History of Wayne and Clay counties, Illinois, Part 39

Author:
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : Globe Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 704

USA > Illinois > Clay County > History of Wayne and Clay counties, Illinois > Part 39
USA > Illinois > Wayne County > History of Wayne and Clay counties, Illinois > Part 39

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).

This is a pretty full list of those who may properly be termed old settlers here who are now, or were a few months ago, still among the living. They are the relies of the One- Leg Bedstead Age that came, flourished in its day of usefulness, and is gone, never to return. To many readers of to-day this will sound strange, and they will not comprehend that this is possible. The writer having made one and slept in it, is prepared to say that nearly all the first bedsteads were made with one post or leg. To start with, you must have an unplastered log house, then a post and two bed rails; each rail is fastened in an auger hole in the wall. the sides of the house wall forming the end and one side of the bed, and thus a one-legged bedstead is complete, and here lias been fonnd as refreshing rest and as sweet dreams as ever came to the royal inlaid bedstead of magnificent carving, and that was clothed in down and royal laces. Another part and accompaniment of the one-legged bedstead, was the fact that this bed was not rolled about over the house to sweep, but was sta- tionary, and one of the earliest purchases of the family was a few yards of bright calico -this was a great tax too, and only the wealthiest could afford it-to make a " val- ance" to run around the bed from wall to wall. In those days flooring was either hewn puncheons or plank that came from the " whip saw," and therefore the space under

the bed, being hid from sight was left with- out any floor at all. True the dogs some- times made free use of this from their kennels, which was all under the house, to the warm corner with the children, with furtive looks at the food as the family ate, and sometimes no doubt a sweet-pilfered morsel. But as said, the one-legged bedstead passed away, no one can tell exactly when or how, but not one has been in the county for years and years. It was in some way succeeded by the trundle-bed, the bed of nearly all our early ancestors here. It came; it seemed to strike all ereation hereabouts at once, and mightily did it and its trundle-bed trash flourish for a long period It was simply a bed under a regular bed. The result of the happy com- bination was such that about every bed in the county might be said to be a two-story one. If the house was large enough, or the housekeeper not too indifferent, this trundle- bed would be pulled out at night, if there was room to do this, and during the day shoved back under the big bed, and thus a happy purpose, where house-room was scarce and children plenty, was served.

The trundle-bed, too, has come and gone. It served its time and purpose, and its days are numbered, and now for years it is only a recollection among our older people, and, in a short time, the coming generation will read this and conclude that we are only romane- ing. But the writer can bear testimony that boys slept in the trundle bed; in very cold weather it seems it was an economy in clothing to leave it in its place all night, un- til they were nearly large enough to begin to east sheep's eyes at Maria Jane away aeross at the Point.

Then came the store bed with its splendid sea grass-rope cord, that would be tightened up at least every spring, this requiring a man to get up on the ropes and walk on them

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HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY.

by turns. It is proper to state that the first had holes bored in the rail, and it was some time afterward that the elegant, improvement of turned knob or button, fastened on top of the rail, was introduced. It took many years to supersede this real advance in the early bed- stead. There was a loud and musical creak about these old repe bedsteads, that must have been inherited from the "truck " wagon -at one time the only musical instrument in the county. Did you, reader, ever see or hear a truck wagon? The wheels were sawed out of a large log, and were a solid piece of wood with a hole in the center; soft soap was the only grease ever used on them, and the writer can testify, when a little dry of soap, their "hullabaloo!" could be heard for miles as they passed along the road.

Social life at first was confined to house raisings and weddings. That is, these suc- ceeded the days of "forting." The fun at these was boisterous and rough, but innocent and happy as the day was long. The young men when rigged out in a new tow-linen suit (commencing at about seventeen years old) were ready to go courting. They would most generally meet some of the brothers at a shooting match or at meeting, and go home with them and stay all night, sometimes three or four sleeping in the same bed. If there were many of the neighbors' girls there visiting at the same time, these were stowed away about as thickly. Somewhere in about these days, a great drink, called " metheglin," was here. This was made in every house- hold when they took their winter's honey; it was a part of the honey crop, and was simply the water of the waste honey made very sweet, and, by putting in a place with exactly the proper temperature, a slight fermentation took place, and it was then ready to drink. But the good old " metheglin " days and times are gone. The memory of the writer is that

