History of Mercer and Henderson Counties : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc, Part 30

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 30
USA > Illinois > Henderson County > History of Mercer and Henderson Counties : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc > Part 30

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).

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then, says he, you may have it for twenty-five cents, ah, and the mer- chant said he did not want it for twenty-five cents, ah; then the man says, you may have it for a bit, ah, and the merchant said he did not want it for a bit, ah; then the man goes away and leaves it on the counter, ah, and the merchant runs after him with the coon skin, ah. So it is with religion ; when you have got it you can't sell it, nor give it away, nor lose it, ah!" The first religious services held in Sugar Grove was by a branch of the old-school Baptist church, of Henderson Grove, extended to Sugar Grove, and held once each month, lasting two days. This denomination was more commonly known by the name of hard-shell Baptists. Shortly afterward a church was regularly constituted at Sugar Grove, called the Edwards river church, in corres- pondence with the Spoon river association of old-school predestinarian Baptists. ' Elder Joseph Jones was pastor of that church, and Abraham Miller, Jr., was ordained to a deaconship. There was no church build- ing, and the meetings were generally held at private houses, or in a log school-house, when one had been erected. At a more recent date the Methodists established a class at the house of John Miller, in Sugar Grove. They finally had a camp ground in the Grove, with yearly attendance. One of the original settlers says that there never was a temperance lecture delivered at the Grove from 1834 to 1846 ; and says further, that they had no habitual drunkards, idlers, fanatics or unneces- sary babblers, and no earthly use for temperance lecturers.

In regard to postoffices I have not been able to ascertain, with any certainty, what were the earlier mail facilities. Previous to 1845 a post route had been established through this town, with an office at Millersburg. Letter postage cost twenty-five cents, just the price of a bushel of wheat. But little correspondence was carried on. In 1847 our people succeeded in getting an office at James Gingles', it being the only office until the establishment of a route from Millersburg to Rock Island, when, in 1854, an office was created at Hamlet, at the house of Graham Lee, and removed in 1857 to its present locality, the business place of Josiah Candor.

Until 1839 there had been no school. In that year Miss Farwell (afterward married to William Doak) taught a school in a little 10×14 house, built by Jackson Woods, on the northwest of section 26. The first school-house was obtained by moving an old frame tenement house of J. Gingles, from near the center of section 27 to the center of section 28, in the year 1849, and it was not until some years later a school- house was built on the north side of the town. Abraham Miller, Jr., claims to have taught the first school at the Grove, but is not positive. He did, however, teach the first school ever had in Mercer county, at or near New Boston.

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Recurring to the scarcity of money, which retarded the growth of society and deprived the early settlers of many things, afterward con- sidered necessities, I will explain that it took all that was held, and all that could be borrowed, to enter the land which they desired for homes. While the absolute necessaries of living, not obtainable from the farm, could be got from the few traders by barter, yet the prices paid previous to 1840 were not such as to induce the farmer to indulge in luxurious habits. Wheat at twenty-five cents ; corn, ten cents ; pork, dressed, one and a half to two cents; good three year old stears and cows, from six to ten dollars. As near as can be ascertained, the first produce sent to market from our town was shipped by Abel Thompson, in a flat-boat from New Boston, in the fall of 1840, our respected fellow-townsman, William Doak, being one of the crew. Without serions difficulty they reached New Orleans in three months, and dis- posed of the cargo, consisting of wheat, potatoes, beans, saner-krant, cabbage, etc., etc., to such good advantage that William Doak and Paul Sheriff, in the fall of 1841, built at Keithsburg a flat-boat, on the bank where Keithsburg now stands, and loading it mostly with their own produce, made a successful and profitable trip to St. Louis. Their suc- cess in this venture so encouraged them and others, that the next fall they repeated the experiment, only to end disastrously, for being caught by the very early winter of 1842-3, they, with four other flat- boats, and three steamboats, were frozen up at a point called Quiver Island, fifteen miles above the mouth of the Illinois river. In order to relieve themselves they were obliged to cut a channel through fifteen miles of ice, in very cold weather, and such were the hardships endured, that of the forty stalwart men who began this task, but three were left to cut the last gorge and free the boats. The writer and the reader of this chapter can but regret that our indomitable neighbor Doak, one of the three iron-hearted men mentioned, should, even in front of St. Louis, his destination, have been wrecked in a dense fog to lose nearly all for which he had risked and endured so much. Speaking of the departure of the first flat-boat from New Boston, Mr. Doak relates that it was watched with intense interest by the large crowd that lined the shore, and when the boat cut loose and swung out into the stream, three rousing cheers were given in honor of the event, which was such an important era in the history of New Boston. In the fall of 1842, George and Isaac Miller, of Sugar Grove, built a boat at Keithsburg, and loaded it with produce with destination for New Orleans.

