USA > Illinois > Henderson County > History of Mercer County : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc., gathered from mattter furnished by the Mercer County Historical Society, interviews with old settlers, county, township and other records, and extracts from files of papers, pamphlets, and such other sources as have been available : containing also a short history of Henderson County > Part 30
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on section 9. Waiting two weeks for the water to fall so that he could cross the creek, he in the last of June moved up and made the first settlement on the north side of Camp creek. At that time there were living on the sonth side of Camp creek the following families, viz: John Black and Mr. Burroughs on section 36; Austin Wood and W. A. Wood on section 26; Daniel Ebner and William Doak on section 27; William McHard and James Gingles on section 28: Edward Burrall and Robert Gingles on section 29; Philip Miller and John Crooks on section 30; and Isaiah Lockhard on section 33.
In the fall of 1845 Graham Lee and Henry Lee settled on the east side of section 9. Up to this time the settlements had been begun by claims, and but few had been able to enter the whole amount of their claims, Edward Burrall and Philip Miller being the only known excep- tions. From this to 1850. excepting the lands held by military title, the best lands were taken up and entered, or bought at the land office, and by 1855 no lands were held by claims. The dates of settlements subsequent to 1845 will be shown by the records, and therefore are omitted from this history which is only intended to cover ground that records will not reach. By general consent the year 1845 is considered by the present inhabitants to terminate the years of pioneer settlement.
The climate in the early history of Perryton was subject to very severe changes from one extreme to another, with such suddenness as to surprise every one, and thus often causing suffering, and even death. when the settlers were caught unprepared away from home on the boundless prairie. An early settler relates of a phenomenon in 1834, in the fall from the clouds of a heavy body of frost, in veins and in all manner of strange shapes. There would be a solid body of several rods in extent that killed all kinds of vegetation, and leading out of this body, in a zig-zag course, a narrow strip of the frost that left its mark like the course of a prairie fire. The wind, in the fall season of the year especially, would veer about from the south to the northwest, piercing with the most intense cold, and the fine, dry snow almost blinding and cutting like needles those exposed to its fury. A storm of this kind is remembered by one of the earliest settlers at the Grove, in which some persons were caught away from home and perished by being frozen. Abraham Miller, Jr., was once caught away from home on the prairie in a stinging nor'wester, and so badly frozen that for a time his life was despaired of. He was utterly helpless when found by his neighbors, who had become alarmed for his safety and organized a party of rescue; the skin all peeled off from his face and hands, and the evil effects of this freezing followed him to the declining years of a remarkably vigorous manhood. An old settler, describing from mem-
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ory some of the disastrous effects of a fierce hurricane which he wit- nessed in the north end of Mercer county in 1844, says that the whole neighborhood had scarcely a house left standing for several miles. The main body of the hurricane was not more than three to five miles wide ; it took Mercer in 15 north, and in range 1 or 2, where it did the greatest damage. It came up hurriedly with a dark thunder cloud, accompanied with a fierce dash of rain, with a dense fog or smoke. Two deaths and a large number slightly injured were the results so far as heard in Mercer county. One Howard Trego was killed by his house falling on him, but his wife and children escaped with only slight injuries.
Among our first settlers there was scarcely ever any thought of going to law with each other. A certain code of honor reigned supreme. If a neighbor did not pay his just debts as soon as able, his neighbors shamed him into paying, and if that failed the case was arbitrated, settled, and all hands went home satisfied and jovial over the result. If a man inclined to act dishonorable, social ostracism brought him around to a sense of the magnitude of his offense. and he was generally made to feel that the community would not receive on an equality any one tainted with the suspicion of dishonorable conduct. In the settlement of personal difficulties, growing out of insults and other indignities offered by one to another, a resort was generally had to a test of prowess in a fair stand-up and knock-down fight, the respective friends of the combatants seeing that fair play was had until one of the warriors cried, "Hold! enough!" If one of the parties was not considered able to combat a larger and more muscular opponent, sometimes a friend and sometimes an entire stranger would take his place in the ring. In those days a coward was reckoned among the contemptible things of earth, and if a man exhibited cowardice by drawing a weapon and threatening another. he was lucky to escape the indignation of the bystanders with a whole body. Although the standard of honor adopted by our early settlers would hardly be regarded as just the thing at the present day, there was that about it which challenges our admiration in spite of the condemnation put upon it by modern civilization.
