USA > Illinois > Union County > History of Union County > Part 3
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During this period Union County was represented in state government by John S. Hacker, Senator and Brazil B. Craig repres- entative, 1834-36; 1836-38 John Dougherty, representative, 1838-40 John S. Hacker, senator and Jacob Zimmerman, representative; 1840-42, John Dougherty, representative; 1842-44, John Dough- erty, senator and John Cochran, representative.
Between the years 1827 and 1832 the Black Hawk war was waged. Since it was fought in the northern part of the state, Union County was not affected much by it but in 1832 an independent
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company from this county was mustered into the service of the state. Following is a roster of the company: Captain, B. B. Craig; First Lieutenant, William Craig; Second Lieutenant, John Newton; Sergeants, Samuel Morland, Solomon David, Hezekiah Hodges, John Rendleman; Corporals, Joel Barker, Adam Cauble, Martin Uri, Jeremiah Irvine; Privates, Aaron Barringer, John Barringer, John Corgan, Matthew Cheser, Daniel Ellis, William Farmer, Thomas Farmer, Moses Fisher, Abraham Goodin, William G. Gavin, Hiram Grammer, William Grammer, Lot W. Hancock, Daniel P. Hill, Jack- son Hunsaker, Peter Lense, John Langley Moses Lively, A. W. Lingle, John Murphy, P. W. McCall, John Morris, Nimrod McIntosh, John A. Mackintosh, Washington McLean, Elijah McGraw, John Penrod, John Parmer, John Quilman, W. H. Rumsey, Elijah Shepherd, Daniel Salmons, Preston I. Staten, John Vincent and Jesse Wright.
During this period the homes of the farmers in the "bottoms" were destroyed by one of the worst floods in the history of the county. Many homes had been established in Union, Preston and Reynolds precincts because the river afforded the only type of long distance transportation available at that time and all produce had to be hauled in wagons to the river to be sold. It is evident that the men operating trading posts on the river such as Willard's Land- ing, due west of Jonesboro; and Harris' Ferries across the river in the northwest corner of the county probably did more business than the others because by 1835 Elijah Willard and Thomas Harris had entered more land than any other men in Union County. How- ever all this land, fertile when dry enough for a crop, was menaced by floods. The early settlers were fortunate if they were able to harvest a crop one out of three years. The spring floods usually destroyed crops planted the previous fall and prevented the planting of crops in the spring. In 1844 Dr. Brooks described in his diary, the worst flood that had been known since the settlement of this county by white people. Following is his account: "The Mississippi commenced rising on the 18th of May, 1844 and continued rising at the rate of two feet to thirty inches in twenty-four hours until the first of June, at which time it stood within eight inches of the flood line of 1808. By the 10th of June it fell five or six feet, and left the farms in the bottom all free of water. The bottom farms had been more or less covered with water except that of Jacob Trees. On the 11th of June, the waters commenced to rise again, the flood coming down the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, and this time it rose from one foot to eighteen inches in tweney-four hours. This rise steadily continued until it overflowed the bottom land in Union County from eighteen to thirty feet deep. This was the depth of the water on the road to Littleton's old ferry, and also to Wil- lard's landing. Stocks, crops, houses and fences were carried away in the raging waters. The people made efforts to save their stock, and called to their aid ferry and coal boats and all floating craft, but soon they found they could only hope to save a few of
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their household effects, and the stock was left to its fate and the people fled to the hills. This rise continued steadily until June 29, when it came to a stand. On the first of July it commenced slowly to recede. This was higher water than that of 1808 by ten or twelve feet. It was higher than was ever known, except in 1785, which Beck says in his history was the highest water in 150 years. Mr. Cerre, one of the oldest French settlers of St. Louis said: "The flood was higher by four or five feet in 1785 than in 1844. In 1844 the steamer Indiana transported the nuns from Kaskaskia Convent to St. Louis. The boat received them from the door of Pierre Menard's residence, the water in front of the house being fifteen feet in depth. Two hundred people went from Kaskaskia on the Indiana and about 300 found shelter at Menard's, while yet others were sheltered in tents on the bluffs. The loss in the bottoms was at least $1,000,000. From Alton to Cairo there were 288,000 acres of land overflowed. In Randolph county is a document soliciting a grant of lots from the crown of France, and urging as a reason the great flood of 1724, which overflowed the village and destroyed it. Great overflows occurred in 1542, 1724, and 1785, and in 1844. The Mississippi bottoms are now very clean, as everything is washed off and many of the small trees are killed.
