History of Hardin County, Illinois, Part 3

Author: Hardin County (Ill.). Historical Committee for the Centennial
Publication date: 1939
Publisher: Golconda, Ill. : Herald-Enterprise
Number of Pages: 104


USA > Illinois > Hardin County > History of Hardin County, Illinois > Part 3


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


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There is no question but what the big cave facing the Ohio river was widely known in early days. It is indi- cated on a number of old French maps made before 1750. In fact, "le caverne dans le roc." the cave-in-the-rock, together with "la riviere au sel," the river to the salt, were the only two landmarks shown for Southeastern Illinois.


Even later, up until almost 1800, references to the cave on maps and in a few scattered reports are about all the record there is concerning Hardin County territory. During that early period, the region, like the rest of the


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Western Ohio Valley, was largely unsettled, and unex- plored except for a few hunters, it was visited only when river travellers camped upon its banks for the night.


English Occupancy


In 1766, just after the English had taken control of Illinois from the French, the commercial firm of Bayn- ion, Wharton and Morgan, in high hopes of creating a boom for the "Far Western Country", sent several con- voys of goods down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to the Kaskaskia and Cahokia settlements. The booms never materialized, and the firm went into the hands of receiv- ers; but the journals of the commanders of the boat con- voys were preserved; and from them we get our first English description of the Hardin County region:


"Tuesday, March 25th. At eight o'clock this morning brought too at an island (it rained and blow'd very hard) opposite to which on the west side the river is a large rock with a cave in it. At nine sett off again, at one o'clock in the afternoon, it rained and blow'd so very hard was obliged to bring too, the gale continuing, en- camp'd for the night. Came about forty miles since six o'clock this morning. Passed several fine islands this day."


With rain and gale, Jennings, the writer, must have been too busy to spend much time describing the country. However, later in the year, Captain Gordon heading another convoy writes :


"August 2nd. We left the Wabash in the evening. Next morning we halted near the Saline or Salt Run-of which any quantity of good salt may be made. From this place the Deputies from the northern Nations were sent across the country by Mr. Croghan to the Illinois, to acquaint the Commandant and Indian people there of our arrival in these parts


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August 6th .... In the morning we halted at Fort Massac, formerly a French Post, 120 miles below the mouth of the Wabash, & 11 below that of the Cherokee river (i. e. the Tennessee) The country 25 miles from the Wabash begins again to be mountainous, being the N. W. end of the Apalachian mountains (sic) which entirely terminate a small distance from the river. Northerly -- they are between 50 & 60 miles across and are scarpt rocky precipices. Below them no more highlands are to be seen to w.rd as far as those that border the Mexican Provinces. The reason of the French's sending a garri- son to this place was to be a check on the Cherokee parties that came down the river of that name which is navi- gable for canoes from their upper towns and who harassed extremely the French traders intending to go among the Wabash and Shawnee Nations ....


"Hunters from this post may be sent amongst the buffalo, any quantity of whose beef they can procure in proper season & salt may be got from the above mentioned Saline at an easy rate to cure it. ... "


Hardin County Battle Ground


Gordon's journal was written in 1766. But the coun- try near Hardin County remained unchanged for almost forty more years. Buffalo was hunted here after 1800, when it was still unsettled by whites because it was dan- gerous territory-for Indians as well as whites. Here the Cherokees from south, the Iroquois from the east fought the Shawnee and the other Illinois tribes from the north and west in a continuous free-for-all scalp lifting. For years Southern Illinois was deserted except for roving bands of Indian hunters, or occasionally a small group of white hunters from Eastern Kentucky or Tennessee- such a group as George Rogers Clark found at the mouth of the Tennessee River in 1779 at the time he brought his men down the Ohio on his way to a victorious cam- paign against the British at Kaskaskia.


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Even in 1801 a river traveler wrote that the whole stretch of river between Louisville and Natchez was noth- ing but howling wilderness except for small settlements at Redbank and Yellowbank, a government post at Fort Massac, and a cabin below the big cave.


The Coming of the Settlers.


