USA > Illinois > Macoupin County > History of Macoupin County, Illinois : biographical and pictorial, Volume I > Part 42
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freth Johnson came from New Jersey. When I was a boy one of the popular songs of the day ran something like this:
"Come from every station, Come from every way, Come along, come along, And make no delay. Come along, come along, And don't you be alarm' For Uncle Sam is rich enough To give us all a farm."
. And so the people acting along the lines suggested in the song literally came from every nation and every way. In those days, more so than now, the settler from Jersey was a marked man wherever he went. The flavor of the sea marsh, called by them salt meadows, was always present with them and the tales they told of big mosquitoes and tall "sparrow grass" (asparagus) made them marked people. And old Mr. Johnson was no exception to the rule. He seems to have come into the country in an early day, for my father mentions him as residing on "Jersey street" as far back as 1843. As long as I can remember, he lived in the eastern end of the double house which stood up in the field directly west of the old Harmony schoolhouse. Mr. Johnson was an inveterate Mason and always wore a "plug" hat when he went to lodge.
LAWRENCE JOHNSON.
Among the most active of the men of the neighborhood in those early days, Lawrence Johnson stands in the fore front. His wife was Amanda Pruitt, a member of that well known pioneer family, most of whom lived farther west. During the war Lawrence and his good wife were stanch Unionists and any one who wore the blue found a hearty welcome at their home. I well remember the occasion of Leonard Ketchum's and Jane Hayward's marriage. A number of the boys of Company F, Twelfth Illinois Cavalry were home on furlough just at that time. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson embraced the occasion of the wedding to give the couple an "infare" and at the same time give the other soldier boys a dinner. Those who were present on this occasion were the bride and groom; Daniel, David and Edward Ketchum, Arthur and Mary Hartwell, Samuel Gar- rett, Cyrus Hayward, Jr., Charles Hebron, Henry George, Wallace Clark, Sarah Bister, Rebecca Ketchum, Daniel Palmer and family, William Armstrong, of Alton, Mrs. Thomas Ruyle, William and James Chism, Polly Ann Barnard, Elfreth and Mrs. Johnson, Thomas Lambert and wife, Smith Pruitt and Ly- man L. Palmer. To me, a soldier was next to divine, and as Wallace Clark dis- played his old gray campaign hat, with a real rebel bullet hole through it, it seemed to me that he was next to General Grant himself. And then Dave Ketchum, the genuine hero of the neighborhood, who had stood "on the heights of Shiloh" and had a real rebel bullet hole through his arm! I recall that Henry George related how the fellows in the very next tent to his at the time
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the rebels captured Harper's Ferry were blown to atoms by a shell which dropped between them. Then he told how he had put his saddle on wrong end to and had ridden to safety, with one boot on and the other in his hand. And so the day went by and it was the grandest day of my life.
THE HALCYON DAYS OF YOUTH.
In the early days the road meandered northeasterly across the open prairie north of our house till it came to a lane which was between the farms of Law- rence Johnson and Robert Fitzjarrell. At the north end of this lane and a quarter of a mile east of the present home of Leonard Ketchum, on the south side of the present road from Kemper to Challacombe, was the home of the Fitzjarrells. Strange as it may seem, these are men whom I. knew in the real "halcyon days of youth," before I was four years of age. As far back as I can remember and on through my boyhood days there lived in the community Rob- ert, William and Daniel Fitzjarrell. And they were always spoken of as "Bob," "Bill" and "Dan Jerels." They had one sister, Phoebe Ketchum-Cooper. The Baptist year book is my authority for spelling the name as I have it in this article. Robert Fitzjarrell lived in a little log house and owned eighty acres, lying east of the lane. It is now the property of James Chism. After the war he sold his farm to Lawrence Johnson and moved over to Greene county. Rev. Carey Fitzjarrell, a son, is a minister of the Baptist denomination. William Fitzjarrell lived down a little lane just east of Eli Palmer's house. When Will- iam moved away I do not know, and my memory regarding Daniel is just as frail.
THE KETCHUM FAMILY.
