USA > Illinois > Effingham County > History of Effingham county, Illinois > Part 3
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He lost his pioneer wife, and after awhile he made up his mind to marry again. He had heard of Robert Moore's widow in the north- west part of the county. He had never seen her. but, nothing daunted, he mounted his horse and rode to her house, called her to the door, and as he sat upon his horse, looking closely at the widow, he finally informed her that he had come to see her on business-that he wanted to mar- ry her-but that she wouldn't do, and he turned his horse and rode off. He proceeded to an- other house, where there was also a widow, called her to the door, told her his business, and commanded her to mount behind him and go to the magistrate's and be married. The poor woman remonstrated and begged for time; but with oaths that fairly snapped as he uttered them, he told her to mount, and she mounted, and the cooing doves rode off and were mar- ried.
llis death, on Christmas Day, 1856, was much after the manner of his life. He not only died with his boots on, but on horseback. He had been to Freemanton all day, and in the evening
started home -one of the Higgs boys riding be- hind him. When the horse stopped in front of his cabin door, Campbell made no motion to- ward dismounting-he was dead.
Ben Campbell has now been dead many years, with no lineal descendants surviving him. The above would be an extravagant drawing of the pioneer generally; yet there is much in it that recalls a type and character of that day. lle had been admirably trained, or had trained him- self, for his place in life, and in security and con- tent had lived out a long life and filled to full- ness his measure of ambition. He knew noth- ing of romance or sentiment, nothing of a gov- ernment of rigid laws and stern police regula- tions. Under these, he could neither have thrived nor lived. He was coarse, rude, un- gainly and wild, as were his worst surround- ings. He was brave, generous and strictly hon- est. He was illiterate, but not ignorant; but shrewd, active, alert, and rich in animal life and vigor, with the most of his natural faculties cul- tivated almost to the perfection of the smell of the Siberian bloodhound. Here was marvelous adaptations to extraordinary surroundings. Exactly such as he was he had to be, in order that he might blaze the way into the heart of the wilderness for the coming hosts of civiliza- tion.
Rare old Ben Campbell ! Your times and your kind have passed away forever. You lived out your allotted term in your own proper and best way. You filled your mission in life, and died when it was best you should. Rest forever in peace! For should you now "revisit the glimpses of the moon," and behold your de- generate successors, with no hunting-grounds, no moccasins, no leather breeches, no flint-lock guns, nor roasted coons, your great heart would wither and decay like a plucked flower. Aye, would not your big heart itself burst asunder upon seeing the men of this day, in plug hats and store clothes, riding in carriages and sleep- ing-cars, chasing no other game save the meta-
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
phorical tiger, upstairs, behind closed blinds and under bright gas-lights?
The graves of these early pioneers are un- marked and mostly unknown, and their fast re- ceding memories are unhonored and unsung. They deserve better than this. They deserve bet- ter than this from us. They wrought for us the
richest and most enduring legacy in all the world. May this poor flower flung upon the unknown graves arrest the attention and enlist some mind and pen that can render justice and award a meed of praise to those great lives whose works will ripen into the noblest civilization the world has ever known.
CHAPTER II.
TOPOGRAPHY AND PHYSICAL FEATURES-NORTIIWESTERN ELEVATION OR MOUNDS-THE LITTLE WABASH BLUFFS-GEOLOGY-RELATIONS BETWEEN PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY AND GEO-
LOGICAL STRUCTURE -- FORMATION OF ROCKS-NATURAL FORCES-THE FLORIDA
REEFS-PETREFACTIONS-IIUMAN REMAINS-COAL-IRON ORE AND BUILD-
ING ROCK-MINERAL WATERS-ORIGIN OF THE PRAIRIES, ETC.
E AFFINGHAM COUNTY is bounded on the north by Shelby and Cumberland, on the east by Cumberland and Jasper, on the south by Clay and Fayette, and on the west by Fayette. It has an area of 486 square miles, of which more than one-half is timber.