Two years, however, was the beginning of a new era. In 1803-1804 Southern Illinois was ceded to the United States by the Indians; and in that year the Louisiana Ter- ritory was purchased. This purchase gave the Union control of the whole of the Mississippi river. Until that time, the lower part, including the port at New Orleans. had been in the hands of either the Spanish or the French. These nations had kept shipments of American produce from being floated down to New Orleans and transship- ped by ocean vessels to Europe or the Eastern States. This bottling up had delayed the settling of the Mississippi and Oblo Valleys, as there was no other way for western seillers of that time to get their farm products to a mar- ket than by floating it down-river.


But with the Mississippi opened, a tide of emigrants flowed westward from the overcrowded and discontented East: frontiersmen from Kentucky and Tennessee, whose fathers had pushed through the Cumberland Gap a gen- cration before, and who, feeling crowded whenever a neighbor settled within rifle-shot, were pushing still far- ther into the west; backwoodsmen and Scotch-Irish set- ters from the Carolinas and Virginias, leaving word-out hill farms and the country of slave-worked plantations with which they could not compete; enterprising Yankee tradesmen and Germans fom low wage-paying factories of Pennsylvania or New York and New England: a scattering of emigrants from persecution in Ireland or Hard Times in England.


And part of this tide of migration to what later !..... the states of Indiana and Illinois stopped in the


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region of Hardin County. Some of these folk, from the eastern end of the Ohio, came down river in flatboats, keel boats, and arks, bringing their few household fur- nishings, their stock and farm tools by water. But most- ly Hardin County settlers came overland across the wil- derness trails of Tennessee and Kentucky.


Their possessions were few-even the best of ox- carts or conestaga wagons had tough sledding over the rough hill-and-valley trails. But the men were back- woodsmen by birth, their wives and daughters of back- woodsmen. Indian fighting and hunting had been the men's professions for generations. And in those trades they have never been excelled before or since. With them, as with the Indians before them, farming was a side line to supplement a food supply of game. For them in the rough hard life they had to lead any belongings except the most essential were a burden. When they traveled, they traveled light so that they could travel far.


With the lone hunter such possessions might con- sist solely of weapons: the flintlock long-rifle with its powder and shot, together with a knife and hand-axe, while inside belted hunting shirt lay an emergency supply of venison jerky, johnny-cake, and bag of parched corn for food.


Such lone hunters rarely built more than brush lean- to shelters. They did not settle permanently. It was the more serious, true backwoodsmen rather than the hunter who cleared and settled Hardin County.


Their possessions, brought by slow ox-cart up through Tennessee and Kentucky, consisted of a few cooking ves- sels, a spinning wheel and loom, and perhaps quilted or pelt coverlets for the cabin; draw-knife, saw and axe for tools; the iron parts of shovel, hoe, scythe and plow for farming; and of course the precious sacks of seed for planting. Possibly some wheat and oats; but never with- out seed corn-and with it, to be planted Indian fashion in the same patch, seeds for squash, pumpkin and climb-


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ing beans. Nor were seeds for fruit trees forgotten, par- licularly peaches; for the frontiersman had long known that the peach was a versatile article. It was luscious fresh from the tree; dried, it was a delicacy throughout the long winter; and better still, or so it was thought, it could be made into potent peach brandy - a product which with whiskey was commonly used in that day both as a substitute for water and for cash in trading with the small boat stores which floated from isolated settlement to settlement down the river.


Today the hill land of Hardin and other Ozark coun- ties is classed far below prairie land in fertility. But during this early period Hardin had advantages with which the prairies could not compete. Indians still held title to most of the flat upstate and few trails led through it; and too, most of it was so far from water highways that crops raised there cost more to get to market than they were worth.


But farms in the Hardin County region had access to the busiest and best river highway of them all: the Ohio- Mississippi route. There a number of backwoodsmen came to settle for a good purpose. They calculated to find the hill country on which they built their cabins free from the agues and fevers which were so common among folks living elsewhere in swampy flat lands. Besides, most of these settlers had come from hill country; they felt at home among the Illinois Ozarks. The hollows were filled with game; the buffalo, bear, and deer for food and skins; the beaver, mink, otter, and others still common today for pelts; the wild turkey, the migrating ducks and geese, and the small game for table delicacies.


There is no doubt but what the backwoodsmen found a hunter's paradise in the forest with which the whole Hardin County region was then covered. The forest it- self was a source of income. The navigable Ohio was near by. The huge trees of oak, walnut, poplar and


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maple could be logged to the river, rafted downstream to Mississippi towns and sold. But most of this splendid timber never saw market. Its real use to the settler was for building the cabin-and of course for fuel. Other- wise trees were a nuisance-to be girded by the settler as soon as possible, and when dead the following year, felled and burned at a logrolling frolic.


