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 4

Author: Mercer County Historical Society (Ill.)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co.
Number of Pages: 904

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 4

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).

The very first cabins were constructed from logs entirely undressed, the small difference in length being considered no disadvantage to looks or utility. The trees selected for the purpose were generally a foot or less in diameter. From these logs were cut, usually about sixteen feet in length. In both ends of the logs notches were cut to receive the notches cut in each other, so that in their building up they would lie close one upon the other, in the manner of a rail pen. When the pen was built to the height of six or seven feet, a portion of one or two logs on one side would be removed for a window ; another opening would be made for a door, and another for the stick and mud chimney, which would be built outside as a kind of an addition to the house.

In winter the windows consisted of greased paper pasted over the opening mentioned. In summer none were needed. The door was usually made from boards that had been fashioned from a straight grained tree by no other tool than the ax. The latchi was a home-made affair, similar to those still to be seen on farm gates. A little above the latch a small auger hole was bored through the door, and through this hung a thong of buckskin attached to the latch, by which it could be lifted from the outside by pulling the string.

The floor of the dwelling in very many instances was the earth. The hearth of the fire place, where the cooking was done, was made of such flat stones as could be found in their natural state. A little later bricks for this purpose, and in a few instances for entire chimneys, were made by tramping mud in a box with the bare feet and burning a few hundred of them at a time. Abraham Miller, formerly of Mercer county, but now in Oregon, writes that he made the first bricks ever

HABITS AND CUSTOMS OF THE PIONEERS.

used in Mercer county, and that the mud for them was mixed with his bare feet.

The cabins were covered with boards riven from straight grained trees the full length of one side of the building, and held in their places by the weight of the bodies of small trees. The cracks between the logs composing the sides of the cabin were filled with wedge shaped pieces of wood called "chinks," and these were danbed over with mud, the hands in many cases being used as the trowel. Abraham Miller says that the young men were particular to leave finger marks on this kind of work, as it was a sure road into the good graces of the maidens, who held this sign of industry and democracy in high repute.

A PIONEER LOG CABIN.

In the construction of these simple dwellings the only tools em- ployed were an ax, a saw and an anger, and in very many cases only the ax. Not a nail or any piece of iron was used, and not a pane of glass; neither paint nor plaster were available.

Decorations, such as pictures or brackets for the walls, would have been a great curiosity. In their place festoons of corn for the next year's planting hung from poles in the upper space of the cabins. The trusty rifle lay in two wooden hooks over the door or fire place, and from pegs near the chimney often lung bits of venison that were being dried for future use, and was called "jerk." These were the decora- tions of grandfather's house.

· HISTORY OF MERCER AND HENDERSON COUNTIES.

The pioneer cabin has seen its day, however, and is now a thing of the past. It has been superseded by the more pretentious hewed log house of two or more rooms, and this in turn has given place to the fine frame and brick dwellings which dot the prairies and groves all over. A few of the ancient cabins are still doing service as pig-sties or hen houses, and the modern traveler would hardly dream that once they were the dwellings of large and happy families.

We give in this connection a view of a cabin still standing in Eliza township, Mercer county, though the artist has had to draw somewhat on imagination for the surroundings, as the once pioneer mansion now serves the ignoble purpose of sheltering the chickens.

Ancient House Furniture .- Perhaps in nothing has there been a greater change than in the furniture, both ornamental and useful, with which the houses of this county have been supplied. Any one curious enough to make a list of the numberless articles now considered indis- pensable to a well furnished house, will be surprised to find that scarcely an article now in nse was in the early times of this section even known. And so also the few utensils and ornaments used by our grandmothers would be curiosities now. Sewing machines only began to come into- use here in about 1860, and now scarcely a family is without one. Grandmother Dennison, of Keithsburg, says all of the clothing in use by the family was made by the skillful and industrious fingers of the housewife with the needle and thimble. Not only so, but even the cloth of which the clothes were made was a home manufacture. Each family kept a few sheep, and from these the wool was sheared, washed, picked, carded, spun, woven, dyed and cut, in many instances, all at home.

