USA > Illinois > Lee County > History of Lee County, together with biographical matter, statistics, etc. > Part 49
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" Dan. Obrist was drowned while seining in Elkhorn creek, and was succeeded by his brother, Abram, who put up a saw-mill on Sugar creek. This was a great accommodation to the settlers, who could thus get flooring and door and window frames for their log houses, instead of having to hew them. They could even build frame barns, the first, I believe, being built and is still standing on the Seavey place, then owned by Ben Stewart. On these occasions the whole settlement would be called upon to help raise. There would be lots of hog and hominy washed down by copious libations of Fred. Dutcher's pure corn whisky, and the barn would be duly raised and then christened by breaking a bottle over the purlin plate, Abner Moon or Ruben Eastwood being generally chosen to perform this ceremony on account of their stentorian voices."
The first attempt at manufacturing was made by Mr. E. B. Bush, mentioned above, who built a saw-mill, and also an oil-mill for the manufacture of castor and linseed oil. To obtain grist for his oil-mill he induced a number of the neighboring farmers to devote a large portion of their lands to raising flaxseed and castor-oil beans, promis- ing them a dollar a bushel for either of these products. This, in those
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PALMYRA TOWNSHIP.
days of moneyed scarcity, seemed a sure road to fortune, and we went at it with a will. The crop was a splendid one, but in the absence of threshing machines, how to separate the seed from the flax was the query. We tried tramping it out with horses, as we did the wheat and oats, but the flax was soon trodden into ropes which entangled the horses' feet, and we had finally to abandon it altogether. Nor were we more successful with the castor beans; some small quantity was gathered in baskets, and as they were pleasant to the eye and the palate, many children required no more castor oil that season. About the time of harvesting the beans Bush's money gave out, and the bulk of the crop rotted on the ground. He had taken in as a partner a young man whose contribution to the joint stock was a colt valued at thirty dollars and muscle for the hard work. When the business failed this partner sued him for wages, and the case being referred " to three men," as was the custom of the day, they awarded him half wages. This was in 1841, and was, I believe, the first attempt at manufacturing in our neighborhood.
"A man bearing the name of Smith was the first blacksmith in the settlement. He soon left and was followed by James Carley, who for many years shod the horses, sharpened the ploughs, sighted the rifles, and did all the thousand and one jobs of tinkering that the people could not do for themselves. He was a most skillful workman and a great power in the settlement, for on the approach of winter there would be sneh a demand for his services in shoeing horses that turns would be engaged sometimes a week in advance, and woe betide the man that did not stand high in his good graces. Carley took his pay in kind-wheat, corn, pork, etc .- and consequently, though burning his own charcoal, he furnished no iron, and it exercised all his ingenu- ity to convert the various scraps that were brought to him into the required shoe, etc. I remember on one occasion his usual blasphemy found unusual vent at being required to forge a horseshoe out of a broken monkey-wrench. A curious attachment existed between Carley and a poor slave of the bottle by the name of Beach. This Beach be- longed to a highly respectable family in the east, and had received an ex- cellent business education. He kept Carley's books, which were models of neatness. He also blew the bellows and fetched the whisky from Dixon. Old settlers will ever remember this mass of rags and pimples, his head crowned with a dilapidated old stove-pipe, always filled with greasy newspapers, which he greedily devoured when he had leisure.
"By the spring of 1840 the settlement had gained considerable accession to its members and contained about sixty voters. In addi- tion to those I have already named, there were four families of Martins, two of Powers (distinguished as Yankee and Kentuck), two of Law-
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HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY.
rences, Graham, Law, Baker, Hutton, Gaston, Holly, Coe, Muller, two of Johnsons, Parks, Beede, and some others.
