USA > Illinois > Adams County > Quincy > History of the city of Quincy, Illinois > Part 11
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lle is a proper subject for mention for the upon a location about two and one-half miles east. A vote of the people being taken the lat- ter location of the commissioners was rejected by a very small majority. because of its not be- ing sufficiently central : so that a permanent site for the seat of justice has yet to be selected, and bnt little doubt remains that Adamsburg will be the place. Its commanding location," ete .. etc.
So ran the notice. The intended town above named was on the southwest quarter of section 10. 1 south. 7 west. which is now in Gilmer township, and has been for many years a most excellent farm. It was one of the thousand like speculative towns which dotted the state all over and had no existence beyond that of a paper and a plat and stakes driven in the ground. There existed at this time the maddest of manias among farmers and speculators who happened to own a handsomely situated quar- ter section of land, to survey and lay ont the same. stake it out into streets, blocks and lots, give the place some pretentious name, advertise it for sale, and then lie bark on the lazy dig- nity of having become a "town founder." and it usually happened that within the two or three sneeeeding years the founded town and the "town founder" were alike found to be foundered. Special mention is here made of this town for the local reasons above given. and as it so well illustrates the town speculative craze of the day. and also because some notable names were affiliated with the county seat proj- ect. Stephen A. Donglas. James Berdan, Den- nis Rockwell. leading lawyers and business men of Jacksonville; S. S. Brooks, a well known printer and managing politician of this state. afterward recorder of Adams county. and J. TI. Petit. editor at one time of the Quincy
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY.
Argus (now Herald ) and some others nearly as well known, were the incubators of this scheme -proprietors of the property which they sup- posed might eventually become, through this geographieal idea, the seat of justice of Adams county. The project ended almost as soon as it commenced, and the town of Adamsburg is among the "things that were" not.
The county commissioners in September in- vited proposals for the construction of a new courthouse, to be built "of brick of the best quality and in the neatest manner, the carpen- ters and joiners work to be of the best materials and finished in the most fashionable style." This was the well remembered building, com- pleted in 1838, and destroyed by fire in 1875. Three months after this, its predecessor, the superannuated old log courthouse which had stood since 1825, went up in Hames. As much justice was done to the publie wish when it went up as had ever emanated from within its log walls.
Two notable departures from life occurred late in this year, the death of the first two per- manent settlers of the county, Daniel Lisle and Justus Perigo, who had resided here since about 1819 or '20. They were both of the rough stamp of character eommon in those days, but good men in their way. Lisle was one of the early county commissioners and his name ap- pears on the earliest of the quaint court records in connection with a controversy with John Wood. Some of his family still live in the southeastern part of the county.
Heretofore there had been no other public burial ground than the south half of the block on which the courthouse stands, now known as Jefferson square, which had been reserved for cemetery nses when the town was platted in 1825. A meeting of eitizens was called on June 26th, to initiate measures for the establish- ment of another cemetery, which resulted two years later, in 1837, in the purchase by the town from E. B. Kimball, of eight and 56-100 acres at the southeast corner of Maine and Twenty-fourth streets, now Madison park. The price paid was $642. There had probably been three hundred or more burials in the first named cemetery up to the time of its discontinuance. Some of the bodies buried were those of strang- ers, nameless and unknown : other graves con- tained the bodies of those who, through neglect of friends to mark them, could not be identified. Most of them were transferred to the other cemetery, and many of these again, at a later period were buried in Woodland cemetery. Yet there still lie and will forever lie, many undis- tingnished and unclaimed bones, rotten and for- gotten. as was noted, when a few years since.
the grading of the ground for the new court- house exhumed much of this old sepulchral soil.
There rests, with other honored dust, the ashes of A. F. Hubbard, lieutenant-governor of Illinois From 1822 to 1826. a queer character. whose claim to fame lies more on what he was not. than what he was, and who by this accident of an undiscovered grave obtains a more widely published notoriety than anything his merits or public service could have secured.
of its navigable streams, the Mississippi, Ohio, reason that he was the first Quincy man who filled, or rather in his case it may be better said, occupied, a prominent state position.
llis residence here was brief and his public career marked only by his absurd and futile at- tempts to supplant Gov. Coles during the lat- ter's temporary absence from the state. He songht the governorship in 1826 but failed. The following slice from one of his speeches illus- trates his capacity and character :
"Fellow citizens, I'm a candidate for gov- ernor : I don't pretend to be a man of extraor- dinary talents, nor claim to be equal to Julius Caesar or Napoleon Bonaparte, and I ain't as great a man as my opponent. Gov. Edwards. Yet I think I can govern you pretty well. I don't think it will require a very extra smart man to govern you ; for to tell the truth fellow citizens. I don't think you'll be hard to govern, no how."
