USA > Illinois > Vermilion County > History of Vermilion County, Illinois : a tale of its evolution, settlement and progress for nearly a century, Volume I > Part 52
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The location of Butler's Point was directly west of Catlin. Asa Elliott was the first justice of the peace in Catlin township and in Vermilion county as well. He came to Butler's Point in 1822. Mr. Woodin was a cooper and the nearest to a hotel was the boarding house he kept where the price per week for board was $1.50. Hiram Ticknor is supposed to have been the first school teacher. Rev. Kingsbury came to this region to preach to the Indians and sometimes would hold meetings at the salt works. The first Sunday school in the county was established at the home of Mr. Asa Elliott, probably about 1836. The deposit of coal through- out this county has developed the industry of coal mining. The first shaft sunk was by Mr. Hinds, in 1862. John Faulds put down a shaft in 1863 and one hun- dred and forty-seven feet below the surface he reached a six foot vein, which was at that time considered a great event and was celebrated by a grand banquet. This was in June. 1864. Capt. W. R. Timmons was called upon to preside and G. W. Tilton sang a song the verse of which he composed. This mine, which was worked for a while, and was a pride to Catlin, would seem crude enough at this time in comparison with the modern coal mines of Vermilion County.
It was in 1856 that Mr. Guy Merrill and Josiah Hunt laid out the village of Catlin. The plat was twelve blocks north and south of the station. At the same time Harvey Sandusky laid out and platted an addition lying south of and run- ning from the railroad and west of the original towns as far east as that plat did. On the 18th of June, Josiah Sandusky platted an addition between this last and the railroad. April, 1858, Josiah Sandusky platted and laid out his second addi- tion west of the original town. In 1863, J. H. Oakwood laid out an addition of two blocks north of the original town and in October, 1867, Mr. McNair & Co. laid out and platted the coal shaft addition along the railroad and west of Sandusky's second addition. An election was held in March, 1863, to consider
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the proposition whether or not to incorporate the village of Catlin. Twelve votes were cast for and none against incorporation. On April, 1863, the election for first board of trustees was held.
Catlin has always been a conservative village, more a place where people were making homes than were striving to advance business and manufacturing inter- ests. It is a pretty village of comfortable homes. The past generation knew Cat- lin best as the place of the holding of the annual fair. After the Vermilion County Agricultural and Mechanical Association was organized in 1850, one or more fairs were attempted in Danville with little success, when it was found that Butlers Point was a more practical place to hold this annual affair. This part of the county was the home of the most of the fine stock. Forty acres were rented and fenced and a good track laid out, buildings were erected and the fair at Cat- lin was an institution of importance as long as the association remained in ex- istence.
The Wabash railroad runs across this township. It enters it in the northeast corner and runs in a southwesterly direction to the village of Catlin, thence directly west to the limit. The Sidell branch of the C. & E. I. R. R. makes the western border of the township almost the entire length. Beside these means of transportation, the line of the Interurban trolley, a part of the Illinois Traction system, keeps Catlin in touch with Danville by cars going every twenty minutes during the day. With the exception of the strip of timber which skirted the stream in the northern part, Catlin township is a fertile plain where fine farms have been developed.
GRANT TOWNSHIP.
Until 1862, Grant township was a portion of Ross township. At that time Ross was found to be so large as to be unweildy and so was divided, forming the new township. The name chosen tells the sentiment of the people who had come to that section of Vermilion County. Loyalty to their country was ex- pressed in choosing the name of the hero who was conspicuous in saving that country. The naming of this township was about the first honor to be accorded him. This township has never had a changed boundary. Its northern limit is the same as the northern limit of Vermilion County, the eastern limit that of the Indiana state line, the southern limit, Ross township and the western boundary, Butler township. The shape of the township is rectangular ; twelve and a half miles long by seven and one-half miles wide. It contains 58,880 acres and is the largest township in Vermilion County. It is almost entirely prairie land and only had a small portion of timber which was known as Bicknell's Point, in about the center of the dividing line between Grant and Ross townships. This formed the treeless divide between the head waters of the Vermilion and those of the Iroquois. It was late in attracting set- tlement, being as late as 1860, without cultivation. The direct road between Chicago and the south ran directly through the center of this township, yet it was avoided as locations for homes. Indeed, when in 1872, the railroad was surveyed through this township, there were but few farms intersected. This stretch of open prairie, north of Bicknell's Point, was a dread to the benighted
WESLEY BLACK FORD
W. M. TENNERY
MR. AND MRS. AMOS HIOFF
MR. AND MRS. HIRAM ARMANTROUT
COL. ABEL WOLVERTON
JOIN E. VINSON
-
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traveller. The first settlements in Grant township were made along the road stretching north from Rossville.