The Little Wabash River, passing southward- ly, nearly equally divides the county. Its tribu- taries are : On the east, Lucas, Big Bishop, with its forks, Little Bishop and Ramsey Creeks, Big and Little Salt Creeks, Brush Creek, Green Creek and Sugar Fork; on the west are Fulfer and Limestone, Big and Brockett's Creek, Sec- ond Creek, Funkhouser, Blue Point and Shoal Creek and Green Creek, and Moccasin Creek. The higher surface land is mostly flat prairie, or tlat woodland, with some beautifully rolling lands in the northwestern part of the county. Above the flats are a few low mounds, not so abundant nor so elevated as in the counties west. One of these is in the eastern part of the county, another is Blue Mouud, and there is a low ridge near Mason. The low woodlands contain many fine oak flats, that change to white and burr oaks, hickory and post oaks on the breaks. The ridge at Mason is about two
miles across at its base, and a little over fitty feet high, descending very gradually for more than a mile to the flat level prairies, which are soon merged into post oak flats.
We are told by the State Geologist that the elevations in Northwestern Illinois known as the " mounds," are no doubt the result of denud- ing forces acting upon the surface, which have swept away the surrounding strata, leaving these isolated hills as the only remaining indi- cations of the former level of the adjacent region.
From Freeport southward, along the line of the Illinois Central Railroad, there is a gradual descent to the valley of the Big Muddy River, in Jackson County, where the level of the rail- road grade is only fifty-five feet above the river at Cairo. From this point there is a rapid rise toward the south, and at Cobden the railroad intersects a true mountain range that has an elevation of 500 to 600 feet. The geologist distinguishes this as a mountain ridge, because the evidences show there was here an uplift by forces acting from beneath, and not a washing away from the general level by the waters, as in the case of the northwestern mounds (no ref- erence to the so-called Indian mounds that
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
cross the State from northeast to the south- west).
This Cobden ridge is the eastern extension of an axis of elevation or uplift, which brings the St. Peters sandstone of the Lower Silurian, above the surface at Bailey's Landing, on the west side of the Mississippi River, tilts up the Devonian limestone at the " Bake Oven," and " Bald Bluff's " in Jackson County at an angle of about 25°, and after elevating the upper por- tion of the Lower Carboniferous limestone above the surface entirely across the southern portion of the State, finally crosses the Ohio in the vicinity of Shawneetown, and is lost beneath the coal measures of Kentucky.
If the strata forming the elevation lie in their original horizontal position, the mountain owes its existence to the removal of the surround- ing strata by denuding forces, but if the strata are dislocated, and tilted at a high angle from their original horizontal position, then the ele- vation may be attributed to upheaving forces, or, as sometimes happens, to both canses. These upheavals, when they have occurred after the deposits of the coal measures, as at La Salle, Utica, Carbondale, St. Johns. and at other points, lift the St. Peters sandstone some- times from hundreds of feet below to the sur- face, and thus bringing the coal beds also up. 1
Near the county line, the Little Wabash bluff's are sometimes eighty feet high; near the railroad bridge they are thirty to forty feet, near Ewington about the same, and fifty to eighty feet high near the north county line.
The bottoms of the Wabash are an eighth to a quarter of a mile wide.
The hills near Salt Creek are often quite abrupt, sometimes seventy-five feet high; its bottoms are low and generally narrow, with quicksand in many places in the creek bed. Near Sugar Creek, Shoal Creek and Green Creek, the hills are somewhat steep, bottoms very narrow, and beds of the streams very sandy. On all the other streams in the county
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the bottoms are much wider, and contain much excellent agricultural lands that is now being put in cultivation. The streams also possess the great advantage of much lower hills, and that are of a more gradual and easy ascent.
The prairie in the western part of the county is not so flat as that in the eastern, yet it may be all pronounced flat prairie, with occasional ponds, on the margin of which may be found Cephalanthus occidentalis and Iris versicolor. In the woods are post oak, pin oak, white oak, black oak, hickory, sugar, elm, laurel oak, sassa- fras, ash, hazel, sumach, iron wood, buckeye, sycamore, red-bud. linden, hornbeam, Spanish oak, grape vines, plum, clematis, trumpet creeper, red birch, etc., etc.
