USA > Illinois > Jefferson County > History of Jefferson County, Illinois, 1810-1962 > Part 17
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In 1949 under the ministry of Rev. Bayne D. Wilson the base- ment of the church was completely remodeled by the installation of a new and modern kitchen, tile floors, new lighting system and class rooms, dining room and Fellowship Center, all finished with knotty pine walls; and in 1950 the church auditorium was likewise modernized. with new individual upholstered seats, arranged with a wide center isle, a divided chancel, new carpeting and a complete redecorating job.
Realizing the necessity of taking better care of the young people of the church both as to religious training and social activities, under the leadership of Rev. Bayne D. Wilson, the officials and members of the church authorized the construction of a modern Educational Unit. This was during the conference year of 1953-1954. After care- fil planning, by an appointed. Finance and Building Committee, the new building was constructed on the vacant lots immediately east of the church building with a well appointed lobby connecting the two buildings. Both buildings are faced with Bedford Stone and are efficiently arranged to meet the requirements of the various organi- zations of the church.
The new building program was completed during the ministry of Dr. Dale Harmon, and the new Educational Unit was dedicated on Sunday morning, August 25, 1957. Due to the liberal contributions by members and friends of the church and to the funds bequeathed to the church in the will of a deceased member, Ray Jacobson, the entire program was completed free of any indebtedness.
Following is a list, in chronological order, of ministers who have served this church from 1818 to the present: John Harris, Charles Slocomb, J. Stewart, Robert Delap, Josiah Patterson, William Smith, William Moore, Orseneth Fisher, Thomas Files, John Fox, John H. Benson, James Walker, Simcon Walker, Thomas C. Collins, W. L. Jenkins, W. W. Mitchell, David Coulson, James M. Massey, John Shepherd, James H. Dickman, William T. Tillard, James M. Massey, R. H. Moffit, J. J. Richardson, David Blackwell, Arthur Bradshaw, John Thatcher, J. C. Kimber, James A. Robinson, John H. Hill, T. W. Jones, James Leaton, Norman Allyn, Ephraim Joy, Thomas A. Eaton, R. H. Manier, Micaijah House, George W. Hughey, John H. Hill, B. R. Pierce, John Leepen,
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Joseph Harnis, D. W. Phillips, Nelson Hawley, C. E. (line, Calloway Nash, John W. Lock, O. H. Clark, W. F. Davis, J. B. Thompson, J. W. Van(Leve, J. F. Harmon, J. A. Taylor, C. D. Shumand, . & McCamnon, C. C. Hall, W. T. CLine, J. G. Tucker, M. C. Foltz, C. L. Peterson, O. L. Markman, G. R. Goodman, O. B. Allen, H. C. Brown, M. A. Souers, C. H. Todd, G. E. Whitten, Bayne D. Wilson, Dale Harmon.
EDITORIAL NOTE: To Vol & Richardson should go the credit for most of the information regarding First Methodist Church. )
NEWSPAPER HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY
By Orian W. Metcalf, News Editor, Mt. Vernon Register News (From an address delivered before the Jefferson County Historical Society in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, December 9, 1947, at the Casey Junion High School)
In delving through the Wall and Perrin histories I made an interesting discovery. Following the Lineage of the original printing press and the ones which came after it, and the printing equipment, I find that the Register-News can be said to trace its ancestry to the first newspaper ever started in this county. Through successive owners, the press and type passed to the Mt. Vernon Exponent and then the News. The News is the older half of the combination Register-News.
Mir Perrin, as most of you have read, said that Jefferson County by 1883 was a great newspaper graveyard, So it was and so it continued until 1929. Since that date, The Register-News has prospered and expanded and today has a larger circulation and more advertising than any newspaper in the Little Egypt part of the state.
The first newspaper was started here by John S. Bogan, "Uncle Johnny, " as he was fondly called by two generations. Mr. Bogan was a native of Virginia, where he was born March 6, 1820, at Woodstock, Shenandoah County, about the time the town of lilt. Vernon was getting started, His father, a captain in the War of 1812, was a printer and a publisher of papers in Woodstock, Virginia, and in lilt, Vernon, Ohio. Laten the father had clerkship appointments in Washington which he lost when Grant's administration moved in. They were twelve children in the Bogan family and one of them, Susan, became the wife of George H.
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Vannell who made a fortune in Washington, D. C., and came to lit. Vernon where he was a tycoon of the post-(ivil lan days ...
