USA > Illinois > Jefferson County > History of Jefferson County, Illinois > Part 26
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71
In the meantime it was found that the Illinois Central had taken 7,000 acres of swamp lands in this county, and W. B. An- derson was appointed, August 17, to select other lands instead. On the 28th, he reported nearly 1,000 acres, and notices were sent to the land offices and to Springfield, but we believe that Mr. T. A. Hendricks replied that the resolution was void. A list of our swamp lands was received from T. H. Camp- bell, Auditor, August 20, footing up nearly 19,000 acres.
Soon after the election, a Mr. Alton, from
Wisconsin, came with proposals to build the road, but was incontinently snubbed. Gov. Casey founded a company under the style of Vanduzer, Smith & Co., and to these the work was awarded. For Gov. Casey was President, and A. M. Grant Secretary of the old company. Vanduzer was from Ohio, Smith from Troy, N. Y., Vooris from Ohio and Gortschius from New York, but at that time from Peoria, Ill. They came; books for subscription were opened at Anderson & Mills'store, and about $40,000 subscribed and several thousands paid in. All went lively. The track was cleared from Ashley to Fair- field and the road-bed nearly finished. Joel Pace, June 2, 1856, was appointed Trustee of the swamp lands, and June 11 filed his bond in the sum of $8,000. Vanduzer, Smith & Co. were everybody's pets. Newby took them out in his buggy or carried out luscious dinners to them on the road. They located a station at John Wilkerson's and went for his beef and spotted horse. They went in debt to everybody. Ties were piled along the line. They borrowed $6,000 from Shackelford and Givens and got our Trustee to give them a deed to 4,500 acres of our land. Dr. Green and others found them- selves guarantors for them to the tune of about $10,000. One of them married one of our handsomest ladies. Vanduzer, accom- panied by Casey and Grant, took $500,000 in bonds to New York to sell and we believe his report is not in yet. Things began to drag, slow, slower, slowest, then a full stop -one gasp and all is over-the company is " smashed." The aforesaid guarantors at- tach what little there is to attach, and are further idemnified by the county with a somewhat dead claim on Warren, and by another party with a somewhat dead note on Vanduzer, Smith & Co. for $3,000. The note died entirely when snit was brought
214
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
upon it, and the indorsers proved that it was only "a goak." Smith-not Gen. but Dr. - went back to Troy and his wife got rich; Vooris went to Memphis and got shot; Gortschius went to Paducah and got a fatal fall, and Vanduzer went to Michigan and got into the penitentiary. Dr. Green didn't get the depot on his land as promised; Capt. Newby didn't get it on his, as prom- ised; and Gov. Casey didn't get it on his, as promised; most of us got " skun " for larger or smaller amounts, and none of us got any railroad.
Of course, by their failure, Vanduzer. Smith & Co. forfeited everything. The original company brought suit for recovery of franchise, etc., by Scates's advice the road bed was suffered to go to sale, and they sent Tom Hobbs to Springfield with $1,000 and he bought it. A new charter, however, was procured for the Ashley & Mount Vernon Railroad, February 21, 1861, with all the privileges of the Central, Z. Casey, H. T. Pace, J. R. Allen, W. D. Green, T. B. Tan- ner. C. T. Pace and Noah Johnston, being the company. (This was to cover contingencies.) Then came Maurice H. Baron, of New York, and June 28, 1860, contracted to build the road-a four-cornered contract-Baron, one County Court, two; J. Pace, three; several other men, four. Baron was to build the road and ran it ninety-nine years for the road-bed and swamp lands, and to pay the other parties $30,500 by October 1. The "several other men" were to make the swamp lands up to 19,000 acres. All went smooth- ly, especially Baron, and he went to London to sell bonds and never came back again. The enterprise was now considered as dead and buried. And so it was, for it didn't ex- hibit a sign of life for five or six years.