As early as 1835, George and William Bicknell took up land at Bicknell's Point which was the last piece of timber on the route to Chicago until the valley of the Iroquois was reached. Mr. Lockhart, who came from Kentucky with William Newell, was the man who first entered land north of Bicknell's Point. Asel Gilbert entered a section of land south of Bicknell's Point in 1838. Albert Cumstock, B. C. Green, and James R. Stewart, early settled near this. Col. Abel Wolverton settled on sextion 18, in 1840, two miles northeast of the Point. He was probably the first settler in that neighborhood. He came from Perrys- ville, Indiana. He had been in the Blackhawk war and was as brave in fighting the hardships of the new home in the prairie as was he in fighting the Indians. Col. Woolverton was a competent surveyor and his new home provided much work of this kind. William Allen was the pioneer in the northern part of the township. He came to Ohio in 1844. Thos. Hoopes, from whom Hoopeston was named, came in 1855 and bought Mr. Allen's farm.
Conditions in this part of the county at this time is pictured by Mrs. Cun- ningham, then a child, whose playmates were "sky and prairie flowers in the summer time, with the bleak cold in the winter." A description of her experience on a night in late autumn in this lonely place, reads: "The shadows of declining day were creeping over the prairie landscape, when this child, young in years but older in experience, as were the pioneers, stood listening for a familiar sound. The cold wind came sweeping from far over tractless wilds, and with almost resist- less force nearly drove her to the protection of the house, yet she stood and listened for a familiar sound, straining her ear to catch the rumble of a wagon which told of the return of her foster parents, who had the day before, gone to an inland town for provisions to last them through the coming days of winter. They had gone on this errand some days before and were due to come back every hour. This young girl had learned to love even this solitude, and while she listened for the sound of human life she noted the lull of the fierce wind, the whirring of a flock of prairie chickens, frightened from their accustomed haunts, fleeing by instinct to the protection of man. Suddenly a wolf gave a sharp bark on a distant hillside, then another, and another and yet another answering each other from the echoing vastness. With a shudder, not so much from fear as from the utter lonesomeness of the time and place, she turned and entered the house, but she could not leave these sounds outside, she heard the mournful wail. It is impossible to describe those sounds. So weird, so lonely were they that the early settler remembered them always. The lack of courage of these animals was made up in the increased numbers they called together, whether it was to attack the timid prairie hen or the larger game of the open. Surely these wolves were fit companions for the Indians.
