USA > Illinois > Greene County > History of Greene county, Illinois: its past and present > Part 22
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It was in the month of August, and the prairies were fragrant and beautiful. Just before they arrived at the Macoupin-or Maquapin (white potatoe) as the Indians named it, and it was for a long time called-near the present town of Kane, they found one or two cabins occupied by adventurous settlers, but did not stop here. Crossing the creek and the bottom lands, Mr. Thomas ascended the bluffs, passed on
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through the timber and selected a spot for a home about three miles from the stream, on section 33, township 10-12. A beautiful grove and a clear spring of water were among the attractions that fixed his choice. Here Mr. Thomas killed a deer, cut a bee-tree and engraved his name on the bark of a monarch of the forest, to indicate that the land was claimed. He also built a cabin, made some other preparations, and returned for his wife and household goods. With these loaded upon an ox cart he arrived at his new home on the ninth day of November, 1818, and thus became the first settler in Greene County north of Macoupin Creek. With him, to assist him in crossing the creek and in other ways, came Rowell Hunnicut, now a resident of Walkerville.
Mr. Thomas's nearest neighbors were the dwellers south of the creek, but north, east and west of him in a circuit of from fifteen to fifty miles, the prairies were solitary and trackless. The only link that con- nected him with civilization was a " blind path " that " meandered among the trees and over the prairies back to ' the settlement ' on Indian Creek, or Wood River." Afterward a " three-notch road " appeared, and proved a surer guide. It was several years after Mr. Thomas arrived at his new home, before he became the owner of a wagon, the first which he possessed being made for him by the late Captain Richard Robley.
Thomas Carlin pushed further north, inclining a little more to the east, and chose for his home a fine piece of land, including that on which the city of Carrollton was afterward built. His cabin he erected in the southern portion of the present corporation, and occupied it late in 1818, or the Spring of 1819.
In October, 1818, Michael Headrick (father of Anderson Headrick, coroner of the county), Jacob Headrick, his brother, Abram Bush and Abram Sells, his son-in-law, and Jacob Redden arrived. They were originally from Kentucky but had been temporary residents of Indiana, and had spent some time at the Wood River settlement. They reached a spot about one-half mile west of the present residence of David Wright, Esq., near Carrollton, the tenth of the month. Here they raised two crops, when they discovered that they were on the six- teenth section, which was devoted to the school fund. Mr. Michael Headrick accordingly moved, in 1821, to the farm north of Carrollton, now owned by Absalom Bradley, Esq., which he entered at the land sale. Mr. Redden went north to Morgan County.
At the first election ever held in the county the house of Abram Sells was used for the polls ; this was in November, 1820, when James Monroe was re-elected President of the United States.
Soon, other daring pioneers were attracted by the fertile prairies between the two creeks.
James Caldwell and Thomas Crane arrived, and built and occupied cabins before Winter, in township 10, range 11, east of Carrollton. Calvin Tunnell commenced an improvement at the same time, but was prevented by illness from occupying it until February of the next year. Luther Tunnell also came about this time, and it was probably in this year that H. P. Clendenen settled in the southwestern part of the county.
