History of Madison County, Illinois With biographical sketches, Part 20

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 20

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John Messinger who came with Dr. Cadwell to Illinois, lived a short time within the present limits of Madison county, though he took up his permanent residence in St. Clair. He lived in Ridge prairie, between the present towns of Troy and Collinsville. He was born in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 1771, and in 1783 settled in Vermont. He was a member of the legislature of Indiana territory, before Illinois had a seperate territorial government. He assisted in forming the first constitution of the State, and was Speaker of the House of Representatives in the first General Assem- bly after the State government was formed. He died in St. Clair county in 1846. He had a great genius for mathema - tics, and was an excellent surveyor ; nearly one-third of the boundaries of the townships in this county were surveyed by him.

In 1804, the settlements were extended farther north, and were strengthened by the arrival of many new families. A Frenchman from Cahokia, named Delorne, settled this year at the edge of the timber, east of Monk's Mound, near Cantine Creek.

The settlement in the Six Mile prairie, from 1804 to 1806, received considerable accessions in the Waddle, Griffin, Squire, Cummings, Carpenter and Gillham families.

Thomas Cummings was an energetic pioneer with a family of stalwart sons. In 1817 he moved to what is now Jersey county. Nathan Carpenter was a man of enterprise and energy, and at an early period had a horse-mill in opera- tion. Thomas Gillham, the oldest son of Isaac Gillham, was a justice of the peace, and subsequently a county con- missioner. Amos Squire, who had emigrated from Mary- land to Illinois in company with Shadrach Bond, and first settled at Kaskaskia, in 1808, made his home on the farm on which his son, Samuel Squire, still lives. He was the first justice of the peace in township three, range nine. Ile was first appointed to this position by Gov. Ninian Edwards, and filled it for twenty consecutive years. He was captain in the ranging service during the war of 1812-14. Among other early residents of this part of the county were Heury Hayes, John Clark, Henry Stallings, and John G. Lofton.

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

The Arthur family came to this part of the county in 1811. From 1804 to 1806 families by the name of Chilton, Bra- zell, Lorton, Moore, Downing, Lemen, Copeland, Lacy, Van- hooser, Rattan, Hewitt, Hill, Stubblefield and Jones, attach- ed themselves to the eastern and northern parts of the Go- shen settlement.

In 1805, John T. Lusk, then a young man of twenty-one, cast his fortunes with the Goshen country. He was born on Broad river, in the Union district of South Carolina, in the year 1784. In 1798, his father, James Lusk, emigrated to Kentucky, and established a ferry on the Ohio, where is now the town of Golconda. This was widely known as Lusk's ferry, and John T. Lusk, as he was growing to be a young man, was engaged for some time in its operation. Soon after his arrival, Mr. Lusk pre-empted land two miles and a half southwest of Edwardsville, and in 1809 married Lucre- tia, daughter of Charles Gillham, who in the year 1803, had settled two miles south of Edwardsville. After living at this place some years, Charles Gillham sold his improvements to John and Beniah Robinson and moved to Hurricane creek in Bond county. Directly after his marriage, John T. Lusk moved to a tract of land, afterwards included in the Fair Grounds, near Edwardsville, and lived in a tent till he constructed a double log cabin, which stood for many years, and in which was born Alfred Lusk, said to have been the first white child born in township four, range eight. John T. Lusk was a ranger in the Indian troubles of 1812- 14, and a lieutenant in the Black Hawk war, and prominently connected with the interests of Edwardsville.

Joseph Newman, a Pennsylvanian, came to the present Fort Russ Il township in 1804, but the first substantial im- provement in this township was made by Major Isaac H. Fergurson in 1806. Major Fergurson was a Kentuckian. A year or two afterward he moved to what is now Morine township, and in the war of 1812 -- 14 had command of Chil- ton's Fort. He moved to Texas in 1842, and died in Mexico during the war between that country and the United States.