John S. Bogan was apprenticed as a printen when he was four- teen years of age. In 1843, at the age of 23, he left the printshop and went to the farm because of ill health. He farmed near washington until 1846, when he came to Jefferson County and to Live in Grand Prai- nie Township. He stayed on the farm in the northwest part of the county until 1851, when he moved to litt. Vernon and started the first newspaper here, THE JEFFERSONJAN.
In the fall of 1854 he sold his newspaper. At various times he held the offices of school director, constable and deputy sheriff. From 1854 until 1888 he was circuit clerk of Jefferson County.
He was married in 1842 to Miss Louisa Margaret Burnette, a native of Virginia, and they had five children -- Sarah , who became the wife of liancus Goodale and the mother of Miss Lois Goodale; llary. C., who married William T. Goodrich; Hannah, who married Newton (. Pace; and two sons, William and John Frank.
John Frank Bogan will be remembered as the city editor of The Register from 1917 until 1920 and of the Register-News from 1920 until his death on December 8, 1937. During the last five years of his life he had the general supervision of the news department of the news- paper, to which position I was appointed a few weeks after his death.
Now, let us get back to our first edition. T. B. Tanner heard that the Grand Prairie farmer, in. Bogan, was a printer. He rode out to see him. The conversation was Long and thorough, lin. Tanner staying a couple of days at the Bogan home -- for in those days one couldn't whiz back to town on the Richview Road in a matter of minutes. lin. Tannen, a Democrat -- as most of the early settlers of this county seem to have been -- wanted a Democratic newspaper, a party organ. The upshot of the long talk was that Bogan moved to town and founded his newspaper.
He started out signing up subscribers and took up $156 in subscriptions which were at the rate of 1.50 per year. In other words, he had 104 paid up subscribers. "A pause ensued, " in the words of A. Clark Johnson. Then things got to rolling again when H. T. Pace inquired how much money was needed to start publication and offered to loan the amount -- $200 ~ taking notes due in one and a half years.
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Bogan bought an old Rammage press in Belleville, and it is from this press that I find The Register-News plant is a direct des- cendant.
The historian Adam Clank Johnson describes the first Jepper- sonian issue of August, 1857: a modest sheet, six-column size, and said that it enjoyed a circulation of 600 copies. But remember -- only 104 of them were cash subscribers.
I have in my possession a copy of volume two, number 30, dated May 6, 1853. It is titled "The litt. Vernon Jeffersonian" and in it's masthead carries the slogan "The Union Forever." Its office is given as over S. G. Hicks Stone. Advertising was 1 for 12 lines, 25€ fon successive insertions. The advertisements of seven lawyers, three doctors, the sheriff and county judge appear on page one.
The page one news includes a contributed poem entitled "Awake Sweet liuse," "Be Thou the Bright Honning Stan;" a story, appan- ently fiction, "The Life of a Coquette;" a piece telling farmers they ought to beautify even a log cabin with shrubs and raise grapes; and a column-length article about the absolute power of the Russian Czar. lot very hot news, even in 1853. At that time Robert Ingersoll, the great agnostic, at the age of seventeen was head of the Academy, a seat of learning here.
On another page I found an advertisement of J. J. Fly for coffins and a picture of his product. John N. Johnson quoted prices jon produce including up to 20€ per bushel for conn, ham 6€ per pound, bacon 6g per pound, butter 10¢, beef $2.50 per hundred. Chickens were "1 and 2 pen dozen, eggs 34; whiskey was a neal bargain -- 23€ per gallon. One medicine company advertized that its compound would cure rheumatism. William B. Thonne was advertising his hotel on the south- west corner of the square under the name Virginia House.
Bogan wrote that by Divine permission the Rev. .!. Edwards would preach at the lilethodist church Sunday, and that the pupils of the Female Seminary, who were taught by Ingersoll's stepmother, had a de- lichtful celebration monday last. Real estate wasn't moving very fast, fon C. lichtee put an ad in on February 17, and it was still running in Way, trying to sell "A desirable residence -- 3 rooms, kitchen, stable, buggy house, corn crib, cistern of excellent water, double front, choice
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fruit trees and shrubbery." (And of course instead of a bath it had a path. ) The county's population then was 8, 107.
So much for what Bogan's paper looked like. In three years his subscribers and his business were hopelessly in arrears. Pace sued on his notes, and Bogan went under. In. Tannen reproached him- sel, as the cause of Bogan's misfortune and he made a deal with the judge, Downing Baugh -- they didn't have supervisors in those days -- whereby Tanner resigned his job as circuit clerk and Bogan was appointed to the vacancy. Bogan took office in September, 1854.