The first justice of the peace in the Sugar Grove precincts was Abraham Miller, Jr. The first suit at law ever had was instituted by a man named B. Lloyd. An excuse for a lawsuit was a sufficient provo- cation generally for a free "pitch in." At the time of this first suit there was but one copy of the Illinois statutes in Mercer county, and that was in the hands of the county clerk at New Boston. William Drury, and it could not be loaned. The justice begged time for
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preparation, but the plaintiff was rampant for litigation and would not listen to a proposition for postponement. So the justice was compelled to ride some twelve miles to Rock Island county, where he borrowed a statute of Daniel Edgington, Esq., which copy was reluctantly loaned with the solemn stipulation that it was to be returned in three days. During the time allowed him our justice pored over this book to ascertain the statutory duties enjoined upon his office, and in taking notes for future reference. The notes thus taken from the statutes constituted the edition from which our justice dispensed the law, and were used for a number of years by him, until he was fortunate enough to secure a printed edition. When copying from the borrowed book, one night he went to sleep over his labor and upset the inkstand over the sacred volume, which so terrified him that he licked away with his tongue until he had saved the blotted pages from entire obliter- ation.
Recurring once more to the wild animals and game found by the earlier settlers of this region, as bearing upon the question of food. I will enumerate such as are suggested to my memory and spoken of by the pioneers. Deer were in great abundance, wild turkeys, prairie chickens, squirrels (the gray and the large fox), pheasants, partridges or quails, and the curlew and plover. There were plenty of wild geese and ducks, pellicans, swans, coons, rabbits, large wolves, and the prairie wolf or cavota. The large wolf and the small frequently crossed and the half breed made a very troublesome animal. Wildcats or catamounts, a chance panther, mostly in the heavily timbered bottoms, bears, though not plenty, raccoons, badgers, and opossums. There were ground squirrels, owls, hawks, eagles, turkey buzzards, parokeets, and large snow-white owls. Of fish there was an abundance of all fresh-water varieties, such as the catfish, pike, pickerel, bass, perch, drum, buffalo, red-horse, sucker, dog-fish, flying fish, sunfish, and salmon. Abraham Miller, Jr., says that he has killed with the gig in the Edwards river pike weighing fifty pounds, and that he built a fish-trap in the same river by which he secured barrels and barrels of fish, some of which he took to Knoxville for sale. One method adopted by the settlers for trapping deer was by what was called fire-hunting, in a canoe.
Of the domestic animals raised by the first settlers, it is a difficult matter to give anything like a pedigree. They were of various kinds and grades, such as the old pioneers happened to have on hand when they landed and settled down in their backwoods homes. At that early date but very little attention had been paid to blooded stock, and hogs and cattle were selected more on account of their qualities for
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picking their own living in the woods and on the prairies. George Miller, Sr., brought some fine brood mares with him to Sugar Grove. from Montgomery county, Indiana, in the fall of 1834. They were originally the foal of a Goliah dam, by a Mckinney roan sire, crossed by a Smiling Call horse, then by a cross from a Roanoke sire, and then next crossed with the Copper Bottom and the Flag. This stock was large, well proportioned, docile, and of fine spirit, and well suited for the early settlers. One Joseph Tichnor, a young man from Ohio, brought the first Berkshire hogs to Mercer county, and made quite a speculation out of them in the Sugar Grove settlements. George Miller. Sr .. brought from Indiana with him a lot of hogs that were a cross between the large China and the large white Shaker hog; they were long, large, heavy-boned, and thought to be as easily fattened as the China. Abraham Miller killed one of this breed in the early history of the Sugar Grove settlement that weighed over five hundred pounds, and thinks he could have been made to weigh seven hundred. Later, a few pigs were introduced of the Byefield and Bedford stock. The Berkshire was regarded as a failure. The stock of cattle were a mixed breed, between the old scrub and the Durham, Patton, etc. They made fine. large work oxen, good milkers, and excellent beef. The sheep were of the commonest stock, and no more were kept than answered the purpose of making the necessary clothing. The little flocks of sheep were highly esteemed by the pioneers, because of their usefulness in furnishing clothing, and they were carefully protected from the depredations of the wolves, as they seemed to have a strong hankering after mutton. This appetite resulted in the destruction of the entire race of the large wolves, and almost all of the prairie wolves, by the writer, whose serious loss in sheep compelled him to resort to an extensive use of strychnine, used in bait to accomplish their destruc- tion. After 1845 the wolves had become so thoroughly extinguished as to occasion no more losses or annoyance to owners of sheep.
