USA > Illinois > Effingham County > History of Effingham county, Illinois > Part 8
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The first school reports of the doings of the County School Commissioners are preserved from being dry, monotonous and sleep-produc- ing by their brevity and wholesome originality, as well as the regular Chinese puzzles that some words make by the way they are spelled. For instance the line :
L
" Hieronomons Faithont Scagule $10."
This would look to any ordinary stupid reader as something amounting to $10 had been paid to one "Scagule," but the eagle- eyed historian had posted himself about every man and woman in the county, all the children, many of the dogs, stump mills, Indians, green- heads, pioneer pills, and other Inxuries of those good old honest times-times when a counter- feit half-dollar commanded a premium, because it was not only the best but the only money within reach-we say the historian knew in a
moment that Mr. "Scagule " had neither taught school nor done anything else to earn and get the enormous amount of $10. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and took another look when lo, and behold! the line was plain :
" H. Faithont, schedule $10."
Honest Hieronomous Faithout had taught school for $10 a month and had returned his " Scagule " in first-class style. * * * *
In 1830, the first bushel of wheat ever planted in the county was by Judge Broom. It made a generous yield, and from here came the seed that in the after years made much of the wheat bread of our people. It was sown in what is now Mason Township. The same man planted the first orchard here in 1829. He had brought the young trees with him from Tennessee; were all grafted trees, and several have told us that, in the year 1839, they remember getting off this orchard some excellent fruit. When it is remembered that up to this year there were yet but eighteen families in Mason Township, it evidences that these people were by Broom's care and foresight, afforded a very early op- portunity of sitting down and enjoying their own vines and apple trees. Until this orchard came on, the people tasted no other fruit, except that which grew wild in the woods. These were crab-apples, plums, grapes and wild cherry and the variety of nuts found here.
The first really profitable industry here was the gathering honey. The alternating of tim- ber and prairie-prairies jeweled with garden flowers-were favored places for the wild bees, and, therefore, nearly every tree was the hive where they lived and gathered their sweet treasures from the blossoms of the prairie. The honey was gathered and the wax strained and both became the really money-producing products of the country. Honey, beeswax, ginseng, venison, turkeys, pelts and furs were the only things possible to send to market to exchange for snch articles as the people wanted.
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
And of all these, honey and coon-skins were the leading ones. These early comers had to have powder, tobacco and whisky. For every- thing else they coukl kill game. The first sea- son usually they had to buy corn for bread, but the emergencies were frequent when this could not be got, then they used the lean of the meat for bread and the fat for meat.
In many families, coffee was unknown. One instance is related where a man was quite sick. In his young days, he had used coffee, and when he lay sick he imagined that would bring him health. Judge Broom went on foot to Shelbyville and got a pound. When he returned to the sick man's house he gave it to the daughters (grown girls) and told them to make some for their father. They took it out and examined it for some time, when they went to the old people and inquired if you made it " like other bean soup."
All families did not live this way. There was then, as now, great difference in the fore- thought and thrift of the people. Many, even when here before the county was organized, lived in generous plenty of such as the land afforded then anywhere in the great West. Meat of a superior quality and in varicties that we now cannot get were within the easy reach of all, but in everything else to cat or wear they were far behind us now, but so was the whole country. But what was possible for men to do then is well illustrated in the sketch that we give below that comprises the facts of what the subject did do. In this connection we may say that we prefer to give the facts than to try to give the results and let them tell their own story.
