USA > Illinois > Christian County > Past and present of Christian County, Illinois > Part 18
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to extract true happiness from a religious exercise. I do not mean by this that an exercise should consist of enthusiasm alone. but should carry with it a sufficient amount of zeal and warmth to prevent icicles from accumulating in the midst of the congrega- tions.
The writer is not sure but what the re -. ligion of forty or fifty years ago was as pure as it is to-day, and is not sure but what the church member and minister en- joyed the religion of Christ as much in that day as they do at the present. It is not always the fine pew, the dressy pulpit and the retained choir that produce the greatest amount of happiness or good in the re- ligious world: as the people prosper, we concede that there arises a greater demand for better churches, and more highly edu- cated ministers. This is all right. and should be encouraged, yet with a fine church and the highly educated minister, it should be the place in which everybody should be made to feel at home. and enjoy the wor- ship.
The growth of Christianity has kept pace with the prosperity of the county, and to- day we have many denominations over the county that are doing much good.
The Baptists have congregations and churches at Taylorville, Pana, Edinburg, Stonington and Salem.
The Methodist Episcopal church has churches at Mt. Auburn, Taylorville, Pana, Assumption, Millersville, Rosemond, Buck- eye Prairie, Owaneco, Fairview, Palmer and perhaps other places.
The Roman Catholics have churches and congregations at Taylorville, Pana, As- sumption, Stonington and Morrisonville.
The Christian church has congregations at Taylorville. Assumption, Edinburg, Mt. Auburn, Pana, Liberty church in Prairie-
ton township, and the Christian church in South Fork.
The Congregationalists have a church at Rosemond, erected there by the early set- tlers of that locality.
The German Evangelical denomination has a church at Pana, and doubtless other places in the county.
The Free Methodists and Salvation Army also have congregations in several parts of the county, which are doing good work, and there are perhaps many other churches lo- cated in different parts of the county that the writer is not apprised of, but it is suffi- cient to say that all of these churches are a blessing to the community. All men, whether they are Christians or not, recog- nize the fact that there is nothing so bene- ficial to a community and nothing that tends more to upbuild and strengthen a people and to invite others into a community than the faet that such community is blessed with good churches and schools.
Christian county is proud of her church record, of her Sunday school record, of her church-going people, and the many attrac- tions and advantages induced by the relig- ious element.
TRANSPORTATION.
Scarcely less important than the subject of production is the one of transportation. Without means of easy and rapid transpor- tation the valuable products of any section would be comparatively valueless. And it is to this fact, second only to that of pro- duction, that this county owes its promi- nence among the counties of the state and nation. The productiveness of our soil and mines will soon be far greater than any esti- mates ever yet made by the mind of man, but their value depends upon the ease, rap- idity and cheapness, by which they can be
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transported to those who need, but have not, that which we produce in great abin- dance. For a portion of the year. truth compels us to state, that the wagon roads of this country are almost impassable, but they are being fast improved and it is not a vision of a speculative fancy merely. to state that in the not distant future the entire pro- ductive area of this county will be spanned by electric railroads, which will enable the products of our soil and mines to be trans- ported from the homes of our people to an open market, both cheaply and expedi- tiously.
Already an electric railroad, The Amer- ican Central Traction Company, has been planned and incorporated penetrating the county from east to west and from north to south with Taylorville as a center, and with the western terminus in St. Louis, that at all times of the year will place the products of this garden of central Illinois cheaply within the reach of a ready market.
This is not a vision, but a scheme that is being actually realized. But upon the com- pletion of the electric railroad our trans- portation facilities does not alone depend. As early as the year 1853 the first ground was broken and the great
ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD
was built through this county and the cars were running the following year. The line enters the county from the north on section 36, township 14, range 1, east, traverses the county in a southwesterly direction and leaves it on section 33, township 11, range I, east, and passes through Assumption and Pana. By an act of congress passed in September, 1850, approved by President Filmore, an aggregation of 2.595.053 acres of land was granted to build the road. The right of way was granted and every alter-
nate section of land for six miles on either side of the road. The grant of land was made directly to the state. The legislature of Illinois, thereafter granted a charter to an eastern company to build the road with a capital stock of $1,000,000. The legis- lature in granting the charter transferred to the company the lands obtained from the general government, but stipulated that 7 per cent. of the gross earnings of the road should be paid semi-annually into the state treasury, forever. This wise provision yields an immense revenue to the state. The road is one of the great trunk lines of the west, reaching from Chicago in Illinois to New Orleans in Louisiana and to Sioux City in western lowa. The first ground was broken in 1853 and cars were running the following year. It was at this time that Assumption and Pana were located.
