USA > Illinois > Effingham County > History of Effingham county, Illinois > Part 11
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What will we do with it? was the prevailing question. Judge Gillenwater's idea was to loan it out to " squatters " to enter their improve- ments with, and then take the land for security; give a low interest, and thus create a perpetual county improvement fund. Evidently this was a good idea. The court overruled it, however, and the money was devoted to building bridges for the county. As soon as the bridges could be located, they were built, and the next spring the freshets washed them all away.
This was the end of the great hush money scheme, and while it is certainly ridiculous enough, it is no more so than was the experi- enee of many other counties which took rail- roads in their share of the booty.
In 1859 the question of the removal of the county seat from Ewington to Effingham, which had been agitated for a short time, came before the people in the form of a general election,
the Legislature having passed an act authoriz- ing the election and the removal, in ease a ma- jority so voted.
The campaign was short and warm. Effing- ham was nothing but a hamlet, while Ewington bad about 200 people in it; but the former had the advantage of being on the railroad, and Ewington was over three miles away. The friends of the latter contended that it would be on a railroad as soon as the, " Brough " road was built; but the complete reply to this was that when the " Brough " was built Effingham would have two roads-be at a crossing, and, better than all, at a crossing of two of the best railroads in the State. By a small majority, Effingham carried the day, and great was the rejoicing here of the few people who were then its inhabitants.
At the April term (1860) of the County Court, the following proceedings were had:
Whereas, By act of the Legislature, April 18, 1859, "an act to re-locate the county seat of Effing- ham," an election was held in the county on the first Monday of September, 1859, and a majority voted to remove the county seat from Ewington to Effing- ham; and,
" Whereas, Samnel W. Little and David B. Alex- ander are the owners of the block known as the Old Square in the town of Broughton (now Effingham), and have offered to deed the same free of expense to the connty; and,
" Whereas, S. W. Little, John M. Mette, George Wright, George H. Scoles, John J. Funkhouser and W. B. Cooper have entered into a bond to erect thereon a court-house, as specified in said bond, free of expense to the county, in case said block shall be selected by the County Court."
It was ordered by the court to accept said block, and approve the bond offered, and to permit said S. W. Little and others to proceed at once to the ereetion of said court house.
Thus was officially sealed the fate of the once ambitious and high-minded little town of Ewington. As matters turned out it was truly saying to it "over the hills, to the poor-house."
At the general election of 1860 the question
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of township organization was submitted to the people, and was carried in favor of such ar- rangement. Men voted for and against the project, knowing very little about it, and it is now only after twenty years of trial are they able to impartially judge whether it is a good or a bad thing. There is no certainty that it will ever be voted down, yet there is no ques- tion in the minds of many-many, too, of the best informed men in the county, that it is a public calamity. To this it is easy to reply. If so, why is it not voted down ? This objec- tion is not unanswerable. The American peo- ple have a general itch for office, and as this township organization creates innumerable petty offices all over the county-so multiplies and divides them up, as to open a promise to nearly every voter, that the average voter will not vote away from himself even the dim- mest hope and prospect for a place, and, there- fore, it is immaterial to him whether he is vot- ing for the good or bad, he will vote for him- self anyhow and at all hazards. The history of the county, since under the care and man- agement of a Board of Supervisors, in many transactions would not invite a rigid scrutiny. It is unnatural to expect sixteen men, each representing a little imaginary subdivision of the county, with each of these heated up with a still more imaginary interest, in direct oppo- sition to all the remainder of the county, to get together and exercise either much judg- ment or discretion on any important question. The foundation idea of such government is a broad and radical mistake, and now that we have this deeply disguised blessing, it is idle and vain for the people to mutter and grumble. In thoughtless ignorance they have made the bed that they must lie upon.
On the 22d day of April, 1861, the first County Board of Supervisors met and organ- ized, by the election of David Leith as chair- man for the year. The following are the town- ships and their Supervisors :
West, William Gillmore ; Moccasin, Ashby Tipsword ; Liberty, Thomas D. Tennery ; Ma- son, David Leith ; Jackson, Jethro Herald ; Summit, U. C. Webb ; Union, Calvin Zimmer- man ; Watson, John Mundy ; Mound, William D. Doore ; Douglas, John F. Kroeger ; Lucas. William D. Lake ; Bishop, James Beard ; St. Francis, John J. Worman ; City of Effingham, John J. Funkhouser.