Thereafter corn and potato patches were planted in the shallow-plowed stump-field which circled the cabin, after which it was up to the ambitions of the individual as to how much extra land he would clear, how big a crop he could raise with his yoke of oxen, how many head of stock he could acquire and care for.


Extent of Early Settlements


Usually, up until 1814, there was little clearing of land by settlers; for not until 1812-14 could land be bought in Southern Illinois, the settlers being squatters allowed by the government to remain upon the land, but with no rights of possession.


However, in 1814 a government land office was es- tablished in Shawneetown. There land was sold in quarter sections : first at public auction; or when no bid- ders were found, later on at a minimum price of $2.00 per acre, payable in installments over a three-year period. An 1818 land-plat map shows almost all Hardin County land bordering the Ohio had been taken up. In addition there was a large block taken out along Big Creek and other blocks near the mouth of Saline Creek, in the Harris Creek bottoms, and at Karber's Ridge.


In that year it is estimated that four hundred to five hundred people must have lived within the present boun- daries of Hardin County-a well settled region for that time. Yet even ten years earlier the county had been settled along the river banks. This is described in the journal of Fortesque Cuming, who made a flatboat trip down the Ohio in 1808. Here, several paragraphs are de-


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.


voted to the region between Diamond Island, below Evansville, and Fort Massac, all of which is connected with Hardin County history :


Shawneetown and Early Records


No history of Hardin County would be complete without mention of Shawneetown. Up until 1816 all of Hardin was included in the county of Gallatin, of which Shawneetown was the county seat. After 1816 and until 1839 southwestern Hardin was included in Pope County. But the northeastern part remained in Gallatin until 1847.


Through all these years, particularly the early ones, Shawneetown was the metropolis of Southern Illinois. It was never a large place; floods and a malarial location kept its size down to less than one hundred buildings; but it was a thriving place with its brick bank, its news- paper, its brick hotel where Lafayette visited in 1825, its busy blacksmith shops, general stores, its taverns crowded with emigrants-and it would be hard to overestimate its importance. Chicago could be walled off and cause less inconvenience to the population of near-by states today than would have been caused in early times if there had been no Shawneetown.


It was the port of entry to the Illinois country. From it ran the best and most traveled trail to Kaskaskia and the other Mississippi settlements. The salt works which supplied the Middle West with most of this article, pro- ducing over 300,000 bushels a year, were located on Saline Creek only ten miles away. This salt was routed through Shawneetown to ports up and down the rivers of Ohio and Mississippi.


In other ways, too, the town was a part of first im- portance. It was near the junction of the Wabash, which was an important water highway in early pioncer days. Farm produce from the Wabash Valley settlements was brought to Shawneetown and sold to speculators who shipped it on to New Orleans.


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Manufactured goods, brought up the Mississippi and Ohio by keel boats or down the Ohio from Pittsburgh and Cincinnati were unloaded and sold here. It was here that the first postoffice was located; here the early settlers in Hardin County came to do their trading, exchanging pelts and pork, both on the hoof and as bacon, and their crops of potatoes and corn for iron tools and pans, ammunition and glassware, muslins from England, tea from India, and other items common today, but which to the early inhabitants were prized because they were touches of civilization.


Here, in Shawneetown, on May 24th, 1813 two flat- boats were warped together and moored at the low, un- Jeveed landing; and with the long row of river-front cabins as a background, the first Court of Common Pleas of the new County of Gallatin was opened with L. White, J. C. Slocum, and Gabriel Greathouse, Gentlemen, pre- siding.


On that day this flatboat court heard the petition of one Lewis Barker for the inhabitants of Rock-and-Cave (later Cave-in-Rock) Township to establish a road from Barker's ferry to the U. S. Salines at Francis Jourdans. The petition was granted and viewers were appointed to survey the best route, these being: Lewis Barker, Phillip Coon, Issac Casey, Chisem Estes. Francis and Joseph Jour- dan.


