History of Mercer and Henderson Counties : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc, Part 12

Author: Mercer County Historical Society (Ill.); Henderson County Historical Society (Ill.)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co.
Number of Pages: 1424

USA > Illinois > Mercer County > History of Mercer and Henderson Counties : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc > Part 12
USA > Illinois > Henderson County > History of Mercer and Henderson Counties : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc > Part 12

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HISTORY OF MERCER AND HENDERSON COUNTIES.

with those who gave hearty encouragement to the Union cause throughout the war. In local elections he votes for whomsoever is, in his judgment, the best man. He was married in July, 1861, to Miss Emily C. Hubbell, step-daughter of H. G. Calhoun. Their only son, Clair, is nine years old.

KEITHSBURG TOWNSHIP.

This is township 13, range 5, embracing fifteen full and four frac- tional sections. The soil is generally sandy, particularly so along the river which is skirted above Keithsburg by a narrow belt of timber. It lies upon the elevated bottom lands below the bluff, which once confined a mightier and more majestic flood than the "Father of Waters," whose headstrong tide washes its western boundary in easy and graceful curves.

The first settler was John Vannatta. He came alone from Pitts- burgh, Pennsylvania, arriving here about the first of May, 1827, and opened a supply yard for wooding steamboats. A year or two afterward his brother Benjamin followed him, and the two carried on together the peaceful employment of cutting and selling wood, until interrupted. in 1831 by disquieting rumors of the uneasy disposition of the Indians and their preparations for war. Their neighbors at the Upper Yellow Banks, the Denisons, left their home for two months, and it is probable that these families also went away until security was assured. Next year the Black Hawk war broke ont - a war in which the excitement was more disproportioned to the danger than in any other of which we read. But the danger was real and imminent in this region. Yet these white families remained busy at their toil, un- moved by the warnings and entreaties of their dusky friends, tarrying in the face of peril, refusing to depart. How was it hundreds of miles away ? The people, alarmed by exaggerated reports, had loaded their wagons for possible flight, and regularly laid down to their slumbers with barricaded doors and in feverish anxiety. On the day that the Denisons came down on their way to Pence's fort, so-called, the Van- nattas gathered up their goods, and with their families went out and stayed all night in a low place on the prairie. The following day they reached Pence's, where the inhabitants had collected from the sur- rounding country. This place and Monmonth were the rallying points for a large section during the war. Pence's stockade was made of logs split once in two, stood upright and close together with one end in the ground, forming a palisade not less than twelve feet high and

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enclosing about 700 square yards of ground. After a few months' absence the Vannattas returned. Benjamin Vannatta had a pre-emp- tion claim to the S. E. } of Sec. 22, where Keithsburg now stands.

About the month of August, 1833, Jolin Bates settled on the N. W. ¿ of Sec. 33, and made a small farm which was occupied some three years afterward by Isom Lakey, who continued to reside in this township with his family up to 1860 or 1861. The next settler was Erastus S. Denison, who came down from the Upper Yellow Banks. (New Boston) in 1835, and made a claim upon the N. E. ¿ of Sec. 1. Samuel Vannatta joined his brothers about the spring of 1835. In the fall of that year they sold out their claims to Robert Keith, a. Scotchman, who had emigrated to America the year before, and who took possession the following spring, when the Vannattas all removed to the vicinity of Muscatine (then called Bloomington), Iowa.

As the founder of Keithsburg Robert Keith is entitled to more than incidental notice. He was reared in Belfrone, Scotland, where he received a liberal education.

After his second marriage in that country in 1821, he lived two years in London, and was a traveling salesman for a book establish- ment. He then went to Dublin, where he had control of a similar house, and whence he embarked for this country. He left New York and came direct to Quincy, Illinois, in the spring of 1835, and in the autumn following made his selection for a permanent home at this place, which became known as Keith's Landing.

In the spring of 1836 Abner Martin settled on the southwest quar- ter of section 13, and in the same year sold out to John McH. Wilson, who occupied the premises the following year and lived in the same place until his death in 1879. He was one of the most respectable citizens of the township.