they fled before the writing master, who came armed with the clarified goosequill, and, ye gods! what a flourish he was-what outstretched eagles, what twisted birds, and how he could write and encircle in flourishes the name of every one of his pupils, but the belle of the neighborhood he would always bring to his feet by the extra touch of dot- ting the letters of her sweet name with poke- berry juice-red and blue !- he always used blue ink-emblems of his constancy and his bleeding heart. He thus had assailed every well-to-do farmer's daughter in every neigh- borhood he had ever visited, but could mortal girl -- Martha Clementina Rhoda Emelina- withstand all of Cupid's assaults, think you ? Indeed no! The wedding was the affair of the day. She caught the writing master, and only one or two envious girls of doubt- ful age, who tossed their heads and rattled their corkscrew curls in contempt of " such a catch!" while all others rejoiced, and the little world for miles determined to attend the wedding.

At the house of the bride was commotion, and a gathering of the neighbor's girls for days before the great event. Pumpkin pies, apple pies, plum pies, bride's cake and sweet cake and cakes, and raisin cakes and chick- ens and float! ah! thou nectar, float! and more chicken and cake and float, and hams boiled by the cauldron and kettleful, and still more hams and cake and pie, and float! oh! float on forever! The morning of the great day came, and the watchmen from the house of the bride, cried out: "Behold the bridegroom cometh!" and then there was swiftly mounting of all about the premises who rushed out to meet the groom and his party, and put forth their fleetest horse and safest rider in the "race for the bottle." The party with the groom accepted the chal- lange, and sent forth their best horse and

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HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY.

rider; a straight stretch in the road, about half a mile usually. was selected, judges posted, the riders mounted and the race run; the winner then was handed the bottle and all its fluttering ribbons, and the cavalcade rode to the house in great glee.

But the "race for the bottle " has passed away, and there are grown people now here who have never heard of this innocent pas- time. We should qualify this as people now race for the bottle, and both sides pretty much always win and always lose -- the only winner now being the bottle, and does the modern bride watch the race with swelling heart as did the bride of our fathers? Alas, alas she cannot help but see the race now, but instead of a swelling it is a breaking heart, for well she knows the goal is death. The writing- master, perhaps, should have gone with his congeners, but he has lingered, and the writer can safely affirm that he saw a live one but recently on the train; he was really alive, had his flourishes with him, which looked more lively and natural than he did, and as he showed his masterwork there was an air of triumph playing about his features that caused us, in the language of Webster when he landed the fish, but was thinking of an address to the signers of the Declaration of Independence, to exclaim: "Venerable Sirs! You have come down to us from a former generation!"

Then there was the young man of the period, with a quilted saddle and strapped breeches and no suspenders. How grand, how regal he was in bears grease and " con- gress knifo!" He would be a dude now, but he was immense at the singing school then; the next greatest man in the world to the singing master himself-that magician of the tuning fork and master of the square notes; his open sesame to the world's oyster was the good old Missouri harmony, and then

" I'rom Greenland's icy mountains, from In- dias' coral strands," they all "rolled down their golden sands," and thus these innocent, good souls sang themselves one and all into love and into matrimony, and each and all set up their own music factories, that may not have been so ecstatic as the original sing- ing school, but it was more lasting and let ns hope really more gratifying.

Was that lovely and harmless creature, the dancing master, an invention or a neces- sity of that day and age? Indeed, no! For every boy and every girl was a dancing mas- ter unto himself and herself. They literally danced at the weddings, fiddle or no fiddle; and this meant to commence early in the af ternoon of the day of the wedding, and dance until breakfast next morning; then catch their horses and in pairs ride to the groom's father's residence, and as soon as a great " infair " dinner was over, resume the dance, and all night until a late breakfast again the next day, and "infair " day sometimes ex- tended over two or three days, and the whole thing was dancing, dancing with only cessa- tions for eating. Terpsichore! what danc- ing. Not your dreamy waltz nor gentle walk, but a genuine walk-talk-ginger blue break-neck race and jig, that filled their in- nocent hearts with gladness, but their legs with soreness and pains.

