USA > Illinois > Cass County > History of Cass county, Illinois > Part 6
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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
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
known among the people as the stay law, or two-thirds law. It serves to illustrate both the hard times and the inconsiderate and un- just legislation of that day, although done with the intention of affording relief to the debtor class, without apparently thinking that it was at the expense of the creditor. This law provided that property levied upon by execution should be valued as in "ordinary times;" the valuation to be made by three householders summoned by the officer holding the writ of whom the debtor, creditor, and officer should each choose one, thus placing it in the power of the officer to favor either party at his option; the property was not to be sold unless it brought two-thirds of its valuation; no way was provided by which the ereditor if two-thirds of its valua- tion was not bid, could hold his lien; thus forcing him to stay collection or suffer dis- count of 333 per cent. This law was made applicable to all judgments rendered and con- tracts accruing prior to the Ist of May, 1841, without reference to the legal obligations of the time when contracts were entered into; being in violation of that clause of the constitution of the United States, deelaring that " no law shall be passed impairing the obligation of contracts." In the case of Mccracken v. Howard, 2d Howard, 608, the Supreme Court of the United States subsequently held this law to be unconstitutional. But, in the mean- time, the law had performed its mission, and had rendered the collection of debts almost impossible. The condition of our people was truly distressing. There was an utter dearth and stagnation of business. Abroad, the name of the State was associated with dis- honor. There were no immigrants but those who had nothing to lose; while people here, with rare exceptions, were anxious to sell out and flee a country presenting no alternative other than exorbitant taxation or disgrace. But property would not sell, nor was there any
Inoney to buy with. Indeed, money, as a means of exchange, became almost unknown. Payment was taken in trade, store pay, etc. Merchants and other dealers issued warrants or due bills, which passed for so much on the dollar in trade. Even the county commission- ers' court of Cass County came to the relief of the people, and had a plate engraved, and issued vast quantities of county warrants, or orders, in the similitude of one dollar bank bills. But these county orders, and others like them, were made invalid by an act of the legislature passed in the interest of the banks; so that even this charitable act on the part of our county commissioners to relieve the local scarcity of money, failed in its office.
At this time money was so scarce that it was with great difficulty that farmers, owning good farms, could get the money to pay their postage. It was not necessary then toprepay postage. Domestic letters cost from five to twenty-five cents apiece, according to the distance they had come; and foreign letters were still higher.
What was worse, they must all be paid for in silver, and it often occurred that a letter would lie in the office for weeks before its owner could get the silver to redeem it. If the farmers wished to get goods from the store, they were forced to buy on credit, and pay in grain or other produce, or take butter, eggs, poultry, game, honey, wood, or other articles, to exchange for store goods.
Produce continually fluctuated in price, even in store pay. We have seen corn sell at six cents often, and have heard farmers re- mark that ten cents in cash was all that corn ought to and probably ever would bring, and that farmers could get rich at that price. We have sold wheat in Beards- town at thirty-five cents per bushel, and pork often at one and one-quarter cents per pound.
One of the first acts of the County Com- missioners' Court after the organization of
49
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
this county, was to arrange for raising a rev- enue, and they passed an order that the fol- lowing kinds of property be taxed at the rate of one-half per cent .: Town lots, "inden- tured or registered negro or mulatto servants" (for this had not ceased to be a slave State at that time), pleasure carriages, stocks in trade, horses, mules, "and all neat cattle over and under three years old," hogs, sheep, wagons and earts.
A public notice was given to " all persons trading in Cass County " to procure a license according to law. Under this notice, at the September Term, 1837, Spenee & Foster, T. & J. T. Wilbourn, and Parrot & Aleott, got a license to sell goods, wares, and merchandise in Beardstown ; and Beasley & Schafer, a sim- ilar lieense at Monroe ; and all such licenses were fixed at five dollars each. Tavern li- censes were granted at seven dollars each. At the same term, a license to keep a ferry-boat, for one year, at Beardstown, was granted to Thomas Beard for twenty-two dollars.
The first county order drawn on the treas- urer, was for twenty-two dollars and fifty cents, in favor of N. B. Thompson, for the books of the County Commissioners' Court. The second was in favor of N. B. Thompson, for thirty dollars, and was for three county seals, in full, September 6, 1837.