THE INDIANAPOLIS & ST. LOUIS RAILROAD, NOW THE BIG FOUR.
This road extends between the two towns indicated by its name and was completed in 1855, not far from the same date that the Illinois Central was built. It enters Chris- tian county on the northern line of section 24 in Pana township and traverses the county in a southwesterly direction, leaving it in section 33 in Rosemond township. It was known as the Alton & Terre Haute R. R. when constructed. The stations in this county are Pana and Rosemond. The point of crossing of the Illinois Central and the Big Four railroads determined the location of Pana.
THE WABASH, ST. LOUIS & PACIFIC RAIL- WAY.
This is probably the most important rail- road in the county, and does an immense business between St. Louis and Chicago
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CHRISTIAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
and other eastern points. The length of the line in this county is more than thirty-one- miles. The principal towns in the county on this road are Taylorville. Morrisonville, Palmer, Clarksdale, and Stonington. It enters the county on section 1, in Stoning- ton township and leaves it at Harvel, on section 4. in King township. It crosses the Baltimore & Ohio railroad at Taylorville.
The road was built under a charter granted to The Decatur & East St. Louis railroad and was commenced in 1869 and completed through this county in 1870. The Wabash is one of the best roads in the west.
THE SPRINGFIELD DIVISION OF THE BAL- TIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD.
This road runs diagonally through the county from the northwest to the south- east. It enters the county on section IO, Buckhart township, and leaves it on section 24, of Pana township. Taylorville, Pana, Edinburg and Owaneco, Sharps, Millers- ville and Velma are the stations. The road was formerly known as the Springfield & Pana railroad. afterward as the Springfield & Southeastern, and in April, 1875, it was sold to the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad company. It was again sold to the Balti- more & Ohio Railroad company and now forms an important branch of their trunk line. It was built under a charter obtained in 1865 and was completed in 1870. The first train entered Taylorville at 5 o'clock P. M., on Oct, 25, 1869. The first through train from Beardstown to Shawneetown was run on March 28. 1872. ' The first tele- graph office opened in Taylorville was the office of this road and was opened on March II, 1872.
THE INDIANA, DECATUR & WESTERN.
This road was extended from Decatur to Springfield, Ill., during the summer of 1901.
It extends from Indianapolis, Ind., to Springfield, Illinois. It follows the Wa- bash from Decatur to Boody. Ill., and then extends westward across the northern part of the county. Its most important station is the old town of Mt. Auburn, which it has been the means of reinvigorating and greatly enlarging. The stations on this road in this county are Osbornville, Mt. Auburn, Bakersville and Roby.
THE EASTERN ILLINOIS RAILROAD.
This line ( February, 1904) is being built from Danville, Ill., to St. Louis. It is a part of the great "Friscoe" system. It en- ters Pana township from the east not far from the center line, runs southeasterly to Pana and then follows The Big Four rail- road out of the county. It is now thought that the Big Four system may be used from Pana to St. Louis. It affords another through line from Chicago to St. Louis, and will doubtless be completed during the year 1904.
Thus it will be seen that the county is well supplied with railroads, without the contemplated electric lines which will prob- ably be built within the next year or two. More than fifty trains daily now traverse the county transporting the freight and pas- sengers through this fertile region to its destination. These roads, scarcely more than in their infancy, now transport mil- lions of tons of freight and thousands of passengers annually. Over our prairies now ride the civilization and culture of the world. The future holds promises more wonderful than can be imagined. Our pro- ductive capacity has hardly been touched. Food and fuel-the two great essentials- will flow from our soil and mines as milk from the bosom of a generous mother.
