History of Crawford and Clark counties, Illinois, Part 4

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 826

USA > Illinois > Clark County > History of Crawford and Clark counties, Illinois > Part 4
USA > Illinois > Crawford County > History of Crawford and Clark counties, Illinois > Part 4

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).

Such were the men who formed the advance guard-the picket line of the grand army of emigrants that were to follow, and people and improve the great northwest. They ac- complished the task assigned them, and have passed away. The last of the old guard are gone, and many of their children, too, have followed them to that " bourne whence no traveler returns."

We can not write history as a blind man goes about the streets, feeling his way with a stick. The facts are transparent, and through them we catch gleams of other facts, as the raindrop catches light, and the beholder sees the splendor of the rainbow. We are to speak of common men, whose lot was to plant civilization here, and who, in doing it, displayed the virtues which render modern civilization a boast and a blessing. These early times can not be reproduced by any prose of a historian. They had a thousand years behind them, and in their little space of time they made greater progress than ten centuries had witnessed. Theirs was a full life; the work thirty generations had not done, they did, and the abyss between us of to-day and the men of seventy-five years ago is wider and more profound than the chasm between 1815 and the battle of Hastings. They did so much that it is hard to recognize the doers; they had a genius for doing great things. That olive leaf in the dove's beak perished as do other leaves, but the story it told is immortal. Of their constancy, one can judge by the fact that none went back to their ancestral homes. They "builded wiser than they knew," and the monuments of their energy and perseverance still stand in per- petuation of their memory.

The only history worth writing is the his- tory of civilization, of the processes which made a State. For men are but as coral, feeble, insignificant, working out of sight, but they transmit some occult quality or

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

power, upheave society, until from the moral and intellectual plateau rises, as Saul, above his fellows, a Shakespeare, a Phidias or a Hamilton, the royal interpreters of the finest sense in poetry, in art and statesmanship. At the last, years color life more than cent- uries had, as the sun rises in an instant, though he had been hours in hastening to this moment.

The French, as we have shown, were the first white people who possessed this country. The first regular settlements made in the present county of Crawford, were in and around Palestine. There is a tradition, that the first settlers found an old Frenchman named Lamotte, living near the margin of the prairie which still bears his name. But little, however. is known of him, or his residence here. One fact there is, which is borne out by the records of the county, that Lamotte · owned considerable lands on this side of the Wabash, but whether he lived here is by some deemed problematieal. As Vineennes was, however, a French town, from whence many of its people came into Illinois, there is no just ground for controverting the state- inent that Lamotte actually lived in what is now Crawford County, especially when we refleet that Lamotte Prairie, Lamotte Creek and Fort Lamotte, the latter the site of Pal- estine, all bear his name. There were a few

French families among the early settlers of the county, but eventually we believe most of them returned to the east bank of the Wa- bash, or removed to Kaskaskia and St. Louis,

It is not known with perfect certainty at the present day, who was the first actual set- tler from the States to locate within the pres- ent limits of the county. The first deed re- cordell in the elerk's office is dated December 10, 1816, and is from John Dunlap, of Edwards County, to Samuel Harris, but it is beyond dispute that there was a considerable settle- ment here several years prior to that time.

The following families, so far as we can learn, were among the first settlers: The Eatons, Van Winkles, MeGaheys, 'Kitchells, Wood- worths, Culloms, Woods, Isaac Hutson, Dr. Hill, the Lagows, Brimberrys, Wilsons, Wal- drops, Piersons, Houstons, Kennedys and the Newlius. The Eatons are believed to have been here as early as 1809, and very gener- ally admitted to have been the first actual settlers though no one can definitely settle the point now. There were Benjamin, Joseph, John, Stephen and Richard Eaton. They were genuine pioneers and frontiersmen, and were in the fort at Palestine. They dis- agreed with some of the other inmates of the fort, withdrew from it and built another fort at some distance, which received the name of Fort Foot, in consequence of the fact that the Eatons possessed extraordinarily large feet. The McGaheys (Allen and David) are supposed to have come to the country in IS09 or perhaps in 1810; Dan and Green Van Winkle also came about 1810; the Woods in 1811, and Hutson in 1812. Isaac, Joseph and William Pierson eame perhaps the same year. The others mentioned all came in early-prior to 1818, and several of them became prominent in the history of the county, as more particularly detailed in other chapters of this volume. Woodworth was the second sheriff of the county; the Me- Gaheys served in the legislature and in other positions, while the Lagows and Houstons were also active citizens, as elsewhere noticed.