Golcondas .- From the earliest settlements there has been a widespread belief in the ex- istence in the county of all kinds of mines of the precious ores, especially silver. These stories doubtless came from the idlest Indian stories and traditions. To start with, it is most probable that in fact the first men here in their dreams of wealth and luxury would meet the Indians, about whom they all held a silly superstition that the red men were Incas in hiddeu wealth-that they prowled around in wind and storms, starved all this week and gorged one day next week-that they loved to do this because they were Indians, and because they loved to keep sacred the secret of their immeasurable wealth in gold and silver mines, that they kept hid and covered away from the white man as the religion of their lives. Filled to the hat band with these foolish traditions and stories, the pioneer followed often the promptings of this dream, when he plunged into the deep woods, seeking the association and companionship of the savage, in the hope of winning his good graces, and at the same time his secrets of hidden, precious mines. Thus prepared beforehand, he was ready to lis- ten most eagerly to any silly story he could extort, and the cunning savage, perceiving here was an opportunity to gull his white victim, poured into his ear, in good Indian style, that is, in very cunning and remarkable parables that were so distinguishing of the race who were
"Born in the wildwood-rocked on the wave," and the more incomprehensible they were, the
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more extravagant the figures, the wilder and more dimly the language in which the great secret was couched, the more convincing was the story to the credulous hunter.
This singular and incurable faith in a quasi- superhuman species of power and knowledge is one of the most unaccountable phases of the white man's ignorant eredulity. In the quack adver- tised " Indian doetors " and the yet baser stories of some wonderful eure-all that a certain mission ary who had spent his life among the savages, and had wormed the great secret from them, and then, feeling the fate and perennially re- newed life of all mankind had fallen upon him like a mantle, had stolen away from his red children, with his purloined seeret, and been followed, pursued and tracked by the relentless barbarian, who would rather die than give up his secret. But the Christian hero and thief fled on and on and on, turning gray every time he looked back at the pursuing villains, and turning white every time he saw the sharp, gleaming sealping knife ; yet on he sped like the wind. And how he jumped on the back of the flying buffalo, and stood there like ada- mant, shooting down millions of howling, pur- suing savages, and then from sheer hunger de- vouring the frightened buffalo before he had time to stop and lie down and die like a com- mon buffalo-how he scaled mountains, swam rivers, fought wild cats, killed panthers and fied on and on, bearing his great secret, and finally how he ran exhausted into the arms of a samaritan, and gasped out his great secret and died ; and hence, Dr. Pillgarlie advertises, solely out of charity, for all to buy his great Indian remedy, and live forever without ache or pain. The hundreds that flock to the Indian doctor, and the thousands who gulp down the great Indian remedy are the evidences that these ignorant superstitions still course in the veins of the descendants of not only the pio- neers, but of nearly all men. How pitifully ignorant these poor dupes must be not to know
that a wild Indian not only knew nothing about medicine, but was so ignorant of all dis- eases and their cures that some tribes were almost annihilated by the small-pox from jumping into the river to cool off the hot fever of that terrible disease.
These stories of wealth floated around among the early settlers, and they are floating yet, Some of the most implieit believers deny now that they ever believed, yet could you unwind their secret confidence, you would there find a faith, like an Eastern devotee-that if they only had a ball made of all precions metals, it would point out to them where the secrets are hidden. The writer has talked to more than one of these men, and kept his face dnly sober while they related to him the glories and virtues of this precious " ball"-the key that infallibly un- locks the earth's treasures. When asked how the ball was made, who made it and what was its seeret of knowledge, they could give no ex- planation, except that it was composed in some enrious, occult way, by some man magician unknown ; it possessed parts of all the precious metals in the world, and, therefore, it had a sympathy and love for its kind, and upon the presumption it was gregarious, like a cow, so that when carried over the surface, where the riches lay beneath, in some way, they could not explain how, it told its secret to the bearer, and then he dug down and found the precious fellow metals. When one of these " ball " faith fellows was asked how many kinds of precious metals there were in the world, he replied, with much contempt for the ignorance that the question implied : " Why, gold, silver, diamonds and lead, of course ! "
In the sonth part of our connty, there are yet many living who can tell you all about the story of the " way-bill," which is so unique that it should not be allowed to be forgotten.