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Who can even imagine what is in store for this people in the future?
COAL.
One of the greatest industries of the coun- ty. second only to that of agriculture, while vet in the infancy of its development, is the mining of coal. It is certain that at a depth! of from three to eight hundred feet an im- mense vein of an excellent quality of bi- tuminous coal from six to eight feet in thickness stretches all over the more than 720 square miles of this county. Only in about a dozen places has it been reached by digging, but sufficient has been done to demonstrate the truthfulness of the above statement. It is undoubtedly true that this county possesses enough coal to supply the entire United States with a cheap fuel for a period of time, were it found necessary to use it. Beneath the ground lies this munificent but necessary commodity but it will be many years before much of this vir- gin fuel will ever be touched by miner's pick or drill. A vast, untold and almost unlimited field of power and wealthi lies be- neath us while above grows that which will feed the men while they are digging out this treasure. And as if nature had been most profuse in her gifts to this region, above these immense veins of coal is a rock cover- ing many feet in thickness, thus insuring to the liborer beneath the surface that protec- tion so much needed and desired by those who toil for this latent and almost limitless product. that was stored for the use of man when the earth was young. It is an ideal mining county and one which should always possess cheap fuel.
All over the county there may be obtained water in abundance. so that the three essen- tials to a manufacturing center. viz .. cheap fuel, abundant water and cheap food. are
everywhere present. With a large home consumption for our food, and an abundance of coal there is no reason why this should not become one of the great manufactur- ing counties of the west. But it was not always known that we possessed these great treasures. For years most of these lands were. thought to be untillable and the ex- istence of coal in any considerable quantity was unknown.
It was not til the year 1882 or 1883 that this vast field of wealth was discovered. To be sure, small veins not to exceed 22 inches in thickness had been known to exist on Coal creek in the southern part of the coun- ty. At White's Bank on section 34. town- ship 11 north, range I east, the largest vein was found and the coal was dug out by drifting into the hillside about thirty feet above the level of the creek. Another ten- inch seam was found near Greenwood's mill on the South Fork, but the coal was of poor quality. Near the North Fork mills, a 17- inch vein was known to exist several feet below low water mark.
But these evidences of coal were incon- sequential and it was not until 1882 that the Pana Coal Company sunk a shaft some- thing more than 700 feet deep. found a vein of coal from seven to eight feet thick, and in 1884 began taking out coal.
Other mines followed in rapid succession. The second shaft of the Pana Coal Com- pany was sunk in 1887. The Penwell Coal Company sunk a shaft in 1888 and began re- moving coal in 1889. The Springside Coal Company was started in 1889 and coal was removed in 1890.
In Taylorville the meeting of the first stockholders to perfect the organization of a company was held on Monday, March 1, 1886. W. W. Anderson was chosen presi-
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CHRISTIAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
dent of the directors, A. G. Barnes treas- urer and D. D. Shumway secretary.
On May 11, 1886, a contract for boring was let to S. A. Warner of Wadsworth, Ohio, to prospect for coal, but coal was not found till some time in 1887.
On January 6, 1888, a contract was made with Mr. S. Ainsworth for sinking a shaft and the shaft was completed before the close of the year.
Numerous other shafts have been sunk since that time.
One was at Edinburg and was in opera- tion for several years, one in Assumption which furnishes a peculiarly valuable quality of coal and in 1900 the Christian County Coal Company in Taylorville, which works a large force of men.
And still others are in course of construc- tion. A drill hole is being rapidly sunk near Clarksdale and a mine just outside the county, at Blue Mound, and still others are contemplated.
From the mines in the county about 15 .- 000 tons of coal contribute to the uses of man daily, and many mills and factories from all over the west pour forth their smoke, telling of this immense industry in Christian county that is yet in its infancy.