The first term of the Circuit Court of Cass County was held in Beardstown, November 13, 1837, in a one-story frame building stand- ing at the corner of Main and State streets, where Seeger's hall now stands. Present : the Hon. Jesse B. Thomas, Jr., judge of the First Judicial Circuit ; Lemon Plaster, sheriff; and as the Circuit Clerk was not an elective office at that time, N. B. Thompson was ap- pointed clerk by the judge.
The grand jury at that time consisted of Thomas Wilbourn, foreman, Isaac Spence, Augustus Knapp, James H. Blaekman, Alex- ander Huffman, Robert Gaines, Richard
Graves, William Shoopman, Benjamin Strib- ling, John Daniels, Phineas Underwood, Eph- raim Moseley, John Robinson, Elijah Carver, John P. Dick, William MeAuley, Marcus Chandler, Henry S. Ingalls, Jeremiah Bowen, Amos Hager, and Jeremiah Northern.
There was no petit jury at this term, but talismen were drawn as they were wanted.
At the May term, 1838, Nathan alias Nathaniel Graves, was indieted for the mur- der of an eastern man named Fowle, which murder took place at what was known as Miller MeLane's grocery, kept in a log house which stood on the present site of Philadel- phia. Fowle and Alec Beard were sitting down on a log outside the grocery, talking in a friendly manner. There was quite a num- ber of persons around. Graves and Richard MeDonald came riding up on horseback from different directions about the same time. Graves dismounted, leading his horse towards Fowle, drew a pistol and shot and killed him. He was so near Fowle that the fire burnt his clothes. The men standing around were so surprised that they stood still while Graves mounted his horse and started to ride away. At this time MeDonald cried out, " Men, why don't you arrest him?" and rode after him. When Graves saw that McDona'd was about to eateh him, he drew a knife and turned around. MeDonald caught him by the throat and choked him till he surrendered, but was himself badly, almost fatally, wounded in the struggle. Graves took a change of venue to Green County, where, breaking jail, he escaped to Kentucky, where he died a natural death.
In 1839, the town of Arenzville was found- ed by Francis Arenz.
Thus matters stood from 1837 to 1843, dur- ing which time there grew a feeling of dis- satisfaction among the people of the southern half of the townships seventeen and other parts of Morgan County, with Jacksonville; and there was such effort made to dissever
50
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
their relations, that two statutes were passed by the Legislature in the session of 1843, which provided for the accomplishment of three objects: one of which was that a vote be taken whether Morgan County should be divided into two counties, one of which was to remain by the name of Morgan County, and the other by the name of Benton; second, that the tier of half townships, known as seventeen, or the " three mile strip," on the north side of Morgan County, be added to Cass County; and third, that Cass County should vote for the selection of a permanent county seat. The election on the first propo- sition was held in Morgan County on the first Monday in August, 1843, and resulted unfav- orably to the creation of the county of Benton The proposition to annex the "three-mile strip," was held in the four different precincts in that strip of territory, on the first Mon- day in May, 1845, and stood as follows:
For attaching to Cass. Against attaching.
Arenzville. 115 5
At the house of Henry Price 70
14
Princeton 41 35
At the house of Wm. Berry 20
24
Majority for attaching the "three-mile strip" to Cass, 168.
On the first Monday in September, 1843, there was an election held in Cass County to determine the permanent location of the county seat, at which election the vote stood as follows:
Precincts.
For Beardstown.
Virginia ..
2
For Virginia. 234
Richmond.
21
34
Monroe
17
7
Beardstown.
413
13-
Majority for Beardstown, 165.
The county seat was removed to Beards- town, and on the eighth day of February, 1845, the town of Beardstown presented the county commissioners' court with lot one, in block thirty-one, in that town, with the court
house and jail thereon completed. On the sixth of March, IS46, Reddick Horn sold his farm, consisting of 134 acres, in sections twenty-eight and twenty-nine, in township eighteen, range eleven, to the county of Cass, for a " home for the poor of the county," for $1,500.
By the breaking out of the Mormon war, in 1845, Beardstown again became the rendez- vous for the State forces called out to coerce into obedience to our State laws that peculiar people. The troops were under the com- mand of Brigadier-General John J. Hardin, of Jacksonville, Illinois.
