USA > Illinois > Cass County > History of Cass county, Illinois > Part 9
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Archibald Job, Henry Hopkins and Thos. Redmon, were early settlers in Virginia Pre- cinet. Mr. Job was a native of Maryland, and settled in what he called Sylvan Grove, now the present site of Virginia, in Cass County, in 1820. From an article, in the Jacksonville Journal, written by William Thomas in 1874, we extract most of our information concern- ing Mr. Job. In 182 2 he was elected to the legislature from the district, composed of the county of Greene, and the territory afterward included in Morgan County, and again iu 1824, from the counties of Morgan and Greene.
In 1826 he was elected to the Senate from the district composed of the counties of Mor- gan, Pike, Adams, Schuyler, Fulton and Peoria. During this service of eight years, his constituents never had cause to regret his election, nor to complain of his want of devotion to their interests. He maintained the character of an honest, fearless, intelligent and industrious representative. In 1830, he was again a candidate for the Senate, but was defeated, not because of any complaint of his previous action, or of any want of confidence in his ability and integrity, but because the Whig party, with which he was identified, was in the minority. Upon the passage of the law providing for the building of the State House at Springfield, because of his known integrity and intelligence, he was appointed one of the State house commissioners. At the time of his death he was about ninety years of age. Mrs. Job, it is said, never saw the face of a white woman for six months after landing in this county. She used to say that she had very good neighbors among the Indians, who were then numerous in this section. Their nearest neighbors lived fifteen miles distant, and St. Louis was their post office. Mr. Clark came in 1827 and settled at North Grove, three miles west of the present town of Virginia. In 1836 he moved to Iowa, but in 18 0 re- turned to Cass County, and settled again in the neighborhood. He afterward removed to Bluff Springs, where he died in 1852.
Hopkins was a native of Delaware, and emi- grated first to Woodford County, Kentucky, then to Clarke County, Indiana. From there he removed to Morgan County, Illinois, in 1825, and located in Sugar Grove the next year, and which was in Virginia Precinct un- til a few years ago, when Philadelphia Pre- cinct was formed. He lived there until in 1875, then removed into Virginia, and died in 1879, at the age of eighty-five years. ITe was married in 1817, and his widow still sur-
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
vives him at the age of eighty-four, and is the mother of twelve children, ten of whom are now living.
About the year 1825-26, William Holmes came to the precinct, and was followed the next year by Thomas Redmon, Benjamin Stribling, and a man named Street. Holmes was from New York, and made his home with Hopkins until his marriage, in 1828-29. They improved their land in common, and for several years farmed in partnership. He was a man of intelligence, of considerable public spirit, and a graduate of an Eastern college ; probably the first college graduate who ever settled in Cass County. He commenced his public career as a school teacher in his own im- mediate neighborhood. He served as county surveyor, and as the first representative in the legislature from Cass County, after its forma- tion in 1837. Redmon settled about half a mile south of Hopkins', and was from Logan County, Kentucky. Although a man of quite ordinary intellect, he was very pious, upright, a kind of exhorter or local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and took an active part in molding the society of his day and generation. He died about 1840, and is without relatives or descendants now in this re- gion. Stribling was also from Logan County, Kentucky, and first located near the present village of Liter, now in Morgan County, but in 1829 bought out Street, who had settled and improved the farm now owned by J. M. Stribling. After selling out to Stribling, Street, moved about a mile and a half west, and improved another place, upon which was built one of the primitive grist mills of Cass County. He left about 1834, and went to Iowa, where he was lost sight of long since. None of his descendants now live in the county.
Among other pioncers of this precinct, may be mentioned Anthony Thomas, Col. A. S. West, Joshua P. Crow, Thomas S. Berry,
Benjamin Cauby, Berry Freeman, a man named Paschall, and others whose names are now forgotten. Anthony Thomas came about 1827-28 and located on what is now known as the Frotter farm, lying on the south side of Sugar Grove. He sold out in 1840 and re- moved with his family to the Rock River Country. Sugar Grove and Sylvan Grove, which have been several times referred to, were two bodies of timber, situated about three or four miles southeast of the present city of Virginia.
