History of Sangamon County, Illinois, together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens, Part 30

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Inter-state publishing company
Number of Pages: 1084

USA > Illinois > Sangamon County > History of Sangamon County, Illinois, together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens > Part 30

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"And now a word about Miss Brown, who is now Mrs. Headley. She came a few years later from old Spencer county, Indiana, a poor girl, working about from place to place. She spent four months with two families, and received about two dollars. She often washed for fami- lies, and scrubbed the floor, for twenty-five cents. After she became older and more experi- enced, never received to exceed seventy-five cents per week. In those days many families made their own cotton. She states, when she went to school she had to take cotton in the seed with her, and pick it during play time. When she carded and spun cotton, six cuts were a day's work; spinning flax or wool, twelve cuts were required for a day's work. In those days our girls dressed very plainly. I never knew them to train their silks and satins in the dust. Their every-day dresses were homespun, but on Sunday they managed to have something nicer. She states, when she went to meeting she has often, in warm weather, carried her shoes and stock- ings, and when near the place, she would put them on. One other ineident I will mention. I was invited by an uncle of mine, where she was staying, to assist him to bring in a deer he had killed. So we brought home the deer, quite tired and hungry. Miss Brown stepped around quite lively, and soon had a good dinner on the table. I then and there fell in love with her,

and have loved her from that day to this. She was dressed in brown linsey on that eventful occasion.

" And now all honor and God's blessing be on the old pioneer fathers and mothers, who, through great difficulties, sickness, poverty and privations, laid the foundation for the prosperity we now enjoy.

JAMES and ELIZA HEADLEY."

EXPERIENCE OF MRS. JOHN LOCK, WRITTEN BY A FRIEND.

" ROCHESTER, ILL , July 30, 1879.

"FRIEND DILLER :- At your request, I will try and give you a brief synopsis of my experience during the primitive times of Illinois, when San- gamon county was in its infancy. I will com- mence with an item of chronology. The place of my nativity was Fassenburg, Addison county, Vermont, August 31, 1802. That of my hus- band the same, January 10, 1799. In the spring of 1832, I and my husband first made our advent on these broad savannas. Oh! what changes have swept over these people in the swift flight of time since that day. My first experience upon landing was not calculated to enliven or to cheer, for immediately upon our arrival, ere we had time to unburden our 'prairie steamer' of our little effects, my husband had to stand the con- scription for the Black Hawk war. That was indeed a sad and gloomy beginning. What my feelings were under those trying circumstances, none can know. The mental anguish that I suffered, tongue cannot tell or pen describe. But I presume that it was a necessity to expel from this beautiful land the original possessor, who, by his numerous and cruel outrages had rendered himself obnoxious to the march of in- tellect and the vanguard of civilization. Ye of Sangamon of 1879, who prate of hard times, what, prithee, would you think, if you had to remain at home alone, a stranger, in this vast wilderness, while your husband went to St. Louis in a two-horse wagon to purchase corn to make meal of, to satisfy the craving of nature? There were days and weeks of agony, of fear and sus- pense-not knowing at what moment the aborig- ines, who were still in contiguous proximity to us, might descend and desolate our homes. Those, indeed, were days of action and of vigi- lance, for at that time I had five little children to guard, and the hoarse cry of the wolf was the only musical instrument Sangamon furnished to lull them to sleep. But those days are num- bered with the years beyond the flood. Great and important changes have taken place since

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that period, and we are now no longer necessi- tated to array ourselves in habiliments of our own handicraft, but in that day all that adorned our persons were the fabrics wrought by our own industry on the loom. Mothers of the Sanga- mon of to-day, who bedeck your little ones in costly fabrics that outvie the floral landscape, think not that our little ones were less near and dear to us, who, fifty years ago, clothed them in the homespun of our own manufacture. There may be in this assembly, some fair exotics, that will smile in derision at this humble picture of past experiences of one whose sands are running low-whose fastidiousness may be horrified to think that the hardy pioneers of Sangamon had to do as I have many a time-go to the field, gather corn and grate it, then wait till the cows come up at night, to make food of it. And we pronounced it good; not only good, but very good. At that time my husband plied his trade to get corn to live on while he raised his crop; and the first and most important order that he had was of one Robert Bell, for a pair of boots, for which he received the magnificent compensa- tion of three pecks of corn meal. Thus did the early settlers of Sangamon learn habits of econ- omy and frugality, and by patient industry their efforts have been crowned with success; for now, verily, the wilderness doth blossom as a rose. We have taken the bitter with the sweet, for adversity is a stern but wholesome teacher. We have suffered greatly at times from the malari- ous diseases incident to this latitude, and at that time our scientific resources were limited. The fell destroyer of mankind has visited us, and stolen from us several flowers of the group which we had gathered around us. Thus have we struggled on, looking forward and upward. We have seen old Sangamon in her infant wilder- ness; we now behold her in all her pride and grandeur, with her star of destiny still in the ascendant, and ranking with those of the first magnitude. What the next turn of the kaleido- scope will bring forth for us, or for Sangamon, naught but the future will reveal."

