USA > Illinois > Morgan County > History of Morgan county, Illinois : its past and present, containing a history of the county; its cities, towns, etc.; a biographical directory of its volunteers in the late rebellion; portraits of its early settlers and prominent men [etc., etc.] > Part 20
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98
Following down the stream, below the coal bank, a reddish, shaly sandstone is exposed in its bed, which, at a point a mile below, forms a perpendicular bank ten feet high. Similar exposures of the same light reddish or brown sandstone occur here and there along the creek to the county line, and below into Greene County. In the village of Murray- ville and its immediate vicinity, two or three borings have been made, in two of which coal is reported to have been met at depths of one hundred and seven and one hundred and twenty feet. This coal is reported as overlaid by sandstone and black slate ; but in neither case did the boring penetrate the coal more than twenty-three inches. It may possibly be the same vein as that worked on Coal Creek.
The principal natural exposures of the Coal Measures in this county, which remain to be noticed, are those on the main Apple Creek and its principal tributaries. The greater portion of the eastern and northeast- ern townships of Morgan County are upland prairie, where all the older formations are deeply buried under the heavy accumulations of Drift, and where none of the streams, which here take their rise, have cut down through these quarternary deposits to any considerable extent.
In the northeast quarter of section 18, township 13, range 8, on the north fork of Apple Creek, an exposure in the side of the bluff is observed of about twenty-five feet in vertical height. The upper twenty feet is an arenaceous shale. The remaining lower portion consists of one or two thin beds of limestone, with black carbonaceous shale and fire clay, and in some places one or two inches of coal between the dark colored shale and fire clay. The limestone affords but few fossils. The lower beds may be traced along the banks of the creek near half a mile, although the exposure is not continuous, and then the dip of the strata being apparently a little greater than the fall of the stream, and in the same direction-about southwest - it finally disappears beneath its bed. Heavy exposures of a massive brownish or reddish sandstone is observed in one of the side ravines a little below the place where these beds dis- appear, running from the northward, having probably a total thickness of over thirty feet. A similar sandstone is said to occur some two miles above this point on the creek. Down the ravine about half a mile dis- tant, appearances indicate that limestone has been quarried at one time, though the ledges are not now visible. Below this place, outcroppings of the older rocks are not frequent along the fork of Apple Creek, until near its junction with the main creek. Below the forks of the creek, as far as the county line, a bed of hard, bluish limestone appears at the water's edge, and at a few points it may be seen that this is overlaid by
226
HISTORY OF MORGAN COUNTY.
argillaceous shales. On a small branch which comes down from the northwest and enters the creek bottoms near the county line, a coal seam has been worked by stripping. A little farther up the shale is exposed with thin beds of limestone, and over all a massive grayish sandstone and sandy shale. Passing up the east fork of Apple Creek, above the junc- tion, a continuation of the hard, bluish limestone before mentioned, is found, appearing along the banks of the stream for more than a mile, sometimes in place, and sometimes in large tumbling masses in the bed of the creek. It also appears in some of the side ravines, and has been some- what quarried in the southwest quarter of section 31, township 13, range 8, at a distance of nearly three-quarters of a mile from the creek. This lime- stone is probably the same as that observed farther down stream, as it is identical with it in appearance and thickness. Still farther up stream it appears still higher in the side of the bluffs, and has been considerably quarried, while at a little above this point it disappears entirely, and is seen no more along the stream.
Up a small branch which enters Apple Creek from the southwest, near the center of the south line of section 27, outcrops of shale, lime- stone, etc., with a small vein of coal are seen. A little below this point there is a continual ledge of the shale, from five to eight feet in height, extending along the bank of the river for a distance of twenty or thirty rods. Still further up the ravine, in the northeast quarter of section 34, the coal again outcrops, and still above this, near the Macoupin County line, in the southwest quarter of section 35, there is an exposure of ten or fifteen feet of shale, overlying the thin limestone No. 1, of the above section.
North of these exposures, in the eastern part of the county, there are but one or two points where the older rocks appear above the sur- face, or are artificially exposed. One of these occurs in the northeast quarter of section 25, township 13, range 8, where a reddish sandstone, in layers varying from two inches to a foot in thickness, has been quar- ried as a building stone. This stone also occurs in the bed of a small branch running north into Apple Creek, and four or five feet of gravel has to be removed before reaching the valuable portions of the rock. To the northward of this, in the vicinity of Waverly, sandstone is said to have been met in digging wells, at a depth of sixteen or eighteen feet, possibly the same beds that are exposed at this point.
