USA > Illinois > Jefferson County > History of Jefferson County, Illinois > Part 28
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
The Unconditional Unionist .- By this time-1863-Wall came home from the army, crippled, and some of his friends aided him to purchase the Guardian office. He moved to the room formerly occupied by Jack Fly as a furniture shop, near the old stand of D. Baltzell, and gave his paper the name of Unconditional Unionist. Of course it was
unquestionably Republican. After publish- ing this paper for three years, Wall pulled out and went to Salem. Then A. B. Barrett and others formed a stock company, that we might not be left without a Republican paper, and soon found a man -- A. J. Alden -to publish it. Jack kept it going, aided, of course, by Barrett and others, until the summer of 1867. He then went to Mc- Leansboro, and started the Hamilton Sucker, and was succeeded by George W. Moray. But Moray did not seem to succeed any fur- ther, for in five weeks he subsided and went to Princeton, Ky., and started a paper there.
The Stalesman .- This paper followed the Unionist. Henry Hitchcock, from Indian- apolis, bought the press and fixtures, put Theodore Tromley in as chief " type tosser," and issued his first paper September 3, 1867. Hitchcock was a nice, pleasant gentleman, and his paper did well until domestic afflic- tions compelled him to relinquish the busi- ness. He sold out in 1873.
The Free Press .- C. L. Hayes, as before noticed, bought the Star office from Satter. field in November, 1865, and on the 6th day of December issued his first paper, with the name of the Mount Vernon Free Press. From the court house he moved to the room over Tom Goodrich's store, where it was burned in the great fire of March 16, 1869. His friends promptly rallied to his aid, and in about a month after the fire he had a new press, and resumed the publication of his paper. Hayes, with all that bitterness which sometimes injured hin, must ever [be ranked very high as an editor and newspaper man- ager. He was a good hand to gather news, judicious in the use of the scissors, and much above the average in his editorials. He pub- lished the first history of Jefferson County, and expended $100 in assisting the writer in gathering up materials and preparing the
230
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
sketches that appeared from week to week in his columns. In March, 1872, he sold to R. A. D. Wilbanks and G. M. Haynes, under whose management it continued till the next October, Jolın Wightman being chief print- er. This last purchase may have been made for a political purpose-we can't say.
The press was still nearly new; it was one that Wilbanks & Haynes had traded the old Star press for in Chicago, paying the difference. These gentlemen, now having no special object to accomplish, let the office to W. H. Mantz. He 'continued till the spring of 1876, when he assumed a hostile attitude toward Wilbanks & Anderson, whereupon they " elected that his lease should termi- nate," and he went out, and became corre- spondent of the Missouri Republican. He was succeeded in the Press office by Don Davisson. Don was a Greenbacker now. and so was the Free Press, and the editorials presented a rare combination of softness and roughness. It will be remembered that the Greenbackers that year-1877-elected two of their candidates-John N. Satterfield, County Clerk, and John D. Williams. Su- perintendent of Schools.
But it soon became necessary to do some- thing more; so, in April, 1879, the Jefferson County Greenback Printing Company was organized. William B. Anderson, Seth F. Crews and William H. Smith were the Com- missioners to obtain license, etc., from the State. The object, as stated in their ap- plication, was to print and publish a weekly newspaper and to do a general printing, pub- lishing and book-binding business, with power to change the weekly to a semi-week- ly, tri-weekly or daily. Their capital was $2,000, in 200 shares of $10 each, and their corporation was to run for ninety-nine years. The principal stockholders were W. B. An- derson. W. H. Smith and S. F. Crews, fif-
teen shares each; G. W. Evans, G. L. Var- nell, John Wilbanks, Ananias Knowles and Jesse H. Smith, ten shares each; the rest running from nine shares down to one. No- vember 8, 1879, they elected as Directors, for three years, T. Anglen, L. B. Gregory, J. B. Pearcy. Ananias Knowles, Alonzo Jones and G. W. Evans. Thus backed-and green- backed-the thing looked fearfully strong; but the high colors soon began to fade, and in February, 1880, they sold out to H. H. Simmons, of the News. During the brief existence of the Free Press, in its last days, Anderson was the editor, and the vigor and earnestness - not to say acrimony,- with which he threw hot shot into the defunct old parties are too fresh in mind 'to be referred to here.
