History of Logan County, Illinois, Part 21

Author: Inter-State Publishing Co.
Publication date: 1886
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 989

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FOURTH REUNION.

The old settlers were next called to order at the court-house (weather being cool for an out-door meeting) at 11 o'clock of

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Tuesday, Oct. 10, 1876, by President Clark. There being a general impression on the street that the time of meeting was 1 o'clock, it was thought best to adjourn until that time.

A little after 1 o'clock the court-house was crowded. Henry Johnson was first called upon, as being perhaps the oldest man in the house. He came from Northern Indiana to Logan County, Oct. 28, 1826. The men had to gather their own crops and the women do their own spinning. He related a little incident in his early life when his sister took him to be an Indian, and the sport they had out of it. During the winter of 1826-'7 the prairies were burned off by the Indians in order to drive the deer to the woods ; the fences were also burned. In the summer of 1827, when har- vesting his oats, he stopped to rest about noon, and on looking around saw a "six-footer" standing close behind. He took the Indians, there being several near, to his cabin and gave them their dinner. They were a hunting party from the head of Salt Creek. They had been out two days and killed 200 deer. Their nearest neighbors lived twelve or fourteen miles distant, and here they used to go to corn shuckings, etc. The young folks acted like all young folks; except that they did not " Mister " nor " Miss " any one. He gave the history of his taking Betsey home from the shucking-she lived up the creek. He saw her safely home ; she asked him in and he attempted to take the rickety chair ; was told by the fair damsel to take the new one by her side ; he took this for a good hint and kissed her. John Musick was engaged to one of his sisters, and when the " time " drew near it was necessary to have a license ; so John and (Henry started for Springfield to get it. The old Judge asked of John if she was of age ; he replied she was not, " but here is her father," pointing to Henry. The old Judge saw the joke and said, " Boys, I will tell you a little story. A fellow came here one day to get a license and I asked him what the girl's name was; he said he did not like to tell for fear I would plague him. I told him that I would not ; so he said her name was Peg, and that was all I could get out of him." John got his license. Holding up a vest which proved to be buckskin, Mr. Johnson said, "This vest is 102 years old. My father wore it at his wedding two years before the Revolutionary war ; my mother gave it to me 'and I expect to hand it down to my children. The pants were cut up by my mother. At first we did our milling at Elkhart ; then there was a mill built on the Kickapoo. They used the section of a hollow sycamore tree for the rim of the burr."

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The President asked for some other old pioneer to come forward and tell us of "the long ago." Jacob Judy responded in a very brief speech in which he said that the first license in Tazewell County was bought with 'coon skins. Uncle Joshua Houser asked what they paid the preacher, to which he replied that they did not pay him at all.

The President then asked, " Who next ?" To this call H. I. Warner replied that he had a Dutch Bible 131 years old ; a Dutch hymn book between eighty and ninety years old ; a guitar of his father's, 114 years old ; an old staff which he used when General Jackson was inaugurated President ; a bull's-eye watch fifty-nine years old ; a pair of boots he had worn for thirty years, but one of them had a hole in it, owing to a defective piece of leather the shoemaker used. He spoke of the fashions of early times, giving some idea of the costumes worn when he was a boy.

Colonel R. B. Latham was next called, and responded by say- ing that he had been here longer than any one now living, per- haps, as his father had moved here in 1819. That there was scarcely a forty-acre lot in Elkhart woods but what he had chased a wolf over. The old settlers now are the children and grandchil- dren of the early pioneers. Then if a man built a house two or three miles out from the woods he was considered foolish, and would freeze to death the first winter ; consequently many of the early settlers cleared farms in the heavy woods. He had seen great changes. Said that his father's family had to go 100 miles to mill. That if a man was going on a journey of 300 or 400 miles he would prepare for it long before hand by getting his team in trim and everything ready for the long ride. Now he can travel 2,000 miles, visiting the great Eastern cities, the Centennial Expo- sition, the grandest exposition the world has ever seen, and be back here in one week. He spoke in glowing terms of the telegraph, railroads, school-houses and churches. What have we done for the improvement of this great country ? Have we done our duty, or have we been in the way ? We must instill into the minds of our children the principles of improvement so that in fifty years, when they hold old settlers' meetings, they can look back upon the receding past with grateful emotions to those who have gone before.

