USA > Illinois > Lee County > Harmon > History of Harmon Township, Lee County, Illinois > Part 2
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THE EVOLUTION OF A CHURCH ORGAN.
As time passed and people came, the church membership increased, but for two or three years after occupying the new church building they had no organ. Congregational sing- ing exclusively was the rule, sometimes one and sometimes another leading. But after awhile the musical part of the community demanded an organ. The movement was opposed strenuously by certain members and the opposition supposed the matter was settled in their favor. Late one Saturday night in passing I saw a faint light in the church in looking in I saw that Silas Ackert, one of our best singers, and J. A. D. Barnes our school teacher had placed an organ on the plat- form. I was at church in good season the next morning, and there sat an organist all ready for business and as the objectors came in and saw the situation, placid coun- tenances changed to that of grim determination and I knew the fight was on. Soon as the last line of the first hymn was read, the pitch of the tune from below, and the sound of the organ from above met, and the organ prevailed. Look- ing at the faces of the discomfited ones their countenances in- dicated no great spiritual uplift that day. A meeting was called at the parsonage; it was a noisy meeting. The par- son tried to harmonize matters. A music box and religion could not mix. It was asserted that God required a heart service; that they should praise Him themselves with their own voices and nothing else would be accepted. That side of the argument thereupon prevailed until a sister requested permission to read a portion of the Scriptures which might have a bearing on the subject, whereupon she read the 150th psalm which settled the controversy in favor of the organ.
In 1880 the M. E. church organized a society and began holding services in Hill's hall with Rev. E. Breen pastor. In 1881 a church building was erected, since which time regu- lar services have been held continuously. Rev. J. B. Kenna is the present pastor.
Church attendance and support never was a general in- dication of denominational choice. All classes and beliefs being represented, but a result of a cosmopolitan sentiment among the people.
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Regular Protestant church services have been held in Har- mon continuously and with a creditable measure of success since the organization of the township in 1857.
CATHOLIC HISTORY.
The late Rev. Father P. H. Mckeon, former pastor of St. Flannen Catholic church in Harmon, whose efficiency and high pastoral qualities had built it up to a flourishing condition, kindly furnished the following history:
The parish of St. Flannen was established October 5, 1898. Rev. D. E. McGrath was the first resident pastor. Previously Harmon was attended from Dixon and was known as a mission of St. Patrick's church of Dixon.
The first church building was erected in 1871 and the rectory in 1898. Both church and home were burned to the ground December 25, 1911. Immediately a committee was formed to devise ways and means for a new church and rec- tory. Money was raised and the present site obtained. In August, 1912, excavation was begun and on September 4th of the same year the corner stone was laid by Rt. Rev. P. J. Muldoon, Bishop of Rockford.
Father Thomas Smith was transferred to Maple Park and on September 22, 1912, Father P. H. Mckeon was ap- pointed pastor and took charge. In the fall of this year the rectory was started and it was completed April 1, 1913. The new church which is of brick and modern in every respect was dedicated May 26, 1914 by Rt. Rev. P. J. Muldoon.
The church is Romanesque and the altars, rails, pews, etc. are of the same design. It is heated by a modern steam plant. The present membership is over 400. Rev. Father T. M. Moore is present pastor.
Holy Cross cemetery was established in October 1907.
DONATIONS.
Regarding donations, I will mention but one. We had at the time a young minister, well liked. As time passed, some of his congregation judging the pocket books of others by their own, proposed one. The idea took. All were eager to contribute. It came off with a large attendance. I could
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not attend so later I loaded up my donation of six or eight fine cabbages and took them to the parsonage next morning. The Reverend was in the yard when I drove up, I made my regrets for not attending but had brought my contribution along. When done he took a look at my cargo and then smiled significantly. He pointed to a depository and when there I found it piled to the peak with cabbages; nothing else. I learned that nothing much else was brought. Par- enthetically I might add that the season was wet and cab- bage had prospered. Shortly afterwards the parson told me he would resign. I asked him why. He replied that he thought a minister should be placed above apprehension. I inferred that he meant he apprehended cabbage. He resigned next Sunday.
