USA > Illinois > St Clair County > History of St. Clair County, Illinois. With illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 13
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The next year Hosea Riggs, Samuel Shook and some others were added to the Turkey Hill settlement. In the year 1800 there were about twenty persons, all told, living at Turkey Hill.
Hosea Riggs, then an exhorter in the Methodist Episcopal church, came to Illinois in 1796, and settled in the American Bottom, Mon- roe county. He was born in West Virginia, April, 1760, and had been a soldier in the Revolutionary war. He was deeply interested in Methodism, and had charge of a Methodist class in the American Bottom. In 1803 he went to Kentucky to attend the Western Con- ference, and solicit a preacher for the Illinois country. The Rev. Benjamin Young was sent. Riggs moved to St. Clair county, as above stated, and died two miles east of Belleville, in October, 1841, eighty-one years of age-at that time, the oldest man in the county.
The Shook family was from Virginia, and settled south-east of Turkey Hill, at a distance of about a mile from Scott. Samuel Shook was a good farmer and a useful citizen. He died in the year 1827. Among the other early settlers were George Stout, Moses and Jacob Short, and Joseph Carr.
Jacob and Moses Short were sons of John Short, who died soon after his arrival in this county. They were Kentuckians. Jacob Short was a man of some prominence and influence. He was cap- tain of a company of Rangers in the war of 1812, and was also elected to the legislature under the territorial government. He acted as one of the seconds in the celebrated Stuart-Bennett duel. He removed to Morgan county, where he ended his days. Moses Short for a number of years held the office of justice of the peace. He served against the Indians in his brother's company of Rangers. He is said to have built the first hand-mill in that part of the county.
The Carr family,-Joseph, Henry, Conrad, and Abner, settled in the Turkey Hill prairie, between two and three miles south-east of Turkey Hill, in the year 1803. They came from Virginia, and before coming to this locality, had lived in the New Design settle- ment in Monroe county. Joseph Carr died near Turkey Hill in the year 1817, and his sons lived in that neighborhood several years afterward. All the above settlements were made prior to the year 1804.
David Phillips became a resident of the county in the year 1803. He was born in Orange county, North Carolina, in the year 1755.
He was a soldier in the war of the Revolution. He moved with his family from North Carolina to Kentucky in the fall of the year 1800, and after living within seven miles of Danville in the latter state 'till October, 1803, emigrated to Illinois, and settled on Richland creek, a few miles south of the present city of Belleville, and about two miles south-west of Turkey Hill. He was a natural mechanic, and possessed great natural genius for working in wood. He could make anything from a fiddle to a wagon .. He supplied the neighborhood with plows, sash, wagons, tables, all parts of a spinning wheel, looms, barrels, hogsheads, milk-piggins, chairs and other similar articles. His son, Isaac J. Phillips, now residing in Belleville, has a chair in his possession, which was made in the year 1814, and which for strength and durability is much superior to anything manufactured at the present time. He died on the place he first settled, in the year 1826. He left a numerous and respectable family, and many of his descendants are still residents of the county. Isaac J. Phillips was born in North Carolina, in the year 1800; caine to St. Clair county with his father in 1803, and has been a resident of the county ever since, with the exception of six months in the year 1822, during which time he was in Texas. He settled one mile east of Belleville in 1828, and lived there till 1877, and then became a resident of the city of Belleville.
In the year 1806, the settlements in that part of the county were increased by the arrival of the families of Elijah Rittenhouse, Isaac Quick, and John Woods. The Rittenhouse family settled on Tur- key Hill Ridge, which up to that time had been occupied only by Scott. There were four sons in this family : Cornelius, Peter, Wil- liam, and Elijah Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse entertained the idea that his location was the proper place for the county-seat at the time its removal from Cahokia was agitated. He laid off his land in town-lots, but the site of Belleville was selected instead. He served as constable, and was a good citizen. His grandchildren still reside in that part of the county. Isaac Quick had a son, Moses Quick, who exhibited considerable enterprise. In the year 1810, in company with Major Jacob Short, he built a flat-boat below the present town of New Athens, which was loaded with beef cattle, and successfully floated down to New Orleans. This is said to have been the first flat-boat that ever navigated the Okaw. John Woods settled some distance south-west of Turkey Hill. Like some others among the early pioneers, he was too liberal a patron of ardent spirits. John Jarvis, a brother of Franklin Jarvis, set- tled some distance north of Turkey Hill, and about five miles east of Belleville. He removed to the neighborhood of Troy, in Indiana county, where his descendants still live.
