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 15
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Major Washington West, who in the year 1818 settled on what is known as the West prairie, a mile south of Belleville, was the son of Benjamin West, a native of Maryland, and a soldier for seven years in the Revolutionary war. Major West was born in Maryland. After the Revolution the family moved to Botetourt county, Virginia. On his emigration to this state, Major West was accompanied by his parents, then nearly eighty years of age. He had acquired his military title by service in the war of 1812. He commanded a company of Virginia troops stationed for a time at Norfolk, Virginia. He died in the year 1863 at the age of eighty- five.
In the year 1819 Tilghman H. West and John H. Gay arrived from Botctourt county, Virginia. The former settled four miles east of Belleville, within half a mile of his father-in-law, the Rev. Edward Mitchell, on the farm owned for a number of years by the Hilgards. Several of his children are living. Gay remained in Belleville till 1824, and then removed to St. Louis, where he be- came an active and prominent business man and a wealthy citizen.
The summer succeeding the arrival of the Mitchell and other families from Botetourt county, Virginia, was a period of universal sickness. To the Virginians the change from the cold spring water
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
and invigorating air of the mountains to the suffocating heat of the summer months and the indifferent water which could be obtained from shallow wells and stagnant pools, was neither agreeable nor healthful. The air was laden with malaria from the decay of the exuberant growth of vegetation, and siekness held its dull and tire- some sway in nearly every household. The best physicians from the East found themselves incompetent to treat the prevalent dis- eases with success ; proper remedies were hard to be obtained ; nourishing food was seeured only in insufficient quantities-alto- gether the colonists received an unfavorable impression of the country, and regarded Illinois as exceedingly unhealthy.
At that date (1818) the settlements were so sparse that seldom did neighbors live nearer than two miles to each other. The prai- ries, which were of almost illimitable extent, were covered in sum- mer with grass and weeds that grew as high as the head of a man when on horseback, and over them, when the frosts of fall had fol- lowed the bleaching rains and heats of summer, swept with the speed of the wind, the prairie fire. Game was abundant. So nu- merous were the wolves and coyotes, that it required constant watchfulness by day, and safe enelosures at night, to protect the domestic animals from destruction. Although there were very few, if any, buffalo east of the Mississippi, bear and elk had not disap- peared, and deer, sometimes in herds of fifty and sixty, could be seen in the spring feeding on the luxuriant, wild, prairie grasses. Turkeys were plentiful, and grouse, or prairie-hens, as they were ealled, were in such countless numbers, that in the fall when they would fly into the corn-fields in the evening to feed, the sound, when alighting or rising, was like distant thunder. When mast was abundant in autumn, wild pigeons would come in numberless myriads; in their flight floeks could be seen extending more than five miles in length, and passing for many consecutive hours, to other feeding grounds or their nightly roosts.
Joseph McClintoek, a native of Bourbon county, Kentucky, reached St. Clair county with his family, then consisting of eight children, on the 23d of November, 1818. He settled four miles south of Belleville. Joseph MeClintock died there in 1846. Three of the children are now living, and one, William MeClintock, re- sides in St. Clair county, on a farm adjoining the city of Belleville. He was born in Nicholas county, Kentucky, in December, 1802, and was nearly sixteen when he came to this county. He moved to Belleville in 1827, and began the mercantile business. He after- ward served as justice of the peace, and in 1843, was appointed county clerk, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the suicide of James M. Reynolds, a nephew of Gov. Reynolds. He filled the county clerk's office till the elose of the year 1849. He is now one of the oldest citizens of the county. One of his brothers, James MeClin- tock, served as assessor and collector of the county, and now lives in Haneoek county of this state.
The south-east part of the county, east of the Kaskaskia river, was settled in the year 1810, by the families of Hecox, Stubblefield, Perkins, Beasley, Nat Hill and James and Reuben Lively. When the Indian troubles began during the war of 1812, they built a bloek house for protection against the Indians. William Pendle- tou, Andrew Free and Isaae Rainey, were early settlers in this part of the county, making their homes there in the year 1817. The Lands, Dials, and Cooks eame about the same time. Isaac Rainey, a native of Tennessee, laid off the town of Darmstadt, and died in that neighborhood in 1871. Jefferson Rainey, now a resident of Belleville, was born in that part of the county in 1820. He was elected to the state senate in 1875.