The town of Chandlerville was begun in 1848, by Dr. Charles Chandler; and Ashland in 1857.
From 1850 to 1852, Cass County was in- fested by horse thieves, who resided in the county, some half dozen of which were ar- rested in the latter year, and brought before a magistrate for examination. One of the number was a large, powerful, good-looking young Hungarian, named Eugene Honorius. We were prosecuting the case, and felt satis- fied from what we could learn, that he had no heart in that nefarious business, but was in- duced to stay with the gang out of love for the sister of one of them. Not having suf- ficient testimony, we pressed him into the service as witness, and by a rigid examina- tion, extorted all the necessary facts from him sufficient to hold the rest of the gang, who were committed to jail.
Before the sitting of the Circuit Court, however, they all broke jail, and fled to Kan- sas; from whence the girl to whom Honorins was attached, wrote back to a friend the statement: That by an arrangement with the gang, after they had escaped from jail, one Sunday she asked the Hungarian to go to a religious meeting with her, down on Indian Creek. That they started on horseback, but that she decoyed him away down on Hog
51
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
Island, where they met the gang, who shot and killed him in revenge for his having " peached" on them; and that if the prose- cutors wanted to use him for a witness again they could find him at a certain place on Hog Island, and designated it.
Upon being informed of this, John Craig and the writer rode down there, and at the place designated in the girl's letter, we found the bones of a man, evidently about the large size of Honorius, but so much torn to pieces and broken by animals, that we could find but three whole bones, the two thighs and the jaw bone, which we have yet in our posses- sion. The perpetrators were never re-taken, but the county was not troubled with horse- thieves for a long time afterwards.
By virtue of the State Constitution of 1848, a statute was passed by the legislature of 1849, abolishing the County Commissioners' Court, and the office of Probate Justice of the Peace, and creating instead the County Court, con- sisting of one judge and two associate justices of the peace.
The first court elected under the new law was: James Shaw, judge; Wm. Taylor and Thomas Plaster, associates.
At the same session an act was passed authorizing counties to adopt township organ-
ization, if a majority of the citizens should favor it. An effort was made at that time, and several others by a vote of the people have been made since, to adopt that form of county government in Cass County, but have failed; the people in every instance prefer- ring to remain under the old form of organi- zation.
In the same year, 1849, Beardstown was incorporated as a city, with the same charter as those of Springfield and Quincy. In this year also occurred the third election for loca- tion of the county seat, which was decided in favor of Beardstown. Another election was had in 1857, and another in 1868, for the same purpose, but the county seat still remained at Beardstown. Another election was held in 1872, under the Constitution of 1870, and a new general statute governing re- location of county seats. The history of this last election and its results is too fresh in the memory to need repeating now. By it the county seat was removed to Virginia, where it now remains.
The first census taken after Cass County was formed, was in 1840; it then had a total population of 2,981. In 1850, it had 7,253; in 1860, 11,325; in 1870, 11,580; in 1880, 14,493.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
CHAPTER V.
FERTILE LANDS OF CASS-ITS GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS-COAL MEASURES-DIFFERENT DEPOSITS-COAL -- BUILDING STONE-LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVES FROM CASS COUNTY - PRINCIPAL COUNTY OFFICERS SINCE FORMATION - ILLINOIS RIVER ITEMS, ETC.
CASS County, being highly favored with fer- tile lands, and all which, with industry, goes to make up wealth, has prospered ever since it was formed. In the beginning it had but little developed wealth. A few farms scattered along the edges of the timbered lands or in the river bottom-lands and the little town of Beardstown was about all. But notwithstanding its small territory, it has bounded along and now competes with its most progressive neighbors. Its prairie and bottom lands are now in cultivation, and great farms and substantial farm houses now stand where a few years since were waste places. A few years ago the barren lands, (so-called because a former growth of timber was supposed to have exhausted the soil) were unsettled, and considered almost worthless, but now they are known to be very produc- tive, especially for wheat, and have been all taken up and mostly cultivated. Also the sand-ridges seattered along the river bottoms are found to be profitable for the production of melons, sweet potatoes, beans, etc., and have been turned to account for these pur- poses. Our eities and towns are in a prosper- ous condition, having their fair share of manufactories, and commerce and other means of continued prosperity. We have the Illinois river and abundance of railroads for business and pleasure ; the St. Louis & Rock Island, Peoria, Pekin & Jacksonville, and Chicago & Alton R. R.'s running north and south, and the Beardstown and Spring-
field branch of the O. & M., running east and west.
