USA > Illinois > Macoupin County > History of Macoupin County, Illinois : biographical and pictorial, Volume I > Part 12
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G. M. McGinnis settled in Bird township in 1829, also James Howard, who taught school that year in a log house in North Palmyra.
Samuel Harris, the father of twenty-six children, was also a settler here in 1829, as were also Norris Hayes, a farmer; Jairus Coddle, a farmer of North Carolina; James McFarland, a farmer of Tennessee; Aaron Tilley, brother of Bennett Tilley; and William Barrett, who sold goods in the first store in the county in 1829.
James Bristow, a Virginian, came to Macoupin county from Tennessee in 1829, and settled on land which afterward was included in Scottville township. He brought with him his wife and four children. After purchasing the land from the government, he erected a log cabin, in which no nails were used and the door was hung on wooden hinges. It also had a wooden latch with the traditional latch string which hung outside in those early days. The cabin was furnished with the traditional puncheon floor.
STATE STREET, PALMYRA
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MAINE STREET, PALMYRA
LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
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HISTORY OF MACOUPIN COUNTY
Robert Ross removed from Tennessee to Illinois in 1829, and for a while lived in Morgan county. He came to Macoupin county shortly after and bought a "squatter's" claim to a tract of land in South Palmyra township.
John Gray, Thomas and Daniel Marfoot and Mr. and Mrs. Sherrill came to the county in 1829.
Ezekiel Good, who was said to have had enough character to mold a whole community, moved to Macoupin county from Greene county in the. '20s and built a log house just east of the old plat of Carlinville. He acquired considerable property and died a comparatively young man. A number of representatives of the family are still living in the county.
John and Cynthia (Seymour) Love emigrated from Alabama to Illinois in early days. They first located in Madison county, remaining there but a few months, when they came to Macoupin county as early as before the '20s but at just what date cannot be determined. They made their home in what is now South Palmyra township but about the year 1828 removed to Morgan county. These worthy pioneers were parents of Samuel Love, who was born in South l'almyra township in the year 1822 and is given the distinction of being the first white child born in Macoupin county.
James and Rhoda (Regan), Husky, natives of Tennessee, were among the early settlers of Bird township, where they lived until their death. They were parents of thirteen children, of whom Mrs. Mary A. Easley was one. This lady became the wife of Isaac N. Edwards in Bird township, October 4, 1838. Mr. Edwards died in December, 1860, and in 1866 his widow married George W. Easley, who passed away in 1872.
In 1830, among others, came James Simmons, Arter Taylor, Mrs. Daniel Huddleston, Thomas Kinder, Abraham S. Walker and family, among whom was Hon. C. A. Walker; James B. Pinkard, Michael Brown, William Palmer, Brice Robertson, Susan Adams, Benjamin Adams, Mrs. Permelia Baird, David Holmes and wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, Jarrett Dugger, J. A. Pepperdine, John Mc- Collum and parents, Giles M. Adams and parents, John Andrews, E. B. Clark, David Gimlin, a Baptist minister ; and many others.
Newton Berry settled in the county in 1831 and was one of the first teachers. Among other settlers this year may be mentioned D. B. Sawyer, J. L. Plain, William McKinney, James B. Gray, Stith M. Otwell, a minister of the Metho- dist Episcopal church, John Gelder, Mrs. Elizabeth Edwards, Mrs. Job Sperry, William Phillips, John, Josiah, Jesse, Henry and C. C. Rhoads, Peter B. Karnes, Samuel Howard, John Kinder, the Huddlestons, Stephen Sawyer, Amos Snock, Rev. Levi Mitchell, a Baptist clergyman, the Weatherfords and Gimlins.
Dr. Gideon Blackburn, the founder of Blackburn University, arrived in the county in 1832 ; also L. P. Stratton, William H. Carson, Richard Skaggs, Thomas Leach, Colonel J. R .. Miles, William Jolly, Mrs. Elizabeth Duckles, F. M. Adams, J. D. Wagner, Daniel Huddleston, Hampton W. Wall, William Hilyard.
John Morris, G. B. Carson, William Chism, James M. and Mrs. W. H. Car- son, Thomas E. Carson, Captain James P. Pearson, who married Rebecca Gwin, a settler with her father's family in 1831; W. H. Rhoads, Mrs. Nancy Challa- combe, Thomas Leach, James Raffurty and the Bostons, all came in 1832. Vol. 1-7
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Elsewhere in this volume mention is made of the arrival of many of Macoupin county's pioneers who may be considered the first settlers. This chapter is de- voted to many who took up their residence in the county in the '30s.