" Dr. Jacob Bishop was born in Hardy County, Va., in 1812, and spent his years to maturity on his father's farm. When of age, he emigrated to Licking County, Ohio, where he was soon after married to Sarah Hlooks. His father died in 1836, when he was called to his okd home, where he remained until he ad-
ministered upon the estate, which duty he per- formed to the utmost satisfaction of all inter- csted. He then returned to his home in Lieking County, where he remained a little more than a year, and then moved to Effing- ham County, arriving October 11, 1841. and fixed his home at Blue Point. This was simply going into camp, as for some time his wagon was his house. With his own hand and alone he cut and carried, with the help of Met Kelly, the logs and poles and built his cabin. Ile commenced opening a farm. His ax and auger were about all the mechanical aids he possessed. Until his first crop matured, his table, made by his own hands from the first convenient tree, did not do any of that prover- biał groaning under the other proverbial loads of rich and delicate viands gathered from the four quarters of the wide and beantiful earth ; for even 6-cent corn, which had to be pur- chased and direct from the cob, manufactured at home from the old stump-mill, was earning bread by the sweat of the brow. True, there were then four old, rickety horse-mills in the county, but they were so little an improve- ment on the home stump and pestle that they were of doubtful advantage.
"The moment a little leisure from his primi- tive farming operations was found. he looked about him and determined to make such im - provements as his fertile brain suggested and his hard necessities demanded. He procured a couple of bowlders, 'nigger heads,' as they are commonly called, that are found so fre- quently all over the county, and from these he manufactured a couple of mill-stones, the bed- stone being fixed in a sycamore gum. This gum was a common article of utility in the early day. It was made by sawing off a hol- low tree any required length, and when set upright was a fine substitute for barrel or hogshead. This was firmly fixed in the ground, the upright lever attachment was at- tached to the upper stone, and the mill was
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
complete. The motive power to this was his own strong arms, and in this way, a big im- provement, remember, on the okl way, he seeured for a long time the bread for his fam- ily, consisting of a wife and six children. But his aetive nature did not permit him to stop content with this ; he sought out other schemes and quickly put them into practice. He had by this time become the happy possessor of a yoke of oxen and an old, patched-up wagon, and with these he inaugurated the business of going among the people and gathering their beeswax, pelts, venison or anything else they desired to send to market that was transporta- ble, and with a load of these, going to St. Louis. These products the neighbors thus pooled and sent to market were sold to the best advantage by this trusty commission merchant, and with the proceeds he would purchase and bring back the quantity and kind of merchandise ordered by each, which would be carefully delivered to the widespread neighbors. To thus patiently gather up the load to take away, then return to each the articles ordered ; to be from three to five weeks on the road to the city and return, and that, too, when in wet weather the roads and bridges were simply horrible, and in dry weather it was, if anything, even worse, as the cattle were in danger of perishing, and in still more dan- ger of running away, overturning the wagon, plunging down a bluff, or hopelessly hogging wagon and all in the mud and water-a not uncommon occurrence when the suffering brutes would suddenly smell the water as they would pass near it along the road ; to all this add the exposure to wind, storms, snow and freezing, and to heat and dust; to these in- clude the time and hard labor of this slow, small kind of business ; to do all this, and tell it to the people of this day and age, is to ex- cite their incredulity and tax them with a load of doubts. But Bishop did all this, and, slow and small as it looks, he soon so prospered
that he accumulated sutficient to commence a regular business of buying what the people had to sell and selling it on his own account. He bought their pelts, beeswax and produce, and purchased the goods which he sold to them for their products.
In 1844 or 1845, he moved into Freemanton, then but a mere hamlet on the National road, and commenced regulary to merchandise, but continuing to make his regular trips to St. Louis and exchanging products for goods and returning again and exchanging goods for prod- ucts. A part of his trade was to bring flour to the people. This trade at that time com- pared to the flour trade of to-day is a curious instance of the changes that occur. Now we ship out of the county flour by the car-load, and that often in daily shipments; at that time, it was brought here and retailed out only in cases of sickness, in three and five-pound packages only, the five pounds being the maximum that a single family would purchase at a time. It was a very poor, black article at that-one that the well now would elevate their offended noses at, but it was food and medicine to the poor sick sufferers of that day.
Bishop's business in Freemanton was so prosperous that he soon felt able to commence the erection of a wool carding machine. For those days, this was a daring enterprise. The motive power was a trend-wheel moved by three oxen, and here was furnished the people a new industry, as well as a home market for their wool. It must have been a great boon to the poor women of the country, as it tended much to lighten their work in preparing the clothes for their families. He soon found that his machine was a complete success, and that his motive power was capable of doing addi- tional work. and so he added regular mill- stones that would make corn-meal and even grind wheat which could be and was bolted " by hand." And thus Bishop's carding. machine and grist-mill soon became the center of much business and traffic.