Yours truly,

MRS. JOHN LOCK."

MRS. ROBERT BURNS.

BUFFALO HART, ILL., Aug. 19, 1879.

"MR. DILLER: I have been too sick since re- ceiving your request, to give my experience as an early settler of Sangamon county. However, I will give you a few incidents, and you can use them as you think best. We have been living here on this farm for fifty-four years next

October. I picked cotton out of the boll, then the seed out of it, carded and spun and wove the cloth in dresses ; also made shirts from it for Mr. Burns, and he wore them several years. The first dishes I purchased in Illinois, rode to Springfield on horseback, taking my eloth to ex- change for dishes. When returning home the prairie was discovered burning. Mr. Burns left me to put the fire out. My horse became fright- ened, threw me, and broke all my dearly bought dishes. There was not a fence or stump to get on, and I had to walk several miles. At last I came to a gopher hill and mounted again, re- joieing that I had escaped without seeing a wolf. We were here during the deep snow. Our house was so open that the snow blew in so much that we could track a rabbit across the floor. The bed would be almost covered in the morning. Prai- rie chickens were very plenty when we came. Mr. Burns made me a trap, and I amused myself during the day by catching and dressing the dainty game. The first table in the Grove was made of clapboards, given me by 'Squire Moore, about six months after we came; until then we ate off of a box. We had no chairs.

"MRS. ROBERT BURNS." "P. S .- The dishes I bought of Major Iles."

MRS. SARAH P. HUSBAND, OF AUBURN.

" Was born November 12, 1790, in South Caro- lina. Her parents moved in 1797 to Kentucky, passing by way of Crab Orchard Fort, stopping there a day or two for provisions, protection from Indians, etc., and going thence through Lexington to Christian county, where the family located. The journey from South Carolina to Kentucky was made on pack-horses, several per-

sons riding on one horse. Sarah and another child rode with their mother on an old sorrel horse named 'Jack.' In 1811 she was married to Harman Husband (who died near Auburn, Illinois, February 15, 1848). The family moved to Sangamon county, Illinois, arriving in Octo- ber, 1820. Numerous interesting incidents oc- curred on the journey, but only one will be men- tioned, viz: While crossing the Ohio river a young calf jumped from the flat-boat; my hus- band seized the calf by one ear and held it until the boat reached the shore. The calf was brought on to Illinois and did its part in stocking the new county of Sangamon. Arriving in Sanga- mon county the family settled three miles east of Auburn, where the old lady still resides, aged eighty-nine years, and still active and anxious to live to be one hundred years old. Among

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early incidents it may be related that the Indians erected on the homestead, their bark wigwams, etc., and hunted over the farm. The subject of this sketch frequently gave them corn bread, having no wheat bread in those days. While encamped on the farm, an Indian child died, and the Indians made a box of bark in which they put the corpse and suspended it from the top of a tall tree, thus keeping it until the tribe was ready to return to the burying grounds. Many other incidents occurred, but similar ones are familiar to all early settlers. Corn cakes were baked on a board before the fire, and 'hoe cakes' were so called because they were cooked on an ordinary hoe, properly cleaned and greased, of course. MRS. HARMAN HUSBAND."

MRS. ANN H. M'CORMICK

SPRINGFIELD, Ill., August 5, 1879.

