patients the same care and attention; whether rich or poor, with or without money; a noble, generous man was Dr. Charles Chandler.
Many of the first settlers did not remain long, coming in from eastern and southern States and settling in a wild country; poorly clothed and more poorly sheltered, they would be taken with the ague or other fevers, and as soon as they could close out their in- terest in the land and harvest their crop, they departed wiser, but not richer than they caine.
The first mill patronized, was a mill run by horse power, on Rock Creek, a Mr. Bowen owning the mill, and also a cotton gin. In those days there was no bolted flour; every patron bolted their own, or ate it as the chronic dyspeptics of to-day do, bran and all. There was little farm machinery used; sowing, reaping, mowing and threshing, was all done by the muscle of men and sturdy youths, who labored for health as well as wealth. Grain was hauled to Beardstown or to Petersburg; cattle were driven often to St. Louis, a dis- tance then averaging from 130 to 170 miles, as the roads were often impassible in places, and much time and distance taken to go around in search of better and more passable places.
The only road in Richmond Precinct in 1832, except here and there a lone wagon track, was the Bottom Road, leading from Beardstown to Petersburg.
. The second road was called the State Road,
leading to Springfield and going through Puncheon Grove.
The settlers of 1832 were Philip Hash, James Hickey, Henry McHenry, John Hamby, John Taylor, Peter Dick, Jesse Armstrong, Wm. P. Morgan, and C. J. Wilson. These pioneers in their war with nature were not entirely without amusement, religious wor- ship or educational training for their children.
Mr. Zachariah Hash tells us that it was not uncommon to see a young man with his girl start out with an ox team and go eight or ten miles to a dance. Cotton pickings, carding and spinning parties, were very common, the girls working all day, and the boys coming in the evening to participate in the dance, and to see that their girls got home safely. They did not then have halls and waxed floors to glide over in whirling the dizzy waltz ; it was a puncheon-floor, with such openings that often the broad foot of the pioneer girl would slip through or become entangled, so it became necessary for her partner or lover to show his gallantry by helping her out. For many winters a negro by the name of Robert, from Tennessee, was the noted musician of the Sangamon Bottom. The sweet strains of his violin roused the most indifferent, and brought the heaviest of cow-hide boots quick and strong down upon the heavy timbered floor. Such was the dance of the pioneer.
In 1829 or 1830, the first religious assembly that ever convened in Richmond Precinct, was at the residence of Philip Hash, Reddick Horn, an old pioneer minister, preaching. Revs. Levi Springer and Peter Cartwright also quite frequently visited the settlement on their spiritual missions, but Rev. Reddick Horn was quite a constant visitor of the settle- ment for many years.
Meetings were held in the cabins of the settlers till Chandlerville churches were or- ganized, when all church-believing and church-going people attended there.
164
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
The second church society that was organ- ized in the precinct was at Big Puncheon Grove, and the first settlement around the vicinity of that grove was made about 1830. In 1838 we find the following families in that neighborhood: John Lucus, George Thatcher, Joshua and Robert Nance, John Chesser, Joseph Goble, John Howton, Jolin Bingley, Bartlet Conyers and Elijah Watkins.
The Puncheon Grove Baptist Church, sometimes known as the Iron Side Baptist, was first organized by the religious zeal of Wm. Watkins, Thomas Plasters, Daniel Atter- berry, Wm. Armstrong, James Watkins, Elijah Watkins. The society held their first meet- ings at private houses, till 1842, when they built a church near the site of the present school house. As to the cost, it is difficult to say, for the members of the society con- tributed miscellaneously money, labor, lumber, timber, etc., till the religious edifice was com- pleted. Cyrus Wright was their first pastor, and continued till his death; since then no regular services have been held.
The church was used for school purposes as soon as completed ; elections, law-suits, etc., were held within the sacred sanctum, and consequently, considering the numerous uses to which its doors were open, it did not last very long, and has since been torn down, and its decayed timbers replaced with a house of education.
No Sabbath school was ever conducted in connection with the church, as the Old School Baptists do not believe in that system of teaching and propagating religion.
One peculiarity about the members of this church, was their extreme enthusiasm, but thongh extreme in their religions views, they were in a secular sense among the best and most honest citizens in the precinct; at present there are but four male members remaining out of their former number of forty.
Schools .- The first school of the precinct
was a rude log house built on the Sangamon Bottom, on the Beardstown and Peters- burg Road, on the land now owned by the heirs of Joshua Morse; the land was then owned by Henry McHenry, who was most active in planning and carrying out the enter- prise.
The first scholars that attended that school are now gray headed old men and women whose shadows are fast lengthening in the path of life, and nearing the eternal sunset. Many already have gone; the rest soon must follow. C. J. Wilson, one of the first schol- ars, retains in memory the names of but few of his school mates, John Hash, Pollie Dick, Henry Taylor, James and Levi Dick, and the children of Absalom Bowling are all he can mention.
