USA > Illinois > Hancock County > History of Hancock County, Illinois, together with an outline history of the State, and a digest of State laws > Part 15
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1SS
HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
building was intrusted to seven commissioners, who, in July, 1875, agreed upon the town of Lincoln. The building was begun in 1875, and completed three years later, at a cost of $154,209. The average attendance in 1878 was 224.
THE CHICAGO CHARITABLE EYE AND EAR INFIRMARY.
The association for founding this institution was organized in May, 1858, and Pearson street, Chicago, selected for the erection of the building. In 1865 the legislature granted the institution a special charter, and two years later made an appropriation of $5,000 a year for its maintenance, and in 1871 received it into the circle of State institutions; thereupon the name was changed by the substitution of the word Illinois for Chicago. The building was swept away by the great fire of 1871, and three years later the present building was completed, at a cost of $42,843.
THE SOUTHERN ILLINOIS NORMAL UNIVERSITY
Is located at Carbondale. 'This University was opened in 1874, and occupies one of the finest school edifices in the United States. It includes, besides a normal department proper, a preparatory department and a model school. The model school is of an elementary grade; the preparatory department is of the grade of a high school, with a course of three years. The normal course of four years embraces two courses, a classical and a scientific course; both make the study of the English language and literature quite prominent.
THE ILLINOIS INDUSTRIAL UNIVERSITY,
Located at Urbana, was chartered in 1867. It has a corps of twen- ty-five instructors, including professors, lecturers and assistants. and has an attendance of over 400 pupils. It comprises four colleges (1) Agriculture, (2) Engineering, (3) Natural Science, (4) Literature and Science. These colleges embrace twelve subor- dinate schools and courses of instruction, in which are taught domestic science and art, commerce, military science, wood engrav- ing, printing, telegraphy, photographing and designing. This insti- tution is endowed with the national land grant, and the amount of its productive fund is about $320,000. The value of its grounds, buildings, etc., is about $640,000. It is well supplied with appara- tus, and has a library of over 10,000 volumes.
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4.
IERII
HANCOCK COUNTY COURT HOUSE.
HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY,
CHAPTER I.
PHYSICAL FEATURES, GEOLOGY AND NATURAL PRODUCTIONS.
HANCOCK COUNTY is situated about forty miles north of the center of the State, on its west line, and within what is known as the " Military Bounty Land Tract." It is bounded on the south by Adams county, to which it was attached from 1825 to 1829, east by McDonough and Schnyler, north by Henderson, and west by the Mississippi river, which separated it from Clarke county, Missouri, and Lee county, Iowa, and constitutes about two-fifths of its whole boundary. It lies between forty degrees and ten minutes and forty ' degrees and forty minutes north latitude; and between thirteen degrees and thirty-five minutes and fourteen degrees and five min- utes west longitude from Washington. It is thirty miles long from north to south, and on an average of twenty-four miles wide from east to west-its northern line measuring just twelve miles to its intersection with the Mississippi, while its southern measures a little over thirty miles. Its western line, following the meander- ings of the river, measures about forty-five miles.
The county includes sixteen whole congressional townships and eight fractional ones (the eight being about equal to five and a quarter whole ones), subdivided into 769 square miles, or sections, containing about 492,160 aeres.
The central portion of the county is composed of one grand prai- rie, bordered on the west by the wooded bluff's of the Mississippi, and east and south by the timber lands skirting the margins of Crooked and Bear ereeks, and their numerous tributaries.
The Burlington branch of the C., B. &. Q. Railroad passing through the county from Dallas City to the southwest corner of section 35, three north, seven west, cuts it into two nearly equal parts ; while an east and west line, following the T., W. & W. Railroad to Carthage, thence east through the center of Carthage and Han- cock townships, would divide it into nearly equal portions in the other direction. The east half of the county contains the most woodland, being interseeted by the many streams tributary to
13
192
HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY.
Crooked creek. Most of the woodlands bordering on Bear creek and branches are in the west half.
