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 8

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 8

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The upper limestone No. 2, of the above sec- tion is well exposed near the bridge on the main road north of Virden, and has been quar- ried both for lime and building stone. The upper part of the bed is a nodular, unevenly- bedded rock, partly brecciated, while the lower portion is more evenly bedded, affording a tol- erably good building stone, in layers from four inches to a foot or more in thickness.

A little farther up the creek the whole mass becomes brecciated and fragmentary, and quar- ries in pebbly fragments suitable for macadam- izing material.

The brown ferruginous bed, No. 5, of the fore- going section is a hard, massive rock, resem- bling the limestone at Crow's mill, on Sugar creek, six miles south of Springfield, of which it is probably the equivalent.

It contains numerous fossils, among which are Productus costatus, P. Nebrascensis, P' Pratten- ianus, Spirifer cameratus, Athyris subtilita, Yerebrutula bovideus, Pinna per-acnta, and My- alina ampla?

The limestone No. 7, of the foregoing section is not fully exposed, but the upper layers out- crop in the bed of the creek just above the rail- road bridge, in pebbly layers not unlike the upper layers of No. 2; as they appear above the bridge on the main road north of Virden. This out-crop is very similar in appearance to the upper layers of the Carlinville limestone, just below Carr's mill on Macoupin creek, northeast of Carlinville, and I have no doubt but this limestone on Sugar creek is the equivalent of that. Below the railroad bridge the shale un- derlying these limestones are the only beds exposed for some distance, but east of Anburn the limestones are again met with, and are found in outerops from this point to Crow's mill, seven miles south of Springfield, where the rock for the old State House was obtained. At Pedde- cord's quarries, on Sugar creek, the State House rock is well exposed, affording the following section :

No. 1. Thin bedded ferruginous limestone, .

2 to 3 feet. No. 2. Massive, coarse-grained limestone, 4 feet. No. 3. Clay shale, partly bitumi- nous, 6 feet.

No. 4. Thin bedded limestone, . 3 to 4 feet.

No. 5. Sandy shale, 10 to 12 feet.

The material for the old State House was ob- tained mainly from No. 2 of the foregoing see- tion, and there is a nearly continuons outerop of these beds from this point to Crow's mill, two miles below, where the old State-House quarries were located.

This rock is a coarse-grained, brownish-gray, crinoidal limestone, almost entirely composed of crinoidal joints and the calcareous remains of marine mollusca, cemented together by calca- reons and ferruginous sediment.

In addition to the fossils already enumerated as occurring in this limestone at the locality north of Virden, the quarries here afford numer- ous specimens of syringoporu multathenata, which seem to belong in the clay shale under the limestone No. 2 of the foregoing section, and, so far as I am aware, has been found nowhere else but in this shale in Sangamon and Macoupin counties.

Some of the masses obtained on Sugar creek are nearly a foot in diameter. This limestone has also afforded fine specimens of Cladodus mortifer, Petalodus destructor, and Cyathocri- nus Sangamonensis. This rock possesses the same lithological characters, and affords exactly

HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

the same group of fossils as the upper division of the main limestone at La Salle, and I have no doubt they are stratigraphical equivalents. Be- low Crow's mill to the outlet of Sugar creek into the Sangamon river, the sandy shales and sandstones intervening between this limestone and the coal outcroppings at Howlett, are the only beds to be seen. This coal seam, numbered 11, in the general section, given on a preceding page, ranges in thickness from eighteen inches to two feet, and is coal No. 8, of our general sec- tion of the Coal Measures, given in Vol. III, page 5, of these reports. It outcrops in the bank of the Sangamon river at Howlett, and on Spring creek and its branches north and west of Springfield; and previous to the discovery of the heavy beds below this, it was extensively worked in strip banks, and by tunnels along its line of outcrop. It is overlaid by a calcareous shale, and argillaceous limestone, which are wonderfully rich in fossils, and have afforded more than sixty species of shells, corals and crinoidia characteristic of the upper coal meas- ures. The coal is underlaid with a dark bluish- gray fire-clay two or three feet in depth, below which an impure nodular limestone is some- times found, but more frequently the fire-clay rests directly upon the sandy shales and sand- stones below.