In the year 1819, the population of the county was very much increased by immigration. F. M. Bell made a settlement in township 10, range 12; Michael Waltrip built a cabin on section 17, and Joel Johnson
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on section 21, of township 11, range 11. It was in 1819 that the earliest improvements were made north of Apple Creek. The first men attracted by the beauty and fertility of the location were Thomas Allen, Thomas Rattan, James Henderson, and Levi Reader, who, in the Spring of that year, formed a settlement, just north of Apple Creek and east of the road from Carrollton to White Hall, except a portion of Thomas Rattan's improvement, which lay west of the road, the place being known at present as the Roodhouse farm. Of these, James Henderson is commonly believed to have been the pioneer. He plunged into the woods before the ax or the plow had ever entered them, marking his path by blazes on the trees. The stream, now called Seminary Creek, was originally named for him. In order to encourage labor, several, possibly all, of the settlers united and opened a large farm, all in one enclosure, of which each cultivated a part, with the understanding that the labor should be restored in improving their separate claims, by the person to whom this farm should fall, when the land was surveyed and brought into market. In the Autumn of the same year, the settlement was increased in number by Zachariah Allen, John Allen, Isaac Hill, and probably others. Soon a school was organized in the new settlement, and instructed by one Wm. Welch. Thus did the little neighborhood take time by the fore- lock, by giving the cause of education an early start in the wild woods. But those acquainted with the men mentioned above will not be sur- prised at the interest they manifested in reference to that subject, even at that early day. It is upon the efforts of such men that the cause principally rests for its support. It is a cause they were known to cherish as of the greatest importance to their posterity and their country. The first named (Thomas Allen) was a large man, very corpulent, weighing about two hundred and fifty pounds. He was good-humored and jolly, especially in the society of little romping girls and boys, of whose attentions he was very fond, as most men are who are too fleshy to keep pace with other men. He settled at the place well known as " Allen's Mill" (now Bell's), of which he was the proprietor. At that early day, the people very severely felt the need of a mill in their own neighborhood, as they frequently were compelled to go within four miles of St. Louis for their grinding, and wait a day or two for their turn before they could return; and when Mr. Allen proposed erecting his mill, they gladly left their work at home, and went to assist him, working faithfully until the mill was completed. But it had scarcely begun to supply meal and flour for the settlers, until a flood raised the stream and cut a channel round the abutment, leaving the mill dry. In this emergency, the settlers turned out with alacrity, bringing their teams and tools, and Jabored faithfully until the breach, being filled with logs, brush, straw, clay, sand, stone, and whatever could be had to answer the purpose, was so effectually repaired as to withstand the floods ever after- ward. But even here their labors did not cease, for another freshet in the stream made an excavation under the mill-house, to the depth of fifteen or twenty feet, which again rendered the mill useless. But once more the men, with their spades, mattocks, axes, wagons, and teams, assembled, and, with stone, straw, and timber, repaired the damages. It was then that they began to enjoy the fruits of their labors. The mill did a splendid business for those days, and became one of the greatest
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conveniences the settlers had in the whole country, and the proprietor, grateful for the kind assistance his neighbors had given him in a time of need, ground their grain for many years free of all charge. He was growing somewhat old, and experienced a great difficulty in breathing, attributed to obesity, that was supposed to have caused his death, which occurred about the year 1833.
It was in 1819 that Benjamin Drummond came from Madison County, to the northern part of this county, near where Roodhouse is now sit- uated. Dr. Thaxton, Jesse Allen, Jesse Morrow, William Waltrip, Wil- liam Thaxton, Larkin Thaxton, and others, are also set down as arriving during 1819. This was really the first year during which immigration was at all brisk. The country was rapidly filling up and the red man was almost entirely banished, and rapid growth and improvement were the order of the day.
The winter of 1819 and '20 proved to be an unusually severe one. The long grass of the prairies had been destroyed by fires lighted by the Indians or hunters, and much of the undergrowth in the woods was killed by the same element. Before the close of the winter, the pro- visions gathered by them for their stock, from places where it had escaped the ravages of the fire, gave out and they were compelled to cut down trees, from the boughs of which the cattle and horses could procure a scanty supply of food. Many of these wandered away and were lost, while some of them died from the effects of cold and hunger. The sup- ply of food for themselves and families proved to be sufficient, yet their suffering from the cold was often intense. Mr. Seymour Kellogg, who lived in the Mauvaisterre settlement, in his search for some of his stock, one bitterly cold night, lost his way and saved his life only by walking vigorously between two trees standing several rods apart. He did not dare to leave this track during the night for fear of being irrecoverably lost. He did not know how far he was from either his own or his brother's cabin. On the appearance of daylight, he found himself about two miles from the latter place, to which he immediately repaired. His feet were badly frozen during the night, making him a cripple for several months.