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Several families from the eastern states, among which are those of Caleb Barker, William Fowler, Abel Thompson, Timothy Hig-
gins and Deacon Samuel Smith, came to the county in 1817 and 1818. Caleb Barker settled in what is now West Belleville. Wil- liam Fowler settled on the east branch of Richland creek, three miles south of Belleville. He afterwards engaged in the carpenter- ing business, and did the wood-work for the first briek court house at Belleville. His health failing he moved to California. Deacon Samuel Smith settled on Richland creek, east of Douglas, and lived and died there, and left several descendants in the county. Timothy Higgins settled about a mile south of Georgetown. In the year 1817, the English settlement in Prairie du Long was formed by the families of Bamber, Winstanley, Threlfell, Coop, Newsham and others. The Woods came to that part of the county in 1806, and the Wildermans in the year 1808. Samuel Ogle, the father of David and Joseph Ogle, settled in 1819 four miles north-west of Belleville, purchasing an improvement first made by George Blair. The farm which he improved is now on the maeadamized road lead- ing from Belleville to St. Louis. For several years he served as county commissioner.
In the history of each township will be found more minute men- tion of the pioneer settlers in each part of the county.
It may be said of all of them that they endured manfully the privations of the early settlements ; their bravery drove baek the savage, their energy utilized the bountiful resources of nature, and their virtues and intelligence became the basis of our eivil govern- ment. They were hospitable and generous to a fault, brave and magnanimous; and their descendants are prepared to appreciate their sacrifices, as well as to enjoy all that has been brought by a higher type of eivilization. The changes that have taken place in sixty years seem more like a dream than reality ; eities have sprung up in the wilderness and a population of more than sixty thousand oeeupies the territory over which then six or eight hundred persons were seattered.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE AMERICAN PIONEERS.
The early American settlers of St. Clair county were principally from the Southern States of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Some came from Pennsylvania and Maryland. A New England emigrant was rare. Their sense of independence was one of the marked traits of their character. By the necessities of their situa- tion they were forced into singular and different employments. They were compelled to aet as mechanics, to make their plows, har- ness and other farming implements, to tan their leather, to hunt game, while at the signal of danger they unhitched their horses from the plow, and were ready to march to any part of the territory in defence of their homes.
While the majority of settlers were without means, poverty carried with it no crushing sense of degradation like that felt by the very poor of our day. They lived, it is true, in a cabin, but it was their own, and had been reared by their own hands. Their house, too, while inconvenient and far from water-proof, was built in the prevailing style of architecture, and would compare favorably with the homes of their neighbors. They were destitute of many of the conveniences of life, and of some things that are now considered necessaries ; but they patiently endured their lot and hopefully looked forward to better. They had plenty to wear as protection against the weather, and an abundance of wholesome food. They sat down to a rude table to eat from tin or pewter dishex; but the meat thereon spread-the flesh of the deer or bear; of the wild duck or turkey ; of the quail or squirrel-was superior to that we eat, and had been won by the skill of the head of the house or of that of his vigorous sons. The bread they ate was made from corn or wheat of their own raising. They walked the green carpet of
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
the grand prairie or forest that surrounded them, not with the air of a beggar, but with the elastic step of a self-respected freeman.
The settler brought with him the keen axe, which was indispen- sable, and the equally necessary rifle ; the first his weapon of offence against the forests that skirted the water-courses, and near which he made his home ; the second that of defence from the attacks of his foe, the cunning child of the forest and prairie. His first labor was to fell trees and erect his unpretentious cabin, which was rudely made of logs, and in the raising of which he had the cheerful aid of his neighbors. It was usually from fourteen to sixteen feet square, and never larger than twenty feet, and was frequently built entirely without glass, nails, hinges or locks.