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
In 1850, the country had outgrown the ca- pacities and its tread-wheel power, and so he responded to the public wants and purchased an engine and boiler. With this great improve- ment and added power, he purchased a circular saw, and made this an addition to his establish- ment. He was then ready and enabled to card the wool, grind the meal and flour and saw the lumber as the public need required. This was the first saw and grist steam mill ever started in the county. For many miles around the people came in crowds to look upon and admire this wonderful thing. On Saturdays, particu- larly, they would gather in numbers and spend the day in athletic and other sports about the mill, and in many ways manifest their wonder and joy over the grand improvement.
We could not give the history of the rise and progress of the mill in our county without at the same time giving much of the early history of Dr. Bishop, so closely are the two identified. It is but just to the memory of a good man, a valuable citizen and a kind-hearted, true gen- tleman, to briefly conclude this paragraph with a few further words of the Doctor :
In early life he had secured a small but select medical library; not with a view of ever prac- ticing medicine, but to improve himself-to educate himself-to secure knowledge; he mas- tered these books, and to this information his strong, closely observing mind had gathered knowledge from every available opportunity or experiment that presented itself. He found himself often and often surrounded by sick neighbors, when there was no physician to be had ; in such emergencies he was the Good Samaritan. And so valuable did he prove as nurse and adviser that he soon was wanted both far and near, and almost from compulsion he was thus drifted into the practice of med- icine. From the very first he had shown him- self to be so skillful in the handling of that dreadful disease, typhoid fever, that his repu- tation and practice extended, not only over his
own but all adjoining counties. To this large, but not lucrative practice-not lucrative be- cause the people were poor and his charity was wide-he gave his time almost exclusively to the time of his last sickness. For some years before his death he suffered from rheumatism, of which he died on the Sth of November, 1870, in the fifty-ninth year of his age.
His widow, Sarah Bishop, died March 11, 1872. Three sons and three daughters were left surviving; of these, one son and one daugh- ter have since died.
Dr. Bishop's life is a fair illustration of the fact that a man who is a born gentleman will always be one despite surroundings. It is a common saying of some men that if so-and-so had only had different training and surround- ings in his youth, instead of being a mere vul- gar lont, he would be a gentleman. There is little truth in such moralizings. It is doubtful if there is any. There is infinitely more truth in the opposite aphorism that " blood will tell." There is such a thing as pure and gentle blood, and surroundings can no more change or hide it in the possessor than they can the muley's ears or the leopard's spots.
It is the testimony of all who knew Dr. Bish- op, that his presence in the sick room was like a genial, bright ray of sunshine. Under no circumstances did he forget to be a true and perfect gentleman. All testify to this, and the memory of his strong integrity and strict hon- esty, when added to what he has done for the improvement of the people of the county, are his imperishable and fit monument.
In conclusion, upon the subject of mills, it may be here stated that for a long time the only mode of getting sawed lumber was by the "whip-saw." This was run by two men, with saw made for this purpose, one man standing on the log and the other under it, and in this hard and tedious way much lumber was got out before the horse-mill of T. J. Gillenwater's was put up, and a circular saw put to work. This
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
was propelled by seven horses, and often eut eight to nine hundred feet of lumber a day.
In the early day some ingenious pioneer put up a curious water-mill on the Wabash. It was so contrived, being two large troughs hung up- on a pivoted cross-beam, with a heavy stone at one end of the beam and the trough at the other, so rigged that when the trough filled with water, it would raise the stone and the water would then spill out of the trough and let the stone drop heavily in the other trough where the grain was. It was automatie and worked continually, needing only an attendent to take out the meal and put in fresh grain.
