USA > Illinois > Effingham County > History of Effingham county, Illinois > Part 12
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After this, in the next call for troops, three companies were raised, as follows: Col. Funk- houser, Capt. O. L. Kelly and Capt. MeCracken, each a company that went in the Ninety-eighth Illinois Regiment of Infantry. This might be called the Effiingham Regiment. The field and staff were John J. Funkhouser, Colonel; W. B. Cooper, Major; J. H. J. Lacy, Adjutant. William MeCracken, Company C, with Stephen I. Williams, First, and John P. Powell, Second Lieutenants. Williams resigned in 1862, De- cember 19, when Powell was promoted to First and Henry S. Watson made Second Lieutenant. In Company B, David D. Marquis was Captain, A. W. Lecrone, Captain Company F. Capt. O. L. Kelly was killed September 8, 1862, and A. S. Moffitt became Captain, and William Tarrant First Lieutenant. Capt. Dobbs raised a full company and joined the Thirty-fifth Illinois Infantry, Col. G. A. Smith. His Lieu- tenants were Jesse D. Jennings and Nelson Staats. Capt. Dobbs was severely wounded and resigned October 14, 1862, when Jennings became Captain and Joseph Moore First Lieu- tenant. In 1862, Capt. Presley B. O'Dear, Merritt Redden, First, and John F. Barkley. Second. Lieutenants, recruited a company and joined the Fifty-fourth Regiment, Illinois In- fantry. Capt. J. P. M. Howard, D. P. Murphy, First, and John Loy, Second, and Capt. D. L. Horn and Capt. David Young each entered the service with a company of men for the 100 days' service.
Col. Funkhouser's Company had S. A. New- comb First Lieutenant and D. P. Murphy Sec- ond. This company was a part of the Twenty- sixth Illinois Infantry, Col. Loomis. The regi- ment were at Camp Yates, and were sent to Palmyra, Mo., which place they guarded two weeks before they got guns, and in this time they used clubs as a substitute. From this service Funkhouser returned and raised the Ninety-eighth Regiment.
Capt. H. D. Caldwell raised the first and only cavalry company in the county. It was made a part of the Fifth Illinois Cavalry. This company was mustered into the service in September, 1861. The company went to Ben- ton Barracks, Pilot Knob, Greenville, Reeves Station, Pocahontas and Smithville, Ark. At Davison they were in the field skirmish, and in the next brush, at Strawberry River, Ark., Marion Welker was killed and Sylvester Nye wounded. Next at Greenville, and Cherokee Bay, Mo., they were in two brisk little fights. This company were at the siege of Vicksburg, and then had a long and dangerous march, with skirmishing all the way to Champion Hill and return.
When Capt. Dobbs had sufficiently recovered from his wound, he raised a company of 100- day men, and this company served in the One Hundred and Fifty-fourth Regiment, when the Captain returned home and raised a company for the One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Regiment. Thus this one man put in the service over 300 soldiers, and although badly wounded at Pea Ridge battle, he served in the ranks during nearly the entire war.
Our county was almost depopulated of its young and able-bodied men, the people who remained at home earnestly and literally aided and encouraged those who were in the field. The Board of Supervisors made liberal and generous donations from the County Treas- ury for bounty money to be paid those who volunteered. And the State laws show that,
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while the board in several cases acted without authority, yet the Legislature promptly ratified and legalized everything that looked toward promoting the war. The people and county were true to those strong characteristics that have marked them from the foundation of the county, namely, to vote the Democratic ticket straight, and fight upon the slightest pretext.
When the cruel war was over, this great body of men that were left alive, returned to their homes, and the better occupations of peace, and resnmed their places among the leading and best citizens of the county. And this may well be said to their great credit. Our county suffered less, although it had fur- nished so proprotionately large a number of men from the war, demoralization and dissipation, and venality than probably any other county in the State. It has been said that the invention of gunpowder was one of the strong forces in the march of the human mind toward civilization. This is true; and it may be said for the people of Effingham County the late unfortunate war was a great school for many of our people. It taught them something of the geography and greatness of their own country; it placed thiem in direct contact with men from every section of the Union-from nearly every State and county. To the time of the breaking-out of the war the ignorant Yankee looked upon the people of Southern Illinois as but little above the brute, and the people returned the compliment in full, not for a moment dreaming that a stupid Yankee was a human being in any respect. They very well averaged in their mutual respect and ignorance of each other.
