USA > Illinois > Vermilion County > History of Vermilion County, Illinois, Volume One > Part 8
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He assisted materially in building the early churches, seminaries and the Great Western railroad. He died No- vember 15, 1857, closing an eventful life.
Alvin Gilbert is another of the pioneers worthy of spe- cial mention, the Gilbert family not only being prominent in the early days of Danville but also in Ross township.
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He was born July 11, 1810, in Ontario County, New York, and at the age of fifteen with his parents, Samuel and Mary Gilbert, and two younger brothers, James H. and Elias M., settled in Crawford County, Illinois, in the spring of 1825. A year later the family moved to a point two miles south of where Danville now stands.
There was not a town in the county with more than fifty families and the settlers were compelled to go to Eugene, Indiana, for milling purposes and to purchase other needed articles.
Samuel Gilbert worked his farm for five years and in 1831 when his brother, Solomon Gilbert, came from the east and built a mill near Danville on the North Fork, he took charge of this establishment. He also became interested in the first ferry service across the Vermilion river at Dan- ville, which was established by another brother, Jesse Gilbert.
Samuel Gilbert moved to Ross Township in 1839, where he was the first justice of peace and the first postmaster. He died June 29, 1855, and was buried in Danville.
Alvan Gilbert was married April 18, 1831, to Miss Ma- tilda Horr and a year later he moved to Ross Township and bought a small farm from his father-in-law, Robert Horr, to which he added by entry and purchase until he owned 240 acres. This farm he sold to his father and bought another farm from his uncle, Solomon Gilbert, which included the present northern limits of Rossville. He sold this three years later and bought a third farm, which included the southern limits of Rossville, finally ac- quiring a nine hundred acre estate.
Alvan Gilbert was member of the board of supervisors for many years and served as president of the board. He
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was also one of the commissioners appointed by the legisla- ture to divide Vermilion County in townships when the county adopted the form of township organization, the others being John Canaday, of Georgetown, and Judge Guy Merrill, of Danville.
The village of Alvin was named after Alvan Gilbert, the name being spelled by the government with an "I" instead of Alvan, through an error.
He served in the Blackhawk war and with a companion accomplished a hazardous piece of work by carrying dis- patches two hundred miles through a hostile country to General Atkinson, then at Ottawa.
From Alvan Gilbert, writers of the early history of the county secured the story of his experience in one of the most sudden and extraordinary changes in weather ever known in this part of the country.
This occurred during the night of December 16, 1836. There had been a deep snow, followed for two or three days of mild weather and the snow was melting fast.
That day Gilbert started to Chicago with a drove of hogs and as he and his helpers reached Bicknell's prairie, the temperature lowered, accompanied by a strong wind and dark masses of clouds from the northwest.
Within ten minutes the cold became so intense that Gil- bert realized he and his men would soon freeze if they re- mained on the prairie. They hurriedly started for the nearest point of timber, seven miles distant with the team and wagon. Their hands and feet were badly frozen before they reached this refuge. That night eighteen of the hogs were frozen to death on the prairie and many of the sur- vivors were frozen to the ground.
Two men named Frame and Hildreth were caught the same night between Bicknell's Prairie and Milford. A
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creek, too deep to ford, prevented their reaching a pioneer cabin, and they killed one of their horses, disemboweled the animal and crowded themselves into the aperture to keep from freezing. During the night Frame froze to death, his companion managing to reach the nearest house the next morning, although badly frozen. All through the country livestock was frozen to the ground, which was frozen thick in half an hour so that it would bear up a team and wagon.
Hezekiah Cunningham, referred to before in this chap- ter as one of the pioneers of what is now the city of Dan- ville, was the author of an article on Vermillion county's part in the Winnebago War, which was first published in H. W. Beckwith's History of Vermilion County, and which is worthy of reproduction in this history, despite that the Winnebago War has been fully treated in another chapter.
Here is Mr. Cunningham's story of his own experi- ences:
"I was out in the Winnebago War. Myself, Joshua Parish, now living at Georgetown, Abel Williams, living near Dallas, and almost ninety years old, and Gurdon S. Hubbard, of Chicago, are the only survivors, according to the best of my information.