Deer were quite plentiful in the early history of Perryton, so much so as to furnish a large portion of the meat required for the table. Of the deer and their habits, much could be written which would no doubt prove an interesting part of this record, but I will desist with the sim- ple relation a fight between two buck deer, witnessed by a pioneer near where the town of Millersburg now stands. When first noticed. they were plunging and pushing at each other, with horns interlocked and in a manner peculiar to these animals. Their horns could be heard rat- tling against each other quite distinctly for a distance of three hundred yards. They were both large bucks, one of them a monster of his species, and the struggle between them a fierce one. After watching
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with deep interest for about one hour, our informant closed in to a dis- tance of about forty yards and awaited an opportunity to get a good square shot. From the extraordinary size. of the larger buck he was satisfied that it was the same one that had acquired the designation of "The Town Buck" from the hunters in the settlement, because of his great size, and because of frequent visits to the township, and suc- cessful efforts in always escaping. To capture such a prize would have been regarded as a great honor among the hunters, so our relator was watchful and wary. The bucks kept continually lunging at each other so that it was impossible to get a safe shot. Finally the smaller one broke away and ran off pursued by the larger. Knowing their habits, pursuit was given and the "Town Buck " soon fell a victim to the rapacity of the hunter. The fame of this affair spread for a great distance, as the buck was one of the largest ever seen by hunters who had grown gray in pioneer life.
The tribes of Indians roaming about Mercer county in its first set- tlement were the Sacs and Foxes. The Fox tribe, about the time of the Black Hawk war, formed a union with the Sacs, and became a tribe known as the Fox and Sac. They were large, strong, active, brave and warlike, and used all of the weapons of Indian warfare with great skill. This tribe was formerly headed by the famous warrior Black Hawk. After the war known as the Black Hawk war, he was degraded from his chieftainship because of his counsel in favor of peace. Abraham Miller relates that he saw Black Hawk, with his twelve braves, who always accompanied him after his downfall, strike their evening camp on the bank of the Mississippi, at the mouth of Sturgeon Bay, near New Boston. They were on a last visit to the grave of Black Hawk's daughter, who was buried there in a grove of black oaks. For their evening meal they boiled a pole-cat which they did not even trouble themselves to take the hair off, but the hair sim- mered to the surface of the stew. When sufficiently cooked, Black Hawk gave to each a share of the savory meal ; the first received the head, and so on until all were served. Black Hawk then wore about his neck a long string of silver medals, which had been presented to him by the government, and by English fur companies. Occasionally some few Miamis and Potawottomies wandered through the county, but not to remain. The headquarters of the Winnebagos for the winter season was on the banks of the Mississippi, in Mercer county, a short distance above New Boston. They could there winter their ponies better than elsewhere, in consequence of the tall grass that grew along the bays. Sugar Grove was a great camping-ground for the Indians at one time, especially on the south side along Edwards river.
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The Indian name of this was " Big Turtle river." When the Miller's first settled at the Grove, the Indians had a large encampment there for making sugar, with quite a large wigwam made of poles and covered with bark.