Martin Preuitt, in 1806, settled on the Sand Ridge prairie, about three miles east of Alton. He was born in North Carolina. In 1767, when fifteen, he went with his father to Kentucky, in company with Daniel Boone, and camped nine months on the Kentucky river, spending their time hunting, and then returned to North Carolina. He had three brothers, Abraham, William and Isaac. He was in the Revolutionary war, and at the battle of Kings Moun- tain. After the Revolution all the family removed to Virginia, and after being there several years, to Tennessee. Here Abraham and William Preuitt were killed by the Cherokee Indians, and in 1806 the family came to Illinois. Martin Preuitt did little else but hunt. He died without sickness or pain, in the year 1844, at the age of ninety-two. He had ten children ; the sons were named Isaac, Abraham, Jacob, William, Jones and Solomon. Solomon Preuitt, the youngest son, was born in 1790, and lived to be one of the oldest residents of Madison county. He was elected captain of a militia company in 1811, when twenty-one years of age. He was in the ranging service in 1813 and 1814. In 1818 he moved to a place a mile and a half south of the present

town of Bethalto. In 1831 he was in command of a com- pany which marched to Rock Island in the first campaign against Black Hawk. In 1832 he was elected captain of a company formed at Milton for service in the Black Hawk war, and at Beardstown, where the regiment was organized, was chosen lieutenant-colonel. After his return to Madison county he was elected major of the militia, and held that position for many years. When the Preuitt family came to Illinois in 1806, there was only one house iu the forks of Wood river, in which a man named Benjamin Carter, a shoemaker, lived. This improvement was bought by George Moore, who built a log house. Solomon Munson was living on the Sand Ridge prairie, and towards Alton lived Mrs. Shields, whose son, James Shields, afterward settled on land now included in the city of Alton, and gave his name to Shields' branch.

William Jones and John Finley arrived in 1806, and' settled on the sand ridge, east of Alton. They had come to Illinois a couple of years previous, and had stopped for a time in Pope county. William Jones was a Baptist preach- er. He was born in Washington county, Virginia, and em- igrated thence to Kentucky, and thence to Tennessee, where he experienced religion and became connected with the min- istry of the Baptist church. He was captain of a company of rangers during the war of 1812-14. He was a member of the legislature of Illinois, both while under the territorial government and after the admission of the state into the union. He died in 1844.

In the spring of the year 1807 Robert Reynolds, the father of Gov. John Reynolds, purchased a farm at the foot of the bluff, three or four miles, southwest of Edwardsville. Seven years before, the family had emigrated from Tennes- see and settled in Randolph county ; John Reynolds was then nineteen years of age. He says of this period of his life: I had with me my books and compass, and studied the math- ematics with care and attention at intervals, when I was not at work on the farm. I was called on to do jobs of survey- ing, which I performed tolerably well, as all parties conclu- ded. When my father arrived in Goshen, it was the most beautiful country that I ever saw. It had been settled only a few years, and the freshness and beauty of nature reigned over it to give it the sweetest charms. I have spent hours on the bluff, ranging my view up and down the American Bottom, as far as the eye could extend. The ledge of rocks at the present city of Alton, and the rocks near Cahokia, limited our view north and south, and all the intermediate country extended before ns. The prairie and timber were distinctly marked, and the Mississippi seen in places. "

This was Gov. Reynolds' home till he began the practice of law at Cahokia in 1814, though he was absent for some time attending school in Tennessee. He relates that he at- tended all the house raisings and other gatherings of the people. No horse-race, or Fourth of July frolic, escaped him. He speaks of being present at the camp-meeting, the first in Illinois, held on the premises of Mr. Good, three miles south of the present Edwardsville, in the spring of 1807, and also of taking part in muster at Cahokia the same spring at which all the militia of St. Clair county (in

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

which the territory of the present Madison county was then included) gathered. Many women and children, as well as men, attended. In those days women often rode on horse- back many miles, carrying their children with them, to places of public resort. At this muster, a troop of cavalry was training, exchanging blank shots with the infantry, when a company of French, from Cahokia, cither by mistake or otherwise, fired leaden shot into the cavalry company, wounding many of the men and horses. At that time a bad state of feeling existed between the French and Americans, and at the next training the regiment was divided, so that the two races mustered apart from each other. Reynolds also refers to a horse race, of which he was a witness, that took place on the Fourth of July, 1808, on the prairie in the American Bottom, a little northwest of the residence of Samuel Judy.