The News. - September 2, 1871, is the date of the first issue of the Mount Vernon News. It was published by Lawrence F. Tromly, the auxiliary side being furnished by Kim- ball & Taylor, of Belleville, and the style of the concern being L. F. Tromley & Co. Theodore Tromley, who had handled some types for Satterfield, and had graduated un- der Jack Alden, on the Hamilton Sucker, joined Lawrence and they bought the office. Under the style of Tromly Bros., they then changed the paper to a quarto of eight pages, and moved from Varnell's Block to the Phœ- nix Block. L. F. Tromly began his experi- ence with Durlinger & Russell, in 1861, and now publishes the Shawnee News.
In the spring of 1876, the Tromly brothers sold out to C. L. Hayes, and Hayes to C. A. Keller in January, 1877, Hayes retaining possession till April 1. November 28, Kel- ler sold to H. H. Simmons. Simmons was an Eastern man, who came West in 1849. After exploring the West, from Dubuque to New Orleans, he went into the Alton Demo- crat office with John Fitch, and remained
231
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
there two years. He then went to Greene County, and published the Carrollton Demo- crat for one year, and then the Logan Coun- ty Democrat for one year, and through the Presidential campaign, fighting Fremont. He was then correspondent for the Heratd for a time, after which he traveled several years in the East, in the interest of the North Missouri and the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad. In 1867, he started the Lebanon Journal, as an independent and local news- paper, and continued it for several years, when he sold out to Eckert and went back to Washington County, Ohio. He'there bonght a half interest in the Democratic paper and remained one year, when his wife died and he went to Cleveland, where his sister lived. Thence, he came here in April, 1877, and ran the News for C. A. Keller till November 28, when he bought it, as before stated.
In February, 1880, Mr. Simmons bought the Free Press, and his paper is now the Mount Vernon News and Free Press. He paid what was, perhaps, a good price for the Free Press-$1,100; but he has shown him- self what most printers are not -- a good financier, and has the whole outfit of both papers paid for. The News is the first paper in the county that proved a financial success. By this, and by a dignified course, with a good deal of editorial ability, the News has attained a high rank among the local papers of the State.
The Sucker State .- In May, 1873, C. L. Hayes and R. M. Morrison bought Henry Hitchcock's Statesman office, and began the publication of the Sucker State. In changing hands, the News changed politics - from Republican to Democratic-without change of name; but in case of the Statesman the change of name was as conspicuons as that of its political complexion. Morrison retired from the Sucker State December 27, 1873,
and January 17, 1874, Hayes dropped the co-operative outside, after which he claimed to have " the only paper printed in Jefferson County." But this county is too small a stream to float large or heavily-laden craft, so he finally ran aground and went to pieces.
The Weekty Exponent .- In our biograph- ical department will be found a sketch of Mr. Edward Hitchcock, the editor and pro- prietor of the Exponent. This supersedes the necessity to notice here his previous la- bors as a journalist. In November, 1878, when solicited by Republicans of Jefferson County to publish a paper here, he was, and had been for two years, publishing a paper at Casey, in Clark County, bearing the name of the Exponent. At that date-November, 1878-the Republicans of Jefferson County invited Mr. Hitchcock to locate at Mount Vernon, and to bring hither his press and printing material. He did so; and on the 5th day of December, 1878, the first number of Vol. III of the Exponent was issued in Mount Vernon. Since that date, and up to the present, during a period of nearly tive years, the paper has regularly appeared, not- withstanding difficulties and trials that can scarcely be appreciated by those who never tried to stem the tide of adverse political sentiment and contend with a majority such as uniformly sweeps all before it at election in Jefferson County. The paper is now well established, with a good circulation and liberal patronage in the way of job work and advertising. The office has been recently moved from the northwest corner of the same block to rooms in the Crews building, corner of Bunyan and Washington streets. It will not, perhaps, detract from Mr. Hitchcock's reputation to attribute his success, in part, to the amiable character of his family, as well as to his own ability as a journalist.