The President stated that since their last meeting three of the old pioneers had gone-Messrs. Cantrall and Clark and Mrs. Scroggin. Colonel Knapp was next called, but his health was too

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poor to permit him to respond. Mrs. Judy stated that her father came to Logan the 22d of October, 1818 (?).

Rev. John England was next called, and said that he was like the minister who had his sermon written and stuck into a hole in the wall behind him and could not get it again; turning to the au- dience he said, "There was as fine a sermon in that wall as ever 'was preached." He stated that his father left Madison County, Ohio, in October, 1817, coming to St. Louis, where he met Gen- eral Whiteside, who fought the Indians; and the General told Mr. England that there was some of the finest country up here that he had ever seen. His father and his two brothers-in-law started the next spring for Logan County. The family moved up in July; their table was split from a big tree, with wooden pins put in for legs; their churn was made from a hollow buckeye tree. They went to Edwardsville to mill and had to pay $1 per bushel for corn, haul it 100 miles at night, on account of the flies being so bad, for at daylight they had to build a fire near the horses and keep the flies off until night. He spoke of the customs of the girls, the "gals " going barefooted until within sight of the church and then putting on their shoes and stockings. They made their calculations to have the ague, as they did to have winter. This was caused by hunting their horses in the late wet grass, and drinking surface water. They thought that drinking liquor would keep the ague off, so every one attended to that. The piano that "gals " used then was the washboard and the spining-wheel. He said that he had seen three brothers in home-made pants, colored red, go to see three sisters, and that if the like was done now the girls would " sack" them immediately.

The President then asked all who were in the State the winter of the " deep snow " to arise and thirty-one responded.

Judge James Matheny, of Springfield, was next called. He was an old settler, but he wanted it distinctly understood that he was not an old man nor never expected to be. He had gray hairs to keep Colonel Latham company. He had no recollection beyond old Sangamon County. We complain of hard times, but we don't know anything about hard times. It is well for us to be told of the old times; how boys and girls, like Adam and Eve, went out into a strange land with the Bible in one hand and an ax in the other. They have hewn out for you the grandest country the sun shines on. You old pioneers do not need lofty piles of granite; the blossoming fields, the many school-houses and churches are

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the grand monuments of your achievements. He had clear recol- lections of John B. Watson, his early teacher; he made impressions on him, but they were on his back. The Yankee teachers would teach two months for $3. They did not care whether the children learned anything or not, they were after the $3; they did not tramp it through as they do now. He used to play sick and get hurt in order to stay at home. There is a great difference now, as his children liked to go to school; there is a great difference between the teachers now and then. He spoke of the ancient wed- ding, when John and Susan had made it up and knew the circuit- rider would be around; had the calico dress and the blue jeans suit ready; the affair was very quiet; after the ceremony, they walked hand in hand out of the gate, through the woods, across the old bridge, up the hill to the little log cabin John had built. He spoke in feeling terms of the ancient pair who had gone arm in arın for fifty years up the steps of life, the bonds uniting their two lives being stronger by far than when first given. They have laid the foundation of the temple of human happiness in which you re- side. His father has been a Methodist minister, and he believed he had blacked 1,000 pairs of boots, and he thought the one who gave a picayune was the best preacher. He related a short inci- dent in which a little girl said, on being asked if she lived in such a gloomy place, "I make my own sunshine. " If we would all make our own sunshine and scatter its bright rays, we would be a much happier people. Just so long as you are true to yourselves, true to your country, and true to your God, this country will be safe, and the dear old flag will be to the old world what the pillar of fire was to the Israelites.

The President gave some incidents in his own early life, and stated that it was perhaps time to close. It was decided to hold the next year's meeting in Lincoln in one of the parks or groves. Messrs. Clark, Fisk, Larison and Tuttle were appointed a commit- tee to fix upon the time and place, and give the proper notice. President Clark and Vice-President Latham were re-elected. Frank Fisk was elected Secretary. Mr. Fisk displayed some relics exhibited by R. H. Spader, consisting of petrified wood from Macoupin County; three hoes dug up on the Kickapoo in 1874 at the depth of fourteen feet below the surface in an old Indian bury- ing ground; three tomahawks, one found on Sugar Creek, one on Salt Creek, and the third in McLean County. They reminded one of former days when the dusky hunter pursued the deer and wolf.