Rattan's prairie was given its name from the circumstance that Thomas Rattan settled here in 1804. He came to Ill- inois from Ohio ; some time after the war of 1812-14 he re- moved to the present county of Greene. Toliver Wright, a Virginian by birth, settled near the mouth of Wood river in 1806. He was a captain in the ranging service during the war of 1812-14, and while in command of a company of spies, on a march to Peoria, he was shot by an Indian. He was carried back to Wood River fort, and died in six weeks after receiving his wound. Abel Moore made his home in the Wood river settlement in 1808. He was born in North Carolina, thence removed to Kentucky, and from that state came to Illinois. He died in 1846 at the age of sixty-three. The death of his wife occurred one day previous. Two of his children were killed in the Wood river massacre. Three of the children are yet living, of whom two reside in this county, the wife of Madison Williams and Major Franklin Moore of Upper Alton. George and William Moore, brothers of Abel Moore, left Kentucky at the same time, 1808, but went to the Boone's Lick country in Missouri, from which, in 1800 they came to Madison county. The Reagan family, some of the members of which were the victims of Indian ferocity in the Wood river massacre, came to the Wood river settlement about the same time as the Moores. . George and Thomas Davidson, natives of South Carolina, settled in the southeastern part of township five, range nine, in 1806. George Davidson established a taunery as early as 1810. Thomas Davidson for many years was a Justice of the Peace.

John Atkins came to Illinois in 1807 and settled near the Mississippi, four or five miles above the present town of Venice. He was born in Massachusetts, and had been a soldier in the war of the Revolution. Near the present Mitchell station Andrew Emert, a Pennsylvanian, settled in 1807.

Thomas Kirkpatrick made the pioneer improvement on the site of Edwardsville, and in the same part of the county, south and south-east of the present county seat. James Kirk- patrick, Frank Kirkpatrick, William Gillham, Charles Gillham, Thomas Good, George Barnsback, George Kin- der, John Robinson, Frank Roach, James Holliday, Bryant Mooney, Josias Randle, Thomas Randle, Jesse Bell, Josias

Wright, made early settlements. William Gillham was one of the early representatives of Madison county in the legis- lature. On the farm of Thomas Good, whose wife was an earnest Methodist, the early camp meetings were held. The Randle, Bell, and Wright familics left Georgia together, in September, 1811, and reached Turkey Hill, in St. Clair county, on the seventeenth of October, and shortly afterward made their homes in Madison county. Josias Randle became the first clerk of the circuit court. Josias Wright settled the Shaeffer place, two miles and a half southwest of Edwards- ville ; George Barnsback was born at Osterode, Germany, in 1781. In 1797 he came to America, landing at Philadelphia, but soon afterward going to Kentucky, where for some years he was overseer of a plantation. From Kentucky he trav- elled to Charleston, South Carolina, and there took passage for Germany, in a vessel which was shipwrecked in the Eng- lish Channel. He returned to Kentucky in 1802, and in 1809 came to what is now Madison county. He served two years in the ranging service, during the war of 1812-14. In 1824 he went to Germany, and in 1825 came back to the United State -. For six years he lived in St. Francois county, Mis- souri, and then came back to his old farm, six miles south- east of Edwardsville. He had ten children. Among his descendants are some of the leading citizens of the county. George Kinder was born in Pennsylvania. Soon after the Revolution the family moved to Kentucky, where his father, Jacob Kinder, was killed by the Indians. He moved from Kentucky to Illinois, and settled in what is now Madison county, in the fall of 1811. James Holliday came from Georgia. His son, Robert Holliday, resided in this county many years, and then moved to Macoupin county, where he died.

South-west of Edwardsville, at the foot of the bluff, Am- brose and David Nix were early settlers, and above them lived Jacob Varner. Abraham and Joel Varner were sons of the latter. Near the Nixs was Nix's ford, on the Caho- kia, a well-known place in the early history of the county,

Joseph Bartlett, and families by the name of Lockhart and Taylor settled in township four, range seven, in 1809. Bartlett was a native of Virginia, born in 1772, and removed at an early period to the vicinity of Knoxville, Tennessee, and from there came to Illinois in 1807. He first made his home in the Wood River settlement. During the war of 1812-14 he built a block-house, which was standing in good condition as late as 1834. Mr. Bartlett was a man of much intel- ligence. He was the first treasurer of Madison county after its organization. His habits were domestic, and he seldom went from home. He died in December, 1863, and for forty- four years previous to his death, had not visited the city of St. Louis, though less than twenty-five miles distant from his residence. At the time of his last trip there, in 1819, the horse-ferry had just been established across the Mississippi. So little curiosity did he manifest in the march of modern improvements, that he never went to sce a steamboat, or railroad, nor did he ever visit a county fair, a camp-meeting, or any like public gathering. He spent much time with his books, and his mind was well-stored with information, espe- cially in regard to Politics. Ile was a Whig. He had a

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

large and well-selected library, and was particularly well versed in the early history of Tennessee, in which state he lived before coming to Illinois. Besides acting as county treasurer he filled the office of justice of the peace, and other public positions.