He was well described by Gov. Coles as a "historie oddity." A well enough meaning man, of shallow bearings, but inordinate aspir- ations, type of a class which we to-day see still survives. Men, whom the shrewd and sarcastic Judge Purple used to speak of as "fellows who forced themselves on the publie, claiming that they have a mission to fill, which they most always fool-fill."
The cost of living at this period was in some respects light and again in others heavy. Home products were easily and cheaply obtained at low prices; imported stuffs were exceptionally dear. The rapidly rising population. the ac- celerating business and the growing plentitude of money caused these somewhat contrary con- ditions. Labor prices and the business situa- tion is pictured in the following from the Register in November of this year:
"Business is brisk, boats being crowded to excess with freight and passengers ; great com- plaints are made for the want of mechanics to construet buildings to shelter the emigrants and their goods. At present carpenters are getting from $1.50 to $2.00 per day and found. Masons $2.00, and other meehanies in proportion. Com- mon laborers are getting $1.00 and $1.25. Hands
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY.
on a farm get $15.00 to $15.00 per month : 750 per cord paid for cutting wood. It is found very difficult indeed to obtain help at these prices. The arrival of a number of industrious hands would be hailed with joy by a large mun- ber of our citizens."
Values in these days cannot be easily or ac- curately stated. An imperfect price current for the year shows the following averages: Hans, SClor: beef. 4c : best butter, loc: coffee, 20c; brown sugar. 12c; loaf sugar, 200: whisky. 30(250g per gallon : cheese. ]Dc: coal, 20€ per Inshel: flour varying much but averaging through the year about $4 per barrel : beeswax which had been a cash staple, loc: of grass seed ( which appears to have been very scarce ), dover $8. timothy $3. blue grass, $2: hides 9c. green hides 4'20 ; out nails 10c ; wrought nails 20c: salt $1.00@$1.50; wheat sold for about 50c : potatoes ranging from to $1- - showing then as now the uncertainty of this climate for the growing of the potato, as significantly told by the southern darkey, "dars no medoerity 'bout de tater. his head is down in the ground, he's invariably good or inebitably bad; you can't bet on the tater."
About this time importations of staples, such as flour and bacon, ceased ; the home produc- tions being sufficient. There had been from four to five thousand dollars' worth of these and such articles brought in annually since 1831. but during the last half of 1834 and the first six months of 1835 about $40,000 worth of these staples were home-produced mich more than meeting the local demand.
From this time Quines lived mostly on the products of local industries. During these past two half years there had been about 25,000 bushels of wheat ground. 3,500 hogs killed and packed. at an average of $3.75, also, for the first time. 40 head of cattle slaughtered. at $3 per cwt .: 900 bbls. of beef and pork put up. about 180,000 pounds of bacon. 1,300 kegs of lard and 2,000 pounds of tallow. Pork sold at about $11 per barrel.
The above gives, as near as it is possible to obtain it. the current business transacted at this period. The season was favorable for traffic and travel. Navigation opened as early as January 23rd and closed November 25th. holding good throughout the rest of the year.
With this period awoke that wild railroad mania which. shaping itself into the "internal improvement system" and running to a most extreme excess. fastened upon the state an enormous debt, burdening its progress for many years, until now after nearly half a century of struggle, the ineumbrance is happily wiped out
forever. There was a valid exense for this seemingly reckless sentiment and action.