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FIFTH REUNION.

The gathering of Wednesday, Sept. 5, 1877, was only hindered by threatening weather from being a grand success. The idea of Latham's Grove was abandoned, but some of those who came ate their dinners under the trees in court square. For fear of rain, the meeting was held at Gillett's Hall. The meeting was called to order at half past one o'clock by D. W. Clark, who said that since the previous meeting many of the old settlers had passed from this world, among them Mr. Randolph, Thomas Lushbaugh, Mrs. Capps and many others; that they missed Mr. Randolph more on account of his readiness to speak on these occasions; that he now wished the old settlers to come forward and all speak.

J. M. Edwards, of Lincoln, was the first to respond. He moved to Springfield in 1829, when that town consisted of about 100 log houses. He came to Lake Fork in 1829, and bought land of Mr. Buckles. He lived there a number of years. Mr. Edwards spoke of the struggles of the pioneers, of grating corn for meal and of traveling long distances to mill.

Wm. M. Allen said he had been in the county thirty-eight years, and told some laughable stories of pioneer life. The first mill on Salt Creek had no roof over it; they bolted the flour by hand, and when the miller turned on the water he ran for fear the mill would fall. The Colonel then traced the successive stages of improve- ment through which the State had passed to her present greatness.

Joshua Houser said he came to the State in 1835. It was very thinly settled. He entered forty acres of land five miles south of Wolf Grove. He narrated stories of wolf hunting in early times. He also told of sickness and other privations attending life as an early settler. He was no great hunter, as some of the others were, but could fish successfully then and now.

Willia:n B. Bock came to the county in 1839 and entered land a mile from timber. The neighbors laughed at him, thinking the country would never be settled so far from timber.

The President said he came to Sangamon County, Sept. 30, 1830; walked all the way from Miami Co., Ohio, to Sangamon County, making the distance in twelve and a half days; came to Logan County in 1841. In the winter of the deep snow the house-tops were covered with prairie chickens. The snow was eighteen inches deep, and its long continuance killed prairie chickens by thousands. When it passed off in the spring Hill's Mill on Sugar Creek was

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eight feet under water. He was at Mt. Pulaski Hill when there was no house there.

John Critz came to Rocky Ford, where Mr. Smith now lived, in 1827. His father went away and he built a pottery. Mr. Critz told about the deep snow. At that time the prairies could not have been given to him. He had worked in this State for $7 a month and never got more.

Mrs. Roll was an early settler of Indiana. When she first saw this State the prairies were burned black. All had log cabins then with mud chimneys. She settled fifteen or twenty miles from any store. They went to Chicago for salt. She picked brush and did general work on the farm. Mrs. Roll's remarks drew out much applause. Colonel R. B. Latham was called for from all parts of the house. He was happy to be present, and took great interest in the meeting. He had just been in Colorado for a few days, where he lived the life of a pioneer by sleeping out of doors for two weeks. His father came to Elkhart in 1819; he came with his father. Twenty years after he came there was not a lady in the county who would have known how to bake bread in a stove. Was glad to see the desire for education spreading among the peo- ple. He wished to see these meetings continue.

Rev. J. R. Lowrance had not been before the people as an old settler. He came to the State in 1830, and had lived here nearly all the time since. There were no railroads when he came. He camped at the foot of the hill below Postville when there were no houses in the town. He described the old-fashioned process of pounding corn in a hopper; told of a young man who saw a young lady taking a grist of corn to mill, and he was so well pleased with her conduct that he married her. The lady was the mother of one of our merchants. He enumerated what were con- sidered accomplishments of the two sexes in those early times.

E. D. Carr was elected President, and all the other officers were re-elected.

SIXTH REUNION.

The sixth meeting was held at the court-house at Lincoln, on Thursday, Sept. 12, 1878. President D. W. Clark called the old settlers to order, and before dinner Jacob Judy and M. M. Albright made short addresses giving their experience as pioneers. The former had been in the State over fifty years, and the latter forty- nine. After dinner the audience re-assembled. The President exhibited a Bible printed in 1798 and an ancient but well-preserved

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fleam (lance for bleeding horses) which had been picked up on one of the battle-fields of the Revolution, in 1776, by James St. Clair, grandfather of Mrs. James Musick. St. Clair had served six years in the patriot army, and had taken part in the battles of Lexing- ton, Bunker Hill, Monmouth, the Brandywine, the capture of Burgoyne and others. He died at Albion, N. Y., in 1836.