The manner of building was as follows : First, large logs were laid in position as sills; on these were placed strong sleepers, and on the sleepers were laid the rough-hewed puncheons, which were to serve as floors. The logs were then built up till the proper height for the eaves was reached; then on the ends of the building were placed poles, longer than the other end-logs, which projected some eighteen or more inches over the sides, and were called " butting- pole sleepers;" on the projecting ends of these was placed the " butting-pole," which served to give the line to the first row of clap-boards. These were, as a matter of course, split, and as the gables of the cabin were built up, were so laid on as to lap a third of their length. They were often kept in place by the weight of a heavy pole, which was laid across the roof parallel to the ridge-pole. The house was then chinked, and daubed with a coarse mortar.
A huge fire-place was built at one end of the house, in which fire was kindled for cooking purposes, for the settlers were generally without stoves, with which to furnish the needed warmth in winter. The ceiling above was sometimes covered with the pelts of the rac- coon, opossum, and of the wolf, to add to the warmth of the dwell- ing. Sometimes the soft inner bark of the bass wood was used for the same purpose. The cabin was lighted by means of greased paper-windows. A log would be left out along one side, and sheets of strong paper, well greased with coon-grease or bear-oil, would be carefully tacked in.
The above description only applies to the very earliest times, be- fore the rattle of the saw-mill was heard within our borders.
The furniture comported admirably with the house itself, and hence, if not elegant, was in most perfect taste. The tables had four legs, and were rudely made from a puncheon. Their seats were stools having three or four legs. The bedstead was in keeping with the rest, and was often so contrived as to permit it to be drawn up and fastened to the wall during the day, thus affording more room to the family. The entire furniture was simple, and was framed with no other tools than an axe and auger. Each was his own carpenter; and some displayed considerable ingenuity in the construction of implements of agriculture, and utensils, and furni- ture for the kitchen and house. Knives and forks they sometimes had, and sometimes had not. The common table-knife was the pack-knife or butcher-knife. Horse-collars were sometimes made of the plaited husk of the maize sewed together. They were easy on the neck of the horse, and if tug-traces were used, would last a long while.
The common dress of the American pioneer was very similar. Home-made wool hats were usually worn The covering of the feet were, in winter, mostly moccasins made of deer skin and shoe- packs of tanned leather. In the summer, the greater portion of the young people, male and female, and many of the old, went bare- footed. The substantial and universal outside wear was the blue linsey hunting-shirt. Gov. Reynolds says that this was a most ex- cellent garment, and that he never felt so healthy and happy after.
laying it off. Many pioneers wore the white blanket coat (the French capot) in the winter. These were made loose with a cap or cape to turn over the head in extreme cold weather. The vest was mostly made of striped linsey. The colors were made with alum, copperas and madder, boiled with the bark of trees, in such manner and proportions as the old ladies prescribed. The shirts worn by the Americans were generally home-made, of flax and cotton ma- terial. Some voyagers and hunters among the Americans wore calico and checked shirts, but these were not in common use. The pantaloons of the masses were generally deer-skins and linsey, and sometimes a coarse blue cloth was used. In early times factory made goods did not exist. These goods, from New England and Kentucky, reached Illinois about the year 1818, and then looms, and spinning ceased. Every pioneer had a rifle and carried it al- most wherever he went. On the Sabbath a stack of rifles might be seen outside the house of worship while within the congregation were attending service. Almost everybody was a hunter, and a deer was as likely to be seen on Sunday as on any other day of the week. Neat and fine linsey, manufactured at home and colored and woven to suit the fancy, composed the outside garments of the females. A bonnet of calico or some gayly-checked goods, was worn on the head in the open air. Jewelry was unusual. A gold ring was an ornament not often seen .*
The style of dress began to change about the year 1820. The blue linsey hunting-shirt with red or white fringe gave place to the clothi coat. Boots and shoes supplanted the deer skin moccasin. By the year 1830 a man dressed in the costume of the territory, raccoon-skin cap, hunting-shirt, buckskin breeches and moccasins, with a belt around the waist to which a knife and tomahawk were appended, was rarely to be seen. The female sex made still more rapid progress in adopting modern costumes.