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Col. West came in about 1828, and im- proved the farm now owned by Cain Owens, lying north of the city, and partly inside of the corporate limits. He was a very enter- prising and active business man, and was the second representative in the legislature, from Cass County, succeeding Mr. Holmes in that august body. He was for a time a merchant in the town of Virginia, and traded extensive- 'y in cattle and pork, a business he com- menced in 1839. Like many other good business men, he failed in the financial crash of 1840-42. Crow first settled where William Campbell now lives, in 1828-29, to whom he sold out, and afterwards moved to Missouri. He served for a number of years as a justice of the peace. In 1843, he was the Demo- cratic candidate against John W. Pratt, for the State Legislature, but was defeated by 27 rotes.
Thomas S. Berry emigrated to Cass County, from near Fredericksburg, Virginia, a distance of about nine hundred miles. He came through on horseback, with his entire posses- sions in a pair of saddle-bags, and reached Ben- jamin Stribling's in November, 1829, where he spent the winter. He assisted Stribling in gathering corn in the field, and bringing it in to feed stock, and the remainder of his time he spent in hunting. He taught school about two years, worked on a farm by the month, and in August, 1833, assisted his father,
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William S. Berry, to remove his family to Cass County. In 1834, he bought a farm in Virginia Precinct, on which he resided until his death in 1847. James Berry came to Cass County in 1830, from Orange County, Virgin- ia. He taught school and worked on a farm until 1833, when he purchased land of L. T. Bryant; he died in 1849. Benjamin Cauby came to Virginia Precinct in 1830, and was a Cumberland Presbyterian preacher. He organized, or rather reorganized old Shiloh Church; was a zealous Christian and an able minister. He died in 1845, in the prime of life. Freeman and Paschall were brothers-in- law, and settled a little northeast of town, about 1830. They were both thrifty and in- dustrious men, and bore an active part in subduing the country, and opening it up to civilization. The only son of Freeman was a lieutenant in Company D, One Hundred and Fourteenth Illinois Infantry, in the late civil war, and was captured at Guntown, Miss- issippi. He was put on a train with other captured officers, and started south to prison, but jumped from the train while running at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and made his escape from the guards. After spending a week in wandering through the country, he finally found his way to a camp of Union soldiers, and was sent at once to his regiment, with which he served until the close of the war.
Charles Oliver, Thomas Gatton, John Epler and Jacob Petefish, were also early settlers of Virginia Precinct; but first located on Little Indian, in what is now Princeton Precinet, where they will be further noticed. Epler came from Pennsylvania, and has a good inany descendants still in the county. Gattou came from Maryland, and was one of the early merchants of the county. Oliver came to Virginia in 1835, and was for a time a clerk for Dr. Hall. Mr. Petefish also has a num- ber of descendants in the county. There are
many others, doubtless, who deserve mention among the early settlers of the precinct, but their names have faded from the memories of the pioneers still left among us. Many, in fact most of the first settlers of the precinct who were prominently indentified with its early history, have passed away "as a tale that is told." A few have scattered to other lands, but far the greater number have gone to the land of dreams.
When the first settlements were made here game was plenty, and the people depended mostly on it for meat; game and corn-bread, with wild honey, constituted the almost uni- versal diet for several years. The clothing worn by both the male and female members of the family, was manufactured at home by the women, on the old fashioned spinning- wheel, cards and loom. The men dressed deer skins, out of which were made panta- loons, hunting shirts and moccasins; they made shoes from leather tanned at home by themselves; of course this kind of material made rather a rough shoe, but being the best that could be procured, they were content; in fact, such shoes best suited the rough jaunts taken on foot by many of the pioneers through brush, briers, swamps and grass, wet with dew and rain.
Everything not manufactured at home was termed a "store " article, as "store shoes," " store hat," etc., and any one attired in " store clothes," excited envy in the younger members of the community, and many a young lass, when appearing in public, consid- ered herself highly honored if so fortunate as to secure the attention of a "feller " ar- rayed in " store clothes," furnishing striking instance of that weakness in human nature, quite as common in this enlightened age --- that of judging persons by external appear- ances.