On the following day, the 25th, the county was laid off in townships (i. e., precincts), with the bounds of the militia companies designated as boundaries of the town- ships. Thereafter the captains of the companies of mili- tia werc appointed: Captain Steel of Grandpier; Captain McFarland of Big Creck; Captain Barker of Rock-and- Cave-the foregoing being officers for townships within the modern boundaries of Hardin County. Constables for these townships were: Leonard Harrison of Big Creek; John Jackson of Grandpier; and Asa Ledbetter of Rock- and-Cave.


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During this term, the court ordered a jail to be built in the public square, to consist of two stories, and of two thicknesses of white oak, hewed to 10 inches square. Among other items: a tax of $2 per year was levied on a ferry operating next above the mouth of Saline Creek. Jeptha Hardin was admitted to practice law. And the legal prices which taverns could charge were established; breakfast, dinner, supper, not over 25c; lodging 121/2c; horse to hay or fodder, 25c; oats or corn per gallon, 25c, 1/2 pint whiskey 121/2c; peach brandy or cherry bounce 25c.


In September court was held again. During this term James McFarland for the inhabitants of Big Creek prayed for the establishment of a road to U. S. Saline Salt Works; and Wm. Frizzell, Elias Jourdan, Peter Etter and Lewis Watkins were appointed to view out the best routes.


A report was made on the Barker Ferry road: "Agree- able to an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Galla- tin County, May Term 1813, to have a road viewed from Barker Ferry to the U. S. Saline, we, the viewers . . did begin at the said ferry and review thence to Nathaniel Armstrong's; thence across Harris Creek to a large spring; thence to cross Eagle Creek just above the forks; and thence to the U. S. Saline."


Upon the submission of this report, overseers were appointed with power to call out all the hands on each side of the route within six mnlies of it, to cut it out and keep it in repair; Henry Ledbetter to oversee the stretch from the Ohio to Harris Creek and John Stovall from Harris Creek to the Saline.


On September 29th, James McFarland was licensed to keep a ferry where he resided on land belonging to the U. S. government until the sale of these lands.


In the January, 1814, term of court, a report on the McFarland road was made, the route decided upon being


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from McFarland's ferry to Absolom Estes; thence to Nathan Clamhits; thence to Betty Pankey's on Big Creek, thence to Elias Jourdan's thence to Lewis Watkins, tak- ing the old road to Willis Hargrave's salt works.


On the 2nd of May, 1815, the court found it necessary "to exercise its authority and fine Jeptha Hardin and Thos. C. Browne for contempt offered this court."


In the April term, 1819, the Court had the county laid off in five township or election districts, with judges of election appointed: John Black, Asa Ledbetter and Alex- ander McElroy for Rock-and-Cave; John Groves, Josepli Riley and Mr. Stout for Cane Creek; Hankerson Rude, Hugh Robinson and Chishem Estes for Monroe.


Later in 1819 a report was made by viewers for a road from Flynn's Ferry to Saline Tavern. These viewers were: Isaac Baldwin, John Black, Neil Thompson, and Alex McElroy. At this time the court ordered the road established as a public highway with Hugh McConnell appointed supervisor of stretch from the ferry to Powell's cabins, Isaac Potts supervisor from there to include the crossing of Beaver Creek, John Black thence to Eagle Creek, and Robert Watson on to the intersection with road from Shawneetown to Saline Tavern.


One interesting item. this court set an annual tax of $150 cach on all billiard tables.


Frontiersmen und Boatmen


From the foregoing, it can be seen that most of the official and commercial affairs of the Hardin County re- gion was transacted in Shawneetown. It was a center of population and visitors there judged the rest of back- woods Illinois by its actions. Sometimes unjustly, some- times with amusing insight. Reading these old records today we get a picture of old "Shawanoe" as an uncurried, ripsnorting border town where river rowdies and cut- throats the length of the Ohio congregated and devoted


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their energies to raising the roofs of the six or more vil- lage taverns.


As one pioneer preacher related it was the most un- promising point for ministerial labors in the Union --- which at that time took in a lot of pretty rough territory.


Another visitor wrote:


"Among two or three hundred inhabitants not a single soul made any pretentions to religion. Their shocking profaneness was enough to make one afraid to walk the street and those who on the Sabbath were not fighting and drinking at the taverns and grog shops, were either hunt- ing in the woods or trading behind their counters ... a laborer might almost as soon expect to hear the stones cry out as to expect a revolution in the morals of the place.