The pioneers were exceedingly friendly and sociable. A new- comer was heartily welcomed. When a log cabin was to be raised, whether invited or not, they gathered together and enjoyed a back- woods frolic in putting it up. At these house-raisings much sport and amusement were indulged in. The young men and boys tried their strength and skill at jumping, wrestling, and running foot- races. Old and young took part in the game of leap frog. Shoot- ing at marks was practiced among those most skilled in the use of the rifle. Among a group of older men would figure a Kentuckian
* In these days of furbelows and flounces, when from twenty to thirty yards are required by one fair damsel for a dress, it is refreshing to know that the ladies of that ancient time considered eight yards an extravagant amount to put into one dress. The dress was usually made plain, with four widths in the skirt, the two front ones cut gored. The waist was made very short, and across the shoulders behind was a draw-string. The sleeves were enormously large, and tapered from shoulder to waist, and the most fashionable -- for fash- ion, like love, " rules alike the court and grove"-were padded so as to resem- ble a bolster at the upper part, and were known as " mutton legs," or "sheep- shank" sleeves. The sleeves were kept in shape often by a heavily starched lining. Those who could afford it used feathers, which gave the sleeve the appearance of an inflated balloon from the elbow up, and were known as " pillow-sleeves. Many bows and ribbons were worn, but scarcely any jewelry. The tow dress was superseded by the cotton gown. Around the neck, instead of a lace collar or elegant ribbon, there was displayed a copperas-colored neck- erchief. In going to church or other public gathering in summer weather, they sometimes walked barefoot till near their destination, and then put on their shoes or moccasins. - They were contented, and even happy, without any of the elegant articles of apparel now used by the ladies and considered neces- sary articles of dress. Ruffles, fine laces, silk hats, kid gloves, rings, combs, and jewels, were nearly unknown, nor did the lack of them vex their souls. Many of them were grown before they ever saw the interior of a well-supplied dry-goods store. They were reared in simplicity, lived in simplicity, and were happy in simplicity. BROWNLEE.
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
relating his adventures on flat-boats, " the old Broad-Horn," to New Orleans. At times, a bottle, called "Black Betty, ' filled with Monongahela whiskey, made its appearance, and then was told the " hair-breadth escapes" and thrilling adventures of the pioneers. A log-rolling, corn-husking, or bee of any kind, called the settlers together for miles around. The whole neighborhood assembled and split rails, cleared land, plowed up whole fields, and the like. Pioneer amusement generally closed the day. With the invitation to the men commonly came one to the women, to come to a quilting. The good woman of the house where the festivities were to take place would be busily engaged for a day or more in preparation for the coming guests. Great quantities of provisions were to be pre- pared, for dyspepsia was unknown to the pioneer, and good appe- tites were the rule and not the exception.
" The bread used at these frolics was baked generally on Jonny or Journey cake-boards, and is the best corn-bread ever made. A board is made smooth, about two feet long, and eight inches wide- the ends are generally rounded. The dough is spread, out on this board, and placed leaning before the fire. One side is baked, and then the dough is changed on the board, so the other side is pre- sented, in its turn, to the fire. This is Jonny-cake, and is good, if the proper materials are put in the dough, and it is properly baked." -Reynolds' Pioneer History.
At all log-rollings and house-raisings it was customary to provide liquor. Excesses were not indulged in, however. The fiddler was never forgotten. After the day's work had been accomplished, out doors and in, by men and women. the floor was cleared and the merry dance began. The handsome, stalwart young men, whose fine forms were the result of their manly out-door life, clad in fringed buckskin breeches and gaudily colored hunting-shirts, led forth the bright-eyed, buxom damsels, attired in neatly-fitting linsey-woolsey garments, to the dance, their cheeks glowing with health and eyes speaking of enjoyment, and perhaps a tenderer emotion.
The following description of a "Shucking" of the olden time is taken from Reynolds' Pioneer History of Illinois:
"In pure pioneer times the crops of corn were never husked on the stalk, as is done at this day ; but were hauled home in the husk and thrown in a heap, generally by the side of the crib, so that the ears, when husked, could be thrown direct into the crib. The whole neighborhood, male and female, were invited to the shucking, as it was called. The girls, and many of the married ladies, generally engaged in this amusing work.