" The failure of the United States Bank had caused numbers of local banks to spring into existence, which flooded the country with their worthless paper, and gave great apparent prosperity to the coun- try ; but by the year 1840 all of these, together with the State Bank of Illinois, had passed out of existence, and hard times set in. Emi- gration was checked, and there being no longer any demand nearer than Chicago for the surplus produce the price of wheat fell from $2 per bushel to 25 and 30 cents, corn from a dollar to 10 cents, beef and pork to 12 and 2 cents per pound, and even these prices were nominal, wheat being the only article that would sell for cash. This was hauled to Chicago in loads of thirty and forty bushels, and sold for 63 to 75 cents. The farmer generally took with him his own provisions, grain for his horses, scythe, axe and auger ; slept under his wagon ; and calculated that the trip, which generally required a week, should cost him nothing but his time. Some were fortunate enough to secure a return load from the store-keeper, at the rate of 40 cents per hundred pounds, for a distance of 116 miles. The proceeds of the trip were carefully hoarded for the land sale. But if profits were small, expenses were equally small. Few had a hundred dollars invested in farm ma- chinery. Beyond the iron in the plowshare, the steel in the hoe, axe, scythe, and blade of the " turkey-wing cradle," all was of wood, and generally home-made. Taxes were merely nominal, three com- missioners, an assessor and collector doing all the business of the county. I have an old tax receipt for $1.50 in full on a farm of 420 acres, fairly stocked for that day.
" A man dressed as his fancy dictated, some entirely in buckskin of their own tanning. The appearance of one figure I shall never forget as he went about dressed in the remains of what had been a bright- colored dressing-gown, the gift of a city friend; on his head a coon- skin cap, with the tail hanging down between his shoulders; moccasins, and a long rifle, with spotted fawnskin pouch.
" But enough of the old days; Palmyra has her full share of the prosperity of the country which she has aided so largely to develop. The log houses of the early settlers have given place to numerous tasty dwellings and commodions barns. The many neatly painted school-houses show the regard paid to education. Among them is a fine brick building, intended as a graded school, put up at a cost of $3,000. On the grounds in front of this stands the monument erected to the memory of those sons of Palmyra whose blood enriched the southern battle-fields-sons who Palmyra has always freely given when her country called for them. In addition to the usual country
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shops, Mr. John Lord, a son of one of the early settlers, has built up from small beginnings an extensive wagon and carriage shop, which from the excellence of the material and workmanship has attained a great reputation as well outside as in the town. Mr. Abijah Powers, a settler of '38, has not only added many fair acres to the original claim, but he was the first to introduce the fine short-horn cattle into the county, and has now a numerous herd. For many years the farm- ers were a rich source of plunder to the numerous fire insurance com- panies, but in 1865 the Palmyra Fire Insurance Company was originated by an association of a few farmers. This company, which insures nothing but farm property and country school buildings, is managed by a president, secretary and treasurer and thirteen managers. It has insurance on $965,175 worth of property. Insures for $3 per $1,000, with membership fee of $1. The insurance is perpetual and there is no further demand on the insured except in case of loss by fire, when a pro rata assessment is laid. How slight this tax is may be judged from the fact that in the eleven years of its existence the total assessments have not yet reached one per cent.
"In these western towns, settled by persons from so many foreign countries and parts of the Union, the effects of our form of govern- ment and institutions are seen in the most favorable light. Here the poor emigrant, finding no bar to the acquisition of property and pur- suit of happiness, rapidly develops into the well-to-do American citizen. The New Englander losing his narrowness, while retaining his thrift and intelligence, finds here a wider field for their exercise, and the Southerner, still liberal, acquires industry, economy and education."
Justices of the peace and constables of Palmyra township from 1839 :
MAGISTRATES.
1839. Levi Gaston.
1839. W. W. Bethea.
1843. Mathias Schick.
1867. W. W. Tilton.
1843. W. W. Bethea.
1867. W. W. Bethea.
1847. Henry A. Coe.
1871. W. W. Bethea.
1847. James M. Johnson.
1871. W. W. Tilton.
1851. W. W. Bethea.
1874. W. W. Tilton.
1851. W. W. Tilton.
1874. W. W. Bethea.
1855. W. W. Bethea.
1877. W. W. Bethea.
1855. Mathias Schick.
1877. Benjamine Stauffer.
1859. W. W. Bethea.
1881. Benjamine Stauffer.
1881. Alfred Beede.
1859. Mathias Schinck.
1863. W. W. Tilton.
1863. W. W. Bethea.
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HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY.
CONSTABLES.
1839. E. H. Johnson.
1863. No record.
1839. D. P. Cantrall.
1863. No record.
1843. Martin Fender.
1867. No record.
1843.
W. W. Tilton.
1867. No record.
1847.
James M. Johnson.
1871.
No record.
1847.
W. W. Tilton.
1871.
No record.
1851.
Charles Columbia.
1877.
David W. Stevens.
1851.
William V. Mason.