Near Prentice, in the northeast corner of the county, a shaft has been sunk in the beds of the Coal Measures and the overlying Drift, to the depth of about two hundred and twenty feet, and has been continued by boring over one hundred feet more. It passes through three veins of coal, none of which are three feet in thickness.
The only point remaining to be mentioned in Morgan County, as a locality, where the beds of the Coal Measures have been penetrated, is at the city of Jacksonville, where a bed of coal, thirty inches in thickness, is reported to have been struck by a boring made on the grounds of the Insane Asylum, at a depth of one hundred and ninety feet. Another boring, made near the track of the Wabash railroad, just east of the city limits, is reported to have struck coal at nearly the same depth. The Drift here is over one hundred and forty feet in thickness.
COAL .- As will be seen by the foregoing pages, at least four or five
227
HISTORY OF MORGAN COUNTY.
different beds of coal appear in the surface outcrops and artificial exca- vations of this county, several of which have been more or less exten- sively worked. In fact, the whole surface of the county, excepting the Illinois bottoms and a small area immediately adjoining, is probably underlaid by one or more veins of coal. ' The lowest of these, the No. 1, or Exeter coal, has been mined to some extent along the river bluffs, near the northern border of the county, where the seam is about two and a half feet thick. It is probably the seam that has been worked on Indian Creek, in section 4, township 16, range 11, but beyond it is not identified in any exposures within the county. Although the coal of this seam is of a good quality, it is not generally of sufficient thickness to be profitably mined, except along the natural outcrops, or where it is only of compara- tively insignificant depth below the surface.
The next seam above this, the Neeleyville coal, is rather extensively worked at that place. The seam here is about four feet thick, and only twelve or fourteen feet below the surface of the principal diggings along the railroad. However, as it has no good natural roof, but is overlaid immediately by the clays of the Drift, from six to twelve inches of coal has to be left for a roof, and much trouble and expense must be incurred in cribbing. The coal is of good quality, and is much used on the Wabash railroad, and is also sent elsewhere to market. The four-foot vein, which outcrops along Coal Creek, in section 30, township 13, range 10, has been mined to some extent, but the works have been abandoned. This bed contains some pyrites, disseminated throughout the mass; but when sufficiently free from this material, the coal is reported to be of a very good quality. The other veins of coal which are worked at all in this county, probably belong to the middle and upper Coal Measures, and, as far as they have been opened, are generally of comparatively slight thick- ness. It would seem probable, however, considering these beds to belong to the upper and middle parts of the formation, that other and heavier seams of coal may be met with at greater depths beneath the surface. All the borings which have been made in the central part of the county seem to confirm this, as far as they go. The small vein outcropping along Apple Creek, in the southeastern part of the county, is not easy to place in the general section. It probably is, also, in the middle portion of the series, if not higher. The thickness is too slight to admit of its being profitably worked, except by stripping, along its outcrop.
ST. LOUIS LIMESTONE .- The outcrops of this formation are confined to the base of the bluffs, along the eastern edge of the Illinois bottoms in this county. In lithological characters it is also rather variable, con- sisting of reddish and light colored sandstones, and a hard, impure, red- dish, calcareous rock, which appears in several places. It nowhere pre- sents such a development as may be met farther south, and disappears entirely before reaching the northern limits of the county. The most northern exposures observed by the geologist were in the southwest cor- ner of section 19, township 16, range 12, where a light gray sandstone appears on the sides of the bluff road, and a little higher up the side of the bluff large tumbling masses of a light colored sandstone are seen. About a quarter of a mile below this point ledges of a reddish, splinter- ing, calcareous sand rock appear on the side of the bluffs, and have been somewhat quarried.
228
HISTORY OF MORGAN COUNTY.