None of the young ladies of to-day know what a "wool pickin'" is. The last one was had years ago. The picking of the partieles of dirt and burs from the fleece was a very tedious process, and in the early times it was customary for the matron of the family to call in the help of all the young and middle aged ladies for some miles around to assist. in this work. These invitations were gladly accepted, for the picking always ended with a frolic at night, to which the young ladies' beaux were invited.

So in the making up of clothing, there were in use the big sheep shears, the cards, which were two instruments much resembling the instruments used for currying horses at the present day, the spinning- wheel, the hand loom and the dye kettle. None of these remain in use, but occasionally one may be found in the garret of the house of an old settler.

Many of the early settlers were skillful in the use of some of the

43.

HABITS AND CUSTOMS OF THE PIONEERS.

simplest tools of the shoemaker, and could turn out a decent, but rough pair of shoes from leather that they had themselves tanned from the skins of animals that they had themselves reared. Even the lasts and the pegs were of home manufacture. The simple kits of tools used in the manufacture of leather and shoes were, however, soon superseded by the tan yards and the professional shoemaker, and they in turn have had their time and are almost extinct. The few pelts that are now taken from the cattle are sent to the great cities and tanned by improved processes, made into shoes by machines driven by steam, and shipped back to us in nice green boxes containing a dozen pairs of all sizes and qualities.

The culinary implements were as rude and simple as it is possible to conceive. The old Dutch oven for baking bread, a skillet and an iron pot, that hung from a wooden hook in the great wide chimney, were about all that were considered necessary for baking, frying and boiling. There was not a stove in the county until about 1845, and, therefore, the fireplace, extending almost across.one end of the cabin, was the only source of heat in the winter, and also answered all the demands of cooking. Even the first cook stoves were simple affairs. compared to those in present use, and were constructed with a double- purpose of heating and cooking.

In a letter from Abraham Miller, he says: "Our early crops were mainly corn, wheat, oats, flax for home use, and the most useful vege- tables of all kinds, all of which did remarkably well. We raised melons in abundance. The only market point for the county was New Boston, then only known as Dennison's Landing and wood yard, at upper Yellow Sand Banks, on the Mississippi river. The first store or trading post was there in 1834, and was kept by a man by the name of Irvin, who was very exact, both in a commercial and moral point of view. He was a seceder by profession. So correct was he in his views of the Sabbath that he penned up his rooster on that day, that he might not disturb the holy day. This is neither jest nor hoax. I only men- tion it to show that, in those early times and among backwoods settlers, religious rites, according to each order, were strictly observed. Prices of produce were very low. Wheat was not more than forty cents per bushel, and this was the highest priced article, proportionately, that the farmer had to sell. In those days we were all new beginners and had but little surplus to market. We raised our own hogs and hominy, killed deer, wild turkeys, prairie hens, caught fish and found wild bees. We had to get what little groceries we had with raccoon and deer skins, and frequently the best of us did without any. We were inured to. anything from hard times down, and small privations were not noted.

HISTORY OF MERCER AND HENDERSON COUNTIES.

Our wives and daughters could spin and weave, and wear the product of their own industry. We drank parched corn or pea coffee until we got to raising wheat and rye enough to answer the purpose. We drank tea made from sycamore chips. A favorite tea was made of red-root leaves, sweated under a Dutch oven, rolled between the two hands and dried. When drawn and sweetened with well scummed honey, your readers are assured it was not bad to take. This tea we called grub hyson. An early merchant of New Boston, after the discovery of this tea, caught at the idea, and when his black tea ran short in the store, tradition says, he sold many a pound of red-root leaves.

"The men and boys could wear buckskin breeches ; and a coon- skin cap, with the tail dangling behind the head as an ornament thereto, was not a novel sight. We were all poor, but on a social equality. We hardly had an idea of what aristocracy was. With the greatest of pleasure I yet look back on those good old times as my golden days, when all around was clothed in the wild, yet gorgeous robes of nature, and while its half-forgotten scenery plays about and flits across mem- ory's path, imagination paints the flush of youth where age as well as grief have coursed bitter tears down its lachrymal furrows. Despite this, for the moment, the blood of boyhood rushes through the sunken veins and makes the aged young.