The interior of this little house was much better furnished than were those of the early settlers of Vermilion County who came into other portions twenty- five years before this time. It was easier to transport furniture and the homes of this period were less primitive in every way. When the girl went into the house she found the "hired man" had milked and was ready for his supper. He seated himself at the kitchen stove and remarked that he did not think that "the
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folks" would come that night, as it would be very dark and every prospect of a snowstorm, they surely would not leave the protection of the nearest settlement to venture on the prairie that night. The little girl busied herself with the sup- per with grave misgivings about her people, whom she earnestly hoped would venture to come home, but whom she feared would be injured. She could not cat and going to the window she pressed her face to the glass and took up her silent watch. Soon taking his candle, the hired man went to his bed, leaving the girl to keep her watch alone. After a little, she imagined she heard a faint sound; she ran to the door and threw it open. As the door was flung open their faithful shepherd dog bounded in. He was closely followed by a number of wolves who were chasing him and almost had caught him. They stopped when the light from the open door fell upon them. The girl hastily closed the door and shutting them out shut the dog within. Then all was silent on the prairie, except the howling of the wind while the wolves silently slunk away in the darkness. The girl turned to the dog and eased his mind by a bountiful supper, when she took up her watch once more. She hoped almost against hope as she pressed the window pane, scanning the horizon. As the night wore on the storm increased in violence, the wind drove the snow in sheets of blinding swift- ness, piling it high on the window ledge, and obstructing the view across the expanse. The wolves were silenced by the terrible storm, but the faithful dog yet scented them in the near neighborhood. The old clock slowly ticked the hours away while the girl sat by the wooden table in the center of the room with drooping head and strained ears, until she dropped to sleep from sheer ex- haustion. Uneasy were her dreams as her slumber was broken through dis- comfort and the ever recurring growls of the dog at her feet who growled at the scent of his pursuers. As the hours passed the girl aroused herself and went to the window. The storm clouds had partially cleared, and the young moon had peeped out with a faint light. Casting her eyes down she looked into the pierc- ing orbs of two wolves who were standing in the glare of the lamplight. The girl turned to the dog and dropping beside him buried her face in his woolly coat and bursting into tears called out, "Taylor, what shall we do?" With a growl and a glance toward the opening, which said as plain as words, "I'll do all I can to protect you," he lay with his nose to the crack in the door. The hours wore away and the girl and the dog watched alone on the prairie for the coming of the human beings who might be out on the prairie. Toward dawn the dog sprang to her side with a low bark of delight. He had heard and recognized the voices of his friends, and was telling his companion that those for whom they were keeping vigil were very near. Soon they were housed in safety. A new day was theirs while all the terrors of the night had been vanquished. The sun came up, the deer were dashing from one snow bank to another, the wolves had slunk away, the agony of the night was passed away. Such were frequent occurrences in the section of the country in and about Hoopeston.
Mr. Dale Wallace, in a talk before a Hoopeston audience, some years ago, describes that village when he first saw it. He went to this new village on the Illinois prairie a young man full of hope and promise. He entered the town on the freight train of the C. D. & V. R. R. (commonly called the "Dolly Varden") which consisted of six gravel cars and a caboose. The conductor stopped his
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HISTORY OF VERMILION COUNTY
train at about where the stock yards were afterward located, and told the only passenger, this same young man, "This is where you get off, Kid." With the wisdom of his years he said : "I guess you are mistaken : I want to go to Hoopes- ton," said the "Kid."
"Well, this is Hoopeston."
"Where," asked the Kid.
"Over there in the brush," was the rejoinder.
The Kid meandered around through a forest of resin weeds and finally halted at a little shack on the road running east and west, which afterwards proved to be the main street. The shack proved to be a department store; the front being the department, ten by twenty, it was filled with a few dollars' worth of every- thing, while the rear department was the residence of the proprietor, who housed his wife and three children. This establishment was that of Jonathan Sidell, the fire merchant of Hoopeston. He was rotund and hospitable and the follow- ing conversation was had between him and the "Kid:"
"Are you lost?"
"No, I am not, but I think this town is."
"What did you come here to do?"
"Start a newspaper."
"-you are crazy."
"Shake. I have been thinking that myself for the last ten minutes, and I am glad to have it confirmed."
A few rods on further to the next mud hole, was a grocery store run by J. W. Elliott, who later went to Danville. Adjoining this was a drug store, by E. D. North. On west, across the street, was Charley Wyman's real estate office. Away up north opposite the northwest corner of the park was a clothing store, operated by J. Fleshman. Adjoining was a grocery store, by Miller Bros. Along the railroad track was Robert Casement's lumber yard. This was in the fall of 1871. On the first Thursday of January, Mr. Wallace, together with G. W. Steavey, launched the Chronicle, then called the North Vermilion Chronicle. In that first issne every business man, every carpenter, painter, etc., in Hoopes- ton, had an advertisement in the new paper, very encouraging to the young men who had started it. Roof & Roe, E. D. North, and Frank G. Hoffman, were druggists. R. McCracken was a general merchant. Bedell and Elliott and Miller Bros. were grocers. Ed. Stamp was the butcher, S. K. White had the livery stable, G. H. White was the real estate and insurance agent. A. B. Perkins sold lumber and coal, Given & Knox were grain merchants, G. C. Davis and Moffet & Kirkpatrick were contractors. T. C. McCaughey, M. D., and L. W. Anderson. M. D., were the physicians. J. C. Askerman was the lawyer and B. Saunders was the shoemaker. This was four months after the Hoopes' farm was platted into town lots. Every week brought new business men to town. P. F. Levin came early in 1872, also W. B. Clark. W. W. Duly was the township tax col- lector. Before the year expired there were a half dozen grain buyers, and it was not an uncommon sight in the fall of 1872, to see 50 to 100 loads of corn waiting a chance to unload with buyers paying the enormous price of twenty- three cents per bushel. The real-estate business was very active both in city lots
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HISTORY OF VERMILION COUNTY
and country property. Land now worth $250 per acre then sold for $15 to $25 per acre. Business lots then bought for $125 some time ago, were worth $5,000.