In August of that year he sold his Rammage press-our ancestor -to Bowman and Robinson for $325 in gold, the former a son of wealthy St. Louis parents and the latter fresh from California. Robinson soon quit, and Bowman -- the nich man's son -- persevered for six months when he sold to Dodds, Johnson and Company.
Dodds, Johnson and Company was formed for the sole purpose of running the Jeffersonian in a publicity campaign against the sale of 19,000 acres of swamp land the county owned. They wanted to hold the land for laten use in trying to bring a railroad to the county. in. Tannen, who started Bogan, became the editor. He didn't like the old Rannage press so he bought another one from Frank hanley, a former printer of Bogan's, at Grayville, Illinois. This press now enters the printers' ink blood line. The subscription list was nun up to 1, 200 - that's easy to do on credit, you know. When the county voted not to sell the swamp Lands they were through with publishing. However, they were very generous with their equipment and fell into the course of giving the use of the press to anybody who would take it and publish a paper.
Next, william Anderson, Tom Casey and Tannen decided to try their hands at publishing. They took over the Jeffersonian equipment and changed the name of the paper to THE SENTINEL, in 1856. It was a typographical headache -- full of mistakes. Tanner couldn't write and, when the paper came out, couldn't recognize the finished product as his own creation. One of the famous typographical boners of this sheet was the announcement that "all club members who can sin are invited to join the chorus. "
In 1857 John A. Wall and William Hollingsworth bought the press and equipment and. on credit no-christened the paper the
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The EGYPTO.AI! TORCHLIGHT. They went broke and then Cd Satterfield issued the paper for a few weeks.
Later in 1857 S. Turner Brown bought the paper, again on credit. He nomed it the ANGTC. He lasted a few months, and once more the original owners Let Ed Satterfield carry on until publication of the delinquent tax lists of 1858.
In 1858 J. R. Satterfield bought the newspaper office from Dodds , Johnson and Co. for $250. He sold it to a couple of abolitionists from Michigan who changed the name to THE MT. VERNON STAR and lasted one year, when Satterfield foreclosed. Then the Satterfield boys, Ed and John, took over and ran it until the close of the Civil : Jan. Ralph Pavitt, who has a hobby of collecting newspapers of all kinds and ages, has a copy of the Stan.
Believe me, lin. Lincoln and the Northern government were very tolerant on they wouldn't have allowed the Star to appear for a day. In the masthead the paper is vowed to be "Devoted to the Interests of Jefferson County, and the Extinction of the Abolition Republican Par- ty." The newspaper was published in an upstairs office in the court house. In it, an article signed "Copperhead" assailed a Methodist preacher for abolitionism. Lincoln was castigated as one whose "sole aim seemed to be freeing of Negroes and placing them on an equality with white men. " The definition of a slanderous appellation, in use even today, was given as one "hostile to democracy and the institution of slavery. " The Stan recorded that beef was on sale Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, at the old post office and that General longan (the notor- ious raider) was in Indiana "recruiting for Confederate service. "
Starting in 1360 Mt. Vernon had two newspapers. THE GUARDIAN appeared. It lasted until 1863. It was the county's first Republican newspaper. With it a third press appeared on the scene, but we're not related to it.
In 1863 John A. Wall came home from the Army after campaigns in which he was wounded and captured by the rebels. He bought the Guardian and gave his paper the name UNCONDITIONAL UMSONST. He had 1,500 subscribers, mainly soldiers. Tall was just as pro ilonth as the Stan was anti-Lincoln. Once he was waylaid and beaten, an act which he blamed the Copperheads for. : all lasted three years and then pulled out.
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The new owners called their paper THE UNIONIST, which folded in the summer of 1867. I have two copies of this paper in fair con- dition. A December 5, 1866, edition holds the information that the hack line fare to Ashley connecting with the J. C. Railroad was $1. 50. The editor appeals for his subscribers to pay up and for "handened Democrats to atone for their sins and save their souls by joining the Republican party." It tells of brigandage in Turkey, trade reform dis- ordens in England, and Fenian rebellion in Ireland.
