USA > Illinois > Christian County > History of Christian County, Illinois > Part 31
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The second minister of the church was Rev. Timothy Hill, a brother of Edward S. Ilill, one of the original members; he labored here nearly three years. Under his ministry quite an extensive re-
vival oeeurred, in consequence of which the church received about 30 members. Mr. Hill was the son of Rev. Ebenezer and Abigail (Jones) Hill, and was born in Mason, N. H., June 30th, 1819. His father was the pastor of the Congregational Church at Mason for 64 years. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1842, and at Union Theological Seminary in 1845; was licensed by the Third Presbytery of New York in April, 1845, and ordained by the Presbytery of St. Louis, October 22d, 1846; was supply pastor of Presbyterian Church, St. Charles, Mo., 1846-1851; Fairmount Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, Mo., 1852-1860; Congregational Church, Rosemond, February, 1861, to October, 1863 ; Shelbyville, Illinois, Presbyterian Church, October, 1863, to July, 1865; Second Presbyterian Church, Kansas City, Mo., 1865-1868 ; District Sec- retary Pres. Board of Home Missions from October, 1865, to the present time. Received title of D.D. from Highland Univer- sity in 1873. Married November 2d, 1854, Frances Augusta Hall, and has two children living.
The third minister was Rev. Edward B. Tuthill, who remained but one year, viz., from April, 1864, to April, 1865, during which time the church received six members. The church was then a year without a minister; but regular services were sustained, and eleven members added. After leaving Rosemond, Mr. Tuthill was supply pastor of the Congregational Church at Coneord, Illinois, eleven years, and has since leaving there labored in Colorado and California.
The fourth minister was Rev. Alfred A. Whitmore, who also re- mained but one year, beginning June 1st, 1866. In that year five members were added, and the church building was erected at a cost of $3,200. The congregation had worshiped for some years in the school-house, but owing to some difficulty created by members of another denomination, the directors refused to allow this house to be used any longer for religious services.
Mr. Whitmore was born near Geneva, N. Y., July 7th, 1817; grad- uated at Oberlin in 1846; labored one and a half years as an evangel- ist; was supply pastor of Congregational Church, Ash burnham, Mass., 1848-1853; labored in Ohio, 1853-1864; was supply pastor of Congregational Church, Henry, Marshall county, Ills., 1864-1866, and of Rosemond Congregational Church, 1866-7. Since leaving Rosemond he has labored in northern Illinois and Iowa. He married September 17th, 1849, Martha P. Fletcher, of Enosburgh, Vermont, and has six children living.
The fifth minister was Rev. John R. Barnes, who remained a little more than two years. The most extensive revival the church has known occurred under his ministry, and forty-three members were added to the church.
Mr. Barnes was born in Southington, Ohio, December 15th, 1829 ; graduated at Oberlin College in 1861 ; was approbated for the ministry by Plymouth Rock Association at Hampden, Ohio, in 1862; preached a few months for the churelics of Hartford and Fowler, Ohio, and then entered Andover Theological Seminary ; graduated there in 1865 ; ordained at Plainfield, Connecticut, Oct. 5th, 1865, and preached there until the spring of 1867 ; was supply pastor at Rosemond, June, 1867, to September, 1869; at Collinsville, Illinois, Presbyterian Church, September, 1869, to April, 1874; at Earlville, Illinois, Congregational Church, November, 1874, to November, 1876; at Eldora, Iowa, Congregational Church, Novem- ber, 1876, to November, 1878; since February, 1879, has been sup- ply pastor at Fayette Congregational Church, Iowa.
The sixth and present minister of the church is Chas. T. Dering. Ile was born on Long Island, N. Y., January 21st, 1842; graduated at Hamilton College, 1864, and at Andover Seminary, 1868; began labor here December, 1869, and was ordained pastor of the church,
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HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
March 9th, 1870. During his ministry the church has received fifty-one members. He married, October 26th, 1876, Mary J., daughter of William Bailey, of Rosemond.
The oldest member at the organization of the church was Mrs. Debby Amelia Hawley, widow of Rev. Wm. A. Hawley, of Hins- dale, Mass. Her brother, Mr. B. E. Warner, and all her living children except one, were members of the Rosemond colony. She was the mother of Benj. R. Hawley, Mrs. John Putnam, Mrs. Brai- nard Smith, Mrs. O. M. Hawkes, and Mrs. John L. Marvin. AH these were among the original members of the church. She died April 8th, 1858, aged 69.