Passing still farther to the south and west along the bluff road, a light reddish, shaly sandstone appears at various points in the ditches alongside the road, and in the bottoms of some of the small ravines which come down through the bluffs. Mention has already been made, in the earlier part of this chapter, of a reddish sandstone occurring in heavy ledges in the ravines of Coon Run, which may possibly belong to this formation, but more probably to the 'Coal Measures. About a half mile north of the southern line of the county, in the western part of section 36, there is a small quarry on the edge of the bottom in a rather coarser grained, light colored sandstone, which has been excavated to the depth of about four feet. In none of the exposures of the rocks of this age in Morgan County were any good fossils obtained ; but ledges of rock containing some of the characteristic fossils of this group in tolerable abundance occur a short distance over the boundary in Scott County.
CLAYS .- Some of the underclays of the different coal seams in this county will furnish a good material for fire-brick, tile, or pottery. The clay beds under the different coal seams, however, generally appear at the surface only along the sides of high bluffs, or in the bottoms of deep ravines, and have not as yet been turned to economical account. Good clays for ordinary brick making are found in the beds of the Drift, under the surface soils in all parts of the county.
BUILDING MATERIALS .- The sandstone over coal No. 1 in the north- western part of the county, has been worked to some extent as a building stone, and, in some instances, appears to answer the purpose well, and when a proper selection is made of this material, it appears durable. The stone abutments of a bridge over Indian Creek at Arenzville, just over the line in Cass County, which were built for the Rock Island and St. Louis Railroad, are of this sandstone, quarried within the limits of Morgan County, and after many years exposure, appeared as whole and sharply cut as when first laid. In some parts of these beds, however, the rock seems to crumble on weathering, and should, therefore, be rejected as a building stone. The sandstone worked on Willow Branch in section 19, township 15, range 11, is probably near the same geological horizon. It is very similar in appearance, being a light brown or gray sandstone, weathering to a rather lighter color than that from the previously men- tioned localities. It is quite easily worked when first quarried, but hardens on exposure.
The limestone beds of the Coal Measures, and their use as a building material, have been briefly noticed in the preceding pages. Their use has been mainly local and limited, and from the restricted nature of the expo- sures in the sides of high bluffs or bottoms of ravines, and the general inconsiderable thickness of the strata, it seems probable that it could not well be otherwise. The sandstone beds of the Coal Measures, when sufficiently resistant to atmospheric influences, are likely to afford the principal home supply of building material in this county. The sand- stones of the St. Louis group, which outcrop in this county, have also been used to some extent, but no such quarries as are found in this group in the adjoining counties, have as yet been opened in Morgan County. Some of the limestone beds in this county appear suitable for the manu- facture of quick lime. Most of this article, however, is derived elsewhere, its manufacture not being carried on to any extent in any place in the
229
HISTORY OF MORGAN COUNTY.
county. Sand and gravel are sufficiently abundant in all parts for building purposes.
RAILROADS .- The first railroad in the West was built in this county, the Northern Cross Railroad, from Meredosia to Springfield. Eight miles east from Meredosia was laid in 1838, the first rail being laid May 9. There are now, including main and side tracks, 104 miles of railway in the county, distributed as follows : Chicago and Alton, 31; Jacksonville, Northwestern and Southwestern, 20; Peoria, Pekin and Jacksonville, 10; St. Louis, Rock Island and Chicago (C.B.& Q.), 9; and the Wabash, 34. The entire value of these roads in the county, including their buildings, right of way, and rolling stock, is $535,527.55.
POPULATION .- By the school census of 1877, 7,765 males, and 7,634 females under twenty-one years of age, 15,399 in all, were reported. 5,479 males, and 5,247 females -10,726 - were between the ages of six and twenty-one years. If those under twenty-one years of age be taken as three-eighths of the population, it is 40,058. If those of school age be taken as one-fourth, the aggregate population is 41,904. Each calcula- tion approximates the same result, and either is not far from the truth. . If the wealth as heretofore given was proportioned among the inhabitants of the county, each one's share would be about two hundred and fifty dollars.
AGRICULTURE.
" Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke ; How jocund did they drive their teams afield ! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke."
As the majority of our readers are among the farmers, a short resume. of the history of agriculture will be interesting and appropriate in these pages. From a paper prepared by Hon. W. C. Flagg, of Moro, Illinois, in 1870, we learn very many interesting details regarding the introduction of this most important branch of industry, and from it we glean our items.