The STAT SiAll was the successon to the Unionist. Henry Hitchcock, from Indiana, bought the type and fixtures in 1867, and he nan the paper until 1873 when he had trouble with his wife and sold out. How, going back to the original printers' ink blood line: Clank Johnson records that C. L. Hayes bought the STAR and on December 6, 1865, issued his first paper under the name THE FREE PRESS, which he moved out of the court house and to a room oven Tom Goodrich's stone, where it was burned in the great Phoenix Block fine of March 16, 1869. Destroyed was the second press brought to the county -- the suc- cesson to Bogan's old Rammage -- but friend's (and Democrats) rallied to his aid and in a month after the fine he had a new press and resumed publication. He published in his columns the first history of jeffer- son County and spent $100 in helping Clark Johnson gather up source material for the sketches which appeared from week to week in his columns.
These sketches, it seems to me, were the framework on which all local recorded history has been built, and I am of the opinion that Clank Johnson is the real historian of our county rather than Perrin and Wall. Hayes sold out in 1972 and the paper had various owners until 1380 when it was consolidated with the ilgis. Thus it is from the Free Press and its predecessors that The Register-News can be said to date back to 1851 and The lit. Vernon Jeffersonian.
In 1879 THE JEFFERSON COUNTY GREENBACK was organized with $2, 000 capitalization. It lasted until 1888, when it too was taken over by the News.
And now we come to THE NGIS -- twelfth paper started in jefferson County. September 2, 1871 was the date of the first issue of a progressive new sheet published by Lawrence F. Tromley as a Republican
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paper. Previous newspapers had been four pages. Tromley brought out an eight-page paper. The inside pages came to him from Belleville, already printed up, with patent medicine ads and the kind of stories we now call fillers.
Tromley and his brother, Theodore, sold out in 1876 and it had two different owners until its purchase. November 28, 1877, by H. H. Simmons, lin. Simmons made it a Democratic paper and was the first publisher here to combine business ability with editorial skill. A widely travelled Eastern man, he was able to collect from his sub- scribers and sell enough advertising to prosper. He took over the Greenback and the Free Press and for a time called his paper THE HVIS HID FREE PRESS.
There were other papers: THE SUCKER STATE Lasted for a little over a year in 1873-1874. It was the successon to The States- man. THE JEFFERSON COUNTY DEMOCRAT was brought out in 1894 by 3. Frank Bogan. It was combined with The News after a short life. THE IT. VER- ICH TIMES came out about 1900. It's equipment was sold to Dahlgren. THE PROGRESSIVE FARINER, early 1900's, was published by the Stelles. Circulation was in the thousands.
Now we come to another branch of The Register-News family tree -- THE HECKLY EXPONENT. It was founded in Casey, Illinois, by Edward Hitchcock in 1876. The Republicans of Jefferson County asked In. Hitchcock to locate in lit. Vernon "and to bring hither his printing press and material." He did so, and the first number of Volume Three of the Exponent was issued in litt. Vernon on December 5, 1879. His office was upstairs in The Crews Building -- now the Mammoth location.
I have two copies of The Exponent from which I have gleaned the information that in 1883 lit. Vernon had a total of nine teachers -- seven in the grade school, one for "infants" on kindergarten, and one pon high school. D. H. Vise was advertising clothing, which he sold in the (news Building. George Wand was advertising his clothing stone with a bean guessing game, offering $110 in prizes. The home exchange of the telephone company had eighteen subscribers. Col. l'alone gave a watermelon to the editor. The mayon ordered a cleanup of the city. The lit. Vernon Brass Band gave a concert in front of Johnson's Drug Store and the music was telephoned at the same time to listening friends in Ashley and Centralin, a manvel. of the age.
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Ralph Pavitt has a September 8, 1880 copy of The Exponent which describes in great detail "Hob-Denicy at. Spring Garden" where "Democratic Bulldozers" threw bricks and coal at Republicans in an effort to prevent Thomas J. Williams from making a speech. According. to lin. Hitchcock the church meeting place was filled with "intelligent people" and a "drunken beastly mob" outside was cursing, and making beastly, remarks. He described in detail the gauntlet of jeering men which the Republicans nan in making their way from lit. Vernon to Spring Garden.
Other items of interest to me included an advertisement of Jand, Solomon and Company, established the year before, now The liammoth, "The Opdyke Lands" were offered for sale by George Opdyke and Company of New York. Then there was an item that the whiskey barnel nan low at a Democratic meeting at Shawneetown. The editor, who was a Republi- can and carried a temperance column, recorded that a party of ladies from litt. Vernon made the trip by train to the Shawneetown meeting, and had to stand for six hours because the men on the excursion wouldn't give them seats. The Connet Band offered to furnish music for enter- tainments at reasonable nates -- Petrillo hadn't been heard of. The Con- tinental Hotel offered a free omnibus to all trains. The weather on printing day was 63, "delightfully bracy." The presidential ticket was Garfield and Anthun, and "Glorious News from Vermont" was to the effect that Republicans would win by 25, 000 to 30, 000 majority.