"In the night-time, about the 15th or 20th of July, 1827, I was awakened by my brother-in-law, Alexander McDon- ald, telling me that Mr. Hubbard had just come in from Chicago with the word that the Indians were about to massacre the people there, and that men were wanted for their protection at once. The inhabitants of the county capable of bearing arms had been enrolled under the mili- tia laws of the state, and organized the Vermilion County Battalion, in which I held a position as captain. I dressed myself and started forthwith to notify all the men belong-
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ing to my company to meet at Butler's Point, six miles southwest of Danville, the place where the county business was then conducted and where the militia met to muster. The captains of the other companies were notified, the same as myself, and they warned out their respective com- panies, the same as I did mine. I rode the remainder of the night at this work up and down the Little Vermilion.
"At noon the next day the battalion was at Butler's Point. Most of the men lived on the Little Vermilion River and had to ride or walk from six to twelve miles to the place of rendevous. Volunteers were called for, and in a little while fifty men, the required number, were raised. Those who agreed to go then held an election of their officers for the campaign, choosing Achilles Morgan, cap- tain; Major Bayles, first lieutenant, and Col. Isaac R. Moores as second. The names of the private men, as far as I remember them, are as follows: George M. Beckwith, John Beasley, myself (Hezekiah Cunningham), Julian Ellis, Seaman Cox, James Dixon, Asa Elliott, Francis Foley, William Foley, a Mr. Hammers, Jacob Heater, a Mr. Davis, Evin Morgan, Isaac Goen, Jonathan Phelps, Joshua Paris, William Reed, John Myers ('Little Vermilion John'), John Saulsbury, a Mr. Kirkman, Anthony Swisher, George Swisher, Joseph Price, George Weir, John Vaughn, Newton Wright and Abel Williams.
"Many of the men were without horses, and the neigh- bors who had horses and did not go loaned their animals to those who did. Still there were five men who started afoot, as there were no horses to be had for them. We disbanded, after we were mustered in, and went home to cook five days' rations, and were ordered to be at Danville the next day.
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"The men all had a pint of whisky, believing it essen- tial to mix a little of it with the slough water we were to drink on our route. Abel Williams, however, was smart enough to take some ground coffee and a tin cup along, using no stimulants whatever. He had warm drinks on the way up to Chicago, and coming back all of us had the same.
"We arrived at the Vermilion River about noon on Sun- day, the day after assembling at Butler's Point. The river was up, running, bank full, about a hundred yards wide, with a strong current. Our men and saddles were taken over in a canoe. We undertook to swim our horses, and as they were driven into the water, the current would strike them and they would swim in a circle and return to the shore a few rods below.
"Mr. Hubbard, provoked at this delay, threw off his coat and said, 'Give me Old Charley,' meaning a large, steady-going horse, owned by James Butler and loaned to Jacob Heater. Mr. Hubbard, mounting this horse, boldly dashed into the stream, and the other horses were quickly crowded after him. The water was so swift that Old Charles became unmanageable, when Mr. Hubbard dis- mounted on the upper side and seized the horse by the mane, near the animal's head, and swimming with his left arm, guided the horse in the direction of the opposite shore. We were afraid he would be washed under the horse, or struck by his feet and be drowned; but he got over without damage, except the wetting of his broadcloth pants and moccasins. These he had to dry on his person as we pur- sued our journey.
"I will here say that a better man than Mr. Hubbard could not have been sent to our people. He was well known to all the settlers. His generosity, his quiet and determined
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courage, and his integrity, were so well known and appre- ciated that he had the confidence and goodwill of every- body, and was a well-recognized leader among us pioneers.
"At this time there were no persons living on the north bank of the Vermilion River near Danville, except Robert Trickle and George Weir, up near the present woolen fac- tory, and William Reed and Dan Beckwith; the latter had a little log cabin on the bluff of the Vermilion, near the present highway bridge, or rather on the edge of the hill east of the highway some rods. Here he kept store, in addition to his official duties as constable and county surveyor.
"The store contained a small assortment of such articles as were suitable for barter with the Indians, who were the principal customers. We called it 'The Saddle-bags Store,' because the supplies were brought up from Terre Haute in saddle-bags, that indispensable accompaniment of every rider in those days, before highways were provided for the use of vehicles.