Absalom Kent, a native of Pennsylvania and a pioneer of Ohio, came to Illi- nois about the year 1830 and settling in Macoupin county, bought land west of Carlinville. He was successful in the conduct of his affairs, eventually buying large tracts of land in different parts of the county. Absalom was the grand- father of Perrin Kent, one of the early settlers of Macoupin county, who came with his parents in 1840, settling in Virden township.
William C. Anderson was a son of William D. and Elizabeth (Hancock) An- derson, and was born in Carlinville, August 26, 1830. He eventually settled on section 9, Shaw's Point township.
Thomas Wood, of Virginia, was a settler in Macoupin county as early as 1830. He settled in Bunker Hill township. He was one of the first of three school trustees of this township and was one of the organizers of the division of the county.
Joseph England moved from Virginia to Tennessee and from the latter state to Illinois in 1830, stopping in Macoupin county for a time. With him was his wife and ten children. Mr. English bought a squatter's claim from the govern- ment in the vicinity of what is now known as North Otter township.
Samuel Bruce, a native of the Emerald isle, sailed from Belfast with his wife and several children, in 1830. Landing in New York, they came overland by team to Macoupin county, settling in Staunton township, near the village of that name, which then consisted of one store and a few houses.
Joseph Andrews was a soldier of the war of 1812, and married Susan Ellis. When their son John was in his third year the family moved to Todd county, Kentucky, and lived there until 1830, when they emigrated to Illinois, settling on the northeast corner of section 6, Brighton township. Here Joseph Andrews en- tered nine hundred and sixty acres of land, a part of it in Jersey county. John Andrews, in 1837, married Martha A. Miles, a daughter of Alexander Miles.
William T. and Clementina Duncan were both natives of Kentucky. Follow- ing the year of their marriage, in 1830, they came to Macoupin county and set- tled in Palmyra township. He had served as a soldier in the Black Hawk war. His son, James S. Duncan, was one of the early coroners of the county. William T. Duncan died in 1861 and his wife survived him a number of years.
Joseph and Abigail Holmes, natives of Virginia, he a soldier of the war of 1812, emigrated to Indiana in 1828 and thence to Illinois in 1830, when he settled in Carlinville. That year he built a cabin on the ground now occupied by the county jail. Carlinville then contained five families. He died in Indiana in 1834. His wife's death occurred in 1837. One of the sons, David Holmes, settled in Western Mound township in 1837 and there married Elizabeth Hubbard, daugh- ter of Joel Hubbard, one of the early settlers of Macoupin county.
Elijah and Jane (Moore) Mitchell came to this county in the spring of 1831, settling in Brushy Mound township. He entered eighty acres of government land on section 24, on which was a cabin that had been abandoned by a squatter. This cabin he shortly afterward tore down and built another, which was eventually superseded by a frame house, where the pioneer lived until August 17, 1877,
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when his death occurred. Elijah Mitchell was twice married and was the father of twenty-one children, eighteen of whom were reared. Among them were Mil- lie, Levi, Martha A., Elizabeth, Travis, Lucy and Sally (twins), Jane, William T., Phoebe and Elijah. William T. was born in Brushy Mound township, August 25, 1838. Travis M. Mitchell was born in Macoupin county, February 13, 1833, in his father's log cabin on section 24, in Brushy Mound township.
David Plain was born in Frederick county, Maryland, and became a settler of Macoupin county in the spring of 1831, taking up his residence in Shaw's Point township, where he at once selected a good tract of land. He cut poles and put the ends in the ground, letting the tops come together and covered them with boards rived by hand and thus made a temporary shelter, which with his family he occupied while he erected a hewed log house. He devoted his time principally to farming and lived in Shaw's Point township until his death in 1873. He left a family of ten children.
Robert and Martha ( Proffitt) Scott arrived in Macoupin county from Indiana in 1831. Their daughter Mary married Thomas Anderson in Indiana and came with her husband and child, William Anderson, to Macoupin county in 1834, set- tling in what is now Honey Point township, where both died in middle life, Mrs. Anderson in 1838 and her husband in 1843.
Samuel Hays was a settler in Macoupin county as early as 1831, locating in South Otter township after his marriage to Rebecca Bond. In 1848 he moved to North Otter township, where his wife died in 1887.
Robert and Eliza W. Moore, natives of Kentucky, settled in Carlinville town- ship in 1831. They were the parents of seven children, of whom Thomas G., the sixth in order of birth, was born in Carlinville township in 1838.