Notwithstanding these hardships, the residents of the county were not discouraged, but went to work in the Spring with renewed vigor. We hear of very large accessions to the population of the county, in 1820, and important strides were made forward. Immigrants poured in from nearly every direction, and almost every township in the county contained one or more families before the close of the year. Among those whom we find recorded as arriving during this year are Jacob Bowman, Martin Bowman, Silas Eldred and Mrs. Ruth Eldred, south and west of Carroll- ton ; John Greene and James Whitlock, near Kane; John Lorton, Robert Lorton, Thomas Lorton and Isaac Hill, in the northern part of the county ; Ransom and Jesse Flatt, near the Illinois River; Zachariah Allen, James Allen, and David Battle, west of Wrightsville ; Isaac Nor- ton, south of White Hall ; Charles Kitchen, Lewis Roberts and John Thompson, near Roodhouse ; David and James Pinkerton, on the prairie named after them ; William J. Brown, east of Carrollton ; Benjamin Taylor and Isaac Taylor, on the prairie near Rockbridge. "Old Benny Taylor," as he was called, was the first settler on Tay- lor's prairie. Soon after him came Isaac Taylor with his two sons
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John and Ambrose. Isaac Taylor was born in 1760. At the age of sixteen he entered the service of his country in her struggles for liberty. He came from Kentucky to Illinois and made two crops in Mad- ison County before coming to Taylor's prairie. In this year John and James Beeman came to township 11, range 14, and built a rough saw mill near the present site of Seeley's mill, on Apple Creek. With this they sawed out lumber which they used the same year in the construction of a grist mill. Mr. Vines Hicks, it was said, was fearful the land sales would occur before he could obtain the money to purchase his land, and that some one else would become its owner and de- prive him of his improvements. He, therefore, selected for his home a poor, flinty point of the Macoupin bluff, where he felt perfectly secure in the possession of a place so very poor that no other man could be found to want it. But better things were in store for Mr. Hicks than he an- ticipated, for in spite of the sterility of the soil, and the discouragements incident to the settlement of a new country, he soon found himself too well off to live on so poor a place himself. He therefore deserted it and purchased a tract of valuable prairie and timber along the north side of Apple Creek prairie, where he soon accumulated property and money enough to supply all reasonable wants. Robert Whitaker made a home on the " Andy Johnson farm," during this year, and from him Whit- aker's Creek, the stream flowing from the prairie, a few miles west of Greenfield, into Apple Creek, just above Bell's mills, was named.
The land sale of January, 1821, at Edwardsville, was one of the most important events of those days. Before the sale the purchasers had made an agreement between themselves that they would not bid for the land previously selected by another. By this means all collision was usually avoided, and the settlers obtained the land at the lowest possible government price. The land was sold in lots of not less than eighty acres each, and no bid was received for a less sum than one hundred dollars for each eighty acres. By means of this understanding among themselves, nearly all the land was purchased at this price. It, however, happened that Mr. Eldred and Robert Hobson each claimed to have been the first to choose a very fine piece of land near the present resi- dence of C. H. Eldred, Esq. The Eldreds came here in 1820, from New York State. They had an abundance of money, so much that it is related that their saddle-bags of gold and silver were so heavy that it required two men to carry them into the land office at Edwardsville.
Mr. Eldred and Mr. Hobson did not succeed in coming to an agree- ment before that piece was sold, and the result was a contest. One of them made the usual bid of one hundred dollars for the first eighty acres, whereupon the other promptly added five dollars to the bid. Neither of the contestants was restrained by the lack of money, and the bidding continued quite spiritedly until Mr. Eldred became the purchaser of the piece at $150. As soon as the tract was sold to him, the latter remarked to Mr. Hobson, " I have plenty of money to continue this thing, and if you buy any land at this sale I will see that you pay one hundred and fifty dollars per eighty for it." Friends, however, interfered, and Mr. Eldred agreed to a compromise, provided that Mr. Hobson would pay to him the extra $50 he had given for the land already purchased. This was agreed to and all went on smoothly. The only other contest of which we have
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mention is that in reference to the site of Mount Pleasant, mentioned elsewhere. Judge Alfred Hinton, who came to this county in 1820, says the surveyors pronounced this section the finest in Illinois. Great excitement existed at the sale, on account of the attendance of parties to prevent bids on the settled lands. If there had been any one present to do so they would, very probably, have been mobbed. As an incident showing in what light a thief was viewed in those days, Judge Hinton told of a man who stole a pair of saddle bags at the sale. As soon as the theft was discovered, diligent search was made for the guilty party by all who had horses, notwithstanding the saddle bags contained nothing but a dirty shirt and a few other articles of little value. A justice of the peace was applied to, who issued his warrant, in the name of the United States, commanding any constable, sheriff, or officer of the United States to make legal service and due return to him, or any other justice of the peace, in the United States, of the body of the within named, dead or alive. It was a lucky thing for the culprit that he rode a better horse than his pursuers, backed by such a document.