It is now nearly eighteen years since the war closed. We are told by those who have revisited some of the terrible, bloody battle- fields, that kind nature has there been busy cov- ering over, and hiding away from sight the signs and marks of the fell strife and slaugh- ter. Even the long, slim trenches, where were
buried the killed, as they were put away sim- ply wrapped in their blankets, are now hard to trace. Let the white robed angel of peace drop a tear upon all memories of the unfortu- nate civil war, and blot them out forever.
The Press. - The record of the newspaper press of a county, if it has happened to fall into the hands of men competent to make it fully discharge its duty, onght to be the one most important page in the county's history. One of the first and greatest things that al- ways could be said of our nation, was it has a free press. No man has to be licensed or se- lected by a paternal Government, either to print a book or publish a paper. It has been circumscribed by no law except natural selec- tion. Any one who wishes could start a paper, anywhere and at any time, and say anything on earth he desired to say, barring only an occa- sional heavy boot-toe and the law of libel. If he chose not to be suppressed, there was no power to suppress him. If he was persecuted or thrashed by some outraged citizen, it is not certain but that he always got the best of the difficulty, especially when he would begin to prate about the "palladium of American lib- erties." The wisest act of our Government in all its history was the unbridling the press. It was the seed planted in good soil for its own perpetuity, and the happiness and welfare of its people. To make the press absolutely free, especially after the centuries of vile censorship over it, was an act of wisdom transcending in importance the original invention of movable types. A free press makes, without so much as the saying of it, free speech, free schools, free intelligence and freedom, and when the storms of State come, and the mad waves of popular ignorance and passion beat the ship of State, then, indeed, is a free press the beacon light shining out upon the troubled waters.
The coming of the Bohemian-that sphynx of the black letter, the " stick," the ink-pot, "pi " and the " devil," in other words the prin-
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ter, is an era always, anywhere and among any people; in young and fast-growing communi- ties, it is an event of great portent to its future, for here, above any and all other institutions, are incalenlable possibilities for good, and some- times well grounded fears for evil. A free press in the hands of a man aware of the great re- sponsibilities resting upon him, is a blessing, like the discoveries and inventions of genius that are immortal. In the dingy printing office is the epitome of the world of action and of thought-the best school in christendom- the best church. Here is where genins perches and pauses before those lofty flights that awe and attract mankind-here are kindled the fires
1 of genius that blaze and dazzle like the central sun, and that penetrate, and warm and ripen the rich fruitage of benign civilization. The press is the drudge and the pack-horse, as well as crowned king of all mankind. The gentle click of its type is heard around all the world; they go sounding down the tide of time, bear- ing upon their gentle waves the destinies of civilization, and the immortal smiles of the pale children of thought as they troop across the fair face of the earth in their entrances, and ex- ists from the unknown to the unknown, scat- tering here and there, immortal blessings that the dull, blind types patiently gather, and place them where they will ever live. It is the earth's symphony which endures; which transcends that of the " morning when the stars sang together." And when its chords are swept by the fingers of the immortals, it is the echoes of those an- thems that float up forever to the throne of God. Of all that man can have in this world it is the one blessing, whose rose has no thorn, whose sweet has no bitter. It is fraught with man's good, his joy, his happiness, and the blessings of civilization. By means of the press the humblest cabin in the land may bid enter and become a part of the family circle, such as the immortal and sweet singing bard of Scot- land-Bobby Burns; the God like Shakespeare,
or Byron, " who touched his harp, and nation's heard entranced." Here Lord Macauley will lay aside his title and dignity, and with the timid children even hold sweet converse in those rieh resounding sentences that flow on forever like a great and rapid river. Here Gray will sing his angelic pastoral as " the lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, and leaves the world to solitude and me," and Charles Lamb, whose sweet, sad, witty life may mix the laugh with the sigh of sympathy, may set the children in a roar as he tells the story of the " invention of the roast pig." And that human bear. John- son, his roughness and boorishness all gone now as in trenchant sentences he pours ont his jeweled thoughts to eager ears; and the state- ly Milton, blind but sweet and sublime, and Pope telling the story of " man's inhumanity to man " in stately measure, and poor, poor, delightful, gifted Poe, with his bird of evil omen, " perched upon the pallid bust of Pallas," and Shelly and Keats, and Dickens, and Thackaray and Saxe, and Scott and Hood and Elliott, and Demosthenes and Homer, and Webster and Clay, and all of earth's greatest, sweetest and best. are at the beck and call of mankind, where they will spread their bounties and beauties before the humblest outcast as munificently as at the feet of royal courts or kings.