Henry Rhoads came to Macoupin county from Grayson county, Kentucky, in 1831 and settled in Chesterfield township. His wife died in 1835 and he fol- lowed her in 1854.
John Gelder, with his family, emigrated to America from England in 1831, and settled on a farm in Chesterfield township. He built a log cabin, which at the time of its construction was the largest building of its kind in the county, with the exception of the court house. He died in 1851 and his wife Elizabeth died in 1847. Mr. Gelder assisted in organizing the Episcopal church at Chesterfield and was one of its wardens until he died. Captain S. Gelder was a son and one of the pioneers of the county.
Daniel B. Sawyer emigrated to Illinois from North Carolina in 1831 and came directly to Dorchester township, this county, where he assisted his brother-in-law in building a log cabin. He married Minerva Scroggins in 1834.
John M. Hilyard, a native of Cable county, Virginia, born January 30, 1798, was one of the pioneer settlers of Macoupin county, locating in Hilyard township in 1831. where he entered eighty acres of land on section 22. His father had moved to Gillespie township three or four years previously. When the Hilyards settled in township 8, range 8, there were only two other families living in the township, John M. Hilyard, his father-in-law, James P. Gray and Erred Maxwell.
John R. Cundall was a native of Leeds, England, as was also his wife. He came to America in 1832, settling in Chesterfield township, where he engaged in farming.
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HISTORY OF MACOUPIN COUNTY
Alexander Miles was a native of North Carolina. He was married in Ten- nessee to Mary Irvin, who was a native of Georgia, and with his wife and family settled in Macoupin county in 1832, becoming pioneers of Brighton township, where they lived and died. They were the parents of Colonel J. R. Miles; who was born in Kentucky in 1820 and came to this county with his parents. Col- onel Miles built the first mill in the section of the county where he lived, and in October, 1867, founded the town of Miles Station, and it was largely through his influence that the Chicago & Alton railroad was built through the place. He became a man of large means and as a soldier deserved great credit. At the beginning of the Civil war he formed a company, which on the 9th of August, 1861, was organized as Company F of the Twenty-seventh Illinois Infantry, which saw much service under his captaincy. In 1862 he was promoted to the rank of colonel and participated in many important battles. Colonel Miles mar- ried Eliza A. Stratton, a native of Kentucky.
Samuel B. Clark, a native of Virginia, accompanied by his wife and eight children, came to Illinois in 1828. They first located near Edwardsville, where they resided until 1832. That year they moved to a farm one and a half miles west of Brighton, which Mr. Clark rented for one year. He then bought a tract of wild land in the same locality and built a hewed log cabin, splitting shakes for the roof. In 1835 he sold that and removed to a farm near Carlinville, on which he lived one year, and in 1836 settled in Brushy Mound township. He lived in this township until his death, which occurred in 1840. His wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Floyd, survived him but one year.
James Wheeler was a Kentuckian, who married Catherine Harland, also a Kentuckian. In the fall of 1832, accompanied by his wife, three children and five of his wife's brothers and sisters, Mr. Wheeler journeyed with teams to Illinois and located in Macoupin county, settling on land which his father-in- law had purchased for him in Gillespie township. He was one of the pioneers of this locality. Where the town of Bunker Hill now stands there was but one building and that was a log cabin. Deer, wolves, wild turkeys and sand hill cranes were plentiful. The family moved into a log house that stood on the place. Mr. Wheeler bought government land near his home and was a resident of Gil- lespie township until his death.
Selick B. Sawyer was born in Carroll county, North Carolina, in 1821. He came with his parents, Valentine and Polly (Spence) Sawyer, to Macoupin county in 1832. A location was made by the family in the southern part of the county at what is now West Prairie, near Williams creek.
Daniel Huddleston, a native of Ohio, settled in Gillespie township in 1832: His death occurred in 1865. He built a home on section 3. His wife was Rachel Huddleston, a daughter of William and Juda Huddleston, natives of Virginia and Kentucky, respectively. William and Juda Huddleston settled on govern- ment land in Gillespie township in 1830.
Samuel Wood came to Macoupin county with a double yoke of oxen and was thirty-four days upon the road, moving from Kentucky to Bunker Hill. He entered a farm of three hundred and twenty acres in Bunker Hill township in 1832, living there for over a half century.
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HISTORY OF MACOUPIN COUNTY
James E. Wood died in 1891. He arrived in Bunker Hill township, June 16, 1832, and became one of its most prosperous residents.
David B. Boston was a Virginian by birth. He removed from Indiana in 1832 to Macoupin county, settling on section II, Nilwood township, where he entered eighty acres of land. His death occurred in 1853. In his family were five boys and five girls, of whom David B. was the fourth son.
