USA > Illinois > Jefferson County > History of Jefferson County, Illinois > Part 32
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The One Hundred and Tenth Infantry also contained a company from Jefferson County, together with its first Colonel, Thomas S. Casey; its Quartermaster, Thomas H. Hobbs; and its First Assistant Surgeon, Hiram S. Plummer. Sketches of Col. Casey and Dr. Plummer will be found in other chapters of this work. Company B, the company from this county, had for its commissioned officers the following: Charles H. Maxey, Captain; Samuel T. Maxey, First Lieutenant; and John H. Dukes, Second Lieutenant. Capt. Maxey resigned March 22, 1863, and was succeeded by Lieut. Maxey, who was mustered out under the consolidation of the regiment. Lieut. Dukes was promoted to First Lieu- tenant, and transferred to Company A, under
the consolidation, and promoted to Captain, and as such mustered out with the regiment at the close of its term of service. Thomas J. Maxey was promoted to Second Lieuten- ant March 22, 1863, and transferred to Com- pany A, under the consolidation.
On the 8th of May, the One Hundred and Tenth was consolidated, by reducing the regi- ment to a battalion of four companies, under the following special field order: " Maj. Gen. Palmer, commanding Second Division, Twen- ty-first Army Corps, will cause the consoli- dation of the One Hundred and Tenth Regi- ment Illinois Volunteers, under the instruc- tions contained in General Order No. 86, War Department, current series. The officers to be retained in the service to be selected by him. The Assistant Commissary of Musters, Second Division, Twenty-first Army Corps, will muster out of service all officers rendered supernumerary by the consolidation. By com- mand of Maj. Gen. Rosecrans." Under the consolidation, Col. Casey, Quartermaster Hobbs and Surgeon Plummer were mustered out of service, and the battalion given in command of Lient. Col. Crawford, who after- ward resigned. E. B. Topping, of Spring- field, was promoted Lieutenant Colonel, and remained in command of the battalion until the close of its term of service.
So far as we have been able to obtain in- formation, this completes the sketch of those regiments in which the county was repre sented by commissioned officers or an orgau- ized body of men. Many men, however. from Jefferson County served in the late war, besides those belonging to the regiments we have described. In nearly every regiment recruited in Southern -Illinois, Jefferson County was represented with more or less of enlisted men, while they were even found scattered through more than one Indiana. Missouri and Kentucky regiment. A close
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
perusal of the history of the Black Hawk and Mexican wars, and the rebellion, will tell the story of Jefferson County, and of Illinois soldiers generally. A hundred bat- tle-fields attest their bravery in the late civil war, and their depleted ranks, as the broken regiments struggled homeward, disclosed the sad evidence that they had met foes as brave as themselves. Many who went out came not back, but sleep in peace-now that their bat- tles are ended-in the unknown graves where they fell. Requiescat in pace !
A few words of tribute, in conclusion of this chapter, are due to the noble women whose zeal and patriotism were as pure and as strong as those who bore the brunt of the bat- tle. They could not shoulder their guns and march in the ranks, but they were no idle spectators of the struggle. How often was the soldier's heart encouraged; how often his right arm made stronger to strike for his country by the cheering words of patriotic, hopeful women! And how often the poor lad npon whom disease had fastened, was made to thank devoted women for their ceaseless and untiring exertions in collecting and sending stores for the comfort of the sick and wounded. A war correspondent paid them the following merited tribute: "While
soldiers of every grade and color are receiving the eulogies and encomiums of a grateful people, patient, forbearing' WOMAN is forgot- ten. The scar-worn veteran is welcomed with honor to home. The recruit, the col- ored soldier, and even the hundred days' men receive the plaudits of the nation. But not one word is said of that patriotic wid- owed mother, who sent, with a mother's bless- ing on his head, her only son, the staff and support of her declining years, to battle for his country. The press says not one word of the patriotism, of the sacrifices of the wife, sister or daughter, who, with streaming eyes and almost broken heart, said to husbands, brothers, fathers, 'Much as we love you, we cannot bid you stay with us when our coun- try needs you,' and with Spartan heroism they bade them go and wipe out the insult offered to the star-spangled banner, and to preserve unsullied this union of States."