The school was taught by an Englishman who came from the East, by the name of James L. Grant. He was a man of excellent intellectu- al understanding, a good scholar and good fel- low, and taught a good school, but he had one weakness, and that was taking a little too much grog under very frequent circumstances. Drinking spirits in these days was considered a necessary matter of health. Every farmer kept it in the pressing seasons of work, and many of the farmers keeping a little copper still, where they manufactured their own whisky and supplied their neighbors. Then it was a pure article that men drank, now the man that desires his morning dram must pour into his stomach four parts of poisonous com- pound to one of pure whisky. No wonder we have drunkards. The school continued its progressive work, till the present building known as the Dick school house was erected. Girls in the first schools of the country brought their work and knitting just as much as their books. They were expected to im- prove their noon and recess in preparing stockings for the family, and doing such other work as could be conveniently carried to the
165
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
house of instruction. Such were our pioneer schools.
There are now four district schools annually taught in the precinct. The Dick school house has already been mentioned. The Lynn school, Pontiac school, and Green Ridge school, are the other three.
Shick Shack Knob, known as the summer resort of an Indian chief of the same name, was first entered by James Hickey, and he purchasing other lands adjoining, found it nec- essary to have it surveyed that his boundary lines might be more definitely located. He being acquainted with a young surveyor in Menard county, by the name of Abraham Lincoln, had him come and survey the land;
Shich Shack Knob consequently can never be forgotten. The land will ever be sacred to the memory of the martyred President.
The business of the precinct is of a very limited character outside of farming and stock raising.
Henry T. and Abner Foster kept store for a time on the land since owned by John P. Dick; at that time the mail was distributed there and the post-office was known as Rich . mond. Their goods were hauled from Beards- town and Petersburg; they kept a good stock for that early day, and continued a successful business for several years. They closed out in 1837 or 1838 and Richmond ceased to be the centre of pioneer trade.
166
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XVII.
PHILADELPHIA PRECINCT-DESCRIPTIVE-TOPOGRAPHY AND PHYSICAL FEATURES-OR- GANIZATION AS A PRECINCT-THE SETTLEMENT OF THE WHITES-THEIR LIFE ON THE FRONTIER-PIONEER IMPROVEMENTS-CHURCHES, SCHOOLS, ETC .- PHILADELPHIA AND LANCASTER-A LOST CITY, ETC.
FRANCY yourself standing upon yonder swell of the ground fifty years ago. It is June, say; your senses are regaled with the beauty of the landscape, the singing of the birds, the fragrance of the air, wafting grateful odors from myriads of flowers of every imaginable variety of size, shape and hue, blushing in the sunbeam and opening their petals to drink in its vivifying rays. While gazing enraptured, you descry in the distance a something moving slowly over the prairies, and through the forest and among the gorgeous flowers. As the object nears you, it proves to be a wagon, a " prairie schooner," drawn by a team of oxen, contain- ing a family and their earthly all. They are moving to the "far West" (now almost the center of civilization), in quest of a home. At length they stop, and, on the margin of a grove rear their lone cabin, amid the chattering of birds, the bounding of deer, the hissing of ser- pents, and the barking of wolves. For all the natives of these wilds look upon the intruders with a jealous eye, and each in his own way forbids any encroachments upon his fondly- cherished home, and his long and undisputed domain. From the same point of observation, look again in mid-summer, in autumn, and in winter. And lo! fields are enclosed, waving with grain, and ripening for the harvest. Look yet again, after the lapse of fifty years, and what do you see? The waste has become a fruitful field, adorned with ornamenal trees, enveloping- in beauty commodious and even elegant dwellings. In short, you behold a
land flowing with milk and honey (figuratively speaking), abounding in spacious churches, schools and academies, and other temples of learning; a land of industry, and wealth, check- ered with railroads and public thoroughfares. A land teeming with life and annually send- ing off surplus funds with hundreds, not to say thousands, of its sons to people newer regions beyond. A land whose resources and improvements are so wonderful as to stagger belief, and surpass the power of de- scription. It reads like a magic story, like a tale of enchantment, and yet, it is the true history of our own country-our great West.
Philadelphia Precinct lies east of Virginia, and is one of the most recently created in the county. It was made from a part of Oregon, Lancaster, Virginia and Princeton Pre- cincts, and embraces about twenty-four square miles. Like Virginia and Princeton, it is a fine body of land, lies well, and was originally both prairie and timbered land, the prairie predominating. It is bounded on the north by Virginia and Oregon Precincts; on the east by Ashland (formerly Lancaster); on the south by Morgan County; on the west by Princeton and Virginia Precincts, and lies in township 17, and range 9, west of the third principal meridian. It has but few natural streams, and they are very small. Little Indian and Cox Creeks are all that are laid down on the map. The Springfield division of the Ohio and Mississippi passes through the precinct, and the station affords a shipping point for the surplus products of the surrounding country.