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CHAPTER VIII VOTING IN UNION COUNTY BEFORE 1850
Politics has been one of the most interesting subjects for conversation since our country began. Political parties developed as controversial matters arose in the country. Our first great con- troversy was whether or not we should remain British subjects and pay the taxes imposed by that government or whether we should revolt and set up our own government. Those in favor of re- maining British subjects were called Loyalists or Patriots and those in favor of independence were Federalists. As long as George Washington lived (December, 1799) the Federalists were in power but before his death a controversial question had arisen.
Thomas Jefferson, who had been a Patriot because he be- longed to the governing family in Virginia, but who took active part in the framing of the Constitution of the United States of America and the seeting up of the government of the U. S. differed with Washington on the matter of the limit of power of the federal officials. Washington beleived in a strong central government which should have the power to decide all matters of government. Jefferson believed that the central government, the president, congress and the supreme court, should act only on matters set forth by the Constitution of the United States. He believed that all matters not provided for by the Constitution should be settled by the states according to their own views. How- ever history shows that later, Jefferson went beyond his principle, because he negotiated the Louisiana Purchase and the Constitution did not provide for the purchase of new territory by the govern- ment. However at the death of Washington, Jefferson became the leader of the party in power, Republicans. This party grew so strong that it was practically without opposition until 1828.
At the time of the first elections in Union County, the candidates were not elected because they adhered to opposing party principles due to the fact they were all Jeffersonians-or Republicans. The choice was made on the basis of personal likes and dislikes because population was not large and most of the settlers had heard of each other since nearly all of them had travelled over the same roads to arrive at their destination.
Note: The writer is indebted to Mr. A. Ney. Sessions for the record of the 1822 poll books which will be used as typical of the whole period to 1850.
The poll books of 1822 show that the names of the candi- dates were written across the top of the page and the names of the voters down the left side of the page and opposite his name and under the name of the candidates was written the voter's choice. The County Board of Commissioners appointed election judges and clerks for the elections of the year and it was the duty of the clerk to compile the poll books and the judges to see that he did his work properly. After the names of the candidates were written across the tops of the pages, the voters were heard
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as they arrived at the polls. The voter told the judge of the elec- tion what candidate he wished to vote for and the clerk placed a mark opposite the voters names under the names of the candi- date. Each voter's name was placed on a new line and a record of his vote was opposite his name.
In 1822 the candidates and the number of votes cast for each Governor of Illinois were Thomas C. Brown 96, James B. Moore 9, Joseph Phillips 71, and Edward Coles 75; for Lieutenant Governor, John G. Lofton 22, A. F. Hubbard 65, James A. Pea- cock 26, and James Lemons 33; for Congress, John McLean 101, and Daniel P. Cook 157; for Senator, John Whitaker 81, John Grammer 162, R. E. Heacock 3, and Henry L. Wibb 0; for Repre- sentative, John MeIntosh 138, Alex P. Field 136, James P. Edwards 70, William Echols 107, and John Hunsaker 31; for
Sherff were George Hunsaker 220, and James S. Smith 13; for Coroner, Charles Daugherty 60, Jonathan Lyerle 88, Wesley G. Nimmo 63; for City Commissioner, Cliff Hazelwood 111, Samuel Hunsaker 135, George Brown 160, Samuel Butcher 97, Jessie Echols 100, and for delegate to the national convention, William Barton 58.
After the votes were recorded in the poll books and counted the results were given to the Clerk of the Court who issued a certified statement giving the names of the two leading candidates for each office.