At Howlett, the argillaceous limestone over- laying this coal seam, is succeeded by sandy shales, passing upward into soft mucacous sand- stones, which outcrop along the railroad grades just beyond Camp Butler, and contain an inter- calaled seam of poor coal only a few inches thick.

The limestones of Sugar creek, which prop- erly overlay this sandstone, are not found in the vicinity of Howlett, having been probably re- moved in the erasion of the Sangamon valley.

Below this coal, where it out-crops west of the city, we find a bed of sandy shale and sand- stone, from thirty to forty feet thick, that lo- cally furnishes some building stone of fair quality, the thickly bedded portions being partly concretionary in structure, the concretions often attaining a diameter of five or six feet or more. They are exceedingly hard, but may be split into blocks of suitable size, and made a very durable building stone.

At Carpenter's mill, five miles north of Springfield, a fine exposure of the sandstone underlaying this coal may be seen on the north bank of the Sangamon, where it forms a perpen- dicular cliff more than fifty feet in height. The upper and lower portions of the formations are

thin bedded and shaly, but the middle portions, nearly twenty-five feet in thickness, is in tol- erably heavy and evenly stratified beds, ranging from six inches to two feet or more in thiek- ness. These layers seem to harden on expos- ure, and afford a very good building stone.

In a ravine, a little to the west of the mill, on the north side of the road, the coal No. 11, of the foregoing section, and overlaying argil- laceous limestone, were found well up towards the top of the hill, and apparently above the sandstone exposure at the bridge. The lime- stone here contains the same species of fossils so abundant in the roof of this coal in the vi- cinity of Springfield.

The coal was not well exposed, but does not appear to be more than a few inches in thick- ness, and this exposure is probably on or near the most westerly outcrop of the seam on the north side of the river. Among the fossils com- mon in the limestone and shales over this coal, the Lophophyllum proliferwm is very abundant, and is associated with Astartella vera, Pleauro- tomaria sphærnlata, P. Grayvillensis P. carbon- aria, Bellerophon carbonaria, B. Montfortianus, B. percarinatus, B. Stevensianus, Leda bella-ru- gosa, Nucula ventricoso, Polyphenropsis per- acuta, P. nitidula, Soleniscus typicus, Loxo- nema rugosa, L. cerithiformis, Macrocheilus inhabilis, M. ponderosus, M. medialis, M. inter- calaris, M. pulchella, M. ventricosus, Enomphalus rugosus, Productus longispinus, P. Nebrascensis, P. Prattenianus, Spirifer cameratus, S. Ken- tuckensis, Athyris, subtilita, etc.

The Rock creek limestone of Menard county, if it extends this far to the eastward, should out- crop on the Sangamon not very far below Car- penter's mill, as its place in the vertical section is between coals Nos. 7 and 8; but all these coal measure limestones are somewhat local in their development, and this bed has not been met with, so far as I know, in any of the coal shafts sunk in this vicinity.

The main coal No. 5, of the general section of the coal measures in the central and western portions of the State, lies abont one hundred and seventy-five feet below coal No. 8, in the vicinity of Springfield, and two hundred to two hundred and ten below the general surface level. A boring for artesian water was made at Spring- field in 1858, and was carried down to the depth of nearly twelve hundred feet without finding water that would rise to the surface, and the parties having the work in charge reported no coal below the small seam thirty or forty feet below the surface, though it was evident, from

HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

the character of the material brought up with the sand-pump, that they must have passed through from four or five hundred feet of coal measure strata. Subsequently, in a boring at Howlett, a six-foot seam of coal was found, at a depth of about two hundred feet. A shaft was immediately sunk, and extensive mining opera- tions have been carried on there to the present time. The boring at Springfield not only passed through this seam, but all those underlaying it, of which two or three will probably be found of workable thickness, the men in charge of the

work being apparently entirely unconscious of the true character of the strata through which their drill passed. If this work had been placed in the hands of competent men, and an accurate journal of the boring kept, we should now know exactly what our coal resources are, whereas nothing was known in regard to the develop- ment of the lower coals, except from the exami- nations of their outcrops along the Illinois river bluffs, until borings at Jacksonville and Chapin showed the existence of a seam at those points between three and four feet in thickness.

HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

CHAPTER III.

PIONEER LIFE.

One of the most interesting phases of national or local history is that of the settlement of a new country. What was the original state in which the pioneer found the country, and how was it made to blossom as the rose ?

Pioneer life in Sangamon county finds its parallel in almost every county in the State, and throughout the entire West. When Robert Pul- liam and others of that noble band of pioneers settled here, they found an unbroken wilderness. Wild beasts and but little less wild savages, roamed at will over the prairies, through the for- ests, and along the waters of the "Sain-quee- mon" and its numerous tributaries. Forests were to be felled, cabins erected, mills built, and the river and creeks made to labor for the bene- tit of mankind. The beautiful prairies were to be robbed of their natural ornaments and the hand of art was to assist in their decoration. Who was to undertake this work ? Are they malified for the task ? What will be the effect of their labors upon future generations ?

The Sangamon county pioneers had many dif- ficulties to contend with, not the least of which was the journey from civilization to their forest homes. The route lay for the most part through a rough country ; swamps and marshes were crossed with great exertion and fatigue; rivers were forded with difficulty and danger ; nights were passed on open prairies, with the sod for a couch and the heavens for a shelter; long, weary days and weeks of travel were endured, but finally " the promised land" was reached.

EARLY MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

The young men and women of to-day have little conception of the mode of life among the early settlers of the country. One can hardly conceive how great a change has taken place in so short a time. In no respects are the habits and manners of the people similar to those of sixty years ago. The clothing, the dwellings, the diet, the social customs, have undergone a

total revolution, as though a new race had taken possession of the land.

In a new country, far removed from the con- veniences of civilization, where all are com- pelled to build their own houses, make their own clothing and procure for themselves the means of subsistence, it is to be expected that their dwellings and garments will be rude. These were matters controlled by surrounding circumstances and the means at their disposal. The earliest settlers constructed what were termed "three-faced camps," or, in other words, three walls, leaving one side open. They are described as follows: The walls were built about seven feet high, when poles were laid across at a distance of about three feet apart, and on these a roof of clapboards was laid, which were kept in place by weight poles placed on them. The clapboards were about four feet in length and from eight inches to twelve inches in width, split out of white oak timber. No floor was laid in the "camp." The structure re- (mired neither door, window, or chimney. The one side left out of the cabin answered all these purposes. In front of the open side was built a large log heap, which served for warmth in cold weather and for cooking purposes in all seasons. Of course there was an abundance of light, and, on either side of the fire, space to enter in and ont. These "three-faced camps" were proba- bly more easily constructed than the ordinary cabin, and was not the usual style of dwelling house.

. The cabin was considered a material advance for comfort and home life. This was, in almost every case, built of logs, the spaces between the logs being filled in with split sticks of wood, called " chinks," and then daubed over, both inside and outside, with mortar made of clay. The floor, sometimes, was nothing more than earth tramped hard and smooth, but commonly made of "puncheons," or split logs, with the

HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

split side turned upward. The roof was made by gradually drawing in the top to the ridge- pole, and, on cross pieces, laying the "clap- boards," which, being several feet in length, in- stead of being nailed, were held in place by poles laid on them, called "weight poles," reaching the length of the cabin. For a fire- place, a space was cut out of the logs on one side 'of the room, usually about six feet in length, and three sides were built up of logs, making an offset in the wall. This was lined with stone, if convenient; if not, then earth. The fine, or upper part of the chimney, was built of small split sticks, two and a half or three feet in length, carried a little space above the roof, and plastered over with clay, and when finished was called a " cat-and-clay " chim- ney. The door space was also made by cutting an aperture in one side of the room of the re- quired size, the door itself being made of clap- boards secured by wooden pins to two cross- pieces. The hinges were also of wood, while the fastening consisted of a wooden latch catch- ing on a hook of the same material. To open the door from the outside, a strip of buckskin was tied to the latch and drawn through a hole a few inches above the latch-bar, so that on pulling the string the latch was lifted from the catch or hook, and the door was opened without further trouble. To lock the door, it was only necessary to pull the string through the hole to the inside. Here the family lived, and here the guest and wayfarer were made welcome. The living room was of good size, but to a large extent it was all-kitchen, bed- room, parlor and arsenal, with flitches of bacon and rings of dried pumpkin suspended from the rafters. In one corner were the loom and other implements used in the manufacture of cloth- ing, and around the ample fireplace were col- lected the kitchen furniture. The clothing lined one side of the sleeping apartment, suspended from pegs driven in the logs. Hemp and flax were generally raised, and a few sheep kept. Out of these the clothing for the family and the sheets and coverlets were made by the females of the house. Over the door was placed the trusty rifle, and just back of it hung the powder horn and hunting pouch. In the well- to-do families, or when crowded on the ground floor, a loft was sometimes made to the cabin for a sleeping place and the storage of "traps" and articles not in common use. The loft was reached by a ladder secured to the wall. Generally the bedrooms were sep- arated from the living-room by sheets and