Shawneetown, however, had no monopoly on such dubious activities. One traveler, an Englishman by the name of Flint, who found some American traits quite ad- mirable, appeared to find others just as lamentable.


In Cincinnati,, New Year's day, 1819, his one journal entry was: "During the night I heard much noise of fight- ing and swearing amongst adult persons." Elsewhere he wrote: " . . . The river Ohio is considered the greatest thoroughfare of banditti in the Union. Horse stealing is notorious, as are escapes from prison-jails being con- structed of thin brick walls or of logs fit only to detain the prisoner while he is satisfied with the treatment he receives ... Runaway apprentices, slaves, and wives are frequently advertised. I have heard several tavern keep- ers complain of young men going off without paying their board .... "


And he really goes to town in writing of the river boatmen : "It gives me great pleasure to be relieved from the company of boatmen. I have seen nothing in human form so profligate as they are. Accomplished in deprav- ity, their habits and education seem to comprehend every


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vice. They make few pretentions to moral character; and their swearing is excessive and perfectly disgusting . . . The Scotsman recently referred to missed a knife. On his accusing them, one degraded wretch offered to buy his fork. I have seen several whose trousers formed the whole of their wardrobe. They are extremely addicted to drinking. Indeed I have frequntly seen them borrowing of one another a few cents to quench their insatiable thirst."


However, Flint makes a more sober commentary in the following: "Most of them (i. e., backwoodsmen) are well acquainted with the law, and fond of it on the most trif- ling occasions. I have known a lawsuit brought for a pail of the value of 25c. ... Many of them are sometimes truly industrious, and at other times excessively idle. Numbers of them can turn their hands to many things, having been accustomed to do for themselves in small societies. They are a most determined set of republi- cans, well versed in politics, and thoroughly independent. A man who has only half a shirt and without shoes or stockings, is as independent as the first man in the states; and interests himself in the choice of men to serve his country as much as the highest man in it, and often from as pure motives-the general good without any private views of his own .... I was struck to find with what har- mony people of different religions lived together, and have since had no reason to alter my opinion. I have had much conversation with Baptists, Methodists, and Quakers. They all expressed much charity for those oth- er sects, although most of them seemed to have a high opinion of their own.


Record of a Circuit Minister


Such were the observations of one traveler on that early American Frontier. The following picture of fron- tier life comes from a more understanding writer, John Scripps, a Methodist circuit rider of pioneer times. It would be difficult to equal the vividness which he relates


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the hardships he and his fellow ministers encountered during those early days; nor could we learn better than through his words the hospitality which was to be found in even the rudest of cabins.


Our roads were narrow, winding horse-paths, sometimes scarcely perceptible, and frequently for miles, no path at all, amid tangled brushwood, over fallen tim- ber, rocky glens, mountainous precipices; through swamps and low grounds, overflowed or saturated by water for miles together, and consequently muddy, which the break- ing up of the winter and the continued rains gave a con- tinued supply of; the streams some of them large and rapid. swollen to overflowing, we had to swim on our horses, carrying our saddle-bags on our shoulders. It was a common occurrence, in our journeying, to close our day's ride drenched to the skin by continually descending rains, for which that spring was remarkable. Our nights were spent, not in two but in one room log cabins, each generally constituting our evening meetinghouse, kitchen, nursery, parlor, dining and bedroom-all within the di- mensions of sixteen square feet, and not unfrequently a loom occupying one-fourth of it, together with spinning wheels and other apparatus for manufacturing their ap- parel-our congregations requiring our services till ten or twelve o'clock; our supper after dismission, not of select, but of just such aliment as our hospitable entertainers could provide (for hospitable, in the highest sense of the word, they were); corn-cakes, fried bacon, sometimes butter, with milk or herb tea, or some substitute for coffee.


"At the Rock-and-Cave camp meeting, the nieasles being very prevalent in the congregation, I took them. Very high fevers were th first symptom; but unconscious of the cause and nature of my affliction, I continued trav- eling through all weathers for upwards of two weeks, be- fore the complaint developed its character. My stomach became very delicate, and through a populous part of our


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journey I inquired for coffee at every house we passed, and was invariably directed to Mr. L.'s several miles ahead, as the only probable place for the procurement of the grateful beverage. On making known my wants to Mrs. L., she searched and found a few scattered grains at the bottom of a chest, of which she made me two cup- fuls.




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