All of the freeholders, that is, people owning land were allowed to vote at that time. There were 235 voters in the 1822 election. In 1850 all free men were allowed to vote but colored men were not allowed to vote until after the Civil War. This system of voting was used until 1850. It was easy to see that a man kept his promise to vote for a certain candidate in those days. An amusing incident is related about
a voter in Johnson County who wished to vote for Lincoln, which shows how the judges and clerks helped elect their own candidate. It is possible that no such corrupt pratice ever existed in Union County. It seems that it was generally known that a certain voter was a supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the judges and clerks of the election were opposed to Lincoln. When the voter came to the polls to cast his vote the judges and clerks ignored him and he was forced to go away without being heard. However he met an influential man in the neighborhood who returned to the polls with him and insisted that his vote must be recorded
As the population grew and the number of offices and candidates increased this system of voting became too slow to be useful and the system was changed to a ballot system.
In the election of 1822 all candidates were Republicans. Jefferson had done much in aiding with the settlement of the Northwest Territory and all citizens here followed his leadership. He had established the new method of surveying, the use of townships, base lines, prime meridians etc. and had been instru-
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mental in the government provision that Section 16 of every township should be given by the government to the township for school purposes. He had also propounded the theory that religion, morality and knowledge were necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind.
However, shortly before 1828, Jackson began to oppose the Republicans with the idea that caucuses were not fair in their methods of selecting a president and that office seekers should be a direct choice of the people. Jackson, who was a southerner was opposed to a high tariff because the southerners exported their cotton to England and other countries had to buy all their manufactured goods from the northern states or pay a high duty or tariff for importing them from other countries. Jackson also opposed the establishment of a national bank, so with these three "planks" he established the platform of the new "Democratic Party" which has stayed in existence to the present time, altho some "planks" have been changed in the platform from time to time.
Jackson was opposed in 1836 by a new party which called itself the Whigs. The Republican party had died and Jackson's Democratic party had been in full power until the question of the National Bank arose. The Whigs favored a National Bank and blamed Jackson with the hard times that had followed the era of speculation which Jackson had put an end to by ordering all land purchased from the government to be paid for in gold or silver, thus devaluating the currency the various banks in the country had put into circulation on the strength of the fact that they held federal money on deposit in their banks.
In 1840 the Whigs were victorious but did not stay in power long because they would not express themselves in the campaign regarding their stand on the annexation of Texas while Polk, the Democrat's candidate openly favored the annexation.
The next controversial issue to arise was slavery. Two new parties appeared drawing members from both the Democratic and the Whig parties. The "know-nothing party" was so-called because its members belong to secret societies which opposed allowing any foreign born person to hold public office, and when asked about their policies, always answered, "we don't know".
The Democrats were still intact in the south and Southern Illinois, since this area was settled by southerners, but in the north two factions of Democrats had sprung up; the Anti-Nebraska and the Douglas Democrats. The Kansas-Nebraska bill, sponsored by Stephen A. Douglas, allowed Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not they should be admitted as free or slave states to the Union. This was contrary to a previous pro- vision that this territory should be considered slave territory.
Union County followed the rest of the country in presi- dential campaigns so that no disrupting issues caused much con- troversy until the slave question arose.
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CHAPTER IX
CHURCHES OF UNION COUNTY BEFORE 1850 INVENTIONS WHICH CAUSED CHANGES IN COUNTY
The Ordinance of 1787 governing the Northwest Territory proclaimed that there should be freedom of religion in the area. This accounts for the variety of churches erected by the early set- tlers of Union County.
Most of these settlers adhered to the faith they had had in the communities they left and since the settlers came in little groups as a rule, each group later erected its own church. Most of the early religious meetings took place in the homes of the members of the groups. The first preacher in the county was Father Wolf, a Dunkard, mentioned before as one of the first settlers. He held meetings in various homes but no Dunkard church was ever erected.
The Baptists and Lutherans were the first to erect churches. The Baptists organized as the Clear Creek Baptists and built their first log cabin church in 1821 where the Jonesboro cemetery now stands. Leaders of the church were Reverend James P. Edwards, Jeremiah Brown and John McIntosh. In 1848 this congregation erected a frame building for their church south of the Jonesboro square and placed in its belfry the first church bell to be heard in Illinois south of Kaskaskia or Shawneetown. This bell was donated by Caleb Frick. A Baptist church erected near Willard's Landing was washed away by the flood of 1844 and not rebuilt.
