USA > Illinois > Jefferson County > History of Jefferson County, Illinois > Part 14
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Few traces of the Indians now remain in the county. Implements, such as stone hatch- ets, arrow-heads, etc., years ago could be picked up in the vicinity of their old camps, but nothing more. Nothing like the ruins of an ancient village or a burying ground are known to exist save a few mounds or bil- locks near the fair grounds, which are sup- posed to be and probably are the remains of an Indian cemetery.
Black Hawk War .- It is not inappropri- ate to close this chapter with a brief sketch of the Black Hawk war. Although we shall devote a subsequent chapter to the war and military history of the county, yet, while en- gaged with the Indians, it is well, perhaps, to "exterminate" them and be done with it. That is the inevitable doom awaiting them. The causes which led to the Black Hawk war reach back to and even prior to the Winne- bago and Sac war of 1827, and briefly stated by Edwards in his history of Illinois, are as follows: During the administration of Gov. Edwards, the Indians upon the Northwestern frontier began to be very troublesome.
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The different tribes not only commenced a warfare among themselves, in regard to their respective boundaries, but they extended their hostilites to the white settlements. A treaty of peace, in which the whites acted more as mediators than as a party, had been signed at Prairie Du Chien on the 29th of August, 1825, by the terms of which the boundaries between the Winnebagoes and Sioux, Chip- pewas, Sacs, Foxes and other tribes. were defined, but it failed to keep them quiet. Their depredations and murders continued frequent, and in the summer of 1827 their conduct particularly of the Winnebagoes, became very alarming. There is little doubt, however, that the whites, who at this period were immigrating in large numbers to the Northwest and earnestly desired their re- moval further westward, purposely exasper- ated the Indians, at the same time that they greatly exaggerated the hostlities committed. The Indians thus maddened and rendered in- sanely jealous of the encroachments of the whites and the insults and injuries heaped upon them, finally broke out into open war.
Black Hawk, in the spring of 1831, came over from west of the Mississippi River with 300 warriors of his "old guard," and ordered the whites to leave, committed numerous depredations and threatened more serious re- sults if his orders were not immediately com- plied with. Gens. Gaines and Duncan were ordered to quell the Indians, and marched to the scene with a hastily collected army. The clouds of war soon disappeared, however, by Black Hawk and his warriors suing for peace, and the former treaty of 1804 was ratified.
This peace was not destined to remain long unbroken. Early in the spring of 1832, Black Hawk again prepared to assert his right to the disputed territory. He recrossed the Mississippi River, proceeded toward Rock River and began to collect an army.
Gov. Reynolds called for troops and prompt- ly the State responded. Jefferson County furnished a full company, besides a number of men scattered through other companies and battalions. From the report of the Adjutant General of the State, for the Black Hawk and Mexican wars, we give the roster of this company, as follows: James Bowman, Cap- tain; Franklin S. Casey, First Lieutenant ; Green Deprist, Second Lieutenant; Stephen G. Hicks, Eli D. Anderson, John R. Satter. field and Littleton Daniels, Sergeants; George Bullock, James Bullock, Isaac S. Casey and Isaac Deprist, Corporals; Pri- vates, S. H. Anderson, G. W. Atchison, Ig. natius Atchison, Samuel Bullock, William Bingaman, Joseph Bradford, M. D. Bruce, P. C. Buffington, John Baugh, S. W. Car- penter, Zadok Casey, John Darnall, William Deweeze, Gasaway Elkin, Robert Elkin, Is- aac Faulkenburg, William D. Gastin, Wil- lis B. Holder, William B. Hays, James Ham, Joel Harlow, John Isam, John Jenkins, David Kitrell, James C. Martin, Nathaniel Morgan, James F. Miner, John E. McBrian, H. B. Newby, J. R. Owens, Peter Owens, Wyatt Parrish, George W. Pace, James Rhea, Jacob Reynolds, William Thomason and Joseph Thomason. Killed, William Allen, at Kellogg's Grove, June 25, 1832; James B. Bond. James Black and Abram Bradford, died of disease; Robert Meek and Marcus Randolph wounded at Kellogg's Grove.