1877. Robert J. Dryman.
1854. Charles A. Martin.
1881. Robert J. Dryman.
1854. Dana L. Columbia.
1881. David W. Stevens.
1859. No record.
PRAIRIEVILLE.
This village is located about seven miles north of west of the city of Dixon, in the western part of Palmyra township, on the N. W. } of N.W. ¿ Sec. 5, in T. 21 N., R. 8 E., of the 4th P.M., at the in- tersection of the Dixon and Sterling road by the Sterling and Polo road. It was located by Messrs. Abijah Powers, Phillip Schock, Sam- uel Shaw, and Windthrop Seavey, and surveyed by Milton Santee, April 10, 1855.
There was located on this site a smith-shop by Mathias Schick as early as 1843. The present smith-shop is conducted by Furley Broth- ers. The first store was opened by Elisha Ryder seven or eight years ago, which was followed in a year or two later by another, opened by Charles Furley, both of which are still in operation. The village school-house is a two-story brick structure surrounded by a belfry. The interior is divided into four apartments for the accommodation of the several school departments. It is a beautiful edifice, reflecting credit upon the intelligence of the community in which it stands. It is located in a pleasant, shady lawn. In the front of the school-grounds stands the soldier monument, erected to the honor of the sons of Pal- myra who died in the service of their country during the war of the rebellion, and on which their names are engraved. It is of marble, and was built at a cost of $800 or $900, which was met by voluntary subscriptions from the citizens of Palmyra township.
There is a new church edifice, which is occupied alternately by the Congregational and Lutheran denominations. The first Congregational preaching in the neighborhood was in 1846, by Rev. Amnon Gaston, brother to Levi Gaston, now residing in Palmyra. Mr. Gaston preached for the congregation at this place and at the Gap for seven or eight years, and has since deceased.
The Lutheran church was first represented in this vicinity by Rev.
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PALMYRA TOWNSHIP.
C. B. Thummel, who commenced preaching for the society about 1846, and continued with the society up to 1877, when he preached his semi-centennial sermon, retiring from the active ministry.
BIOGRAPHICAL.
JOHN C. JACOBS. Great events in every career are those that stand as landmarks to point the route of the traveler as he has made his way slowly but surely from incipiency to manhood's ripest years. There is no completely written life. But grasping here and there a fact and adjusting them as a continuous set of lenses, one can look through them and see the smaller acts, the finer threads of principle that have made the life what it is or what it has been. In business, as in war, there are constant promotions of the successful operator, and each pro- motion is a victory won, for " Peace hath her victories no less than war." The parents of John C. Jacobs were Corbin and Mary (Rice) Jacobs, both natives of Fredericktown, Maryland, and of English descent. Corbin Jacobs was a contractor and builder. He was a superior workman, having superintended the erection of many build- ings around Harper's Ferry, handsome residences and large church edifices. In the early days of Ohio he moved from Maryland and set- tled near Chillicothe, Ohio, but later returned to his native state, where he died September 17, 1832, aged forty-four years. He was a very prominent member of the Episcopal church. He served in the war of 1812. His brothers were John, who died in 1869 near Dayton, Ohio, his home, and Lenox Compton (a half brother), who died in 1879, also at his home near Dayton. Mrs. Corbin Jacobs was spared to aid her son, John C., in rearing the family of six children : Benja- min L., John C., Oliver C., Maria, Ann Virginia and William F. She died November 4, 1844, in Maryland. Benjamin L. became military director of railroads in the south, and died in 1863. William F. grad- uated at William and Mary's College, became an Episcopal minister and died in 1867. Ann V. died in 1877, and Maria died in 1878, leav- ing as survivors John C. and Oliver C., the latter of whom is now a thrifty farmer near Palmyra, Missouri. The principal character in this sketch is John C. Jacobs, whose birth happened November 15, 1819,
near Chillicothe, Ohio. He was three years of age when his parents returned to Maryland. The death of his father left John at the age of thirteen years as the chief support of the family ; reverses in building contracts having proved serious to the fortune of the elder Jacobs. John immediately applied himself to such labor as came within his ability. He worked one year on a farm for $15 and clothes, at the end of which year he received as his savings $2.50, which he expended in five bushels of potatoes at fifty cents a bushel. He continued his
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HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY.