"Mr. Reed had been elected sheriff the previous March, receiving fifty-seven out of the eighty votes that were cast at the election, and which represented about the entire vot- ing population of the county at that time. Both Reed and Dan wanted to go with us, and after quite a warm contro- versy between them, as it was impossible for them both to leave, it was agreed that Reed should go, and that Beck- with would look after the affairs of both until Reed's re- turn. Amos Williams was building his house at Danville at this time, the sale of lots having taken place the previous April.
"Crossing the North Fork at Denmark, three miles north of Danville, we passed the cabin of Seymour Treat. He was building a mill at that place, and his house was the
VERMILION COUNTY'S SECOND COURT HOUSE
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WYSMULAAL
FIRST STORE BUILDING IN DANVILLE WHICH STOOD ON THE PRESENT LOCATION OF THE PALMER NATIONAL BANK
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last one in which a family was living until we reached Hub- bard's trading post, on the north bank of the Iroquois River, near what has since been known as the town of Buncombe, and from this trading house there was no other habitation, Indian wigwams excepted, on the line of our march until we reached Fort Dearborn.
"It was a wilderness of prairie all the way, except a little timber we passed through near Sugar Creek and at the Iroquois.
"Late in the afternoon we halted at the last crossing of the North Fork, at Bicknell's Point, a little north of the present town of Rossville. Here three of the footmen turned back, as conditions of the streams rendered it im- possible for them to continue longer with us. Two men who had horses also left us. After a hasty lunch we struck out across the eighteen-mile prairie, the men stringing out on the trail Indian file, reaching Sugar Creek late in the night, where we went into camp on the south bank, near the present town of Milford.
"The next day before noon we arrived at Hubbard's Trading House, which was on the north bank of the Iro- quois, about a quarter of a mile from the river. A lot of Indians, some of them half naked, were lying and lounging about the river-bank and trading house; and when it was proposed to swim our horses over, in advance of passing the men in boats, the men objected, fearing the Indians would take our horses, or stampede them, or do us some other mischief. Mr. Hubbard assured us that these sav- ages were friendly, and we afterward learned that they were Pottowatomies, known as "Hubbard's Band," from the fact that he had long traded with and had a very great influence over them.
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"It is proper to state here that we were deficient in arms. We gathered up squirrel rifles, flint-locks, old mus- kets, or anything like a gun that we may have had about our houses. Some of us had no firearms at all. I myself was among this number. Mr. Hubbard supplied those of us who had inefficient weapons, or those of us who were without them. He also gave us flour and salt pork. He had lately brought up the Iroquois River a supply of these articles. We remained at Hubbard's Trading House the remainder of the day, cooking rations and supplying our necessities. The next morning we again moved forward, swimming Beaver Creek, and crossing the Kankakee River at the rapids, just at the head of the island near Momence; pushing along, we passed Yellowhead's village.
"The old chief, with a few old men and the squaws and papooses, were at home; the young men were off on a hunt. Remaining there a little time we again set out, crossing a branch of the Calumet to the west of Blue Island. All the way from Danville we had followed an Indian trail, since known as 'Hubbard's Trace.' There was no sign of roads; the prairies and whole country was crossed and recrossed by Indian trails, and we never could have got through but for the knowledge which Mr. Hub- bard had of the country.
"It had been raining for some days before we left home, and it rained almost every day on the route. The streams and sloughs were full of water. We swam the former and traveled through the latter, sometimes almost by the hour. Many of the ponds were so deep that our men dipped up the water to drink as they sat in their saddles. Colonel Hubbard fared better than the rest of us-that is, he did not get his legs wet so often, for he rode a very tall, iron-gray stallion, that Peleg Spencer, Sr., living two miles
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north of Danville, loaned him. The little Indian pony which Hubbard rode from the Iroquois to Spencer's was so used up as to be unfit for the return journey.
"We reached Chicago about four o'clock on the evening of the fourth day, in the midst of one of the most severe rainstorms I ever experienced, accompanied by thunder and vicious lightning. The rain we did not mind; we were without tents, and were used to wetting. The water we took within us hurt us more than that which fell upon us, as drinking it made many of us sick.
"The people of Chicago were glad to see us. They were expecting an attack every hour since Colonel Hubbard had left them, and as we approached they did not know whether we were enemies or friends, and when they learned that we were friends they gave us a shout of welcome.