The men elected their own officers and each man furnished his own horse and gun. These were to be valued when the men were mustered in, and paid for if lost when the men should be discharged. By the 15th of June the troops had arrived at their place of rendezvous and amounted to over 3,000 men. They were formed into three brigades, com- manded respectively by Gens. Posey, Alexan- der and Henry. The company from Jefferson
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County took part in the battle of Kellogg's Grove, in which, as already stated, one man was killed and two others wounded.
The war ended with the battle of August 2, 1832, at the mouth of Bad Axe, a creek which empties into the Mississippi near
Prairie Du Chien. A treaty was made in the following September, which ended the Indian troubles in this State. Black Hawk had been captured, and upon regaining his liberty ever after remained friendly to the whites.
CHAPTER III .*
SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY BY WHITE PEOPLE-WHO THE PIONEERS WERE, AND WHERE TIIEY CAME FROM-ANDREW MOORE-HIS MURDER BY THE INDIANS-MOORE'S PRAIRIE, AND THE PEOPLE WHO SETTLED IT-THE WILKEYS, CRENSHAWS, ATCHISONS, ETC .-
SETTLEMENT AT MOUNT VERNON-OTHER PIONEERS-HARDSHIPS,
TRIALS, PRIVATIONS, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, ETC., ETC.
-"the westward tide should overflow The mountain barriers to this unknown elime, To change the wilderness and barren waste, Where savage and the deer iu turn were chased, And there to found in this broad valley home A richer, vaster empire than was ruled by ancient Rome."-Byers.
T
"THE first white people, according to anthen-
tic history, who ever traversed the plains of Illinois or navigated its streams were the French. The importance which attaches to all that is connected with the explorations and discoveries of the early French travelers in the Northwest, but increases in interest as time rolls on. Two hundred years or more ago, set- tlements were made by the French in what is now the State of Illinois, among which were Fort Chartres, Kaskaskia, Cahokia and other places; also at Vincennes on the east side of the Wabash River. Marquette, Lasalle, De Frontenac, Joliet, Hennepin and Tonti were
Frenchmen whose names are familiar in the early history of Illinois. From the year 1680 until the close of the " Old French and Indian war" between France and England, Illinois was under French dominion. At the treaty of
Paris, February 16, 1763, France relinquished to England all the territory she claimed east of the Mississippi River, from its source to Bayou Iberville. Less than a quarter of a century passed, and it was wrested from Great Britain by her American colonies. In 1778, Gen. George Rogers Clark, with a handful of the ragged soldiers of freedom, under commission from the Governor of Virginia, conquered the country, and the banner of the thirteen colonies floated in the breeze for the first time on the banks of the Mississippi. The conquest of Clark made Ilinois a county of Virginia, as noticed in a subsequent chapter. This acquisi- tion of territory brought many adventurous individuals hither, and Southern Illinois at once became the center of attraction.
There is but little doubt that Andrew Moore was the first white man to make a settlement within the present confines of Jefferson County. Mr. Johnson, in his pioneer sketches of the county, notices a settlement made in 1808-09 in what is now Franklin County, by Thomas and Francis Jordan. They settled some eight or nine miles from the present town of Frank- fort, and with the assistance of a company of
*By W. Il. Perrin.
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soldiers from the salt-works, erected two forts or block-houses there for their protection. This settlement was some fifteen or twenty miles from the south line of Jefferson County. In 1810, Andrew Moore came from the Goshen settlement, and located in what is now Moore's Prairie Township, in this county. The nearest settlement to him was the Jordan settlement, and that was distant, as we have said, some fif- teen or twenty miles. At the edge of a hickory grove, on the old Goshen road, he reared his lone cabin. It was a double cabin, and com- posed of round hickory poles, with a chimney and fire-place in the middle. Here he lived with his family for several years-Gov. Rey- nolds says until 1812 ; other authorities until 1814-15. All the while they were alone, ex- cept an occasional adventurous traveler who chanced to pass, or a company on their way to the Saline for salt. With these exceptions, they saw none of their kind. Crusoe on his desert island was not more alone than this first family of Jefferson County-these lone mari- ners of the desert.