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS FROM AN 1859 STANDPOINT.
Early Harmon was noted in the early day for sand knolls, pond holes, quick sandy sloughs, sand hill cranes, wild geese, brants, ducks, snipe, prairie chickens, mud hens, muskrats, badgers, coyotes, frogs and massasaugers. Its natural pro- ductions on the low grounds were slough grass, pussy wil- lows, cattail flags and rushes. The higher ground was cov- ered with grass and beautiful wild flowers and produced a pleasing effect. In fact nothing is more beautiful than a wild prairie in early midsummer. Far as the eye can reach is seen a gorgeous varigated waving expanse of flowering beauty whose colors "nature's own cunning hand laid on" and which no Burbank skill or landscape art can rival. But our settlers soon found that all that glitters is not gold.
Whatever advantages we might have had, one of them overshadowed all the others. I refer our liability to getting stuck in the mud. To have a team embedded in the mud and rendered practically helpless, wagon down to the axles and all happening unexpectedly, was never a pleasant inci- dent. We had upland ground too, apparently safe which was mixed with quicksand that was just as treacherous when the frost went out in the spring and a good deal of skill and experience were required to locate the best places to cross and even then we often went wrong. Then came the unhitch- ing, lifting out the load, prying out the wagon and getting
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it on solid ground and finally the reloading. Any person who could go through one of those experiences without say- ing things could do more than most of us.
I will mention a concrete instance, west of where J. R. McCormick's residence now stands is a low piece of ground once called the pond hole. South west a few rods stood the old lake school house. One evening I took a wagonload of people to a church service held there. Coming back I drove into that hole. It was very dark and the first thing I knew the horses were floundering in the mud. Next they stopped. The women were carried out; the horses were unhitched and struggled to shore. I went a quarter of a mile west to George G. Rosbrook's yard and hitched to his wagon and took my load home. The next morning with ropes and poles and a helper I went for my wagon. I found it had settled into the mud until one-half of the axletrees were covered.
It is astonishing with what tenacity mud when settled around anything, will hold it. The wagon seemed to be fixed. There was scarcely no water. We tried to spade a clearing, but the slippery mud would fill in as fast as we took it out. We removed the box; took out the kingbolt; fastened a rope to the wheel; managed to get a pry under the hub by putting down a wide board for foundation and tipping the wagon over sideways with the team, one end at a time. It was the worst mud party I ever attended.
J. R. McCormick farms over that spot now without a passing thought that anyone ever could been stuck there.
The miring of teams was not all of that mud business. In the sloughs and low ground there were acres of pussy wil- lows which budded out early in the spring and afforded brows- ing for cattle. Besides, grass started sooner on the low ground; all which tempted the cattle where they quite often got down in the mud so they were helpless and many times had to be pulled out by teams of horses. Sometimes, though rarely they were not discovered until too late to save them. Some of these quicksand places were very dangerous. Un- knowingly I once attempted to cross one of them. When the horse began to go down I jumped off and scrambled over the bogs for the shore. The horse settled down to his body, but he threw one of his fore feet over a bog and that helped to
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keep him up. Horses have a good deal of intelligence that we do not appreciate always.
There was another bog just a little in front and within reach of the horse. He stretched out his neck and put his head on that bog, and to all appearances used it to prevent going down further. I went nearly a mile to the nearest neighbor, George Keith of Marion, by name, and got a man with team and rope. The horse was in same position when we had returned. He whinnied when we came up. We got the rope around him and the team pulled him out. It was not a very large place, but grassed over with a thin sod it was very treacherous. I was told that other stock had been lost there. Now those places all have been drained and are fine farm land.
DRAINAGE.
There have been four drainage districts organized here, as follows :
District 1. September 25, 1880.
District 2. November 10, 1898.
District Union 1, Harmon, Lee County and Montmorency, Whiteside County, April 1, 1895.
District Union 1, Harmon and Marion, February 3, 1897.
Each district has improved and enlarged its ditches un- til now they furnish an ample outlet for all the water of an ordinary rainfall within their several boundaries.