The population of Effingham County in 1840 was 1,675. The census for the year reports 451 engaged in agriculture; in manufactures and trade, 16; in commerce, 9; learned profes- sions, 4. The county had two insane persons. They were a private charge. There is no record of the number of persons that could not read and write. Under the head of universities, col- leges, students, grammar schools and mining all are blanks.
The Killing of Hill .- At high noon, on the 15th day of April, 1842, in the town of Free- manton, Diek Hill, as he sat upon his horse, conversing with Jesse Newman, was shot dead. Hill was in the road and the man he was con- versing with stood inside the yard, and near a blacksmith shop. The report of the gun was probably heard by all in the little village, yet to this day it has never been proven who fired the shot. His head, shoulder and body were riddled with buek-shot, and his death must have been instantaneous, as he rolled off his horse and fell limp and dead in the road, where he lay just as he had fallen. Some of the seat- tering shot had slightly wounded the horse's shoulder, and the frightened, riderless animal running past the few village houses at full speed, toward his home and along the road his master had ridden a short time before. This added to the report of the gun told the tragic
story unmistakably to all. When the horse dashed up to his master's door, the empty sad- dle and the yet warm blood told the frightful story to Mrs. Hill. It was a short half-mile from the scene of the tragedy to Hill's house. The sereams of the woman could be plainly heard, as she rushed out of her door, caught the horse, bounded into the saddle and at full speed started to the village. With mingled sereams, sobs and execratious upon the mur- derers, and waving her hands and arms above her head, she came to where her dead husband lay. The horse stopped when she flung herself to the ground, fell upon the corpse, pushed one hand under the head, and in doing so covered the hand and part of her arm in the dark mud made by the blood, as it mingled with the dust of the road; she raised the head until the face of the living and the dead were nearly along side each other, when the maniac wife and dead husband presented a picture that will never fade from the memory of the few who looked upon it.
A brief half-hour before the tragedy, Richard John Hill, in the prime of lusty life, splendid physical organization, and above the average of much of his surroundings in intellect and culture, had left his wife as she stood in the door admiringly watching him as he rode away upon his spirited and gaily caparisoned horse, toward the village. He rode up to the village post office, kept by Mrs. Flack, now Mrs. Joshua Bradley, had called for his mail, which was car- ried out to him by Mr. Brown, and after chat- ting gaily a moment, he turned his horse and rode toward the blacksmith shop and to his terrible death.
The excitement over this daylight, yet mys- terious tragedy, was great, indeed, among all people. The consequences flowing therefrom, lasting as they did for nearly a generation were unparalleled in the history of the State. Nearly all questions of social life and the poli- ties of the county were pivoted upon this sub-
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John Le Crone
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
ject. And to this day, if you talk to one yet left of the few men of that time, who were prominent in the affairs of the county, you may easily detect that the subject might re-kindle the tires that raged within them more than forty years ago.
Richard John Hill had lived for some years in the county; had been County Superintendent of Schools, and was County Collector when he was killed. But with many of the best people he had earned a bad reputation. Apparently he wished to be considered a reckless, desperate and dangerous man. He openly defied public moral sentiments. It was said that he was a gambler. Many believed he was not only a counterfeiter. but worse, and stories were told of him, which, if true, made him amenable to punishment for the violation of nearly every crime in the decalogue. His delight was to be regarded as a terror generally, and his practices and followers, and henchmen were such that he could and did over-ride and cow many, and secure the dread or hate of nearly all.
Not long after Hill's death, the dead body of a man was found at or near Deadman's Grove (the place gets its name from the circumstance). All indications were that the body had lain for a long time in the water. No one at the inquest recognized the unfortunate. The facts were published and Mrs. Sweeney, of Spring- field, came here, and from the clothes, the false teeth and the peculiar blue color of one of his partially deeayed teeth, identified the body as being that of W. S. Sweeney, her husband. IFiHl's enemies asserted and believed that he and his brother Ed had killed and robbed Sweeney and thrown his body into the creek. They told all the circumstantial details-the fact that Hill was in debt to Sweeney and had written to him to meet him in Shelbyville, that they did meet there, gambled and caroused for two or three days, and then Sweeney and Dick and Ed Hill started for Freemanton, Sweeney in a buggy and the other two on horseback.