In 1884 Hitchcock sold out to fornis Emmerson, who changed the name of the paper to MT. VERNON REGISTER. It became a daily in December, 1892. Emmerson required cash in advance on subscriptions and made a financial success of the newspaper. He was secretary of the Citizens Committee changed with responsibility for handing out relief funds aften the great tornado of February 19, 1300, and the entire receipts and disbursements were published in one issue in The Register.
I discovered in reading that issue that practically every state and territory in the land, cities and villages, large and small, sent money to help stricken lilt. Vernon get on its feet. Emerson wrote that the committee started out by rebuilding the wrecked homes of every poon family in town. Then they repaired the homes of poon families, in both cases restoring them according to the circumstances
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in which the family lived before the storm. In other words, when they built a new home they didn't give the man a mone pretentious one than he owned before. Then they repaired and rebuilt the houses and busi- ness buildings of everyone else, regardless of circumstance. They still had money left over, and they divided that pro-rata according to damage sustained among all of the business men of the town who had losses in the cyclone.
Emmerson sold to Maurice }. Seed. Emmerson Later published dailies at Lincoln, Illinois, and in Colorado, He came back to lit. Vennon after giving up publishing and became the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. His daughters still reside here and he has a grandson, laurice Lee Green, who is a newspaperman on the Chicago Tribune.
Seed made the Register hum. He installed linotypes, went out after news, advertising and subscriptions, and when he sold out in 1920 meant to retine in Florida. He did go to Florida, but lost a lot of money in the land boom, and went back into newspaper work. He was circulation managen of the Daytona Beach lonning ileus when he died in 1947. Seed sold his interests to Norman J. Sung, who combined the newspaper with the News to form THE REGISTER-NGIS, a firm in which he and ]. Edwin Rackaway were the stockholders.
Going back to the News: Mr. Simmons sold out and ended his days in lit. Vennon as a "typo" on the same paper. John Green, who later bought the Hernin Journal, and J. J. Baker were the next pub- lishers. Then R. F. Pace bought out Great and sold to William T. Sunner. Occasionally we still read about In. Sumner's bean hunts down in Mississippi in the "As You Were" column of The Register-News.
Other lilt. Vernon capitalists were interested in the ownership, including, the late Judge "Im. H. Green. Edwin Rackaway joined the News in 1913 after graduating from the Denver, Colorado journalistic school of hand knocks where he learned the angles of the newspaper game from police reporter to special writer on presidential politics.
In 1920 the printens of The Register and The News went out on strike. At that time In. Rackaway bought control of the News which he entered in the consolidation with Sugg's Register. They made the con- solidated newspaper non-partisan.
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Thus, the Register-News is a combination of: Free Press 1265, Greenback 1879, News 1871, Exponent 1878, Register 1833, and Democrat 1894 - six newspapers.
There were other newspapers: THE DAILY JOURNAL was published by Pavey and Phillips in the early 1900's. THE HERALD, an excellent newspaper, Democratic in politics, appeared in 1920 and ran until 1929. THE DIGLY REPUBLICAN had its first edition April 23, 1900. I don't know what happened to it. THE Jil OBSERVER is the only newspaper"now published in the county outside of lit. Vernon. There was once a weekly at Waltonville, THE SEARCHLIGHT, published by L. S. Braden - There were twenty-four recorded newspapers. Perhaps there were others. "all wasn't specific about his facts on what happened after the 1883 milepost left by Perrin.
The News has maintained its name longer than any other lilt. Vernon newspaper. Started as a Republican paper, it changed to Demo- cratic and prospered. It turned to non-partisanship in 1920. The Register was steadfastly Republican until the consolidation.
Unrecorded by wall on Pernin was the great change in news- papers from party organs to successful business establishments. You will remember in. Bogan started out in the business with $156 in sub- scriptions and a 200 Loan. That was in the days when they used to say all an editor needed was a broken down press and a shirt-tail full of type. By 1879 the business was more expensive. It took 2000 to finance The Jefferson County Greenback. Today a second hand Linotype would cost over twice as much.
Then came the dailies. Both The News and the Register bought linotypes. There was a time when manpower turned the press. Charlie Thompson has told me that one of his early jobs on the News was to act as the motor, turning a crank. Then they put motors on the presses.
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