"We had our backwoods mechanic in almost every farmer and farmer's boy, who learned early in life, and who turned his hand to anything necessary for carrying on our backwoods operations, both in wood and iron. But as the country grew up mechanics of almost all kinds dropped in, but it was only upon a small scale that they were patronized, or that they expected patronage, as they generally added to their mechanical skill agricultural industries, and pursued their trades only at odd times."

The wool picking has been alluded to. It had its corresponding diversion for the young men in the corn husking, or "shuckin'," as it was called. It was common, not only in the early days, but until with- in a score of years, to break the ears from the stalks as they stood in the field, and haul them to the vicinity of the barn and then invite all the young men to come in on some afternoon or evening to strip them of their husks. Thus a wearisome task for the single handed farmer, requiring weeks of labor, would be performed in a single evening. The husking bee would usually end with a sumptuous supper, and fre- quently with a spree, to which the young ladies had been previously invited. Other pastimes of the olden time, some of which are but barely obsolete, were the quiltings, which partook of features of the wool pickings, the singing schools, the spellings, wolf hunts, house and

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

barn raisings. At all of these the young people took great interest and manifested their skill according to the adaptation of age or sex for such amusements.

The Fourth of July was, fifty years ago, kept more as a reminder of its origin than it is to-day, and some of the early celebrations were grand affairs. There was less of show and noise than to-day, but of all that goes to make up a grand holiday, and that conduces to a hearty rejoicing on account of our country's independence, was present in full force. The people were more democratic in their habits and thoughts, and consequently a gathering of the kind embraced all the citizens of the county. Not unfrequently a revolutionary hero honored the scene with his presence, and exhibited himself in the evolutions and drill learned by necessity in his country's birth.

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

The Eastern, Middle and Southern states, from which the early settlers came, were densely covered with a vigorous growth of timber. A patch of prairie was a curiosity east or south of the center of In- diana. The avocations of the pioneer in the east and south had been, for the first half of his manhood, to cut down the giant trees of the forest, roll the logs together and burn them. With the unpleasant remembrances of log rolling, brush burning and stump grubbing, it seems a little strange that the prairies of the Mississippi valley and the tributaries thereto were not the very first to claim the early settler's attention. Here were open farms ready for the plow. Not a stump, or a root, or a stone, was in the way of immediate successful cultiva- tion. The oldest and most carefully cultivated fields of Ohio, Indiana or Kentucky, from which most of the first settlers came, were not as clear of obstacles to the agriculturist's implements as were the prairies of Mercer county.

Then where shall we seek for the reasons for the neglect of the more generous soil of the prairie and the preference for groves and the poorer soil bordering thereon? We must not forget that times have greatly changed within a half century. Implements that could not be used on rough and stumpy grounds are a modern invention. Corn planters, grain drills, reapers and cultivators were invented after the prairies began to be cultivated, and their uses admissable. These machines were not invented for the rough lands of the east, but for the broad, level fields of the western states.

Again, we must keep in mind, habits of thought and action are not very easily changed. In parts of the old world implements of agriculture have not changed much in some thousands of years. The

HISTORY OF MERCER AND HENDERSON COUNTIES.

pioneers of this county were used to a wooded country. They were used to having stake and ridered fences ; houses and barns made of logs : used to having large, blazing fires of wood in the large chimney place in the winter, and used to wasting large quantities of fine logs by burning in great heaps every year. So when they came here, with all these habits and predispositions, it must naturally have occurred to them that the supply of wood was limited and everyone sought for a good piece of timber, which should adjoin another piece of prairie, whether that prairie was of the best or not. So we find all of the first. settlers hugging close to the water-courses upon whose banks grew the only reminder of their former southern or eastern homes.