The same spring William Sheriff and Paul Sheriff settled on the west half of section 24, and on the southwest quarter of the same sec- tion the latter is still a resident and prosperous farmer. In 1837 William Sheriff erected a saw-mill on Pope creek on the northeast quarter of section 23, and expended a large amount of money upon a dam which was a total loss, owing to quicksand in the bed of the stream, rendering the structure unserviceable. The mill rotted down, but at low-water mark some of the spiles in the bottom of the creek on which the dam rested may still be seen. J. McH. Wilson, Paul Sheriff, A. B. Sheriff and T. B. Cabeen were employed as laborers, and did many hard days' work upon this mill and dam, and all except Wilson are still living in the township. This was the only attempt ever made to erect a dam on Pope creek in this township. A. B. Sheriff

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came in 1836, and Matthew Sheriff a year or two later. The latter died in 1863.

In 1836 Daniel Justice began to improve a farm on the southwest quarter of section 1, where he made a fine home and resided until the summer of 1851, when he sold to John Doak and moved to Polk county, Iowa. William Wilson, formerly of Danville, Pennsylvania, then of Chicago, Illinois, settled also in 1836 on the east half of the northeast quarter of section 13, where he improved a good farm and where his wife died in 1844, and he himself about two years later. John McH. Wilson was his son. His daughters, Hannah Nevins and Incy Cabeen, are still residents of this township. About the year 1838 Joel A. Hall, the mill-wright who had charge of the work on William Sheriff's mill, entered and settled on the northwest quarter of section 13, but resided there only a year or two, when he sold out and went west. Near the same time Bennett Hurst settled on the north- east quarter of section 2 and made his home in that place up to 1850, when he disposed of his farm and bought other property in the town- ship, and has been a citizen here till a recent date. Benjamin F. Gruwell moved from Indiana and took up a farm in November, 1837, on the northwest quarter of section 1; in 1852 he sold out and came to Keithsburg, where he kept hotel a number of years and has since resided. In 1837 or 1838 John W. Nevius began a home in the township. He lived here till his death in 1875. Joseph J. Wordin emigrated from Ohio and landed at New Boston in 1837. The follow- ing spring he became a resident of this township, and has had his home in Keithsburg nearly ever since. His wife died here in 1873.

Robert Keith laid out the town in 1837, and between that date and 1846 not more than half a dozen families, including Mr. Wordin's, came to reside in the place. The Rev. James Ross, a local preacher of the United Brethren church, arrived with his family about 1841, and was the first minister to take up his residence here. Both he and his wife died in this township some five years afterward, and many of their descendants can yet be found in this vicinity. In 1841 B. L. Hardin began a home on the S. E. 4, Sec. 11, where he still resides and has become one of the solid farmers of the neighborhood. About 1842 James Garner came to Keithsburg with a few trifling articles of trade and a barrel of whisky, and made the first attempt at merchandising in the township. The business was unremunerative, and he sold out to David Bowen, who had come in 1839, and moved on to the N. E. }, Sec. 25. In 1847 he left that place and came again to Keithsburg and this time went to keeping hotel. In the same year, and again in 1849, he was elected justice of the peace, and at one time was sheriff of the

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county two years. Not long after his first election as magistrate he presided in a jury trial, with C. M. Harris, of Oquawka, and John Mitchell, of Monmouth, as opposing attorneys. The former was a man of admirable physical resources, while the latter would scarcely weigh a hundred pounds, and, besides, was disabled in the left arm from a wound received in the Mexican war. Harris stated the case to the jury and sat down. Mitchell arose and had proceeded but a little way with his statement when Harris in bullying tones said, "That is a lie !" A glance from Mitchell was all the attention that this sally received. A few moments elapsed and again Harris interposed, say- ing, "That is another lie!" Mitchell turned to him with gleaming eye and warned him not to repeat that insult or he would strike him, and then went on. A minute or two more and Harris broke in: "And that is an infernal lie !" The words were not more than uttered before Mitchell delivered a stunning blow between his eyes which sent him over backward to the floor. Some one interfered to separate them, while the justice was standing and looking over his table in bewilder- ment to see the fight go on. All of a sudden, as soon as it was over, he involuntarily brought his finger-tips down upon the board with a thud, exclaiming, in blank astonishment: "Well, I'll be d-d!" but instantly recovering himself and his dignity he called out to the offenders : "Gentlemen, I fine each of you $10, by --! "

A small chapter of such court incidents could be written, but this furnishes fully enough at one view of the manners of the period. Many years ago Mr. Garner removed to Millersburg where he still lives, holding on to life by feeble tenure.