THE GERMAN EVANGELICAL ST. JOHN'S CHURCH AT PANA, ILLS.
BY REV. FRED. PFEIFFER.
Rev. Matthias Galster, a pioneer of the German Evangelical Synod of N. A., located at Pana, after having worked for many years in Ohio and Indiana, and organized a congregation ten miles north-east of this city, and began to preach in August, 1864. In September he organized a congregation under the name of German Evangelical Lutheran. Its first members were L. Schlierbach, Nichol Neu, Michael Neu, Christian Neu, Peter Neu, L. Paul, and 1. Botschner. Its first stewards were L. Schlierbach and Nichol Neu. The services were held partly in the first M. E. Church, while on its old site, and partly in the old city school building, called the Lawrence School. In order to have a house of worship of their own, they passed in a meeting in December, 1865, a resolu- tion to build a frame church, 40x25, which resolution was without delay executed at a cost of $3000.
In another meeting, the members then united, changed the name " Evangelical Lutheran " into simply "German Evangelical," with the additional "St. John's," so that it now bears the name " German " Evangelical St. John's Church." As the founder of the church, Rev. Galster, lived too great a distance from the town, the con- gregation thought it to their best interest to have a minister of the
gospel residing in their midst, and, according to the advice of brother Galster, tendered a call to Rev. J. Gubler, then at St. Charles, Mo. He accepted and entered his field in this city in July, 1870. As the congregation had no parsonage then, the preacher had to rent for one year, at the expiration of which they bought the very same building with lot for $475.
Rev. Gubler connected with his charge at Pana a new field eight miles west of Taylorville, so that in Pana he preached but every other Sabbath. For three years he taught a parochial school. As a great desire was manifested by the Americans to learn the German language, the German school was then attached to our de- partment of public schools, and is conducted as such to this date. A Sabbath School was started in the beginning of the congregation, but has been more successfully carried on since a preacher located in Pana.
In 1875, Rev. Gubler resigned and went to Inglefield, Ind. The writer of this sketch is his successor. Before entering his new field, the congregation built a school-room to the west end of the church for the sum of $250, so that Rev. Pfeiffer found for his work a neat little school-house, which proved to be too small through all this time of his teaching. As the preacher's family suf- fered from chills and fever owing to the location of the parsonage, the congregation agreed to sell it and build a new one in a healthier location. This resolution was carried out in 1877 ; the old parsonage sold for $625 ; a lot on the west slope of the east ridge was bought, and a two-story frame house erccted thereon for the sum of $1215, of which the last part was paid this spring, so that the property of the congregation is free of debt. When the old Presbyterian church was taken down, the congregation obtained the bell of that church ; also a few years before a good and beautiful organ from Prince & Co., of Buffalo. The congregation has now forty members; has service every Sabbath morning, and every other Sabbath evening. The Sabbath School numbers from forty to fifty scholars, superin- tended by L. Schlierbach. From this congregation have sprang one west of Taylorville, and one seven miles south of Pana, at Oconce, Shelby Co., Ills. Among its first members who still belong to the church are L. Schlierbach and L. Paul.
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HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
THE DISASTROUS STORM OF 1880.
(EXTRACTS FROM THE " MORRISONVILLE TIMES.")
Saturday, April 24th, 1880, will long be remembered by the resi- dents of Christian eounty as an cpoch in its history, fraught with desolation, ruin and death
On Sunday morning vague rumors were afloat, as to the awful calamity caused by the dread eyelone's resistless march. The storm seems to have gathered in the south-west, and traveled almost a north-eastwardly dircetion, with but little deviation from a direet line from whenee it came, until eleven miles of a beautiful farming country had been utterly stripped of buildings, fruit trees, fences, ete., the aeeumulation of years of toil of many a sturdy tiller of the soil, leaving in its track three dead and many wounded, several of whom will probably die; besides stoek of every deseription, strewn about, and mangled in every conceivable manner.
The first place in the track of the storm was the home of Mr. Thomas Smith, 43 miles from this place. Mr. Smith, in his delinea- tion, represented the storm as seen by himself, as gathering in mid air preparatory to the fell onslaught, and remaining stationary for a few seconds, then with a rush beyond comparison, swooped down, lifting the house elear of the foundation and partially turn- ing it about, dropped it some twenty-five feet away, overturning the kitchen stove and a dish safe, the latter falling upon his little boy of three years, fortunately doing him no harm. The outside of the house presents the appearance of having withstood a siege from a battering ram, the shingles being torn off' in many places, while a great hole in the side of the house, shows plainly that a missile of some weight found a lodgment there.