16,
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
Philadelphia Precinct, as we have said, is but a newly created division of the county. It was organized September 6, 1876, and was formed principally out of what was formerly known as Lancaster Precinct, though a small portion was taken from each, Virginia, Ore- gon and Princeton Precincts. The remainder of Lancaster was called Ashland, and thus old Lancaster Precinct was blotted out of existence, just as whole States in Europe are often blotted out in some war or revolution. From its ruins have arisen Ashland and Phila- delphia, two precinets that will compare fav- orably with any in Cass County, in fine land, wealth and general prosperity.
The settlement of Philadelphia Precinct is so interwoven with that of Ashland, Vir- ginia and Princeton, of which it was a part, until so recently that little here need be said upon the subject. Indeed, there can be but little said, without repeating what has been said elsewhere, of the set lement of the sur- rounding community. Many of the early se'- tlers mentioned in Virginia, Oregon and Princeton, were residents of those parts now embraced in this.
Among the early settlers in this section were the Cunninghams, Redmons, and others, who have already been mentioned as settling in Sugar Grove, and the other bodies of tim- ber which were in the present limits of Phil- adelphia Precinct. James Davis, William Crow and Eli Cox were also early settlers in this region. But, as already stated, the names of the early settlers of this entire re- gion have been given in other chapters of this volume, and it is superflurous to recapit- ulate them. As the larger portion of the present precinct was prairie, it was not set- tled so early as the timber portion of the county, save in the few small groves it con- tained. The early settlers of Cass County, as well as of the entire State of Illinois, were mostly from a timbered country, and believed
that the great prairies would never be fit for anything but pasture. Hence, it was not un- til the timber land was all occupied, and farms had sometimes changed hands several times, that settlers begun to venture out on the prairies. Slowly at first, they occupied the vast plains, and that too, near the timber. But time and experience soon proved the merits of the prairie lands for agricultural purposes, and as this knowledge dawned up- on the people, they lost no time in securing prairie land, with as much zeal as they had avoided them. Thus, family after family came into Philadelphia. until the entire precinct was ocenpied.
The young men and women of the present time have no conception of the mode of lite among the early settlers of this country from forty to sixty years ago. In nothing are the habits and manners of the people in any res- peets similar to those a half century ago. We are at a loss where to begin, so as togive the youth of to-day anything like a just idea of this matter. The clothing, the dwellings, the diet, social customs-in fact, everything, has undergone a total revolution. The houses were all built of logs, the cracks filled with " chinks," and then daubed over with a mor- tar made of clay or "prairie dirt." The floor was the smooth earth or was made of rough " puncheons," and the spaces between these were often such that the younger children had to exercise great care not to step through these crevices. The roof was made of " boards," as they were called by the west- ern people, but known among the Yankees as " shakes," and when put down, were held to their places by weight-poles. The fire-place occupied one end of the cabin, and is described elsewhere in this volume. The ar- ticles used in cooking were as few and simple as can be imagined. An oven or skillet, a frying-pan, an iron pot or kettle, with occas- ionally a coffee-pot, completed the outfit of
168
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
the best furnished kitchen. Stoves were en- tirely unknown, and all the cooking was done in and around the fire-place, a fact that our modern young ladies would not relish, as it would burn and spoil their pretty faces.
Among the clothing of the pioneers, every- thing was plain, simple, and in conformity with the strictest economy. This was not only true of their dwellings, furniture and provisions, but also of their clothing. The men mostly wore hunting-shirts and pants of buekskin, and caps of eoon or fox skin, while both sexes wore moccasins instead of shoes. Many were the expedients devised by the prudent dames in the matter of clothing; for ever since that wonderful triumph of millinery art-the construction of an entire wardrobe from fig-leaves, devised long years ago in the world's early dawn, woman has been very gifted in laying plans, and adopting expedi- ents in the matter of clothing. But, un- fortunately for her skill and industry, the country afforded but little more in the line of feminine wearing apparel than did Eden in the days of our first parents. Cotton and flax were produced for some years, but they could not be raised to do much good on account of wolves and bears. Hence the people had no choice between adopting expedients and ap- pearing in a somewhat modified phase of the Highland costume. The tools and agricul- tural implements were on a par with every- thing else. The ground was broken with wooden mold-board plows, and the corn cultivated with hoes and "bull-tongue " or shovel plows. The teams were principally oxen, both for plowing and hauling. But these times of self-denial and privation are long since past. Upon the very face of nature the rolling years have writ en their record, and the wilderness has been trans- formed into a scene of loveliness. The ox- mill has given place to the steam mill, while improvement in farm machinery has kept
pace with everything else, and our clothing, particularly that of the female portion of us, is-well, wonderful to contemplate.
