USA > Illinois > McLean County > History of McLean County, Illinois, Volume I > Part 3
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the soil and their surroundings enough of the actual necessities to keep them in fair comfort, although they lacked all of what we consider today the luxuries of life. They provided food and shelter, clothing and some means of transport. They traveled long distances on horseback or with a crude wagon to get their wheat or corn milled and to barter for or buy the other necessities of their lives. Owing to the constant danger of prairie fires, they never left their homes without the fear that when they returned they would find their fields, houses and barns a mere blackened waste. And yet they lived on and built up here this great community of civilized and educated people of McLean County today.
And yet the people of the early settlements, especially the young people, had their amusements of the kind that their circumstances af- forded. There were no theaters, clubs, daily papers, magazines, or li- braries. The people therefore sought most of their pastimes in the great outdoors. Horse racing was the favorite sport for the men, since nearly every family had horses, and it was an event when the young men met to test the speed of their favorite animals against each other. Foot-racing by the men themselves, wit hwrestling, boxing and other athletic pas- times furnished diversions from the hard everyday life of the pioneer. There was no baseball in those days, no schools with their football and basketball teams; no coaches nor uniformed teams in various lines of athletics as there are today. Life in sport as well as in everything else was of a simpler sort in the early days of the county.
For the women, dancing and other indoor games were the pastimes of most popularity. Whole neighborhoods would come for miles to at- tend a dance, and some of the young people of that day developed re- markable skill and grace in waltzing, quadrille, Virginia reel and other forms of the dance. Spelling bees and singing schools were also of com- mon occurrence.
Hunting was indulged in both for the sport of it, the chase and to furnish meats for the families. Deer, wild turkey, geese and ducks, quail, and prairie chickens were common among the food animals; while wolves, foxes, wildcats and other "varmints" were killed to rid the settle- ments of their destructiveness. Many times a large wolf hunt was or- ganized, and the really dangerous beasts were rounded up and killed in numbers. The advent of the railroads took away the truly pioneer char- acter of the country; made communication more rapid and convenient, and began the modern era of the county.
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CHAPTER III.
COUNTY ORGANIZATION.
MOVEMENT FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW COUNTY-NAME-TERRITORY COM- PRISING McLEAN COUNTY-FIRST ELECTION DISTRICT-MCLEAN COUNTY CREATED DECEMBER 25, 1830-ORIGINAL BOUNDARIES-FORM OF GOVERN- MENT - EARLY ROADS -VALUATION .- MERCANTILE METHODS- OFFICIAL ACTS-NEW TOWNS-ORGANIZATION OF TOWNSHIPS.
Tazewell County had been formed from part of the vast area orig- inally comprised in Sangamon County. By the year 1830, there were many small settlements in this immediate vicinity, and the people began to talk about forming another county of their own. Mackinawtown was the county seat of Tazewell, and the people there were opposed to cutting off any of the territory from Tazewell. But one of the young men who had come here in 1829, James Allin by name, became the leader in the movement for forming a new county. He with others circulated the petitions addressed to the legislature asking permission for organizing the new county. When finally signed by numbers of settlers, the petitions were taken to Vandalia, the state capital, by Thomas Orendorff, James Allin and James Latta. The speaker of the house at that time was Wil- liam Lee E. Ewing, who took an interest in the proposition. After sev- eral days of waiting, Mr. Ewing called Messrs. Allin, Orendorff and Latta into his room and asked them what name they would have for their county.
Hendricks was suggested in honor of Mr. Hendricks of Indiana. But it was decided not to name the county after any living man. Finally the name of McLean was suggested, in honor of John McLean of Shawnee- town, who had been speaker of the house, member of Congress and United
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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY
States senator. The bill then organizing the new county with the name of McLean was passed by the house of the legislature in the morning of one day, and by the senate in the afternoon.