During this year Jacob Fry became a permanent resident of the county. He was born in Fayette County, Kentucky, September 20, 1799. While quite a young man he came to Edwardsville, and in the Autumn of 1819, made a trip into this county with the intention of meeting General Rector at the mouth of Apple Creek. In this he was disappointed, and after remaining in the vicinity a short time, he returned to Alton, where he went to work as a carpenter for Mr. West, and hewed the timber for the first mill built there. While temporarily stay- ing near Carrollton, in 1819, General Fry is said to have made from wood split from a walnut tree, the first coffin ever constructed in the county. About the beginning of the year 1821, when Carrollton was about to be surveyed, he returned to section 16, township 10, range 12. Governor Carlin offered to give him a lot if he would build upon it, which he accepted. He cut the timber, split the boards, and built a house, which stood for fifty-seven years. For a long time it formed a part of the ell of the St. James Hotel, and was burned when that block was consumed, in the Spring of 1878. Before General Fry had finished his building, he stopped to assist Thomas Rattan in the construction of a log house at the northeast corner of the Square, on the lot on which Marmon's Building now stands. This was the first building completed in Carroll- ton, and General Fry's was the second. After the organization of the county, General Fry at once became a prominent man. He was a member of the first grand jury ; then he was deputy sheriff in 1822. In 1828 he was chosen sheriff, and held the office for ten years. In May, 1826, he was married to Miss Emily Turney, daughter of General James Turney, Attorney General of the State. General Fry served during the Black Hawk war as colonel, and at its close was elected Major General of the militia. In 1837 he was appointed commissioner of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and in 1856 collector of customs at Chicago. During the rebellion he commanded a regiment, which did valiant service at Shiloh. The privations and hardships which he suffered during the war brought on disease, as a result of which he is almost totally blind. General Fry now lives with his family on his farm, south of the Macoupin, and enjoys the affection, esteem, and honor of every one who knows him.
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HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
David Pierson arrived at the new settlement in 1821, from the State of New York. He lived for several years upon his farm, north of Carrollton. Afterward he engaged in mercantile pursuits in Carrollton, finally establishing Pierson's Exchange Bank, which was for many years the only bank in the county. He has been prominently connected with the Carrollton Baptist Church, from its origin, and in his various capacities as farmer, merchant, millowner, or banker has been a valuable friend to hundreds, and in public or private life the influence of his abilities and means has always been felt for good.
Richard Robley was another of the prominent men of the county, who arrived at this time. He was born in Swansey, New Hampshire, May 12, 1791. When he was 17 years of age, he became an orphan, dependent upon his own exertions for a livelihood. About this time he removed to Vermont, and here met, and was married to, Miss Desire Griswold, the ceremony taking place at Vergennes, August 11, 1814. The young couple remained in Vermont for six years. In 1820 Mr. Robley became infected with the Western fever, and, bidding farewell, to family friends, started with his wife for the wilds of Missouri. Here they remamed but a short time, and in 1821 Mr. Robley built a flat boat with his own hands, and on this he ascended the Illinois River, with his family and goods, landing in the western part of the county. He settled on the land now occupied by his sons, Messrs. Charles, Vilroy and George Robley. Nearly forty years ago Captain Robley was married to the lady who survives him. He died January 3, 1879, of heart disease. He was a man highly esteemed and respected in the community, a good citizen and a kind neighbor.