Andrew Moore, from all that is known of him, was a pioneer of the true type. He was a self-exile from civilization, as it were, and by choice a roving nomad, who sought the soli- tudes of the pathless woods, the dreariness of the desert waste, in exchange for the trammels of civilized society. Of the latter he could not endure its restraints, and he despised its comforts and pleasures. He yearned for free- dom -- freedom in its fullest sense, applied to all property, life and everything, here and here- after. He had branched out into the wilder- ness, cut loose from his kind, and he did not burn the bridges behind him, because there were none to burn. He hunted, fished, cut bee trees, and cultivated a small patch in the way of a farm. He lived and moved without fear of the Indians, and felt as secure in his cabin as though it had been a fortified castle ; but in everything-every perilous act, every
dangerous feat-there must be a last one. The pitcher went once too often to the fountain, and Moore finally made his last excursion.
Mr. Johnson thus tells the story of his tragic death : "Moore and his son, a boy some eight or ten years of age, went one day on horseback to Jordan's settlement, to mill, expecting to re- turn the same evening or the next day. But the next day passed without bringing the ab- sent ones, and after a night of fear and appre- hension, Mrs. Moore took her children and set off down the path to meet her husband. They plodded along until they finally reached the mill, when, to their great grief, they learned from Jordan that Moore and his boy had got their grinding, and had started home in due time. The angnish of the poor woman at this dismal news was most distressing. She begged for help to look for her husband and child, and as many as dared leave the settlement at once turned out and engaged in the search. For several days they scoured the woods along the trail, but found no trace of the missing, and finally the search was reluctantly abandoned. Mrs. Moore, desolate and heart-broken, returned to hier cabin, gathered together her few posses- sions, and removed down into the neighborhood of the Saline. A few years later, a brother of Mrs. Moore, named Bales, his son-in-law, a Mr. Fannin, and a Mr. Fipps, a son-in law of Mrs. Moore, moved up to the prairie, and Mrs. Moore returned with them. A hunting party some years afterward found a human skull stuck upon a snag or broken limb of an elm tree, near the creek, and but a mile or two south of where Moore had lived. When Mrs. Moore heard of this, she said that if it was her husband's, it would be known by his having lost a certain tooth from his upper jaw. Upon examination it was found that that tooth, and no other, was lacking. Fully persuaded now that it was the scull of her poor, unfortunate husband, she took it to her home, and kept it sacredly as long as she lived." There is a com-
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fort and a blessing in the sweet recollection of having once been all the world to another, and with a love such as only a true woman knows, Mrs. Moore preserved the ghastly relic, cher- ished it and wept over it, and to her last days seemed to take a sad and mournful pleasure in showing it to her friends. She finally returned to the old town of Equality, and died there.
No other intelligence of Moore's fate or that of his son was ever received by his family or friends. It was the generally accepted theory that the Indians surprised them, killed the father, and to satisfy their fiendish cruelty, cut off his head, placed it where it was found, and carried the boy away into captivity, taking the horses and meal with them. The body of the murdered man, no doubt, was devoured by wild animals.
Such was the first attempt at a settlement in the county, and its tragic and melancholy ter- mination. The next attempt, and what may perhaps, be termed the first permanent settle- ment, was in 1816, by Carter Wilkey. About the same time or very soon after, Daniel Cren- shaw and Robert Cook came to the country. All these settled in Moore's Prairie, which re- ceived its name from Andrew Moore, whose settlement is above noticed. Crenshaw moved into Moore's deserted cabin, and Wilkey, who was single, boarded at Crenshaw's. Cook set- tled in the lower end of the prairie, where Mr. Brookins afterward lived. Wilkey was a native of Georgia, but removed from that State to Tennessee, where he enlisted in the war of 1812. Being under age, his mother succeeded in get- ting him out of the army after a few months' service. Both he and Robert Cook were con- nected with a surveying party, engaged in sur- veying the lands in this part of the State. A Mr. Berry was the surveyor, and Cook was at- tached to his party as " baggage master," having in charge the tent, camp equipage, etc. Car- ter Wilkey was the "commissary "-the hunts- man, who furnished the game for the use of the
party. This surveying was done in 1815, and the next spring Wilkey came back to stay, as already noted. Crenshaw repaired Moore's cabin, and cultivated his improvement, while Wilkey raised a crop during the summer of 1816, in the prairie about a quarter of a mile west of Crenshaw's. In the fall, Barton Atchi- son came and bought Wilkey's crop, and set- tled near Cook's. Next came Mrs. Wilkey - the mother of Carter-and her family, Maxey Wilkey-an older brother of Carter's-and his wife and child. They all arrived at Crenshaw's on the 22d of October, 1816, and spent the winter in one of his cabins-Crenshaw's wife was Mrs. Wilkey's niece. Thus, at the close of the year 1816, the population of the region of country now embraced within the limits of Jefferson County consisted of five families --- the Wilkeys, Crenshaws, Cook and Atchison and Carter Wilkey, who, though single, was not " his own man"-probably less than twenty souls.