Sylvester Strong, of Atlanta, said his grandfather was a Revo- lutionary soldier under Ethan Allen, and had twice been taken prisoner by the Indians, making his escape from them with diffi- culty. Mr. Strong first came to Illinois in 1834, by way of Cairo; came north to Pinckneyville with a companion, and the two there bought ponies and journeyed on to this vicinity. Near the present site of Lincoln they saw two wolves and a herd of fifteen deer. In the fall of 1836 he entered the land comprising his present farm, a mile south of Atlanta.

Rev. J. H. Bates, of Lincoln, said he came to near Jacksonville, in the spring of 1830. Jacksonville was then a little town with but one brick house, and the adjacent country was very sparsely inhabited. The following winter was that of the deep snow. Com- ing, as they had done, from a Southern State, they thought this a rough introduction to Illinois. That winter they had great diffi- culty in getting meal. With others he once made a trip with a sled and three or four yoke of oxen to Exeter Mills, fifteen miles away. The drifts were so deep they went over at least one fence without knowing its exact location. The next summer a wolf was chased through Jacksonville. In August, 1830, the Bradshaws and himself passed within a half mile or so of the present site of Lincoln on their way to a point about forty miles this side of Chicago. He wished his hearers to imagine the changes that might follow in the next fifty years. What reason had we to sup- pose that the improvement of the next fifty years would be less than that of the past fifty ?

William M. Buckles said he was born in 1814 in this State. He could, if he chose, tell many stories of pioneer life. He could truthfully say that he saw more real enjoyment in those early days than now. He thought the march of improvement had about reached its limits, and that in religious matters we were not so far advanced as we were twenty-five years ago. In response to an in- vitation to tell some of his experience, he related how he acquired the name of "Raccoon Billy." He had gone with a brother-in-law to hunt 'coons. They treed one, and it became his duty to cut a

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hole in the tree at a point about six feet from the ground. Stand- ing on a fallen tree, he peered into the hole made by his ax and finally worked his head into the opening. Just at this moment his feet slipped off the log and he hung by his neck, to the vast entertainment of his brother-in-law who was so convulsed by laugh- ter as to be incapable of helping him. While he was struggling to catch a foot-hold he saw the eyes of the 'coon which seemed to emit a green light in the darkness of the hollow tree. Ultimately he caught his toes on the log and after a painful effort extricated himself from his awkward position.

The officers chosen for the following year were: President, Jacob Judy; Vice-President, C. C. Ewing; Secretary, Captain Frank Fisk; Assistant Secretary, W. P. Randolph; Committee on Arrangements, John Hepperly, E. G. Lawrence and James M. Larison.

The following communication, written by Charles S. Capps, of Mt. Pulaski, and giving interesting glimpses of the early history of that thriving town, was read by Captain Fisk:

" Jabez Capps was born in London, England, eighty-two years ago last Monday, and came to America in 1817. In the fall of 1818 he and his brother Ebenezer walked from Louisville, Kentucky, to St. Louis, where they remained during the winter, and in the spring of 1819 they walked to Sangamon County. Jabez Capps taught the first school ever taught in that county, on the south fork of Sangamon River, in 1820; he also taught the first school in Springfield, in the old log court-house. He was one of the first settlers of Springfield, then called Calhoun.

"I was born in Springfield in January, 1830, and have (with the exception of one summer spent in Europe) passed my whole life in Central Illinois. I have had good opportunities of know- ing something of pioneer life; but being entirely unaccustomed to public speaking, I think I can express myself better and make my remarks more interesting by making a few notes from memory. My earliest recollections are of my father's, Jabez Capps, pioneer store at Springfield, where he used to dispense goods, both wetand dry (as was the custom of the times), to the early settlers and to the Indians in exchange for peltries, etc.