Geological Formations .*- It is an anxiom of general application in geological science, that there is an intimate relationship existing be- tween the physical geography and the geolog- ical history of every portion of the earth's sur- face, and in all cases the topographical features of a country are molded by, and therefore must be, to some extent at least, a reflection of its geological structure.
If this geological axiom could but find its way to every school-room, then would this chapter, provided it is a fair presentation of the geological and physical geography of the county, become the most interesting and use- ful book ever placed before either the children of the schools or the community at large. To the future farmer, and to all dependent upon
* Throughout this chapter we have made free drafta upon the " Economical Geology of Illinois," by A. II. Worther, whose inter- esting report of the geology of the State of Illinois is just now from the press, and as its title page says. " Published by authority of the Legislature of Illinois," 1882, and the changes it has undergone from the surface agencies of more modern times, The varied conditions of mountain and valley, deep gorge and level plain, are not the re- anita of chance, but, on the contrary, are just as much due to the operations of natural laws, ns the rotations of the earth, or the growth and continued existence of the various species of animals and plants which inhabit its surface. Moreover, all the varied con- ditions of the soil and its productive capacities, which may be ob- served in different portions of our own State, are traceable to the CAMION existing in the geological history of that particu ar region, and to the surface agencies which have served to modify the whole, and prepare the earth for the reception and sustenance of the exist- ing ruces of beings. Hence, we are the geological history of a conn- try determines its agricultural capacities, and also the amount of population which it may sustain, and the general avocation of its inhabitants.
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
him, an indispensable beginning of their edu- cation will commence with the investigation of these important subjects as they exist in their own county, their own township and upon their individual farms.
The whole earth was once a globe of liquid fire. The radiation of heat from the surface resulted in the gradual cooling of the mass, and thus the first rocks were formed. Geology teaches that the earth has been in process of creation through countless ages, and has ar- rived at its present condition by regular stages of growth or development in some respects analogous to those which characterize the life of an animal; that these have been effected by the same general law of progressive develop- ment which characterizes every development of nature, and apply with equal force to the mineral, the vegetable and the animal king- doms, that all. from the minutest globule, as shown by the microscope, to the grandest world that revolves around its controlling central sun, is alike subject to the control of unchang- ing laws; that through these laws, order has been evolved and the earth finally fitted and prepared for the habitation of man.
These changes have been going on forever; so long that the human mind utterly fails to grasp the immense duration of the earth's his- tory, that have preceded the coming of the now existing races of beings. You can no more enumerate these years, periods and æons than could you count the grains of sand re- quired to form a solid globe like this, or the drops of water contained in all its waters, or the number of cubic inches in infinite space. Geological time is measured only by periods, and each period is measured by an immeasur- able number of years.
The eternity of the past is as incomprehensi- ble as the eternity of the future; it is impos- sible to conceive when the material that con- stitutes this earth did not exist in some form, and equally impossible to conceive a period in
the future when it will not exist ; nothing has ever been or ever will be anihilated. Nature's laws are eternal and unchangeable, always pro- ducing like effects from like causes ; the law of change is the vast clock of God that ticks off the æons, that had no beginning, no end- ding. The organic being may die and the con- stitutional elements of which it is composed be returned to the earth and atmosphere from whence they came, but no portion is lost or destroyed in the process.
Natural forces are manifested by motion, and various effects produced, such, for instance, as the attraction between particles of muatter in solution, by which they are caused to assume a definite form of crystallization. Perhaps the thought may be a new and startling one to the' reader, that the forces that give form to the crystal are living forces, and that, in this sense, life really pervades all matter. Hence every mineral assumes its own peculiar form of crys- tallization, and that, too, with unerring cer- tainty. The formation of the crystal is the unmistakable effort and force of nature toward organic creation-the first results of a great law that has culminated in the creation of all the higher forms of organized beings.