In those early days, the people managed to get along without nails, glass, sawed lumber
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
or brick, for the reason they could not procure them. Their houses were small, consisting of one story, built of logs or poles, unhewed, with the ends projecting from six inches to two feet at the corners, and the cracks between the logs were filled with sticks and daubed with clay. The doors were made of boards fast- ened in place with wooden pegs and hung with wooden hinges. A wooden latch raised by a string, served as a fastening ; the string had one end tied to the latch and the other passed through a small hole above it, and when the door was fastened, one end of the string was hanging out. "The latch-string out " was the pioneers' emblem of hospitality. The fireplaces were from six to ten feet in width, and in them large logs blazed on win- ter nights, warming the entire household. At one side of these capacious hearths, one ar- ticle always stood conspicuous, viz : the kettle of "blue dye," with which the old ladies colored their "yarn" for weaving. This kettle being covered with an old barrel head, or something of the kind, often did service as a seat for some members of the family, and even for visitors. Young fellows, when on courting expeditions, sometimes found it a very convenient seat with the objects of their affections in close proximity. "Some of the best men or our country," an old gentleman informed us, who had probably been there himself, " wooed and won their brides, seated on a kettle of ' bhie dye, ' by the blazing fire of the backwoodsman's rude cabin." On the outside of the houses, it was no uncommon thing to see a goodly number of raccoon and deer skins "stretched" against the wall to dry, and occasionally the skin of a wild cat, wolf or bear. The projecting ends of the logs, at each corner of the cabin, served as places to hang the various utensils used on the farm, such as hoes, rakes, bridles and harness, or "gears," as they were then called.
The first improvement of importance to the
pioneer, after he has erected a shelter for himself and family, is a mill, an industry that always advances with civilization. Judge Shaw tells us in his centennial address on Cass County, that the first mill accessible to the pioneers of the county was Jarvoe's mill on Cahokia Creek, and that in 1821 a mill was erected on Indian Creek, and later a horse- mill was erected at Clary's Grove, in Menard County. These mills served the people in this section until able to build mills for them- selves. One of the first in this precinct, of which we have any account, was built by a Mr. Street, about 1831-2, on the southeast quarter of section 29, town 18 and range 10. It was a primitive affair, but, as we were in- formed, was "better than none at all." H. H. Hall built a water grist mill some two miles northeast of the present city of Virginia, about 1838, on Job Creek. It was for grind- ing corn and wheat, and had but one run of burrs, driven by a horizontal water-wheel with upright shaft. Its capacity was about eight to ten bushels per hour. As population increased,'and the community became wealthy. other mills were built for the accommodation of the growing population. Other improve- ments were male in the precinct. Roads were laid out, and put in order, thus render- ing travel a less task than formerly, and where they crossed streams and sloughs, bridges were built. Good roads now pass through the precinct in every direction, diverging from the county scat, and while they do not com- pare with macadamized roads, they are about as good as Illinois soil will make without artificial aid.
The pioneer fathers were alive to the ad- vantages of education, and lost no time in establishing schools in the different settle- ments. Mr. Keiling Berry is authority for the fact that a school was taught in the precinct as early as 1830. During the first few years after settlements were made, there were no
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
schoolhouses or churches built in the precinct. Schools were taught in abandoned cabins, and conducted on the subscription plan. The teacher made out his proposition on pa- per, and the parents "signed " as many scholars as they had, or could afford to pay for, agreeing to pay a specified sum for tui- tion a certain number of months. The first school taught in the precinct, so far as we have learned, was taught by William Holmes, in one of these abandoned cabins, at Sugar Grove, Mr. Berry says, about the year 1830. Keiling Berry himself taught a subscription, or on the select school plan, from November 19, 1839, to September 1, 1840, in a log cabin still standing on the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of section 27, township 17, and range 10. This is doubtless the oldest building now standing in the neighborhood, used as a temple of learning. The Angier school house which stood on the northwest corner of section 4, is believed to have been the first built in the precinct, especially for school purposes. It was erected by the people of the community by their own mutual labor, and afterward became the property of the district. It was burned some eight or ten years ago.
School facilities increased with the advanc- ing tide of immigration, and new houses were built as they were needed. At the present time there are some half a dozen school houses in the precinct outside of the city of Virginia. These are good, comfortable houses, fitted up with modern furniture, and present quite a contrast to those of fifty years ago.
There are at present two churches in Vir- ginia precinct outside of the city. Shiloh Cumberland Presbyterian Church is located some three and a half miles west of the city of Virginia, and was built in 1857. The con- gregation was organized at the house of Nathan Compton, in Jersey Prairie, in Mor- gan County, in the fall of 1827, by the Rev.
