History of the early settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois : "centennial record", Part 9

Author: Power, John Carroll, 1819-1894; Power, S. A. (Sarah A.), 1824-; Old Settlers' Society of Sangamon County (Ill.)
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Springfield, Ill. : E.A. Wilson & Co.
Number of Pages: 824

USA > Illinois > Sangamon County > History of the early settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois : "centennial record" > Part 9

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Other evidences of the suddenness and intensity of the cold are numerous. Rev. Josiah Porter, of Chatham-see his name-remembers that the cold wave reached Chatham about half past twelve o'clock, noon; that he consulted his watch at the time, and knows he is correct. His recollection of the suddenness and intensity of the cold corroborates the account given by Mr. Crowder. Although Mr. Porter was in Chat- ham at the time of the sudden change, and resides there now, he was then doing the work of an evangelist, which led to his traveling over a large portion of Illinois and Indiana. In the discharge of his duties he became acquainted with a remarkable cir- cumstance that occurred in what is now the west part of Douglas county, near the cor- ner of Piatt and Moultrie counties. Two brothers by the name of Deeds had gone out to cut a bee tree, and were overtaken by the cold and frozen to death. Their bodies were found ten days later, about three miles from home.

The extent of that cold wave may not be generally known. That it first touched the earth west or north-west of here is highly probable, from the fact that it reached here at half past twelve, noon, according to the time noted by Mr. Porter. He also learned that it was nearly sundown when the cold reached the point in Douglas county where the two brothers perished. I also learned from a gentlemen in this county that at the time, his father kept a hotel at Labanon, Ohio, and although his account would indicate that the cold wave had spent some of its force, yet when it arrived there it froze some wagons fast in the mud in an incredibly short time, while some travelers were discussing the terms for staying all night. It reached there at nine o'clock. Putting the statements as to time and place together, it would appear that the cold wave tray- eled something near three hundred miles in eight and a half hours, or about thirty-five miles an hour. These statements have been given to me altogether from memory, more than thirty-five years after the event, and no doubt vary greatly from what a scientific report at the time would have presented.

A great many instances have been related to me, in all parts of the county, of the suffering by men and animals. It has been told me time and again that chickens and geese, also hogs and cows, were frozen in the slush as they stood, and unless they were extricated by cutting the ice from about their feet, remained there to perish.

Andrew Heredith was a merchant miller and pork packer in Cincinnati, Ohio. Through misfortunes incident to business he failed. Among other misfortunes, he had a pork house burn there. Preston Breckenridge, of this county, happened to be in Cincinnati, and remembers being an eye witness to the burning. After his failure, Mr. Heredith was aided by friends to commence business in Sangamon county. He built a flouring mill about three miles west of Loami, near what is called Lick creek, and called the place Millville. He bought wheat and made flour; also bought and drove fat hogs to St. Louis. In the fall of 1836 he bought and drove two lots to St. Louis, and made some money each time. He used all the capital at his command, and all the credit his successes gave him, and collected a third drove of between 1,000 and 1.500 hogs, and was driving them to St. Louis. The country was so sparsely settled

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that he found it expedient to start with three or four wagons, loaded with corn to feed the hogs. When a load was fed out there were generally a sufficient number of hogs exhausted by traveling to load the wagon. Mr. Heredith had reached a point on the open prairie eight miles south of Scottville, Maconpin county, when the cold wave overtook him. Finding that men and animals were likely to perish, he called the men together, upset all except one of the wagons, in order to leave the corn and hogs together, righted up the wagons, and with all the men in them, drove to the nearest house, and before they could reach there all became more or less frozen, but none lost their lives.

The hogs, thus abandoned, piled on each other. Those on the inside smothered, and those on the outside froze. A pyramid of about 500 dead hogs was thus built. The others wandered about and were reduced to skeletons by their sufferings from the cold, the whole proving a total loss. Mr. Heredith was a man of good business qualifications, and of great energy. He was making superhuman efforts to retrieve his fortunes, but that blow crushed him; he never rose again, but sank down and in a short time died. In the biographical part, see his name.

