History of Madison County, Illinois With biographical sketches, Part 18

Author: Brink, W.R. & Co
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Edwardsville, Ill. : W. R. Brink & co.
Number of Pages: 698

USA > Illinois > Madison County > History of Madison County, Illinois With biographical sketches > Part 18

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Claim 991. Original claimant, Pierre Lejoy. Affirmed to Thomas Kirkpatrick, 100 acres, mostly is sections two and three of town- ship four, range eight, and including the north-western part of Edwardsville. The commissioners note this claim as being three miles east of the Mississippi. It is about eight. At the house of Thomas Kirkpatrick on this claim the county court of Madison county held its first session on the fifth of April, 1813.

Claim 599. Original claimant, Louis Rhelle. Affirmed to Benja- min Caster line ; and claim 600, original claimant, Levi Piggot, each of 100 acres, were located on Cantine Creek, near Collinsville, partly in section twenty nine, of township three, range eight.

Claim 113. Original claimant, Joseph St. Ives. Affirmed to Nicholas Jarrot, in section seventeen of township four range nine near Madison, has been washed away by the Mississippi.

Claim 330. Original claimant, William Young Whiteside. Affirm- ed to Ilenry Cook, 100 acres. Surveyed with claim of Francois Luval, 331, which see above.

Claim 545. Original claimant, David Waddle. Affirmed to David Waddle, 100 acres, and claim 546, original claimant, Alexan- der Waddle, Affirmed to Alexander Waddle, 100 aeres were survey- ed with other claims, and the improvement right of 250 acres of David Waddle, and located mostly in scetions thirty-one and thirty-two of township four, range nine.

The commissioners on the fourth of January, 1813, reported the following additional claims grounded on Militia service.

Claim 548. Original claimant, Jean Baptiste Becket. Confirmed by Governor Harrison to Ettienne l'ensonean who was the claimant before the commissioners. In township three, range ten, eovering part of the plat of the town of Venice.

Claim 549, adjoining 548, 100 acres. Original claimant, Auguste Belcour. Confirmed by Governor Harrison to the same, and by him conveyed to Ettienne Pensoneau.

Claim 103. In township three, range ten, 100 acres. Original claimant, Raphael Belanger. Confirmed by Governor Harrison to Nicholas Jarrot.

Claim 1907. Original claimant, Charles Denean. Confirmed by Governor Harrison to Hannah Hillman, 100 acres.

Claim 104, 100 acres. Original claimant, Stephen Louis Lamall. Confirmed by Governor Harrison to Nicholas Jarrot.

Claim 609, 100 acres. In sections thirty-three and thirty-four of township three, range eight, just south of Collinsville, and extending into St. Clair county. Original claimant, Charles Francois Lancier affirmed to the same by Governor Harrison, and by whom conveyed to Thomas II. Talbot.

Claim 928. In sections sixteen, twenty, and twenty-one of town- ship four, range eight on the bluffs. Original claimant, James Whiteside, and confirmed to him by Governor Harrison.

This comprises all the claims, located partly or entirely, within the present boundaries of Madison county. The list comprises sixty- nine claims, inclu led in forty-eight several surveys. Forty-nine are for 100 acres; thirteen for 400 acres; three for 250 acres; one for 160 arpents, and one for 440 arpents. Their location by townships is as follows :

Township 3,

Range 7.

2 Claims.

I Surveys.

11 8

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

Township 3,

Range 9.

21 Claims.

9 Surveys.

-4,

יו

10.

PIONEER AMERICAN SETTLEMENTS.

The district of country comprising the present county of Madison was explored by the Rev. David Badgley, and some others, in the year 1799. The luxuriant growth of grass and vegetation, evidence of the great fertility of the soil, reminded the explorers of the richness of the country, the best of the land of Egypt, in which the children of Israel had possessions, "and grew and multiplied exceedingly," and they called it Goshen. David Badgley was a Baptist preacher who came to Illinois in 1796, and settled in St. Clair county, a few miles north of Belleville, where he died in 1824. He was never a resident of this county. The first American settler to push beyond the frontier, and plant himself within the limits of what is now Madison county, was Ephraim Conner. This was in the year 1800, he built his rude cabin in the northwest corner of the present Col- linsville township, but whether dissatisfied with his isolated position, or prompted by a roving spirit, peculiar to the early pioneers, he sought some now "lodge in the vast wilder- ness." The next year, 1801, he disposed of his improvement to Samuel Judy, who became a permanent and valued eiti- zen of the flourishing Goshen settlement, which the rapidly arriving immigrants in a few years brought into existence.