J. M. Berry. After the congregation was permanently organized, it was attached to the Sangamon Presbytery, and was represented in the semi-annual meetings of that body, from time to time, until about the year 1835. Hitherto the church had been supplied with preaching, chiefly by Revs. Berry and William M Cord, the latter of whom died in August, 1833. Rev. Benjamin Cauby, who moved into the bounds of the church about the year 1830, began to preach to this and neighboring societies after Mr. McCord's decease. Mr. Compton, one of the first elders, had moved away, and the records of the church were either lost or mislaid. Under this state of af- fairs, Rev. Cauby deemed it proper to re-or- ganize the congregation, which was done in 1837, at the Shiloh meeting house, and which had been built upon land donated by Mr. Cauby for that purpose. The following reso- lution was adopted : " Whereas, We, the undersigned, believe it to be our privilege and duty to attach ourselves to some branch of the church of God. and, so far a we have read and examined, the government and discipline of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church also believing that it agrees with our views most in accordance with Apostolic mode, do and hereby order our names to be enrolled as members of the Mount Pleasant Congregation of the Presbyterian Church." Following are the names of those who signe 1: Rev. Benja- min Cauby, Joseph Cauby and wife, Abner Tining, Richard Matthews, Sarah Street, Susan and Mary Beasley, Nancy Morgan, D. A. McCord, Ann, Elizabeth, Sarah and Eliza Jane McC rd, Elizabeth Thompson, Sarah Fraesell, James B. Thompson, William and Sarah Lowrance, Margaret Schaffer, Richard D. and John B. Thomps n, Amanda Matthews, Samuel B., Matilda, Matilda J., and Sarah J. Thompson, Catharine Pratt, and II. S. Schaffer.
The present elders of the church are: L.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
McNeil, Henry Bierhause, and Daniel Bid- dlecome. The church has now forty mem- bers, under the pastorate of Rev. J. E. Roach, and a good comfortable church building.
A Sunday-school of about twenty-five pupils is carried on in connection with the church. Danicl Biddlecome is the present superinten- dent, a position he has held for the past twelve years. The school was held at the Union school-house until within the past two years, when it was removed to the church where the church organ adds a pleasant ac- companiment to the singing and to the gen- eral interest of the school.
Bethlehem Methodist Church is located
about three miles south of Virginia, on the road to Jacksonville. It was built more than thirty years ago, and was originally a kind of union church, being used by several denomi- nations, but for many years has been occupied only by the Methodists.
Virginia Precinct contains the county-seat of the county, and as is usually the case, much of the history of the precinct centers in the county seat, leaving but little to say in the preliminary chapter, beyond the mere settle- ment of the precinct, and the mention of a few minor topies. With this brief sketch of Virginia precinct, we will close this chapter, and in a new one take up the city's history.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
CHAPTER VIII.
CITY OF VIRGINIA-ITS BIRTH, LOCATION AND GROWTH-SALE OF LOTS, AND ADDITIONS TO THE TOWN-DR. HALL, FOUNDER OF VIRGINIA-FIRST HOUSE AND STORE- PUBLIC SQUARE AND COURT HOUSE-BUSINESS IN THE WEST END-THE PRESENT BUSINESS CENTRE-HOTELS, MILLS, ETC .- DOCTORS AND LAWYERS-BANKING BUSINESS-INCORPORATION OF THE CITY-MUNICIPAL OFFICES-SUMMARY, ETC., ETC.
TN historic annals we are enabled to meas- ure social progress. Society, as it circles outward from a common centre, has a ten- dency to degenerate from its original and higher type to one of a lower tone and stand- ard. History reveals the fact that every re- ceding circle of civilization has lessened the forces forming and completing a perfect state of society. On nearly every wave of immi- gration some good seed is borne to grow up in the opening soil of the new country. The good seed is usually sufficient to begin the work of raising society to a higher level of civilization, and their transforming power counteracts those demoralizing influences which tend to social degeneration and disrup- tion, as the lawless and vicious seek the frontiers, where there is less restraint from civil power. This good seed becomes the nucleus around which gather those influences necessary to carry society onward to a state of comparative perfection. By a comparison with the rude and rough scenes of the past, we may see how much has been done in this respect. The moral and social standard of the community afford unbounded evidence that much good seed has fallen in this local- ity.