" MR. DILLER, Dear Sir :- I came from Green county, Kentucky, arriving in Springfield May 5, 1822, and have resided in Sangamon county ever since, making fifty-seven years last May. The second summer we lived here the corn was killed by frost, and during the summer of 1823 we lived mostly on green corn, potatoes and bread once a day. I remember well the deep snow, and how we walked over stake and rider fences on the snow. At that time I lived three and a half miles southeast of Springfield, with my father, James Short. I was married to Andrew McCormick, and resided in Springfield since that time. I have attended several Old Settlers' meetings, and enjoyed them very much, and I intend meeting my old friends once more if the weather will permit.

Respectfully yours, ANN S. MCCORMICK."

OLD SETTLERS OF SANGAMON .*

"In the fall of the year 1828, in the midst of the soft and mellow Indian summer, the speaker left his native county of Fayette, Kentucky, emi- grating to Springfield Illinois, and traveling on horseback, in two days arrived at Louisville, and crossing the Ohio river struck the great highway to the West, running from Louisville to Vin- cennes and St. Louis, and at Maysville, Illinois, branching to Central Illinois, known then as the Sangamon country.

" Having entered this great road, he was united to that mighty stream of emigrants moving west-

ward, whose mission was to subdue the wilder- ness, to found States, to carry forward the ban- ner of civilization, and whose sons were to re- turn, at no very distant day, in arms under the gallant Sherman, to save the Union from disrup- tion, as under IIardin and Bissell they saved the field of Buena Vista-a race never yet defeated in battle, or if defeated, who never knew it.

"That moving mass was composed of every specimen of humanity, men, women, children, black and white, old and young, some highly cultivated and refined, others at the very lowest round of the ladder of intellect and cultivation, and of every intermediate grade. There was the man of middle age, who had filled a high social position in his native State, accompanied by a family cultivated and refined, on the way to the West, to retrieve his fallen fortunes.

" There were young girls, then obscure, un- known, and poorly clad, but destined to fill princely mansions, and to become mothers of a race of fair daughters and gallant sons. Young men and boys were there who in their new homes would fill high offices of State, make and enforce laws, and impress their names and genius on the history of States then springing into existence; or whose destiny would be to fell the forest, to reduce the prairie to cultivation, to subdue the wilderness, and make it feed its millions of happy human beings; or would become lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers and statesmen.

" All kinds of domestic animals, and of every age, were there, intermingled with men, women and children, following the family wagon or car- riage. Every conceivable mode of conveyance; some were on horseback, or in carriages; others in wagons of every variety, and many on foot. Onward this varied mass moved by day, shout- ing, singing, laughing, jesting, cursing, cracking their whips, hallooing to their animals to press them forward. Merry they go, save here and there might be seen some serious faces of those who were thinking of their native homes and the friends they had left behind them.

"And to the traveler on horseback, belated in reaching his rest for the night, how enchanting the scene as he rides along. The camp-fires blaz- ing everywhere, along the road, down every brook and every valley; the groups around the camp-fires, and at the evening meal; the cattle and horses being fed at the wagon trough, or tethered, or wandering about browsing on grass or shrubs; the whistle, the song, the merry laugh, the bustle, the salutation to the passer-by, 'Where are you going, stranger?' All is anima-

*An address delivered by Major John T. Stuart at the Old Settlers' Reunion, September 4, 1877.

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tion and joyous life; while over all shines the silver moon struggling to shed her silver light through the hazy Indian summer atmosphere. These road scenes, altogether made a spectacle never to be forgotten, and the like of which will never more be seen east of the Mississippi, and perhaps never again on this continent.

"Near Maysville, Illinois, the road separated, and the emigrant train divided, part taking the road for St. Louis, and part for Central Illinois. And now the Grand Prairie is reached. Pen cannot describe a large prairie; it must have been seen to be appreciated; it was grand and peculiar; its nakedness of everything except long grass and weeds, seared by the autumn frosts, or feeding yon long line of fires, or waving in the breeze; its silence disturbed only by the noise of small insects, the whirr of the prai- rie chickens, or the sighing of the breeze; its boundless extent, appealing to the im- agination; you fancied it like the ocean; its undulating surface resembled the waves; the wavering grass is the water, agitated by the wind; yon emigrant wagon, rising the distant hill, is the ship upon the crest of the wave; yon outline of timbers is the rock-bound coast; but the herd of deer, which, frightened at the ap- proach of man, bounds gracefully away to yon- der hill, and stands, with head and tail erect, gazing at you with large, bright eyes, dispels the dream.