The Judy family is conspicuous in the early settlement of Illinois. Jacob Judy, the father of Samuel Judy, was born in Switzerland, andI came to America when six years old. He was married in Frederick county, Maryland, and at Pitts- burg, Pennsylvania, " worked for the public," as an early chronieler says, " at the gunsmith business, for many years, and received nothing for it." He started for the frontier regions of the west in the year 1786, with his family. then consisting of three children, and descer ded the Ohio river to Kentneky. On his way, at the mouth of the Scioto, he heard Indians on the bank making noises to decoy him to the land, but he kept straight on his way down the river. His daughter, Nancy, then a girl of eighteen, steered the boat while the others rowed, with all possible speed, past the dangerous locality. He remained two years in Kentucky, near Louisville, and then set out for Illinois, making a voyage down the Ohio in a flat boat. The hostile Indians obliged him to seek protection up Cash river, in the present county of Alexander, where he remained seven weeks, until a boat could come from Kaskaskia to his relief. He lived at Kaksaskia four years; in 1792 he moved to the New Design settlement in the present county of Monroe ; and in 1794 settled in Monroe county where he died in the year 1807. The place where he lived was widely known as Judy's mill. Samuel Judy, his only son, the pioneer of the family in Madison county, was born on the nineteenth of August 1773. He married Margaret Whiteside, a sister of Gen. Samuel Whiteside. In the early Indian troubles in Monroe county, Judy, then a young man of only twenty,

displayed great activity and bravery, afterwards in the cam- paigns against the Indians, during the war of 1812-14, he was actively employed in the service. In 1812 he was in command of a company of spies, in advance of the main army, which proceeded against the Indians at the head of Peoria lake, and the next year, 1813, was captain of a com- pany in the army of Gen. Howard. In the frontier skirmishes with the Indians, he was considered both active and efficient and prudent, and cautious. He was modest and unassum- ing in character, and would have preferred to serve as a pri- vate soldier in the ranks, had not his neighbors and friends insisted on his taking the responsible command to which they thought his experience and sterling qualtities of mind entitled him. He was elected a member from Madison county, in the fall of 1812, of the first legislature that em- vened at Kaskaskia after the formation of the territorial government. Although he had little education, and bal learned, barely more than to read and write, and this with some difficulty, the clear, sound, and solid judgment with which nature had endowed him, his great common sense, and his character for honesty and integrity, made him a valu- able member of this first legislative body of Illinois, in which his influence was scarcely surpassed by that of any other member. After the organization of Madison county he was one of the first county commissioners, and displayed great judgment, honesty, and economy, in managing the finances of the county. In his own private business affairs he exhibi- ed the same prudence and foresight. He acquired wealth, but without speculation or doubtful practice. He raised large numbers of horses, eattle, hogs and sheep. Ou the establishment of the penitentiary at Alton, he was appointed by Gov. John Reynolds, one of the board which had charge of the erectiou of the building and the placing of the peni- tentiary system in operation. Though not a member of any religious society, all the churches had the benefit of his good will and friendship, and he was moral and correct in his habits. In the excesses so common in his day-ga'n- ing, drinking, and light and frivolous amusements-lie never indulged. He died in the year 1838.

The farm on which Judy settled was included in the mili- tia claim, number three hundred and thirty-eight, and on it he made early and substantial improvements. The first, or second year after his arrival he set out an orehard. In 1×08 he built a brick house, the walls of which were cracked by the earthquake of 1811, which is still standing in good condition. This was the first brick house erected within the limits of Madison county. Jacob Judy the oldest son of Samuel Judy, was register of the land office at Edwardsville from 1845 to 1849. Another son, Col. Thomas Judy, repre- sented Madison county in the State legislature in 1852 and '53, and has been one of the best kuown citizens of the county.

The first settlement on the Six Mile prairie was made in the year 1801. A family named Wiggins (settled here, and with them lived an unmarried man, Patrick Hanniberry.

In the early history of Madison county the most numerous family were the Gillhams. Thomas Gillham, the first of the family to come to America, was a native of Ireland.

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

He settled in Virginia about the year 1730, and afterward moved to South Corolina. He had eleven children, seven sous and four daughters : Ezekiel, Charles, Thomas, Wil- liam, James, John, Isaac, Nancy, Mary, Sally, and Susan- nah. The original stock was Irish Presbyterian, though the descendants are now mostly of the Methodist faith.