Before the time of the introduction of flat-boats as a means of civil- ization, the first settlers depended upon their own resources for many of the articles of food which we at this day regard as among the necesities.

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HISTORY OF MERCER AND HENDERSON COUNTIES.

The crops raised by the pioneers of Perryton were mainly corn, oats, flax, and the most useful vegetables. Melons were raised in abundance. Flour could be bought from off the boats, at Denison's landing in 1834 at four dollars per barrel. But corn was principally used for bread, and for meat they raised a few hogs, killed deer, turkeys, prairie chickens, and caught fish. One of the early settlers says that what gro- ceries they used were mostly obtained in exchange for deer and coon skins, beesewax, etc. Coffee was made from parched corn, peas and wheat. Red root leaves, swetted under a dutch oven, dried, and when drawn and sweetened with honey, was called "Grub Hyson, " and was considered a fine substitute for tea. Pork and corn dodgers was the principal food.

From the flat-boat to the steamboat the transition was rapid, so that but few were built after the period mentioned here, and the increase in steamboats, keeping pace with the increase of commerce, markets were opened, and by 1845 business had its regular channels, and settlers were able to sell produce, although at the low price of: wheat, forty cents ; corn, pure white for southern bread, ten to twelve and a half cents ; pork, one and a half to two cents. The trade of Perryton was almost exclusively with New Boston, until the building of the Chicago & Rock Island railroad, when the superior inducements offered gradu- ally withdrew the trade to Rock Island.

Previous to 1845, I can learn of no attempt to organize a church within our limits, nor of public worship by regular appointment, excepting that previously mentioned in this record, and pertaining to the early settlement of Sugar Grove. The earliest carpentering was done in building houses and barns for McHard, Gingles and Burrall. by Andrew Gingles, a son of Robert Gingles and nephew of James Gingles. Philip Miller occasionally cut grindstones and gravestones. to add to a living obtained by his rifle and the rental of a small piece of land. The first blacksmith shop in town was kept by a man named Jones, on section 25, in 1846-7, and perhaps a little later, but between 1850 and 1860 there was no shop in town of any kind. About the latter date, a blacksmith shop was started on the northeast corner of section 11. George J. Miller, son of Abraham Miller, Jr., should prop- erly be entitled to the credit of first birth in this town, but shortly before his birth, Mr. Miller had moved his family temporarily to New Boston, where he was then teaching school. This was August 31. 1834. But the first birth at Sugar Grove was that of Eliza Miller. daughter of George Miller, Sr., in 1835. Eliza Miller is now living at Miller's Station, Linn county, Oregon, with her second husband, Philip V. Morris, and she is the mother of a large family of children.

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William Moore was the first man married ; he married Miss Mary Miller, daughter of Isaac Miller, at Sugar Grove in 1835. The first death was a child about one year old, named Philip Farlow, son of John and Sarah Farlow; died of croup.

The earliest settlers on the ridge all planted such trees as they could get or raise, mostly seedlings. The first grafted fruit brought to the town was peddled out by a Mr. Robinson, a nurseryman of Fulton county, but there was no general planting of ' good fruit until Mr. McWhorter established a nursery near Millersburg in 1846. The sauce depended upon by early settlers was mainly obtained from the crab-apple and plum thickets, which abounded in the vicinity of timber. These failing, the dish of "those" or "them molasses," was the ever present and only substitute for sauce. As common as the molasses dish, was the custom of making it a plural. In one instance this custom was broken by an uncourteous guest replying to his landlady's question : "Will you have some of these?" by saying, "I will take a few of her." One of our earlier settlers relates an account of the manner then in vogue of acquiring seedlings. On the occasion of a public parade, or muster day at Millersburg, at a time in the history of that village when it had assumed metropolitan airs, a peddler brought to town a lot of small and half green peaches, which he retailed out at a bit a dozen. The boys eagerly demolished the fruit and threw the seeds on the ground, while a certain economical settler gathered them up for seed. Fearing that he would not obtain enough, our thrifty farmer borrowed a bit for the purpose of investing in peaches, with the view of obtaining the seed. Several years afterward he returned the money thus borrowed. Wild grapes, blackberries and strawberries were used by the settlers for making pies and preserves, and wild hops answered the purpose of cultivated ones.

The first fence in the town was built in 1835, on the piece of land broken by Abraham Miller, on the south side of section 33. This was done by piling sod, previously turned by a plow, and making a small ditch on the outside, the dirt from which was thrown inside the pile of sod. In 1837 Mr. Burrall, and perhaps Perry, made more sod fence, and began the making of rails, which afterward constituted the sole fencing material, until the unentered land was stripped of everything which would make a rail or pole. About 1850 the building of board fences commenced. The first effort at hedging was made by planting seed in 1848-9, and I think the oldest hedge is that of James Gingles, which was "set in" about 1852, when the date of hedge fencing first commenced. The Millers invented and manufactured a machine for fence ditching. This was the first machine of the kind over used in

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HISTORY OF MERCER AND HENDERSON COUNTIES.