The agricultural history of the State covers nearly two centuries of time, the first of which is hardly less mythical than that of its savage predecessors. Yet in the last century Illinois promises to lead the van of agricultural production in the United States. Geographical position has much to do with this pre-eminence. South of the State it is too hot for wheat, north of it, it is too cold for corn. Accordingly in the latitude of Illinois, American agriculture can be diversified more than anywhere else. The State has an area, according to the census report, of 55,410 square miles, or according to the State Auditor, of 55,872 square miles, or 35,758,080 acres. It is twelfth in area of the organized States; but probably has as many arable acres as any of the eleven that precede it in nominal area, while it excels them all in soil, climate, or position. Its area is equal to nearly one-half that of the British Isles, or one-quarter that of France. It is equal to forty-two Rhode Islands, or twenty-six Delawares. It is said that with the exception of Louisiana and Delaware, to be the most level State in the Union. Cairo is but 350 feet above the level of the sea, and Jo Daviess County, in which are the most elevated portions of the State, is barely 600 feet higher.
230
HISTORY OF MORGAN COUNTY.
The soil of this vast plain is said to be mainly founded on Drift from more northern localities. Among the most characteristic soils are those of the river bottoms, whose fertility seems inexhaustible. These comprise large tracts, some of which-those on the " American Bottom "- have been in cultivation for a century, without perceptible deterioration. The midland Counties of Morgan, Sangamon, Menard, Macon, etc., have proved best suited, of the upland regions, for corn culture. Others, south of these, lead in winter wheat. Both of these seem to be results of peculiarity of soil. However various, the soils of Illinois are remarkable for their fertility. Bayard Taylor, who has seen as large a proportion of the earth's surface as most men, pronounced it the largest body of equally fertile land that he had seen. The agriculturalist chemist, Volcker, stated that he had never analyzed nor heard of soils so rich in. nitrogen.
In 1870, 50.7 per cent. of the people of Illinois were engaged in agricultural pursuits. It is hardly probable the percentage has decreased. On the other hand, many large farms in the State, especially in Morgan County, have been divided and sold in smaller lots, and here the percent- age is greater. In 1870, there were 202,803 farms. On these there were 376,441 persons engaged in agricultural pursuits. In this county the farms averaged, in 1870, 170 acres each. Alexander, Edwards, Greene, Macoupin, and Putnam, were in the same grade. The smallest farms are in the fruit producing regions, the largest where cattle raising is the principal occupation.
The State having passed through the pioneer period, when hunting and Indian fighting were the principal occupations of the population, and through the pastoral period, when herds and flocks, running at large on the wild lands, were the principal source of agricultural wealth, may be .now said to have fairly entered upon field culture, or agriculture proper. This is still of the extensive rather than the intensive kind, and shows no such yields per acre as may properly be expected when' a larger amount of capital to the acre can be profitably invested in production.
CEREALS .- Maize is the first crop, both in importance and chronology. The origin of Indian corn, like that of wheat and barley, is lost in the twilight of antiquity. Bonafous, who wrote long ago, and is still the best authority, was of opinion that Indian corn was indigenous both in China and in southwestern South America. Says Mr. B. F. Johnson, of Champaign, Illinois : "The prehistoric evidence afforded by comparative philology, establishes the fact that wheat and barley were cultivated by a race dwelling somewhere on the plains of Central Asia, at a time so remote that out of their language as the mother tongue, grew, in the course of many centuries, the Latin, the Greek, the Sanscrit, and the whole tribe of Indo-European languages. The same kind of testimony, gathered from geological investigation in South America, and from ancient tombs, shows conclusively that Indian corn was there cultivated at a period long anterior to the dynasty of the Incas, which commenced in the twelfth century.
"However, Humbolt, the universal savant whose testimony is enormous, says there is no doubt in the minds of botanists, that Indian corn is a truly American plant, and that the new world gave it to the old. Those who are of his opinion, say it was on his return from his first voyage, in the year 1493, that Columbus brought to Europe the first grains of Indian
231
HISTORY OF MORGAN COUNTY ..
corn, and thence its cultivation spread into Portugal, and the south of Europe. The Portuguese, who were at that time the great navigators of the world, having doubled Cape Horn previously, and discovered Java, in 1495, introduced it along the African coast, and into Java ; and thence its cultivation spread into India and China, and Indian corn was correctly figured in a Chinese work on agriculture, as early as 1552.
