History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 62

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164

USA > Illinois > Vermilion County > History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources > Part 62

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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GEORGETOWN TOWNSHIP.

lived early where H. Yoho lives. Moses Scott was one of the earliest settlers near Brooks' Point. He died there, and his family went to Iowa. The Dukes boys live there, John on the Brooks land.

John Kyger and Wm. Sheets came to the Little Vermilion in 1833, and in 1835 came to this neighborhood to live. Mr. Kyger bought land of James Sprawls, Mr. Kirkpatrick, David Wand and Mr. Lemley. Since that time he has been an honored resident of this township, ful- filling every duty to his family, to the church of which he is a member, and to society. As old age is coming on him, surrounded by beloved children and grandchildren, he feels the rewards of his early years of trial and privation. He lives now with his son-in-law, Levi Under- wood, just east of MeKendry church. Age is never looked forward to with the pleasantest feelings : but there is a pleasant side to it when, as in the case of Mr. Kyger, we see it made happy by the smiling faces of bright little ones, who love and revere him who possesses its silvery insignia.

Wm. Sheets, till his death, lived on the beautiful farm which he purchased of Mr. Ritter, or, rather, the one his labor and excellent taste has made beautiful, an honored and respected citizen, beloved and admired by every one who has known him. It gives us great pleasure, as it doubtless will our readers, to be able to present the portraits of these two worthy old pioneers. Near Mr. Kyger, on the farm just north, lives Andy Reynolds, now well advanced in years. He came to this county a poor orphan boy, more than fifty years ago, and lived for several years in Catlin, where his youthful days, which under brighter circumstances would have been spent in school, were given to earning enough to keep him clothed in winter. He has now one of the pleasantest homes in town, where he delights to dispense cheerful hospitality in his happy way. One of the earliest of his recollections is standing on the mound in Catlin a cold winter day to see a wolf hunt on the surrounding prairie. He had grubbed roots in the timber so long that he thought a prairie could only be of value as a place to have grand wolf hunts on.

George Nelson lived early just north of him near Brazelton's. He went to Indiana. Moses Darby was another early settler in here. Aaron Howard settled first in this county north of Danville ; but milk sickness drove him ont, and he bought a portion of the Brazelton land in section 15, on Big Branch, where he engaged in coal mining and farming. His son Henry still lives on the farm. Elwood Bates took up a farm on section 30 as early as 1830.

Georgetown has supplied the county with many of her officials, and has been extremely fortunate in giving to official life men not to be

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HISTORY OF VERMILION COUNTY.

ashamed of. Achilles Morgan was the first county commissioner, and helped very materially in putting the machinery of county organiza- tion into operation. Old citizens will not forget Hiram Hickman, who kept tavern here so long, and who had the repeated close contests with Captain Frazier for the office of sheriff, in which he was finally suc- cessful. Elam Henderson was also a county commissioner and an asso- ciate justice. George Dillon, after a faithful service in the army, in which he lost an arm by rebel bullets, was elected circuit clerk, an office he still fills to the entire satisfaction of the bar and the people. Rawley Martin, another grandson of Achilles Morgan, after having preached the gospel far and near. organizing churches, and filling the vacant pulpits of his denomination, was elected county treasurer, and performed the dnties in a very acceptable way to the citizens whose servant he was.

Rawley M. Martin was born in what was then Monongalia county, Virginia, on the 27th of February, 1816, came to Vermilion county with his parents in 1820, and settled near Georgetown, where with wonderful energy and perseverance, withont the help of any kind of schools, he acquired a very liberal education, and with the earnest soli- citude of an ambitious mother, he soon became familiar with all the books possible to obtain at that time, principal among which was the bible. With this he became so familiar that he could repeat it almost verbatim. He united with the Christian church, of which he was afterward ordained a minister, in which capacity he labored for more than twenty-five years. He organized many churches in the county, baptized more than three thousand persons, was a superior teacher of the scriptures, unyielding and uncompromising in his religions convic- tions. He became an able and earnest defender of the faith. During the rebellion his public denunciation of the right of secession, and bold defense of the Union and the emancipation proclamation of 1863, won for him the confidence of a patriotic people, who rewarded him with an election and reelection to the office of county treasurer. He died at Danville, Illinois, on the 28th of October, 1878, having lived in the county fifty-eight years.