JAMES HARVEY HILDRETH :- At the time Rev. Mr. Porter gave me his recollec- tions connected with the "sudden change," he told me that some years later he inet a man in De Witt county, by the name of Hildreth, who was crippled in his hands and feet. He said Mr. Hildreth informed him that it had been caused by his being caught away from shelter at the time of the " sudden change." Mr. Hildreth then gave him a detailed account of his sufferings and experience, which Mr. Porter gave to me from memory. This made such an impression on my mind that I was anxious to know more of the incident. In the course of my travels over the county, I was at the house of Mrs. Thomas J. Turley. See the Turley and Trotter names. How the subject came up I do not remember, but I learned from Mrs. Turley that Mr. Hildreth was her cousin. She gave me additional information, and referred me to another cousin- of herself and Mr. Hildreth-Mr. Moses Kenny, of Kenny, Logan county. I deferred writing to that gentleman until I was drawing my work to a close, and when I did so, was answered by Mr. John Kenny, of the same place, who informed me that his brother Moses was dead. Mr. John Kenny answered all my inquiries, and referred me to Mr. A. L. Barnett, of Clinton, De Witt county. He, also, kindly responded. All the parties consulted bear the very highest character for truthfulness. It is from this mass of information that I give the following account of the case. Although the par- ticular event I am about to relate did not occur in this county, it illustrates an atmos- pheric phenomena that affected this entire region of country, and was so remakable that the like of it is not on record, nor known by any person now living, and it is to be hoped that it may never be known again. It is to be regretted that there is no scien- tific knowledge on record of the event. The country was so new, and the settlers of a class generally of limited education, so much so that I have been unable to learn of a family in the county who owned a thermometer at the time. But now to the subject.

James H. Hildreth was born about 1812, in Bourbon county, Ky. He came to Illi- nois about 1833 or '4, and settled on Vermilion river, near Georgetown, Vermilion county, and engaged in cattle trading. Mr. Hildreth, then twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, was a very stout and rugged young man. He left home on the nineteenth

HISTORICAL PRELUDE.

of December, 1836, in company with another young man by the name of Frame, in- tending to go to Chicago, both on horseback. On the second day out, December 20th, they entered the border of a large prairie, and the next timber was many miles distant, on Hickory creek, a tributary of Iroquois river, and now in Iroquois county. It rained all the forenoon, and the earth was covered with water. They encountered a slough containing so much water they did not like to attempt passing through it. In order to head the slough they rode some miles in a northeast direction, and having crossed it, turned northwest to regain their course. That was about the middle of the afternoon. It suddenly ceased raining and the cold wave came in all its fury from the northwest, striking them square in the face. They were then out of sight of any human habitation, and their horses became absolutely unmanageable, and drifted with the wind, or across it, until dark closed in upon them. How long they were discussing what to do is not stated, but they finally agreed to kill each the others horse. They dismounted and Hildreth killed Frame's horse. They took out the entrails, and both crawled into the carcass as far as they could, and lay there, as near as Hildreth could judge, until about midnight. The animal heat from the carcass having become ex- hausted, they crawled out, intending that Frame should kill Hildreth's horse, and both crawl into it. Just then the one having the knife dropped it, and it being dark, they were unable to find it. Being thus foiled in their purpose, they both huddled about the living horse as best they could, until about four o'clock in the morning. Frame by that time was so benumbed with the cold that he became sleepy, and notwithstand- ing Hildreth used every exertion to keep him up, he sank down in a sleep from which he never awakened.

The feelings of Hildreth at this juncture can only be left to the imagination. He managed, by jumping about, to keep from freezing until daylight, when he got on his horse and started in search of shelter. In mounting he dropped his hat, and was afraid to get off, fearing he would never be able to mount again. Thus, bare headed, he wandered about for some time, until he reached the bank of a stream, supposed to be Vermilion river. Seeing a house on the opposite shore, he hallooed as best he could until he attracted the attention of the man, who, after learning what he wanted, said he could not assist him. A canoe was lying at the opposite shore, but he affected to be afraid of the running ice. Hildreth then offered him a large price if he would cut a tree and let it fall over the stream so that he coukl cross. The man still refused, and directed Hildreth to a grove which he said was a mile distant, where he would find a house. He went, but it was five miles, and the house proved to be a deserted cabin. He returned to the river opposite the house, called again for help, and was refused. He then dismounted, crawled to the bank, and found that the ice had closed and was suffi- ciently strong to bear him, and he crawled over. Arriving at the fence, the brutal owner of the place refused to help him, and he tumbled over it, and crawling in the house, laid down near the fire. Hildreth lay and begged for assistance, and when the man would have relented and done something, his wife restrained him. The frozen man lay there until four o'clock that afternoon, when some hog drovers came along and moved him to another house, where he was properly cared for. The name of the inhuman wretch was Benjamin Russ. After learning of his inhumanity, a move- ment was made to punish him, but he fled. Mr. Hildreth always expressed the belief that his offering to pay liberally for cutting a tree across the river, led them to think