Our great unopened state had thus far only been reached by the water courses. The banks Ilinois. Wabash. and even the Kaskaskia (or Okaw. the old Indian name, were fringed with settlements, but the back country was still a grass wilderness, and the instinet of enter- prise craved to reach and reap the richness of this untamed prairie soil. Only by the divining touch of the railroad wand conht this un- bounded fertility be aroused and developed. A rapid ardor for improvement spread over the state. It pulsated here. With the knowledge that the legislature would adopt a comprehen- sive project of railroad building --- called "inter- nal improvement," the first organized move- ment of Quiney was made on December 11th of this year, when after some weeks of previous notice. the first railroad meeting was held at the Land Office hotel, which was largely at- tended and very earnest. It met in connection with similar movements at Clayton. Beards- town. Jacksonville and eastward through the state, and also still farther east on the present Wabash parallel in Indiana. J. T. Holmes was chairman, and C. M. Woods secretary. Most of the representative men of the place were present and acting. Judge Young was the chief adviser. The action of the meeting was that.
WHEREAS, The subject of internal improve- ment by means of canals and railroads has justly excited much publie attention through- ont the state. etc.
Resolved. That the legislature be respectfully requested to incorporate a company to con- struet a railroad from Quincy by way of Clay- ton and Rushville to Beardstown; or from Quincy by way of Clayton and At. Sterling to Meredosia on the linois river, ofe.
This was the initial movement from which came in legislative action afterward the North- ern Cross railroad. ont of which the Wabash and C .. B. & Q. have grown.
This road was built. (we can hardly say com- pleted) and operated from Springfield to the Illinois, on the present line of the Wabash. It is the oldest railroad in the state and the only one that under the internal improvement system had even a partial finish; and on its charter the two roads above named have been based and extended.
Patriotism was vigorous in these primitive days. On the 4th of July. Browning made the speech and Snow read the declaration at "the church." there was but one church then, piety being as much concentrated as it is now scat- tered. and the exercises of the day ended with a banquet at the Land Office hotel. This hotel.
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY.
where the railroad meeting above alluded to was held, was a notable place in its day-a long, white. two-story frame structure on the north side of Hampshire, a short distance west of Fifth. There were two other taverns, and they were duplicates of this one and the story might be applied to all. It is told that one of the travelers in the semi-weekly stage coach just leaving for Springfield (evidently a stranger). asked a fellow passenger, "why do they call this the Land Office hotel!" "Because," was the reply, "this is the town where all the land offices are located, and land is entered and sold. All this splendid soil that you see around us is for sale there." "Aye aye," said the other. in a tone that a traveler uses who has just had a bad breakfast. "I understand : it is well named. the land there is two inches above board (a sailor's expression) all over the floor, and you ean sample the soil in any of the rooms."
The cost of learning may be estimated from the advertisement of a "select school for young ladies." by a teacher of more than ordinary qualification. The terms, per quarter, were: Reading, writing. arithmetic and geography, $2.00; higher English branches, $2,50 ; drawing. painting. etc., $4.00. Probably the pupils got their money's worth full as well as they do now.
In February of this year was chartered the State Bank of Illinois, with some singular pro- visions. The capital stock was to be $1,500.000 of which $1.400,000 must be subscribed by in- dividuals, and $100,000 to be taken by the state whenever the legislature chose to do so. The stock shares were $100 each. It was provided that the main bank should be at Springfield, with a branch at Vandalia, and that six other branches might be located at discretion. A sub- scription of $250,000 was demanded as a basis for the location of each branch bank. There was subscribed on the 10th of April from Quincy and vicinity $120,100. It was not, how- ever. until the following year that the branch was located here.
This was a somewhat marked year for settle- ment. The earlier "old settlers" prior to 1830 were but few, and of these now at this date. (1883) all but two have passed away. Immigra- tion subsequent to that period until 1834, was not great : much of it was transitory. and three Stleressive years of blighting sickliness had told heavily against the population. With 1834. however, and the few following years, the tide of settlement rapidly swelled. During the year 1834, there had come to stay. the Burns, Brown and Cleveland families. George and Ed. Bond, Edward Wells, J. D. Morgan, H. Dills, Adam Schmidt. Kaltz. Ilerleman, John Schell. Delebar. F. C. Moore, N. Pease (who had visited the town before). the MeDades and a few other
of well known names. At the same time came to the county, families yet here and more or less known to the city, the Sykes and Robinsons. of Beverly: A. H. D. Butz, of Liberty; Sear- borough and the Bernards, of Payson: the Turners, of Ellington, and Ursa: the late Obediah Waddell, of Melrose, who had seen the plare twenty years before and might properly be called its first visitor. He passed over the spot where Quiney now is with the Howard ex- pedition after the war of 1812. when there then stood only the remains of a few scattered wigwams, but no evidences of a permanent set- tlement.