labors on the farm for a time, and when not farming earned what he could with his ax chopping wood by the cord, or doing other job work. In 1863 he cared for a team of horses for the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Packet Company till the canal froze, when he resumed his wood chopping. It was about this time that a circumstance happened that probably shaped the beginning of a successful career for young Jacobs. His Uncle, Lenox Compton, then of Ohio, offered the lad 160 acres of land and promised to aid him in starting. Friends and mother advised the boy to accept his uncle's offer, and to start inime- diately overland and on foot 400 miles to Dayton. The day ap- proached for his departure from home. He weighed every hope and doubt. How would his mother and children live without his help, although meager as it was ? How could he get aid to his mother if he should be successful ? for there were no railroads then. Suddenly he resolved not to go Ohio but to stay with his mother, brothers and sis- ters, earn what he could and care for them as far as possible, let come what would. He made known his resolve to his mother, began his labors afresh and with renewed determination.' April 3, 1837, he be- gan work on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad between Point of Rocks and Harper's Ferry, at eighty-seven and a half cents a day. Flour at that time was $13 a barrel, so that a month's work barely provided necessaries. Death (by accident) of a brakeman, November 10 follow- ing, made a vacancy, and young Jacobs was promoted to the position with a slight advance in wages. In June following the removal of the train deprived him of this place, and his work was such as supplying engines with fuel etc. In the fall of 1838 he became fireman on an engine at $45 per month, when each month seemed a harvest to him. As times were good or bad his wages were somewhat changed. After one year's service on the main line he was sent to the Washington branch between Washington and Baltimore. In the fall of 1842 he became a locomotive engineer at $2 a day, running also west of Harper's Ferry to Cumberland hauling iron for construction. After five years in that position he controlled an engine employed in assist- ing passenger trains and heavily loaded engines over grades etc. between Hancock and Harper's Ferry till 1850, his wages having reached $2.25 per day. Mr. Jacobs next became supervisor of engines between Bal- timore and Cumberland, the company having at that time 207 locomo- tives. In 1853 he was sent to Kingwood tunnel to hasten the business of construction of the road and cutting of the tunnel, receiving now $130 per month. He was then kept mostly west of Cumberland, and aided in the construction of the road at Board Tree tunnel. After the com- pletion of the road he became train-master and supervisor of engines on the same road between Piedmont and Wheeling, continuing till
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PALYMRA TOWNSHIP.
September 1856, when the Illinois Central Railroad Company offered him his present position. He severed his connection with the Balti- more & Ohio Company September 30, and starting west arrived at Amboy, Illinois, October 8, 1856, and assumed the superintendency of the north division from Centralia to Dubuque, including 347 miles of road. A successful career of nearly a half century from penury to very comfortable circumstances, a career in which many incidents have happened that cannot be recorded here, finds Mr. Jacobs yet able, ap- parently, for many years' useful labor. A quarter of a century's resi- dence in Amboy and Lee county has made him many warm friends, especially among the employés of the Illinois Central railroad. Mr. Jacobs was married November 4, 1846, to Harriet A. Hough, daughter of Samuel H. Hough, of Middletown, Connecticut. She was born Jann- ary 21, 1821. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs are Molly H., who died September 27, 1868, aged twenty years ; John C. (died when young) ; William F. and Charles C., both of whom have positions on the road.
One of the earliest as well as one of the most esteemed and dis- tinguished names which is met with in the search for biographical data in Palmyra township is that of Page ; and although no direct representa- tive of the family now resides within the township, yet the respect and confidence which all who bore the name won and merited from their fellow-townsman will not fade for many a year. JOHN H. PAGE, now deceased, was one of several natives of Strafford county, New Hamp- shire, who came to Palmyra at a very early day and took up a residence there. Stephen Fellows and James T., William and Jacob Martin were also members of this colony, all coming within a year or two of each other. Mr. Page was born at Rochester, New Hampshire, in 1806, and was the grandson of Joseph, and the son of David and -- (Ham) Page. His mother was descended from a family who located at Bangor, Maine, at an early period. Mr. Page was brought up and received a common school education at Sandwich, New Hampshire, and following in the footsteps of his father, on arriving at manhood he became a farmer : but being ambitious and energetic, he decided to abandon the sterile and rocky soil of the Granite State and seek a more fruitful reward of his labors upon the fertile prairies of Illinois. He reached Lee county in the fall of 1834 and located upon government land in the township of Palmyra. He built himself a log house, it being the second or third erected in the town, and engaged in farming, and continued on the same farm until 1868, when he sold out and removed to Menlo, Iowa, where he died in 1870. Mr. Page was first married at Sand- wich, New Hampshire, in 1833, to Miss Julia M. Fellows, daughter of Stephen Fellows, who removed to Lee county at the same time with
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HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY.