One need not in this respect be told the early history of any locality in the state. The same rule governed all over, and Mercer county was. no exception. Of course, navigation had something to do with settling the shores of such streams as were large enough to allow the steamboat to ply back and forth upon its waters. Steamboats began running along the Mississippi in 1823, and to this circumstance, doubtless, we can trace very many of the first settlements in the valley. The vicin- ity of New Boston was permanently occupied first by parties who sup- plied the boats with wood, and this, indeed, was the very first settle- ment made by white men in the county. It was in the year 1827 that the Dennison family came to that point to supply the boats with fuel, and in the plat of the town of New Boston they as proprietors reserve the right to the monopoly of that trade, and of running a ferry. The Dennisons were a large and respectable family, who had come origi- nally from Indiana, but had lived a year in Sangamon county.

These were the first to make what is now embraced in Mercer county a permanent home. Through the influence of this family others came in, a year or two later, and settled in the immediate neighbor- hood. Indians were still plenty on this side of the river and some of them were quite unfriendly to the encroaching settler, though they endeavored to keep up a show of friendship with the government. This hostile disposition on the part of the Indians made it not only desirable, but imperative, that settlers should keep within a reasonable distance of each other, and of the river, and for this reason, more than any other, no settlements were made far up the Edwards or Pope rivers until after the Indians had been removed in 1832.

Among the earliest records of Warren county we find the names of parties who voted once or twice in this vicinity, but of whose identity all other trace seems to have been lost. The earliest settler cannot now even remember the names. These were probably steamboat men, hunters or laborers, who possibly may have been here but a few days ..

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

In those times the ballot was not guarded so closely but that a man could have deposited his ballot, even if he had not been in the precinct the prescribed number of days. The names of such cut no figure in the history of the county, and need not be even repeated here.

We have to do especially with those who came here to reside, to subdue the forest and the soil, to provide for families who have since made themselves known and felt in the community, who founded society and moulded opinions, and who, in a general way, have left their mark upon the county. They are yet known, or if departed, they are remembered for their bravery, their endurance of hardships, their virtue and honor. Of such we desire to write, and of such we desire to perpetuate the memories.

The Dennison family came originally from Ohio, and lived a short time in Indiana. In 1826 they came to Sangamon county in this state and stayed about a year, and in the year above named came to the vicinity of New Boston. For two years the Dennisons and Shaunces, who at that time lived a few miles farther north, and the Vanatas at Keithsburgh, were almost the sole occupants of the county. In 1830 the census reports show Mercer county as having a population of only twenty-seven persons, and these nearly all belonged to the two families named. In 1831 the Indian troubles began, and did not end until the fall of 1832, and of course no additions were made during that time, nor indeed for a year or so after, when confidence in the peaceful solu- tion of the troubles was fully restored.

The year 1834 brought a number of settlers, not only to the Den- nison neighborhood, but to other portions of the county. In the spring of the year named, several persons from Indiana came in and took claims, planted sod corn, and went back in the fall and brought out their families. Among those worthy of record were Joseph Glancey, Wm. Drury, William, Newton J. and Joshua Willits, Isaac Drury, Joseph, John S. and Lewis Noble.

Several of the names mentioned will be found in future pages with extensive and numerous notices, as they proved to be valuable acquisi- tions to the then new but growing community. Jesse Willits was after- ward first probate judge, with his appointment from the governor. His name appears on the poll book as the first man to deposit a ballot, after the county was organized in 1835. Silas Drury was the first sheriff, and Isaac Drury was one of the first county commissioners. Other prominent settlers in the west end of the county (and then con- sidered in reality the same neighborhood), were John Long, first school commissioner, Wm. I. Nevius, Eli Reynolds, a physician, and Isaac Dawson, a carpenter.

HISTORY OF MERCER AND HENDERSON COUNTIES.

In the meantime a new and distinct settlement was forming, some ten miles up the Edwards river, at a point then and for years afterward known as the Sugar Grove settlement, and after the organization of the county, called the Sugar Grove precinct. A large family, consisting of four brothers, John, Isaac, George and Abraham Miller, with several rel- atives and friends, settled at this point in 1834, completely surrounding the grove. The Miller family was originally from Crab Orchard, Tennessee, whence they had removed to near Crawfordsville, Indiana, in about 1820. From that place several members of the family came on here, in the latter part of April, 1834, bringing with them several yoke of oxen and some agricultural implements, for the purpose of making claims and of planting sod corn. All but Abraham Miller, Junior (son of George Miller), and his wife and wife's sister, returned to Indiana and came out subsequently. Abraham Miller, Jun., proved to be a man of much note in public affairs of this county, and indeed the whole family was, for ten years or more, during their sojourn here, an influential one.