It is interesting to trace the origin of the political unit of McLean County from its very beginning. By the year 1824 there were 40 or 50 families living in the vicinity of Blooming Grove, but they were over 100 miles from the county seat at Vandalia, and there was no voting place near. Consequently, no one of the settlers cast his vote at the elec- tion of 1824 when the slavery question was at issue in this state. As the election of 1826 drew near, the people of this region agitated for a voting precinct in their neighborhood. It was accordingly created and named Orendorff precinct. This was the germ of the future county of McLean. At the session of county commissioners of Fayette County in March, 1826, it was decided that all that part of the county north of township 17 shall compose an election district, and that William Oren- dorff, John Benson and James Latta were named judges of election there. William See and W. H. Hodge were clerks of the election. The area of the precinct was enormous, taking in all of the present McLean County, part of DeWitt and Piatt, also territory north to the Wisconsin line, the latter mostly unsettled. The Blooming Grove settlement was the most important between Vandalia and the Wisconsin line.
Settlements grew in number and population from 1826-27 and espe- cially after the Indians had beenremoved from the county in 1829 and the prairie lands began to be settled. In the year 1827 Tazewell County was organized with Mackinawtown as its county seat. The western row of townships, Danvers, Allin, and Mt. Hope, belonged to Sangamon until Tazewell County was formed. In June, 1827, the Tazewell board of super- visors created an election precinct called Blooming Grove precinct and embracing territory east of the third principal meridian and north of township 22, which would include all of the present county east of the Danvers-Mt. Hope strip. The first election here was held at the house of John Benson, county treasurer. Population continuing to grow in this region, the number of families residing in the territory of the present county had grown to 350 by the year 1830. There were 350 votes cast at the election that fall in the precinct. Many of the leading men of the time then began to talk of forming a new county, for they saw that the immense territory of Tazewell County could not always be held together
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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY
as one political unit. It was at this time that James Allin came here, he being a young man of much push and having been county commissioner of Fayette County in the years 1823-25. Allin therefore at once agitated the forming of a new county and establishing a county seat at or near Blooming Grove. A petition was therefore circulated and largely signed, and sent to Vandalia, the state capital, in December, 1830. Thomas Oren- dorff and James Latta took the petition to Vandalia, and Allin furnished them letters to prominent men at the capital, Mr. Allin himself being unable to go. The law creating McLean County was passed by the legis- lature on December 25, 1830, and commissioners were appointed to go to the neighborhood and select the site for the county seat, which should be known as Bloomington. This month was the month of the historical "deep snow," and on that account the site committee did not make the trip until the following spring. When it did finally make the journey of inspection, the committee selected a part of the tract of land which James Allin had entered from the government, having first obtained the rights therein of William Evans, a former claimant. This was at the north side of Blooming Grove, where James Allin had already established a store. It is said that the settlers in the grove itself did not care to have the new village located in their vicinity. John McLean, for whom the county was named, had died just the previous year, hence his name was then prominently honored by Illinois people.
The original boundaries of the county as formed when the bill was passed were these: Bounded on the north by the Illinois river; on the east by range six east of the third principal meridian; on the south by the township line of township 21 north; on the west by range One west of the third principal meridian.
In 1898, the McLean County Historical Society erected in the east corridor of the courthouse in Bloomington, a very handsome memorial tablet in honor of John McLean, for whom the county was named. This tablet contains the following inscription: "1791-1830. In Memory of John McLean, of Shawneetown, Illinois, for Whom This County was Named. First representative in Congress, 1818; U. S. Senator 1824-25 and 1829-30. Erected by the board of supervisors and McLean County Historical Society, Dec. 6, 1898."
The business of McLean County was first transacted by a board of three commissioners. Their first meeting was held May 16, 1831. The
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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY
members were Jonathan Cheney, Timothy B. Hoblit and Jesse Havens. Isaac Baker was appointed first clerk of the commissioners' court, and held the office for many years. The first tax levy was one-half of one per cent. This was a small levy, but the settlers were poor, and the tax was no light matter for payment. Thomas Orendorff was first treasurer of the county, but the money that he handled would be considered a laugh- able quantity at the present time. Of the first commissioners, Cheney came from Cheney's Grove, Hoblit represented the Waynesville neighbor- hood, now in DeWitt County, and Havens came from Havens' Grove, in the northern part of the county.
Five voting precincts were formed from the territory of the county: Kickapoo precinct, in the southwestern part, comprising some of the terri- tory of the present Logan and DeWitt Counties; Salt Creek precinct, the eastern portion of the county ; Bloomington precinct, taking in the county seat and territory to the west and north; Mackinaw precinct, covering an immense tract which was sparsely settled, including Lexington, Money Creek and north of the Mackniaw river to the north county line; lastly Panther Creek precinct, mostly in the present area of Woodford county and extending down to Stout's Grove and Danvers. There were 2,016 sections of land in the county, which comprised at that time approxi- mately 1,290,000 acres. After various tracts had been cut off the county from time to time, its area was narrowed down to 1,166 square miles, or 1,068 sections, about one-half its original area.