Next in turn eame the home of S. W. Hawkins, on the farm of Andrew Simpson, of Taylorville, and full two miles from Mr. Smith's and four miles north-west of Clarksdale; the intervening property seeming to have eseaped with very little, if any damage. The build- ings on the Simpson farm, were a farm-house one and a half stories in height, an old house used for storage, a smoke-house and barn, of which hardly a vestige remains. A son of Mr. Hawkins, in reply to your correspondent said : That on the approach of the storm the whole family gathered in a room in the south-east corner of the house, and that at the first burst of the cyclone it wrenched the door open, and being shut in the interval of a momentary lull, was kept shut during the rest of the gale. Just here it may be well to state that every one in speaking of the gale, agree in the one state- ment, that there were but two blasts, and that the seeond one did the damage-the second tore the house from its accustomed resting place, tearing away the top story ; and bursting out the north side, leaving the wrecked hull thirty or thirty-five feet from the founda- tion bloeks. On the upper floor were three beds and a lot of eanned
fruit, of which not a partiele ean be found ; the stable is a mass of ruins. The old house and smoke-house are utterly obliterated ; one new wagon and sleigh were broken to pieees; one wheel and a part of an axle of the wagon were found aeross a hedge one hundred yards away. A eolt standing in the stable remained unhurt through the demolishing of the structure. The poultry belonging to the farm were either killed or scattered, as none can be found. Luekily the orehard escaped without serious damage. The family were for- tunate in passing through the whole disaster without a serateh, but how, no one ean imagine. Surely a higher power than that of the storm king's kept wateh there.
From the Simpson farm to the home of the widow Carlton two and one quarter miles away, the eyelone seems to have raised and passed harmlessly over, there dropping low enough to catch up the house, unroofing it, and like the two dwellings before spoken of, left the remains several fect from its former resting-plaee. Mrs. Carlton was alone and siek at the time, but in some manner eseaped unhurt.
At Mr. Edward Leigh's, the gale struck with terrifie violenee, sweeping everything before it ; dealing out pain and death, devasta- tion and its manifold aeeessories more eruel in its mighty wrath than the vaunted fire fiend or mighty waters of the vast deep. Mr. Leigh and family (eleven) sought safety in the eellar, to which, no doubt, they owe their happy escape from death. The house, a handsome two story frame building, ereeted last fall, at a eost of three thousand dollars, was swept away with as little ceremony as one would toss an objectionable bit of board from the side-walk ; and as a speetator said, grinding it into fragments while suspended in the air. The family are all uninjured (exeept Lizzie, aged twelve years, who was slightly bruised). His total loss will probably amount to $5,000. .
Next in the traek of the storm eame the residenee of Mr. John Gessner, who, with his family-like Leigh-took refuge in the eellar-all eseaped unhurt. Mr. Gessner's house and barn was utterly demolished, and one horse and one eow killed, three horses injured, besides losing furniture, elothing, ete., entire.
Thos. J. Langley's house stood about two hundred yards east of John Gessner's. Here the eyelone, terrible in its frenzy, snatched up a human being and dashed it down to death. Mr. Langley's family consisted of himself, wife and two children-boys. Mrs. Langley was instantly killed; the body, as found after the storm had abated, presented the appearance of having been struck with some projectile, tearing a great hole in the side of the body-un- doubtedly the death wound. Mr. Langley is horribly bruised and
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HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
eut, but with the chances in favor of his recovery. One boy of eleven years was eut about the face and arm. Mr. Brents-a visitor at the Langley home at the time of the disaster-eseaped with a scalp wound of three inches in length, and a few bruises.
Mr. A. Elliott suffered to the extent of having several ribs broken, also the bridge of his nose. Mrs. Elliott, who with a mother's devotion, sought to shield her offspring from harm, regardless of the peril menacing herself, elasped a child under each arm, with another in her lap, awaited the onset. Mrs. Elliott was severely wounded, while the children came out unhurt. The house is a total ruin.
Of Rynaldo Carlton's house, not a piece remains. Mr. and Mrs. Carlton attempted to hold the door, but without success. They then ran out and were only slightly injured.
Willow Ford bridge, across the South Fork of the Sangamon river, and four miles south-west of Taylorville, was next caught up and hurled to destruction ; pieces of the timbers being found on the bluffs a mile away. On the west side of the bridge the tornado had swept through the timber, laying in waste everything in the road of its merciless march. One eurious feature of the storm was here manifest. Huge trees that had been standing side by side ; the one would be found with the top directly in the teeth of the storm, while its mate was prostrate in the opposite direction. At the bridge, the track of the eyelone, as shown by the devastation, eould not have been more than a hundred yards in width.