It was also in 1821 that the first settlements were made in township 11, range 13, in the northwestern part of the county, by John Powell and Davis Carter.
ORGANIZATION OF THE COUNTY.
This section of country was now so rapidly filling up, and the annoy- ance of going thirty miles to the county seat, at Edwardsville, for the transaction of business, was so seriously and increasingly felt, that during the year 1820, a project for the organization of a new county, with the seat of government somewhere between the two creeks, was much discussed at shooting matches, horse races, hunting frolics, house raisings, husking bees, and wherever else two or more of the early landholders happened to meet. Every new resident who bought land here increased the feeling of the necessity for such an action of the Legislature, and, as the year wore toward its close, the formation of the county had become comparatively certain. The matter was brought to the attention of the Legislature, which convened at Vandalia in the Winter of 1820-21. At this time Shadrach Bond was Governor, having been chosen in 1818 for four years. Elias K. Kane was Secretary of State, John Thomas, State Treasurer, John McLean, for whom McLean County was named, Speaker of the House, James Lemen, Jr., Speaker of the Senate, and Thomas Reynolds, Clerk of the House. In January, 1821, the following bill was
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introduced in the House. It was enrolled January 18th and approved January 20, 1821 :
AN ACT ESTABLISHING THE COUNTY OF GREENE.
"SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois represented in the General Assembly, that all that tract of country within the following boundaries, to-wit: Beginning at the southeast corner of township No. 7 north, in range No. 10, west of the third principal meridian ; thence north between ranges 9 and 10 to the northeast corner of township 12 north ; thence west along the line between townships 12 and 13 to the middle of the Illinois River; thence down said river to its junction with the Mississippi River ; thence down the middle of the Mis- sissippi River to a point parallel with the southwest corner of township No. 6 north, in range 10 west; thence north with the range line between 10 and 11 to the township line between 6 and 7; thence east with said township line to the place of beginning, shall constitute a separate county to be called Greene.
"SEC. 2. Be it further enacted, that for the purpose of establishing the seat of justice for said county, the following persons shall be commis- sioners, to-wit: Thomas Rattan, John Allen, Esq., Thomas Carlin, John Green, and John Huitt, Sr .; and the said commissioners, or a majority of them, shall, at some convenient time, between the passage of this act and the first day of March next, meet at the house of Isaac Pruitt, in said county, and proceed to fix the permanent seat of justice of said county, and give the same some appropriate name; provided the owner or owners of the land whereon said seat of justice is about to be fixed give to the county commissioners of the county a good deed of conveyance, in fee simple, for not less than twenty acres of land, for the use of the county. If the owner or owners of said land refuse or neglect to give the same, then to fix the seat of justice on the next suitable place where the said owner or owners will give the quantity of land aforesaid, and in all cases the said commissioners shall take into consideration the situation and geography of the country, and the future population of the county, to have the same as near the centre of the county as practicable.
"SEC. 3. Be it further enacted, that the said commissioners, or a majority of them, shall make a report of their proceedings to the next county commissioner's court of the county, and have the same recorded on the records of said county.
"SEC. 4. Be it further enacted, that all that tract of country within the following boundaries. to-wit: Beginning at the southwest corner of township 7, north of range 9, west of the third principal meridian ; thence east to the southeast corner of township 7, north in range 6 west; thence north to the northeast corner of township 12 north; thence west to the northwest corner of township 12 in range 7 west; thence along the prairie between the waters of Sangamon and Mauvaisterre to the head of Balance Creek; thence down said creek to the Illinois River; thence down the said river to the northwest corner of said county, shall be attached to said county, and shall constitute and be a part of said county for all purposes, until otherwise disposed of by the General Assembly of this State.
"SEC. 5. Be it further enacted, that said county, and the attached
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part of the same, be and compose a part of the first judicial circuit of this State, and the inhabitants of the same shall be entitled to all the privileges of other counties of this State.
"SEC. 6. Be it further enacted, that the commissioners appointed to perform the services required by this act shall be allowed, out of the county funds, dollars for each day's labor and attendance in perform- ing said services.
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