Ira Ketchum was a son of my grandfather's sister, Rebecca, and his wife was Phoebe Fitzjarrell. Some years after the death of her husband, she mar- ried Henry Cooper, and one son, Eli, was born to this union. By her marriage with Ira Ketchum, there were nine children: Alfred, Leonard, Daniel, David, Edward, Frank, Rebecca, Charles and Ira. Alfred married a daughter of David Hartwell. Leonard enlisted in Company F, Twelfth Illinois Cavalry, and mar- ried Jane Hayward. Daniel married Irene Thurston, and during the war served in the Thirty-second Illinois Volunteer Infantry. David also enlisted in Col- onel John Logan's regiment, the Thirty-second, which was recruited largely in Macoupin county, and was wounded at the battle of Shiloh, and died soon after a furlough home and re-enlistment. Edward Ketchum entered the army, en- listing in the One Hundred and Thirty-third Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He afterward married Jennie Haynes. Of the other children there was one girl, Rebecca, who married James Chism, and raised a large family of children.
A HARD NUT TO CRACK.
Now, here is abont as hard a nut to crack as ever a biographer ran across. To tell the exact truth about John Coventry will be to do his memory an in- justice, and yet the reader cannot get an adequate conception of his erratic
SOUTH SIDE SQUARE, GIRARD
LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
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character without entering into details. But "with malice toward none and with charity for all" I shall set out on my difficult task.
Away back in the days when deer and Indians held full sway over all the Illinois prairies, a lone white man built his fire and broiled his venison, one night on the site of the now beautiful city, Jacksonville. So far as he knew, there was not another white man within a hundred miles of him. That man was John Coventry. Whither he traveled after that or how he came at last to drift into this community and settle on the land he held so long, adjoining the present town site of Kemper on the southeast, is more than I ever knew.
I cannot remember when "old Coventry" did not reside in the little dingy house, which was surrounded by acres and acres of apple trees. He must have been actuated by the same motive which governed "Johnnie Appleseed," the great orchard planting, Ohio pioneer. The Coventry orchard was certainly the most extensive, if not the earliest planted in that whole section. He was erratic. For long years he had lived alone in the wilderness, hence, he did not take kindly to the people, as the encroachment of settlement brought his neighbors closer and closer to him. That he not only hoarded his gold but buried it about his premises, was demonstrated at the time the guerrillas made their raid on him and compelled him to exhume his buried treasures for them.
In his dress and living he was not only simple and economic but often unique and original. His clothing often comprised merely grain sacks, fastened about his limbs and body with hickory withes. He was the first man in the community to use the new, popular whole-wheat floor. He antedated Dr. James Jackson in his home on the hillside at Danville, New York. He had an old coffee mill in which he ground the wheat and made biscuit out of the product. .
When the boys of Company F, Twelfth Cavalry were enlisting he liberally dug up a ten dollar gold piece for each of them, and thus he displayed a far greater spirit of patriotism than he was ever given credit for, as it must have meant much for him to part with two or three hundred dollars in gold in one day. I suspect that while he was digging in the trenches to find his buried treasure for the bushwhackers, he wished that he had given it all to the boys in blue. Eventually he moved to a little house in the east end of Summerville, where he died.
THE SILSBYS.
The Silsby family, as a whole, is associated in my mind with the John Cov- entry place. During those years when the Haywards and Silsbys lived together, Ansel Hayward kept busy at carpentry about the neighborhood and Frank Silsby conducted the farm. After the death of Ansel Hayward and his wife, the Silsbys rented the Coventry place. This was during the war. The family then consisted of "Grandma" Silsby and her two boys, Frank and Albartus. The oldest Silsby boy was Wilson but long before I can remember, he had married Jane Derr and moved out of the community. Losing his wife, Wilson afterward married Fannie Chilton. Frank married Rebecca Palmer and with her lived for some time on a farm west of Carlinville. Rebecca's death was sudden and untimely but in the course of time Frank married Mrs. Caroline Garrett, the widowed daughter of his old time friend and neighbor, Cyrus Hay-
Vol. 1-23
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ward. Albartus enlisted in the Twelfth Illinois Cavalry, becoming a member of Company F and went to the front. His constitution was frail and he soon gave up his young life to the cause.
A DISCIPLE OF HENRY CLAY.