The Kitehells were perhaps the most prom- inent among the early families in the county. The names of Joseph and Wickliffe Kitchell are not only connected with the history of this county, but with that of the State. They were from Virginia and possessed much of the social qualities and cordiality of manners characteristic of the old Virginia type of gentleman. As Attorney-General of the State, in the State Senate and legislature.

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

and in the land office, they left their impress. More will be said of them in connection with the court and bar.

Edward N. Cullom, next to the Kitchel!s, was one of the most prominent of the early settlers, and has a son, Leonard D. Cullom, still living in Lawrenceville, Ill. Mr. Cul- lom lauded at Palestine November 25, 1814, or rather at Fort Lamotte, where Palestine now stands. We are informed by Mr. Leon- ard Cullom, whom we visited at his home in Lawrenceville, that when his father's family arrived at Fort Lamotte, there were then within its protecting walls twenty-six fami- lies, and ninety rangers, who were stationed there for the purpose of guarding these isolat- ed settlers. This bloekhouse or fort had been ereeted here about the commencement of the war of 1812, and the rangers quarter-d in it were under the command of Capt. Pierce Andrew, a frontier officer. Mr. Cullom now only remembers, among those living in the fort, the following families: Isaac and Sam- uel Brimberry, Thomas and James Kennedy, the Eatons, the Shaws, Joseph Waldrop and two sons-William and John-the Garrards, the Woods, David Shook and a man named Harding. The latter was " skin dresser," and a rather disagreeable man in his family. Mr. Cullom calls to mind a circumstance in which Harding figured conspicuously, in the days when they were "forted." Harding, for whipping his wife, was taken by the rangers and shut up in his "skin-house," a house where he was in the habit of smoking and drying his skins, and put through much the same process for indulging in such family pastimes.

Edward N. Cullom came from Wayne County, Ky., making the trip in wagons, the prineipal mode of transportation at that time. He raised a number of stalwart sons, some of whom were prominent men as well as their father in the county. They were Francis,

William, Leonard D., Edward N., Thomas F., and George W. Leonard was 14 years old when his father came to the county, and George W. was the only one of his sons born in the new home.

Mr. Cullom was a man of considerable prominence in the county, and served in a number of responsible positions. When he came here he bought the land on which the fort stood (including the improvement on it) for 84.16 per acre. The improvement had been made by Brimberry. He bought and entered other lands until he owned several thousand acres. The first summer Cullom raised a large crop of corn, and the winter fol- lowing he loaded a flat boat with corn, and took it to New Orleans. It was the first boat that ever went out of the Wabash River from the Illinois side. He paid $150 for the boat, and at New Orleans, sold it and the cargo for $1,300 in money; then made his way home overland through the " Indian Nation," as it was then known. His money was in two $500 "post notes," as they were called, or bank drafts, and the remainder in specie. That was an enormous sum of money for those days, and Cullom was considered a very rich man. He laid it out mostly in lands, and be- came one of the largest land owners in South- ern Illinois. In later years, however, he lost the large part of it by going the security of others, and died comparatively a poor man.

The following comprises many of the early settlers of the county, though it is by no means a complete list: Edward N. Cullom and his sons, John Dunlap, Edward H. Piper, Joseph Malcom, John Malcom, George W. Kinkade, Joseph Cheek, Isaac Moore, James Gibson, Thomas Gill, John Cowan, Thomas Handy, William Lockard, John Allison, William How- ard, Charles Neely, George Catron, James Callwell, James Ray, Isaac Parker, Arthur Jones, James Shaw, Smith Shaw, S. B. A. Car- ter, Chester Fitch, David Porter, Jan Martin, J.