The soil was naturally fertile especially on the lower ground, but the cultivator was up against a serious handicap by lack of an outlet for this surplus water. Thorough drain- age was impossible. There was no water course with a con- tinuous channel through the township. Where the large dredge ditches now are there was only slight depressions, sodded and grassed over a good share of the distance. A slight increase of rain always resulted in a corresponding decrease in the crop and it was not so very unusual for a fairly promising crop to be destroyed by a summer flood. The upland was the only reliance. But with the advent of the big drainage systems and construction of ditches, a radical improvement began with the result that Harmon is now right up with the head of the procession and so we don't care
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though we have in times past been called swamp angels, webb footed, etc., and which might have been near the truth barring the angels.
The present drainage ditches are:
Drainage ditches 17 miles; dredge laterals 15 miles; tile laterals to dredge ditches 3 miles; open laterals to dredge ditches 5 miles; highway tile drainage 5 miles; farm tile drainage 225 miles.
The herding interests in Harmon were immense for a few years. Our low lands brought us this industry. Thou- sands of cattle and sheep were driven there annually and herded for the summer though the herding grounds were not confined to the town of Harmon. They extended south and east to the point of Palestine and beyond.
Those who were principally engaged in the herding busi- ness were Zigler, Stiles, Rogers, Shelhamer, Eddy, Demarius, Keith, Bressler, Porter, Curtis and Woodard, Rosbrook, Con- ner, William L. Smith and Mekeel. As the township settled, the herds disappeared.
Before the herds became so numerous as to materially affect the quantity of grass we had to look out in the fall for prairie fires. The principal danger was to hay and sheds and stables roofed with straw and long prairie hay which were used almost entirely in place of lumber or shingles. We plowed furrows as a protection along the exposed sides and sometimes a couple of strips about a rod apart and burned it off in between and when the fire was near, backfired to meet it from the outer furrow. Those prairie fires at the start always took the form of a triangle; the head or central fire taking the lead and keeping it while the sides as they spread out followed along afterwards. I have known the fire to burn for days when burning against the wind and not get over much ground, and also smoldering under the snow in winter.
A fire rushing along in the tall, thick grass, such as was native to the swamp was quite a sight. The flames driven by a brisk breeze through the grass would rise to a great height, patches being continuously broken off in quick succession. Other portions would roll over and drop on the grass in front, quickly kindling and again soaring, the whole mass being a
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roaring furnace of flame. An ordinary slough or upland fire which sometimes would seem to take all before it was not in it by comparison. It got over the ground with amazing rapidity.
BIG PRAIRIES.
One source of inconvenience and worse was the possi- bility of getting bewildered while crossing the prairie in a dark night when the track was lost.
One cold, blustering night, I was awakened by some one kicking at the door and shouting. The voice told me the party was lost and freezing. In the party were a woman and two children in a sled at the door nearly frozen. They had been visiting friends and had started home about 10 o'clock, but the wind had veered and freshened and filled the track with snow. With no guide they had been traveling until they arrived at my house at 1 a. m. I soon had a good fire, put the team in the stable and in the morning after breakfast, I sent them on their way. If they had not struck my place, there would have been a terrible tragedy.
A neighbor returning from Dixon after dark discovered that the team had left the track, but presuming the horses would get home all right, no attempt was made to guide them. After awhile he concluded he knew best and took charge. Af- ter driving two hours without getting anywhere he had un- hitched the team and tied it to the wagon, rolled himself up in his blankets and went to sleep. At daylight he found himself within 20 rods of his house.
On one occasion I was crossing the prairie at night and the team was following a pretty fair sleigh track and I let the horses take their own way. After awhile I noticed a weed sticking out of the snow when it occurred to me I had seen that weed before. I drove ahead mistrustful until I came to the same weed again. Then I knew I was traveling in a circle. I took my back track and got into the road again. Next morning I went back to the place and found I had traveled a perfect circle about three-fourths of a mile in di- ameter. Think it was caused by one horse walking faster than the other. The same principle will apply to a lost per- son if he steps with one foot just a little stronger than the other.