Of the four subdivisions above named, it would be very hard to tell which is the better portion. Each has some advantages, per- haps lacking in the others. The people of Augusta and St. Mary's have been in the habit of claiming superiority for their townships. The same may be said of La Harpe and Fountain Green. And, while it is true that no better soil and fairer country can be found than is contained in the townships named, we confess to have wit- nessed about Nauvoo, and in Sonora, Montebello, Walker and other western townships, country not a whit behind them in fertility and beauty. The eastern tier of townships is better adapted to wheat; but the prairie portions will out-do them in the production of corn and hay.
GEOLOGY.
Professor Worthen's " Geology of Illinois," pages 327-349, vol. i. contains an exhaustive report on the geology of Hancock county. Applying to him for leave to make extracts therefrom for use in this history, he very generously forwarded the following, written expressly for our use, for which he has our thanks, and which the reader will find very instructive and interesting:
The geological formations to be found in this county consist of the usual surface deposits called drift, some sixty feet or more of the lower coal measures, and the St. Louis and Keokuk divisions of the lower carboniferous limestones.
The lowest or fundamental rock outcropping in the country is the Keokuck limestone, which forms the main portion of the river bluffs from the south line of Henderson county to Warsaw, and ap- pears also in occasional outcrops along the base of the bluffs from Warsaw to the south line of the county. It is also found on the lower courses of most of the small streams in the northwestern por- tion of the county, as well as on Crooked creek north and north- west of Plymouth.
The Keokuk limestone may usually be recognized as forming two well marked divisions. The upper portion, ranging in thickness from thirty to forty feet, consists of a bluish gray or ash-colored calcareo-argillaceous shale, passing locally into thin bedded lime- stone, and contains the globular silicious bodies known under the familiar name of geodes, and is hence called the geode bed. Many of these geodes are solid globes of quartz, with an outer crust of chalcedony, the interior being composed of crystalline quartz. Others are hollow spheres, the outer crust consisting of crystalline quartz and chalcedony, while the internal cavity is coated with various crystallized minerals, of which quartz is by far the most common, and more rarely with calcite, dolomite, zinc-blende, iron pyrites, and aragonite, forming very beautiful and interesting
193
HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY.
cabinet specimens of these minerals. In the vicinity of Niota, geodes are occasionally found with the internal cavity filled with liquid petroleum, or hardened asphaltum.
As early as 1840 or '41, a collection of geodes was made in the vicinity of Montebello, by Mr. Catlin of Philadelphia, and ship- ped to that eity to enrich the cabinets of the Eastern States; and since that time hundreds of tons have been collected and shipped from this county, until choice specimens are now comparatively rare, and difficult to obtain.
The lower division of the Keokuk formation consists of gray limestone, rather coarse grained and sub-crystalline, partly in heavy beds ranging from one to three feet in thickness, and partly in thinner shaly beds, with intercalated layers of chert, or impure flint. The latter is the prevailing character of the lower part of this division, and it forms the bed rock of the Mississippi river along the Des Moines rapids from Keokuk to Nauvoo.
The thickness of the lower division of the Keokuk group is from sixty to seventy feet, and the entire thickness of the whole in this county is about one hundred feet. The lower division, to which the name Keokuk limestone more properly belongs, affords a very good building-stone for dry walls, and also a fair quality of stone for the lime-kiln, though for the latter purpose the compact fine grained limestone of the overlying St. Louis group is to be preferred. The Mormon temple at Nauvoo was built entirely of this limestone quarried in the vicinity of that city, and the custom- houses at Dubuque, Iowa, and Galena, Ill., and the postoffice build- ing in Springfield are all built of this limestone quarried in the vicinity of Nauvoo and Hamilton. All the work in dressed and cut stone for the Mormon temple, even to the carved oxen on whose backs the baptismal font rested, was furnished from the Nauvoo quarries.
When this limestone is exposed to the continued action of frost and moisture, it splits into irregular layers along the lines of bed- ding, and hence is unfit for bridge abutments, eulverts, and all similar purposes, where it would be constantly exposed to these adverse influences.
The Keokuk limestone is entirely of marine origin, as is fully proven by the great numbers of marine fossils that it contains, and the solid limestone strata were once beds of calcareous sediment in the bed of the ocean, at a period so remote that we can now form no correct estimate of its probable date. Some of the strata are composed entirely of the remains of organic beings, with barely enough of inorganic matter to cement the mass into a solid rock, and to the paleontologist who desires to know something about the forms of life pertaining to the carboniferous age, it affords an ex- ceedingly varied and interesting field.