The history of the present generation of the prominent and representative people of Cass County will be found in the biographies and in the description of its cities, towns and business, as set forth in other parts of this work, and which will form a continuation of this history.
Cass County is bounded on the north by Mason County, on the east by Menard County, on the south by Morgan County, and on the west by the centre of the channel of the Illinois river. Its superficial area is about four hundred and sixty square miles. The level of its high prairie lands is about six hundred and thirty feet above that of the ocean, forty-five feet above the level of Lake Michigan, and three hundred and forty feet above low water at Cairo, in the Illinois river.
The surface of the county is, for the most part, gently undulating, becoming hilly and broken only along the courses of the streams. In the western part, along the Illinois river, there is a strip of bottom land, varying in width from three and one-half to five miles. This extends also along the Sangamon river, on the northern border.
The soil of the prairie portion of this county is the same as that in the whole of this por- tion of the State, a dark-colored loam with a lighter colored clay sub-soil. On the ridges and bluffs which skirt the streams, we find
53
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
this sub-soil everywhere, except upon the Loess formation, exposed at the surface of the ground, and generally bearing a heavy growth of timber. On the bottom lands the soil is an alluvial arenaceous loam, and, ex- cepting in localities where the sand too greatly predominates, is an excellent and productive soil.
The principal kinds of timber upon the up- lands are the common varieties of oak, hickory, elm, sugar maple, black and white walnut, linden, and various species which are rather less frequent. On the bottoms there are the willow, soft maple, ash, sycamore, cottonwood, water oak, etc., in addition to some of the be- fore-mentioned species, forming a consider- able proportion of the timber. The propor- tion of prairie to wooded land is probably nearly evenly divided.
The geological formations in this county consist of the Quaternary deposits, the Loess and Drift, and the Coal Measures, which alone of the older formation underlie the surface beds of clay, gravel, etc. The Loess forms the bluffs along the Illinois and Sangamon bottoms. Its general features here are the same as in the other river counties, and it forms the same bold bluffs that are seen in other localities along the Illinois and Missis- sippi Rivers. The material here is an ash or buff-colored marly sand, containing fossil fresh-water shells of existing species. The thickness of the formation is considerable, some sixty or seventy feet immediately at the bluffs, but it rapidly thins out in the back country, in many places disappearing entirely within a very short distance. It appears to extend the farthest inland along the Sanga- mon River north of Virginia, and several good sections of this deposit may be seen in the cuts on the Peoria, Pekin and Jacksonville Railroad, between that place and Chandler- ville.
The Drift Deposits consist of brown, yellow
and blue clays, with boulders, while sand and gravel seams are of frequent occurrence amid the mass. The thickness can hardly be esti- mated, as experiments have not been made, but will probably range between forty and one hundred feet.
Coal Measures, so far as developed, com- prises a thickness of over three hundred feet of the middle and lower portion of the series, and contains two or three seams of coal of workable thickness. The principal exposures, commencing with the lowest, are as follows:
In the southwest part of section 21, town- ship 18, range 11, where the wagon road be- tween Virginia and Beardstown comes down through the bluffs to the bottom lands along the Illinois river, there are several old coal shafts, only one of which (late Mr. Kinney's) is now worked. This is reported to have afforded the following section:
1. Soil (Loess) 15 feet.
2. Brownish sandstone, containing many vegeta- ble impressions 13 «
3. Limestone (" Blue Rock ") 2 4
4. Clay Shale (" Soapstone ") 12 «
5. Coal (No. 1 of Illinois river section) 3
6. Fire clay, very hard 4 4
No. 2 of this section crops out along the bluff road, at the edge of the bluffs, and a few rods farther west, in ledges several feet in vertical exposure. It is a soft micaceous sandstone, of a light brown or whitish brown color, and appears slightly crumbling at this locality. About a quarter of a mile further north the coal seam No. 4 is reported to have been reached by digging in at the foot of the bluff and worked by stripping. Still farther to the northward, in the northwest quarter of the same section, in an old quarry on the side of the bluff, a little to the right of the wagon road, is an exposure of about ten feet in thickness, of a heavy bedded sandstone, the same as that which is met with in the shaft, and exposed on the roadside near by. A lit-
-
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
tle farther northeast, near the eastern line of section 16, the coal seam is said to appear again, and to have been worked to a slight extent in the side of a ravine about half a mile from the road.