" As I am trying to make a picture of things as I saw them, I would recall to the memory of old settlers some of the scenes they witnessed when first crossing this same Grand Prairie, if not on this, on some other road.

"Riding along the gently rolling prairie, now you descend into a valley, and your vision is limited to a narrow circle. That herd of deer has taken fright at your coming, quits its graz- ing on the tender grass of the valley, and, fol- lowing that old buck as leader, runs off with heads erect, horns thrown back, their white tails waving in the air, has circled around until yonder hillock is reached, when, turning towards you, they gaze with their dark, bright eyes, as if inquiring why you have invaded their free pas- tures. As you ride along, the rattlesnake is stretched across the road, sunning itself, and the prairie wolf takes to his heels and gallops off much like a dog, but slowly, as if to show you that he is not much frightened. That flock of prairie chickens has taken wings, and with a whirr flies away, and now has alighted yonder.

" And now you have reached this ridge, checking your horse you turn in your saddle

and gaze around. As far as the eye can reach, and bounded only by the horizon, stretches the undulating prairie, covered with grass and resin weed. How grand, how beautiful the view! Ilow like the sea with its rolling waves!

" And now again you have been overtaken by night; you reach that other hillock, and check- ing your horse, you again gaze around you. The prairie grass is on fire, here, there, every- where, all around the horizon, and lighting up the whole heavens. The scene now, how unlike that other, but still how grandly beautiful! A vision of wondrous enchantment, the like of which is now gone forever. Few scenes on earth surpass such a prairie, either in the bright sunshine of day, or when in the night blazing with such fires.

"I have since stood at the foot of one of the Rocky Mountains, lifting its lofty head amid the clouds, its sides massive, rugged, treeless, without insect or fowl, silent as the grave. The scene of the mountains and of the prairie are widely different. The one grand and full of life, but impressing the first beholder with a sense of beauty; the other silent, grand, sub- lime, and impressing its first beholder with a sense of wonder and awe, but alike suggestive of the thought that none but God, One, Al- mighty, Allwise, could make them, and with wonder that anyone could doubt it, or believe that they came into existence by chance, by evo- lution or the aggregation of sentient particles of matter.

" The night of the tenth day of his journey the speaker passed at the house of Mr. Hus- bands, on Sugar creek, in Sangamon county, and early next morning was passing along the road through the Springfield prairie, and about where the junction now is. What a difference between 'now' and 'then!' Now may be seen by one, passing by the Junction, long lines of freight and passenger cars on the two roads crossing at that point from North to South, and from East to West.

"There is the coal shaft, the noise and smoke of its engine, and the huts of the miners; there are in view the spires and curling smoke of the Capital City; all around are well cultivated farms, well stocked with fine cattle, and every- where around are life, activity, and progress.

"Then all around was unbroken prairie, the home of the wolf, the deer, and the prairie fowl; unmarked by civilization or cultivation, except the scattering farms and houses along the timber. The dwellers in those houses, if then asked, would have informed you that these

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prairie lands would never be purchased of the General Government, that they were not worth the taxes and would ever remain pasture grounds for those owning the lands near the timber.

"Traveling thence north, nothing yet met the eye, except the wild prairie, and its boundary of timber, and on that boundary on the east, the farms of Washington Iles and of Mason and Plank, and on the west, of Little and Lindsay. At the distance of one mile the high ground was reached, the rim of the valley in which Spring- field was situated, where now runs the South Avenue. Thence descending into the valley, the only additional improvements to be seen were the farms of Lanterman and Lanswell on the west, and of Charles R. Matheny on the east, where Mrs. Robert Irwin now lives, and of Mas- ters, in front of the traveler.

"Passing the Masters farm on the left (now Moran's addition), and the house of the Masters, near the residence of Mrs. Humphrey, and cross- ing the open prairie, the road running nearly where are now the residences of Mrs. Chestnut and N. W. Edwards, to the grove afterwards known as Mather's grove, where the new State House is being built, and following the road west of Mather's grove, with the grove on the right, and on the left the corn-field of Major Iles (now Edwards & Mather's addition ), to the eminence, where now stands the residence of the late Mr. Tyndale, the little village until then hid by the timber and brushwood along the town branch, first burst upon the view.