Soon after purchasing Garner's mercantile stand Bowen closed up the business and moved to Rock Island, of which city he is still a resi- dent. His son George was born on election day, August 3, 1840, and this is supposed to have been the first birth in Keithsburg. This elec- tion is said to have been the first held in the place. "A quart cup of whisky was kept standing on the judges' table all day for an hour glass," writes Mr. Bowen. About 1843 an old Frenchman by the name of Rochelle landed here in a small boat, bringing with him a few goods with which he started a country store. Shortly after a family named Omy came to the settlement, and it has always been reported that the young men made an excursion down the river one fine day in an open boat, accompanied by Rochelle, who suspiciously failed to return, and that his companions appropriated his effects.

In 1842 Zephaniah Wade made a claim to the N. W. }, Sec. 14; he died in a few years, but his widow survived until a few months since, when she passed away in Keithsburg among her decendants.

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HISTORY OF MERCER AND HENDERSON COUNTIES.

In 1843 Nicholas Edwards settled on section 5, at the mouth of the Edwards river, where he and William Willett and Isaiah Brown had the year before erected a saw-mill. This year Willett sold his interest to Brown. After doing a successful business for sometime Edwards removed to his farm in Mercer township and is now a resident of Aledo. Brown went to California, where he died.

Another settler, who was less conspicuous for the term of his resi- dence than for his ambition to become the builder of a town, was a man named Gavitt who made a claim about a mile below the landing, where in 1837 he laid off a town and designated it Columbia city. It. occupied a high plateau which bore signs of having been formerly an Indian encampment. There was the field where the squaws had raised their corn ; the pits in which it had been buried ; and the places where their fires had burned were yet visible ; and poles still standing in the ground showed where their lodges had stood. Gavitt's plat was not. recorded, and he was not long in this vicinity. Alexander Davis bought his claim and entered the land.

We borrow the following sketch of "What Grandmother Said," which gives a very fair idea of the methods and resources of every day life in the pioneer period : "We came here in October, 1832. We lived the first winter in a log cabin made of hickory. We had a door made of clapboards, and a crack between the logs for a window. Our bedstead was made in the corner with one leg drove into the ground (we had no floor) and slabs laid across. The straw would freeze to the slabs. We had two chairs, brought with us from Kentucky ; grandfather made stools for the children. We built our fire on the ground, and our chimney was made of sticks and daubed with mud. We baked our bread in a skillet, and made our own coffee by scorching meal and ponring boiling water on it. We had no table, so we ate on a goods box. We bored holes in the logs and put pins in and made our cup- board. I swept our floor with a bunch of hazel brush or a hay broom. In those days we never had to scrub or mop. When we butchered we made a scaffold on one side of the chimney and laid our meat up there, so the dogs and wolves could not get it. When I washed I went down to the spring, a quarter of a mile from the house, and carried the clothes. I had neither tub, board, nor boiler, but washed on my hands, in a large bucket, and did the boiling in an iron kettle. I have the kettle yet.

"This is the way we lived the first winter, and we were glad to get so good a house. I lived happier then than I do now in a fine house. There were two or three log cabins and a log court-house in Mon- mouth. The mail carrier carried the mail from Oquawka to

WM GAYLE.

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Monmouth in the top of his hat. We had to go to Rock Island to mill. We lived here one year without cows, sheep or chickens. We had one horse and two yoke of oxen that we moved here with, and a few hogs. In the fall of 1834 my husband died and left me with five little children. That fall the Indians burned our flax and wheat. When the children saw the flax burning they said: 'Oh! mother, what are we to do for clothes ? our flax is burning up!' I paid my children's schooling, and my store bill, and my expenses for one year, with $15. My taxes on half a section of prairie land and eighty acres of timber were two or three dollars."

The first visible results of civilized society are mail privileges, religious exercises and public instruction of the young.

Postoffice .-- The "Bluff" postoffice, the pioneer in this vicinity, was established some time about 1837 at the house of Frederick Frick, in Abington township, five miles northeast of Keithsburg. As late as 1846 the people of the village, yet inconsiderable in numbers, went away out there to post their letters and to bring. back their own and their neighbors' mail.

First Schools .- The first school in Keithsburg township, as we learn from Mrs. Samuel Scott, who was one of the pupils, was kept by Mrs. William Sheriff, in the summer of 1841 or 1842, in one room of her double log house, situated close to the site of the present farm house of James Wilson, northeast of Upper Keithsburg. The next was in John McH. Wilson's cabinet shop, in the summer of 1845, and Miss Lucy Wilson, now Mrs. T. B. Cabeen, was the teacher. The third school was in Keithsburg; but we shall defer the account of this and others until we come to the history of the town.