After the year 1806, there were no considerable additions for some time to the Turkey Hill neighborhood. The settlement was con- sidered one of the best in the county, and was generally composed of good, honest, and industrious citizens. The Scott family were connected with the Methodist Church. The Shorts and Carrs were Baptists. Baptist meetings were held one month at the house of Squire Moses Short, and the next month at Joseph Carr's house. The Rev. Joseph Chance was one of the earliest preachers. The first sermon that Isaac J. Phillips ever heard preached was at the house of Moses Short, in the year 1806. It was the funeral sermon of Short's son.
WEST AND SOUTH-WEST OF BELLEVILLE.
In the years 1801 and 1802 settlements were made by John Te- ter, Abraham Eyman, William Muller, Martin Randleman and Daniel Stookey. The founders of this colony were of Pennsylvania Dutch descent, and became industrious, moral and upright citizens. Stookey and Eyman, in company with some others, (one of whom
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
was the Rev. David Badgley), came to Illinois in 1796 to explore the country with a view of selecting a future location for their fami- lies. Traversing the country in the vicinity of the present city of Belleville, Stookey and Eyman selected the locations where after- ward they settled in the prairie west and south-west of Belleville. Abraham Eyman brought his family to Illinois the next year. He first lived in the American Bottom, near Piggott's station, then moved to the New Design, and in the spring of the year 1801 set- tled four miles west of Belleville. He was a good citizen, and once represented the county in the legislature. He died in the same neighborhood where he settled. Eyman was preceded a few months by John Teter, who had a house already built at the time the former arrived. Teter once served as County Commissioner. William Miller, a brother-in-law of Teter, selected a location three miles south-west of Belleville.
Daniel Stookey, who had married a sister to the wife of Abraham Eyman, came to the county in the year 1802, and settled on the farm now owned by Mrs. George W. Stookey, two miles west of Belleville. He died in the year 1835, on the farm which he first settled. He had nine children, who grew to maturity, two of whom were born before coming to Illinois. Only one, Elijah Stookey, is now living; his residence is on a farm adjoining the one on which his father settled in 1802.
John Primm, a native of Stafford county, Virginia, emigrated to Illinois in the year 1803, and about a year afterward settled seven miles west of Belleville; and in 1817 moved to a new location three miles south-west of the county seat. Here he died in 1836, at the age of eighty-seven. For a time he carried the mail between Caho- kia and Edwardsville. One of his sons, in August, 1814, while carrying the mail from Cahokia to Clinton Hill, was struck by light- ning in the Derush hollow near the bottom. He and his horse were both killed. His body was burnt black by the electricity. Mr. Primm had been a soldier in the Revolutionary war, was present at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, in 1781, and during the latter part of his life received a pension. His son, Aram Primm is now a resident of Belleville. He was born in Hampshire county, Virginia, in 1799, and was between two and three years old when the family moved to Illinois. He has been living seventy-eight years in St. Clair county, and is now one of the relics of pioneer days in Illinois.
The year 1802 was marked by general prosperity to the colonists in Illinois. Accessions were made to the population, and new set- tlements formed. The Goshen settlement, in the present county of Madison, was increased in numbers. This year settlements were made, north and north-east of Belleville, on
RIDGE PRAIRIE.
Among the pioneers here was the Ogle family. Captain Joseph Ogle was born in Virginia in the year 1744. He commanded a company of Virginia troops during the Revolutionary war, holding a commission as captain from Patrick Henry, then governor of Vir- ginia. He came to Illinois in the year 1785, and first settled in what is now Monroe county. In 1802 he made one of the pioneer locations on Ridge prairie, settling that year near the present town of O'Fallon. During his early residence in Illinois he took part in several Indian fights. In May, 1791, John Dempsey was attacked by the Indians, but escaped. Capt. Ogle and his son, Benjamin Ogle, were two of the eight men who started in pursuit of the Indi- ans. The others were Capt. Nathaniel Hull, James Lemen, J. Ryan, William Bryson, John Porter and Daniel Roper. The Indians were double the number of the whites. A hot battle was fought in the timber at the Big Spring in Monroe county, not far east of the road
which ran from Waterloo to * Whitesides station. A running fight was kept up till dark from tree to tree, the Indians fleeing and the whites pursuing. Five Indians were killed, but the white men all escaped unharmed. Capt. Ogle lived on a farm two miles west of O'Fallon where he died, in 1821. Capt. Ogle left several children, and there are now many of his descendants in St. Clair county.