"Reining in the horse, pausing on that emi- nence, to take a survey, the eye rested upon a dense grove of Black Jack, and undergrowth, east and west, all along the town branch, cover- ing the entire hill on which Mr. Lamb's house is situated, while in front lay the little village of Springfield, made up of a string of small houses, mainly extending three blocks, along Jefferson street, from First to Fourth streets, with some few scattered elsewhere.

"The houses were generally small, unpainted, and some daubed with mud; the rain of the morning had given to all a dreary and cheerless look, bringing a fit of blues to one who remem- bered the pleasant home of his boyhood, and then surveying for the first time, the home of his manhood, which then promised so little and has proved so full of happiness.

"The village of Springfield was built in a val- ley about two miles wide; it was drained by a stream, since known as the Town Branch, which heads in the southeast corner of the city, and

runs west-northwest, and empties into Spring creek. Into the Town Branch on either side, in flood time, at intervals of three or four hundred yards, the water had washed deep gullies, or ruts, which drained the entire valley into the Town Branch, one of these wet weather drains ran from the northeast corner of the square to the southwest corner, and thence to the Town Branch, near the railroad bridge.

"This surface drainage has entirely disap- peared, being displaced by the admirable under- ground drainage adopted by the city. On both sides of the Town Branch as high as Sixth street, was a dense forest of small trees and undergrowth, the harbor of deer and wolves. The remains of this forest may be seen in the yards of Mrs. Goodell, of the Governor's Man- sion, and of Mr. Eastman. Parallel with the Town Branch are two ridges, the rims of the valley, at an elevation of from twenty to thirty feet above the branch. The North and South Avenues run very nearly upon the summit of these ridges.

"The central points of intercourse, at that day, in the Northwest, were St. Louis on the south, and the lead mines near Galena on the north; and the leading road of the Northwest was between these two points. The road from Vincennes by the way of Vandalia, united with this road at Macoupin point, and entered Spring- field as above described, over the hill where the new State House is building, and running on First street, to Jefferson, and passing the Abrams Hotel, the principal hotel of the city, on the corner of First and Jefferson, continued on Jefferson to Fourth street, where the St. Nicholas now stands, there turning to the north, in a nearly straight line, to the present residence of Mr. Converse, thence to the Sangamon river, very nearly on the line of the present road, and thence north by Music's Bridge and Peoria to Galena. This was then called the Fort Clark road. The next road in importance was the road to Beardstown, which running west on Jefferson street and crossing the Town Branch at the tan-yard and old mill, followed very near the present line of road to Beardstown. The east and west road from Jacksonville, very near its present line, united with the Beardstown road at the Town Branch and passed through Springfield on Jefferson street to the square, and thence east through an open prairie, and crossed Sugar creek, near Major Iles' farm.

"In 1818, Elisha Kelly visited the present site of Springfield, there then being no white inhabi- tants north of Edwardsville. He was pleased

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with the situation because it abounded with game and was a good hunting ground. He re- turned to North Carolina and induced his family connection to move, and in the year 1819 John Kelly built a cabin north of the Town Branch, near where it is crossed by Jefferson street, the present site of the residence of General Ander- son. With John lived his father and several unmarried brothers. William Kelly built a cabin north of John, on a tract owned after- wards by Archer G. Herndon, now the residence of C. A. Gehrman, the merchant. Andrew Elliot built still further north at the place where he died, now Elliot's addition; all these cabins were near the timber of the Town Branch. These were the first settlers of Spring- field, if not of Sangamon county. It may well be wondered why those primitive settlers, hav- ing the choice of the whole country, should select these inferior sites for cultivation, rather than the higher and better lands in the vicinity. The answer is found in the wants, and opinions of that early day. They needed water and fuel, these were found on the Town Branch. They needed shelter from the wind, they found it in the timber of Town Branch; above all other things, they wanted a good hunting ground; that they also found on the Town Branch and Spring creek, one of the very best of hunting grounds, and moreover in the opinion of the early settlers, they who occupied the land bord- ering on the timber, would become practically, the owners of the outside prairie, as their pasture ground forever.

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History of Sangamon County, Illinois, together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens, Part 30

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago, Inter-state publishing company Number of Pages: 1084

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Inter-state publishing company
Number of Pages: 1084