The fossils that abound in this limestone consist for the most part of crinoids, or lily-like animals, corals, bryozoans, mollusks, and the teeth and spines of fishes. The carboniferous fishes were
194
HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY.
mostly cartilaginous, like the shark and sturgeon of the present day, and as flesh never petrifies, and they possessed no bony skele- ton, only their teeth and bony spines have been preserved as me- morials of their existence. The fish remains, although occasionally to be found throughout the whole extent of the limestone, are far more abundant in certain layers, where they are sometimes found in large numbers within a very limited space. Two of these "fish beds " occur in the vicinity of Warsaw and Hamilton, one just below the geode bed, and the other in the cherty limestones below the quarry roek, and in what has been called the division beds, which separate the Keokuk from the Burlington limestone below. The color of these fish remains is usually brown or sometimes nearly black, and the contrast they exhibit with the light gray color of the rock enables the collector to readily deteet them without a close examination of their structure, which is also quite distinct from that of any other fossils to be found in this formation.
Inter-stratified with the limestone beds, there are layers of clay or elay shale, varying in thickness from half an inch to two feet or more. These have resulted from the introduction of a muddy sed- iment into the ocean, which in some cases suddenly entombed the living animals that inhabited its waters, and in these elay partings, the erinoids and delicate bryozoans are found in their most perfect state of preservation. They secreted a calcareous skeleton like the coral, and occasionally these may be found in the soft shale or im- printed on the surfaces of the limestone in such a perfect state of preservation that the original form and structure of the animal can be readily determined.
One of the most common forms of bryozoans in the Keokuk lime- stone is the screw-shaped fossil known as the Archimedes, and the frequency of its occurrence in this limestone gave it the name of Archimedes limestone, by which it was designated by Dr. D. D. Owen and some others of the earlier geologists. Subsequently it was found that similar forms were found in the Warsaw division of the St. Louis group as well as in the Chester limestones, another division of the lower carboniferous series, and hence the name of Archimedes limestone had to be abandoned, as applicable to any single division of the series.
The erinoids were so abundant in the ocean sediments out of which these limestones have been formed, that some of the thickest of the limestone strata are composed almost entirely of their re- mains, and hence the name crinoidal, or enerinital limestone has been applied to it. The crinoidal layers usually have a crystalline structure, and some of them receive a high polish, and when varie- gated in color form a handsome and valuable marble.
Overlying the geode bed we find the St. Louis limestone, which, like the Keokuk group, may be separated into two well marked divisions, the lower consisting of magnesian limestone, overlaid by blue shales with thin and irregular beds of coarse gray limestone, the latter capped with a bed of calcareous sandstone, and an upper
195
HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY.
division composed of fine-grained, compact brecciated limestone. The lower division ranges from 30 to 40 feet in thickness, and the upper from 10 to 30. This group forms the upper portion of the river bluff's throughout the county, and is also found on nearly all the small streams in the central and western portions, and the tributaries, as well as the main course of Crooked creek, in the northeastern part of the county.
The brecciated division forms the base, or fundamental rock, on which the coal measures rest, and hence it forms a well marked horizontal limit, below which coal is never found. Isolated out- crops of coal are found resting upon it, however, in almost all parts of the county, even as far west as the bluffs of the Mississippi river at Nauvoo, on Waggoner's creek near Montebello, and at several other points to the westward of the present boundary of the Illinois coal field, but such outliers are of little or no value for coal-mining purposes.
The magnesian limestone that is found at the base of the lower division of the St. Louis group ranges in thickness in this county from six to ten feet, and affords the best material for foundation walls, bridge abutments and culverts that can be obtained in this portion of the State. The Sonora quarries furnished the foundation stone for the new capitol building at Springfield, as well as the ma- terial for the abutments of the bridge, and the locks on the canal at Keokuk, and the rock has given universal satisfaction where strength and durability were the main qualities demanded. It is not a hand- some stone for outside walls, not coloring evenly on exposure, and liable to be stained by the oxidation of the iron pyrites with which the rock is more or less impregnated. But it hardens on exposure and does not split when subjected to the combined action of frost and water. Below Warsaw the magnesian limestone is from ten to twelve feet thick, and is rather lighter colored and freer from pyrites than at the Sonora quarries.