coverlets suspended from the rafters, but until the means of making these partition walls were ample, they lived and slept in the same

Familiarity with this mode of living did away with much of the discomfort, but as soon as the improvement could be made, there was added to the cabin an additional room, or a "double log cabin " being substantially a "three-faced camp," with a log room on each end and containing a loft. The furniture in the cabin corresponded with the house itself. The articles used in the kitchen were as few and simple as can be imag- ined A . Dutch oven" or skillet, a long-handled frying pan, an iron pot or kettle. and sometimes a coffee-pot, constituted the utensils of the best furnished kitchen. A little later, when a stone wall formed the base of the chimney, a long iron "crane" swung in the chimney place, which on its "pot-hook " carried the boiling kettle or heavy iron pot. The cooking was all done on the fire-place and at the fire, and the style of cooking was as simple as the utensils. Indian, or corn meal, was the common flour, which was made into "pone " or "corn-dodger," or "hoe- cake," as the occasion or variety demanded. The "pone" and the "dodger" was baked in the Dutch oven, which was first set on a bed of glowing coals. When the oven was filled with the dough, the lid, already heated on the fire. was placed on the oven and covered with hot embers and ashes. When the bread was done it was taken from the oven and placed near the fire to keep warm while some other food was being prepared in the same oven for the forth- coming meal. The "hoe-cake " was prepared in the same way as the dodger-that is, a stiff dongh was made of the meal and water, and. taking as much as could conveniently be held in both hands, it was molded into the desired shape by being tossed from hand to hand, then laid on a board or flat stone placed at an angle before the fire and patted down to the required thickness. In the fall and early winter, cooked pumpkin was added to the meal dongh, giving a flavor and richness to the bread not attained by the modern methods. In the oven from which the bread was taken, the venison or ham was then fried, and, in the winter, lye hominy. made from the unbroken grains of corn, added to the frugal meal. The woods abounded in honey, and of this the early settlers had an abundance the year round. For some years after settlements were made, the corn meal formed the staple commodity for bread.

These simple cabins were inhabited by a kind

HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

and true-hearted people. They were strangers to mock-modesty, and the traveler seeking lodg- ings for the night, or desirous of spending a few days in the community, if willing to accept the rude offering, was always welcome, although how they were disposed of at night the reader may not easily imagine; for, as described, often a single room would be made to serve the pur- pose of kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room and parlor, and many families consisted of six or eight persons.

CHARACTER OF THE PIONEERS.

The character of the pioneers of Sangamon county falls properly within the range of the histoman. They lived in a region of exuberance and fertility, where Nature had scattered her blessings with a liberal hand. The Sangamon river, with its numerous tributaries, the inex- haustible forest supply, the fertile prairie, and the many improvements constantly going for- ward, with the bright prospect for a glorious future in everything that renders life pleasant, combined to deeply impress their character, to give them a spirit of enterprise, an independence of feeling, and a joyousness of hope. They were a thorough admixture of many nations, charac- ters, languages, conditions and opinions. There was searcely a State in the Union that was not represented among the early settlers. All the various religious sects had their advocates. All now form one society. Says an early writer : "Men must cleave to their kind, and must be dependent upon each other. Pride and jealousy give way to the natural yearnings of the human heart for society. They begin to rub off the neutral prejudices ; one takes a step and then the other; they meet half way and embrace ; and the society thus newly organized and con- stituted is more liberal, enlarged, unprejudiced, and of course more affectionate, than a society of people of like birth and character, who bring all their early prejudices as a common stock, to be transmitted as an inheritance to posterity."