Brave, noble, generous women! your deeds deserve to be written in letters of shining gold. Your gentle ministrations to the unfortunate, and your loving kindness to the poor, war- worn soldiers will never be forgotten while one soldier lives; and your noble self-sacri- ficing devotion to your country will live, bright and imperishable as Austerlitz's sun.
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IIISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
CHAPTER XIII .*
ODDS AND ENDS-DE OMNIBUS REBUS ET QUIBUSDAM ALIIS-A BRIEF RETROSPECTION-MILLERS AND MILLS-BLACKSMITHS AND OTHER MECHANICS-BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, DEATHS-
A BATCH OF INCIDENTS-BUCK CASEY PLAYING BULL CALF-DONNY- BROOK FIGHTS-FOREST FIRES-A RUNAWAY NEGRO-COUN- TERFEITING-THE POOR FARM, ETC., ETC., ETC.
"It is not now as it hath been of yore." - Wordsworth.
W E have followed the history of Jeffer- son County from the period of its occupation by the aboriginal tribes down to the present, and may now take time to look back and to stop and breathe. When the county was formed -nearly sixty-five years ago-it was a wild waste, with only here and there meager settlements of hardy pio- neers, but few of whom are now living to tell over the strange story of their early lives in the wilderness. They have passed away in their day and generation, and the very few who have come down to us from a former era have forgotten and forgiven the early hardships that encompassed them, and re- member only the wild freedom and joys of their eager childhood. We look back over the departed years and see a wilderness, un- inhabited by white people, its solitudes un- broken by a sound of civilization. We look around us to-day and what do we see? The red man is gone, and has left nothing behind him but fading traditions. The verdant wastes of Jefferson County have disappeared, and where erst was heard the dismal howling of the wolf, or the far-off screech of the hun- gry panther, are now productive fields, cov- ered with flocks and herds and with growing grain. Rapid as have been the changes in
this section, Jefferson is only well upon her course. The energies which have made the present will not falter, for
"Lo! our land is like an eagle, whose young gaze Feeds on the noontide beam, whose golden plumes
Float moveless on the storm, and, in the blaze Of sunrise, gleams when earth is wrapped in gloom."
In our sketch of the county, we have touched upon most of the principal facts connected with it of a historical character. By way of conclusion of the general history, we design, in this chapter (composed of the odds and ends) to gather up the scattered threads and weave them into a kind of vale- dictory to the first part of the volume. A few items and incidents have been over- looked and omitted in the preceding pages, and these we shall group together in this chapter.
The rifle and the fish hook antedated the grater and the stump mills among the very earliest settlers in supplying food. The first famines that occurred among the people were caused by the lack of salt, notwith- standing the close proximity of the Saline, as they could make bread of meat by using their lean meat for bread and the fat for meat when driven to it. Mr. Johnson says that bear meat was used for bread and the venison for meat. The question of bread
*By W. H. Perrin.
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
after the first coming of a family until they could clear a little truck patch to raise their family supply was often a serious one in- deed. Then, too, even after the first corn was raised, there were no mills accessible to grind it. Corn was the staple production. Wheat was not raised for several years. Nearly all the bread used until the fall of 1818 was brought from the Wabash or 'from Kentucky. The first mode of procuring meal by the settlers of Jefferson County were by the mortar and pestle, the mortar being a hollow stump, and the pestle a bil- let of wood swung to a sweep or made with a handle and used by hand. It was a dozen or more years before these were laid aside. Of this mortar-made meal, the finest was made into bread, and the coarser into hominy. Families were sometimes without even this kind of bread for weeks at a time.
One of the first mills known to Jefferson County was kept by old Billy Goings, as early as 1817, but it is said that as he also kept a tavern, a grocery (what we would call a saloon now), and a great many other things, including bad company, his mill was only resorted to by the better class of people in cases of extreme emergency. In the fall of 1818, Dempsey Hood put up a mill, of his own manufacture, except the buhrs, which he had bought from Goings. It was of the simplest mechanical construction, and was operated by horse power. Many good stories are told of these early mills. One man used to say he always took his corn to mill in the ear, as he could shell it faster than the mill could grind it, and then he had the cobs to throw at the rats to keep them from eating all the corn as it ran down from the hopper. Another story was told on Hood's mill, that if a grain of corn got in " endways" it stopped the mill until the ob- struction was removed. Still another story
is told on the first water mill erected. The miller put the grist in the hopper, turned on the water, and about the time the mill got under good headway he heard a turkey "gob- ble " in the woods near by, so he caught up his gun and started out after the turkey. While he was gone, a blue jay alighted on the hoop around the buhrs, and as fast as a grain of corn would shake down from the hopper, he would eat it. When the miller returned, the jay had eaten all the corn and the mill stones were worn out.