Above the north line of section 21, the bluffs, for about two miles, are mostly of Loess, and it is necessary to go up the side ravines in order to see the exposures of rock. About half a mile up the large ra- vine, which cuts through the bluffs in the southern part of section 10, on the eastern side, there is another exposure of the sand- stone (No. 2 of the section), and a little above this, near the northwest corner of section 14, there is about ten feet exposed of the shales No. 4, capped by a single layer of limestone two feet thick (No. 3).
The coal seam must be very near the bot- tom of the ravine at this point, but it is not exposed.
The outcrops of the sandstone continue up this ravine and its branches in the eastern part of section 14 and the western part of section 15, for about three-quarters of a mile above this point, and then disappear entirely. The rock is, in most respects, the same as in the localities before described, a soft, even textured sandstone, varying in color from brownish red to a dirty white, and in some portions having a light bluish tinge and a slightly variegated appearance.
It contains a great abundance of fossil vegetable remains, calamites, etc., but from the nature of the rock very few are found in a good state of preservation.
From the mouth of this ravine, for a short distance to the northeast, along the face of the bluffs, there are no very good exposures of any of the beds. There seems to be here, however, a low anticlinal, the strata having gradually risen until, at this point, the coal seam No. 4 has been worked by drifting into tlie side of the bluff alinost midway between
the base and summit. The crown of the arch is very near this point, and the direction of the axis of the fold must be, judging from ap- pearances, about southeast.
The seam of coal is said to be about three feet thick at this point, but at present only the entrances to the old drifts and the debris can be seen, no work having been done here for a number of years.
A short distance furtlier along the bluff road, nearly on the line between sections 10 and 11, another large ravine opens out, and the rock again appears. The coal seam was formerly worked also at this point, at a level some fifteen or twenty feet above the road, though its outcrop is not now visible. Just below the level of the old drift there is an outcrop of what appears to be a nodular ar- gillaceous limestone, which is probably just underlying the fire-clay.
Above the opening of the drift the Shale No. 4 appears, and still higher up the bank the Limestone No. 3 has been slightly quar- ried, and above all the sandstone No. 2 ap- pears, but at present the debris of the sand- stone and shale covers all the lines of junc- tion, and no very reliable measurements of the thickness of the beds can be taken. The sandstone continues to appear in the sides of the ravine, and in the bed of the small stream which occupies it for upwards of half a mile. Its total thickness, although in no place so fully exposed as to afford an opportunity for accurate measurement, can hardly be less than fifty or sixty feet.
East of the mouth of this ravine, through the northern half of sectio: 11, this sandstone appears in ledges in the bluffs, at an elevation of fifty feet or more above the road, and has been quarried in some of the small ravines. In one of these ravines, in the Northeast quarter of section 11, there was a single ont- crop of the coal seam, the exposed thickness of which is about three feet. This is on the
55
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
Northeastern slope of the anticlinal, and only a little further on the Loess and Alluvium come down to the road, and the exposures of rock cease to appear for the distance of sever- al miles.
Leaving the last mentioned localities, and continuing castward along the base of the bluffs, the next prominent exposure is met with near the center of the western part of section ten, township eighteen, range ten, on the left bank of Job's creek, just above the point where it comes out of the bluffs and enters the bottoms. Here the Sandstone No. two has been quarried in the hillside, some thirty feet or more above the water, presenting pre- cisely the same appearance as at the other localities already mentioned. The lower beds of limestone and shale, and the coal seams, if, indeed, they occur above the bottom of the ravine at all, are completely hidden by the fragments and debris from above. The sand- stone appears again at one or two points further east, within the distance of one mile, in the northeast quarter of section ten, and almost on the line between sections ten and eleven.
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