A modern writer refers to the first inhabit- ants of the Great West as men and women of that " hardy race of pioneers to whom the perils of the wilderness are as nothing, if only that wilderness be free." The eulogium is scarce- ly less creditable to the writer than to the sub- jects of it. While like produces like, heroic men and women will spring from heroic ances- tors. And the people of the West, the pioneers who peopled this broad domain, were as much heroes as though they had swayed the destinies of an empire, or commanded the armies of the world. Of the first settlers of the county, whom we have already mentioned, a few words additional are not out of place.
Maxey Wilkey was a soldier of the war of 1812, and served in the armies of the North until peace was made. Ile claimed to have been at the death of Tecumseh, who was killed at the battle of the Thames. This is not un- like the story of Washington's servant, inas- much as the men who saw the great warrior
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pass to the happy hunting-grounds are about as numerous as Washington's body servants. Though it is not improbable that Mr. Wilkey witnessed it, as he claims to have been in the battle of the Thames. The following upon the subject is from Johnson's sketches : " He says the Indian was wounded in the thigh, fell from his horse, and was surrounded and taken. It was believed that the prisoner was Tecum- seh, but he refused to speak. Gen. Harrison was called to the spot, recognized the chief, but could get no answer from him, and left him to his fate. The soldiers took charge of him, and he soon after died. The old man tells me that he saw two razor strops taken off the dead In- dian's back, and a third from his thigh, that is, strips of skin about two hy twelve inches in size." This story is not only a little " wild," but contradictory of recognized history. That the old soldier witnessed the circumstance he relates may not be at all untrue, but that the Indian was Teenmseli is most improbable.
After the elose of the war and his discharge from the army, Maxey Wilkey married a Miss Caldwell, and came to Illinois, as already stated, in the fall of 1816. He was a great hunter, and thought far more of the excitement of the chase than of the accumulation of worldly wealth, henee he remained comparatively poor. He was an extraordinary man in many respects, and his wife was an extraordinary woman. She was the mother of eighteen children, and in that respect she was more extraordinary than many of her pioneer lady friends. Mr. John- son relates the following of an interview he had with Wilkey a short time before his death : " His present homestead adjoins the lands on which he settled, and he and his aged wife live nearly alone, both, however, are stout and vig- ; orous for people of their age. The old man is as ereet as a General, and looks about fifty years of age, though upward of eighty. His wife, at the time of my visit, was just recover- ing from a severe illness. In the course of our
conversation, he remarked, in his characteristic style, . That woman, sir, that you see lying up- on her bunk, is the mother of eighteen children. twelve sons and six daughters, and six of the sons are still living.' He also stated that lie was one of the little party that opened out the old ' Goshen Trail,' and made it a wagon-road.
Carter Wilkey, the younger of the two Wil- keys, and the first one to come to the county. after a few years returned to Tennessee, where he learned the carpenter's trade. When he came back to Illinois, he still made his home with Crenshaw. A great emigration had now sprung up from Kentucky and Tennessee to the " Sangamo country." Emigrations to the mid- dle or northern part of the State were termed go- ing to the "Sangamo," and it was no uncommon sight to see a hundred wagons in a single com- pany going north. Crenshaw's was the great camping-place for emigrants on their way to the new promised land. Carter Wilkey long followed the business of going to Carmi, a dis- tance of forty miles, with two or three pack- horses, and bringing back meal to sell to these " movers." This would seem a small business in this day of railroads, as he could only bring two or three saeks of meal at a time, but as he sold it at $2 a bushel, it was a lucrative busi- ness for that early day. In the meantime. Dempsey Wood had moved into the settlement with four stalwart sons-John, Ben, Lawson and Aleck. Ben was a carpenter, and he and Carter Wilkey at once began to work at the business in partnership. They built many of the first houses (we do not mean cabins) in the country. They built the first house on Jordan's Prairie ; they built the Clerk's office in Mc- Leansboro, the first house erected in that town ; they built or helped to build the first bridge over Casey's Fork of Muddy Creek. They agreed to furnish the lumber for the bridge floor by a certain Saturday, and it was Monday morning when they went to work. The amount required was 1,660 feet, 2×10 inch-stuff, and
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all had to be sawed by hand with a whip-saw. They sawed the lumber, and had it on the ground by 10 o'clock on Saturday morning.