The Evangelical Lutherans organized in 1819 and built a log church in 1822 near the Jonesboro square. The Lutherans also built a church north of what is now Anna which was known as Union or Casper church. Both this church and the church in Jones- boro belonged to the North Carolina Synod and Reverend J. H. C. Shrenberg was the first missionary sent by the Synod to Illinois. His health failed and he was replaced by Daniel Sherer who made his home in Hillsboro, Illinois, and came to these churches once every three months. In 1847 the Casper Church group replaced their log building with a frame building for the joint use of the German Reform Church and the Lutherans. D. F. Rendleman, Peter Sifford, David Miller, Jr., and Samuel Dillow formed the building committee which let the contract to Joshua Roberts. Near this church is one of the oldest burial grounds of the county. About 1850 a group of German Lutherans from Austria settled two miles south of Jonesboro on Dutch Creek and erected St. Paul's Evan- gelical Lutheran Church. Leaders of this congregation were Joseph Meyer, Sr., and Joseph Kollener.
The Methodists were numerous from the beginning of the settlement of the county but they did not build a church until 1842. They gathered for worship in the homes of their members and once each year held a "camp ground" meeting. Their first church
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was erected south of the Jonesboro square under the direction of Reverend Charles Adkins, a circuit preacher, who was also a carpenter.
In 1850 Camp Ground Church was erected in the Stokes settlement by a group of Presbyterians, namely, George Hileman and wife, John Hileman and wife, William Standard and wife, Daniel Standard and wife, Woods Hamilton and wife, James Lingle and wife, James Alexander and Mr. McAllen and wife. The first graves in the burial ground joining this church were those of the son and daughter of George Hileman and wife.
During the following half century many more churches were erected. These will be mentioned in later chapters.
There were two great changes occurring between 1800 and 1850 which had a great effect on the development of the whole world and Union County had its share of this development. These changes were the invention of machinery and the use of steam to run the machinery. Congress passed the first patent act in 1835 and a patent office was established in 1836. The inventions which revolutionized industry were the cotton gin, the spinning jenny, looms for weaving, and the sewing machine which all affected the manufacture of cloth and clothing. In 1831 Cyrus McCormick of Virginia patented new plows, a horse power reaper and later an automatic binder which changed the method of farming. Planing mill machines, the manufacture of brick and the invention of the Bessemer process of steel manufacturing revolutionized building and later transportation. Other revolutionary inventions were "daguerreotype" photography, cookstoves, vulcanized rubber, tele- graphy and the rotary press.
"The change in the manufacture of steel probably effected Union County more than any of the other inventions because fol- lowing this came the manufacture of rails, the locomotive, and the building of railroads. The steamboat effected river transportation and steam was soon used in local mills. Since large amounts of raw materials for the manufacture of cloth and shoes were not pro- duced in Union County, factories manufacturing these products did not spring up here and since the land was rough and too hilly for the use of the newly invented farm machinery, Union County and southern Illinois fell behind northern Illinois in the production of large quantities of wheat, corn and other grains. However the manufactured products were brought to Union County and exchang- ed for our skins and agricultural products on "floating stores" which came down the Ohio from the east. All the agriculture and trade and system of living in Union County before 1850 was based on its trade on the Mississippi and Ohio. After 1830, with the coming of steamboats, river trade flourished and boat landings be- came trade centers. Roads were built from all parts of the county to the boat landings. The first "gravel road" in the county was from Jonesboro to Willard's Landing. This road was maintained
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by tolls collected at a toll gate west of Jonesboro. The merchants of Jonesboro took articles produced by the farmers as payment for their merchandise and traded these products to the river traders for their wares to stock their stores. There was not much money used in those days but rather a barter system was prevalent. This type of trading flourished until after 1850 when a railroad was built thru Union County which completely changed the character of the place.