It is probable that no individual family in the whole neighborhood has made and left a more lasting impress upon the community than has the Kemper fam- ily. In most of the other cases, the families were in groups, as the Carsons, Haynes, Haywards and others, but here is a family that stands alone. Single handed, they came up somewhere from the southland, I always thought from Kentucky, into that section of Illinois in those far away pioneer days. During the campaign of 1860 W. H. H. Kemper, being a Kentuckian, was naturally a disciple of Henry Clay, hence, a whig, and, as I now recall, a relative of the then famous Colliers of Kentucky. Mr. Kemper was perforce an ardent sup- porter of the Bell-Everett ticket. And so, in his enthusiasm, Mr. Kemper placed a big bell on the end of a fifteen or twenty foot pole and planted it in the ground beside his front gate. When he would see any of his neighbors going by he would run out and shout, "Hurrah for Bell and Everett" and be- gin to shake the pole vigorously. The big bell at the top would join in the huzza in no uncertain accents. The other members of this family were Mrs. Kemper and her children, Georgiana, Kittie, Mary, Lucy, Laura, Poly, Thomas, Henry, Zachariah and William. To these should be added Peachy, who I think died young, and Allie and Tina. The latter married Charles Dannells. Georg- iana Kemper married William Haven of String Prairie, and Kittie married Gideon Carson. Mary Kemper became the wife of Orin Palmer, and Lucy married Joseph Carter. Charles Ruyle secured the heart and hand of Laura. Napoleon and Thomas Kemper enlisted in Company F. Twelfth Illi- nois Cavalry. Shortly after the battle at Gettysburg the ladies of the local Union League sent a letter of congratulation and encouragement to the brave boys of Company F. and it was Napoleon (Poly) Kemper who replied to it. This letter was dated: "In Camp on Cedar Run, August 19, 1863." Within a month from the writing of this letter both boys were wounded unto death while on skirmish duty. Sad was the day when the swift wings of the lightning brought to us the direful message that the two Kemper boys had been wounded and that "Poly" was dead. How shocked the whole community was! And every family in it mourned almost as it would have done had a member of its own house- hold been taken. After "Poly's" death Tom was removed to the hospital at Alexandria, Virginia, where the best of care was afforded him and improved rapidly for about a month then a turn for the worst rapidly developed and almost without warning he had gone to join his brother in that sleep which knows no waking. During the winter of 1863-4 Henry Kemper, with a man by the name of Joseph Hooper, James Simpson and Dr. N. Jayne and family, struck out for California. He subsequently returned and married Melissa, daughter of James Haycraft. Zach Kemper became the operator and agent
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of Medora and married the daughter of Elder Platt. Will Kemper married a daughter of George B. Harlan.
THERE WERE MANY PALMERS.
The first of the Palmer family to emigrate to Illinois was the youngest of them, William, who with his family arrived in Greene county in 1830. He was born June 20, 1799, at Sudbury, Addison county, Vermont. William Palmer married Mary Barton back in Vermont in 1823. In the fall of 1832 he and his family moved into the domain of what has since been known as Palmer's Prairie. Down in the vicinity of Rockbridge on the south side of Macoupin creek was a section which was known at that time as "Gopher Hole." Some time before this George Loper's father had settled there. He set out the first peach trees that were ever in that section, on that place. A man by the name of Jack Stubbins owned the farm when the Palmers came into the neighborhood and from him William purchased the place, and made it his home for a year or so. He constructed the first bridge across the Macoupin at Rockbridge. A man by the name of Teegard owned and conducted the water power grist mill there at that time.
A couple of years later William erected a double log house just across the road east of the present Delaware schoolhouse, in which he and the family re- sided a number of years. Early in 1845 he began the erection of the house which still stands to the south of the Delaware schoolhouse. It was while getting out the rock for this house in February, 1845, that an accident occurred by which he almost entirely lost his eyesight. The eldest child of William and Mary Barton Palmer was William George, who was a resident of Kemper at the time of his death, which occurred January 16, 1911. He was born November 4, 1823, in Addison county, Vermont, and came to Illinois in 1830 with his parents. The second son of William and Mary Palmer was Henry Robley. He was born in 'August, 1833, and died November 1, 1891. There were three daughters born to William and Mary Palmer : Mary, Harriet and Martha. Mary married John Dannell; Harriet became the wife of Milo Stowe, and died in 1888; Martha never married and is still living. The second one of the Palmer brothers who emigrated to Illinois was Elias, who was born in Sudbury, Vermont, in 1797. He married Thirza Stowe. They came to Illinois in 1836 and settled a short time after their arrived on the site of the present home of Vilas Dodge. a mile or so northwest of Kemper. The whole family remained as guests of William and family during the time the new house was being erected. Elias died February 23, 1863, and his wife, Thirza, died June 15, 1858. Their chil- dren were: Sarah Ann. Elias, Olive, Orin, Rebecca, Abigail and Dennis. The eldest son of Elias was Elias, Jr. He was born in 1826 and came to Illinois with his parents in 1836. He married Lovena, a sister of Luther Palmer. The second son of Elias and Thirza Palmer was Orin, who was born in Addison county, Vermont, in 1832, and came to Illinois with his parents. He married' Mary E. Kemper in 1858 and to them were born three children: Ida, Mignon and Elmer. The two younger daughters of Elias and Thirza Palmer were Olive and Rebecca. Olive never married and is making her home in Kemper. Re-
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becca married Frank Silsby, as heretofore mentioned. Daniel Cunningham Palmer was the last of the Palmer brothers to come to Illinois. He was born in 1785 and grew up in Vermont, and while still a young man married Roxanna Welch. He served a short time in the war of 1812. In 1816 he emigrated to Knox county, Ohio. He was the father of Luther Palmer, sire of the writer of this article.