The clock peddler has come and gone, and with him has disappeared the good old- fashioned Yankee wooden clocks that he sold at such enormous figures. It was only the best farmers that could afford these luxuries, which, we believe, nevor were delivered for " less than $25. Can the children of that day ever forget the honest old clock faces, with their pictures of the Capitol at Washington, or William and Mary College. Often this was the only work of art about the house for the study of the young, until the colporteur came

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HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY.

along with those flaming, red dressed, red faced, wonderful wood-cut girls-" morning and evening "-the blonde and the brunette. Sweet, fat, putty faced, great, red daubed idiots in curls and low necked red dresses, we can now worship thee still in sweet memories -recall faintly how beautiful and grand you once were in our young imagination-how radiantly beautiful you were to a childish mind, and how eventually by closely scan- ning your features daily, you grew to look like Maria Jane and her freckles. Hideous daubs, but in your day and time who shall say you did not discharge a good and a holy work ?

The Hardshell Baptist preacher, with his nasal blasts that will linger in the memory of our fathers as long as one is left alive, and the Methodist, shouting and "jerking" his way toward heaven and literally snatching sin baldheaded; and the bully, with head about the size of a teacup and boots " the next size to the box," a brute even when sober, but filled with fighting whisky, he was worse than the meanest fighting dog, without a solitary one of his better instincts. It altogether must have made this a rather severe and practical age. With the bruising bully on one side, and the preacher with his literal, roasting, frying lake of fire and brimstone on the other, a man's life must have been much of a running of the gantlet from the start to the grave.

Early Schools .- They were pioneer schools, very primitive in character, but meeting the great want of the people quite as fully, if not much more so, than the so-called splen- did schools of to-day. They were pay schools; now we have free schools. The pay school cost about $1 per head a pupil per annum; the free schools cost from $4 to $20 per head -- a singular comment on how cheap a thing may be had if the people are left to

do their own bargaining, and how expensive a free thing is the moment Government steps in to pay the bills.

There was much simplicity, in fact no great pretensions, about the early schools. A small room in some empty cabin was pro- cured if possible, or failing in this, a room in some onthouse or part of some man's house was secured, and here a three months' school was taught. The other nine months of the year were given to work upon the farms and truck patches by the children. Here was the most rigid economy in all the families. It costs more to buy the average child now-a-days toys than did all the ex- pense of support of the pioneer children. We are not going to say that this extrava- gance now is better than the rigid and severe economy of that day. We are not called np- on to discuss the question. But we have no hesitation in expressing the belief that one of the greatest evils of our fathers was that inability of the people to indulge the children in more of the comforts of life, and to send them to travel and mix more with and see something of the world. A school teacher was required to be able to read and write and mend goose-quill pens, and in comparatively modern times it became necessary for him to understand the three R's-reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic to the rule of three. And by this time, the neighbors had gathered together and built a cabin schoolhouse, split out the benches for seats from logs, and had cut out a log on one side of the house for a window. Running all along in front of this window was a writing desk-a plank slightly inclined, and placed far enough above the seat for the big pupils to turn around in their seats by throw- ing their feet over, and there making their pot hooks and straight marks from line to line, and then rows of m's and n's, running

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HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY.

entirely across the page, and then the alphabet; and at once this was followed by the copies of " Many men of many minds," etc., that at this mere suggestion will come back to the recollection of every reader who was there to see for himself in the long ago. The whole school would study aloud, and what a wild confusion it was. The chief exercise was spelling, and Webster's old spelling book, costing ten cents, turned out just as good " spellers" as are to be found now. The readers used were cheap copies of the Bible, and any chance book the youngster could find about the house; for the very big scholars it was often the life of Gen. Francis Marion, The arithmetics were generally Diebold's or Pike's, and "Do my sum" was often and often the only break in the monotony of studying mathematics. Generally two chil- dren would use the same book, and sometimes,

by taking turns, three and four, and thus often a fair-sized school got along with no more books than you can now see one child lugging along the streets on its way to school.

As said, the school desks were split logs with pins in them, and of course no backs, and the trusteees were only watchful that the teacher earned his money by teaching full hours. School would commence at least by 7:30 in the winter mornings, then a short hour for dinner, and at it again until sundown. Between nine and ten hours pent up in this log den, and the little fellows whose legs were too short to sit on the rough benches and place their feet on the floor, had to sit it out, and swing their feet was all they could do to prevent a stoppage in the circulation of the blood, that otherwise would certainly. have been fatal.

CHAPTER IV.