William Maxey built a mill near where Cameron Maxey now lives, in the fall of 1820, and for a number of years contributed largely to the supply of bread for the set- tlers. About the same time or soon after, Carter Wilkey put up a "stump " mill, and in the fall of 1823 Thomas Tunstall put up a tread-mill, the first of the kind in the county. A short time after, Arba Andrews built a wind mill. By the year 1825, the country was pretty well supplied with mills, such as they were. They were much supe- rior, however, to no mill at all, and whether hand, stump, wind, tread or horse mill, they all had one family resemblance, and that was in speed. A blue jay might have eaten the corn from any of them faster than they could grind it. This is all changed now, though, and the county is supplied with mills that are without superiors in quality. But it is hard to realize that only fifty or sixty years ago, there were no mills, but such as we have described, in the county. What a gradual but wonderful development is there in the slow growth of the splendid perfected roller patent process mills from the pioneer hand-mill and mortar!
Elisha Plummer is the first blacksmith we have any account of, and came to Mount Vernon in 1820. If his "smithy " was not under a spreading " chestnut tree," it was
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
probably because there was no chestnut tree, for houses of all kinds were scarce. John Cooper, another blacksmith, came in 1824. A man named Lane was the first gunsmith, and this was a very important business then. He was in the county as early as 1822-23. Buffington was also an early gunsmith; Rhoda Allen's sons were the first cabinet-makers, etc., etc. Thus the trades became represented in the county as business and population demanded.
The first birth, marriage and death are always matters of considerable interest in a new country, and usually are preserved on record. The first birth we have failed to learn definitely, but it is believed to have been a son of Isaac Hicks, born in 1817. But that there has been a first one, followed by many others, the present population of the county is indisputable evidence. The first marriage was a daughter of Joseph Jordan, to Garrison Greenwood, a son of Fleming Greenwood, but the date is not remembered. Apropos of weddings, the following is re- lated of Green Depriest, who is represented as a kind of devil-may-care fellow, as fond of fun and a good time as a monkey of a basket of apples. He started out one day for Walnut Prairie to have a littie spree. On his way, he stopped at the Widow Allen's to inquire the way. While talking with Mrs. Allen, a young woman, her daughter, came out of the house to speak with her. Depriest was impressed favorably with the young woman's appearance, and, according to his abrupt way of doing things, told her who he was and that he would like to marry her if she had no objections. She replied that " Barkis was willin'." So he said he would go to the field and see the boys about it. while she could talk it over with her mother. The result was he married her, took her up behind him on his horse and went home, to
the great surprise of his friends and family. Thus he had his spree after [all, but al- together a different one from that he had started out to enjoy.
The next wedding was three-a kind of wholesale or job lot. On the 5th of October, 1819, Harriet Maxey was married to Thomas M. Casey, Vylindla Maxey to Abraham T. Casey, and Bennett N. Maxey to Sally Over- bay, all at the same time and place. This was overdoing the poet, for instead of " two souls with but a single thought," it was six, four more than the poet bargained for. It was the largest wedding of the period in the style put on and the numbers present, as well as in the profusion of brides and grooms. Every family was invited, and every man, woman and child, who possibly could, at- tended, and the good cheer was the best the country afforded. Ransom Moss and Ann Johnson were married July 6, 1821, and thus the good work went on.
The death of Rhoda Allen, who was a man, notwithstanding the peculiar name, was the first death of a grown person. He passed to his reward in August, 1820, and was buried at Union-the first person buried there. A child of one of the Maxeys died a short time before Allen, and is sup- posed to have been the first death in the county. Death has not been idle since then, as the many graveyards in the different por- tions of the county show.