For the first 18 years of the history of the county, from 1831 to 1849, the commissioners' form of government prevailed. In addition to the first three commissioners, the names of men who served in this ca- pacity while the form of government prevailed included Andrew Mc- Millan, Seth Baker, Joseph Bartholomew, William C. Johnson, James R. Dawson, William Orendorff, Nathan Low, John B. Jones, William Cona- way, Jesse Funk, William Bishop, Henry Van Sickle, Ezekiel Arrowsmith, Israel W. Hall, and James Van Dolah. At the adoption of the constitu- tion of 1848, there were two forms of county government provided in Illinois. One was the County Justices' Court, consisting of three judges, one probate and two associates; or the people of any county could by proper adoption on popular vote take on the system of township organiza- tion. The southern section of the state generally used the county com- missioners' form of government, having taken it from the southern states,
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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY
whence most of the settlers came. In northern and central Illinois the township form was more popular.
Some items from year to year taken from the official records of the commissioners' court of McLean County serve to designate the progress which the county was making in population and other material interests. Much of the business of the commissioners' court during the earliest years was connected with the laying out of roads, as this was one of the first requisites of the new settlements. As early as July 27, 1831, on petition of Jacob Spawr and others a road was laid out from Rook's place on the Vermilion River past Money Creek, Sugar Creek at a point north of Bloomington, through Randolph Grove and Long Point to the south line of the county. In the January term, 1832, a road was laid out from Bloomington to Funk's Grove. In the March term a road from Bloom- ington southeasterly to the county line.
To give an idea of the small total of property values in the county in the early years it may be stated that the total revenues of the county for the year 1829 were $1,061.89, and the expenses $898.53. At the March term of 1832 the county levied a tax of one-half per cent on the following property : All horses, mules, meat cattle three years old, town lots, sheep one year old, pleasure carriages, wagons, household property, watches and all distilleries. The county taxes collected for 1832 were $2,313, and the assessor was paid the sum of $40. An interesting item of busi- ness for the December term, 1832, was the appearance of John Scott, Ebenezer Barnes, and William McGhee and making application for the privilege of proving themselves to have been Revolutionary soldiers. After due investigation, the court confirmed their declarations as true. The same was done in the case of Thomas Sloan.
A matter of business indicative of the crude mercantile methods of that day was the application before the county commissioners of a num- ber of men who applied for license to sell goods. These men were James Allin, M. L. Covell, John and Samuel Durley, and Benjamin Haines. The merchant of the early times carried a miscellaneous collection of articles such as he thought would supply the needs of the pioneer. When he wanted to replenish his stock, he would go among his neighbors and try to collect enough of their outstanding debts to at least pay his expenses on a trip to Pekin or St. Louis, which he made partly by wagon and partly
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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY
' by boat. Chicago in those days was little known or patronized by McLean County people.
In the March term, 1833, a license was granted to Greenbury Lari- son for $5 to keep a tavern in the town of Bloomington. This same term levied a tax of one-half per cent on all personal property and town lots. The first instance of granting public aid to the poor was in the case of a girl by the name of Maryann King, who was 8 years of age, and she was bound as an apprentice to the house of Gervis Gaylord until she should reach the age of 18.
New election precincts were formed at the June term, 1833, and election judges were named. At the March term, 1834, it was reported that the total amount realized from the sale of lots in the town of Bloom- ington was $963.921/2.
In March, 1835, a permission was granted to George W. Wallis to erect, under certain restrictions, a milldam and mills on the Mackinaw, and to Tebulan G. Cantrill and Metthew McElhiney each a permit to build a mill on the Kickapoo. The sheriff was authorized at this session to rent the court house for a school house under certain restrictions, at $3 per month. The taxes for the year 1835 were reported as $1,241.421/2.
The first case on the county records of advertising for public bids was that of the October term, 1835, when the court was directed to insert in the "Illinois Republican" a notice that proposals would be received for the erecting of a court house 40 feet square two stories high, of brick. The county treasurer was authorized to pay for this little "adv."