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

Gallon, John Garrard, Chalkey Draper, John Berry, Isaac Gain, George W. Carter, John Mills, William Hngh Miller, Jacob Blaze, William Y. Hacket, James Gill, Abram Coon- rod, William Lowe, Seth Gard, Peter Keene, Samuel Harris, William Ashbrook, John Gif- ford, Asahel Haskins, William Barber, John Small, Thomas Westfall, D. MeHlenry, Jona- than Young, E. W. Kellogg, Muk Snipes, Samuel Baldly, John H. Jackson, James Dol- son, Thomas Trimble, David Stewart, Aaron Ball, Henry Gilliam, Daniel Funk, Enoch Wilhite, Zephaniah Lewis, John Cobb, Will- iam Jones, John Sackrider, Jacob Helping- steine, George Calhoun, William Highsmith, Jeremiah Coleman, William McDowell, James Boatwright, Daniel Boatwright, John W. Bar- low, Bottsford Comstock, George Boher, Joel Phelps, Cornelius Taylor, William Gray, George Wesner, John C. Alexander, William Magill, Benjamin Myers, John Boyd, Asa Norton, Sewell Goodrich, etc., etc. These pioneers will receive ample notice in the his- tory of the several townships of the county. The settlement has been given in this connec- tion in a general way, but in other chapters it will be more fully noticed. Our aim here has been merely to show the different possessors of the soil, and the succession in which they followed each other.

When the first settlements were made in this region, there were still many Indians roaming through the country, as stated in a previous chapter. They were generally friendly toward the whites, except for a short period during the war of 1812, when they became somewhat excited and com- mitted depredations upon the whites, such as stealing horses and other stock, and in a few instances, murdering their pale-faced neighbors. The saddest instance of this kind that ever occurred in what is now Crawford County, was the mur ler of the Hutson fam- ily, who lived a few miles south from where

Hutsonville now stands, and which was somewhat as follows: Isaac Hutson was a native of Ohio and removed from Chillicothe in 1811 to Indiana, locating in the present county of Sullivan, and in what is now Tur- man Township. Indians were plenty in that region, and some of them were hostile. A block-house or rude fort was erected in the Turman settlement for the protection of the few whites then living there. Hutson, one day, erossed the river and visited the section now known as Lamotte prairie; and being attracted by its beauty and fertility, resolved to at once move hither. Accordingly, in the latter part of the winter of 1812 he built a cabin at the north end of the prairie, to which he moved his family in the spring. A man named Dixon settled near by, about the same time. Hutson at once begin preparations for a crop. His family consisted of a wife and six children, the eldest a girl of perhaps six- teen. One day in April, Hutson went to Pal- estine to mill, and did not get started for home until nightfall. When about half way to his cabin, he noticed an unusual light in the direction of it. Fearing the worst, lic threw his sack of meal from his horse and urged him forward at full speed. Upon near- ing his house, his worst fears were realized. His entire family had been murdered by a band of Indians; and to complete the ruin and des- olation, they had set fire to his dwelling. Frantic with grief and despur, he rode sev- eral times around the ruins, calling wildly the names of his wife and children. There was no one left to tell the bereaved father how his loved ones had perished. He could only realize the heart-sickening truth that all had perished. A few rods from the burning building, lay the body of Dix- on, mutilated almost beyond recog it on. His breast had been cut open and his heart taken out and placed upon a pole which was planted in the ground near by. Satisfy-

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

ing himself that the havoc was complete, Hutson made his way to Turman's, having swam the Wabash, which place he reached about midnight.

Hutson was a fine type of the frontiers- man. He was above six feet high, a man of great strength and possessed of extraordinary powers of endurance. He was an adven- turer and knew no law beyond his own will and his own ideas of right. Having lost all for which he cared to live, he swore revenge; and to this end, joined the army at Fort Har- rison, near where Terre Haute now stands. Shortly after he had joined the army, one of the sentinels reported that he had seen an Indian in the grass, some half a mile below the fort. A party was sent out to recon- noiter, among whom was Hutson. Arrived at the designated spot, it was discovered that quite a party of savages had been there dur- ing the previous night. The trail led off to a thicket of brush wood a short distance away. The officer in command rashly deter- mined to make an attack, without any attempt to discover the exact whereabouts of the en- emy, or their number and position. Hutson was placed in the front, but distrusting the speed and power of his horse, asked an- other position. The officer reproached him with cowardice, when Hutson dashed for- ward, calling on the men to follow, declaring that he could go where any one else could, and leaving the officer in the rear. Upon approaching the wood, they were fired on, and Hutson receiving a ball in the forehead, fell from his horse dead.

The name of Hutson is preserved in the beautiful little town of Hutsonville, and of Hutson Creek, which flows near by where he had reared his lonely cabin.