From a beginning in Pana, when Mr. Julius Broehl sold the first carload of coal in 1884 and but few men were employed, now but little less than 3,000 men are kept busy and the output is transported by five or six trains of cars each day. And what of the future? Who can tell? The amount to be produced is unlimited by any concep- tion of man. The ease with which it may be raised to the surface, the comparative safety of the location of the veins, the cheap- ness and the nearness of the food needed. the abundance and superior quality of the water, all proclaim this county as not only
an agricultural center, as not only a mining center, but in the near future the place where many manufactories will be located because the raw products can be turned into wares for the uses of men cheaper here than elsewhere. The rich glimmerings of pros- perity now experienced are but the faint, golden glow of the richer realizations that may be looked for in the future.
DRAINAGE.
' Back in the sixties and early seventies, if you will allow me to take you back that far in your imagination, you could have wit- nessed some very unusual sights, and not the least interesting of these would have com- prehended a view of the flat landscape, cov- ered literally with water, and in fact a "water-scape" if the term may be properly used. If you had happened upon the scene at a propitious moment, you could have seen George Waggoner with 16 yoke of oxen hitched to an enormous plow, one which would cut a furrow 24 inches wide and 16 inches deep -- with a crew of drivers and a few onlookers, slowly wending his way along the wettest and lowest places in these prairies, and this was the beginning of drainage in Christian County. Not less than twenty-five drainage districts were be- gun by George Waggoner back at this early date, and by the method described. Perhaps no other man in Central Illinois has been oftener in court during later years, to testi- fy to the beginning of these drainage enter- prises, than Mr. Waggoner, and he has a faculty of recalling vividly and minutely the details of the work done by him in these early days, recounting his experiences in a very interesting manner.
Back in the early days of the settlement of this county, it was thought that most of the prairies were a waste, and not susceptible
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PAST AND PRESENT
of ever being utilized for agricultural pur- poses. Most of our sturdy pioneers settled along and in the timber, preferring to clear out the trees and brush rather than risk the perils of water, mosquitoes and malaria. With the advent of more settlers from the east, it became necessary that the prairie lands should be invaded, and incident to the influx of settlers came the beginning of drainage. Lands upon the prairie were cheap and abundant, a large amount thereof belonging to the Illinois Central Railroad Company, donated to it to induce it to con- struct a railroad through the flat prairie lands. thus connecting the prosperous and fertile country down about Cairo in Lower Egypt with the rolling prairies and prosper- ous communities about Freeport in North- ern Illinois.
These lands were gladly disposed of to castern and southern settlers, at from 50 cents to $2.50 per acre, and considered "good riddance" by the railroad company. Nothing was valuable except away down in "Egypt" and the high rolling lands of northern Illinois, and except also a few timber tracts about "Hell's Half-Acre." the "Bloody Island," and the white oak bearing timber lands along the South Fork and Flat Branch generally. This has all been changed How. The redeemed swamps are now selling for from $100 to $140 per acre, depending upon the class of improvements they have, while the good old timber lands are worth from $30 to $70 per acre.
The real value of farm lands depends largely upon the character and quality of their soils, and their proper drainage de- pends very largely upon the character of subsoil.
This is a subject which is of very great importance, and is being investigated most thoroughly by an army of experts in the em-
ploy of the U. S. Department of Agricul- ture, who are collecting samples of soil from nearly every locality of the United States, for chemical analysis, reports of which can be secured free by those interested in the subject. Therefore. before entering more fully upon the subject of land drainage. it will not be amiss to glance at the origin of soils, although matters of a rather tech- nical nature are generally not very popu- lar.