ORGANIZATION OF THE COUNTY-ITS NAME-HENRY CLAY-THE FIRST COUNTY SEAT-FIRST OFFI- CERS-GRAND JURIES-INCIDENTS, ETC .- CLAY COUNTY-ITS NAME-DATE ORGANIZED- COMMISSIONERS-FIRST COUNTY COURT AND OFFICERS, AND LIST COMPLETE TO 1850- HUBBARDSVILLE, MAYSVILLE AND LOUISVILLE THE THREE COUNTY CAPITALS-THE COUNTY BUILDINGS-FULL ACCOUNT OF EARLY ROADS, BRIDGES AND JURIES-A CHAPTER IN WHICHI EVERY PARAGRAPHI IS FULL OF INTEREST, ETC., ETC.

C ILAY COUNTY was created by act of the . He was unquestionably the culmination of Legislature December 23, 1824. Simply to mention the name is to suggest to even the youngest school children where it came from and in whose honor it was given to the county. There has been but one Henry Clay. Others still bear the name, as well as the lineal blood, of the great commoner, yet they are mere shadows of the great orator. American oratory, and when he passed away its decadence commenced, and doubtless this will go on until it will literally cease to cut any figure in the world's affairs. Its decay the past fifty years has been so great and so rapid, that this conclusion is not only jus- tifiable but inevitable. For centuries, the great orators ruled the affairs of the world;

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but this age, and it is what so strongly marks it as the practical age, is a time when erudi- tion and thought are something that those who really control look to for guidance and counsel. The power of the orator is almost wholly physical-a personal magnetism that sways men irresistibly, and a power to say the simplest or most foolish thing, but to say it as to make men weep or fight at pleasure. It is wholly the voice, the look, the gesture that now melts into sadness, now maddens to crime; it is the appeal to passion only. But men may contend that the higher type of oratory may combine strong thoughts with great oratory. The sufficient answer to this is, it has never yet been done. There is not one single instance in all history-only one that approaches it, and that was Socrates, and we do not know that he was an orator at all. The evidences are that he did not think so, nor did any of his cotemporaries, and it is only the simple and sublime thoughts of his that have come to us creates this false impression. Then, it has been said that certain writers wrote eloquently. This is a mere misuse of terms. Writing may be sublime, grand and impassioned, and the reading thereof may move the world. It is the supremest talent of clothing strong thoughts in the most befitting dress, and the writer generally is in his cheerless room, surrounded by every discomfort, suffering even the pangs of hunger, working for a ernst, while the world sleeps.

But if the world ever possessed one who rose to the pinnacle of greatness through his oratory, purity of intentions and his pa- triotism, that man was Henry Clay, the great commoner of Kentucky, after whom this county was named.

The act forming the county, detines its limits as follows:

"Beginning at range line dividing town-

ships four and five, where the middle of Township No. 2, north of the base line, strikes said range line; thence east with the middle line of said township to Fox River; thence north with said river to the township line dividing Townships 5 and 6; thence west with said line to the range line dividing 4 and 5; thence south with said line to the place of beginning, shall constitute a separate county to be called Clay. James Bird, Israel Jennings and John H. Morris were appointed Commissioners to locate connty seat and required to meet at house of John McCawley, and to meet on or before the 1st day of April, 1824."

Section 2 required parties owning the land to give not less than twenty acres, etc.

Section 3 provided that until public build- ings were erected, the courts were to meet at John McCawley's house.

Section 4 required an election to be held at McCawleys on the third Monday, February, 1824, to elect a Sheriff, Coroner and three County Commissioners, who were to hold office until the next general election.

Clay County was authorized to vote with Wayne County in the election for the Gen- eral Assembly, and with Wayne and Law- rence Counties in the election of a Senator.

An examination of the State map of that time will show that this act changed the boundary lines and the territories of Fayette, Crawford, Lawrence and Wayne Connties. And that the act itself was crude, hasty or illy constituted for the future of the people we will proceed to show in the many changes that eventuated in the present county limits, and that are now supposed to be permanent.

On Tuesday, the 8th day of March, 1825, at the house of John McCawley, assembled the first County Commissioners' Court for the then new county of Clay. There were present, in the language of the County Clerk, " the

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HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY.

Worshipful" John H. Lacy and William Lewis, two of the three County Commis- sioners; the other Commissioner. Samuel G. Weatherspoon, did not enter his appearance until the next day. Willis C. Osborne had been appointed County Clerk by the Com- missioners, and the first paper ever put in this court's records is his commission as Clerk, signed by the above-named Lewis, Weatherspoon and Lacy. and bears date February 23, 1825. John H. Lacy, a Justice of the Peace, certities that on the 8th day of March, 1825, Osborne had taken the oath of office before him in due form of law.