But, begging the reader's pardon, and hop- ing that he has skipped this mild and diffident invocation, we will proceed with the story of the press in Effingham County-the Country Press, whose editor, printer, compositor, job- man, foreman and force, proof-reader, poet and sweep, are the alpha and the omega of the wondrous establishment. Where the village editor vies with the lone schoolmas- ter in carrying that " little head" that "con- tained all he knew." There is nothing in ere- ation the equal in modesty and diffidence to the very first pioneer paper-the scream of the first locomotive in the wilderness, stampeding the buffaloes, wild cats and Indians, is tame
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and commonplace compared to the first paper -the Vol. I, No. 1 ; Jefferson Brick, proprie- tor ; the Hon. Jefferson Brick, chief editor ; J. Brick, local editor ; Mr. Brick, compositor ; the great name set in fat faced ten-line caps on every page. How grandly he talks about " WE ourself ;" about the Sanctum Sanctorum, where is edited those brilliant Sheriff sales and lying funeral notices, and those sonorous sentences about the Hon. Timothy Tugmutton, Esq., having with such public spirit erected a pala- tial pig pen, and thus the march of empire ho's westward like a stray cat in a strange back-yard when the boys and dog of the house get up for the day's business.
In 1855, W. B. Cooper had been two years in Ewington practicing law, and conceiving that he could add other things to his large law practice, he went to Vandalia and purchased a printing office of Tevis Greathouse, and at once transferred it to Ewington and issued the first paper in the county -the Effingham Pion- eer. The old hand-press of this office was probably the first ever brought to Illinois. It had been brought from Kentucky by Col. E. C. Berry, the first State Auditor of Illinois, and it had followed the seat of government from Kaskaskia to Vandalia. It had been in two fires, but there was much iron and great soli- dity about it, and, while a cumbersome con- cern, it was always ready to do fair work in the bands of a stout pressman. Mr. Cooper, not being a printer, brought with his office a man named Burton, who set up and worked off the paper, and was Postmaster at the same time. Burton left the office, and the paper floundered as best it could upon chance printers, until MeManis and Orrin Hoddy were put to work, and the publication went forward regularly from that time. In October, 1857, Col. J. W. Filler entered the office as printer, and in a short time a joint-stock company was formed, when Cooper retired and he became sole pro- prietor. Filler's description of the office when
he first entered it and looked around, is graphic and interesting. It was in a log cabin, and a pile of "pi" lay in the center of the room. The patient printers often had to go to this pile and hunt out, by scratching, much after the fashion of the industrious old hen and chickens, to find a needed letter that could be found no- where else. The general appearance of things was in keeping with the " pi pile." The paper was a six-column folio, sometimes a little dingy and the worse-for-wear appearance about it. It was running a serial story-a chapter a week-entitled " The Sea Lion," and when the outside had been worked off the printers would take out letters here and there from the Sea Lion, and chew paper wads to fill the holes. This gave the Lion, as well as the forms, a sin- gularly motley and spotted appearance. Filler most unceremoniously killed off the Sea Lion, and to this day the readers of the Pioneer have never ceased to regret this untimely end of their hero.