A great many years ago, two Frenchmen, impelled, perhaps, by inspiration, followed some sign in the heavens and their noses, and
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through flood and field, and begirt by dangers, and kept alive by constant miracles, they pur- sued their journey, determined to find the rich- est and greatest silver mines in the world, and finally they landed on the classic bluffs of Salt Creek, or on the Wabash, and commenced the work of digging as directed. The belief was that they only went down a few inches, or feet, at most, when they began to uncover their treasure. They were as secret as death in all their movements, yet the Indian found them ont, and warned them upon peril of their lives to leave. They set about hiding their tracks, and when this was thoroughly done they stole out in the darkness and started for New Or- leans. On the way to the Mississippi River, they cantionsly blazed or marked their route and kept a clear and correct record that would enable them to find their way back some time or other. They eventually found their way to New Orleans. The description of the route as they traveled was the " way-bill."
All our people had heard of this way-bill, and one of Effingham's most ambitious men went to New Orleans on the hunt of these Frenchmen, or at least to get the inestimable way-bill. Three long, toilsome, disappointing years were spent in this hunt, and no traces were found of either the men or the precious document.
Finally, when hope had tled and despair had come, and the baffled seeker was about to re- trace his sad and disappointed steps back to Effingham, chance, strange chance, the jade that plays so many pranks in this world, found our hero at a cheap Irish boarding-honse in New Orleans, preparatory to a start, as deck passen- ger, on a cheap stern-wheel boat the next morn- ing for St. Louis and home. With a heavy heart and a light pocket-book, he went to bed. purchance to sleep, if the fleas and the other regular boarders that never missed a meal nor paid a cent, happened to be out. But there was none of the chance above spoken of here,
and the " solitary might have been," but wasn't, by a heavy plurality, sleeping, but he tossed like a pup in high rye, and scratched like a civil service reformer. Ile might have thus perished alive, but a French groan from a lowly cot about ten feet from his regal bunk aronsed his attention. The groan was repeated in broken English, and our hero understood this so well that he passed over, like a gazelle in deshabille, or-or like a deshabille in a gazelle or, or somehow, he found himself at the sickman's disconsolate bedside, when he kicked up his heels, and with an expiring ha ! ha ! handed our hero a brown crumpled paper that had a Salt Creek-Wabash-Effingham look about it.
The Way-bill ! the Way-bill ! cried the Effinghammer, and the dead man said nothing. Thus man proposes and Heaven disposes; our hero was rich enough next morning to take his breakfast at his boarding-house, and two bracers for his appetite, and this enabled him to work his passage to St. Louis.
He leisurely walked out home from St. Louis after night, and early the next morning, with three or four trusted friends, commenced to fol- low the signs pointed out by the way-bill. They were led by it down into the deepest woods, and most rugged hills of the Wabash, where they discovered a cabin. Attempting to approach this, a man met them, and with cocked rifle to his shoulder, warned them not to trespass on his demesne or he would shoot. They heroic- ally retreated, and the news spread like wild- fire all over the county that the silver was found, and it was in the possession of an armed Gorgon. Never was a county so shaken with excitement. A place of rendezvous was ap- pointed a short distance below Ewington, and the earliest dawn of the appointed day wit- messed the squad and the lone horseman, re- pairing to the appointed place, each supplied with the family meal-sack to carry home his anticipated silver. The army of invasion was duly organized. and commanders appointed,
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and tramp, tramp, tramp the squadrons with meal sack and grubbing-hoes and flint-locks advanced.
The serried columns and serious cohorts moved across the virgin prairie, rousing up the sleeping " greenheads " and disturbing the matins of the prairie frogs. Not a drum was heard, not a funeral nor a bank note disturbed their happy hearts until they had reached the fated woods, when, by common consent, they breathed softer and softer. When very near the delicious spot a short halt was called, and three of the best and bravest set forward to re- connoiter and parley with the shooting possessor. Forward went these brave fellows, when they soon came within sight of the cabin. They rode slower and slower, peering in every direc- tion for the man they wanted and dreaded to see; when suddenly, just as they had settled in the glorious hope he had vanished and gone, like a phantom he stood before them, looking along his gun and ordering, "Halt ! The man that crosses that line," pointing to a log, " is a dead man." These three leaders were Samuel Fortney, Sam Fleming and Brockett.