Benjamin Ogle, his oldest son, took part in several of the early Indian contests, in one of which he was wounded. He was a ranger during the war of 1812. He lived on a farm near the present town of O'Fallon, and died at a good old age. Another son, Joseph Ogle, was born in Virginia, in 1777, and accompanied his parents to Illinois in 1785. He married Lucinda Pulliam, daughter of John Pulliam, in 1804, and soon afterward improved a farm east of O'Fallon. He served in the Black Hawk war. He died in 1846. Jacob Ogle, son of Capt. Joseph Ogle, was born in Virginia, and came to Illinois with the family in 1785. He married Elizabeth Teter and settled west of O'Fallon. He was a man of considerable intelligence and popularity, and for a number of years served as Justice of the Peace. He and the Rev. James Lemen built a mill for grinding wheat and corn. This mill was situated on Ogle's creek, three miles north of O'Fallon, and was run by water power. Owing to the scant supply of water the mill was carried on only a short time. He had another mill at an early period on his farm, which was operated by horse power. Two of his sons are still living in the neighborhood of O'Fallon. Some of the daughters of Capt. Joseph Ogle married early pioneers. Nancy married in Virginia, Larkin Rutherford, and came to Illinois with her husband in 1785. Prudence was the wife of Peter Casterline. Drusilla married Wil- liam Porter, and Polly became the wife of Gen. James Moore. Je- mima married the Rev. Charles Matheny, a former resident of St. Clair county, and a member of the Methodist ministry, who subse- quently removed to Springfield where he occupied several responsi- ble public positions.
Among the settlers in Ridge prairie were Robert, Joseph and James Lemen, sons of the Rev. James Lemen, one of the early pio- neer preachers of Illinois. James Lemen, Sr., was born in Berkeley county, Virginia, in the year 1760. He served two years during the war of the Revolution, and then went to the vicinity of Wheeling, Virginia, where he married Catharine Ogle, daughter of Capt. Jo- seph Ogle. He came to Illinois in 1786, his father-in-law having settled here the previous year, He descended the Ohio river in a flat boat. At night, while the boat was tied to the shore, the river fell, and the boat, lodging on a stump, was overturned and sunk. All his provisions and goods were thus lost. His oldest son, Robert, then three years of age, floated out in the stream on the bed on which he lay, but with some exertion his life was saved. He reached Kas- kaskia on the 10th of July, 1786, and shortly afterward settled at New Design, in the present Monroe county. He was a Justice of the Peace for a number of years, and also served as one of the judges of the county court. His religious labors are elsewhere re- ferred to.
Robert Lemen, the oldest son, was raised at New Design. In the year 1805 he married Hester Tolin. He settled in Ridge prairie four or five miles to the north of where the town of O'Fallon now is. Under the administration of John Quincy Adams he acted as Marshal for the state of Illinois. He also served as Justice of the Peace. In early times he acted as clerk of the Richland Baptist church, and was one of the original members of the Bethel church, organized in 1809, of which he was clerk till 1845. He died in 1860. Rev. Joseph Lemen was born in September, 1785, and was
* The old Whitesides st.ition was about midway between the present towns of Waterloo and Columbia in Monroe county.
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
not a year old when the family reached Illinois. He became a min- ister of the Baptist church, and settled in Ridge prairie north of the site of O'Fallon. His wife was Mary Kinney, the youngest daugh- ter of Joseph Kinney, and brother of William Kinney, at one time lieutenant governor of the state. It is said that she went to school and learned to read and write after she was married She became the mother of a large and respectable family. Joseph Lemen was active in his ministerial labors, traveled over the country, and or- ganized many Baptist churches. His death occured in 1861. Rev. James Lemen. Jr., was born in the New Design settlement in 1787, and there acquired a good education under the instruction of the Rev. John Clark, one of the most active and useful of the pioneer preachers of Illinois. Mr. Lemen was said to be the first ordained preacher in Illinois born in the territory. He married Mary Pulliam in 1813, and settled in Ridge prairie. He was a member of the Territorial Legislature at Kaskaskia, and also filled the same office after the organization of the state government. He was a member of the convention which framed the first constitution of the state. Twice he was a member of the State Senate. He died in February, 1870.