In September, 1866, came in petitions for a vote on the $100,000 proposition again, and
the result, November 6, was. for, 691: against, 1,188. Nothing daunted, the friends of the project held a public meeting the next spring, and May 3, 1867, court was again petitioned to have a vote on it at the June election. The petition was granted, the county was " stumped " and the proposition carried. The stock-holders of the road met in Mount Vernon, November 8, 1867, and chose as Directors W. D. Green, S. T. Strat- ton, S. K. Casey, H. B. Newby, G. H. Var- nell, T. H. Hobbs and T. S. Casey. Dr. Green was chosen President and T. S. Casey Secretary. April 23, 1868, it became neces- sary to increase the capital stock $200,000, and Varnell, Stratton, Newby, Green and Hobbe went in $40,000 each. Next day a contract was made with Crawford & Doane. John H. Crawford was from Buffalo, N. Y., where he had been engaged in lake com- merce; and Isaac S. Doane was from Mead- ville, Penn., and was a regular railroad man. The same day Joel Pace resigned and Thomas H. Hobbs was appointed Trustee in his stead. Crawford & Doane agreed to build the road for the swamp lands, the right of way, depot grounds and $100,000, to begin work July 1, 1868, and finish by May 1, 1869. If work was not progressing by September 1, all was to be null and void. Mr. Crawford was elected Vice President and fiscal agent for the company July 3. A move was made toward organizing an Ash- ley & St. Louis Company, and our company, August 18, approved it and resolved to get a through line. They therefore extended the time for work to begin to October 1.
It was difficult at that time to raise money, and Crawford & Doane could not begin ac- cording to contract, though backed by Bel- don with the promise of help to the amount of $6,000,000. During the pause that en- sued, March 10, 1869, a new company got a
215
IHISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
charter for a road from St. Louis to Shaw- neetown and took the name of St. Louis & Southeastern Railroad Company. Tho com- pany was O. Poole, James H. Wilson, J. J. Castles, S. S. Marshall, A. G. Cloud, R. W. Townsend, S. K. Casey, W. D. Green, T. H. Hobbs and E. F. Winslow. All these were old residents except Gen. James H. Wilson, who was Grant's chief of staff during the war, and Gen. Winslow, who was from Maine, had been a merchant in Iowa, broke, went to the war, was in a dry goods house in Cincinnati, built the Brough road by Vandalia etc., sold out for $100,000 profit and became a railroad man.
At a meeting of the Mount Vernon Rail- road Company, in Mount Vernon, March 26, 1869, Dr. Green was directed to go to Chi- cago to confer with Crawford, who now re- sided there, and renew the contract with him or form one with Mr. Winslow, or otherwise, as he might think best. He here met with Douglas, who was then President of the Illi- nois Central Railroad Company, and Douglas said, "build your road yourself; we will in- dorse your bonds and lease your road." But Green knew that nothing but a through road would satisfy his company and reluctantly declined the generous offer. He found Crawford with good vouchers, but no through charter, and Winslow just the re- verse. As our company had been repeatedly twitted about wanting a " bob-tailed road," for the benefit of Mount Vernon, Dr. Green inclined to prefer Winslow. Another fact confirmed this inclination; he found on a slip of paper that Crawford had accidentally left in a record book, a list of distances, etc., which indicated that it was Crawford's design to make the railroad junction in Moore's Prairie and build up a large town there at the expense of Mount Vernon. So he gave the contract to Winslow, saying,
" You shall have it on one condition, that you build the depot south of town, opposite the court house." "I will do it," said Winslow.
Dr. Green, knowing there had been irreg- ularities enough in the elections and legal proceedings in regard to the Mount Vernon Railroad to vitiate everything, if contested and pushed to investigation, went to Spring- field, and by help of W. H. Green, lobby member from Cairo, put a bill through by which everything hitherto done in the busi- ness was legalized, and the title of the Mount Vernon Railroad Company to the road, franchises, etc., confirmed, March 31, 1869. April 8, the contract with Crawford & Doane was rescinded, and next day the contract was let to Winslow & Wilson. It was a four-cornered contract: St. Louis & Southeastern, one; Mount Vernon Company, two; Court, three; and Hobbs four, thus:
It was first agreed to begin May 24, and finish by January 1. Iron, forty-five pounds to yard and fish-scale joint; guage and grade of Illinois Central; ties, eight feet long, six inches thick, six-inch face, 2640 to the mile; bridges, workmanlike: three stations, at Ashley, Mount Vernon and between.
Second, agreed to give $100,000 county bonds, 14,700 acres of swamp lands, three acres in 600 yards of court house for a depot and right of way from Ashley to Mount Vernon.
Third, agreed to issue the bonds on order of President of Mount Vernon Railroad and completion of road to Ashley, bonds bearing 8 per cent, principal due in twenty years, payable after five years, and to cause swamp lands to be conveyed-the bonds to be a sub- scription to the capital stock of the railroad.
Fourth, agreed to convey the swamp lands, etc. This was signed by E. F. Winslow, W. D. Green. T. S. Casey, J. R. Satterfield, W.