Mercer county. It was an improvement made on the original ditching plow, and was done by adding a bar with a flat underground lining or share that cut off the tier of sod from the bottom. They used three or four yoke of oxen, and thus a string of sod fence one hundred rods long was cut in a very short time. A few abortive efforts at draining by a machine cutting an open ditch, was made as early as 1848. Mole ditching began in 1860, and was prosecuted for many years with varying success, but was finally abandoned. The aggregate result of mole ditching has been advantageous. With the exception of a few rods to obtain water, and drain cellars, no tile has yet been laid.

With regard to agricultural implements so much has been said and written that will go into history, that I forbear saying much more than that steel plows appeared in the Diamond plow in 1844, followed rap- idly by the plow of the present model. Plows antedating the Diamond were but little better in their working than though of unhewn wood, our friable soil never leaving a mold-board until removed by hand. In 1850 the first reaper was introduced by Levi Cooper, and shortly before the separating thresher appeared. The first plow used for breaking prairie in Mercer county, was the old bar-share with a wooden mold. The Miller's invented a lever power and hung the plow on wheels, which they used at Sugar Grove. It could be set to any depth, and be thrown out at will, and it would run without a holder. This simple invention was almost universally adopted throughout the county for breaking prairie. In this arrangement the driver was also the plowman, thereby saving one hand, besides doing much better work. For ground once broken, the early settlers had what was called the Bull plow, with a short iron mold in front, a few inches high, with the balance of the mold made of wood. Next was the Carey plow, an improvement on the Bull plow. For tending corn when up, shovel plows, hoe harrows and one horse harrows were used. The Bull tongue was simply a narrow shovel, resembling the pattern after which it was named. The hoe-harrows were a number of small shovels set in a forked stick, in the shape of the letter "A." The one-horse harrows were made in the same way, generally with wooden teeth, and made narrow, so as to run between corn rows. Next followed the Scott Diamond plow. In early times it was peddled through Mercer county. The Diamond plow was simply a diamond square, cut out of a steel or iron mold the required size; the lower square was sharpened out and served as the edge or share, and was set up in the required pitch, and served as share and mold-board. all solid. It was bent hollowing without any twist, and then bolted fast to a wooden upright, set in a beam like a shovel plow, but the mold

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did not set square like the shovel, but was set quartering so as to throw the dirt to the side of the furrow. This plow would scour completely.

In the fall of 1835 John Black and family settled on section 36, and so far as ascertained was actually the first settler within the limits of the township proper. In March, 1836, a child was born to Black, which died at the age of five years. Perry says in 1836 Maj. Edward Burrall had twenty acres broken on the S.W. } of Sec. 28, now the property of David Blue, and that William Moore broke some land on southwest of 30, and put up the body of a log house. Philip Miller also built a log cabin and lived on the same section. In 1837 Ed. Bur- rall, Jr., and Alfred Perry, living on the west side of Sugar Grove, broke prairie for Maj. Burrall on S. W. 4. 38, and for Dr. Perry on E. { of 28. Linus and A. Wood came upon the northeast of 26 and built a log house during the year. A. Perry and E. Burrall did the first farming on the ridge in Perryton, and during this year Dr. Perry came west and in the winter of 1837-8 built a log house near the timber on the northeast of 28. The crops raised this year were sold to the Geneso colony, at the price of one dollar for wheat and seventy-five cents for corn and potatoes. In 1838 Austin Wood moved his family to the house built by his son. Burrall built the first frame house on south- west of 28, for Sheldon Wooden as tenent. Dr. Perry died this year. There were no markets during this year, and the settlers went all the way to Kickapoo for milling.

In 1839 James Gingles and William McHard, with their families, moved to Perryton, buying for $500 the claim of Dr. Perry to the west half of section 28. In this year Louisa Wood was married to Lyman Tenney. During this year the land sale occurred, and those who could raise the money entered a part or all of their claims. John Harris and J. Gingles moved into the township, as did also William Doak with his father and family. In 1840 William McHard and James Gingles divided the Perry claim and each built a one and a half story frame house, about 16×24 feet, with two rooms below. These were regarded at the time as not only handsome and commodious but luxuri- ous. Previous to this time there had been but a home market for produce, which was conducted mainly by barter. Drury and Willetts, of New Boston, traded for some wheat allowing twenty-five cents per bushel in store goods. In 1844 Hamlet Cooper stopped at Burrall's with his wife and seven children, a yoke of oxen and cart and cow and a calf. Out of money, he was induced to look at the prairie on the north side of Camp creek. It being a very bad season, with the streams high, he camped on the banks of Camp creek, and swimming the creek, he examined the land and determined to make a claim

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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 south 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 & 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 liis 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 cayota. 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.

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History of Mercer and Henderson Counties : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc, Part 30

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