James J. Williams and wife saw the storm approaching and took refuge in a cave. Although the door was blown down, and death seemed inevitable, they escaped unhurt. No- thing was left of the house but the parts on which it stood. The furniture, bedding and clothing were blown away-not a vestige remaining. A horse and mule were killed, and ten head of cattle are missing. A new wagon that he had only taken home on Satur- clay, was torn to pieces, and one of the tires was found several hundred yards away, wound around a log. A quarter of a mile beyond his place was another house, owned by him and occupied by A. J. Cutler. As the storm approached, Mr. Cutler, who was at Williams' house, attempted to reach home, but was overtaken by the hurricane, and compelled to run the gauntlet of flying rails, boards and timber. How he escaped a violent death, is indeed a wonder, as his clothing was literally torn from his body. When nearing his home, the tornado lifted the house from the ground and he saw the form of his little daughter carried away, high above the tree-tops ; the body was found the next morning quite a distance from the house, in a brush pile with the upper part of the head gone -the skull crushed. His little son was found a short distance from the house, horribly mutilated and dead.
Frank Peters occupied a house near the Cutler family. On the approach of the storm the family took refuge in a log stable; turn-
ing the horses out, they placed the children in the manger and tried to hold the door shut, but without avail. The structure was almost entirely destroyed ; happily the whole family escaped with but a few slight bruises. The house so lately deserted, was so completely demolished that hardly a log or piece remains. The horses trotted off to the west of the traek of the storm and came through unhurt.
John Hayes, a tenant on the farm of Mr. Valentine, narrowly escaped. The house was lifted from over the heads of himself and family, leaving them on the floor-none were seriously injured, except Mr. Hays, who received a fracture of the skull. One horse, a dog, several hogs and some poultry were killed. The roof was taken off the house of Wm. Welsh, who lives close by the Hays family. Here the tornado left the timber and shot across the prairie, tearing up liedges, fences, and laying waste everything in its course -hogs, cattle and live stock of every kind were horribly mangled and killed. The barn of E. A. Miller was utterly demolished, and a large amount of stoek killed or crippled, so as to render them worthless. A house owned by Mr. Miller and occupied by Andrew Olliver was blown down, the family remaining unhurt. Mr. and Mrs Geo. Higgins were found a few hours after the storm had sub- sided, a quarter of a mile away from where the house had stood ; locked in each other's arms, covered with mud, insensible, bleeding and horribly mutilated. James Watts and wife lost their home, household goods and a great deal of stoek. They are both seriously injured. Not yet satisfied with the destruction already wrought, the hurricane swept on, next striking and demolishing the house of Mrs. Holfner. She, with five children, were caught in the falling building, injuring Mrs. Holfner and two children so badly that their recovery is despaired of. Frank Harkett's house next came in route-one end was blown out and the roof lifted off, leaving the occupants uninjured. Jonas Kimmerer's barn went next, together with several buildings and sheds adjoining; all the stock on the place was either killed or maimed so as to render them utterly value- less. The Perkins' school-house is a complete wreck; nothing remains to show where it onee stood.
The last stroke of the terrible cyclone fell on the 40x110 feet barn and elegant buildings and sheds, on the fine stock farm of J. J Per- kins, literally demolishing the whole, and sweeping them away with such velocity as to not leave a trace behind. Most of the stoek having been sold during the day, the loss in the killed and injured will not fall heavily on Mr. Perkins.
Here the reign of the storm fiend seems to have ended after having run his mad race, and laid in waste miles of the most pros- perous part of Christian county ; and it is with thankfulness that we lay down the recording pen-glad to know that here ends the most disastrous chapter in the history of old Christian, but with sad memories of the seenes of suffering, devastation, woe and death.
15
TOWNSHIP AND CITY OF TAYLORVILLE.
HE early history of what is now known as Taylorville township dates as far baek as 1818-twenty-one years before the county of Christian was organized, and to the year when the great State of Illinois was admitted into the sisterhood of states. The hardy pioneer and hunter, the ad- vanced couriers of civilization in the west at that carly day had penetrated its forests and plains where before alone had trod the stealthy Indian in search of the noble bison, and smaller game that roamed at will over the broad prairies. Thesc pioneers were a hardy race; they were possessed of untiring energy, dauntless cour- age, and physical constitutions that could withstand the hardships and privations incident to a pioneer life. It was their task to clear the forest, push back the red man and blaze the way for the in- coming tide of immigration and civilization that was pouring in with resistless force from the old world into the new, and from the east to the great west. How well and nobly they performed their task is well known and written in the history of every state in the west.