His story, with other evidence, dissipates the idea that this was the site of an important old Indian town. There was probably but one large Indian village in the county, in the northern part near Bear Creek, evidenees of which long existed. Another also, long abandoned. was situated on the edge of Pike county, on the Sny Ecarte (or lost wandering channel. now known as the Sny Carte Slough or Sny), but all this section south of the Des Moines rapids and above the mouth of the Illinois was de- batable ground between the Sacs and Foxes. the Pottowatamies, the lowas of the north, and their hereditary foes, the Piasaws, Kaskaskias, the Illini, the Shawnees and other hostile tribes of the south and east.
With the year of 1835, of which we are writ- ing. there was a decided increase in permanent population. Among the well known settlers of this date were Major J. H. Holton, Capt. Pit- man, Joel Rice, Lloyd Morton, J. P. Bert, the Churches, Mitchells, Stobies, Grimms, MeClin- toeks. A. Konantz. Phelps and many others, also Castle, for a time at Columbus, the Blacks and Wallaces, of Clayton : Richardsons and Cutters, of Beverly : Bliven, Prince and Pottle, of Pay- son : the Shinns, of Melrose: Bartholemew, of Mendon, or Fairfield, as it was then called, and many others whose names are identified with the city and county history.
The French named this slough Chenal ecarte or "narrow channel." This was first abbre- viated and called Sny Carte, and now is called the Sny.
CHAPTER XII.
1836.
NEW SETTLERS. NEW WELL ORDERED. EARL PIERCE. MILITIA. MARION CITY. RAILROAD SCHEMES. LOCATION OF MARKET HOUSE. THE ONLY NEWSPAPER.
Coming with this year was a large number of "old settlers." men, whose names are well known. and some of them are living at this date, (1886).
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY.
Among them there were F. W. Jansen. the Glasses. Diekhuts, Binkerts. Stewarts, Wm. Gerry. W. H. Gage, Amos Green, S. E. Seger. C. A. Warren. L. Kingman, H. V. Sullivan, J. T. Baker, George Miller, Wilson Lane. A. E. Drain, and many beside whose names cannot be given. The foreign immigration, mostly Ger- man, began largely with this year.
The political action of the town fathers was relatively of as much importance and created as fair a proportion of interest and criticism as do the intellectual wrestlings among the city fathers of to-day.
The board meetings were not frequent. At the April and again at the May session. the elerk was ordered to notify the road supervisors specifically of their duties, etc., which shows that supervisors could be as lazy in those days as now.
An ordinance was passed on May 21st, which reads somewhat strangely: "Be it ordained by the president and trustees of the town of Quiney, that all buildings now erected or that shall hereafter be erected on any of the public grounds in the limits of this corporation are hereby declared a publie nuisance." As the old courthouse had just been burned and an- other was in process of erection. this looked like a wrathful thrust at local architects. The "meaning meant well"-as C. A. Warren was wont to say-of this sort of a boomerang ordi- nance, and its true intent can be understood, yet it is not certain that a similar one might with truth and propriety be placed on most of the corporation records of the country.
At the .Inne election G. W. Chapman, Joel Rice, Wm. Skinner, E. L. Pearson and J. T. Ilolmes were elected as trustees. Holmes was made president and Pearson secretary. The report of Treasurer Williams for the past year gives an insight into the financial affairs of the town. besides exhibiting another unusual fea- ture. llis report showed as collected on taxes $249.82. and $5.00 paid in for show license. making $254.52. of receipts: that he had paid out $258, and hence was a creditor of the town to the amount of $3.18.
As Mr. Williams was again chosen treasurer by the board and accepted the office. it would appear that the right of the town to owe its treasurer was recognized and approved by both parties. It does not appear that the treasurer required the town to make to him a bond.
The prominent publie improvements at this time were the public wells, two of which were ordered to "be sunk on the public square, of snitable dimensions as soon as practicable." These proved to be well-springs of trouble and contest. running through several years, con-
traets thrown up, work abandoned, commit- tees of examination, ete., before they were com- pleted, making the same proportionate stir that a similar question does now. (An allusion to the agitation of the question of ownership by the city of the water works. Ed. )
It seems as if the average town and city father has always been more or less afflicted by "water on the brain." A strange remissness in regard to the public business of the town both in meeting and recording the same ap- pears. Although monthly meetings of the board were prescribed, the record of July 5th adjourns to "next Monday, July 11th." but no record again appears until the next February. Either the board had nothing to do or it was ashamed to tell of it.