Early Preaching .- The earliest preaching was by the Rev. Jolm Montgomery, who settled in Preemption township in the spring of 1836. He was a Presbyterian and held services throughout the coun- try in different places, and usually in these parts once in two weeks, sometimes at William Sheriff's in this township, at other times at Frederick Frick's in Abington, or at Thomas Candor's in Ohio Grove. He died over thirty years ago.

The first Methodist minister of whom we have heard any account was the Rev. Asa McMurtry, who preached at the house of John Nevius in 1838. Religious services for some years after, no less than at this period, were irregular and only occasional. The Revs. Frank Smith and Samuel P. Burr came among the people soon after McMurtry.

For a long while at first the inhabitants were mostly Universalists, and they were ministered to from about 1842 to 1850 by the Rev.

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Gregg, who came from Galesburg and occupied the church at the bluff in New Boston township, and when passing through Keithsburg to and from his charge, held services in the place.

The outward evidence was that the Master's kingdom did not more than hold its own. B. L. Hardin, who came in the spring of 1841, was here three months, he says, before he discovered a professing christian, though like Diogenes he hunted the bailiwick over, but not with the same cynical philosophy. The first meeting he attended was four miles north of his home, in New Boston township, at a Mr. Rader's, where the congregation numbered just six persons, including Mr. Rader's family. The Rev. Wiley was the itinerant. Preaching followed at that place every four weeks during the summer, and has been kept up in that neighborhood nearly ever since.

In the autumn of the same year services were begun at Mr. Hardin's house, and the first sermon was by the Rev. Burr, who had a. charge in New Boston township. When the appointment was given out Mr. Hardin set himself to making benches out of common slabs to seat the crowd that he could see with the eye of faith would come to the meeting. He labored with zeal and the pile of benches grew. Unwittingly though done, it was successful advertising, rivaling the subtlest conception of the down-east Yankee. Curiosity and inquiry were the result, and as Noah when building the ark was the butt of questioners and doubters, so Mr. Hardin was beset with questions and skeptical objections, and if he was ridiculed a little it was all the same ; the work went on. The preacher was early at hand, and as the hour for service approached, the door was thrown open to surprise the wait- ing minister with the inspiring sight of people swarming from every direction. He said the house would not hold the people, and it would not but for their standing up in a densely packed throng. The benches and the Christian perseverance of Brother Hardin had done holy work, but the former were now as useless as the open roof of the Arkansas traveler. However, they had subsequent use. This meeting showed that souls were hungry. Either an influx of orthodox Christians had come into the settlement between spring and fall, or the Universalists had turned out like boys to a circus.

The appointment was regularly continued at this place, and in the autumn of 1843 the first class ever organized in the township was formed at Mr. Hardin's house. The original members were James Gibson and his wife Polly, John Nevius and his wife Hannah, B. L. Hardin and his wife Minerva, and James Nevins, Jr. Mr . Kel- logg joined at the next meeting. In the summer of 1846 preaching was begun at John McH. Wilson's by the Revs. Whitman and

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Geddings, circuit riders, and services were kept up here one year. In warm weather day meetings were held in the grove; and at night in Mr. Wilson's cabinet shop. Other preaching points in the country were at John Nevius' and James Gibson's; and all four places were used until about 1850, when Keithsburg became the center where the people came together for worship.

The Vannattas made the beginning here. As early as 1834 Rousy Bowen was living in a little house on the bank of the river, and chop- ping wood for these men. By the next year Jesse Mount had come to the settlement, and the same season Robert Keith bought Benjamin Vannatta's claim, which embraced the site of the present town, and in the spring of 1836 took possession of his purchase. Ile continned keeping the wood-yard which his predecessors had started, and hence- forth the place was called Keith's Landing. It was in this same year that the insane policy of internal improvement inaugurated an era of the wildest speculation ever witnessed in this country. It is next to incredible that men could have been capable of so visionary schemes. In the absence of epidemic excitement, half-grown boys would have shown more reason. But as it was, towns were planted everywhere by being laid off, as this was cheaply done ; for the proprie- tors imagined they saw in it the source of sudden wealth. Although Father Keith could not have escaped the ruling influence of the times, it is plain that he did not reckon without some judgment, and that he was not mistaken as to the right place for the town, but it was with several years of patient suspense that he waited for the fruition of his hopes and plans.