SANGAMON COUNTY.

that he had a large amount of money, and that if, by their neglect, he perished, they could obtain it. Such a being was very rare among the early settlers of central Illinois, who were remarkable for their readiness to divide their comforts with all new comers, and especially those who were in affliction.

Mr. Hildreth met with a heavy loss, financially, by his failure to go to Chicago. He was conveyed back to the house of his brother in Vermilion county, where all the toes were taken from both feet, and the bones of all his fingers, except one joint of the thumb on his right hand, which enabled him to hold a pen or a drover's whip. Soon after recovering sufficiently to enable him to travel, he removed to De Witt county, where he continued trading in cattle. Ile was married, April 7, 1847, in De Witt county, to Adaline Hall. His left foot never healed entirely, and nearly twenty-two years after his misfortune, it became alarming, and he had the leg amputated below the knee. It soon healed, but his lungs, already diseased, caused his death about the middle of June, 1858, near Mt. Pulaski, Illinois.

He has three children now living. Henry resides near Chesnut, Logan county. John lives in Logan county, near Kenny, De Witt county. His daughter Sarah mar- ried William Weedman, and resides near Farmer City. Mrs. Adaline Hildreth mar- ried Harrison Meacham, and resides near Clinton, De Witt county, Illinois.

Notwithstanding his great calamity, James II. Hildreth was a useful man in the community where he lived. Most men would have given up in despair, and become a charge upon their friends; but he was active and energetic, and continued in the busi- ness of a farmer and stock dealer until he was physically unable to do more.

Mr. Preston Breckenridge expresses the opinion that the velocity of the cold wave, given in another part of this sketch, is too slow. He thinks it must have moved at least seventy miles an hour, judging from his present knowledge on the subject. He had just taken his dinner, and was sitting near a window, between one and two o'clock in the afternoon, in view of a pool of water, ten or twelve inches deep. He heard a terrific roaring sound. Suddenly the rain ceased, and it became quite dark. The first touch of the blast scooped all the water out of the pool. Some of it returned, but in a moment it was blown out again, and scattered in frost and ice, leaving the pool empty, and the bottom frozen dry. He says it had been raining slowly all the fore part of the day, and so warm that he thinks a thermometer would have stood as high as forty de- grees above zero, possibly higher, and that the first touch of the tempest would have hrought it down to zero in a second of time. Mr. Breckenridge is well acquainted with many incidents illustrating the unparalleled suddenness and severity of the cold. He relates a case of two young men who lost their lives near Paris, Edgar county, Illinois, after efforts to save themselves similar to those made by Hildreth and his friend. I might cite any number of incidents illustrating the intense suffering caused by the cold in Sangamon county, but the number of those who perished was comparatively small, for the reason that it was more thickly settled than the county north and east. There must have been about ten thousand inhabitants in the county at the time.

A REMARKABLE INCIDENT :- The following incident was related to me by Benj. F. Irwin, who received the statement from Rev. John M. Berry, a Cumberland Pres- byterian Minister, who resided a short distance northeast of Pleasant Plains. Families coming into the new settlements were many times put to great inconvenience to pro

HISTORICAL PRELUDE.

cure food, and especially breadstuff. Stealing was seldom resorted to, as there was a general desire to divide with new comers. A man who owned a mill, occasionally missed meal and flour, and concluded to lay in wait and see what would be the result. Soon after dark one evening, he placed himself under the bolting chest, and had not long to wait. A man entered the mill, and the first thing he did was to kneel down and pray fervently for pardon for what he was about to do. He laid his whole case before the Lord; told him of his willingness to work, his inability to obtain employ- ment by which he could earn bread, and asked the Lord to open the way for him, and as though he fully expected his prayer to be answered, he took only a sufficient quan- tity of flour to supply his immediate necessities, and was about to depart. The owner of the mill recognized the man as one for whom he had formed a feeling of great re- spect, and would have been willing to help if he had known that he was destitute. He called out from his place of concealment for the man to stop. A real thief would have run, but the man with the flour halted without hesitation, when he was told to fill his sack, and when that was gone to come and get more. They were friends before, but were mueh warmer friends after, to the end of their lives. The facts were kept quiet, and the names of the parties were never known except to a small number of persons; but the miller ever after asserted that he had more confidence in that man than any other he ever saw. The sequel proved that the miller must have been a man of sterling principle, for if he had been like ordinary mortals, the other would have been ruined.