Henry Martin was born in Maryland on the 25th of August, 1786, removed to what was then Monongalia county, Virginia, where he was married to Mary Morgan on the 11th of May, 1815. He served one year in the war of 1812, in Ohio. immigrated with his family to Ver- milion county, Illinois, in 1820, and made permanent settlement near Georgetown. He enlisted again under his father-in-law, Capt. Achilles Morgan, in 1826, and proceeded to Chicago to garrison Fort Dearborn against the Indians of the northwest. After a short campaign returned

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GEORGETOWN TOWNSHIP.

to his home near Georgetown, where he made a nice farm, reared a large family, and died on the 5th of September, 1851.

CHURCHES.

Besides being the early educational center of this county, George- town seems to have been a "light set upon a hill," in a religious point of view. Its early settlers were, with hardly an exception, men strongly imbued with deep religious convictions, and maintained religions insti- tutions, and built churches all over the town. There are not less than eight in this township.

The Methodists held their first meetings, so far as the writer can learn, in the old school-house on the public square of Georgetown : but from all accounts they were slimly attended. During the first ten years of the life of that place, few, if any, of that denomination re- sided there. Mr. William Taylor "gives his experience" in attending the meeting at which Father Anderson preached. He says that besides himself and wife, Mr. Dickason and daughter, Miss Kelley, Mr. Brack- all, and the colored woman, Harriet, who had come here from "Ole Virginy " as an attaché of the Dickason family, were the only persons present. The preaching was excellent, and would have been appreci- ated, but there were so few of that faith here that the meetings were necessarily very small. A few years after this the number increased, and the class here purchased the old store of Mr. Haworth, which stood just north of Frazier's store, took out the partitions, and used it for services. Harriet is still living, though the Dickason family with whom she made her home are all gone except Mrs. Ruby. Somewhat later the building used for a church stood at the southwest corner of the square, and was moved to the site of the present edifice.

During Rev. Mr. Muirhead's preaching, in 1863, the present edifice was built, he and Father Cowan uniting to secure a suitable house of worship. At this time this circuit contained Georgetown, Ridge Farm, Douglass school-house and Sugar Grove appointment. The church is 36×56, surmounted by a belfry and spire. A large Sabbath-school is maintained the year round. The McKendry Methodist Episcopal Church, which by someone's forethought took the name of the good bishop, was built upon land, on section 23, given for that purpose by I. Ritter. He entered the land in 1829, and gave the corner there to the Methodist denomination for a church and burial-ground, and sold the farm and went to Texas-which is about the only record of the man the writer has been able to reach. That he was a good man seems evident from his donation to the church ; but his selling such a splen- did farm and going to Texas tells brightly against the man's judgment.

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HISTORY OF VERMILION COUNTY.

When William Sheets, the late owner of the farm, came here in 1835, there was preaching in the school-house near Phelps', and in his house at times. Mr. Phelps was very old, had been a revolutionary soldier, and, while he longed to hear the Word, he could not always go the dis- tance of the school-house to hear it. Daniel Darby was the class- leader ; he was a wagon-maker by trade, and lived west of the church on the Salt Works road. William Stowers and family, living at the edge of the prairie; John Stowers and family, living on land now owned by Mr. Yoho; George Nelson, George 'Sires, who was the school-teacher here; Moses Darby, Mr. Phelps, David Kyger, living where Meeks now resides ; Henry Kirkpatrick, Mr. Underwood, living a mile east, and Henry Gardner, were among the members. None of these remain to make the history of this branch of Zion more clear. The first church building was erected about 1836 - possibly a year or two later. Mr. Fox and Mr. James were among the early preachers. Later, William Stowers was class-leader and local preacher. The church was burned about 1860 by a young man who wanted to vent his spite on some one, and hence took it into his head to destroy the house of the Lord. The present neat building is 36 x 46, erected in 1866 at a cost of $1,500. It now belongs to the Catlin circuit, the preacher attending here every alternate week. The Sabbath-school is in a prosperous condition under the superintendency of Miss Sarah Buchanan.

The Fairview M. E. Church stands just on the town-line, between Georgetown and Catlin township. It belongs to the Catlin circuit, and is supplied by the same preachers who preach at Catlin and Mc- Kendry.

PRESBYTERIANS.