The first of the family to behold the Illinois country was James Gillham, the fourth son of Thomas Gillham. He came in the summer of the year 1794 in search of his wife and children, who were then held captive by the Indians. He had married Ann Barnett in South Carolina, and at the close of the war of the Revolution moved to Kentucky .* He conceived so favorable an opinion of Illinois that he made it his home in 1797, first settling in the American Bottom below St. Louis, and at the beginning of the present century moving to what is now Madison county. Congress, in 1815, gave to Mrs. Gillham one hundred and sixty acres of land at the head of Long Lake, in township four, range nine, in testimony of the hardship and sufferings she endured dur- ing her captivity among the Indians. The children of James Gillham, were Samuel, Isaac, Jacob Clemons, James, Harvey, David M., Polly, Sally and Nancy. Samuel settled in section fifteen of township four, range nine; and the other sons, Isaac, Jacob Clemons, James, Harvey and Da- vid M., all made homes for themselves in section four of the

* One day in the month of June, 1790, while Mr. Gillham was plowing corn on his farm in Kentucky, and his son Isaac, then a small boy, was clearing away with a hoe the clods which the plow might throw on the young stalks, a party of Kickapoo Indians stole up to the house, and captured Gillham's wife and his three other children, whose ages range from four to twelve years. The field in which Mr. Gillham was at work was at some distance from the house, and it was not for some time that he discovered the misfortune which had be- fallen his family. In the meantime the Indians hurried away with their prisoners. Mrs. Gillham was so alarmed at the sudden appear- ance of the savages that she lost her senses, and the first that she could recollect afterward was the voice of her oldest son, Samuel, saying, " Mother, we are all prisoners." The Indians ripped open the beds, turned out the feathers, and converted the ticks into sacks into which they placed clothing and such other articles as they could carry on their backs. They then hurried off in the direction of the Kickapoo town, near the head waters of the Sangamon river in Illinois. Their course avoided the settlements, and their anxiety to escape pur- suit made them push forward without rest or food. The savages hurried them forward with fierce looks and threatening gestures. The children's feet became sore and bruised, and the mother tore lier clothing to get rags in which to wrap them. The Indians had with them a small quantity of jerked venison which they gave the children, but neither they nor the mother, had a particle of food, until one day after they had traveled some distance from the white settlements, the party made a halt, and two of their best hunters were dispatched to look for game. Towards night they returned with one poor raccoon. Mrs. Gillham, who was afraid that either the children would perish with hunger, or that the Indians would kill them to save them from star- vation, afterward said that the sight of this one poor coon gave her more satisfaction at that time than any amount of wealth could furnish. The coon was dressed by singing off the hair over a blazing fire, and after throwing away the contents of the intestines, in was chopped in pieces, and with head, bones, skin, and entrails, boiled in a kettle and made into a kind of soup. The Indians and their captives sat around the kettle, and with bone spoons and forked sticks, obtained a scanty relief from starvation.

They approached the Ohio river with great caution, fearful that

same township and range. The descendants of the two youngest daughters now reside in the State of Mississippi.

James Gillham wrote to his brothers in South Carolina of the advantages of the Illinois country, and his brother, Thomas, left South Carolina in the fall of the year 1799, and reached the end of his journey on the closing day of the eighteenth century-thus realy to begin the new century in the new western world. Two other brothers, John and William, came to Illinois in the year 1802, both settling within the present boundaries of Madison county, and another brother, Isaac, followed a couple of years afterward.

The oldest son of Thomas Gillham was Isham Gillham, sheriff of Madison county, from 1812 to 1818. He first settled on a farm adjoining that of Colonel Samuel Judy, and in the spring of 1817 moved to the bank of the Missis- sippi, nearly opposite the mouth of the Missouri. Another son, William, settled on a farm in the Ridge prairie, five miles east of Edwardsville. One of the daughters, Violet, married Joshua Vaughn, and settled in the American Bot- tom ; and another, Patsy, became the wife of Peter Hub- bard, and moved to Bond county.