"They had organized a company of thirty to fifty men, composed mostly of Canadian half-breeds, interspersed with a few Americans, all under command of Captain Beaubien; the Americans, seeing we were a better looking crowd, wanted to leave their associates and join our com- pany. This feeling caused quite a row, and the officers finally restored harmony, and the discontented men went back to their old command.
"The town of Chicago was composed at this time of six or seven American families, a number of half-breeds, and a lot of idle, vagabond Indians loitering about. I made the acquaintance of Robert and James Kinzie and their father, John Kinzie.
"We kept guard day and night for some eight or ten days, when a runner came in-I think from Green Bay- bringing word that General Cass had concluded a treaty with the Winnebagoes, and that we might now disband and go home.
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"The citizens were overjoyed at the news, and in their gladness they turned out one barrel of gin, one barrel of brandy, one barrel of whiskey, knocking the heads of the barrels in. Everybody was invited to take a free drink, and, to tell the plain truth, everybody did drink.
"The ladies at Fort Dearborn treated us especially well. I say this without disparaging the good and cordial con- duct of the men toward us. The ladies gave us all manner of good things to eat; they loaded us with provisions, and gave us all those delicate attentions that the kindness of woman's heart would suggest. Some of them-three ladies, whom I understood were recently from New York distributed tracts and other reading matter among our company, and interested themselves zealously in our spirit- ual as well as temporal welfare.
"We started on our return, camping out of nights, and reaching home on the evening of the third day. The only good water we got going or coming back was at a remark- able spring bursting out of the top of a little mound in the midst of a slough, a few miles south of the Kankakee. I shall never forget this spring; it was a curiosity, found in the situation I have described.
"In conclusion, under the bounty act of 1852, I received a warrant for eighty acres of land for my services in the campaign above narrated."
The Winnebago War was caused by the acts of un- principled white men in charge of two keel boats ascending the Mississippi River near Prairie du Chien.
The boatmen landed at a Winnebago camp north of Prairie du Chien and engaged the Indians in a drunken orgy, during which the white men kidnapped six or seven squaws, who were also drunk. The squaws were taken on
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the boats and taken to Fort Snelling and back, subjected to the beastial actions of the boatmen.
On their return several hundred Indians attacked the boats in which the squaws were confined. The Indians had sobered up and realized what the white men had done. There was a furious battle. The squaws escaped and re- turned to their braves. The Indians were repelled by the few boatmen, but Indian war parties began attacking every white person within reach. Two white men and a white child were scalped, and the white settlers became alarmed. Several white men had been killed in the attack on the boats.
The Pottawatomies about Chicago and westward sym- pathized with the Winnebagoes and the situation became serious. The federal government ordered a movement of troops under General Atkinson and Governor Edwards, of Illinois ordered out a regiment to report at Galena.
The settlers at Chicago became alarmed and fearing destruction sent Colonel Hubbard to Vermilion County for troops. This war, which ended without bloodshed as far as Vermilion county was concerned, probably brought about the first excursion of Danville and Vermilion county residents to Chicago and the account of the trip by Mr. Cunningham is so vivid that it should be preserved for all time.
There are a number of descendants of the first settlers living in Danville and Vermilion county today, but few direct descendants. Dan Beckwith, Amos Williams, and Hezekiah Cunningham, among the first settlers of this section, have direct descendants living today in Danville.
Dan Beckwith, chief deputy United States district clerk, is a great-grandson of Dan W. Beckwith. His father was
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Clarence Beckwith, a son of Hiram W. Beckwith, whose father was the man from whom Danville derived its name.
Charles Mires Woodbury and the Misses Mary Wood- bury, Lucy Woodbury and Flora M. Woodbury are the grandson and granddaughters of Amos Williams and their mother, Maria Louise Williams, was the first white child born in Vermilion County, February 22, 1827, at Butler's Point. While she was a tiny baby the Indians asked her parents to trade her to them for a pappoose. She married Dr. William W. R. Woodbury, who came to Danville in 1833 and who founded the Woodbury Drug and Book Company, now two separate companies but still in the same family.