The Mount Pisgah Church of the Cumberland Presbyterians, near the western line of the town, was the first one of that denomination organized in the county, and was the pioneer work of that faithful laborer in the Master's cause, Rev. James Ashmore, after making his home among us. In February, 1840, together with Rev. Mr. Hill, he held a protracted meeting in that neighborhood, and in March organ- ized the church, with forty-five members, under authority of the Foster Presbytery, at the house of Alexander McDonald, just over in Carroll township from where the church edifice stands. The first elders were Alex. MeDonald, Charles Canaday and Richard Swank. Until the fall of 1842 the meetings were held in the school-house, then in a build- ing on the farm of Mr. MeDonald, where the camp ground was. Father Ashmore continued as pastor of this church thirty-two years. The first church edifice was built in 1842, of logs ; the second in 1854.

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GEORGETOWN TOWNSHIP.

The present neat building was erected in 1876, on land given by Rich- ard Swank and Levi Long; is 36×50, and cost about $1,800. The pastors who, besides Mr. Ashmore, have served this church are Rev. W. O. Smith, Rev. G. W. Jordan, Rev. H. H. Ashmore and Rev. Thomas Whitlock. The elders since the first have been Levi Long, E. Snyder, Samuel Hinton, R. Swank, Jr., J. S. Long, J. G. Thompson and J. S. Jones.

The Georgetown Cumberland Presbyterian Church was organized by Rev. Allen Whitlock, on the 19th of January, 1860. The original members were (several being members of Mount Pisgah Church) A. McDonald and wife, Aaron McDonald, Wm. Hesler, Charles Canaday, George Richards, D. S. Tneker, Elizabeth Ashmore, Rebecca Drake, V. Harris and wife, Sarah IIesler, Sarah White, Catherine Patty, D. McDonald, Martha Hinton, Sarah Hill, Geo. Miley, J. P. Miley and wife and Mary Richards. The original elders were Win. Hesler, Aaron McDonald, Charles Canaday and A. McDonald. The pastors and stated supplies have been : Rev. Allen Whitlock, five years; Rev. II. H. Ashmore, one and one-half years: Rev. G. W. Jordan, two years ; Rev. James Whitlock, one year ; Rev. R. C. Hill, six months; Rev. C. P. Cooley, two and one-half years, and Rev. G. B. Miley at present.

The church edifice was erected in 1860 ; is 36×50, and cost $1,439. One member of this church has entered the ministry. Presbytery has met here three times, and synod once. The church now numbers sixty-one. The present session consists of J. A. Dubre, Thomas Cooper and Zackeus Cook. A flourishing Sabbath-school is maintained.

The Westville Cumberland Presbyterian Church was organized on the 17th of June, 1871, by the veteran minister, Rev. W. O. Smith, with the following membership, most of whom had been members of Mount Pisgah : D. G. Lockett and wife, R. J. Black, John Cage and wife, Rachel Dukes, Sarah A. Graves, Susan J. Baldwin, Ann Sconce, Mary Lacey, Tabitha Cook, S. W. Black and wife, Sarah E. Walls, Elijah Timmons and wife. D. G. Lockett, R. J. Black and John Cage were elected elders. The society worshiped at Brooks' Point school- house until February, 1877. The present church edifice, a neat and substantial building 34×48, with belfry and bell, was erected in 1876, and dedicated on the 19th of February, 1877, Rev. J. H. Hendrick preaching the dedicatory sermon. The cost of the building was $1,600. Rev. W. O. Smith continned to act as pastor for the church only one year. He was an old man, and full of faith and good works. Finding his strength failing, he resigned to go to Kentucky, the home of his childhood, to die. Ile had well filled up the measure of his time, and left among the people with whom and for whom he had so long labored

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HISTORY OF VERMILION COUNTY.

a kind remembrance of the faithful pastor and christian teacher. His pastorate was followed by that of Rev. James Ashmore and Rev. W. R. Hendrick. The present membership is 67. Present session, J. W. Lockett, Hiram Baldwin and A. M. Bushong. The Sabbath-school has been under the superintendeney of W. D. Spencer, A. M. Bushong and J. W. Lockett, successively. It has an average attendance of fifty, with seven teachers.

The Christian Church, known as Brooks' Point Church, was organ- ized in April, 1870, by Elder Martin. James B. Stevens and James O'Neal were elected elders, and T. W. Blakeney and David Wilson, deacons. The original membership was seventy-seven, which with those who have since been enrolled makes two hundred and forty-seven. The church edifice, 32 x 44, was built in 1876, and dedicated in Sep- tember of that year. It cost $1,200. Elder R. Martin preached seven years, and Elder J. C. Myers two years following. The following have preached occasionally : Elders Johu Sconce, of Moultrie connty ; McBrown, of East Lebanon ; Stipp, Cosat, John Martin and Williams, of Edgar county ; Gregg, Colton, Stevens and Morris. The church is in good working order, with preaching once a month and prayer-meet- ing each week. A large Lord's-day school is maintained by Deacon Blakeney on the Sherwood plan, numbering from seventy-five to two hundred in attendance. The poor are looked after, and contributions for preaching are kept up regularly.