"In the year 1836 he removed with his family to Mt. Pulaski, where he was the first and, in fact, for several months, the only settler. He had built a log cabin on the site of the present post- office building, and put in a small stock of goods; the cabin, when

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I first saw it, was not chinked and daubed (i. e. the cracks between the logs were open), and as he lacked clapboards enough to cover the roof, there was a space about a yard square left open. My uncle, John Stafford, and I were left in charge of the store. Prairie grass was cut in front of the store and placed in a heap on the floor, and this with some blankets constituted our bed. There came up a storm one night which wet us thoroughly. Our cooking, until mother came, was done in a sand hole over which some lumber was put to season; this sand hole had formerly been a wolf den. We toasted our bacon by putting it on the end of a sharp stick and holding it over the fire.

"Our nearest neighbor lived two and a half miles north on Salt Creek. My father had a sugar hogshead which he used as a smoke- house. One night a pack of wolves, smelling the meat, gathered around the smoke-house and howled for several hours. A family of skunks took up their quarters under the house and were quite tame; they were finally trapped and killed, though I do not think they deserved their fate, as they seemed quite harmless.

"I remember seeing mother sweeping the floor one day; she stooped hastily to pick up what she thought was a calico apron, but which, on closer inspection, proved to be a large rattlesnake coiled. She dispatched it speedily with the broom handle.

"A cabin was afterward erected on the side of the square by Jerry Birks, in which we lived for a short time. One night when father was away from home, prairie fire ran through the town and set fire to our cabin. Mother had considerable difficulty in saving the city, there being no fire company organized, and no water nearer than the spring, a quarter of a mile away. The fire con- sumed our haystack, which was on a platform on forks six or seven feet high.

"People lived in a very primitive manner in those times. The clothing was mostly home-spun and home-made; instead of coats we had ' hunting shirts and warmuses,' as they were called, a kind of loose blouse made of home-made jeans or linsey. Many of the farmers made their own shoes, and all did their own cobbling. The women and children were clothed mostly in home-made linsey and flannel; a few had calico dresses made as narrow as the *pull backs' of the present day, for in those times six yards was all that was required for a lady's dress. Sunbonnets made of calico and pasteboard were the prevailing head-dress. Shoes were rarely used in summer except to wear to meeting or a visiting.

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"The cooking was done in a fireplace, there being no such thing as stoves in use then. An iron crane set in the side of the chim- ney and provided with hooks for suspending kettles, etc., was made so as to swing out over the hearth and back over the fire. Bread, cakes and pies were baked in iron ovens with legs to give room for coals beneath, and a lid with a rim to hold coals on top; this with a skillet for frying meat, a dinner-pot and tea-kettle con- stituted the outfit of our mothers for cooking.

"Game was plenty and cheap. We used to pay 25 cents per dozen for quails, 75 cents per dozen for prairie chickens, and 50 cents to $1 for a saddle of venison-the hind half of a deer. I boarded with a family one term of school whose daily bill of fare was corn dodgers without butter, fat bacon fried in grease, and rye coffee minus the sugar, but we had good appetites and en- joyed it.

"By the way, I will try to describe our school-house; it was called ' Brush College;' our worthy chairman will recollect it well. It was a most primitive structure, not a particle of iron or glass or sawed lumber used in its construction; it was built of logs with the cracks daubed with mud; the roof was of clapboards kept in place by weight poles, which were pinned fast to the wall; the door was of clapboards and had wooden hinges and a wooden lock, with a buckskin latch-string hanging out. Logs had been left out on each side for windows. These openings were dressed smooth with the ax, and perpendicular pieces of wood set in at intervals of ten or twelve inches for sash. On these was pasted paper which was greased to make it more transparent. The desks were of hewed puncheons set slanting on pins driven in the wall under the win- dows; the seats were made of puncheons or slabs hewed out with the ax, with wooden pins for legs. We sat with our backs to the teacher, so as to face the light and the desks. The floor was of puncheons; the chimney was made of sticks and mud, the jambs reaching about half way to the dirt hearth inside; the hearth was large enough to hold a quarter of a cord of wood. In cold weather a large fire was kept up, built against a huge back-log, to put which in place required the united strength of the master and several of the larger boys. Mr. Hackney, father of Jacob Hackney, was our first teacher. I recollect as schoolmates the Downing, Patterson, Parks, Fletcher, Morrow, Allen, Jackson, Harry and Laughery boys and girls."

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History of Logan County, Illinois, Part 21

Author: Inter-State Publishing Co. Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Number of Pages: 989

Author: Inter-State Publishing Co.
Publication date: 1886
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 989