Dr. Woodbury was a graduate physician, his alma mater being Rush Medical College, class of 1850. He had served an apprenticeship with Dr. W. E. Fithian. In 1850 he bought a half interest in the James A. D. Sconce drug store for five hundred and sixty-three dollars and sixty-one cents. The annual store rental was seventy-five dollars. Danville's population was seven hundred and thirty-six, and merchandise was brought to Perrysville and Coving- ton, Ind., by canal and brought overland to Danville by wagon. In 1853 the interest of Mr. Sconce was purchased by Stephen and John W. Mires and the firm name became Woodbury & Company. In 1857 Doctor Woodbury ac- quired full control of the business and in 1859 he built the Lincoln Hall block, the three story building now forming the west half of the Plaza hotel building.
Abraham Lincoln was a patron of the Woodbury store in the days he spent on court business in Danville, and the family knew him very well. In 1885 Doctor Woodbury retired and Amos Gardner Woodbury became sole owner, Charles M. Woodbury, Miss Flora M. Woodbury and
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Charles F. Ehlers, who died recently, joining the firm in 1903.
Mrs. Nell Mann Shedd and Attorney Oliver Davis Mann, both living here now, are great-grandchildren of Hezekiah Cunningham, their grandmother being Mrs. Oliver L. Davis, wife of Judge Davis and a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hezekiah Cunningham. Mrs. Davis was born in Vermilion County, September 3, 1827, one of the first white children born in the county. Mrs. J. B. Mann, mother of Mrs. Shedd and Mr. Mann, is also living and she is a granddaughter of Hezekiah Cunningham and a daughter of Judge and Mrs. Davis. The four children of Mr. Mann represent the great- great-grandchildren of Hezekiah Cunningham.
Clint C. Tilton, former publisher of the Morning Press and now active in Danville civic affairs, is a direct descend- ant of Major John W. Vance, who came here in 1824 to lease the salt works, and also a direct descendant of Mrs. Lura ("Grandma") Guyon, famous for fifty years as a mid-wife.
He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel R. Tilton, of Catlin Township, and his mother was a daughter of Major Vance and a granddaughter of Mrs. Guyon, by her first marriage to Dr. Rutherford, an eastern physician who died in Ohio and who probably was responsible for Mrs. Guyon's remarkable knowledge of medicines and her ability as a nurse in the pioneer homes.
Clint C. Tilton has made an exhaustive study of Ver- milion county history and especially of the life of Lincoln and probably has one of the best libraries on Vermilion County and Lincoln in this part of the country.
There has been some dispute as to the location of Dan W. Beckwith's first cabin in Vermilion County, and light has
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been thrown upon this question by G. W. Palmer, of Brem- erton, Washington, who wrote the following letter May 17, 1928, to Charles M. Woodbury, and which is worth repeat- ing in this history, because of the apparent first hand knowledge of many early events possessed by Mr. Palmer:
"As I am one of the very few, possibly half-dozen, who can go back eighty years in their knowledge of Danville, I want to add my mite to your records. I took my first breakfast Monday, March 23, 1846, on the site now occu- pied by the Yellow Taxi Cab Company on West Main Street.
"Ralph McCormack was an early settler in the same month, just one block east. My special reason, or urge, for writing this is a mistake or what I think is a mistake, I find running through the published history. The state- ment was made several times that Dan Beckwith lived in a dugout on the hill overlooking Denmark. Now that may be true. John Purser, now living in Everett, Washington, remembers seeing the remains of a cabin in that location, but he has no history of it.
"But the real home of Mr. Beckwith was on the hill directly north of the west end of the present golf ground (now Harrison Park), that is, across the creek.
"Amos Williams built a saw mill on the stream there, with log and brush dam. This had been some years before I saw it. My father went to Oregon, with his first family of children, in 1851. He came back in January, 1853, and in March we moved into the farm, where John Tincher's home is now. Sometime that summer I went with father to the mill after lumber. The north end of the dam had been washed out and Mr. Williams had several men at work re- pairing it. That is my clearest recollection of Mr. Wil- liams, although I probably saw him many times afterward.
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"My father pointed out to me the spot on the hill where Dan Beckwith's home was. In after years when I was old enough to roam the woods alone, I looked for any signs of the cabin. The excavation was about half filled by the wash from the higher ground, but there were two logs at a front corner in position, badly decayed but still holding their shape, so that I could see the exact location. The storms of seventy years have most likely obliterated every sign of a habitation by this time.
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