In this way they were seen at points along the road to near Deadman's Grove. One or two parties in this county met them north of the Grove and these were the last traces of Sweeney alive. Dick and Ed Hill were seen continuing their way south of the Grove, but without Sweeney, and it was said that Ed was in a buggy, leading a horse behind and Dick in company on horseback. Near Freemanton, at the north side of Mrs. Flack's farm, they were seen to separate, Dick going toward his home and Ed going west on the National road. He is reported to have been seen at Vandalia still driving the buggy and leading a horse. This was the last ever seen or heard of Ed Hill.
In the foregoing mention of the social and political divisions among the people, it must not be supposed that it was divided upon the line of the friends of the man on one side and his enemies on the other. This was not the line of contention at all. There were probably very few who regretted the taking off of Hill. It was the manner in which it was done and a desire to ferret out the murderers, and at least attempt to punish them and vindicate the maj- esty of the law that constituted the one side, while the others were so rejoiced at his death that they not only justified the manner of it, but they were ready to go any length to shield and protect the perpetrators.
It was due to this state of affairs that it was impossible to ever produce in a court the truth that some absolutely knew, and all had well grounded suspicions. Every witness who saw the most material parts of the tragedy, were those who hated Hill and were warm friends of the suspected, and they discreetly closed their mouths upon the subject and kept them so until long after the principal actors were all dead and the county fend had passed away by the election of John Trapp as County Clerk in 1860.
The people of the county had ranged them- selves on the two sides, and for twenty years
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HISTORY OF EFFINGHAM COUNTY.
elections were won and lost, the question not being are you a Democrat or Whig, but are you a Trapp-man or an anti-Trapp. Or as one side sometimes taunted the other as " horse thieves," and in return they were designated as " mur- derers." These terrible epithets were not com- mon, but during the long fend they could at times be heard. It is much to say of the people of those days, that during the twenty years of bickering and bitterness, other and better lives than Dick Hill's were not yielded up as sacrifiees upon the alters of hot passion and bitter prejudices.
The evils arising in this unfortunate turn in the public and private affairs of the people were great and manifold. Their effects are not yet wholly obliterated. Important questions in social life, education and finance were dwarfed and forgotten, while detraction and hate ruled the hour. This unfortunate state of affairs would probably never have existed had any other man than John Trapp been sus- pected of being the chief actor in the bloody story. There were few people who doubted very strongly at any time as to who it was that killed Hill. Trapp himself, it is said, never denied it point blank.
Trapp and Mike Brockett were seen, just after Hill was shot, to emerge from the empty building that stood near the blacksmith shop in front of which the killing occurred. They each carried a gun; they quietly walked np and after looking a few minutes at the dead, Trapp remarked to some one standing by, " He is dead, isn't he?" and the two men turned and walked off.
In some respects, John Trapp was an ex- traordinary man. He was quiet, unobtrusive, kind and gentle of disposition-big-souled and warmly generous to all; of natural sound, strong sense and liberal views; he sedulously avoided difficulties and all troubles. He was affectionate and warm-hearted, and he loved his friends and never abused or threatened
even his worst enemies. He believed he had been deeply wronged by Hill. Those who knew the circumstances expected he would kill him. Hence, when the sharp report of the gun rang out in the quiet village of Freemanton, it is said the same exclamation came from all who heard the gun, " There, I expect Hill is shot!" Bnt if Trapp had deep griefs-wrongs that impelled him to avenge them in blood, he gave no sign or outward token; he confided them to no hu- man being that ever betrayed his confidence or gave up his secret. He was as the still waters that are deep. Not hasty to act, not swift to revenge. He made no threats-no warning, but he deliberately executed his de- liberate purposes even to the death. Ilis friends never deserted him-his enemies had ceased to persecute him, and there is no ques- tion but that he died in the sincere and honest conviction that he had only done his duty.
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