Another incident is related of a man named James Beard, being murdered by Indians in that portion of the county now embraced in Lawrence County, just about the

close of the war of 1812. Beard was plow- ing in the field one day, and the Indians having become incensed at him for some cause stole upon him, and shot him at his plow. Beard, who was a large man, ran to where one Adams, a nephew, was cutting bushes, and told him he was shot, when Adams, notwithstanding the giant size of Beard, picked him up and carried him to the house. A Frenchman named Pierre Devoc, lived near by, and when asked to go and help guard Beard's house during the night he refused. His wife, a large and rather mascu- line looking woman, when her husband re- fused, declared she would go, and taking up an ax called out to "Come on," she " was ready." But the Indians made no further attack on the house.

Mr. Leonard Cullom relates the following: During the time of "forting " at Palestine, Isaac Brimberry and Thomas Kennedy, who generally went by the name of the " Buck- eye Coopers," went up to " Africa's Point," as it was called, on the Wabash, after some timber. They discovered signs of Indians and went back to the fort and reported the same, when a squad of men was sent out to look after them. They divided into two par- ties, one going on in advance and the other acting as a reserve corps. When near the spot where the signs had been seen, they found a number of Indian canoes pulled up out of the water. Instead of consolidating their numbers and proceeding with caution, the foremost party kept on fully exposed, and were soon fired upon by the savages. Lathrop, Price, and Daniel Eaton were killed, and Job Eaton and John Waldrop were wounded, but succeeded in escaping and making their way back to the fort. The "rear guard," when they heard the firing, instead of going to the as- sistance of their comrades, "fell back in good order," and returned to the fort, conscious that discretion was the better part of valor.

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

Such were some of the trials and dangers to which the early settlers were exposed, in the development of this country. But upon the close of the war of 1812, the savages of southern Illinois buried the hatchet, and peace reigned among the scattered settle- ments. Though the savages rose in other sections of the State, and clouds of war gathered in the horizon, they rolled away without bursting upon this community. When peace was fully restored to the country in 1815, the population began to rapidly in- erease in the Wabash Valley, and gradually to extend out over the country. In subse- quent chapters the progress of these settle- ments, as we have already stated, will be fully detailed, together with all events of in- terest pertaining to them.

The Indian troubles were not the only drawbacks met with in the early history of Crawford County. The settlers were mostly poor, and all had come here with the desire to better their fortunes. They came with a meager outfit of this world's goods, expecting to increase their stores and provide a home for their old age. Some came in frontier wagons drawn by horses or oxen, and some used the more primitive " pack-horse " as a means of transporting their limited posses- sions. The journey was one of toil and pri- vation at best. There were no well beaten highways, no bridges over the streams, but each emigrant followed the general trail. If the season was one of much rain, the swamps they were compelled to eross, were almost impassable; if dry, the roads were rough, and water scarce. But the emigrant could endure trial, hunger and pain, if a HOME stood at the end of his journey, beckoning him on. Faith and hope are two anchors without which the poor mortal would be cheerless indeed on life's pathway.

Thus the county was settled under difficul- ties, and amid hardships and dangers. But

the very dangers drew the people closer to- gether, and made them more dependent upon each other. All lived in a state of compara- tive social equality, and the only lines drawn were to separate the very bad from the gen- eral mass. The rich and poor dressed alike; the men generally wearing hunting-shirts and buckskin pants, and the women attired them- selves in coarse fabrics produced by their own hands. The cabins were furnished in the same style and simplicity. The bedsteads were home-made and of rude material, and the beds, usually filled with leaves and grass, by honest toil were rendered

"Soft as downy pillows are."

One pot, kettle and frying-pan were the only artieles considered indispensable, and a a few plates and dishes, upon a shelf in one corner, was as satisfactory as a cupboard full of china is now, while food was as highly relished from a slab table as it is in this fast age from one of oiled walnut or mahogany. It is true they then had but little to eat, but it sustained life. Mr. Cullom says they often had no bread, and he calls to mind an in- stance, wlien his father's family, who had been without bread for some time, took corn before it was sufficiently matured to shell from the cob, dried it in the chimney, and grated it into a coarse meal. From this bread was made, a " shoat " was killed for the occasion, and with beech bark tea they had quite a feast. A neighbor, who happened in, was asked to dine with them, and when dinner was concluded he thanked the Lord that he had had one more good, square meal, but he didn't know where the next would come from. Mrs. Cullom gave him some meal and a piece of the shoat to take home with him, and he went away rejoicing.