It is often asked why southern Illinois was settled and flour- ished long before northern Illinois, then why was it that northern Illinois became more wealthy and more thickly populated. There are two very good reasons for the early settlement of southern Illinois, first its navigable waterways and second the fact that the Indians were driven out at an early date. Then came three reasons why northern Illinois began to develop rapidly. Canals were built in New York and the Great Lakes which made navigable lake routes to the west; Cyrus McCormick decided to establish his factory for farm machinery in Chicago, or rather Fort Dearborn at that time, because the machinery was suitable for use on the level land sur- rounding this point for many miles; and third, a wagon road or National Trail was constructed from Cumberland, Maryland, thru Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, to Vandalia, Illinois, which was then the state capital.
An interesting story is told of citizens of Fort Dearborn (now Chicago) coming to Shawneetown where the oldest bank in the state is located to borrow money for the development of their community. They were refused because the bankers did not feel that this community would ever amount to anything since it was so far away from Shawneetown.
However, during the period between 1830 and 1850, Union County enjoyed its share of growth in population. After the estab- lishment of the first steam flouring mill in Union County in 1838, flour soon become one of the leading exports of the county which necessitated wheat being one of the leading products produced by the farmer. The raising of livestock early became a profitable in- dustry in the county. The livestock market was establised at an early date in St. Louis.
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CHAPTER X
UNION COUNTY'S FIRST NEWSPAPER
The first newspaper published in Union County, September 19, 1849, was called the Jonesboro Gazette and Southern Illinois Reflector. The Southern Illinois Reflector part of the name, was to indicate that news in the paper would interest not only Jones- boro but all of Southern Illinois. The oldest available copy of the paper was the one issued October 10, 1849,
In this issue of the paper the editor, Rev. H. Edward Hemp- sted and the publishers and proprietors, Thomas J. Finley and John Evans set up the policy of the paper. It was to have a "Literary Department" including "tales, selected and original to occupy the front page. "Interesting incidents connected with the early settle- ment of Illinois" were to be found in the columns of the paper. The "subject of Education, a hitherto much neglected subject was to be another department. "The latest Foreign and Domestic news" written was to be of interest to all readers who were "anxious for the overthrow of political and religious despots." The affairs of Con- gress and the State Legislature were to be given" yet not at any time was anything to be admitted to the columns which could be made to look favorable to any man or set of men." This indicates that the paper did not begin as a partisan paper. There was also to be included a weekly review of the New Orleans and St. Louis mar- kets and a Jonesboro current price list.
The terms of the paper were $2.00 for one year, $2.50 if not paid within six months and $3.00 if not paid within a year. For six copies for one year, $10.00; for twelve copies, $18.00, and for eighteen copies, $25.00. No paper was to be discontinued unless at the option of the publisher, until all arrearages were paid. The advertising rates were: for one square of twelve lines or less, $1.00; for each additional insertion 30c; one square for three months, $4.00; for six months, $6.00; twelve months, $9.00; quarter column for one year, $15.00; half a column for one year $20.00; one column for one year, $35.00; business cards, one year, $6.00.
The paper had four pages of six columns each, eight full columns of which were advertisements. Three columns on the front page and one and one-half on the second were devoted to the con- clusion of a continued story having a moral lesson teaching mothers how to train their sons to grow into reliable men. It depicted the every day life of the pioneer boy. Two columns of the paper, one on the front page, were filled with poetry. One poem showing the topics of the day was a parody on the song "Susanah" called "Cali- fornia," telling of a Kentuckian going to California for the gold rush and finding no gold. The foreign news of the day told of a war being waged between Hungary and Austria allied with Russia. The combat was handicapped because Austria could only manufacture two hundred guns per day but another item said that England had sent them 50,000 percussion lock muskets. There was a two column
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article by the editor on education on the second page. He advocated the hiring of more qualified teachers for the local schools, arguing that a teacher who did not know his three "R's" could not teach them to the children. He said, "A man has no business attempting to teach youth before he understands the grammer of his own lan- guage." Teaching at that time had not achieved a universal pro- fessional standard, not even a low standard.
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