Hoopeston grew rapidly and business enterprises kept pace with it. About 1872, J. S. McFerrin and Wright Chamberlain established a bank. J. M. R. Spinning was the first postmaster. A spirit of enterprise pervaded every nook and corner of the hustling little village. About every thirty days the enter- prising citizens would hold meetings and build factories and railroads on paper. The first year of existence Hoopeston had a circus and menagerie. This gave the newspaper a chance to give news. Business houses multiplied rapidly, all branches being well represented by January, 1873. The Chronicle gave a re- sume for the year, showing the erection of 180 buildings, 27 of which were busi- ness houses altogether. The grain men brought 450,000 bushels during the year. The freight business of the "Dolly Varden" road amounted to 40,000. Hoopeston has had a phenomenal growth and is a small city of beautiful homes.
BUTLER TOWNSHIP. Compiled by George S. Hoff.
Butler township was named at the suggestion of the first supervisor, in 1864, from the cock-eyed hero who had solved the difficult questions of the war, each as it arose, with as much ease as he would have settled a quiet dinner in his own house. He had equipped and marched the first brigade of volunteers to be- leagured Washington (or had commanded the march), in less than three days after notice had reached him, and in less than two days from the date of his selec- tion by Governor Andrew for the position. He had captured Baltimore one night, while the war department was making a plan of attack, which it was ex- pected he would join in carrying out the next week. He had solved the most difficult question of what was to be done with the negroes who continually came into our lines, under the constitutional provision requiring the return of fugitives owing service or labor, by calling them "contraband of war." He had hung the only rebel that ever was hung in America (except old John Brown and his party), and had made the women stop making faces at the "boys in blue," and had just se- cured a peaceful election in New York city. Next to Grant, whose name had been applied to the adjoining township, he was the hero of the day, so Wm. M. Tennery thought, and so his loyal neighbors thought when they gave his name to their home.
Old Butler, as it was often familiarly called by the inhabitants, occupied all of the Northwest Corner of the county, which is in township 23 north, range 13 west of the 2d principal meridan, all of the east half of town 23. range 14, two tiers of sections off of the north end of township 22 north, range 13 and six sections in the northeast corner of town 22, range 14, making in all 72 sections or equal to two full congressional townships.
The land was originally a vast prairie and when first looked upon with the longing eye of the early settler, the vast expanse of the prairie was not broken by a solitary tree. It is different from any of the other townships in the county in this, and in the fact that there was no considerable stream in the township. While the land in this township measured up in quality with some of the best in the
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HISTORY OF VERMILION COUNTY
county and far surpassed much that was early taken by the early settlers, yet it did not come into cultivation until long after the less productive lands in the county were occupied, and as late as 1872 or even '75 broad strips of this rich prairie land had not been vexed with the plough. This township is traversed from east to west, almost directly through the center by a high ridge; probably this ridge is the highest point in Vermilion County, and the township is drained with a gentle slope botlı to the north and to the south with little streams and rivu- les which empty in the main into what was known as Blue Grass creek and later into Middle Fork of the Vermilion river. While from the northern slope the streams and rivulets were ultimately gathered into bodies of water.