Paul Beck was one of the early residents of this part of the county, and about three miles east of Edwardsville was built Beck's block-house, one of the places of refuge during the Indian troubles of the war of 1812-14. Jubilee Posey, a native of Georgia, came to Illinois in 1811, and settled in township four, range eight. He was in the ranging service ; some of his descendants reside in the southern part of the county.

In the southeastern part of the county the first traces of settlement appear in 1809. Mrs. Howard, a widow with several grown sons and daughters, emigrated from Tennessee that year, and made her home on a beautiful ridge, covered with timber, on the edge of the Looking Glass prairie. The prairie, for a distance of many miles, was spread out before their view. Their location was about one mile northwest of the present town of Highland. The next year 1810, Abraham Huser, who had married one of the Howard daughters, began making an improvement nearly a mile farther north. At that time these settlements were in ad- vance of all others, in that part of the county. Ten miles to the south, a short distance north of the present town of Lebanon, a few white men had erected their cabins; like- wise to the east, on Shoal ereek, some settlements had been made, and to the east were the improvements on Ridge Prai- ric, near the present towns of Troy and Edwardsville, but on the north not a single white man had erected his pioneer habitation.

On the east side of Silver creek, between 1810 and 1812, settlements were made by John Lindley, Augustus Chilton, William Chilton, Cyrus Chilton, and families by the name of Harrison and Smeltzer, with the Howards and Husers. There were eleven families in all in this part of the county to seek the protection of Chilton's Fort during the troubles with the Indians in the war of 1812 -- 14.

MONKS OF LA TRAPPE.

A different order of emigrants made their appearance in 1807 in the Monks of La Trappe who made their home on Cahokia or Monk's Mound where they remained till 1816, when they returned to France. These Monks were a branch of the order of Cistercian Monks. They first came to the United States in 1804, and lived successively at Conewango, Pennsylvania, in Kentucky, at Florissant, St. Louis county, Missouri, and then settled on the mound in the American Bottom which was a gift to them of Col. Nicholas Jarrot, of Cahokia. They were severe in their penances and discipline, and lived in perpetual silence. Gov. Reynolds states: " I saw many of the order, at their monastery in the American Bottom who refused to speak, but made signs, pointing to the place to obtain information. Many whom I saw, were stout, robust men, badly clothed, but fat and hearty." To them is attributed the discovery of coal in the neighboring bluffs.

THE SETTLEMENTS, DURING THIE WAR OF 1812 -- 14.

In the year 1812, at the time of the commencement of the Indian hostilities, the settlements in the present Madison county were confined to the southern and western parts of the county. The eentre of population was a short distance southwest of Edwardsville, north, along the Mississippi, the settlements were bounded by the site of the present city of Alton, which, in 1809, Reynolds says, Andy Dunnagan occupied, solitary and alone. A settlement of some consi- derable number of families had formed in the forks of Wood river; east of Silver creek, in the southeast part of the county, not more than a dozen families had made pioneer locations. Ridge prairie and the American Bottom con- tained by far the largest number of inhabitants.

INDIAN TROUBLES.

With the exception of the murder of Dennis and Vau Meter in 1802, the settlements were happily spared any Indian atrocities till the year 1811, when the hostile feelings of the Indians, which had been growing stronger, year by year, as they witnessed the advance of the white settlements, culminated in the murder of a man named Price near Hun- ter's Spring in the lower part of the present city of Alton. Price and a companion were engaged in plowing on the 20th day of June in that year, when a party of Indians approach- ed them, as they stood at the spring, where a small cabin had been built. As the Indians came near, the white nien asked them if they came in peace. One of the Indians, a man of great size and strength, laid down his gun, and ex- tended his hand to Price, who took it without suspeeting treachery. Priee was held fast by this one Indian, while the others immediately murdered him. During the struggle Priee's companion mounted his horse and escaped, though in his flight he received a severe bullet wound in the thigh.