Church History .- The state of society fifty
232
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
or sixty years ago here was rough and rude. But for all this, that curse of humanity, intemperance, was no more prevalent, in proportion to population, than now -- perhaps not as much. Scarcely was the nucleus of a settlement formed ere a distillery was started; for where there was such profusion of snakes there must be whisky to cure their bites! The settlers endured privations and hunger, and their children cried for bread for want of mills, they groped in ignorance for want of schools and churches, but the still house was reared in their midst, where the farmer exchanged his bag of corn for the pioneer beverage of the border. This is but the history of Illinois, and particularly of the southern part of the State. In every fam- ily the jug of bitters was to be found, and was regularly partaken of by every member of the household, especially during the chill season. The visit of a neighbor was signal- ized by producing the bottle or demijohn. At all rustic gatherings, liquor was consid- ered an indispensable article, and was freely used. Everybody drank whisky. Even min- isters sometimes took a little as an-ague preventive, or for the stomach's sake. There were some rough neighborhoods in which the people resisted all advancement and prog- ress. In these, liquor was used to great ex- cess, and then, as now, was an active pro- moter of broils, disturbances and fights. In these affrays-to their credit be it said-fists and feet were alone used, and were called "rough and tumble." The knife, the pistol and the bludgeon were then unknown, and are the products of a much later and more advanced civilization. These sections were known as "hard neighborhoods," and were shunned by all respectable emigrants seeking homes, who were so fortunate as to find out their reputation.
.
Into this rude state of society came the
pioneer preacher, as "one crying in the wil- derness." These old-time ministers were characters, in their way. They were pos- sessed of an individuality peculiarly their own, and as different from the high-bred clergymen of the present day as possible. As a class, they were uneducated, rough and res- olute, and exactly suited to the day and civilization in which they lived. They en- countered and overcame obstacles that would appall their effeminate representatives of a later period. They were exactly suited, we repeat, to the civilization in which they lived, and seem to have been chosen vessels to fulfill a certain mission. These humble pioneers of frontier Christianity proclaimed the glad tidings to the early settlers, at a time when the country was so poor that no other kind of ministers could have been main- tained. They spread the Gospel of Christ where educated preachers with salaries could not have been supported. They preached the doctrine of free salvation, without money and without price, toiling hard in the in- terim of their labors to provide themselves with a scanty subsistance. They traversed the wilderness through sunshine and storm; slept in the open air, with the green earth for a couch and the blue sky for a covering; swam swollen streams, suffered cold, hunger and fatigue with a noble heroism, and all for the sake of doing their Master's will and of saving precious souls from perdition.
Many of these old-time preachers sprang from and were of the people, and were with- out ministerial training, except in religious exercises and the study of the Scriptures. In those days it was not thought necessary that a minister should be a scholar, but that he might be from the common people, just as some of the disciples were from the lowly fishermen of Gallilee, and that it was suffi- cient for him to preach from a knowledge of
·
233
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
the Bible alone; to make appeals warm from the heart; to paint the joys of heaven and the miseries of hell to the imagination of the sinner; to terrify him with the one and ex- hort him, by a life of righteousness, to attain the other. Many of these added to their Scriptural knowledge a diligent perusal of Young's Night Thoughts, Milton's Paradise Lost, Jenkins on Atonement and other kin- dred works, which gave more compass to their thoughts and brighter imagery to their fancy. In profuse and flowery language, and with glowing enthusiasm and streaming eyes, they told the story of the crown of thorns, of Golgotha and Calvary.
Their sermons sometimes turned upon matters of controversy-unlearned arguments on the subjects of free grace, baptism, free- will, election, faith, jusitfication and the final perseverance of the saints. But that in which they excelled was the earnestness of their words and manner, the vividness of the pictures they drew of the ineffable bliss of the redeemed and the awful and eternal torments of the unrepentant They painted the lake of fire and brimstone and the tor- ments of hell so plain, that the startled sin- ner, in his excited imagination, could hear the ponderous iron doors open and their rusty hinges creak. But, above all, they inculcated the great principles of justice and sound morality, and were largely instrumental in promoting the growth of intellectual ideas, in bearing the condition and in elevating the morals of the people: and to them are we indebted for the first establishment of Chris- tian institutions throughout the county.