It can but seem wonderful and must ever remain in a great measure a mystery how the land of such eligible portions of the county were left uninhabited until long after the western half of the state and a greater portion of Missouri, and Iowa and parts of Kansas and Nebraska were largely filling up with settlers, and the wonder is that people who had settled along the Middle Fork not twenty miles away had shaken the dust from their feet of old Vermilion County so to speak, and moved on to the less inviting territory in the west when they could have found within one-half day's ride of their homes, and this long after it had been demon- strated that people could live in the open prairie with less labor and just as much comfort in health and surer returns for their labors than on timber farms. It can not be pleaded in this case that these prairies were unknown. True this town- ship was not traversed like some of the other townships by great public roads, great thoroughfares, so to speak, but the old Danville and Ottowa road crossed the southwest corner. The road from Attica to Bloomington, along which hun- dreds of people passed each year visiting their old homes in Ohio and Indiana, crossed the southern part of this grand prairie ; so the people living to the east and south had fair knowledge of the fertilities and the beauty of the territory occu- pied by the township. It would doubtless be well to leave the explanation of the mystery to an adage which the old scholars had, which being literally translated runs, "In matters of taste there is no use in disputing." Just so; there is no law against a man going through the woods and picking up a crooked stick beyond.
From the original entry book of the records of Vermilion County it would ap- pear that the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section three, town- ship 22 north, range 14 west of the 2d P. M. was the first tract of land entered in the township. The records show that it was entered by Samuel Swinford, Dec. 25th, 1844, and the northwest 1/4 of the northwest 1/4 of said section was entered in '47. There were probably more entries of the land made in the township in '53, '54 and '55 than any other years. The south part of the township was occu- pied earlier than the balance. From the best information obtained, it would ap- pear that Jesse S. Piles was the first settler in the territory, entering his land in 1854 and settling on the same, being in section 11-22-14. In the same year J. H. Swartz with several neighbors came from Ohio to Danville, and applying at the land office of Parker Dressor entered several tracts of land in sections 30, 19, 29 and in the immediate vicinity forming a settlement that was known in the early days as the Swartz settlement. In 1854 the Armentrouts entered land in 10 and I-22-13, and in '55 Hiram Armentrout and Ambrose Armentrout and Chas. T. Bratton, Jerry Murphy settled in the southern part of the township along what
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HISTORY OF VERMILION COUNTY
was known as the Attica and Bloomington road. It is difficult to do justice to the earlier settlers naming them in their order of settlement, as they came in at this time in '54 to '57 in rapid succession, C. T. Bales, Ephriam Blackford, David Lig- gett, Stephen Blackford, Amos Hoff, Daniel Stamp, J. W. Shannon, John Dopps, all began the development of their farms about this time. It was at this time that the fame of the great wheat producing qualities of the state had gone abroad. Cases were numerous where a single crop of wheat had paid the cost of the land, tilling, fencing, harvesting, marketing the crop, leaving a balance to the credit side of the account. This crop, no doubt, was exceptional, but that such things did happen there is no dispute, and this fame went abroad to Indiana, Ohio and other eastern states and many came here in '55 and thereabouts expecting to get rich on wheat raising alone. Men at that time were not so vastly different from men of today, and in the heighth of their excitement over the prospect of large returns from the successful crops, ran into debt for additional land intending to pay for it out of the next wheat crop sown on last year's stubble and harrowed in with- out even ploughing the ground, and as a result, of course, the subsequent succes- sive failures of the crops ruined many farmers, crippled others and sent some to the asylum or back east to see their wife's relations, all convinced that this was not in the wheat belt.
The hard times which followed the financial crash of 1873 was as severe on the new settlers of Butler as had been the previous one of 1837 on those who were then in the timber belt along the Middle Fork. Corn became the principal article of food. Money, there was none. The entire currency of the west was based upon the faith which the people had in bankers, many of which were either foreign to the state, or mere myths. Michigan "red-dog." Georgia "wild-cat," Missouri "stump-tail." were the nicknames which were applied to the various kinds of bank-bills, which were taken at par one day, and refused at a heavy discount the next. Never was a people so swindled with imaginary money. Bank-note de- tectors were consulted by every business man whenever he received money, to try to discover whether it was safe to take. The men of the present generation who complain of "hard-times" may have suffered, but they know next to nothing of the suffering which their fathers passed through then. Taxes were all payable in specie, and light as they were then, it was more difficult to obtain the hard money with which to pay them then than now, notwithstanding they are ten times as great.
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