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"In the first place two leading expert huskers were chosen as captains, and the heap of corn divided as nearly equal as possible. Rails were laid across the pile so as to designate the division ; and then each captain chose, alternately, his corps of huskers, male and female. The whole number of working hands present were selected, on one side or the other, and then each party commenced a contest to beat the other, which was in many cases truly exciting. One other rule was, that whenever a male husked a red ear of corn, he was entitled to a kiss from the girls. This frequently excited much fuss and scuffling, which was intended by both parties to end in a kiss. It was a universal practice that taffia or Monongahela whiskey was used at these husking frolics, which they drank out of a bottle, each one, male and female, taking the bottle and drinking out of it, and then handing it to his next neighbor, without using any glass or cup whatever. This custom was common, and not considered rude. Almost always these corn-shucks ended in a dance. To pre- pare for this amusement fiddles and fiddlers were in great demand ; aud it often required much fast riding to obtain them. One violin and a performer were all that was contemplated at these innocent rural games.
"Towards dark, and the supper half-over, then it was that a bustle and confusion commenced. The confusion of tongues at Babel would have been ashamed at the corn-huskings. The young ones hurrying off the table, and the old ones contending for time and order. It was the case, in nine times out of ten, that but one dwelling-house was on the premises, and that used for eating as well as dancing.
" But when the fiddler commenced tuning his instrument the music always gained the victory for the young side. Then the dishes, victuals, table and all, disappeared in a few minutes, and the room was cleared, the dogs driven out, and the floor swept off ready for action. The floors of these houses were sometimes the natural earth, beat solid, sometimes the earth, with puncheons in the middle over the potato-hole, and at times the whole floor was made of pun- cheons.
"The music at these country dances made the young folks almost frantic, and sometimes much excitement was displayed to get on the floor first. Generally the fiddler on these occasions assumed an im- portant bearing, and ordered, in true professional style, so and so to be done ; as that was the way in North Carolina, where he was raised. The decision ended the contest for the floor. In those days they danced jigs and four-handed reels, as they were called. Sometimes three-handed reels were also danced.
" In these dances there was no standing still ; all were moving at a rapid pace from the beginning to the end. In the jigs the by- standers cut one another out, as it was called, so that this dance would last for hours. Sometimes the parties in a jig tried to tire one another down in the dance, and then it would also last a long time before one or the other gave up.
" The cotillion or stand-still dances were not then known.
"The bottle went round at these parties as it did at the shuck- ings, and male and female took a dram out of it as it passed round. No sitting was indulged in, and the folks either stood or danced all night, as generally daylight ended the frolic. The dress of these hardy pioneers was generally in plain homespun. The hunting- shirt was much woru at that time, which is a convenient working or dancing dress. Sometimes dressed deer skin pantaloons were used on these occasions, and mawkawsins-rarely shoes-and at times bare feet were indulged in.
"In the morning all go home on horseback or on foot. No car- riages, wagons or other vehicles were used on these occasions, for the best of reasons-because they had none."
Reynolds states it as his sincere conviction that the early pioneers of Illinois were more moral and free from crime than the people of a later day. Thefts were of rare occurrence, and forgery, perjury, and similar crimes were seldom perpetrated. A white man was hun.g for murder at Kaskaskia in the year 1802, and an Indian in 1804; no further instance of capital punishment in Illinois occurs till 1821, when Bennett was hung at Belleville for the murder of Stuart. In the early history of the county, the courts were in session four times each year at Cahokia, but the grand juries frequently adjourned without finding a single indictment. While the higher crimes were of rare occurrence, the lesser violations of law were not unfrequent. But it is remarked that the assaults and batteries and other breaches of law most common, "did not involve any corruption of the heart, but were such as at times may occur in any community."
The use of intoxicating liquors was indulged in then more than now. Drinking was fashionable and polite, and liquor was con- sidered an element in the conviviality of all circles. The French seldom carried the use of liquor to excess. Intemperance, on the part of the Americans, was greatest in the village of Cahokia, and
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