William Gillham, on coming to Illinois settled in the Six mile prairie, as early as 1820, or 1822 ; he moved to Jersey county. His sons were John D., William, and Ezekiel. William became a resident of Scott county, and the two others lived in Jersey county. One of the daughters, Agnes,

they might be discovered by white people passing down the river. They camped through the day in a thick wood near the site of the town of Hawesville, Kentucky, and made three rafts of dry logs, lashed togeth- er with thongs of red elm bark, and at night crossed the river in safe- ty. Once across the Ohio the Indians relaxed some of their cau- tion, marched slower, and secured abundant food. Keeping to the right of the white settlement at Vincennes, they crossed the Wabash below Terre Haute, and marching through the present counties of Clark, Coles and Macon in this State, finally reached the Indian town on Salt Creek about twenty miles east of north from the present city of Springfield.

Mr. Gillham on returning home from his work at noon found all about his house in confusion. The feathers from the beds were scattered over the yard, and the mother and children were gone. It did not take a long time for a frontiersman to conjecture the fate of the family. It was plain that they had been taken prisoners by the In- dians, and Mr. Gillliam and his friends lost no time in starting in pursuit. Their trail, as they left the clearing, was discovered, and in one or two places the footprints of Mrs Gillham and the children were visible. But the trail was again lost, and all their efforts to re- cover it were ineffectual. Mr. Gillham was obliged to abandon the pursuit, but he still entertained hope of one day recovering his wife and children. He sold his improvements in Kentucky, and visited Vincennes and Kaskaskia, with the hope of enlisting the aid of the French traders, who had personal knowledge of all the Indian tribes in the Northwest. The commencement of hostilities between the whites and Indians made his efforts almost hopeless. After five years of disappointment he learned from some of the French traders that his family were among the Kickapoos, and with two Frenchmen as interpreters and guides he visited the Indian town on Salt Creek, and found his wife and children, alive and well. The ransom was prid through an Irish trader at Cahokia, named Atchinson. The younger son, Clemons, could not speak a word of English, and it was so me time before he could be persuaded to leave the Indian country. In his visit to Illinois, Mr. Gillham had become favorably impressed with the advantages of the country, and in 1797, two years after the recovering of his family, he became a resident of this State.

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

married John G. Lofton, one of the early judges of the court of common pleas of Madison county. Sally married a Mr. Waddle, and subsequently a Mr. Jarvis. Jane became the wife of William Davidson. Peggy became the wife of Benjamin Steadman, and Polly of Frank Kirkpatrick.

John Gillham arrived in what is now Madison county on the tenth day of June, 1802, and first settled in section nineteen, township four, range eight, on the west bank of Cahokia creek, near the farms of Col. Samuel Judy, and William Bolin Whiteside, and afterward removed to a farm in seetion one, township four, range nine, where he lived till his death in the year 1832 His oldest daughter, Margaret, was married in South Carolina to Samuel Brown, who settled in section four, township four, range nine, and in 1830, moved to Seott county. Ann, his next daughter, was likewise married in South Carolina, to Isaiah Dunnagan, who made the first improvement in township five, range eight. James, the oldest son, married Polly Good, under the authority of the first marriage license issued in Madison county, and settled in section one, of township four, range nine. Ryderus C, another son, settled near his brother James. The other children were Thomas, Sarah, Charles, Elizabeth, Susannah, Polly, John and William. Sarah became the wife of Daniel Brown, and settled on the Caho- kia, in section eighteen, township four, range eight. Susan- nah married William Ramsey, and moved to Seott county. Polly married Thomas Cox, and settled in section thirty- six, township five, range nine. John settled where Wanda station now is. He was a pioneer Methodist preacher. and died in 1835. William was born in Tenne see in 1802, on the journey from South Carolina to Illinois. His home was in section thirty six, of township five, range nine. He was also a Methodist minister, and died of the cholera in Alton in 1853.

Isaac Gillham came to Illinois in 1804 or 1805, and settled in the American Bottom, in this county. His children were Thomas, John, James, William, Isaac, Polly, Margaret, Susannah, and Jane. Thomas settled within a short dis- tance of the old Six mile prairie Methodist Church ; John settled on an adjoining farm ; James moved to Scott county ; William improved the farm on which Dr T. J. Irish now resides, in township three, range nine; Isaac lived on a farm near his brother Thomas ; Margaret married John David- son, who lived on a farm adjoining the church property at Kinder ; Polly married Robert Whiteside, and removed from the county ; Susannah became the wife of Hardy Willbanks, and emigrated to Texas; Jane, the youngest daughter, mar- ried IIiram Fish, and resided in township three, range nine.