216
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
Adams, F. S. Casey and T. H. Hobbs. The | finish it, and spent his fortune upon it, but claim of the county against the United only got a road from Princeton, Ind., to Al- States for lands entered after donated by the ; bion, Ill. He had arrangements made with swamp land act, which sums from the County Court record B, page 632 to have been part of the proposition to aid the Mount Vernon Company, is entirely omitted in this contract. These proceedings secured the road. Eastern capitalists for money, but when Elijah P. Lovejoy was killed at Alton and his press thrown into the river, they became alarmed, considering it an unsafe country for the investment of money, and withdrew their support. Gen. Pickering could go no further, but he held on to what he had till about the time he was appointed Governor of Washington Territory, when he sold out to Blueford, Wilson and others. He got none of the money, but after his death his heirs got about $14,000. To cover contin- gencies, a charter was obtained, April 1, 1869, for the St. Louis. Mount Carmel & New Albany Railroad, and perhaps another under the name of the Louisville, New Al- bany & St. Louis Air Line Railway Com- pany. Under the latter name, the company, by Augustus Bradley, President, and George Lyman, Secretary, executed a mortgage to Calhoun & Opdyke, of New York, for $4,525,000, due in 1902, but we don't think they ever got any money.
Perhaps we ought not to go back to say that in 1855 a Marion and Jefferson County Rail- road was chartered, but limited to two years to begin, so it didn't begin. In 1865, a Shawneetown branch of the Illinois Central was chartered, which was expected to give us a road from Tonti through Mount Vernon. This lay pretty still until 1869, when April 1, the St. Louis, Mount Carmel & New Al- bany Company was chartered. So at the April meeting, 1870, the Supervisors re- ceived plenty of petitions, some asking a vote on giving $500,000 to the St. Louis & Southeastern when the road extended to the east county line; some the same for a road toward Benton; some the same for the St. Lonis, Mount Carmel & New Albany Com- pany; some the same for almost anybody. The only tangible result was the extension of our road to the southeast, which was com- pleted in 1871. Then those splendid ma- chine shops were built which were burnt, as we shall notice hereafter.
The Air Line .- We have already noticed that under the internal improvement scheme by the State during the mania of 1835 to 1838, a road was undertaken from Alton to Mount Carmel. The $4,000,000 borrowed to build all these roads was exhausted before any railroads were built. Gen. William Pickering was specially interested in this Albany & Mount Carmel road, and when the whole scheme fell through, the road was seized by its creditors, and thus passed into the hands of Pickering. He undertook to
Not much was done then till 1881. May 20, the stockholders met at the office of Bell & Green, in Mount Carmel, and resolved to issue $3,000,000 first mortgage bonds and $3,000,000 four per cent, fifty year cumulative income bonds and $1,000,000 second mortgage bonds. Robert Bell was then President. holding two shares, while Goldthwaite, Burr & Wilson held 3,806. The same day it was resolved to increase the capital from $3,000- 000 to $5,000,000. In November of the same year, the name was changed to Louis- ville, Evansville & St. Louis Railway Com pany. But in June 1881, the company had executed a mortgage to the Mercantile Trust Company and Noble C. Butler, in which the ronte is described as being from New
217
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
Albany, by Huntingburg, Ingleton, Oakland City, Princeton, Mount Carmel, Albion and Fairfield, to Mount Vernon, about 192 miles, forty-five miles being already finished from Ingleton to Albion. The change of name was made necessary by a consolidation with roads from Evansville to Jasper, Ind, and from Rockport to Gentryville, Ind., making now a total of 260 miles. March 1, 1882. the road was completed from Mount Vernon to Huntingburg, in all 202 miles, and by a mortgage $1,000,000 was raised to finish it to New Albany. Jonas H. French succeeded Mr. Bell as President, and he was succeeded in turn by John Goldthwaite, the present incumbent. Thus it will be seen that the Air Line was built without costing our peo- ple any great effort or expense. Most of the money was really furnished by Ballon, of Boston. After it was completed, the road was much damaged by high waters, and lay quite awhile before trains ran regularly, but the result was a settling of the earth which made it the best new road-bed in the State. Its business has grown rapidly, and it is already a paying road. The Salisbury Company do its repair work at present, but we expect other shops and a depot at no dis- tant day. The Air Line is using the Louis- ville & Nashville track to St. Louis, but expect to build a line of their own, when a connection with the Chesapeake & Ohio will give us the most direct route from St. Louis to the At- lantic. The road is noted for the courtesy of its officials.