The Friends have a meeting at Georgetown. Their regnlar days of meeting are First day (Sunday) and Fourth day (Wednesday). Their neat meeting-house is really a church, for in no respect is it different in appearance from the better class of church edifices in villages of this size. It was built in 1874, Huffman & Reid being the builders. It is brick, 36×60, not over plain in its appearance. The doors and win- dows are neatly coped with ornamental stone and brickwork, and the building is surmounted by a neat belfry. A bell was purchased, but as no bell had ever been hung in a Quaker meeting house in America, the belfry had not been sufficiently stayed to be considered safe, and a tower was built near by to hold it, so that now the progressive Friends of Georgetown are summoned to their First-day and Fourth-day meet- ings by the gay ringing of a bell. It is said to be (though the writer has not been able to verify it) the first case of the kind on record. A substantial iron fence surrounds the lot upon which the church is built, and shade trees and evergreens are growing in the inclosure. Inside, the building presents anything but a "Quakerish " appearance. It is ceiled around with vari-colored woods, and the seats are set off with black-walnut, the aisles covered with matting, and the desk-stand car-

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GEORGETOWN TOWNSHIP.

peted with Brussels carpet, over which, where the preacher stands, lies a rug of bright colors. Fancy lamps, suggestive of naïads, stand on either side of the desk, and the ceiling above, in mellow tints, adds beauty to this pleasant house of worship. The little Sabbath-school singing-book, " Pure Gold," is found in the pews. A little dressing-room off in the corner next the door is supplied with wash-bowl and pitcher, combs and brush, and a moderate-sized looking-glass, which has the faculty of depriving the handsomest face of beauty, hangs against the wall. The building cost $4,000. No salary is paid preachers. Mrs. Jenkins and W. F. Henderson are the preachers.

MILLS.

In the earliest times citizens here went to Indiana to get grinding done. The first effort made in this township to emancipate the people from paying toll to the Hoosiers was by Jacob Brazelton, who put up a horse-mill at his place over near the Vermilion. These horse-mills were rather cheap affairs, but were in good demand when no better ones were near.

William Milikan built a carding-mill about 1830. This was the first mill of the kind in the county, and was a decidedly primitive affair. It was run by a tread-power, and the time required to get up steam de- pended largely on his ability to find the oxen, which usually run in the bush. If they happened to wander over to the Vermilion river in quest of water, he might find them in two days, and then again, a week might ensne before he could card up a job; in the meantime, the old women were obliged to find other work than knitting.

William Jenkins built the water-mill on the Vermilion about 1840. This was a good mill and did good work; but high water carried it away. The bridge across the river at this point was nearly thirty-five feet high. While a boy was crossing it with a load of corn, it fell to the water. The bridge, on examination, was found to be ruined, and the wagon disabled; but the boy, to the surprise of all, received no other injury except that he was frightened out of a year's growth.

Henderson, Kyger & Morgan built the large steam mill at George- town in 1850. It is 40×50, four stories high, and has three run of stone. It has proved a great success, and is doing a " land office busi- ness." Mr. Hall had a mill on the Little Vermilion ; but the water decreased with advancing civilization, and the mill is among the things that were.

The Perrysville & Georgetown plank-road was among the institu- tions of the pre-railroad times. It was thirteen miles long, and run very nearly in a straight course, entting diagonally across sections. The

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HISTORY OF VERMILION COUNTY.

capital stock was $30,000, which proved a dead loss to stockholders, never having paid a dividend. Not only was it a loss as a speculation, but the business men here found that it injured their trade. People would go to Perrysville to trade, as it was a pleasant ride; and the Georgetown folks were glad to let it go down. It was only kept up about four years, and the only evidences left of it are the pieces of diagonal roads still kept up running in that direction.

It was the custom in those days to drive everything to market which had legs and was marketable; not only cattle and hogs, but turkeys were driven, and a drove of geese was once driven through Georgetown en route for Iowa, where it is to be hoped that they and their descendants did full duty in rendering the beds of the pioneers there " as soft as downy pillows are." A drover with a lot of turkeys got caught in a sleet-storm on the road to Chicago, and the birds refused to go any farther, and he was obliged to slanghter them.