Jasper Rice came to Macoupin county in 1832, settling in North Palmyra township. In 1833 he married Mary, daughter of Stephen Jones, who was a settler in Palmyra township as early as 1831.
David Henderson came from the Old Dominion in the fall of 1832 and set- tled on section 30, Barr township. His uncle, John Henderson, settled on sec- tion 20 at the same time. These were the first two settlements made in the south- west part of Barr township. J. W. Henderson, a son, was two years old at the time the family arrived here.
Thomas Jones emigrated to this country with his wife and family from Eng- land, in 1831, and settled in Dutchess county, New York, where they resided until the spring of 1833. That year found them in Brighton, where eventually a farm of one hundred and twenty acres of government land was secured and de- veloped. He became prosperous and raised a large family of children.
Ferdinand Taggart was born April 6, 1812, in Shelby county, Kentucky. At the age of eighteen he removed to Carrollton, Greene county, and there remained three years, learning the trade of brick making. He then came to Carlinville and opened a brickyard for the gentleman under whom he had learned his trade. This was in 1833, when Carlinville had a population of 200 and the buildings were mostly of logs, with mud and stick chimneys. There was not a brick build- ing in the town and but one brick chimney. In 1835 he opened a brickyard for himself. He became a contractor and one of his first contracts was for the brick work on the court house, which was built in 1837. Mr. Taggart eventually en- gaged in merchandising in company with A. S. Walker and William Phelps. This firm also carried on a branch store at Taylorville. The last wife of Mr. Taggart was a sister of Hon. Charles A. Walker of Carlinville.
John G. Chiles, a native of Virginia, married Elizabeth F. Wills, of the same state. The family removed to Kentucky, whence they came to Macoupin county in 1833. settling on the line between North and South Palmyra. In 1845 they took up their residence in Bird township.
L. P. Stratton was born in New Hampshire in 1808 and learned the trade of a carpenter. In 1833 he came to Brown's prairie and entered forty acres of land a mile west of Brighton.
William Jones came to Macoupin county in 1833. He was a native of Wales and his birth occurred in 1817. He finally purchased one hundred and sixty acres of land in Brighton township.
Joshua Peek was a native of Virginia, who removed to Kentucky and there married Eliza Scott, a native of Ireland. In 1833 the Peeks settled in Palmyra township and there entered one hundred and sixty acres of land. Mr. Peek died in 1851 and his wife in 1847.
Alexander McKim Dubois was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1812, and came to Carlinville on the 4th day of July, 1834. That year he opened a general
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store on the east side of the public square. He sold the store in 1836 and the following year was elected justice of the peace. In 1841 he was appointed clerk of the circuit court and in 1848 at the first election he became his own successor. Judge David Davis appointed him trustee of Blackburn College in 1855 and at the meeting of the board following he was made treasurer. In 1866 he was ap- pointed by the county court one of the commissioners for the building of the Macoupin county court house and was made financial agent of the county for the sale of its bonds.
Solomon Steidley and wife, Rachel (Barr) Steidley, came from Frederick county, Virginia, to Macoupin county, in 1834, and settled in Barr township, where they lived until their death. Mr. Steidley passed away in 1848 and his wife followed him eight years later. Frederic Steidley, a son, came with his parents in 1834, at which time there were nine children in the family.
Colonel James Anderson, a Virginian, first came to Macoupin county from Kentucky, in June, 1834, when he entered a tract of land on section II, Carlin- ville township. He then went back to Kentucky for his family. On the 12th of the following October with his wife and six children he returned, bringing along a pair of oxen and wagon, two horses and a carriage. During the winter of that year he lived in a rented log house and in the meantime built a log cabin on his own land, riving boards for the roof and splitting puncheons for the floor. In the spring of 1835 the new home was occupied and the land opened ยท for cultivation. He became an extensive trader in live stock, and prospered. His death occurred in 1851 from an attack of cholera. Thirteen days thereafter his wife followed him, from the same disease. To Colonel Anderson and his wife were born seven children, Crittenden, H. C., Uriah C., Erasmus S., Augustus E., Malcolm M., Henry C. and Mary A. Crittenden. H. C. Anderson was the founder of the C. H. C. Anderson banking house and died one of the wealthiest men of the county.
Thomas Arnett was born in North Carolina in 1804 and became a pioneer of Tennessee. He removed from the latter state in 1829 to Illinois, settling in Morgan county, from which locality he came to Macoupin county in 1834, set- tling in what is now Bird township. On the farm that he developed he spent his remaining days. His death occurred in 1876.