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Another night while crossing the five mile branch, the ice was thin and the hind wheels of my wagon broke through. The team couldn't pull it out. So I started to unhitch when C. K. Shalhamer came along horseback, returning from Dixon.
"Hello!" said he, "what's the matter?" "Can't you see?" "What are you unhitching for?" "To go home. I will get the wagon in the morning." "It will be frozen solid then. If we both lift on the wheels the horses will pull it out." Each took a wheel and yelled at the team. The wagon came out but Shelhamer went into the mire about two feet. I forget the remark he made.
I was homeward bound one night walking in a well known prairie track on the north side of which was a big stone, a sort of land mark. A quarter of a mile further on, this track was intersected by another diagonal road making a fork. I went on carelessly until after passing the forks I began thinking I might have taken the wrong road. So back I went to the forks to get my bearings. Everything seemed wrong. I concluded I would go back to the big stone and start over. When I reached it the stone was on the south side of the road. That was a stunner. I simply lost all my bearings. The best I could do was to sit down on that rock and wait for morning. At daylight I found everything properly adjusted.
ROADS.
Better roads however are now attracting attention. Har- mon has two miles of hard roads now. The old wooden bridge and culvert are practically things of the past. New steel bridges to meet the requirements of enlarged drainage ditches have been built. Modern and improved road machinery have been purchased and good work is going forward.
The sheep business generally was unsuccessful. The situation did not seem to be adapted to sheep. The practice of dipping was resorted to for the purpose of conserving their health. It consisted of immersing the sheep in an abominable liquid composed of tobacco, lye, corrosive sublimate and other vile ingredients, steaming hot, which was supposed to destroy all germs, microbes and insects lurking about the animals. The wool had to be soaked thoroughly. To stand over a tank
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filled with that mixture and squeeze wool all day, inhaling the steam, was not very much of an appetizer. Two of my neigh- bors who used tobacco were considered immune from any bad effects from that work and so we had a monopoly of the work. It meant spot cash and so we considered it a sort of godsend, vile as it was.
Up to 1874 cattle and horses were free commoners or were allowed to run at large except at night between the hours of nine o'clock in the evening and six o'clock in the morning from May 1st until October 1st. Any such stock running at large between those hours were liable to be put into the pound and a fine of twenty-five cents a head and costs. There was never any remained for the owners always came at night and took them out. Under this system the grain raiser must watch his crops if he had no fences, which he hadn't in those days.
As one sample of fence protection adopted at town meet- ing, a sod fence two feet high and one board two feet high on the sod. This system had its advantages. It gave a person an unlimited range for his stock and the privilege of riding from one to three miles and sometimes more after his milch cows at night. It educated him to habits of watchfulness which were essentially necessary for the salvation of his crop.
One essential for a crop of corn was one or more dogs; the more dogs the more corn. A stranger passing through remarked to me one day. "What a lot of bobtailed cattle you have around here." I told him it was either cattle's tails or corn and we preferred the corn. A great deal of grain was destroyed each year on account of that system. A lot of cattle going through a field of corn at time of roasting ears is not a very inspiring sight to the grower; but when as I have seen an even dozen fine cows and young cattle lying bloated and dead by eating corn nearly matured, that feature was dispiriting to the cattle man. But after 1874 cattle had to be fenced.
The settling up of unoccupied lands necessarily caused inconvenience and hardship, as people were obliged then to travel along certain lines no matter how badly cut up instead of traveling straight across. Square corners were annoying at first. The first serious inconvenience interference with
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what I had come to consider my vested rights of straight- a-way travel, occurred one day on my way to Sterling. I came to where a man was breaking prairie across my path. "How is this?" I inquired. "What are you plowing up my road for?" "And can't you go round?" he answered, and going round soon became the order of travel. This was in the later 60's. This man I afterwards came to know as my fel- low townsman, Richard Long, Sr., and he was plowing up the Northwest quarter of section three.
The road question was a big proposition. It was not possible to raise sufficient funds to make them passable. It was a question of time and there has been a gradual improve- ment, fixing the worst places first, until now our worst roads are boulevards in comparison.
Our swamps also attracted many hunters.