his daughter and son-in-law. Mrs. Page died at Palmyra in 1856, and in 1858 Mr. Page was again married, to Mrs. Sarah B. (Jenness) Wiggin. The result of the union of John H. and Julia (Fellows) Page was eight children, four of whom are still living, three sons and one' daughter. The former, George H., David S. and William B., all reside in Europe, and the daughter, Julia M., is the widow of the late James W. Harris, of Lee county. George H., eldest son of John H. Page, was the first child born in the town of Palmyra, that event occurring on May 16, 1836. He acquired a common school education in his native town and was then sent to the seminary at Mount Vernon, Iowa, (now known as Cornell College,) of which his uncle, Samuel Fellows, was one of the founders and the first principal. Another uncle, Stephen N. Fellows, was a teacher in the same institution. After leaving school Mr. Page engaged in farming for a short time, but soon after the outbreak of the rebellion obtained a clerkship in the war department at Washington, where he remained for three years. In 1866 he went to Switzerland, and in company with his brothers Charles A. and David S. he embarked in the business of condensing milk, which was the first undertaking of the kind in Europe, and which has proved an immense success. The business has grown from almost nothing to a trade of over $3,000,000 per year, and is now carried on by a joint stock company having a capital of $2,000,000, with six factories in Switzerland and England, and offices at London and Paris. Geo. H. Page is the general manager of the company, and his brother David S. is assistant general manager, both residing at Cham, Switzerland. The youngest brother, William B., also holds a position under the company. During some years of his residence in that country Mr. Geo. H. Page held the position of vice-consul at Zurich, Switzerland. He was married in 1875, to Miss Adelheid Swerzmann, of Zoug, Switzerland, and has one son, Fred H. Page, aged five years. At the time of this writing Mr. Page is in Dixon visiting relatives and friends and renewing the associations of his yonth. After a few months' sojourn in the United States he intends returning to Switzerland, but with no intention of residing permanently outside of his native country. It is proper in this connection that mention should be made of the career of Charles A. Page, the second son of John H. Page. He was born in Palmyra, May 22, 1838, and his early career was like that of his brother George. After graduating from Cornell College, he was for a year editor of a newspaper published at Mount Vernon, Iowa; he then obtained a clerkship in the fifth auditor's office of the treasury department, Washington, where he remained some three or four years, when he became attached to the New York "Tribune " as a correspondent. During the war he accompanied the army of the Potomac as a field correspondent for the "Tribune," and
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PALMYRA TOWNSHIP.
the vivid descriptions and graphic delineations of the marches and bat- tles, the defeats and triumphs of that heroic army published in the " Tribune " over the initials "C. A. P." will be well remembered by the older readers of that paper. He also was one of the party accom- panying the remains of President Lincoln to their last resting-place at Springfield. During the summer of 1865 he was appointed consul at Zurich, Switzerland, and held this office four years, when he became the manager of the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company's London office, which company he had been instrumental in forming, and held that position until his death on May 26, 1873. He was married in 1868, to Miss Grace D. Coues, of Washington, D. C., and his widow and four surviving children now reside in that city. The career of these brothers is another illustration of the business energy and pluck which characterizes the young men of this country. Reared on a farm in what was then the Far West they struck out courageously, and have suc- ceeded in establishing by their ability and enterprise an immense business in the heart of over-crowded Europe, and which not only brings fortune and reputation to themselves, but is the source from which hundreds of others derive a comfortable existence.
FREDERICK N. PARKS, farmer, Palmyra, is a native of the town- ship, being born there on September 22, 1849, and is a son of Hiram P. and Martha (Moon) Parks, and both on his father's and mother's side is related to some of the earliest settlers of the township, both fam- ilies having located in Palmyra some forty-five years ago. All of Mr. Parks' life has been spent in Palmyra, and ever since he was able to be of assistance on the farm he has followed that calling. For the past ten years he has been engaged in farming for himself. He was mar- ried on February 7, 1872, to Miss Maria N. Sheeley, a resident of Guthrie, Iowa. Last winter Mr. and Mrs. Parks met with a severe blow in the death of their beloved and only child at the age of four years. Politically Mr. Parks is a republican.
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