At the August election (and it may be stated that until after 1848, all the general elections. except the presidential in November, were held on the first Monday in August). Earl Pierce was elected sheriff for the sixth and last time. as before his term expired he "between two days" suddenly took a trip, and some other things. that did not belong to him to Texas. Pierce had been sheriff since 1826. and was a specimen politician of the times.
A frank, generons, rollicking manner. and an active, adroit, aspiring nature. long made per- haps the most popular and intluential man of the county. but constant office holding spoiled him. He was brigadier general of the state militia (cornstalk) as it was then termed, of which. the 37th Adams County regiment was a part, officered by Col. P. W. Martin, Maj. Wm. G. Flood, Paymaster O. II. Browning, Adjutant Dr. S. W. Rogers, all of the Black Hawk war eminence. Thos. C. King was elected coroner, A. W. Shinn. Geo. Taylor and John B. Young wore county commissioners. No other change was made in the other county officers; Wren, Snow and Frazier remaining in office.
The legislative apportionment made at the session of 1835-6 entitled Adams county to one senator and two representatives. under which O. II. Browning was elected senator. and George Galbraith and J. H. Ralston representa- tives. Joseph Duncan was governor: Wm. L. May representative, and John M. Robinson and W. L. D. Ewing senators in congress, the latter being succeeded by Judge Richard M. Young. who was chosen at the session of 1836-7 for the full term. being the first member of either house of congress from Quincy.
Navigation opened March 18th and continued good until about December Ist. Time, especially in port, was not economized as now. The Wyoming left Quincy on the evening of May Ist for St. Louis and got back on the evening
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PAST AND PRESENT OF ADAMS COUNTY.
of the 4th. being ont seventy-two and a half hours, claimed to be the quickest trip yet made. Two regular packets, the Quiney and O'Connell, plied between St. Louis and the rapids. The river was very high early in the season. flooding the low lands and laying a fatal wet blanket over the prospects of many of the expectant cities which had been born from the speculative frenzy of the last two years and located in the bottom land.
Marion City, or Green's landing as it had been known, ten miles below Quincy, and an- nouneed as its future rival, where some $400 .- 000 were said to have been invested in lots in 1835. was almost completely covered by the irreverent Mississippi and its inflated preten- sions hopelessly dissolved.
Work was begun on the Quincy House and courthouse, both of which were finished in 1838. Several other brick, among them the Methodist church, and a large number of Frame buildings were erected. "averaging a new dwelling for a family, for every day between the first of April and the last of August." and it was estimated and recorded that over two hundred non-resi- dent mechanies and laborers found here steady employment. Prices ran higher than in the previous year. Flour sold at $7.25, wheat 87 cents. potatoes 40 to 50 cents. butter 20 cents, bacon 1212 cents. beef $7.00 per hundred.
Another hoped for county seat was laid off and advertised as the town of Lafayette, on the S. W. 14. 1 S. 7 W. at the real geographical rentre of the county. ( I think that this name should be Adamsburg. L. B.) The proprietor of the town was very liberal in his offers, pro- posing to give every other lot to the county. and also if it became the county seat to give half the balance of the land. and to the first merchant and first mechanic who should settle and build a house worth one hundred dollars any lot that he might choose. It was then and yet is a very good farm.
The railroad movements of the preceding year brought about at the session of 1835-6 one of the first railroad charters granted in the state which blended afterward with the inter- nal improvement system, and is now the Wabash. Being a pioneer enterprise of its kind and containing some singular features, the char- ter is worthy of a summarized statement of its provisions. It empowers JJohn Williams, James Bell. Wm. Carpenter and Wm. Craig. of Sangamon : John W. Murphy. Sammel Me- Roberts and G. W. Cassidy, of Vermilion : Matthew Stacy. James Tilton and J. J. Hardin. of Morgan, and J. T. Ilolmes, E. L. Pearson and J. W. McFaden. of Adams, "to construct a road from some point on the line between this state
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