The earth revolves upon its axis in an el- liptical orbit. inclining 231/2 degrees to the plane of the celestial equator, and which it crosses twice each year. being about the 2Ist of March and September respectively. or the season of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. These "crossings" are never at the same point. but retrogress about five- sixths of one minute westward each year, which, measured at the earth's equator, would be not quite one mile. Thus, vast earth changes running through a period of 25.868 years follow, and during which time each and every point in the earth's orbit has its perihelion and aphelion passage. Now. how does all this affect the origin of soils, you may ask. Well, the eccentricity of the earth's orbit brings us 3. 112.560 miles nearer the sun when the earth is at its peri- helion passage about December 21st, then when at its aphelion passage six months later. By the procession of the equinoxes the time presently comes when the perihe- lion passage of the earth comes at a time when the earth is 3.112,560 miles farther away from the sun than it was formerly in mid-winter ; then look out for a "cold snap." The hands of the geological clock will then point to the hour of universal winter. That such periods of time have come and gone and will come again is proven in the "Book of Nature" if we but read the book aright,
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and during these earth-winters there have been in ages past mountains of ice and snow covering all the country from the Ohio and Missouri rivers north in places, miles in depth. It scooped away the solid mountains of the north, ground and crushed them into minute particles, and covered the face of the upper Mississippi River valley with a man- tle of debris ranging from 20 to 200 feet in thickness, and interspersed with vege- table and animal remains, many of which are found every year in sinking wells in this locality. The very soil we have here owes its origin to the ice epoch, with such other forces as have been at work in nature modi- fied by the action of running or standing water, when this sea of ice was again melt- ed, and covered our flat prairie lands to perhaps 100 feet or more in depth at various places, and before the drainage channels were eroded.
The great lakes, holes and basins, and in many instances the stream valleys were gouged out by the plowing action of the ice in its resistless march southward during the ice age.
The soils we have here are a result of the drift brought by the ice from the north- west, a soil good, black, rich and deep. Further east, and skirting the southeasterly portion of this county, the ice brought its debris from the northeast or from Wiscon- sin, and the soil is of a different character and much less fertile, and in places inter- mingling with that brought from Iowa and the northwest. Other forces in nature have also operated to influence the composition of our soils, such as weathering, freezing, thawing. disintegrating, baking in the sun while wet, and redissolving again, mixing with vegetable litter, at such periods as when this part of the earth had eternal summer, and when vegetation flourished luxuriant-
ly, for there have been more than one cycle of recurring changes, and more than one season of eternal cold. Thus, our soils are a result of an almost endless comminution and co-mixing of materials, derived from a number of different forces in nature.
At the end of the last ice invasion, the whole country was left with a mass of debris from 20 to 200 feet in depth, brought down by ice and water, and deposited ir- regularly over the earth's surface. Only the high points were, at first, dry land, such as Pope's Hill, Badger Mound, Blue Mound, Mt. Auburn, and a few others, the rest of the land gradually emerging as the waters cut drainage channels throughout the land, and receded therefrom.
The highest point in Christian county is at Badger's Mound (near Rosemond) and is 750 feet above sea level. The lowest point upon the natural surface is near the northwest portion of the county, and it is 530 feet above sea level. Another point nearly equally as high as the "Badger Mound" is the West Blue Mound, in the northeasterly portion of the county. The general topography of the country largely determines its drainage, and thus we see the Mosquito creek entering the county about four miles north of the West Blue Mound and sluggishly winding its way in a westerly and northwesterly direction, un- til it empties into North Fork of the San- gamon river. The North Fork of the San- gamon river forms the northerly boundary of the county, and opposite Mt. Auburn makes a long detour to the north, influenced by the high land in that vicinity. In the vicinity of Rosemond, a small branch of the upper South Fork of the Sangamon river rises on either side of Badger Mound, unit- ing somewhat to the west thereof, and with many small tributaries running first wester-
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ly and northwesterly until it strikes a high plateau of flat lands near the southwest por- tion of the county, then gracefully curving northeasterly until the junction with Flat Branch, then again deflecting westerly and southwesterly and finally after its confluence with Bear Creek going northerly and north- westerly to its junction with the North Fork and thence forming the Sangamon river. Many smaller tributaries, all with a general northerly, westerly or northwesterly course traverse the county. Where the streams flow westerly the drainage areas upon the north side are usually not very wide, while that upon the south side comes from quite a distance. This is again a result of the morraines thrown down by melting ice, causing a ridge of sandy and gravelly soil, mostly overlaid with a sheet or black or Sangamon soil as it is technically termed. Such a ridge starts a little southwest of Taylorville and is followed, in the main, by the Wabash railroad up to and beyond Boody, keeping somewhat to the north thereof in the vicinity of Stonington, and this slight ridge is the divde or water shed of this portion of the county.
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