PANTHERS :- John Harlan was among the earliest settlers. He heard a coon making a piteous noise, went out with his gun and found a panther trying to catch it. He shot that and two other panthers in succession, and that gave the name to Panther creek, or Painter creek, as it was generally spoken.

A boy by the name of Jordan, at the age of 14 years, shot a panther in the Lick creek timber, in what is now Loami township. When dead it was found to measure eleven feet from the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail.

A Mrs. Brown, wife of Henry Brown, who was an early settler on Lick creek, in what is now Chatham township, had been to one of her neighbors, and was returning, late in the afternoon, on foot, accompanied by two large dogs. The dogs ran to her, one on each side, which caused her to look, when she saw a huge panther on each side ·of the road. She walked quietly forward, the dogs keeping close to her side, and so passed the danger. She regarded her escape as almost miraculous, and never could speak of it without a shudder.

MILLS AND MILLING :- Before mills were built here the settlers had to go to Edwardsville for grinding; but sixty or seventy miles was too far to take a grist every day, and it was necessary that something should be more readily obtained. A piece of tin that can now be had anywhere for a few cents, was then an object of great interest. Every old tin vessel was saved, torn in pieces, cut to a suitable size, punched full of holes, and nailed to a board for a grater. While the corn was soft, meal could be grated in a very short time, sufficient to make bread for a whole family, by rubbing an ear of corn back and forth on the grater. That implement is always pronounced by the old settlers "gritter."

Mr. William Drennan remembers that the first mill in Sangamon county was built by Daniel Liles on the farm where Daniel G. Jones now resides, near Horse creek, and

SANGAMON COUNTY.

on the line between Ball and Cotton Hill townships. It was erected in the fall of 1819, and was made on the plan known as a band mill. That was a horizontal wheel, with arms fifteen feet or more in length, and of sufficient height for the horses to pass under the arms. Several holes would be bored near the outer end of these arms. One wooden pin was placed in each one of the arms. A hand of rawhide stretched around those pins and the trunnel head would communicate the power to the burrs, which were usually made of any loose stone picked up on the prairies. A mill of that kind would grind eight or ten bushels a day. Liles' mill never had any roof, and when it rained the track became very muddy. If his customers complained, he would assume an air of injured innocence and ask if they expected him to work in the rain. If they said no, but that he should do it when the weather was fair, his invariable reply was, that they did not need it then. The people came to this mill thirty or forty miles, and although it was kept running day and night, sometimes they would have to wait sev- eral days for a turn at the mill. One man told me that when he was a boy his parents started him to mill, supplied with an extra quantity of feed for his horses and some meat for himself, with the understanding that he was to parch corn as a substitute for bread. He had to wait so long for his turn that when it came he had nothing to grind, himself and horses having consumed all the corn, and he would have been compelled to lose his turn, but the miller kindly loaned him a grist, which he repaid the next time he went to mill.

The earliest mills were only intended for grinding corn, and at first no effort was made for bolting flour, but those who raised the first wheat would cut it with the old fashioned reap hooks, called sickles, thresh it on the ground with a flail, separate the chaff and wheat by a man taking a measure of wheat, standing on an elevated place, and pouring it out slowly, with a shaking motion, while two others stood below with a common bed sheet, folded double, and taking hold of each end and giving it a quick motion toward the failing wheat, would thus blow the chaff away, while the wheat, being heavier, would fall perpendicular. The wheat thus cleaned would be taken to the corn mill and ground, of course very imperfectly. The next point was to separate the bran from the flour. At first this was done by making a light frame, three or four feet long, and one and a half by two feet wide, and stretching a piece of the thinnest cloth that could be obtained, over it. Some of the wheat meal would be put on this cloth and the frame shaken from right to left, after the manner of a seive or meal sifter, and the finest part of the wheat meal would go through. That was made into bread, usually biscuit. That implement was called a search, usually pronounced sarch. Some of the earliest settlers will tell you that the sweetest morsel they ever tasted in their whole lives was the first piece of wheat bread thus made, after having been a whole year, and sometimes longer, living on the coarsest of corn bread.