Ezekiel Gillham. the oldest son of the original Thomas Gillham, was married in Virginia, and moved to what is now Oglethorpe county, Georgia. One of his sons and two of his daughters, Charles, Mary and Margaret, came to Illi- nois in 1803. Charles Gillham settled the Phillips farm, southeast of Edwardsville, and his daughter, Lucretia, be- came the wife of John T. Lusk. Mary married Thomas Good in Georgia. Good settled two miles and a half south of Edwardsville. His wife was a Methodist, and on his farm were held the early Methodist camp meetings. Mar-

garet had married in Georgia Bryant Mooney. Mooney settled about a mile east of Edwardsville, and gave his name to Mooney's branches.

Sally, one of the daughters of the original Thomas Gill- ham, married in South Carolina John Davidson, who was killed in one of the battles of the Revolutionary war. Two of her sons, Thomas G., and William Davidson, and one of her daughters, Sally, came to Illinois, and settled in Madi- son county early in the present century.

Susannah, the youngest daughter of Thomas Gillham, married James Kirkpatrick in South Carolina. After an absence of months in the army during the war for Indepen- dence, he obtained permission to visit his family, which, on account of the strong Tory feeling in the neighborhood in which he lived, he had to do by stealth. He had been home but a few minutes when as he was seated by his wife, sur- rounded by his children, he was shot through the window by a Tory and killed. The four oldest sons of Mrs. Kirk- patrick James, Thomas, Franklin, and John came to Illinois, and figured prominently in the early settlement of Madison county.

The Gi'lhams were strong supporters of morality and order, and among the best citizens of the county. Though born in a slave State, they recognized the corrupting in- fluence of slavery, and unalterably opposed its introduction into Illinois. The author of a history of the State, pub_ lished in 1849, remarks that the convention party of 1824. owed its defeat to the Gillham family and their kinsmen, who, almost in a solid phalanx, cast five hundred votes against the proposition to make Illinois a slave State.

The following facts in reference to the Gillham family, were written and furnished by Hon. Daniel B. Gillham :

" Thomas Gillham, the ancestor of the family in America, many of whose descendants were identified with the early settlement of Illinois during the last year of the last, and first years of the present century, was a native of Ireland. He was married there and with his wife and child, Charles, emigrated to America about the year 1730, and settled first in Virginia. His first wife dying there, he again married, and removed to South Carolina and settled in what was then known as Pendleton county, since divided into the counties of Piekens and Henderson.

His family consisted of eleven children, seven sons and four daughters, namely : Charles, Ezekiel, Thomas, William, James, John, Isaac, Nancy, Mary, Sally, and Susannah, and were Irish Presbyterians, though their descendants are now mostly Methodists.

He, his sons and sons-in-law all served in the war for Inde- pen lence, during which two of his sons.in-law lost their lives, namely, John Davidson and James Kirkpatrick.

The first of the family that beheld the Illinois country was James, the fourth son of Thomas Gillham, in quest of his wife and children then held captive by the Indians in the summer of 1794-a history of which is given above. When he recovered his family from the Indians he was so pleased with the prairies of Illinois and happy in the results of his long and dangerous search, that he wrote his relations of his grand discovery requesting them to come. Accordingly, Thomas the third, and Isaac the youngest of the sons of Thomas Gillham the 1st, left South Carolina in the fall and arrived at their journey's end on the last day of the eighteenth and rested quietly on Illinois soil on the first day of the nineteenth century.

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

Thus they began the new century in the new world. James was here as before stated, and two others, John and William, arrived in 1802, both settling within the present boundaries of Madison county.

Charles, the first son, and his two eldest sisters remained in the old south state. Ezekiel, the second son, raised a large family, four of whom emigrated to Illinois, namely, Charles, Mary, Ruth and Margaret.

Charles, son of Ezekiel, was the father of Mrs. Lucretia, wife of the late Hon. J. T. Lusk, and grandfather to Capt. G. C. Lusk and Mrs. Sarah Torrence, residing in Edwards- ville, where they were born. Ezekiel was the grandfather of the late Thomas and Davidson Good.

Themas Gillham, the oldest of the second family, married a Miss MeDaw and raised three sons, Isham, William and John T .; and seven daughters, Jane, Margaret, Sally, Violet, l'atsy and Agnes, several of whom either died yonng or never came to Illinois.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Madison County, Illinois With biographical sketches, Part 18

Author: Brink, W.R. & Co Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Edwardsville, Ill. : W. R. Brink & co. Number of Pages: 698

Author: Brink, W.R. & Co
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Edwardsville, Ill. : W. R. Brink & co.
Number of Pages: 698