Coming Roads .- The Kaskaskia, St. Elmo & Southern Railroad Company was incorpo- rated in September, 1882, but by a delay in the notice of a meeting of the stockholders last spring, it was apprehended that damage might result, and a new incorporation was perfected July 30, 1883. B. F. Johnson, B. C. Smith, L. R. Stocker, I. H. Johnson,
W. H. Smith, A. M. Johnson, Joseph Micksch and J. B. Leash, all of St. Elmo, are the incorporators; capital, $10,000; shares, $50 each; route, Altamont by Mount Vernon, etc., to the Ohio, opposite Puducah. From Altamont there is a line of roads to Chicago already, 200 miles. The estimated cost of the road is $3,500,000, of which $500,000, to be raised on stock and $3,000, - 000 on bonds. A meeting is to be held in October to issue the bonds. Timothy Genay and G. M. Haynes are the financial agents. They have secured the indorsement of Gov. Hamilton, ex-Gov. Cullom, the Chicago Board of Trade, Mayor Harrison, Farwell & Co., the Missouri Pacific and the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Companies, and many others, and have every assurance of being able to place the bonds at once when issued. The right of way has been secured for nearly the entire route.
The Mount Vernon & Tamaroa Railroad comes in place of the Tamaroa, Mount Vernon & Vincennes Railroad, of two years ago. The latter lapsed by the two years clause. Its length will be twenty-six miles; estimated cost, $450,000, of which $50,000 are to be raised on stock and $400,000 on first mort- gage bonds. It is to connect with the Wa- bash, Chester & Western, whose eastern termi- nus is Tamaroa, with the Air line, and be- yond the Mississippi with the Chester & Iron Mountain. This road has been consol- idated with the Kankakee, St. Elmo & Southern, Col. Evans, of the Mount Ver- non & Tamaroa, becoming Treasurer of the consolidated company, and R. A. D. Will- banks one of the Directors. All the right of way has been secured except a short distance near Mount Vernon.
The Toledo, Texas & Rio Grande Railroad Company began June 7, 1882, incorporated for fifty years. The route is from Charles-
218
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
ton, Coles County, by Martinsville, in Clark County, to Cairo. Capital, $2,500,000. The incorporators are J. C. Allen, of Olney, John Mason, of Newton; J. G. Rupert, of Decatur; E. Pratt Bnell, of Warsaw; O. B. Ficklin, of Charleston; F. A. Vongassy, of Effingham; William Lindsay, of Martins- ville; Robert Hannah, of Fairfield; John H. Halley, of Newton. Judge J. C. Allen is President, J. G. Rupert, Secretary. The great advantage of this road is that it has its outlet to the northeast, striking the lake commerce 600 miles nearer to the seaboard
than Chicago, parallel with scarcely any other road, crossing them all, and running through an excellent but chiefly undeveloped or very imperfectly developed country. The right of way has been obtained, the timber cut off, and a great deal of the grading done. It runs across the southeast corner of the county, through the flourishing town of Belle Rive.
Besides these roads, the Jacksonville, Northwestern & Southeast Railroad Com- pany was chartered in 1867, and is gradually moving down upon us from the northwest.
CHAPTER X .*
EDUCATIONAL-EARLY EFFORTS AT FREE SCHOOLS-THE DUNCAN LAW-EDUCATION AT PRESENT -STATISTICS-THE PRESS-EDITOR JOHN S. BOGAN-FIRST NEWSPAPERS-MOUNT VER- NON A NEWSPAPER GRAVEYARD-THE PRESS OF TO-DAY-RELIGIOUS HISTORY-OLD-TIME CHRISTIANITY-PIONEER MINISTERS- CHURCHES ORGANIZED-REV. JOHN JOHNSON, ETC.
T THE subject of education should interest every reader of this work, more, per- haps, than any other mentioned in the gen- eral history of Jefferson County. For we are told that it " is education forms the common mind," and our forefathers appreciated this fact when they declared, in their famous ordinance of 1787, that " knowledge, with religion and morality, are necessary to the good government of mankind." In that little clause they struck the very keynote of Ameri- can liberty. The governing power in every country upon the face of the globe is an edu- cated power. The Czar of the Russias, ig- norant of international law, of domestic re- lations, of finance, commerce and the organ- ization of armies and navies, could never hold,
-
1
under the sway of his scepter, 70,000,000 of subjects. An autocrat must be virtuous and in- telligent, or only waste and wretchedness and wreck can wait upon his reign. England, with scrupulous care, fosters her great universities for the training of the sons of her nobility, for their places in the House of Lords, in the army, navy and church. What, then, ought to be the character of citizenship in a country where every man is born a king, and sovereign heir to all the franchises and trusts of the State and Republic? An ig- norant people can be governed, but only an intelligent and educated people can govern themselves.