HONESTY OF THE EARLY SETTLERS :- John Sims remembers that a few years after they came to the settlement their corn was all frost bitten, and he went to Madison county to obtain corn for seed and bread. He had to pay $1.00 per bushel for it, and wishing to haul all he could, he filled some sacks and laid them across the corn in the wagon bed. He stalled in the mud, in Macoupm county, and left his wagon there, several miles from any house, and where people traveling hundreds of miles had to pass it. When he went home for more teams, some unexpected obstacles presented themselves, and it was two weeks or more before he returned. When he did so, some

HISTORICAL PRELUDE.

of his corn was gone, but closer examination revealed the fact that money was tied in the saeks from which the corn was taken. Some was tied with horse hairs and some with strings, in small bunches, in all between eight and ten dollars; sufficient to fully compensate for the corn taken. He has hauled dry goods and groceries, in large and small packages, has stalled and left his wagon for days and weeks, and never knew anything to be stolen.

When the land office was opened, in 1823, in Springfield, the receiver was ordered to send the coin to Louisville, Ky. The route was so difficult to travel and so long, that he was permitted, after one effort, to send it to St. Louis for safe keeping. Mr. Sims had a good team, and was called on to do the hauling. On more than one occasion he has loaded his wagon with boxes of gold and silver, amounting to from thirty to fifty thousand dollars. He has gone without any guard, been two or three nights on the road, would feed his horses tied to the wagon, sleep on some straw thrown over the boxes, and was never molested, and never thought there was danger.

A SNAKE STORY :- Gen. James Adams was bitten by a rattlesnake in 1821, and wishing to obtain some rattlesnake oil, he advertised that he would pay fifty cents for the first one brought to him, and in order to make sure of getting one, he offered twenty-five cents for each additional one. A man by the name of Barnes found a den near the mouth of Spring creek, killed all he could, loaded them in a wagon, drove to Springfield, and left his wagon in an out-of-the-way place. He first took one snake and received fifty cents, then two, and received twenty-five cents each. He then took Gen. Adams to the wagon and showed him the whole load. Adams refused to pay for them. Barnes then called his attention to the advertisement, but he still refused. Barnes then called on two men, Reuben Burden and John White, who counted the load, and there were 122 snakes. He then demanded his money, $30.75. This brought the General to a compromise, and the matter was settled by his paying $5.00 extra. Joseph E. McCoy is my authority.

Albion Knotts says that when they come to the country, in IS19, his father soon learned that the next supply of shoes for his family would have to be manufactured by himself, although he had never made a shoe. This discovery was barely made when he found that he must produce the leather also, as there were no tanners in the country. He first cut down a large oak tree, peeled off the bark and laid it up to dry. He dug a trough in the log, as large as it would make, for a tan vat. He then gathered up all the hides he could obtain. The next question was how to remove the hair. It was known that it could not be done by regular tanners' process, both for want of the proper materials, and the knowledge in using them. Some person suggested that it might be done with water and ashes, but great caution would be necessary, lest the solution be made too strong. In that event it would ruin the hides. In his extreme caution he did not make it strong enough, and so removed but a little more than half the hair. In place of grinding the bark he beat it up on a stump with the poll of an axc. He then put the hides in the trough, covered them with the pulverized bark, put on weights to keep the mass down, and filled the trough with water, changing the bark several times during the summer. As winter approached he took the hides out, though not more than half tanned, and made them into shoes. He made them on what was called the stich down plan. That is, in place of turning the upper leather under the last, it was turned ontward and sewed with a straight awl through the upper and

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History of the early settlers of Sangamon County, Illinois : "centennial record", Part 9

Author: Power, John Carroll, 1819-1894; Power, S. A. (Sarah A.), 1824-; Old Settlers' Society of Sangamon County (Ill.) Publication date: 1876 Publisher: Springfield, Ill. : E.A. Wilson & Co. Number of Pages: 824

Author: Power, John Carroll, 1819-1894; Power, S. A. (Sarah A.), 1824-; Old Settlers' Society of Sangamon County (Ill.)
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Springfield, Ill. : E.A. Wilson & Co.
Number of Pages: 824