By reason of that same swampy ground, Harmon and the country south was a great place for sportsmen. Water fowl of all descriptions were here in plenty to say nothing of sandhill cranes in great numbers. It was more entertain- ing than a movie to watch their warning dance. They would hop and teeter back and forth apparently trying to see which one could jump the highest for a few minutes; then of a sud- den all would break into a hurly-burly jumping over one another in great confusion. After that performance they would resume their hopping antics. Their usual time was before sunrise. The sight of the first sandhill crane and the roaring of prairie chickens were welcome because they meant the return of spring.
Hunters were plenty also. One day in the spring while I was working near a quicksand slough, a hunter came up to me leading a horse that had been badly mudded up. He said he had been stuck in the slough and came near losing his horse but he managed to get him out. If I would go down and get his buggy out he would give me a dollar. When I reached the spot I took in the situation. His horse had mired himself by striking his hind feet through the sod, but the buggy was on the sod. I waded in, took the thills and walked out with it. He looked a little surprised and I im- agined some foolish, but he forked over the dollar and also a black bottle. The bottle I declined.
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In 1864 or 5, the bank of the lake was the scene of a sad and unfortunate occurrence. Lane Porter, a bright and promising lad of 10 or 12 years of age, a son of James Por- ter, Jr., had been out on the lake hunting ducks. Returning, on leaving the boat the gun was discharged, the load entered his side, which resulted fatally in a few days. His brother, A. P. Porter of Sterling, Illinois then about three years of age, remembers seeing the doctor picking gunwad from the wound.
The first year I was here I kept old batch. I wish to remark right now that hard work and cooking your own food is a mighty poor combination. But I curtailed proceed- ings to the limit. The menu was pancakes and molasses. I had a perfect system. Six of them the size of a saucer was the allotment. If that was not enough, it had to do; if it was too much I ate it all and such was the power of habit that six soon just filled the bill; no more, no less. But it got to be awfully monotonous, always the same every day. I made up my mind to have a change for one meal anyway. So I got a mess of beans from a neighbor, put them on the stove in the morning and whenever I went in the house during the day put some more fire under them so as to have them done nicely for supper. I came in at night and took off the cover but not a bean was there. One of my neighbors coming in from Dixon, stopped and gobbled the whole mess down and even scraped the kettle. He thought it a big joke. It cer- tainly was big enough, but I did not quite relish the joke part of that, at least not that night.
One night three hunters came along and wanted to stop with me over night. They were on their way to the swamp. Of course I was glad to have them stay. When I came in from my chores they had my table covered with a fine dis- play of eatables. They invited me to sit up. I sat up. They had meat of their own killing and passed it to me with the remark that it was the biggest snipe they ever saw and I noticed they winked back and forward across the table. But it did not trouble me. I was having a good time and would willingly have agreed to anything they might have said, snipe, ostrich or alligator.
The next morning was a repetition of the same proceed- ing, including the snipe. They went on their way and I went
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to work. In the course of the day I happened to look at the pile of bones they had thrown out and then I saw why; they were prairie chickens.
They came back in a couple of days and stopped with me again. I told them I would like some more of those big snipes. We had a good laugh over the incident. One of the men was well known in Dixon and Washington and a genius with pencil and brush. Whenever afterward I saw him, which was seldom, he always wanted to know about the snipe. He is dead now.
Flour and water mixed made those pancakes at first a terror, burnt or dried as they might be on a griddle. Even my two big cats drew the line at those pancakes.
Just at this stage of the game, a little incident occurred which saved my life. The next Sunday after setting up my housekeeping I was at a neighbor's and in a neighborly way he inquired how I was coming on. I told him if I survived until I got acclimated to the conditions I thought it would be all right and incidentally I remarked that I had let a lot of pancake mixture sour and would have to throw it out. "Why, no" said his wife, "put in some saleratus and it will be all right." So she gave me some and presto ! those cakes were nice and light and tender. Another system was adopted and another item was added to my domestic economy, that of stirring in saleratus. In order to be strictly accurate in this, I will say that my first rations were four cakes, but soon a couple more were added, making six.
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