CLOTHING.

The clothing of the early pioneers was as plain and simple as their houses. Necessity com- pelled it to be in conformity to the strictest economy. The clothing taken to the new coun- try was made to render a vast deal of service until a crop of flax or hemp could be grown, out of which to make the household apparel. The prairie wolves made it difficult to take sheep into the settlements, but after the sheep had

been introduced and flax and hemp raised in sufficient quantities, it still remained an ardnous task to spin, weave and make the wearing apparel for an entire family. In summer, nearly all versons, both male and female, went bare- footed. Buckskin moccasins were much worn. Boys of twelve and fifteen years of age never thought of wearing anything on their feet, ex- cept during three or four months of the coldest weather in winter. Boots were unknown until a later generation. After flax was raised in suf- ficient quantities, and sheep could be protected from the wolves, a better and more comfortable style of clothing prevailed. Flannel and linsey were woven and made into garments for the women and children, and jeans for the men. The wool for the jeans was colored from the bark of the walnut, and from this came the term "butternut," still common throughout the West. The black and white wool mixed, varied the color, and gave the name "pepper-and-salt." As a matter of course every family did its own spinning, weaving and sewing, and for years all the wool had to be carded by hand on cards from four inches broad to eight and ten inches long. The picking of the wool and carding was work to which the little folks could help, and at the proper season all the little hands were en- listed in the business. Every household had its big and little spinning-wheels, winding-blades, reel, warping-bars and loom. The articles were indispensible in every family. In many of the households of Sangamon county, stowed away in empty garrets and out-of-the-way places, may still be found some of these almost forgotten relies.

The preparations for the family clothing usu- ally began in the early fall, and the work was continued on into the winter months, when the whirr of the wheels and the regular stroke of the loom could be heard until a late hour of the night. No scene can well be imagined so abounding in contentment and domestic happi- ness. Strips of bark, of the shell-bark hickory, thrown from time to time in the ample fire- place, cast a ruddy, flickering light over the room. In one corner, within range of the re- flected light, the father is cobbling a well-worn pair of shoes, or trying his skill at making new ones. Hard by, the young ones are shelling corn for the next grist. The oldest daughter whirls the large spinning-wheel, and with its hum and whirr trips to the far side of the room, drawing out the thread, while the mother, with the chek of the shuttle and the measured thump of the loom, tills up the hours-the whole a scene of

P.M . hiller

HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

domestic industry and happiness rarely elsewhere to be Found.

It is well for " Young America" to look back on those early days. It involved a life of toil, hard- ship, and the lack of many comforts, but it was the life that made men of character. Sangamon county to-day has no better men than the imme- diate descendants of those who built their cabins in the forest, and by patient endurance wrought out of the wilderness the landmarks for a pros- perons commonwealth. One of these writes that "the boys were required to do their share of the hard labor of clearing up the farm, for much of | the country now under the plow was at one time

heavily timbered, or was covered with a dense | The square of sunshine through the open door

thicket of hazel and young timber. Our visits were made with ox teams, and we walked, or rode on horseback, or in wagons to 'meeting.' The boys 'pulled,' ' broke' and 'hackled' flax, wore tow shirts, and indulged aristocratic feel- ings in fringed 'hunting-shirts' and 'coon-skin caps, 'picked' and 'carded' wool by hand, and ' spooled' and 'quilled' yarn for the weaving till the back ached."

Industry such as this, supported by an econ- omy and frugality from which there was then no escape, necessarily brought its own reward. The hard toil made men old before their time, but beneath their sturdy blows they saw not only the forest pass away, but the fields white with the grain. Change and alterations were to be expected, but the reality has distanced the wild- est conjecture; and, stranger still, multitudes are still living who witnessed not only the face of nature undergoing a change about them, but the manners, customs and industries of a whole . people almost wholly changed. Many an old pioneer sets by his fireside in his easy chair, with closed eyes, dreams of the scenes of the long ago.

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.

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 8

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