The first religious sect represented in the county was the Methodists, and of course they organized the first church society. This was different from most of Southern Illinois, for in many other portions, in fact in a ma- jority of the counties. the Baptists-the hard
shells-were the pioneers of religion. But here the Methodists got the start. We have said elsewhere that Jefferson County was a stronghold of Democracy; it was also a stronghold of Methodism. Several of the very earliest settlers were not only Method- ists, but were Methodist preachers. Among these were Zadok Casey, Edward Maxey and Lewis Johnson. John Johnson, another pioneer preacher, came in later. As pioneers, these men are noticed in other chapters. They were the old-time ministers we have already described, plain and unvarnished, and preached the Word of God, not for "the world's dross," but from a sincere conviction of right and a desire to benefit their fellow- men. Next to the Methodists, the Baptists were the strongest in numbers and earliest in settlement. Elder Harris was one of their early preachers. The first sermon preached in the county is said to have been delivered by Zadok Casey. It was preached in the fall of 1817, in a house that had been just erected by Isaac Hicks, and we have the au- thority of Johnson, the historian, for stating that every man, woman and child then within the present limits of Jefferson County was pres- ent. The first house used for church purposes was the one already mentioned as the one in . which Joel Pace taught the first school. It was used until the fall of 1820, when it was destroyed by fire.
In the spring of 1819, or thereabouts, the first religious organization in the county was effected. It was at a meeting held at Edward Maxey's cabin, and the society thus formed comprised Edward Maxey and wife, William Maxey and wife, Burchett Maxey and wife, Fleming Greenwood and wife, James Davis and wife and Zadok Casey. In the fall of 1820, a house was built at Union, and in the fall of 1821, that at Shiloh. These were used both for school and church purposes.
234
IHISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
We cannot, however, go into details of or- ganization of the different churches in this chapter, but in the history of the towsnhips shall devote considerable space to each of them.
Rev. John Johnson. - A more fitting con- clusion, perhaps, could not be given to this chapter than to append a sketch of the Rev. John Johnson. No minister of his day stood higher in Southern Illinois. Rev. G. W. Robbins, who preached his funeral sermon, only spoke the unanimous verdict of all who knew him best, when he said " John Johnson was no ordinary man." He was born in Louisa County, Va., January 7, 1783. Born in poverty, he was left an orphan when less than two months old, and sank to the ex- tremes of poverty more trying still. When her sons had grown to manhood and had gained sufficient wealth to own a cart aud yoke of rattle, the mother moved to Sumner County, Tenn. There Mr. Johnson, slender and feeble in his youth, lived to the age of twenty-eight, developing a strength of frame that would be deemed almost gigantic at the present day. With increasing strength, there came a desire for improvement. By the help of a slave, he learned the alphabet, and by the help of a piece of an old song book, con- taining songs he knew by heart, he learned to read. He was converted, and felt himself . called to preach before he could yet read so as to be understood. By the light of pine- knots, he studied at night, after his hard day's work was over, and on Sundays, at some little cabin on the hillside, he would proclaim the Gospel, with little of man's learning but with a pathos and a power that always carried the hearts of his rustic hear- ers by storm. He applied for admission into the old Western Conference, but even that primitive body, looking at his uncouth garb and listening to his stammering effort to
read, rejected his application and kindly ad- vised him to abandon his design of trying to preach. He was not humbled by this- he was as humble as man could be before. He returned to his home, his studies and his toil. The next year, the Conference admitted him on trial, but seemed curious to see how'much hardship he could bear. They sent him to the Sandy River, where climbing mountains and swimming unbridged streams was his daily work. Two hundred times he had to swim in the course of the year. He then traveled two years in different parts of Ohio -then the frontier-and was next sent to Natchez, in Mississippi, a ¡point it required 1,500 miles' travel by the zigzag routes to reach, 'most of this distance being by paths and trails, 600 miles of it through the "In- dian nations."
We have not space to follow Mr. Johnson through his various experiences of trial and toil. August 10, 1814, he married Miss Susannah Brooks, who showed herself a worthy helper for such a man, and who still lives, one of the most aged and venerable of the few survivors of her generation in Jeffer- son County. Without a trace of ambition or a suspicion of self-seeking, but by the over- powering weight of mind and character alone, Mr. Johnson rapidly made his way to the very front. In the palmiest days of the Kentucky Conference, when it contained many such men as Peter Cartwright, Peter Akers, Thomas A. Morris, Jonathan Stamper and Henry B. Bascom, it was asserted by a writer of that day that "Bro. Johnson was the most popular and effective preacher in the State." An evidence of his standing is found in the fact that, in 1822, when the con- ference sat at Bells' Camp Ground, near Lexington, Mr. Johnson was unanimously chosen to preach the funeral of that great and saintly man, Valentine Cook, to one of
235
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
the largest and most august assemblies that had ever met in Kentucky. After filling nearly all the most important positions, hav- ing been stationed at Nashville, Maysville, Louisville, Hopkinsville and other points, and Presiding Elder for several years on the Hopkinsville District, Gum River District, etc., he located and came to Mount Vernon in 1834, and here, on the 8th day of April, 1858, he passed away.