The horse of one of the three had just put his fore feet over the log, and the now fright- ened animal wanted to get over, and the worse frightened rider wanted to get back, because, as he afterward said, he was looking into the mouth of the fellow's gun, and it " looked big 1
enough to crawl into," and he knew if the horse's hind feet passed over the log, he would be, in the words of man in front of him, "a dead man."
The three retreated, and reported with chat- tering teeth to their reserve army what they had met. A council was held, and a pell-mell retreat was in full order instantly.
" Pallida mors equo pede pulsat."
In after years, some boys who had grown up in ignorance of this dangerous spot, wandering through the woods, came upon a deserted cabin, and they rumaged the premises, finding many curious things, furnace, melting pots, etc., etc.
They reported what they had found and people repaired to the place, and it was finally developed that here had been the home of a man who followed the enterprising business of making counterfeit money. The little improve- ments had been made, it is believed, by a man named Wallace, and he did not intend his privacy to be imposed upon by too many curi- ous and prying eyes. This visiting army had probably warned him to pack up and quietly leave the country, which, it seems, he did. How long he had been gone, before it was known that the mines were open to the pub- lic, is not known. But one thing all admit, no member of the invading army has ever yet ventured to the spot that he, years ago, left in such precipitate disgust.
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
CHAPTER VII.
WAR HISTORY-OUR STRUGGLE WITH MEXICO-SOLDIERS FURNISHED-TIIE GREAT REBELLION- EFFINGHAM'S PART IN IT-THE PRESS-" EFFINGHAM PIONEER"-THE " REGISTER"
-OTHER NEWSPAPERS AND THEIR SUCCESS AND INFLUENCE. ETC., ETC.
" Is the Pen mightier than the Sword?"
T THE spirit of war, the admiration for the "loud alarums," the martial music of fife and drum, the love of battle's magnificent stern array have marked all the history of the people of this county. In another place we have no- ticed the fact, that a full representation were in the Black Hawk war, in 1832, even before the young county had a completed organized exist- ence.
On the 14th day of May, 1847, under the second call for Illinois volunteers to go to Mexico, the following soldiers left Effingham for the rendezvous at Alton, namely :
W. J. Hankins, Samuel Hankins, Dennis Kelly. George Zears, Jonathan Tucker, James Tucker, James Porter, Andrew J. Parks. Will- iam Parks, Samuel Parks, T. D. Reynolds, D. C. Loy, Emanuel Cronk, David Perkins, Stephen Coy, William Ashley, Samuel Fortney, James Martin, James Green, Joseph Harris, Huram Maxfield, Dr. Shindle, Mat. H. Gillespie, - Duncan, T. J. Gillenwaters, James Gillenwaters, Dennis Elder, Tillman Clark, William Bryant, Reed Funk, Mathias Lecrone, John L. Baker, Henry Phillipps, - Browning, J. W. Lee.
These thirty-six men were added to Capt. Harvey Lee's Company, of Fayette County, II. W. Goode, First Lieutenant, and William J. Hankins, Second Lieutenant. This company formed a part of the Ninth Regiment, under command of Col. Collins. On the 3d day of April, 1848, they started for Mexico, and went via New Orleans to Tampico, from there to
Vera Cruz, and from thence to the City of Mex- ico. They were, unfortunately, attached to that part of the army under Gen. Scott that was restricted to camp duty almost entirely, not being in a single battle, and were practically deprived of partaking in any field operations. To this, probably, was due the great amount of sickness that afflicted the men during their en- tire service. Andrew J. Parks and Samuel Parks died of sickness at Puebla. When we asked the old Sergeant of the company, Sam Fortney, to again, as he had in the long years ago, call the morning roll; out of the thirty-six, except Samuel Hankins, Jonathan Tucker, James Tucker, D. C. Loy, E. Kronk, David Perkins, Stephen Coy, William Ashley, Samuel Fortney, James Martin, M. H. Gillispie. T. J. Gillenwaters, Reed Funk, Mathias Lecrone and J. W. Lee, are all that are living. The others have passed life's fitful fever, and gone to an- swer roll-call at the high court of God.