The early history of Perryton, thus hastily and briefly written at moments of leisure, and under many adverse circumstances pertaining to lack of data and conflict of facts, will, I hope, possess the certain interest always attaching to the record of that which has passed away. never to return. It is the reflection rather of a period of pioneer life that long ago ceased to exist, the mirror of an irrevocable past. the grim romance of the adventurous life of the early settler. None of us who were living and moved in the scenes of pioneer settlement ever, in brightest anticipation, contemplated the possibility of such changes as have been brought by the advancing tide of civilization. Never in fondest dreams did the pioneer picture the transition that has actually taken place. The fields have been made to bloom and yield most bountifully of the products which make nations prosperous, thus con- tributing to their happiness. Many of those who are now enjoying the fruits of the labors of the early pioneers have but little conception of what it cost in hardships and privations to open up the wilderness, and when they read of the trials encountered, the adventures endured, to accomplish this result, they can only realize it in the light of a pleasant romance. While the rising generation are amassing wealth in a life of comparative luxury, we, the earlier settlers yet living, experience a lively sense of gratitude in the thought that our hands contributed so materially to the building up of the present condition of prosperity and happiness of those who are now occupying the beautiful homes and magnificent farms to be found in Perryton.
[To the foregoing, contributed by Mr. Lee, we append a few notes relative to the organizations of the township .- ED. ]
HAMLET.
The village of Hamlet, located one mile south of the north line and three miles west of the east line of the township, was laid out on the land of Josiah and Capt. D. M. Candor, in 1868, and was christened Hamlet, in honor of Hamlet Cooper, now deceased, one of the very first of the pioneers to locate in this section of the country. The prog- ress of the village has been slow, owing to its proximity to Reynolds. the nearest railroad town, but it is one of those quiet country villages where the farmers in the community go for their mail and spend a short time in social converse. The first store erected in the place was that of Josiah and Capt. D. M. Candor, who dealt in general merchan-
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dise. The latter of the Candor brothers has at this writing withdrawn from the firm ; the former vet continues in the business. Lloyd Girton opened the second store. The first blacksmith shop was opened here by Thomas Lewis. The business houses of the village are one harness shop, one store of general merchandise, by Josiah Candor, one drug store, by Dr. Criswell, one wagon and blacksmith shop, by A. T. Hooples and D. M. Dumbell and son. The village has a good local trade, and has a population of about 125 persons. The postoffice now kept at Hamlet was first established in this neighborhood in 1854. The office was first kept by Graham Lee, who held it till 1869, when it was moved to Hamlet, and Josiah Condor appointed postmaster. He has since continued to hold the office without cessation.
The Presbyterian church of Hamlet was organized in 1870. Pre- vions to the organization here the members of this faith held their membership in the societies of the surrounding country, the greater part at Millersburg. The first members that constituted the church were thirty-two in number. The society was organized by Thomas M. Wilson, W. S. Dool, and T. R. Johnson. Previons to the organization they had preaching in the school-house one mile west of the village, but not regularly. Those present at the organization were : F. A. Sherer, moderator; William S. Dool, C. B. Bristol, Daniel Kelly, T. R. Johnson, and William W. Morehead. The elders were : Thomas Candor and J. M. Gilmore. Of the thirty-two members who consti- tuted the organization in the beginning, fifteen were dismissed from the society at Edgington Mills, Rock Island county ; thirteen from the Millersburg society; the remaining four were not members of any particular society here at that time. The first elders appointed were : Cornelius Swartwout, J. S. Gilmore, and John Montgomery. The present elders are : William H. Wheaton, D. M. Candor, and John Montgomery. The present membership is eighty-five. The society has a very neat frame church, 36×50, erected at a cost of $3,000. Since its organization it has supported and kept in operation a live Sunday school. The ministers who have labored here are T. M. Wilson and II. W. Fisk, since the organization; the former from 1870 to 1872; the latter from 1873, and is at this time pastor of this charge. The membership of this society represents most of the first families in this community. This is the only church organization in the village.