New towns were springing up at this time, as evidenced by the fact that in December, 1835, a plat of the village of New Castle was presented to the county commissioners by Timothy B. Hoblit and James Allin, and of the town of Leroy by Asahel Gridley and M. L. Covell. Applications for license to sell goods in Leroy was made by John W. Baddely; in Waynesville by David Duncan and R. Post, and in McLean county by A. Gridley, Ortagal Covell and Calvin Carpenter. The county commissioners appointed Thomas H. Haines their attorney to effect a loan of $5,000 at not to exceed 8 per cent interest, in preparation for the building of a court house.
From 1850 to 1857 the discussion of the question of what form of county government should prevail in McLean was waged with intensity.
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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY
Three elections on the question were held, one in 1850, the second in 1856, and the third in 1857. In the first two, the proposal for township organ- ization did not receive a majority of all the votes in the county, although it received a majority of all votes cast in each case. The discussion was brought to a head by the act of the County Justices' Court in 1857 in donating $70,000 worth of swamp land for the location of the State Nor- mal University in this county. This land had been given the county by the federal government, and up to that time its disposal was a matter of uncertainty. The county court's liberal offer of this land was the de- ciding factor in the location of the Normal University, but when the prof- fer to give this land for the purpose was made, it stirred much discussion, and many people thought the county court had exceeded its authority. The action of offering the land was done in secret session, so as not to let the chief competitor, Peoria, know of this liberal donation. Although this secrecy was much criticised, the action was ratified by the first meet- ing of the board of supervisors after county reorganization was adopted. The final vote on township organization was taken on Nov. 3, 1857, and stood as follows: For township organization, 2,109; against township organization, 786; majority in favor, 1,323.
The last meeting of the old County Court was held in March, 1858, and the new form of township organization was perfected at the elections in April, when supervisors were elected from the various townships which had been created. This board met on May 17, 1858.
Several changes of the names of the townships have been made since they were first organized in 1858. Savanna township has been changed to Downs; Leroy is now Empire; Lee was changed to Padua; Kickapoo to West, in honor of Henry West; Pleasant to Arrowsmith; Prairie to Bell- flower; Mosquito Grove changed to Allin, in honor of James Allin, the pioneer; Padua changed to Dawson, in honor of John Wells Dawson: Cropsey was divided into two townships, and the new one was named Anchor, the division being made in 1877. Chenoa was divided in 1863, the new township being named Union, which was afterward changed to Yates, in honor of Richard Yates, the Civil war governor of Illinois.
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1822 IN MEMORY OF JOHN & JANE JOHN W &ANN HENDRIX | DAWSON HOMESITE & NI. S.W. HOME SITE & MI.N.E. FIRST SETTLERS OF BLOOMING GROVE ERECTED 1922
BLOOMING GROVE MARKER.
CHAPTER IV.
TOWNS AND TOWNSHIPS.
ALLIN-ANCHOR-ARROWSMITH-BELLFLOWER -- BLOOMINGTON-BLUE MOUND- CHENEYS GROVE-CHENOA-CROPSEY-DALE-DANVERS-DAWSON-DOWNS DRY GROVE-EMPIRE.
A condensed story of the early settlement and development of the various townships of McLean County, together with the founding and incorporation of the towns and villages is told as follows:
Allin Township .- Originally this township was called Mosquito Grove, in honor of one of the three groves which were located there. On May 3, 1867, the name was changed to Allin, in honor of James Allin, the pio- neer. The groves were Mosquito, Brown's and Brooks' groves. With the exception of these, totaling 1,400 acres, the township was prairie land. The first settler was Miles Brooks, in whose honor the grove was named. William Brown was the man after whom the other grove was named. Mosquito Grove was early inhabited by a family by the name of Reddon, a notorious band of outlaws and horse thieves who were supposed to be one link in the chain of such characters which stretched across Iowa and Illinois. Robert Stubblefield at one time caught one of the Reddons red- handed with stolen horses and he was indicted and convicted. At an- other time Isaac Funk, Robert Stubblefield, John Stubblefield, Ebenezer Mitchell and others made a midnight call at the Reddon home looking for stolen horses, but found none. It was after a famous murder of one Co !. George Davenport at Rock Island, with which the Reddon gang was sup- posed to have had some hand, that the decent people of the neighborhood decided to rid the community of them, which was effectively done by a
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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY
"ring hunt" which had the desired effect and scared the men away, never to return.