Filler continued the publication of the paper in Ewington until the fall of 1860, when it was transferred to the county seat, Effingham. It now began to put on considerable newspaper airs, and was paying the one man who, with the help of a roller boy a half day each week, did everything from chopping his own wood as well as all other work or business about the office. The paper moved along in quiet content until April, 1861, when Col. Filler laid down his stick and went soldiering, leaving the office in the hands of Dr. T. G. Vandever, who pur- chased the Gazette, a paper started by L. M. Rose in the spring of 1860, as a Republican organ, and was run by Rose until he, too, went to the war in April, 1861. Vandever purchased the Gazette, upon which there was a mortgage, and moved it into the Pioneer office, and when the two were consolidated the publication ceased. In October, 1861, Filler & Vandever, in the consolidated office, commenced the pub- lication of the Unionist. They issued three
ยท
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HISTORY OF EFFINGIIAM COUNTY.
numbers only when Filler again went to the war and Vandever was again left alone. In the early part of 1862, the mortgagee of the old defunet Gazette, by virtue of his lien, took charge of the office, and sold the same to John Hoeny, who at once revived the publication of the Gazette, and, in a short time after this, Hoeny purchased the Pioneer office of Filler, and moved the entire concern into a new two- story frame building, on the east side of the public square, and this was burned to the ground in July, 1862. Here was not only a total loss of everything in the office, and no in- surance, but there was a goodly part of it not paid for. The County Treasurer, Barcus, advanced Hoeny $100 on the future tax list, and with this he went to Chicago and purchased a lot of old type of the Times and returned. He had the old Pioneer press, which fortunately stood in the yard at the time of the fire, and had it re- paired, and moved into a building in the north- east corner of the public square and com- menced the publication of his paper. The office continued here until a new one-story office was erected on the old stand, and the office went there again. In 1866, L. Hommes was asso- ciated with Hoeny, and they made the paper one side German and the other English, and this continued for six months, when Hommes retired and went to Chicago. In 1865, Hoeny sold to Hays & Bowen, and retired. These men changed the name immediately to the Effingham County Democrat. They soon let the concern run down, and by this time, in the latter part of 1865, Col. Filler had returned from the war, and the securities of Bowen had to take the paper; they placed Filler in control. He continued the publication until September, 1868, when II. C. Bradsby purchased the office. He eliminated the word " County " from the name, and it became the Effingham Democrat, as it has remained ever since. En April, 1870, Bradsby sold to J. C. Brady, who associated with himself John Hoeny, and on the 7th of
June of the same year Brady sold his interest to Hoeny, and thus he again became the sole proprietor. In August, 1878, Hoeny sold a one-half interest to George MI. Le Crone. Oc- tober 1, 1880, Hoeny sold his remaining in- terest to Owen Scott, and the firm then became Le Crone & Scott. October 13, 1881, George M. Le Crone sold his interest to Scott, and the property became the possession of Owen Scott, and is so published at this time.
Thus, full of changes beset with trials, per- ishing sometimes from famine and sometimes from flames, it has had always vigor and vital- ity. A remarkable coincidence is that every man, we believe, except Martin Hoeny, that has been connected with it as part proprietor is still living to watch the career of their hope- ful prodigy. It has always been Democratic in politics, and at times has lashed without mercy its political opponents, and it has been one of the secrets of the county always com- ing to the front with its overwhelming Demo- cratic majorities. We would be much pleased to go over its list of writers and contributors who have filled its columns for so many years, with a running review of each one. with an opinion of their different merits. But, as they are all alive, and modesty is our besetting sin, we forbear, content with expressing the hope that it may live long and prosper.
The Register .- Maj. William Haddock issued the first number of the Effingham Register November 14, 1864, and for eight years, with- out interruption, continued its publication. Maj. Haddock had just returned from the army to his home in Butler Center, Iowa, when he concluded to come South and open a fruit farm. He came to Effingham, and, being a strong Republican, he fell into the hands of Wood & Avery, attorneys of this place, and they persuaded him to start a Republican pa- per here. He was a lawyer, printer and expe- rieneed journalist. In 1852, he commenced and published the Anamosa News in Jones
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
County, Iowa, for three years. Here and at this time he was elected State's Attorney, which offiee he filled ably and well for two years. Ile published the Iowa State Register in Waterloo, Iowa, a non-political paper, de- voted to the interests of Iowa. In 1859, he published the Jeffersonian, a vigorous Repub- liean paper, in the same place. Haddock was a man most admirably adapted to come liere, and under the adverse and trying cireum- stances successfully establish a Republican paper. He had ability, experienee, untiring energy, and was a skilled workman in the printer's art. He published a paper that was 500 per cent better than its best patronage ever justified. His economy was astounding, his energy tireless, his ambition boundless. He warmed with life the Republican party in this eounty-made it much, if not all, that it was, and in return received the usual pay that pretty much all parties award their patient and humble organs. They are generally expected to do all the party work and take their pay in sneers and kieks, while the hangers-on take the fat offices and chuckle over their own greatness, forgetting that the starving editor was their architect and builder.