The time that has elapsed since the present race of beings were first here is much greater than the popular mind has been prepared to admit. Prof. Agassiz, in a work on the coral reefs of Florida, clearly establishes the fact that this living species of coral have been at work on that coast for more than 70,000 years. Capt. E. B. Hunt, of the United States Corps of Engineers, for many years at Key West, in Florida, published in Silliman's Journal, the evidences that the existing corals that built the limestone formations of the Florida coast had been at work there for at least 5,400,000 years. Sir Charles Lyell admitted in his last work "Antiquity of Man," that there are clear evidences that the human race have inhabited this continent more than 100,000 years.
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
The earliest formed rocks having resulted from the cooling of mineral matter existing in a state of fusion, are termel primary igneous rocks.
When the surface of the earth had become sufficiently cooled, the aqueous vapors of the atmosphere were condensed into water, and the oceans and streams were formed. The waters, by their solvent and eroding influence, aided by other atmospheric agencies, acted upon the hardened rocks, wearing them away; and the disintegrated material, being carried by the streams to the bottom of the ocean, were there deposited to form the stratified rocks. These two causes-fire and water -- have given origin to all the rocky masses known. Sometimes the sedimentary or strati- fied rocks are subjected to heat or other agencies by which their original formation is changed. They then are called metamorphic rocks. Thus sandstone is converted into quartz or quartzite, and limestone into crystalline mar- ble, etc. These constitute, in the simplest form, the three classes of rock which enter into the formation of the earth's crust.
The ancient oceans, like those of the present day, were filled with organized beings, and the shell of the mollusk, and the hard, calcareous habitation secreted by the coral, become im- bedded in the constantly accumulating sedi- ment at the bottom of the ocean; and when this sediment was hardened into rock, these organic remains were preserved in a fossilized condition, so perfect and entire that the general character and habits of these ancient animals may be studied and determined in a most sat- isfactory manner. These fossils, though be- longing to a species now extinct, and in many cases, to a genera that are no longer rep- resented among living species, are nevertheless referable to the four great sub-kingdoms of existing animals, and many of them to the same families, and sometimes the same genera.
Some of the stratified rocks, especially the
limestone. are composed almost entirely of the calcareous habitations and bony skeletons of the marine animals that lived in the ocean during the time these beds were in process of formation, with barely enough mineral matter to hold the organie materials together in a cemented mass. Thus we find that these simple types of life have played an important part in the formation of the solid framework of the globe. The same process is now being re- peated, and in this way nature preserves her own records of succeeding creations, linking them all together by the unerring characteris- ties of a common origin and weaving them into one complete chain of organic existence, which beginning with the lowest and simplest form-Protozoa-culminates in the final ap- pearance of MAN, the highest and complete re- sult of creative energy.
As before stated by these records of the rocks, it is established that upon this continent we find the traces of man running back 100,000 years. To us these would certainly be " old settlers," but geology, paleontology and zoology hold suspended their judgment and patiently investigate, turning over the pages of stone and prying out the marvelous secrets that have been securely locked and guarded for us in the protecting bosom of mother earth for millions, perchanee billions of years. The question of how these beings came here is answered by the beautiful and never-changing forces of nature. That prepotency of the natural forees that account for every " form and quality of life." How they then came we substantially know. How they go is another and a more diffi- cult question. That the earth at regular re- curring periods is filled with vegetable and animal life that come and grow and flourish and pass away, leaving not a wrack behind. That the earth, but now vocal with life, is to- morrow a barren solitude locked in the noise- less sleep of death to commence again at the lowest beginnings of life-the yeast plant
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
probably in the vegetable, the rhizopods, the humblest of the known in animal origin-and continue the upward circle until the earth is again re-habilitated, to be again desolated, are fields for the investigator and for speculation that are enough to appall the ordinary mind by their magnitude.
The astronomer tells us of the astronomical day and night,, that are in duration about twenty-one thousand years, and upon this the speculative scientists (some of them only) have constructed the plans of creation to be, that these recurring periods of life and solitude upon the earth correspond-the life with the astronomical day, the dead and barren with the astronomical night.
In this work of life and death they agree that heat is, as well here as everywhere else, the motive power that produces life, while cold is the productive power of death.