The timber of Georgetown was composed principally of sycamore, cottonwood, maple, hackberry, beech, buckeye, black-walnut, butternut, elm, ash, hickory and oak. The oak is being largely used yet as build- ing and fence lumber, and the black-walnut is being rapidly cut off and shipped east, by parties who are largely engaged in the business, send- ing it by rail to all parts of the country.

A singular case of disease occurred to an industrious citizen abont 1864, which appears to have been almost or quite without a parallel, in this vicinity at least. Mr. Gebhart, who was one of the early settlers on the Little Vermilion, about two miles west of Georgetown, where he had raised a large family, was afflicted with a disease in his feet which was so like the descriptions given of leprosy that it was believed by many to have been that. The affliction came on gradually, about the year 1864. Inflammation set in, and the feet became so much affected that the flesh began to come off, leaving the bones exposed. He could get relief only by holding his feet in a tub of water, and he actually sat for weeks without removing them, the disintegration mean- while continually going on. Day and night he sat in great suffering, praying for death to relieve him. He conceived the idea that if the feet were amputated he would get relief, and begged to have it done for him. He finally took a knife, and with his own hands removed what he had no longer any use for. He did not get the relief he ex- pected from a removal of the putrid mass. He lived several weeks afterward, with the stubs of his limbs in the water, when death brought relief. Whether it was considered by physicians a case of leprosy was not known by the neighbors from whom these facts were received.

The roads throughout the township are remarkably narrow, espe-

GEORGETOWN TOWNSHIP. 511

cially the old ones. This is owing to the fact that under the general road act of 1827, which was the first act passed on the subject, the legal width of roads was fixed at not less than thirty feet and not more than fifty feet. The more recent law, fixing the width at sixty feet, did not alter the width of those already laid out, and those in this town- ship were nearly all established under the former act.

Corn, wheat and oats are the staple crops. Winter wheat is, and long has been, one of the most successful crops, especially on the tim- ber land. The crop of the present year has been one of the marvels of agriculture, and reminds one of the exaggerated stories which come baek to us from recently-settled portions of the west and California. Iu no single ease has the crop of wheat turned out less than twenty-five bushels per acre, and instances of nearly twice that amount are quite common. In many instances the crop in the field before threshing is worth more than the land upon which it grew was valued at in the spring. Such remarkable uniformity in abundance has probably never been equaled in this county,- perhaps never before in the state. It adds new wealth to the town, increases the value of agricultural labors, and gives new life to every industry. Threshing by steam power has come into pretty general vogue, and for the first time this year self-binding reaping machines are beginning to come into use. There are men still living here who have in their younger days reaped their entire crop with a sickle and threshed it with a flail, who have planted their corn by hand in furrows marked by a wooden mold-board plow, and covered it with a hoe, who plowed it all with a "bull-tongue " plow, and thought they were getting along very well.

Below is given, in tabular form, the names of those elected to the principal township offices sinee 1851, the time of the adoption of town- ship organization :

Date. Vote. Supervisor. Clerk.

Assessor. Collector.

1851 . Wm. P. Davis

. Samuel Huffman . . J. C. Dicken A. Frazier. 1852 John Sloan E. A. McKee J. C. Dicken J. C. Dicken.

1853 John Sloan Patrick Cowan .J. Gants J. Gants.

1854 John Sloan

Patrick Cowan . .J. L. Sconce J. L. Sconce.

1855 John Sloan

. Patrick Cowan J. L. Sconce J. L. Sconce.

1856 E. A. McKee

Patrick Cowan . .. J. L. Sconce J. L. Sconce.

1857 E. A. McKee. Patrick Cowan . .J. L. Sconce J. L. Sconce.

1858

Elam Henderson . . Joseph Thompson . J. L. Sconce

J. L. Sconce.

1859

Elam Henderson . . Joseph Thompson . John Dukes.

John Dukes.

1860

Elam Henderson . . Joseph Thompson . John Dukes.

John Dukes.

John Dukes. 1861. Elam Henderson . . Joseph Thompson . John Dukes. John Dukes. 1862. . . William Sheets . . . Joseph Thompson . John Dukes

1863 ... 240. .. Elam Henderson . . Joseph Thompson . John Dukes John Dukes.

1864. .. 162. .. Elam Henderson . . Joseph Thompson . John Dukes.

John Dukes.

1865 ... 154. .. Elam Henderson . . George Dillon . .... John Dukes. John Dukes.

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History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 62

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903 Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company Number of Pages: 1164

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164