The blue shales and thin-bedded limestones above the magnesian bed abound in fossils in the vicinity of Warsaw, and hence the name of "Warsaw beds " has been applied to the lower division of the St. Louis group. The largest species of Archimedes known, the A. Wortheni, described and figured by Prof. Hall in the first report on the geology of Iowa, belongs to this geological horizon, and is found more abundant in the vicinity of Warsaw than elsewhere. Specimens have been found as much as eighteen inches in length, and when living, with its delicate, lace-like expansion extending from six to eight inches on either side of the screw-shaped axis, they must have formed living organisms of rare interest. This, with a half dozen or more of other species of bryozoans to be found in these shales at Warsaw, has made the locality quite noted with the amateur col- lectors of fossils, and the locality is now well nigh exhausted. Above these fossiliferous beds, there is a bed of calcareous sandstone at Warsaw about six feet in thickness, some of which lies in thin layers suitable for flags, and partly in strata from one foot to eigh-
196
HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY.
teen inches in thickness. This rock cnts freely and is an excellent stone for caps and sills.
The upper division of the St. Louis group is a fine-grained brec- ciated limestone, concretionary in structure and a nearly pure car- bonate of lime in its composition, and hence furnishes the best ma- terial for the lime-kiln to be found in the county. It is from ten to thirty feet in thickness and forms the bed rock over a large portion of the county, though it was probably at one time covered by the shales and sandstones of the lower coal measures, which were sub- sequently removed by denuding agencies, leaving the solid lime- stone as a floor over which the drift clays were subsequently depos- ited. This limestone is characterized by three species of fossil corals, one of which, the Lithostrotion mamillare is usually sili- cious, and weathers out of the limestone in considerable masses, and is called " petrified honeycomb," or "wasps' nests," by those who are unaware of its true character and origin. An excellent material for macadamizing roads as well as limestone for the lime- kiln is furnished by this division of the St. Louis group wherever its onterop occurs.
Coal Measures .- In the southeastern portion of the county, em- bracing an area of three or four townships, and extending north to the vicinity of Plymouth, the sandstone and shales of the coal- measures are found, embracing a thickness of fifty to sixty feet or more, and include the horizon of the two lower seams of coal. At the base of the coal measures there is usually a coarse sandstone which sometimes encloses pebbles and becomes a true conglomerate. It is variable in thickness, but usually ranges from five to twenty feet in this portion of the State. Above the conglomerate there is either a few feet of sandy shale, or if this is absent, the fire clay of the lower coal seam, or coal No. 1, reckoning from the bottom of the formation upward. This seam is usually too thin where it has been found in this county, to be of any great value for the produc- tion of coal, yielding furthermore an article of inferior quality. In thickness it ranges from six to eighteen inches, but the coal is some- times replaced entirely with bituminoas shale.
Between this lower coal and the one above it, or No. 2, there is usually from ten to twenty feet of shale, the lower part of which is bituminous, and forms the roof to the lower seam, while at the top it passes into the dark-colored fire clay of No. 2. This upper seam is about two feet in thickness, but it is not regularly developed, and like the lower seam, is liable to run into bituminous shale. It was worked at an early day on Williams creek, in the vicinity of Pu- laski, to supply the local demand for coal, but since the completion of the C., B. & Q. railroad through this portion of the county, the mines have been generally abandoned. Above No. 2 there is a variable thickness of shale and sandstone, probably nowhere exceed- ing twenty-five or thirty feet, which forms the uppermost beds of the coal formation in this county.
197
HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY.
The surface deposits, or " drift," as the loose material that over- lies the bed rock of the country is usually called, consists of a yel- lowish brown clay at the top, forming the subsoil, then drab and ash-colored clays with gravel and boulders, passing downward into a compact blue clay or " hard pan," the whole ranging from forty to sixty feet or more in thickness. Below the " hard pan." a black peaty soil is frequently met with containing leaves and branches, and sometimes the trunks of trees of considerable size. This has been named " the forest bed," and has been found to extend over a large area in this State, being frequently encountered in sinking wells, or in coal shafts, sometimes at a depth of more than a hun- dred fect below the surface. It probably represents the surface soil that existed anterior to what is called the "drift" or " glacial " period, and produced the trees whose trunks are so frequently en- countered in sinking wells through the drift clays. Below the "forest bed " there is usually a few feet in thickness of quick-sand or stratified clay, resting directly upon the bed rock of the country.