Abraham Miller remained with the growing crops, built a cabin, and became the first permanent settler of the grove, and indeed of a radius of ten or twelve miles. Several other families, some relatives and others mere acquaintances, followed these during the next season, so that by the time the county was organized in 1835, it was found most convenient to divide the county into two precincts : the one at New Boston, which had just been laid out and given that name, instead of Dennison's Landing, and the Sugar Grove precinct. By the fall of 1835 there were probably about sixty inhabitants in and about the Grove, and between 200 and 250 in the whole county.

The groves along the Edwards river were gradually being occupied by settlers, who pushed farther and farther toward its source. In the spring of 1835 a distinct settlement, known as the Richland settle- ment, or Farlow's Grove, was begun. This was not in what is now known as Richland Grove township, but in reality along the north side of the Edwards, in what is now Preemption township.

John Farlow and family, who settled on section 22, came from Indiana in the spring of 1835, and settled as stated. In the fall of the same year Hopkins Boone, now a resident of Viola, occupied section 34. Mr. Boone, with his family, came from Pennsylvania. This was the farthest from the month of the river that any one had vet settled, and indeed at that time there was not a family residing between that point and the Rock river, nor for many miles to the east, and but one family on the south, between that and Monmouth. The next spring (1836) Rev. John Montgomery, a Presbyterian minister, and James

ORGANIZATION OF MERCER CONUTY.

Boone, came out from Pennsylvania and located in the Richland neigh- borhood. Gabriel Barkley, Rev. Joseph Jones. a Baptist minister, and C. Miller, came the same year from Indiana and settled in the vicinity of Farlow's Grove.

Thus have we traced the main settlements of the Edwards valley, from the mouth of that river to near the eastern line of the county. In the same way the banks of Pope creek were being occupied, but not quite so rapidly, nor were the neighborhoods quite so distinct, but were considered somewhat as branches of the three principal settle- ments named. Up the North Henderson, from the vicinity of Oquawka, the pioneer was gradually extending his domain, until the banks of these streams were lined on either side, where grew the native forests, with the pioneer's cabins and the pioneer's patches of corn and other crops.

As the settlements grew older and more populous they gradually divided in interest, and centers began to form at points which at the first were considered as being in the same neighborhood, and thus two or more new neighborhoods were by common consent, and by conven- ience, formed from one. Keithsburg and Eliza, on the west side of the county, separated their interests from New Boston. Ohio Grove, farther up the Pope, and North Henderson, became more dis- tinct and held less close relations with Sugar Grove or the Miller neighborhood. Most of these places had for their centers either a post office or a voting place, and in some cases a church organization was- the distinctive feature.

ORGANIZATION OF MERCER COUNTY.

By the year 1835 the territory now embraced within the limits of Mercer county had received quite a number of permanent settlers. The Black Hawk war had ended three years previously, and the excite- ment caused thereby had almost all passed away. Information had been spread abroad that this country, so lately overrun by the Indians, and about which comparatively little was known, was one of the most desirable for settlement in the west. Accordingly, emigrants began to find their way up the Mississippi and overland, from the more thickly settled portions of Ohio, in search of cheap homes ; some in search of good hunting grounds, the game having begun to be scarce in their former haunts. So they came, some on horseback, some on foot, some up the river on boats, and some in wagons, bringing with them all their worldly goods, and their families. Nearly all were poor, but nearly all came with the one purpose of securing an independence and a home for their families, which could not be obtained in the older sections of

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.

Author: Mercer County Historical Society (Ill.) Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co. Number of Pages: 904

Author: Mercer County Historical Society (Ill.)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co.
Number of Pages: 904