The original survey was made by Hiram Hardie, deputy county surveyor, on July 29, 1837, and the plat was acknowledged before Abraham Miller, Jr., county clerk, by Mr. Keith, on November 18. The location .is on Sec. 23, T. 13, R. 5. Two principal streets, Main and Washington, were laid out east and west, and these were crossed by seven others designated as First, Second, etc., beginning next the river. The plat comprised thirteen blocks. The first sale of lots took place in July, the same year, and several of them were bought at prices varying from $20 to $60. Subsequently a few familles. came here to settle, and prominent among the number was Joseph J. Wordin, the first wheelwright, who still resides in the town. But the place lingered along in discouraging inactivity until 1845. We refrain from calling it a town at this date, for its actual townhood has always. been reckoned by the citizens from 1847, when it succeeded to the dig- nity of county-town. When emigration had brought to the back country a moderate but sturdy population, a convenient shipping point.

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was of the first necessity. Even yet capital was scarce, and the times had not altogether abated their stringency, and business men did not stand ready then to invest in town property in a new country, in advance of the real demands of trade. So an association of farmers, living mostly in Abington and Ohio Grove townships, undertook, in 1844, to erect a warehouse in Keithsburg for storing and handling their grain. To encourage the project, Robert Keith gave lots six and seven, in block three, on which the building was begun, facing north at the foot of Main street; and when the frame was up, title to the property passed to William Willett. The evident prospect of future business brought Col. J. B. Patterson, of Oquawka, here, and he secured an equal interest in the warehouse on condition of finishing it. Keith had put up a small building for a business stand, and he per- suaded Patterson to fill it with a stock of goods. "The Colonel put Spence Record into the new warehouse to receive grain, while he and Boothe Nettleton sold dry goods and groceries over on Washington street."

Writing afterward of the small beginnings of the place, Col. Pat- terson said: "At this time, 1845, we visited Keithsburg with a view of making it a trading point; to sell goods and buy produce. The improvements consisted of one frame house (which we had fitted up for a store), one log house, and three cabins. The trade of that season amounted to 3,690 bushels of wheat, 512 barrels of flour and 2,250 bushels of corn. At the close of the season we retired, leaving the work we had begun in the good hands and stout hearts of Messrs. Noble & Gayle; and Nobly have they kept the banner we entrusted to them waving in the Gayle until many a Doughty champion has risen up to proclaim the glories of a town which, though a wilderness a few years ago, is now Rife with business (the Spice or life we may say of prosperous progress), and ranks high among her sister towns."

Noble & Gayle, young and enterprising business men, erected a one-story frame store on lot 1, block 2, corner of Main and Second streets, and a warehouse on lot 10. In 1848, they built a brick packing house, which stood on lot 6. In the same year that Noble & Gayle began business, McConaha & Rife started a saloon, called in those days a grocery. The next store was opened the following year by Jonathan Judah, a Jew, and occupied lot 7; block 4. The old building is still standing. In 1848 Wilford J. Ungles arrived with his family and began trading at the foot of Washington street, where, in 1855, he erected a large warehouse, which is vet in nse. Wilson Redmon began the erection this year of the brick building on Main street now owned and occupied by Mrs. McManus. While in process

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of building he sold it to Dr. A. B. Campbell, who finished it. In the spring of 1849, McConaha & Rife dissolved partnership, and the latter embarked in the grocery trade, afterward adding dry goods, first occu- pying the Campbell building until he erected, the same year, the brick house adjoining it on the west. The brick store on the northeast corner of Main and Second streets was built by T. B. Cabeen, in 1848. On the second and third floors he fitted up a suit of rooms which were occupied by his family, while the business part of the house was filled the next year with a stock of goods by Mrs. E. Smith. In 1851, R. H. Spicer & Co., Mrs. Smith being the other member of the firm, started in trade in the same place.

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History of Mercer and Henderson Counties : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc, Part 12

Author: Mercer County Historical Society (Ill.); Henderson County Historical Society (Ill.) Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co. Number of Pages: 1424

Author: Mercer County Historical Society (Ill.); Henderson County Historical Society (Ill.)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co.
Number of Pages: 1424