Maj. Haddock was a journalist who had learned his lessons from Horaee Greeley. In 1872, when his loved and venerated preceptor became a candidate for President of the Unit- ed States, he dared to support him. The pen- alty he paid for this manly independence was the suspension of his paper, which occurred on the Ist of October, 1872. A few weeks after the suspension of the Register, he moved his office to Champaign, Ill., where he com- menced the publication of the Champaign Times, an able and vigorous Democratie paper. Here he struggled and toiled until the 27th of February, 1879, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, when the busy, restless, heroic life went to sleep in death.
The Effingham Republican came in August,
1872, published by Martin Bros., of the Shel- byville Union. The firm was composed of M. B. Martin and Elgin Martin. Some of the leading Republicans of this eity withdrew their support from the Register in consequence of its leaning toward Horaee Greeley, and put up their money in private subseriptions to the amount of $400 or $500, and induced Martin Bros. to purchase material and start a thor- oughgoing Republiean organ. The Martin Bros. started a neat and lively little seven- column paper, but they found it difficult, if not impossible, to make the eoneern pay ex- penses. They kept it alive until October 1, 1873, when they sold out to H. C. Painter, the present proprietor, a practical printer, and a man of first-class business and financial educa- tion. Its prosperity and complete success dates from the day Mr. Painter took the eon- trol of its affairs. The proof of this is the fact that he has doubled the circulation and more than doubled the job work of the office, and it is now upon a secure and solid founda- tion. It has been editorially mild and con- servative, devoting much of its columns to local and society news. When the new, re- vised, enlarged and complete "History of Effingham County," bearing date of 1976 is made, may the Republican be here to see, and tell the story from day to day of the progress of the work by those future historians and workers that are to be born after more than fifty years from this day and date have elapsed.
As a closing paragraph upon this subject, the writer of these lines, connected with no paper and not being a politician nor never an office-holder, may be permitted to lecture all parties a little in their treatment of their pub- lishers and writers-that is, the neglect of these men when comfortable positions are to be given out. It is too common a fault of all parties to neglect them and bestow their smiles and favors upon ward bummers or compara- tive strangers to the party work.
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
The Effingham Volksblatt-a German paper -by A. Gravenhorst-a ten-column folio-was issued for the first time June 17, 1878. Until now (October, 1882) it has been printed in Mil- waukee, but type and material with which to print one side of the paper here at home are now secured, and office room is secured in the Times Building, where the press-work will be done. It will now be made a six-column quarto.
The Times .- When Mr. John Hoeny had sold his entire interest in the Democrat, he temporarily moved to Chicago. On Friday, January 27. 1882, he had returned, and issued the first number of the Effingham Times. pub- lished by John Hoeny & Son ; John Hoeny, Sr .. editor, and John Hoeny, Jr., local editor, a sprightly and able Democratic, eight-column paper, that from the first issue took rank among the best papers ever issued in the county. It started with a large subscription list, and week by week this has steadily grown. Its job department. under the control of John Iloeny. Jr., has built up an extensive business.
Mr. Hoeny's long residence in Ellingham County and his extensive experience in the newspaper business here made the Times a successful enterprise from its first issue. It merits all the encouragement it has received, and even more, because of its ability, integrity and fearless advocacy of the right and hold denunciation of the wrong wherever found.
This is the record of the press in the city of Effingham. While it has developed no very brilliant writers of genius to spread and ex- tend its name and fame, yet it has been gener- ally in the care of men who have exercised good sense and sound discretion. The large majority of them have been practical printers, who received their training as journalists and writers after they had become proprietors. Some of them were lawyers, some politicians, some farmer boys and some school teachers, who knew nothing of a printing office before
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