It may be remarked that one cause of the removal of the Ogle and Lemen families to Illinois, was their opposition to slavery. This was the case also with a number of other prominent families of the county, who came at a later date. At that early day, half a century before any general agitation of the question began, they became opposed to the system, liberated their slaves, and moved to a place where the institution was not likely to be adopted.
Jolin Pulliam, who emigrated to Illinois in 1795, was the head of a large family, many of the descendants of whom still reside in St. Clair county. He was born in Botetourt county, Va., and removed to Kentucky immediately after the revolutionary war. He came to the New Design settlement, and, in the year 1797, settled in Missouri at Florissant west of St. Louis. He returned to Illi- nois in 1799, and after living for a time in the Horse Prairie, in the northern part of Randolph county, in the year 1802, he made a farm on the Prairie dn Long creek, near the mouth of Richland creek in the present county of Monroe. He sold this place, and in 1808 began the improvement of a farm on the Kaskaskia river near the present town of Fayetteville in the south-eastern part of the county. Here he died in the year 1812. Of his nine children -Robert, Nancy, Elizabeth, John, Lucinda, James, Thomas, Ruth, and Mary-several lived and died in St. Clair county.
Nancy married William Lot Whitesides, who, shortly after 1800, settled three miles east of Belleville. John Pulliam settled near the present city of Belleville at an early day. Lucinda became the wife of Joseph Ogle, son of Captain Joseph Ogle.
James Pulliam, who was eight or nine years of age when he came with the family to Illinois, married Judith Whitesides, and settled two miles east of where Belleville now is. He was a man of considerable information, and an able Baptist preacher. He was liberal in his support of religious and educational institutions. He died in 1854.
Thomas Pulliam became a minister of the Methodist Church, and also engaged in farming. He was the founder of the present town of Fayetteville, where he was living at the time of his death in 1852.
Mary, the youngest daughter of John Pulliam, was about a year old when she came with her parents to Illinois. Her mother dying when she was small; she was raised by her sister Nancy, the wife of William Lot Whitesides, who lived east of Belleville. In Decem- ber, 1813, she became the wife of the Rev. James Lemen, junior ; she died on Ridge prairie in February, 1876, at the age of eighty- one. From childhood her life had been spent in St. Clair county.
Larken Rutherford was one of the soldiers under Col. Clark, who took part in the conquest of Illinois. He was a man of large, athletic frame, and was bold and fearless. He returned to Illinois in 1781 in company with James Moore, Shadrach Bond, Robert Kidd, and James Garrison. This was the first colony of American families to settle iu Illinois. Moore and Rutherford chose a situation near Bellefontaine, a short distance south-west of the present town of Waterloo in Monroe county. Bond, Kidd and Garrison settled in the Bottom.
Soon after 1800, Rutherford moved to St. Clair county, and set- tled north of Belleville. He was an energetic and zealous member of the Baptist Church.
Another of the soldiers of Col. Clark was William Biggs, who subsequently became a prominent citizen of St. Clair county. He was born in Maryland in the year 1755, and in Clark's expedition to Illinois, in 1778 and 1779, was one of his subordinate officers, holding the rank of lieutenant. Congress, in the year 1826, gave him a grant of three sections of land in consideration of his services during the Illinois campaigns. He returned from Virginia to Illi- nois soon after the revolution, and, in company with two brothers, settled at Bellefontaine near the present town of Waterloo.
Gov. St. Clair, in 1790, appointed him sheriff of St. Clair county. He was kind and obliging in the office, and became a popular citizen. He was elected a representative in the legislature of the north-western territory for two different terms. It is said that Biggs aud Shadrach Bond, when doing military service in Illi- nois, in 1778, made up their minds to return to Illinois, and in discussing the subject between themselves, they humorously re- marked that they might yet represent the Illinois country in the legislature. They were both members of the first general assembly of the territory, which convened west of the Ohio after the revolution.