The first appointment of this court in the organization of the county, in their official capacity as a court in actual session, was the appointment of Thomas Elliott and Levi Jordan, Overseers of the Poor for the county. The next act was to appoint James I. Pierce and Robert M. Gordon. Constables. The court appointed Mathias Meisenheimer the first Road Supervisor for the road " leading from John McCawley's bridge to the Marion County line." John McCawley was ap- pointed Supervisor of the Vincennes & St. Louis Road. This was the first day's work of the court.

The second day the court commenced busi- ness by ordering the following to be sum- moned as grand jurors for the April term, 1825, of the first Circuit Court in the new county: Benjamin Bishop, William Smith, Jacob Dean, James Embrey. Levi Shurwood, Peter Kinney, Thomas Nichols, Abraham Roberson (the spelling of this naine follows the Clerk), Isaac Brady, Enoch Wilcox, Jo- seph Brimhall, William Binion, Isaac Elliott, John Chapman. William Nash, Alexander Rogers, Thomas Elliott, Jacob Perkey, Will- iam Daniel, Levi Daniel and John Jeffries.

The traverse jury ordered was as follows: Levi Self, William Lewis, Mathias Meisen-

heimer, Samuel Weatherspoon, John H. Lacy, Basil Daniel, John Mathis, David Elliott, Daniel McCall, Robert M. Gordon, John McCawley, Tilman Wright, John Binion, Philip Devore, John Miller, Daniel May, John W. Miller, James I. Pierce, David Oiley, Willis W. Boon, Isaac Romine, Jacob Elliott, Isaac Franchier and Binion Fran- chier.

Then Jacob Dean, Benj. Bishop and Levi Jordan were appointed to examine the road " leading from McCawley's bridge to Van- dalia as lies between George Faris' and the Hickory Point."

Daniel May, William Lewis, John Mc- Cawley, James Nelson, Andrew Evans, Thomas Elliott, Mathias Meisenheimer, Isaac Elliott and Thomas Nichols were each granted a " tavern license" for the term of one year. This was a goodly array of landlords in the wilderness, and their integrity as good feeders for man and beast is well attested by the fact that all of them lived to a green old age. The license fee for a tavern was fixed at $2.50 " in specie or its equivalent in State paper," and $1 "in specie" to the County Clerk. The court evidently deemed it a duty to define just the kind of money that it would take for a dollar.

It was then ordered that each tavern-keeper be governed by the following rates:

For keeping horse one night. 37}

Lodging. 12}

Supper 25

"Brexfast" 25

Dinner

37}

Horse feed. 124

One quart whisky 25

One pint whisky. 18៛

One gill whisky. 6}

When the county was thus comfortably fixed for housekeeping, it seems to have occurred to the court to make some arrange- ments for a county's dwelling house and

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HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY.

home, and thereupon Daniel May proceeded to produce in open court his bond for twenty acres of land upon which the "permanent seat of justice for the county is located, by James Bird, Israel Jennings and John H. Morris, the Commissioners appointed by the Legislature of the State at their late session to locate the permanent seat of justice in and for the county of Clay." The securities on May's bond were Samuel G. Weatherspoon, George Goble, Thomas Elliott and William Lewis. The act of the Legislature required these Commissioners to make their selection and report their doings to the proper authori- ties. They met at McCawley's house as. directed, and made this report:

Agreeable to the act of the Legislature of Illinois, entitled an act forming a new county out of the connties of Wayne, Lawrence, Crawford and Fay- ette, the Commissioners appointed by said act to locate the permanent seat of justice for said county. to wit: James Bird, Israel Jennings and John H. Morris met at the house of John McCawley on the first Monday in February inst., and after being duly sworn, proceeded to view the most eligible situation for a county seat, taking into consideration the eon- venience of the present and future population of the county. On and after mature deliberation, the said Commissioners unanimously agreed to locate the permanent seat of justice on the land of Daniel May, in Section 19. Township 3, Range 8 east of the Third Principal Meridian, being the southwest quar- ter of the said section. And the said Commis- sioners did further agree by and with the advice and consent of the citizens of the said county to give the said permanent seat of justice by them so located the name of Ilubbardsville.

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History of Wayne and Clay counties, Illinois, Part 39

Author: Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago : Globe Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 704

Author:
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : Globe Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 704