This tragedy occasioned great apprehension, and from that time, till the declaration of peace at the close of the war of 1812-14 the settlers lived in constant alarm. Pre- parations for defence were immediately made. In July, 1811, a company of mounted riflemen, or rangers, was organized. Block houses were built at different points. The news of the battle of Tippecanoe, fought in November of the same year, intensified the excitement, and gave the settlers to understand that their homes, at any moment, might be made the theatre of a cruel, and relentless, savage warfare.

A stockade fort was built in seetion one, of township four, range nine, and around this were gathered a number of families. Among them were John Gillham and his five sons ; three brothers of the name of Brown, three of the Kirkpa- tricks, and families by the name of Dunnagan, Sanders, Fer- gurson, Dodd, Revis, Beeman, Winsor, Celver, Green, and Smith. Thomas Kirkpatrick's fort at Edwardsville shelter- ed the inhabitants who had settled in that vicinity, and Chilton's fort, east of Silver creek, about two miles west of the present town of St. Jacobs gave protection to the Howards, the Gigers, the Chiltons, and others who had settled in that part of the county. There were other block houses at vari-

HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS.

ous points, one on the southeast quarter of section eighteen, township five, range eight, known as Jones' block-house. James Kirkpatrick's fort was a couple of miles southwest of Edwardsville, and southeast was Frank Kirkpatrick's fort. Beck's block-house stood on section five of township four, range seven. Lofton's and Hayes' block-houses were in the American Bottom, in the present Nameoki township. The Wood river fort was in section ten, of township five. range nine, and there was another fort about one mile south of the old town of Milton.

In 1312, active preparations were made under Ninian Edwards, the territorial Governor, for the protection of the frontier. Companies of mounted rangers were organized who scoured the Indian country. Fort Russell was built at the commencement of the year, a couple of miles north of the present town of Edwardsville, and made the head- quarters of the Governor, and the base of his military opera- tions. Reynolds states that it was also, during the war, " the resort of the talent and fashion of the country. The Governor opened his court here, and presided with the character that genius and talent always bestow on the per- son possessing them. The cannon of Louis XIV, of France, were taken from old Fort Chartres, and with them and other military decorations, Fort Russell blazed out with considerable pioneer splendor." The fort received its name in honor of Col. William Russell, of Kentucky, who had command of the ten companies of rangers, organized by act of Congress, to defend the western frontier. Four of these companies were allotted to the defense of Illinois, and were commanded hy William B. Whiteside, James B. Moore, Jacob Short and Samuel Whiteside. The Whitesides were citizens of this county. A small company of regulars, under command of Captain Ramsey, were stationed at Fort Rus- sell for a few months of the year 1812, the only regular troops at the fort during the war.

Andrew Moore and family, moved from the Goshen set- tlement in 1810 to a place ten or fifteen miles southwest of the present town of Mt. Vernon, and in 1812, he and his son were killed by the Indians on the mildle fork of the Big Muddy, where they had camped on their way home from Jordan's fort.

WOOD RIVER MASSACRE.

The most startling and cruel atrocity ever committed by the Indians within the limits of Madison county was the Wood River massacre, on the tenth of July, 1814, by which seven persons, one woman and six children, lost their lives. This tragedy took place in the forks of Wood river, between two and three miles east of the present Upper Alton. The victims were the wife and two children of Reason Reagan, two children of Abel Moore, and two children of William Moore.

At the beginning of the war of 1812-14, the citizens of the county, who lived at exposed locations on the frontier, sought refuge in the forts and block-houses; but, as no Indians made their appearance and the Rangers were con- stantly on the alert, scouring the country to the north and east, the most began to feel so secure that in the summer of

1814 they returned to their farms and dwellings. There were six, or eight families residing at that time in the forks of Wood river. The men were mostly absent from home in ranging service. At the residence of George Moore on the east branch of Wood river, a block-house had been built to which the women and children could flee should danger be apprehended.

The massacre occurred on a Sabbath afternoon. Reagan had gone two, or three miles from home to attend church, leaving his wife and two children at the house of Abel Moore, which was about a mile distant from where he lived, and half-way between his house and the block-house. About four o'clock in the afternoon Mrs. Reagan started back to her own dwelling, intending to return to Abel Moore's in a short time. She was accompanied by her own two children, aud the four children of Abel and William Moore. A little afterward two men of the neighborhood passed along the road, in an opposite direction to that taken by Mrs. Reagan. One of them heard at a certain place, a low call, as of a hoy, which he did not answer, and for a repetition of which he did not delay.

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History of Madison County, Illinois With biographical sketches, Part 20

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