Evidences are found nearly all over Illinois of the presence here of glaciers, those rivers of moving ice, that slowly travel from the north and from one to five miles in thickness, and it is easy to conceive that in their track no life is left. In the rock beds of Lake Superior they gathered up and dropped here and there the bowlders that are so frequently found in our county. Some of these are found on the surface and others are deeply buried in the soil, presenting evidences that these glaciers came at different and repeated times, but how long between them cannot be known.
One of these oval shaped bowlders was found in digging a well, near the Van Machine Shops, in this city, in 1870; it would weigh about two hundred and fifty pounds. Nearly one- third had been plained down, by the moving ice that had carried it from the Lake Superior regions, and presented a smooth and polished appearance. It was twenty-two and a half feet below the surface and the strata of earth above it gave no evidences of disturbance, but lay as they had been deposited in the long
course of time; where it lay it probably was the surface when it was left there by the gla- cier.
Petrefactions .- Some very remarkable petre- factions were found in 1854, in the work of constructing the Illinois Central Railroad, when digging the "cut" through the hills of the Little Wabash, where the road crosses the river, and on this side of the river.
In order to get dirt, to make a " fill " in the river bottom, they dug into the side of the hill from the cut, and down to about the general level of the road-bed. After drifting back a few feet, they found a strata of hard limestone rock about sixteen inches thick running horizon- tally into the hill, and this was six to eight feet above the level or bottom of their drift. The ascent of the hill was gradual from the road-bed, and when they had removed the dirt and stone until they were taking it some fifteen or twenty feet below the hill surface, they found these petrefactions at the level of their drift and beneath the strata of rock mentioned. As the earth was cleared away, they found many evidences that they were following what had once been the earth's surface. They found the stumps and partially preserved bodies of trees that presented the appearance of having grown or fallen where they were found.
They found specimens of petrified wood, that were piled out of the way of the workmen, making a pile as large as a cord of wood. One stump that had every appearance of still standing where it had grown, was perfectly petrified, except the bark, and it was plainly marked by the ax that had been used in cutting the tree. At the root of the stump were per- fectly preserved chips-partially petrified- that told again unmistakably of the use of the ax. In the clay soil, on a level with the foot of the stump, was found the imprint of the fallen tree where it had lain and decayed.
The rock was above the petrefactions, fifteen or twenty feet of earth above the rocks, and
0 Fit C illen waters
.
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
upon all this was the great forest trees that had stood there for centuries.
We are indebted to Joshua Bradly and H. B. Kepley for the facts just given.
Human Remains .- All over the county have been found what are known as Indian relies, the most common being heart shaped flint rock, that were doubtlessly used for pointing arrows, and were the savage's ammunition with which he warred and hunted; stone axes are also found, but no authenticated specimens of pottery. We have in this county none of the works of the Mound-Builders.
In the extreme southern part of the county along the Wabash River, but more especially across in Clay County, in the heavily timbered bluffs and brakes of that stream, are many evidences of there onee being an extensive burial ground of some unknown people.
Beneath the big oak trees have been found the curious graves of which some are still well pre- served. They were made by being dug down probably thirty inches, and the rude sareoph- agus formed by placing a stone slab at each side of the vault, and was completed by a similar stone covering. In this stone box, which generally is not over three fect square, was placed the body in a half sitting posture, the feet and head as near together as they could place them.
The surface geology of our county is one of the greatest importance to the farmer and to all classes dependant upon him. The time will come when the young children, and the old, too, most probably, will be taught these things until farming will be as much of a seience as anything else. To understand the beds of superficial material that are spread uneonform- ably upon the rocks, all over the State-the ac- cumulations of clay, sand and gravel, called drift-is now of the greatest importance to the farmer. By these can he know the wants and proper capabilities of his land-how to care for, protect and feed it and supply its impera-
tive wants the same as he can now his calf or pig. The entire agricultural interests in the county, as well as the common intelligence of all our people, are interested here alike, because the soil is predicated upon this superficial detritus and owes its productive qualities, in part at least, to its homogeneous character.
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