In person, Mr. Johnson was of medium height-about five feet eleven inches-his weight 170 to 180 pounds, complexion dark, hair black as the raven. His movements seemed slow, but he pushed forward what ever work he had to do with an energy that never tired. In his labors, whether on the circuit or the farm, he seemed incapable of fatigue and had physical strength sufficient for all demands. But with all his rugged vigor he had a heart as tender as a woman's, and a sympathy that extended even to the insect under his feet. He had a voice of most unusual power. Even when speaking in tones so lond that he could be heard two miles away, he seemed to speak with ease, and his voice never lost that peculiar quality that melted the hearts of all who heard. His profound learning and his masterly intellect commanded the respect of all; but it was more, perhaps, by the tenderness and inten- sity of his emotions that he swayed the mul- titndes. Yet his discourses were short, sel- dom over twenty or thirty minutes. A camp meeting was once held near his home; he returned from a business trip on Saturday evening; the meeting was dragging on, heavy and cold; he preached on Sunday, at 11 o'clock, and it was as if a cyclone had struck the congregation, carrying saint and sinner alike before it. The uproar after he closed lasted longer than the sermon. One
evening in Hopkinsville, the sexton was ab- sent with the church key, and Mr. Johnson talked a few moments to the group that was shut out, and when he closed, all were in tears, and they went shouting along down the streets in every direction. Perhaps there never was a man who could open a shorter way to the heart. At a love feast at old Union, he once spoke not more than half- a- dozen words, but everybody's cup seemed to run over at once, for a general shout was the result. He was not fond of debate, but when it was forced upon him showed him- self a David ready for any Goliath he might meet .. While stationed at Nashville, Tenn., the Methodist Episcopal Church was as- sailed, and defiance thrown out by a Mr. Vardiman, distinguished alike for polished manners, learning and skill as a debater. Mr. Johnson accepted his challenge. When the appointed day came, Johnson walked humbly in, alone, and soon Vardiman strode in, with Felix Grundy on one arm and An- drew Jackson on the other. The contest was to last three days. On the second morning Vardiman failed to appear, and he never was seen in Nashville again. It may be that there was what some ministers term a divine power about his ministry; for he was one of the most fully consecrated of men, and there was a solemn gravity about the man such as is very rarely seen. It may have been this that made a certain man declare that it "made the cold chills run over him to see Mr. John- son walk down the aisle to the pulpit." It is, no doubt, largely owing to his influence that the Methodist Church has grown from D. Baugh and wife, the only members at the time he came, to 400 members now. His remains, with those of his youngest son, who died in 1853, repose in Salem Cemetery.
236
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
CHAPTER XI .*
AGRICULTURE-ITS RANK AMONG THE SCIENCES-HOW TO KEEP THE BOYS UPON THE FARM- EDUCATE THEM TO IT-PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE IN THE COUNTY-SOME STATISTICAL
INFORMATION-COUNTY FAIRS AND ASSOCIATIONS-OFFICIALS OF THE SAME-HOR-
TICULTURE-VALUE OF FRUIT GROWING-STATISTICS-THE FORESTS, ETC.
"Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke."-Gray.
THE advantages of science, a superior soil and the use of machinery will al- ways render agriculture the most attractive, manly and profitable branch of industry in which the people can engage, contributing, more than any other pursuit to individual comfort, and proportionally adding to the prosperity of the country. The cultivation of the soil, in all ages, has furnished employ- ment for the largest and best portion of man- kind; yet the honor to which they are en- titled has never been fully acknowledged. 1 Though their occupation is the basis of na- tional prosperity, and upon its progress, more than any other branch of industry, de- pends the march of civilization, yet its his- tory remains, to a great extent, unwritten. Historians duly chronicle the feats of the warrior who ravages the earth and beggars its inhabitants, but leaves unnoticed the labors of him who causes the desolated country to bloom again, and heals, with the balm of plenty, the miseries of war. When due worth is recognized, instead of the mad ambition which subjugates nations to acquire power, the heroism which subdues the soil and feeds the world will be the theme of the poet's song and the orator's eloquence.
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.