Wilkey afterward went to Burlington, Iowa, where he was engaged for some time in the provision and grocery business, then as a drug- gist, and finally studied medicine under Dr. Hasbrook of that city. le practiced medicine for many years, and was a very active and en- ergetic business man. He used to trade in horses and cattle, and bought up and took many hundred of them to the southern markets. He was married in 1821 to Miss Brunetta Casey, a daughter of Isaac Casey. Of the others of the Wilkey family, a daughter married Abel Allen, another one married Jacob Weldon, and another a Mr. Robinson. Dick Wilkey, as he was called, married a Kirkendale.
Crenshaw sold out in 1822, and went to Ad- ams County, where he afterward died. IIc was a good man and got along well. Not strictly religious, but honest and upright, free and lib- eral in his views, and believed in the young people enjoying themselves, on the principle that " all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." His cabin was always open to the wan- dering minister of Christ, the frontier mission- ary, who received a warm welcome when he called, and was pressed to stay and preach to the neighbors, who were hastily summoned from the highways and by-ways of the wilder- ness. The young people always found equally as warm a welcome when they met there for a backwoods frolic and dance. Crenshaw's trade was the making of " saddle-trees," and he used to make saddles, bringing his materials from Carmi.
County Commissioner, and held other offices to the satisfaction of the people. He was a great story-teller, and delighted to relate his adventures in the army and elsewhere. Mr. Johnson tells the following as one of his army stories : " The army was encamped for some time at a certain point, and during their stay there, he and a companion went out one even- ing to take a hunt. It soon began to snow, and as they wandered in the pathless woods they became bewildered, and night overtook them before they reached camp. To lie down was to frecze. and to walk on was to risk get- ting farther away, of rushing into unknown dangers, and of finally perishing in the snow. At length, to their great joy, they came to an old unoccupied cabin, and they hastened to take shelter beneath its friendly roof. They shook off the snow, and were about to wrap their mantles around them and lie down to pleasant dreams, otherwise roll up in their army blank- ets, prepare to pass the night, when Atchi- son bethought him that, perchance, the in- clemency of the weather might bring other company, either wild beast or Indian, to the cabin, and it prove, after all, a dangerous rest- ing place. So finding a part of a loft, two courses of boards laid on poles, they climbed up and made their beds. The wisdom of his suggestion was soon apparent, as in a little while a band of Indians came in and took possession of the cabin, one of whom was the tallest Indian they had ever seen. The new-comers kindled a fire, roasted a little meat and began a night carousal. After some time Atchison shifted his position in order to see a little better, when the boards tipped up, and he and his companion and the loft all came clatter- ing down on the Indians' heads. This was too much for a people both cowardly and supersti- tious, and they fled in terror and confusion."
Barton Atchison was also in the war of 1812, and was a character in his way. He was a man who moved everything by his own prompt- ings ; he knew little or nothing of the ruies of society and he cared less. He was an honest Atchison, as we have said, was an active man, and took considerable interest in county affairs. man, and as rough of speech as rough could be -a genuine rough diamond. He was long a | He raised a large family, and still has many
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living descendants in the county, of whom much will be said in other chapters of this work. He died a few years ago at an advanced age, leaving many warm friends to mourn his death. At one time and another he held many county offices, and in each and all he was ever honest and faithful. His learning, so far as the schoolbooks go, was limited and meager, but his practical education was good, and was gained by daily experience with men and things. Such were the men and the families who made the first settlement in this county. We deem no excuse necessary for the extended sketch given of these, the first settlers-the advance guard, as it were, of the grand army of emigrants who have followed, and in the years that have come and gone, have given to Jeffer- son County a population not surpassed by any county in the State.
The next settlement made after those already described was made in the fall of 1816 by a man named Thompson. He did not remain long, however, and of him very little is known. In the winter following (1816-17), several fami- lies moved into the new settlement. Of these were Theophilus Cook, the Widow Hicks and a few others. Cook settled near Sloo's Point .*
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