An incident occurred in 1826 that cast a gloom over the whole settlement and excited the sympathy for the afflicted family. Jo- seph McMeens had recently settled in Jor- dan's Prairie and had a family of several children. In the fall and winter of 1826, his boys devoted considerable attention to trapping. One day they left the house to visit their traps as usual, when a little sister, only four years old, started unknown to
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
them, to follow. Her parents supposed she was with her brothers until their return and reported that they had seen nothing of her. An alarm was at once spread and search made and kept up until in the night without any success. It was renewed the next day and continued for many days, but the child was 'never found. The strangest part of it was not the slightest trace of her, not a shred of her clothing or a footprint was ever discovered to tell the story of her fate, or suggest a theory as to her strange disappearance, and to-day, after a lapse of nearly sixty years, when the circumstance is forgotten by all except a few old people, the mystery is as deep and impenetrable as when it first occurred. The most plausible theory was that she had been picked up and carried away by some prowling band of In- dians, though no trace of Indians were dis- covered in the vicinity. It was one of those mysteries that will probably never be cleared up until that great day of final settlement.
A fight with a wild cat is related by James Dawson, in which he triumphed over his feline antagonist in a summary manner. Dawson was a son-in law of Fleming Green- wood, and a man who is represented as not being afraid of the devil himself. Such a thing as raising domestic fowls was impossi - ble in the early times, without a stanch house to keep them in at night. Even then the " varmints " were as sure to find them sooner or later as the colored American citi- zen is to find the hen roost of the present day. One night Dawson heard a racket in his chicken house, that denoted the presence of some unwelcome intruder, and he ran out with a light to investigate the trouble. Upon looking into the chicken house, he dis- covered a huge wild cat in possession. Stick- ing his torch in a crack of the building, he gave the monster battle, and in a few min-
utes succeeded in making a flank movement, seized it by the hind legs and knocked its brains out against the side of the house.
Quite an amusing story is told of a man named Dickens-James Dickens. He was a rather early settler, and for some time had charge of Tunstall's mill. The story goes that one day, while in charge of the mill, some ladies came to him who had become considerably bothered and perplexed in their calculations about a piece of cloth, and asked him if he knew figures. Now there was a tailor living in Mount Vernon named Figgers, and supposing the ladies referred to the little tailor, Dickens exclaimed in his off-hand style, "Know Figgers? Wy, yes; dod ding if I didn't make him out of rags- all but his head." The result of the joke was a dickens of a fight, for the little tailor, like little men generally, was inclined to be a little " fierce," and he took mortal offense at Dickens for the remark, and a fist-fight fol- lowed.
The state of society on the frontier fifty to seventy-five years ago was not perfect in its moral symmetry by any means. Every com- munity had its rough characters, and it is not improbable that the rough element some- times predominated. Public days, such as muster and election days, where cheap whis- ky got the upper hand of the less free-willed, free fights were often inaugurated which would have done credit to a Donnybrook Fair. Jeffer- son County was no exception to the rule, and had its little episodes that would now be con- sidered quire disgraceful. Mr. Johnson al- ludes to a general fight that occurred in 1820, in which nearly the whole population of the county took part. He says: "It was said that some of the Maxeys had said that the Maxeys and Caseys were going to rule the country. Johan Abbott determined to refute the idea by whipping the first one of them
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
he might meet. This was noised abroad and it fell upon Elihu Maxey to measure strength with Abbott. They met in town one day when nearly everybody else was there, and at it they went, like a couple of modern pugilists. Everybody got excited, even Uncle Jimmy Johnson laid aside his usual gravity, threw his old straw hat as far as he could send it, and requested any other man that wanted to fight to come to him, while Jim Abbott danced around and said, 'anybody that whips John Abbott will have to whip Jim', but Billy Casey picked up Jim and ran clear off with him. But it was all over in five min- utes or less time. It was roughly estimated that every man in town had his hat, coat or vest off, calling for somebody to fight him." This was no isolated case, but of common occurrence in the early history of the coun- ty, when
"Frontier life was rough and rude,"
and to be considered the " best man " in the neighborhood was an honor greatly coveted and highly cherished by him who was so fortunate as to possess the enviable (?) noto. riety. But with the progress of Christianity and the refining influences of education, so- ciety improved, gradually at first, but then more rapidly, until, at the present time, we find the county equal in civilization and re- finement to any portion of the State, and as to Mount Vernon, it may very appropriately be termed the Athens of Southern Illinois.