The command returned to their homes, the war being over in July, 1849.
The Civil War .- Twelve years after the close of the Mexican, the clouds of battle again gath- ered over the unhappy country; unhappy, in- deed, in this war, because it was a civil war, called civil, probably, because such wars are always marked with unusual fierceness and atrocity. A family quarrel is, as a rule, the most unreasonable and vindictive, the feud more difficult to forget, and the bone of conten- tion more trifling than any other species of difficulties.
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
In 1861, the great rebellion had assumed its portentous shape. Fort Sumter was fired upon, and a flying trip from Mobile or New Orleans, to St. Paul or any other Northern city, was accompanied along the entire route night and day, with one continuous strain of marshal music. In the South in every breeze, from every house-top, flag pole or steeple, fluttered the confederate flags. In the North, the same shrill fife and beating drum was heard, but the flag of the Union floated everywhere; the peo- ple had, with apparently one impulse, left their houses and wandered upon the streets and highways. The children laughed and shouted their pleasure in uncontrolled delight; strong men buckled on their armor and cheered the flag, and exultant shouts of patriotism rang out upon the air. In a night the spirit of slaughter had been turned loose. The country called to arms, and there were hasty partings of dis- tress, and tears, and sighs, and aching hearts, and war, fatricidal war was upon us. Twenty- one years have passed away since then; nearly a life time, with healing wings, has come with its ministerings to the scars of war-the great red gaps of battle. A new generation has arisen, and " rebel " and "yank " are mostly sleeping peacefully in their windowless tombs, side by side often, and yet the evils of that hour of bad passions awakened are not all gone, and who can tell when the happy ending will come. It is no purpose of this chapter to write the history of that bloody and cruel war, or of the why and wherefore of its horrid vis- itation, but, upon the contrary, to say a few words of what the people of the county did do in the trying ordeal that eame without any vo- lition from them.
During the war, Illinois furnished the army 225,300 men, of itself a great army. There are 102 counties in the State, and this would be an average to the county of a fraction less than 2,000 men. Although Effingham was among the smallest of the counties, yet there is no
doubt she furnished fully 2,000 soldiers, from first to last, and yet her people did not escape the draft. The county furnished twelve regu- larly organized full companies, besides several squads of men, and quite a large number that were taken in small squads to different camps in this State and Missouri, and there were seat- tered among regiments from nearly all the States. The largest of any one body of these, which may be determined descriptively as stragglers, were about 400, taken to Missouri by Charley Kinsey and Sam Winters.
The news that actual war had commenced and the Government published its eall for 75,- 000 soldiers, had reached Effingham on a cer- tain Friday in April, 1861. Col. J. W. Filler and John L. Wilson talked the matter over, and Filler elosed his printing office, and he and Wilson commenced to raise a company. Saturday morning they had two men and then telegraphad Gov. Yates that their company was ready and awaiting orders. On the following Tuesday the company, 102 strong, started for Springfield. Filler, Captain, J. H. Lacy, First and George W. Parks, Second Lieutenants. In the language of Col. Filler, " every one of them a Democrat." The company was literally re- crnited in a day, and was the finest looking lot of soldiers that ever left the county. A meet- ing of the citizens was held at the court house on Monday before the company was to start, the house was packed with people, speeches, songs, drums and fifes added to the sudden outburst of enthusiasm of all the people. Dur- ing the meeting a suggestion was made to pass the hat and raise money to subsist the coun- try's defenders on their way to Springfield. It was carried around and 62} cents was the gross proceeds thereof, whereupon Filler spoke just a minute, the substance being that if there was a man in his company that he knew would be as bashful in faeing the enemy as that erowd was in facing the " saucer" he would then and there shoot him dead. This brought out Lowry
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Leith with the response, " Filler, that is worth $10!" and in five minutes 860 or $70 was raised, and happily and with plenty to eat on the road, the company went to Springfield and went into camp in a brick-yard. These were ninety-day men and among the first that were on the ground. From Springfield they were sent to Bird's Point, Mo., where they served out their term. Capt. Lucius M. Rose succeeded Filler as Captain upon his promotion to Lieutenant Colonel.
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