The boulders of the drift are mostly of foreign origin, and have come from the metamorphic rocks of the Lake Superior region, the transporting agencies being floating ice, when the present sur- face of nearly the whole of the Northwestern States was submerged beneath the ocean.
In the vicinity of the river bluffs, the drift deposits have been sifted and changed by the action of water currents, forming what is called " altered or modified " drift. In the cut on Main street in the city of Warsaw, the following section of modified drift may be seen, which will serve to show the general character of the drift deposits after they have been subjected to these modifying influences :
1. Surface soil. 1 5. Blue sandy clay .. . 2
2. Ash-colored and brown marly clay (loess) 9
3. Brown drift clay. 8
4. Brown sand partly stratified 8
Ft. In. Ft. In.
6
6. Fine gravel and clay 2
6
7. Yellow sand. . 2
8. Gravel and boulders. 8
9. Blue clay (exposed). . . 4
The loess caps the river bluff's throughout the county, and gives character to the soil wherever it is found. The timbered lands skirting the river bluff's are underlaid usually by the loess, and the soil is extremely well adapted to the cultivation of fruit, as well as wheat, oats and clover, and under a judicious system of rotation, will yield fair crops of corn.
The soil upon the prairies is usually a black, or chocolate-brown loamy clay, rather retentive of moisture from the cohesive char- aoter of the subsoil, but when sufficiently rolling to give a free surface drainage, it is very productive. There is however a consid- erable area of flat prairie land in the county, that can only be made to produce the best results of cultivation by a systematic course of underdraining, which can be readily accomplished now, under the drainage law, recently enacted by the thirty-first General Assembly.
198
HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY.
Below Warsaw, and extending thence to the Adams county line, there is a belt of bottom land, from one to three miles in width, now being redeemed from the annual overflow of the river, and destined to become, under a proper system of levee improvement, the most productive corn land in the county.
We copy the following from the " Geology of Illinois," by Mr Worthen :
" The soil npon the prairie land is usually a deep black loam, with a brown clay subsoil. On the ridges that skirt the streams the soil is usually a chocolate- brown, loamy clay, becoming locally light brown or yellow, on the slopes of the hills, from the predom- inant character of the subsoil. The timber on these ridges consists for the most part of black and white oak and hickory, with an undergrowth of red-bud, sassafras and hazel. On the more level
portions of the timbered uplands we find, in addition to these, elm, linden, wild cherry and honey locust. The soil on the lands where the last named varieties of timber are found is fully equal, in its productive capacity, to that of the prairies, while that on the oak ridges is comparatively thin. In the southwest portion of the county there is a wide belt of alluvial bottom skirting the Missis- sippi river, commencing at the city of Warsaw and extending to the south line of the county, with an average width of about three miles. A part of this bottom is prairie, and a part is covered with a heavy growth of timber, consisting of cottonwood, sycamore, red and slippery elm, black and white walnut, ash, hackberry, honey locnst, pecan, persimmon, pawpaw, coffee-nut, white maple, red birch, linden and mulberry, and the common varieties of oak, and shell-bark and pig-nut hickory. The greater portion of this bot- tom is susceptible of cultivation, and possesses a sandy soil that is not surpassed, in its productive capacities, by any other portion of the county. It is subject to overflow, however, during seasons of extraordinary high water, and those who cultivate these lands must calculate on a partial, if not a total, loss of their crops once in about seven years.
" Springs are not abundant in this county, but are occasionally found at the base of the river bluffs and in the valleys of the small streams. Some of these are chalybeate, and contain, in addition to the iron, both sulphur and magnesia. Good wells are usually obtained on the uplands at depths varying from twenty to forty feet. The surface deposits of this county comprise the usual sub- divisions of the quaternary system, and attain an aggregate thick-
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