USA > Illinois > Marshall County > Past and present of Marshall and Putnam Counties, Illinois > Part 4
USA > Illinois > Putnam County > Past and present of Marshall and Putnam Counties, Illinois > Part 4
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Two great advantages were experienced upon the adoption of township organization.
First was the annual town meeting, which en- abled the townships to choose their township offi- cials from among their own number, making their official jurisdiction coeval with the township and not extending beyond the lincs. The other was the board of supervisors, one from each town- ship, a kind of parliament or congress where the business of the whole county was transacted, but in which each township had a representative, selected from among her own citizens, who knew the needs of the township, and who was supposed to look out for her welfare.
Before that three commissioners, who were not supposed to have any particular interest in any particular township, had transacted the county business as a whole, and the county officials had looked after the other affairs, the system being rather unsatisfactory.
The township and town meetings are carried on on true democratic principles, the people as a whole having complete control of their own affairs, elect their own officers, and are responsible to no one but themselves.
The history of the townships of which Marshall county is composed is the true history of the coun- ty, and, in fact, the only history that can be writ- ten.
While there were settlements in almost all parts of the county, and a county organization, yet the settlements were scattered and the county organi- zation was in a crude and incomplete state.
At the time of township organization there
were only four voting precincts in the county, but this did not work so much hardship, as the voters, as a rule, were, in a manner bunchcd together.
Take the precinct of Henry. Although the area comprised what is now the thrce townships of Henry, Whitefield and Saratoga, yet more than nine-tenths of the voters lived within five miles of the voting place, Henry. At the time of town- ship organization this was changed and a voting place established in each township, generally as near the center as practicable, the election being held in a school house. At the time of the elec- tion a portion of the time was devoted to town meeting, where any business pertaining to the town could be brought forward by anyone, where it would be properly discussed and then voted upon.
Also the reports of the several officers, who handled money belonging to the township, would be made.
As we have said above, a history of a county must necessarily be a history of the several town- ships of which it is composed, and to give you the history of Marshall county we will give a history of the several townships.
CHAPTER IX.
LACON TOWNSHIP.
As the first permanent settlements in Marshall county were made in what is now Lacon township, it appears to us as though the history of the town- ships should begin with Lacon.
Lacon township is composed of two fractional townships, 29 and 30 N., 3 W. of the 3d P. M., and is shaped somewhat after the manner of a long triangle, being a trifle over four miles wide at the base, extending north about ten miles, and terminating in a point, it contains fifteen full sec- tions and eight fractional sections, the Illinois river washes its entire western line, and most of the fractional sections consist of swamp lands and bluffs covered with timber more or less scrub- by, not more than one-third of the land being good farming land.
The first permanent settler in Marshall county was Colonel John Strawn, who built a cabin and moved his family into it September 21, 1829, the location of his claim being about three miles east of where Lacon now stands.
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
The country at that time was in the hands of the Indians, who often came to the house. The only white men they saw were a few hunters, and their visits were few and far between.
The nearest settlement at that time was Beards- town and Mr. Strawn, in looking for supplies for his family through the winter, went down to that place on horseback, chartered a keel boat then in use on the western rivers, which he loaded with corn and other things he needed and laboriously poled it up the river. This was probably the first landing made at this point by a boat larger than a canoc. From that time for several years the place was known as Strawn's landing.
A few days later his little girls, Rachel, 11 years old, and Mary Jane, 9, followed the wagon tracks from the house to the landing and were probably the first white persons that had ever set foot upon the present site of Lacon, certainly they were the first females.
The girls found a company of Indians camped not far from the landing, but although the In- dians eyed them euriously they did not molest them and they returned home greatly to the relief of their mother.
In the spring of 1831, about eighteen months after the settlement of John Strawn, General Jona- than Babb and Major Filler, comrades in arms from the war of 1812, were traveling on horseback from Ohio through Illinois, they came to Strawn's Landing, as it was then known, and were struck by the beauty of the situation and saw that it was a very favorable location for a townl.
During the winter of 1830-31 the county of Put- nam had been reorganized, groups of settlers had located in different parts of the county and it became imperative upon the part of the govern- ment to open land offices so that the settlers could enter their lands, and proclamation was accord- ingly made that a government land office would be opened in Springfield, then a small but growing town on the Sangamon river.