But the credit of subduing the wilderness, and planting civilization in the West, is not the work of man alone. Woman, the help-

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

meet, and guiding spirit of the sterner sex, nobly did her part in the great work. The " hired girl " had not then become a class. In case of illness-and there was plenty of it in the early times-some young woman would leave home for a few days to care for the afflicted household, but her services were not rendered for the pay she received. The dis- charge of the sacred duty to care for the sick was the motive, and it was never neglected. The accepted life of a woman was to marry, bear and rear children, prepare the household food, spin, weave and make the garments for the family. Her whole life was the grand, simple poem of rugged, toilsome duty bravely and uncomplainingly done. She lived his- tory, and her descendants write and read it with a proud thrill, such as visits the pilgrim when at Arlington he stands at the base of the monument which covers the bones of four thousand nameless men who gave their blood to preserve their country. Her work lives,

but her name is whispered only in a few homes. Holy in death, it is too sacred for open speech.

Three quarters of a century has produced marvelous changes, both in country and so- ciety. In the years that have come and gone in quick succession, while the panorama has been unfolding to view, the verdant wastes of Crawford County have disappeared, and in their place are productive fields, covered with flocks and herds, and peopled with twenty thousand civilized and intelligent human be- ings. The Indian trail is obliterated by the railway track, and the ox-team and the " prairie schooner " are displaced by the rush- ing train. In the grand march of civilization and improvement, who can tell, or dare pre- dict what the next fifty years may develop? Within that period it is not impossible that we may be flying through the air, as we now fly over the country at the heels of the iron horse.

CHAPTER IV .*

ORGANIZATION OF THE COUNTY-ILLINOIS AS A PART OF VIRGINIA-DIVIDED INTO COUNTIES-ACT OF THE LEGISLATURE FORMING CRAWFORD-NAME OF THE COUN- TY-THE COURTS, ETC .- LOCATING THE SEAT OF JUSTICE-AN INDIAN TRIAL-OTHER COURT PROCEEDINGS-LIST OF OFFICERS AND REP- RESENTATIVES-COURT HOUSES AND JAILS-CIVIL DIVIS- IONS OF THE COUNTY-REMOVAL OF THE COUNTY SEAT-TOWNSHIP ORGANIZATIONS, ETC., ETC.

" The ultimate fendency of civilization is toward barbarism."-Hare.

THE General Assembly of Virginia, in Oc- tober, 1718, passed an act for " establish- ing the County of Illinois, and for the more effectual protection and defense thereof." This act declared: "That all the citizens of this Commonwealth, who are already set- tled, or shall hereafter settle on the western side of the Ohio, and east of the Mississippi, shall be included in a distinct county, which shall be called Illinois County." The Gov- ernor of Virginia was to appoint "a county lieutenant or commandant-in-chief," who should "appoint and commission so many deputy commandants, militia officers and commissaries," as he should deem expedient, for the enforcement of law and order. The civil officers were to be chosen by a majority of the people, and were to "exercize their several jurisdictions, and conduct themselves agreeable to the laws which the present set- tlers are now accustomed to." Patrick Henry, the first Governor of the " Old Dominion," appointed as such county lieutenant Com- mandant John Todd, and on December 12, 1778, issued to him his letter of appointment and instructions.

From the record book of John Todd's offi- cial acts while he was exercising authority over I linois, a book now in the Chicago His- torical Society, some interesting facts are gleaned of the early history of Illinois. We extract the following from its pages:

Todd was not unknown on the frontier. Born in Pennsylvania and educated in Vir- ginia, he had practiced law in the latter Col- ony for several years, when, in 17:5, he re- moved to Kentucky, then a county of Vir- ginia, and became very prominent in the councils of its House of Delegates or Repre- sentatives, the first legislative body organ- ized west of the Alleghany mountains. Early in 1777, the first court in Kentucky opened its sessions at Harrodsburg, and he was one of the justices. Shortly after, he was chosen one of the representatives of Kentucky in the Legislature of Virginia and went to the capital to fulfill this duty. The following year he accompanied Gen. George Rogers Clark in his expedition to " the Illinois," and was the first man to enter Fort Gage, at Kas- kaskia, when it was taken from the British, and was present at the final capture of Vin- cennes.

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History of Crawford and Clark counties, Illinois, Part 4

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892? Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co. Number of Pages: 826

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 826