When the survey of the Northwest Terri- tory was ordered by Congress, it was decreed that every sixteenth section of land should
* By W. II. Perrin.
219
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
be reserved for the maintenance of public schools within each township. The ordi- nance of 1787 proclaimed that " schools and the means of education should forever be en- conraged." By the act of Congress passed April 18, 1818, enabling the people of Illi- nois to form a State Constitution, the " Sec- tion numbered 16 in every township, and when such section had been sold or otherwise disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto and as contiguous as may be, should be granted to the State for the use of the inhab- itants of such township for the support of schools." The act further stipulates " That 5 per cent of the net proceeds of the lands lying within said State, and which shall be sold by Congress from and after the 1st day of January, 1819, after dedneting all ex- penses incident to the same, shall be reserved for the purposes following: Two-fifths to be disbursed, under the direction of Congress, in making roads leading to the State; the residue to be appropriated by the Legislature of the State for the encouragement of learn- ing, of which one-sixth part shall be exclu- sively bestowed on a college or university." In other words, Congress donated to the State a full township, six miles square, for seminary purposes, and the thirty-sixth part of all the residue of public lands in the State and 3 per cent of the net proceeds of the sales of the remainder, to support common schools and promote education in the then infant State. Truly a most magnificent and prince- ly donation and provision for education. The sixteenth section, so donated, amounted in the State to nearly a million acres; in Jefferson County to over ten thousand acres.
Laws were first passed, directing Commis- sioners' Courts to appoint three Trustees for the school land in each township, where the inhabitants of such townships numbered twenty white persons. These Trustees had
power to lease the school lands at public out - cry, after twenty days' notice, to the highest bidder, for any period not exceeding ten years, the rents to be paid in improvements, or in shares of the products raised. The laws were crude, and fell far short of their intended object. The school lands, under the lessee or rental arrangement, yielded lit- tle or no revenne; many of the renters, hav- ing no title to nor common interest in the land, only opened and cultivated enough for a bare support, and of course produced noth- ing to divide. Then squatters took posses- sion of a considerable portion, and wasted the timber, and in many ways depreciated the value of the lands. As a result, the cause of education languished, and was at a stand- still for years. There were a great many in- fluences and obstacles in the way of a general diffusion of knowledge. The settlemeuts were sparse, and money or other means of remunerating teachers were scarce; and teachers, competent to impart even the com- mon rudiments of an English education were few and far between.
This state of affairs continued until 1825, when Joseph Duncan, then a member of the State Senate, introduced a bill for the sup- port of common schools by a public tax. The preamble to the act was as follows: "To enjoy our rights and liberties, we must un- derstand them; their security and protection ought to be the first object of a free people; and it is a well-established fact that no na- tion has ever continued long in the enjoy- ment of civil and political freedom which was not both virtuous and enlightened; and believing that the advancement of literature always has been and ever will be the means of developing more fully the rights of man; that the mind of every citizen in a republic is the common property of society and con- stitutes the basis of its strength and happi-
220
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
ness; it is, therefore, considered the peculiar duty of a free government, like ours, to en- courage and extend the improvement and cultivation of the intellectual energies of the whole." The text of this admirable law may be divined from the preamble. It gave edu- cation a powerful impetus, and common schools flourished in almost every settlement. But notwithstanding all this, the law was in advance of the civilization of the times. The early settlers had left the older States- the Southern States, where common school education never has flourished as it should- and plunged into the wilderness, braving countless dangers and privations in order to better their individual fortunes and to escape the burdens of taxation, which advanced re- finement and culture in any people invaria- bly impose. Hence, the law was the subject of much bitter opposition. The very idea of a tax was so hateful, that even the poorest preferred to pay all that was necessary for the tuition of their children, or keep them in ignorance-which was generally the case- rather than submit to the mere name of tax.
This law-the Duncan law, as it was called-is the foundation upon which rests the superstructure of the present common school system of Illinois. The law provided for the division of townships into school districts, in each of which were elected three School Trustees, corresponding to Directors of the present day, one Clerk, one Treasurer, one Assessor and one Collector. The Trust- ees of each district had supreme control and management of the school within the same, and the employment of teachers and fixing their remuneration. They were required to make an annual report to the County Com- missioners' Court, of the number of children living within the bounds of such district, be- tween she ages of five and twenty-one years, and what number of them were actually
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.