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The township of Taylorville includes in its boundaries all of Town 13, Range 2, save about half of section 31 aud a small por- tion of section 30, and sections 1, 2 and 12, and of sections 3, 11, 13, 14, 24 and 25 in Town 13, Range 3. The township is bounded on the north by Buckhart, and on the cast by May, on the south by Johnson and on the west by South Fork. The township is watered and drained by the South Fork of the Sangamon river, and Flat Branch. The former enters the township on the south side of scetion 36, Town 13, Range 2, and flows in a northerly direction to the south-west quarter of section 25, from whence it flows in a south-westerly direction, and out of the township in section 34. It again enters the township in section 31 and flows in a north-westerly direction, forming the western boundary of the township. It makes its exit from the township in section 3, Town 13, Range 3. Flat Branch enters the township in section 24, Town 13, Range 2. It flows in a south-westerly direction and empties into the South Fork of the Sangamon in the south-west part of seetion 25. The town- ship is well timbered with all kinds of wood indigenous to this climate and section of the country. The soil is exceedingly fertile and sufficiently undulating to carry off the excess of rainfall. The Decatur and St. Louis railroad, now under the control of the Wa- bash, St. Louis and Pacific Company, and the Ohio and Mississippi railroads, offers abundant facilities for conveying the surplus pro- ducts of the soil and creating good markets for the farmers and merchants.
EARLY SETTLERS.
In writing the early history of a county and its townships, reca- pitulation to some extent becomes unavoidable, and in order to avoid it as much as possible, we must refer our readers to the general history of the early settlements to be found in another chapter of this book.
From the best information possible to be obtained, the honor of being the first settler in what is now known as Taylorville Town- ship belongs to John S. Sinnet. He located and built a cabin on a portion of land now embraced in the south-east part of Taylorville, not far from where the fair-ground spring is. He located there in 1818. In 1829 he sold out his improvements to Col. Thos. S. Young. The Brents family came soon after, and by some it is thought that they were settlers here before Siunet, but as stated above, the best information is that Siunet was first and the Brents came in 1820. The widow Brents brought her family with her. There were William C., John and Simeon ; her sons were young boys at that time. The latter son is still living in the county. Daniel C. Goode is credited with being in the county and a resident of this township as early as 1824. He located two and a half miles east of Taylorville, and close to where the town of Allenton stood. He entered the first land in the township in 1830. We will have occasion to speak more fully of him further along in this chap- ter. In 1825, William Wallis arrived. He married a daughter of the widow Brents. IIe opened a small farm one mile east of the present town of Taylorville. He was a Kentuckian by birth. Jesse Langley first settled on a traet of land on the west side of the town- ship in 1828. In 1834, he removed to a small improved farm for- merly occupied by John Brents, on the cast side of the township. Mr. Langley, in his day, was one of the prominent and influential men of the county. He became a large land-owner and wealthy. Ile was the first inan in the county that erected a distillery and manufactured alcoholic spirits. In 1829, there was quite a large number of settlers eame into the township. Among them may be mentioned, Jesse Murphy, who settled on an improved pieee of land about two miles west of Taylorville. Aaron Vande- veer, a native of Washington County, Indiana, a farmer and a Baptist preacher, came into the county in the year above men- tioned. His son, Hon. H. M. Vandeveer, came to Taylorville in 1839, when the county-scat was located, and has remained here up to the present. The same year, 1829, witnessed the arrival of the " Young " family-Col. Thos. S. Marcus L. and John, with their families. They were from Kentucky. In 1830, John Gore, Sr., arrived ; he settled on and improved a tract of land four miles west of the town of Taylorville. In 1833, Thos. Young, Sr., settled in the township at a point one mile south-east of this towu. James Hanes came to the township in 1834. He subsequently erected the first hotel in Taylorville, now a part of the Globe Hotel, on the north side of the public square. Daniel C. Goode entered the land on which Taylorville now stands, in 1835. He afterward settled on a farm three miles north-cast of Taylorville, where he died. Thomas Dawson was an old settler in the county; he came in 1822. In 1824 he built a horse mill on Flat Branch, and ran it three or four years, after which he moved to Missouri. Thomas S.
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