When Babb and Filler saw the possibilities of the place, upon conferring with Mr. Strawn, they left the money with him to enter the place in their name, and on July 18th, 1831, the first day of the sales, Mr. Strawn entered in the name of Babb & Filler the fractional quarter sections of land known as the S. E. 1/4 Sec. 26, Town 30, N., 3 W. of the 3 P. M., consisting of about 67.15 acres.
A town was laid off in August, 1831, by John Stevenson, surveyor of Sangamon county,
and Colby F. Stevenson, surveyor of Putnam county. The new town was called Columbia, and the dedication was acknowledged before Thomas Gallaher, a Justice of the Peace at Hennepin, and was placed on the records there, being the first town plat recorded in Putnam county, the date being August 19th, 1831.
It must be remembered that up to this time the entire northern part of the state was an almost unbroken wilderness. Five years before, a gentle- man had ridden from Peoria to Chicago without- seeing a single habitation where white people lived. Peoria was only an Indian trading station with a few settlers, and Chicago a village, not yet laid off, of some forty or fifty houses and two hundred and fifty inhabitants and five stores.
During the next five years, however, a great change had come over the land and settlers had come in, in considerable numbers, especially in favored spots, and not far from Strawns quite a number had settled before the fall of 1831.
Lot and Joshua Bullman had taken claims a little north of Strawns, and a brother-in-law of theirs, Beltha Griffeth, one near them. James Hall and Newton Reeder located on a claim a little southeast, and they were soon followed by Lunsford Broaddus, who settled a little west of them. Quite a number of settlers had come in to the south, and quite a settlement grew up in the Crow Creek neighborhood, in faet so thick had the settlers become that some of the earlier ones were selling their claims to others. A man named ' Hamilton settled near where Joseph Babb had opened a farm. Robert Rickey, George Easter, the Waughops and a man by the name of Lancaster had settled there.
In September, 1831, there was held a public sale of lots in Columbia, the lots bringing from $5 to $10 apiece according to location. It appears as if there must, even at that date, have been quite a population, as there was a number of lots sold and it can hardly be expected that all those present wanted to buy town lots at even the low price these were sold for. Among the buyers were Samuel Russell, Jesse Sawyer, Thaddeus Barney, William Haws, A. N. Denning, Henry Cassell, Jesse Smith, Joseph Johnson and Elisha Swan, but it was not till the spring of 1832 that any at- tempt at building upon the site was attempted, and even then, owing to the Indian scare, it was not completed for two years.
At this time, the spring of 1832, there was
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
quite a scare from the rumors of Indian troubles. Black Hawk had crossed the Mississippi and the Stillman fiasco as already mentioned, had oc- curred.
General Neal of Springfield had been sent out and fearing trouble, organized several companies of militia along the east bank of the Illinois river as a precautionary measure. This he called the 40tlı Regiment, Illinois Militia, and John Strawn was appointed Colonel of the regiment and was assigned the duty of patroling along the Illi- nois river, but it was soon found there was no danger of the Indians in this vicinity, and after a month's service they were mustered out in Henne- pin, June 18th, 1832.
The first actual settler to build in the town of Columbia was Elisha Swan. He came into the country in 1831 and with a small stock of goods opened a store a little distance from the "landing," but not on the site of the town. In the summer of 1833 he made arrangements by hewing out the frame of a building and hauled it to where Henry now is, expecting to establish a claim and lay out & town, but he found others had interests there, and upon inquiring into the matter it was found the land wanted was in a 16th section, consequently was school land and could not be entered, and he abandoned the project and moved back to La- con and erected his building, a frame 20x36, a story and a half in height. The boards for the floor, etc., were brought on a keel boat from St. Louis, but the weather boards were rived by hand. It was quite a pretentious and serviceable building for the times and served both as store and resi- dence. While Columbia did not improve much though it had a half dozen houses by 1834 the country east was rapidly filling up with settlers. And at an election for Justice of the Peace and a Constable held at the house of Colonel Strawn in June of that year fifty votes were polled.
In 1834 Jesse C. Smith and Joseph H. Johnson came out from Cincinnati on horseback viewing the land, and, stopping at Colonel Strawn's, told him they were thinking of building a mill if a suitable location could be found. Colonel Strawn persuaded them to stop at Columbia, and as an inducement offered to donate them several lots. They were pleased with the site and the mill was built in 1835 and went into operation in the fall of 1836.