During the month of November, 1843, Daniel Cunningham and family set out in a covered wagon to make the long journey from Ohio to Illinois. They arrived at Delaware, or "Jersey," as it was most generally called, by all the Yankee emigrants and their relatives back east, during the month of December, 1843. The family took up their abode with William Palmer, but did not re- main there long, however, for a log house was speedily constructed west of William's place, a half mile or more, in which the family soon made their home. It was while sinking a well on this place that a very unusual thing occurred. Some twenty feet or more deep in all that section of Illinois, there is an under- lying strata known as "hard pan." It is a conglomeration and is about as hard as rock itself. In the midst of this bed of hard pan the workmen came upon a frog snugly nestled in a little narrow space. He was seemingly as dead as any- thing in this world and so they laid him on a rock expecting to take him to the house as a great curiosity when they went to dinner. But, lo! what was their surprise when they went to look for the frog to find that it had come to life under the revivifying influences of the midday sun and hopped off into the brush and was forever lost to them. I saw the exact counterpart of that in Chicago a few years ago when they were driving a great water main ninety feet below the surface. There a frog was found imbedded in the solid limestone. I saw him and he was alive.
In 1846 Daniel Palmer and his family moved to a farm east of Carlinville, in what was then known as the Corr neighborhood, or more generally, as Honey Point. While living there and during the fall of the year, a daughter, Wealthy Lucinda, died. This practically broke up the home and he moved back to Jersey county. He soon thereafter died at the home of his grandson, William, in 1847, at the age of sixty-one years and lies buried in the Palmer graveyard. The children of Daniel Cunningham Palmer were: William, David, Sarah, Rox- anna, Abigail, Daniel David, Lydia, Luther Bateman, Wealthy Lucinda, Lovena and Loretta.
The only daughter of William Palmer, the New Yorker, and Abigail Cun- ningham, the Quakeress, who resided in Illinois, was Rebecca. She was born in 1794 and at about the close of the war of 1812 was married to Ira Ketchum. The fruit of this union was one son, Ira, who, with his mother, came to Illi- nois with her brother William in 1830. Later on when William moved into the Rockbridge section, they came with him. Ira married Phoebe Fitzjarrell, from . which union sprang the large family of Ketchums. He died in 1853 at the age of fifty-seven
Martha J. Larew, daughter of William and Elizabeth Larew, with her younger brother and sister were left orphans at an early age and made their home with their uncle, Johnson Dannels, until grown. While in school at Ches- terfield she united with the Congregational church in 1861 and afterwards be-
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came one of the charter members of the Delaware Congregational church. She was married in 1862 to Jacob Hoffnagle, who died in 1864. In 1868 she was united in marriage to Dennis Palmer, who died in 1893. To this union were born four children: Stella, wife of Percy Cookson; Earl L., Ernest D. and Harriet Elizabeth. She died December 20, 1910, at the residence of her son-in- law, Percy Cookson, at Carlinville, and was buried at Kemper, in the Delaware cemetery.
LUTHER BATEMAN PALMER.
Luther Bateman Palmer was my father and was born in Knox county, Ohio, in 1826. He was seventeen years of age when the family landed in Illinois, where he grew to manhood and lived for many years. The entire time that he ever attended school did not exceed six weeks, but he was not handicapped very much on that account. He was perfect master of the three R's and could read and 'rite and cipher with the best of them. In fact, I am sure there have been but few men in all that whole section who excelled him in reading and 'rithmetic, and as for 'riting, his letters to me now, at the age of eighty-five, are marvels of composition in every respect.