Biggs served for a number of years as justice of the peace, and judge of the court of common pleas of St. Clair county. It is said that he held one of the sessions of the court in a corn crib. In 1808 he was elected a member of the legislature of Indiana ter- ritory, and was influential in obtaining a division of the territory. From 1812 to 1816 he represented St. Clair county in the general assembly of the territory of Illinois. Shortly after the year 1800 he settled three miles and a-half north-east of Belleville, on land adjoining the Kinney Place. Toward the close of his life he engaged in the manufacture of salt on Silver creek in Madison county and died in 1827.
George and William Blair came to Illinois in 1796. The former first lived between the old Whitesides' station and the town of Wa- terloo in the present county of Monroe, and had a distillery there. He was appointed sheriff of St. Clair county, and held that office for several years. In 1802 he moved with his family to the site of the present city of Belleville, where he owned two hundred acres of land, on which the town of Belleville was located in the year 1814. He is said to have applied the name of Belleville to the new county-seat. Further mention of his name will be found in the history of Belleville.
The "sugar-loaf" tract of land south of Cahokia, near the Monroe county line, was first improved by George Lunceford and Samuel Judy. Judy sold out to Lunceford, shortly after the open- ing of the present century, and went to the present county of Madison, where he died. The " sugar-loaf" was a well-known land- mark in the early settlement of the country. A small mound rises on the top of the rocky bluff. In early times a peach tree stood on the summit of this mound, which had the reputation of never fail- ing to bear fruit. Its resemblance to a sugar-loaf gives the name to the place. It is five or six miles south of Cahokia.
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
Among the distinguished citizens of St. Clair county was Wil- liam Kinney, who, in the year 1826, was elected lieutenant-governor of the state.
He was born in Kentucky in the year 1781, and in 1793 emi- grated, with his father, Joseph Kinney, to the New Design settle- ment in Monroe county. He was thirteen years of age when he came to Illinois, and at nineteen he married. He was gay and social in his disposition, and was a leader in the festivities and amusements then common on the frontier. He inherited a strong and solid mind and a sound judgment. His memory was retentive. His energy and activity boundless, and he received but little scholastic education. It is said that he went to school regularly only three months.
After he was married he was taught by John Messinger to read and write. The arithmetic he mastered by his own unaided efforts. For a time he attended a school at the junction of the Collinsville road with the Belleville and Lebanon plank-road, which was held in a log-house with a wooden chimney, without ceiling or windows, and without a glass in the house. The floor was of puncheons, and the door made of clap-boards.
With this foundation, he became a man of intelligence, and was one of the most prominent, popular, and influential characters of his day. He possessed a fund of wit, excelled in satire and sarcasm, was always ready with a pertinent and telling anecdote, while his sound judgment and accurate knowledge of human nature taught him how to use these gifts in the most effective manner. At the time of his marriage he was destitute of worldly means, and had little disposition to accumulate property. But he soon adopted a more sober and industrious course of conduct. In the year 1803 he set- tled on a beautiful and commanding eminence a few miles north- east of the present city of Belleville. In the labor of making a farm he was assisted by his wife, who was an excellent and amiable lady. His surplus articles of produce, raised by his own hand on his farm, he sold in St. Louis and Cakokia.
Mr. Vonphul, a merchant of St. Louis, persuaded Kinney to take some few articles of merchandise home with him and try to sell them. If he could not sell them he might return them. After some hesitation Kinney took the goods, consisting of a few bolts of domestic manufactured cotton-cloth, which he carried before him on his horse from St. Louis to his farm.
At that time he could barely write, and knew nothing of book- keeping, but his strong natural talents enabled him to invent a system of book-keeping for himself. With this humble commence- ment, he embarked in a prosperous business career, in which he acquired a large fortune. He traded in merchandise and lands and in everything was successful. He erected a comfortable house, which was almost always crowded with his friends, and in which he exercised an unsparing hospitality.
In 1809 he became connected with the Baptist Church. ITe was authorized to preach. the Gospel, and became a distinguished and influential Baptist minister.
After reaching maturity he entered the field of politics. He was a staunch and uncompromising democrat, and at all times main- tained the doctrines of his party with sincere enthusiasm. He was elected a member of the first general assembly after the organiza- tion of the State government, and a-sisted in putting the political machinery of the State in operation. He was several times subse- quently chosen to represent St Clair county in the State legislature, and always acquitted himself with credit as an efficient business member.
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