The people of Philadelphia worshiped in the early churches of Princeton and Virginia Precincts. There is but one church within the limits of the precinet at present, at least so far as we could learn, and that is the Chris- tian Church, at the village of Philadelphia. It originally stood in Princeton Precinct, but the membership dwindled down so small, that the church was finally moved to the village of Philadelphia. There is no regular pastor, we are informed, at present, but a Sunday school is kept up, and occasional preaching by visit- ing ministers.
The first schools of the precinct, like the first churches, are described in other chapters, and need no repetition here. There are now some four or five school houses in the precinct, good, substantial edifices, in which schools are maintained during the usual terms each year.
The old town of Lancaster, like the pre- einet which forme ly bore that name, has passed away, and nothing now remains to show where onee it stood. It was laid out by Jo: n Duteh, who had one hundred acres sur- veyed into lots in the north east quarter of the northwest quarter of section 25, township 17 and range 9 west. It was surveyed a d platted by William French, County Surveyor. The entire plat was conveyed to Erastus W. Palmer, May 8, 1837, for 8400. The town was vacated by A. Dutch, June 6, 1843. The Lancaster post-office continued until the abandonment of Philadelphia Plat in 1881.
John Dutch, the original proprietor of Lan- caster, was an old sea captain, and like most of that class, was very profane. Some time after laying out his town, le went back to Boston, whence he had come, and begged contributions to build a church, as he said, to Christianize the heathenish wester.1 people.
169
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
He raised considerable money and came back, and really did build a church, which was used as such for many years, and then moved away and changed into a barn. Mr. Dutch had been very wealthy, but had lost most of his riches. He had saved enough, however, to enter a la ge body of land in Cass County. He built a fine two-story hotel, where he laid out his town on the springfield and Beardstown State road. He kept tavern here for a good many years, but his town never grew to very large proportions, and as we have said, was finally vacated, and the very spot whereon it stood, is known to but few of the citizens of the county.
Philadelphia was laid out on the school section (16) of township 17, range 9, and the plat recorded July 11, 1836. Archibald Job qualified as trustee to section 16, July 17, 1846, and the plat of the town was made by
him as trustee. One of the first business houses of the place, was a grocery store kept by a man named Miller McLane. The town, at one time, was quite a business place and had an extensive grain trade. But the building of the railroad through Virginia drew much of the business to that point, and Philadelphia steadily declined from that time.
There is now one store, one wagon shop, one blacksmith shop, and still quite a grain market. There is one church of the Christian denomination, which has already been no- ticed.
This comprises a brief sketch of Philadel- phia, from the time of its organization and set- tlement, aside from what has been given in other chapters. It may be that there are rep- etitions, from the causes given in the preced- ing pages, but, we think, to no great extent.
1
170
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
CHAPTER XVIII .*
MONROE PRECINCT-DESCRIPTION-PHYSICAL FEATURES-SETTLEMENT AND PIONEER TIMES-GROWTH AND IMPROVEMENT-CHURCHES, SCHOOLS, ETC.
H ERE in Monroe Precinet the bold immi- grant pitched his lonely tent and staked all beside some cool bubbling spring, within the shades of some thriving grove, where his ax for the first time rang out amid the mighty solitude, frightening the denizens from their peaceful slumbers, and starting those rever- berations, whose last re-echo has changed into the screech of the iron horse and the hum of a thousand industries, which had their begin- ning in the rough, ru le cabins of those sturdy pioneers, who first penetrated the forests and prairies of the West.
We would ask for no pleas inter task than that which falls upon the chronicler of early history, could we picture and reproduce the scenes of half a century ago, that the reader might see in his imagination the unhewn log hut, with its clay filled crevices, its mud or adobe chimney, its rudely proportioned fire-place, its rough, unseemly furniture, and the general surroundings of a pioneer cabin; could we paint the rude shed with its pro- jecting poles, covered with brush, the fore- runner of the fine frame barns of to-day, groaning under the loads of grain and pro- duce, gathered from the fields which our fore- fathers conquered and subdued; could we show the roads through tangled brush, swampy slough, and unbridged streams, over which the first settlers struggled and drew their loads; could we picture all these scenes in their wild but natural beauty, as they were and existed, we would bring be-
fore many a reader similar scenes, whose im- press have been left indelibly upon the mind by the oft repeated stories of the gray- haired sires, recounted with many an animated gesture, as he lived over again those olden times.
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.