" Though the weight of Humbolt's testimony is great on any such question as this, is it not quite as reasonable to suppose that Indian corn may have been indigenous to China, and have been cultivated there, as to suppose that in the comparatively brief space of little more than half a century it should have been transferred from America to Europe ; thence to Java, thence to China ; and have been so generally adopted and culti- vated by that cautious and slow-moving people, as to have been figured in a book so short a time after its introduction to the country.
" The arguments derived from vegetable physiology strongly favor its eastern origin ; because, while Farther India and China contain many native plants of related genera, like sorghum and millet, very little, if any thing of the kind, is to be found among the botanical productions of South America. By the barest possibility, Indian corn may have been introduced into some portions of North America by the Chinese, some centuries ago. And the present remote probability may become a rea- sonable one, if modern antiquarians succeed in establishing the fact of the discovery of America by the Chinese at least a thousand years before its discovery by Columbus-a triumph of skillful and successful research which may not be far off.
" But whatever the origin of Indian corn may have been, whether on the slopes of the Andes, or in the fertile valleys of China, modern botanists and naturalists are pretty well agreed that the original Indian corn belonged to the species known as Zea Tunica, or clothed Indian corn ; each kernel of the ear being enveloped in a separate tunic, or husk, the grains of which may be of various shapes and colored white, yellow, or red. Descending and departing from this species, the varieties of Indian corn have become innumerable, each country and climate, every soil, situation, and parallel having one or more especially suited to the circumstances ; so that an extensive collection of the varieties of Indian corn would contain specimens from eighteen inches high to as many feet, with ears ranging in size from that of a lady's finger to that of the fore- arm of a strong man. No cereal accepts the modifications of soil and climate so easily and quickly as Indian corn. In a broad and general sense, every soil, situation, and climate, produces a certain normal development of stalk and ear ; and though cultivation and enriching the soil may increase the results, it does so simply by practically changing soil and climate both.
" The prairie soils of Illinois, underdrained and enriched by a liberal use of fertilizers, and seeded with the best common Indian corn of the country, produce a stock eight or nine feet high, which carries an ear breast high to a man, that will measure nine to ten inches in length, two to two and a half inches in diameter ; when bone dry, weighs fifteen to eighteen ounces, has twenty-two to twenty-four rows, and counts one thousand kernels." The same seed planted on other soils, produces other
232
HISTORY OF MORGAN COUNTY.
results, which is clearly seen in the corn brought from different localities in the United States.
Corn has been grown in the Mississippi valley since its earliest occu- pation by the French. Marquette, in 1673 ; Allouez, in 1676, and Mem- bre, in 1679, all mention its cultivation by the Illinois Indians long before the coming of the white man. These missionaries fail to describe the varieties cultivated, so that we can identify them with the Pueblo Indians, or other aborigines. Charlevoix, in 1721, Du Pratz, in 1758, and Pitman, in 1770, seem to indicate that the early French settlers had. not yet adopted its culture to an extent that made it an important product. The small grains are more mentioned than Indian corn. As early as 1800, however, according to Reynolds, it had begun to take a prominent place in the list of cereals. He states that in the war of 1812 the French obtained the knowledge from the Americans of the use of the small plows, to plow among the green corn. For more than one hun- dred years the French plowed in their corn about the first of June, and turned under the weeds, and not many grew until the corn was up out of the reach of them. They planted their seed corn in the furrows as they broke the ground, and turned the furrow on the corn planted ; plowed a few furrows more, and planted another row of corn, and so on until the field was all planted. The weeds were kept down with the hoe or briar scythe. The Americans grew the same varieties as now, but the French raised almost entirely the hard, flinty corn from which hominy was manufactured. Considerable quantities of corn were shipped to New Orleans in flat-boats, but both navigation and the market were uncertain. So long as swine found abundant mast in the woodlands, and cattle suffi- cient grazing, even in the winter, in Southern Illinois, the demand for home consumption was not large. The first settlers of the prairies now included in Morgan County, grew this cereal in considerable quantities, and hauled it to St. Louis in wagons, or shipped it thither by the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. It furnished their chief article for bread, and when ground in the old mill, or grated in the grater, and baked, as only women of those days could bake it, made an excellent and wholesome food. Corn is now one of the chief grains raised by the farmers, and on the prairies of Morgan County is as staple a product as cotton in the South. Illinois is far in advance of any State in the number of bushels raised, and ranks among the first as to quality.
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.