Benjamin Wheeler and wife came from Ohio in the fall of 1834 and settled in Bird township. His son, John Wheeler, was a member of the party and even- tually became one of the prosperous and prominent citizens of Macoupin county, at one time possessing over a thousand acres of land.
Dudley Saunders came from Kentucky in 1834 on horseback and settled in Honey Point township, where he bought a tract of land on which was a log cabin. This farm he sold at an advance of two hundred dollars and bought another tract in Brushy Mound township, constituting one hundred acres. After two years he sold this land and bought on section 2, Honey Point township. In 1838 he was married to Elizabeth Huddleston, of Kentucky, who died in 1876. By this union there were ten children.
Peter Wagner, a native of Virginia, arrived in this county in 1834, when his son, Jacob D., was twenty years of age. With his wife and other children he
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HISTORY OF MACOUPIN COUNTY
settled on one hundred and sixty acres of land, which was situated not far from Prairie View. Here he and his wife passed their remaining days.
Robert R. Tompkins, whose life ended in 1871, came to Macoupin county from Virginia in 1834, when a young man.
Amos Avery Hilyard, a pioneer of the county, died in 1878. He was a native of New Hampshire. He came west in 1832 and in 1834 purchased a farm on sec- tion 17 of the present Brighton township, on which he resided until his death.
Edmund Lee Woodrough, a native of Virginia, settled in Macoupin county near where the town of Gillespie now stands, in 1834. In 1858 he was killed by the kick of a horse.
Thomas H. Stratton, whose birth place was in Tennessee, came from his na- tive state to Illinois in 1834, settling in Shipman township. He worked on a farm for some time and then bought land, which he cultivated with success.
Thomas Dews, a native of Yorkshire, England, emigrated to America in 1829. In 1834 he made a trip to Illinois and in that year settled in Macoupin county upon eighty acres of land which he entered from the government in Western Mound township, taking up his permanent residence thereon in 1837. That year he was married to Sylvia Morris of this county and raised a family of six children.
Samuel V. Rhoads was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, in 1791. He was a soldier of the war of 1812 and one of the Kentucky volunteers under General Harrison, which took part in the battle of the Thames, when Tecumseh, the In- dian chief, was killed. In 1834 he removed from Grayson county, Kentucky, and settled in Chesterfield township, about a mile from Rhoads Point, now known as Medora. About this time he began preaching and was instrumental in organiz- ing several United Baptist churches in this part of Illinois, most of the churches of that denomination in Macoupin county having in fact been founded by him and his brother, the Rev. Jacob Rhoads. He died in 1877. Charles Rhoads, a son, married Nancy Cawood, whose father, Joshua B. Cawood, settled in North Palmyra township in 1838. He moved to Shipman township, south of Medora, and in 1845 to Hilyard township, where his death occurred the same fall.
Thomas M. Metcalf was a Kentuckian, his birth occurring on the 10th of November, 1828. He came to Macoupin county with his father, William Met- calf, Jr., in the spring of 1835, settling in Western Mound township. There his father engaged in cultivating the soil until 1858, when he removed to Girard town- ship. Later, in 1874, he took up his residence on section I in South Otter town- ship. Thomas M. Metcalf was elected county treasurer in 1869 and reelected in 1873.
James A. McClure, a native of Virginia, came to Macoupin county from Kentucky in 1835 and settled on section 36 in Carlinville township, where he en- gaged in farming until 1844, when he was appointed to a position in the land de- partment at Washington by President James K. Polk. He was reappointed by President Taylor and died in 1849, while in office.
Daniel Blodget, a native of New Hampshire, settled in Brighton township in 1835, becoming one of its most successful merchants. He here married Ellen Jones, a native of England, whose parents were early settlers of Brighton town- ship. After her death, Mr. Blodget married Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. Simon
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Peter, who located in Madison county in 1829 and became a circuit rider. Mr. Blodget died November 27, 1889.
Joel York removed from Tennessee with his family to Morgan county in 1828 and from there to Macoupin county in 1835, at which time he entered land near Carlinville. He died in 1847 upon a farm a mile farther east. His wife died two months later.
Haskins Trabue, accompanied by his wife and seven children, came to Macou- pin county from Kentucky in 1835, settling in what is now Brushy Mound town- ship, where he entered a tract of government land. Here he erected a small log house. In 1837 Mr. Trabue built a carding mill, the first concern of the kind in the county. He also farmed. His death occurred in 1860, and his wife, Olympia (Wilson) Trabue, also died the same year.
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