There is another Presbyterian society in the township, south of Camp creek, known as the Perryton Presbyterian church society. This society was organized in 1871. The first meeting preliminary to the organization was held February 18 of the same year. It is connected
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with the society at Hamlet. At the above meeting a committee was appointed, consisting of J. Harris, William Doak, and Cruser Gray. for the purpose of erecting a church-house. This committee located the church at Gingles' Corner, in conformity with the will of the mem- bers. The church is a neat, frame edifice, erected at a cost of $2, 100. It was dedicated in 1872, out of debt. The society at its organization numbered thirty communicants; but from various causes, over which the church has no control, it now numbers only twelve active members. Its pastors are the same as those of the Hamlet society. Previous to effecting the organization, the people of this faith held their meetings at the school-house near by, but like the members of the society at Hamlet, were members of the societies of the same faith at other places. The first members who constituted the society were Samuel and Frank MeHard, Mrs. Jane Martha MeHard, Martha Blue, Sarah Doak, Mary J. and J. Harris, Mary Guffy, Mary A. Bristow, and William McHard, Sr. The society supports a very good Sunday school.
The only Baptist church in the township was located in 1871, near where the Methodist Episcopal church now stands. It was organized in 1869. Almost from the first settlement of the township the Baptist people were represented, but built no church-house; they held their meetings in private houses and school-honses, and held their member- ship principally at Edgington, in Rock Island county. Their first and only church building in the township was a frame, erected in 1869, two and a half miles east of Hamlet, where it held its meetings till 1879, when the society moved its building to Reynolds, Rock Island county, where the members of the society now hold their membership. The first minister of the society in Perryton township was John Tittering- ton. The cost of the church as erected in Perryton township was $3,000; size, 30×38. It always supported a live Sunday school in connection with the church.
The Methodist Episcopal church, like the Presbyterian, came with the first settlers. They held their meetings in the pioneer days at private houses, and later at the school-house till 1869, when they built their present church-house two miles east of Hamlet. It cost $2, 100. and in size is 30×44. At the time it was erected the society numbered thirty-six communicants, now numbers twelve. It has at various times lost many valuable members by removals, but the greatest loss was caused by the organization of a like society at Reynolds. The building committee were H. Ketzel, S. Honeycut and Holiday. The present pastor is Rev. J. Small ; class leader, Albion Nichols ; trustees,
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H. Ketzel. George Hauck. and Thomas Vannatta. Among its mem- bers have been and are many influential and prosperous citizens of Perryton.
Among the organizations of Perryton township. none are more deserving of mention than the Library Association of Hamlet. It was established in 1879. with a view of furnishing reading matter at a small cost to those who wished to invest in the enterprise. The first officers were: President. Graham Lee : Secretary. Edward Hollister. Mr. Lee still holds the office of president. W. C. Vandalsem is present active secretary. The first directors were : D. M. Candor. H. W. Fisk. and P. W. Dumbell. The present directors are: P. W. Dumbell. H. W. Fisk. Elisha Lee. D. M. Candor. Librarian. Dr. M. Criswell. The association requires an admission fee of one dollar to become a member of the society, and after that each member pays an annual fee of fifty cents. and has the use of any book in the library without further charge. The income. up to the present time. has been about 8205. much of which has been raised by entertainments. The library now contains 213 volumes. all of which have been selected with great care. It requires three of the directors to place a volume on its shelves. The association is in a prosperous condition.
The Mutual Fire and Lightning Insurance Company was organized at Hamlet in 1878. under the insurance laws of Illinois. Josiah Can- dor and Graham Lee were the principal leaders in effecting the organ- ization. The first officers of the company were : Graham Lee, president, and Josiah Candor, treasurer. The subscribed capital was $62.046.65. The present board of directors is: Graham Lee (presi- dent). H. Ketzel (secretary). W. Wilmerton, J. I. Everett. G. D. Miller. David Mayhew. R. S. Montgomery, William Wait, J. B. McConnell. and G. Peate. The number of policies now out is 146. with an aggre- gate capital of $304, 720. The company. during its organization has not met with a single loss, hence their insurance during the time has cost them nothing. This has proved the best system of insurance to the farmer of Hamlet and vicinity ever adopted by them.
Township organization was effected in 1855. The first town-meet- ing was held in 1855. at Gingles' corners. Graham Lee was appointed moderator. and S. D. Trego made clerk. In 1856 Wm. McHard was made moderator. and S. D. Trego clerk of the meeting. At this meeting township organization was adopted and officers elected. The following is a list of all the officers elected to the present.
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