It was not long until he set out to do business on his own account, working by the month for Benjamin Sanders, and for the whole of a year he was paid the stupendous sum of $120. Strange to say, out of this small wage, he was able to save enough to make the first payment on his half of the quarter section which he and his brother Daniel bought, lying south of the old house, and so it was that he got his start in life.
In 1846 he farmed the Samuel D. Brainerd place, just at the turn of the road north of L. B. Palmer's house, and evidently cultivated the acquaintance of the eldest daughter, as well as the corn crop he had in, for we find it re- corded that he and Louisa A. Brainerd were married on the 29th day of Oc- tober, the year following. The marriage ceremony was performed by the Rev. Elihu Palmer, a brother of the late Senator John M. Palmer. Once I had oc- casion to go down from Chicago to Springfield to get a letter of introduction from General Palmer and he began it thus: "Dear Sir :- This will introduce to you Mr. Lyman L. Palmer, whose father I have known for the past fifty years."
My mother died in 1853 and a year later father paid a visit to his old home in Ohio and there met and married Anna Rebecca Smith. To this union there were born six children: Vesta, Clarence, Walter, Lucius, Annie and Sabin.
As the years sped on he prospered and other acres were added to the original quarter section until at the last he owned six hundred and forty acres, all told, when he went to California in 1869. At that time his health failed him, and renting his farm, he took up his residence at Reo Vista with his family. In a short time thereafter he allied his business interests with a man by the name of Charles Pine, who was proprietor of a general store, the name of the firm being Pine & Palmer. This man Pine subsequently decamped with all the available funds of the concern, leaving my father with a large shortage of $84,000, to meet. Most of it represented Pine's speculations.
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CHAPTER XXII.
THE TOWNSHIPS.
THIS CHAPTER IS A LONG ONE AND SPEAKS OF THE TWENTY-SIX TOWNSHIPS OF THE COUNTY-HAMLETS, VILLAGES, TOWNS AND CITIES-FIRST SETTLERS IN THE VARIOUS LOCALITIES-FOUNDING AND GROWTH OF THE TRADING POINTS- HILYARD TOWNSHIP. 6
Hilyard township derived its name from the Hilyard family who settled here about 1832. The township is located in the southwestern part of the county and is bounded on the north by Polk township, on the west by Shipman, on the south by Bunker Hill and on the east by Gillespie township. The surface is beautiful undulating prairie and is partially drained by small tributaries of Ma- coupin creek. The Chicago & 'Alton railroad enters the township on section 3, and crossing the northwestern portion, passes out on section 19.
David Coop claimed the distinction of being not only the first settler in this township but also the first in the county. He erected a log cabin on a stream near the central part of the township and the creek, now known as Coop's creek, was named in his honor.
In 1817 John Powell and Abram Fulk came here with their families, settling in the northeastern part of the township. In 1818 Thomas Smith located in the southwest part of the township near a small stream, which took his name. In 1832 William Jolley and Richard Skaggs located in the northwest part of the township.
In 1834 fifteen families, or seventy-five persons came here, among whom were Gray, Pruitt, Hilyard, Maxwell, Leyarley, Jolley, Ray, Skagg, Lemey, Miller and Thomas.
Most of the early settlers were Methodists and old school Baptists and as early as 1820 a church of the latter denomination was organized by John Powell. Rev. William Jones was the first preacher. Until 1854 services were held in the homes of the settlers and at that time a church was built.
A Methodist society was organized at the home of William Jolley in 1833 and Rev. Meldrum became the first pastor. In 1851 the Presbyterians formed a society and Rev. Platt became the pastor. In this same year the Missionary Baptists also formed a society with Rev. Hopper as the pastor, while in March, 1853, the United Baptists organized, with Rev. Jacob Rhoads as pastor. In 1854 the latter society built a church at a cost of $1,000. In 1855 the Missionary Baptists built a church at a cost of $800; in 1856 a Presbyterian church was
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erected at a cost of $1,500, while in 1858 the Methodist church was built at a cost of $1,500.
The first schoolhouse was built in 1837, near the place of the first settle- ment, at a cost of $10. The first teacher was Aaron Leyarley.
The first postoffice was established in 1846 with Alfred Ellet as the first postmaster.
Dr. C. Murphy, who located here in 1854, was the first practicing physician.
The first mill was built by David Coop. It was run with horse power and it was capable of grinding but eight or ten bushels of corn per day,
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