Stanford, the town located in Allin township, was laid out by John Armstrong in 1867 on the Jacksonville branch of the Alton road, and was incorporated as a village. It was first called Allin, but the name was changed to Stanford. The town is among the richest in the county, hav- ing two general stores, a fine school house, one bank, two implement and hardware stores, three elevators, and many other places of business. For many years Stanford has maintained a fair which attracts many people every autumn. The population is about 700.
Anchor Township .- This township is practically all prairie land, and it remained unsettled for many years after other parts of the county were populated to more or less extent. R. M. Rankin entered the first lands in Anchor townshi pin August, 1850, and Robert Cunningham was the second claimant in 1851. Robert Stackpole settled in the township in 1853 and bought a tract of over 2,300 acres. He incurred large expenses for fencing and other improvements, and crops failed for a year or two after her started farming, hence his lands were sold for debt about the time of the Civil war. Anchor township was first a part of Cropsey, but in 1877 was separated from it, leaving Cropsey only half the area of a congressional township. George R. Birch, its supervisor, gave it its name. After the Civil war the township was rapidly settled up, A. R. Jones ac- quiring most of the lands formerly owned by Stackpole. Among the earlier settlers after the war were A. S. Dart, John Ingram, N. Brinley, Henry Gilstrap, M. H. Knight, R. H. Arnold, Daniel B. Stewart, W. H. and F. M. Anderson. The settlers of this vicinity were largely of German extraction for the last 30 years, and being of a thrifty character the farms of Anchor are among the best in the county. With the building of a branch of the Illinois Central railroad through this township in 1880, a town, also called Anchor, sprang up on a site covering part of Daniel B. Stewart's land. It formed a trading center for the people of Anchor and Cropsey townships. The village was incorporated soon after it was set- tled. The source of the Mackinaw river is generally presumed to be in Anchor township.
Arrowsmith Township .- This township has one of the most romantic histories in the county so far as the times before the white settlers came
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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY
is concerned. It was here that one of the chief Indian settlements in the county is said to have existed, and here too, are evidences of an Indian fort and scenes of battles, either between hostile tribes of Indians or be- tween white men and Indians. The township was first called Pleasant, but afterward named Arrowsmith in honor of Ezekiel Arrowsmith, who was supervisor of the township in 1858, when the change of name was made. Jonathan Cheney entered the first land in the township, having laid claim to a tract near the grove in the southwest part, which was in fact part of the Old Town timber. Here was located, according to evidence of early settlers, quite an Indian town, and also an Indian burying ground belong- ing to the Kickapoos. John Wells Dawson, the first settler, had personal knowledge of these two Indian habitations. The Indian burying ground was just over the line from West township in Arrowsmith, while the Indian town was a few miles northwest of this, near the home of John Dawson. But the most notable Indian relics were those found near a grove in the eastern part of the township, first owned by Jacob Smith, on section 24. At the headwaters of the Sangamon river in this vicinity is a hill or mound some 20 feet in height and an acre in extent at the top. Early settlers found there many excavations or pits, which later became overgrown with grass and underbrush until they were almost lost to sight. Some distance away, about the distance which may be calculated as a gunshot, are located zigzag pits or ditches. Here have been found from time to time many leaden bullets. From all these evidences the local his- torians have concluded that a battle occurred here between an attacking party in the ditches and the defenders of the hill with its pits. The course of the Sangamon, the location of the hill and the "rifle pits," and the find- ing of bullets in the vicinity, all point to a battle. The McLean County Historical Society, under the direction of the late Capt. John H. Burnham, made many attempts to excavate these pits and mounds for historic evi- dences, and they were in part successful. The society obtained some two pounds of leaden bullets by their several explorations. Those who do not credit the theory of a battle between the Kickapoos and some hostile tribe, say the battle might have been between the Kickapoos and a band of French soldiers from Fort Chartres, who were once said to have been sent out to "chastise" the Kickapoos, known as the "Indians of the prai- rie." A half-breed Indian of the Pottawatomie tribe, is quoted by one authority as having heard traditions among his people of a battle between
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