The city of Virginia, to which this chapter is devoted, and the county seat of Cass County, is beautifully situated in a fine re- g on of country, near the geographical cen-
tre of the county, and is surrounded by some of the best and most productive farms in the State. The Peoria, Pekin & Jacksonville Railroad, and the Springfield division of the Ohio & Mississippi, cross here, and furnish the citizens of the place, and the farmers of the adjacent neighborhood, ample facilities for shipping, as well as travel.
Virginia was laid out by Dr. H. H. Hall, who owned the land upon which it is lo- cated. It was surveyed by Johnston C. Shel- ton, May 17, 1836, and the original plat oc- cupied a portion of township 17, range 10, west. The first sale of lots was made Au- gust 6, 1836, and the records show that Joel Horn purchased lot 5; E. B. Gentry, lot 6; George Garlick, lot 7; M. H. Beadles, lots 8 and 9; Isaiah Paschal, lot 10; J. B. Gentry, lot 11; Zebedee Wood, lots 12, 18, and 19; Franklin Marshall, lot 20; William S. Horn, lot 21; Henry T. Foster, lot 22; L. S. Saun- ders, lot 24; Joel Horn, lot 28; William Quigg, lot 33, etc., etc. Dr. Hall made an addition to the town, which was surveyed and platted, July 1, 1837, and on the 25th of Au- gust the sale of lots in this addition took place.
A number of them were sold on the day of the sale, and the remainder before the close of the year. The town, for a new place, in a sparsely settled district, grew rapidly, and bid fair to become a place of considerable business.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
Dr. Hall, the proprietor and founder of Virginia, was a native of Ireland, and a reg- ular graduated physician. He served for a time as surgeon in the British navy, and in that capacity came here in the war of 1812, remaining in this country after its close, and in 1818 settling in Virginia. He remained a citizen of the Old Dominion until his removal to Illinois in 1835. He first visited the West in 1831, and during his stay entered several hundred acres of land, upon a portion of which the city of Virginia now stands. Re- turning to his home, he remained there until 1835, when he removed to Illinois and settled upon the lands he had already entered here, and the next year laid out the town of Vir- ginia, which he called after the State he had first chosen for his home after becoming a citizen of the United States. Up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1847, he was the ruling spirit of the growing town, and one of its chief business men, fully alive to its in- terests, as well as to those of the county, and manifesting his zeal by encouraging all enter- prises looking to the development and im- provement of the common country and to his own county. He built the first house within the present limits of the city, and prior to the laying out of the place. It stood on what is now Springfield street, one block east of the public square, and was a frame building a story and a half high. He was not only the first settler of the town of Virginia, but was also the first merchant, and opened the first store in the place in 1836, having for a clerk at the time Charles Oliver, afterward a prominent merchant himself. The first sale made from Dr. Hall's store was by Mr. Oliver, and consisted of three pairs of shoes for the family of Win. S. Berry, and the pur- chase of which was made by his son, Keiling Berry, still a well known citizen of Virginia.
An addition of public grounds was made hy Dr. Hall, surveyed by Wm. Holmes, coun-
ty surveyor, on the 21st of June, 1838. Vir- ginia had then become the county seat, and Mr. Holmes drove down a stake in the cen- ter of the public square, as the spot whereon the court house should be built. The addi- tion comprised fifteen acres, donated by Dr. Hall, and deeded to the commissioners of Cass County for public buildings. A court house was erected on the square, and after the county seat was moved back to Beards- town, the house and grounds were sold to the town for school purposes, and with the house rebuilt, are still so used. Originally the bus- iness section was in the western part of town, and there still remains many traces of the old business houses around the square, now the school grounds, as the laying out of a square and the erection of a court house drew the business around it.
Hall & Thomas made an addition to Vir- ginia, May 15, 1839; surveyed and platted by John Clark, county surveyor. The same parties made another addition June 12, 1856; it was surveyed by John Craig, and ac- knowledge before Henry Rabourn, a jus- tice of the peace. Robert Hall has made several additions; one surveyed by John Craig, June 26, 1856, and another platted by the same surveyor August 29, 1859, and acknowledged before Squire Henry Rabourn. Barton & Wood made an addition June 21, 1856; surveyed by R. C. Crumpton. H. H. Hall, Jr., made an addition March 5, 1866, which was surveyed by J. T. Dunbar, county surveyor. Several other additions have been made by different parties, until at the present day, Virginia covers enough ground for a city of ten thousand inhabitants.
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