The best incident illustrative of the pio- neer period is told at the expense of "Buck" Casey, or rather, he tells it at his own ex- pense. Although the incident has traveled over the State and has been located in a score or more of different places, yet it is vouched for as having originally occurred in this county and of Buck Casey having been the actual hero of it. In early times, when the settlements here were in their infancy,
teams were very scarce and the means of hauling and plowing were restricted to the narrowest limits. To such straits were the settlers sometimes reduced, and so sorely taxed was their ingenuity to rig out a team, that means would often be resorted to that in this day of inventive perfection would appear ludicrous in the extreme. It was not uncommon for a settler to yoke up a pair of bull calves when so young and small that only dire necessity-which we are told is the mother of invention-would suggest their ability to be of much service, even in "snaking" up firewood. One year, so meager was the supply of bull calves in the neigh- borhood, that Buck Casey conceived the happy idea of yoking himself with the only one his family possessed, for the purpose of hauling wood from "the adjacent forest. The yoke was adjusted, and with his younger brother, Abram, to drive, the team was ready for work. It is a tradition, however, that Buck made such an " onery " looking bull calf that his mate refused to pull or budge a step in the right direction, but whirling his busi- ness end to leeward, turned the yoke. Buck had heard of tying the tails of young cattle together to prevent such catastrophes when breaking them to the yoke, so he gathered up the big end of a corn-cob in the slack of his leather breeches, and to this he securely tied the calf-tail, then told Abe to give 'em the gad. The calf made a bound, found his tail fast, became frightened and then plunged forward at the top of its speed, helter-skel - ter, pell mell, over stumps, logs and brush at a rate that bade fair to break the necks of both. Buck became worse frightened than the calf, and as they approached the house, he yelled out at the top of his voice: "Here we come, head us off, pap, damn our fool souls, we are running away." It was Buck's " last appearance" in the role of a bull calf.
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HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY.
One or the great"dangers the early settlers were subject to were prairie and forest fres. It is true, the danger is not so great here as farther north, where miles and miles of pra- irie grew rank with grasses, ten or fifteen feet high, and; without a tree or shrub in . sight to break the endless monotony, but still there was danger. When the grass dried up in autumn and the leaves fell from the trees and they, too, became dry, the whole presented one immense tinder box, that, once ignited, no power could resist or control. The roaring flames would sweep over the prairies, and, reaching the woods, where the leaves lay thick, diminished but little in volume, but crackled, roared and swept on, scorching the trees, sometimes, forty feet from the ground. We have heard of no loss of human life in this county, but stock often perished, and houses, stacks of grain and other property were destroyed. In many portions of the State much loss of life has resulted from these autumnal fires.
Crime has never prevailed in Jefferson County to that extent it has in some portions of the State, though, of course, the county has not been wholly free from it, and from lawless characters. Among the first settlers, there were a few whose morals would not bear too close a scrutiny. Goings, who has already been mentioned as having one of the first mills in the county, was accused of being a counterfeiter. Goings always had a lot of men around him of bad repute, and it was generally believed that his house was a regular rendezvous or headquarters for horse- thieves, negro stealers and all sorts of low, vicious characters. He left the county in 1821, impelled. no doubt, by the urgent wish (!) of his neighbors. John Breeze, who after- ward occupied Goings' house, found a quan- tity of unfinished counterfeit money, that he had been obliged to hide when he suddenly
left the neighborhood. A man named Her- ron also became involved in counterfeiting. He was arrested, and was tried at the June term of court, 1821, and was fined $20 and costs and sentenced to be whipped. The sentence was carried out, the prisoner receiv- ing thirty-nine lashes upon his bare back. This seems to us a rather barbarous sentence now, but fifty or seventy-five years ago it was common, not only in Illinois but in many, if not all, of the older States. Another case, we noticed in running over the old records, of whipping, that occurred here in 1830. It was that of James Vance, who was tried and convicted as a horse-thief. He was fined $22 and costs and sentenced to ten days in jail and to receive twenty lashes upon his bare back, which penalty was duly executed. A number of other criminals, more or less vicions, might be noticed, but such history is better forgotten than perpetuated.
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