The flouring mill which was quite large for the times and place, did a flourishing business, par-
ties coming from all the northern country for their supplies, even as far as Galena.
From 1835 the town improved more rapidly. Quite a number of houses were built in the town that year. In 1836 a cemetery was laid out. The first person to be buried in it was a young lady by the name of Lancaster, and the second was James Henthorn, who had, during the summer, helped to form the first Methodist society, and was its class leader at the time of his death. Dur- ing the fall of this year a sawmill was put up at the lower end of town and a few miles south a man by the name of Barney put up another saw mill, and added to it a wood cording and fulling machine.
In 1835 the little village of Columbia received an influx of population that did much to give to Lacon its high standing as a literary and social place, and whose names became household words throughout the country. They were the brothers Fenn, Ira, Norman and William, Dr. Robert Boal, William Fisher, Rev. Augustus Pomeroy, Samuel Howe, William Hancock, Hartley Malone, H. L. and H. P. Crane and some others who were given the name of the "Lacon Colony." They were all men of high intellectual attainment and of good character and high standing-men that would exert an influence for good wherever they might go. About this time in 1836 the name Columbia was changed to that of Lacon.
During this time immigrants had been coming in from the eastern states and a fine class of people were coming in rapidly, the farming com- munity keeping ahead of the towns, the object of the greater portion being to establish homes for their families. But about this tiine it received a setback in the hard times of 1836 and '37. Banks had been chartered in all parts of the country which had been issuing their notes without limit. For a year or two all had gone well, money was plentiful and a season of speculation followed such as the country has seldom seen. Everybody was making fortunes-on paper-but when they came to realize on their investments the bubble burst and they found what they thought was money was but little if any better than scraps of brown paper; the money was absolutely worthless. Then came hard times. The gold and silver which had been the circulating medium had been driven out of the country by the cheap money and there was absolutely no money, or very little, to be had.
This, although worse probably in the new states
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
than elsewhere, was felt all over the country and put quite a check upon immigration for a time.
About the year 1837 an enterprise was started in Lacon that did more than any other thing, possibly than all others together, to bring pros- perity to it. We refer to the pork packing in- dustry. The first buyers were Fenn, Howe & Co., who bought and cut up 750 hogs in 1837. With this firm William Fisher was connected. In the next year, 1838, William Fisher withdrew from the firm and went into partnership with his brother Jabez. They established one of the larg- est pork packing plants in the west, buying and packing from 8,000 to 11,000 hogs a year, paying out some years as high as $250,000 and $300,000 a year, and Jabez Fisher, who appears to have been the main spirit in the pork business, paid out money that he received from Boston that was guaranteed good and that the collectors would re- ceive for taxes. It was a godsend to the farmers, for no other money could they get that would pay taxes.
In addition to the immense trade that flowed from the pork industry, and farmers for a circle of forty and fifty miles brought their pork to La- con, the establishment employed something like 100 men during the busy season.
In the coopering business they employed from twelve to twenty men the year round, and used thousands of hooppoles that made very handy pocket money for those who gathered them.
The pork packing business was a great thing for Lacon and was also a good thing for the Fishers, for they prospered exceedingly and in 1849 and '50 erected in Lacon what at the time was probably the most complete building for the purpose of pork packing in the west, not excepting Chicago and Cincinnati, expending on it what at the time was an immense sum of moncy, $10,000.
The pork packing industry no doubt had a good deal to do with bringing settlers into Lacon and the adjoining country that is now Marshall county.
Much happened to Lacon about the years 1835 to 1840.
In 1835 a postoffice was established there. Be- fore that they had gone to Bell's ford on Crow creek, about six miles, for their mail, but as the postage was then 25 cents on a letter the mail, as might be expected, was not heavy and it is said the postmaster carried the mail in his hat and handed it to the owners as he met them.
In 1836 the town's name was changed from Co-
lumbia to Lacon, and in the same year the road from the landing, which was through a long piece of lowland, most of the time a swamp or marsh, was made a substantial road by laying down logs, covering them with bushes and slough grass and putting dirt upon it.
A ferry across the river had been established by Elisha Swan. He built a flatboat propelled with oars, but it was little used except to transport coal across the river from the Sparland banks. Mr. Swan had a license to run the ferry, for which he paid $5 per annum, but it was not a paying in- vestment even at that price. In 1837 he sold his interest in the ferry to Dr. Boal, who built a larger boat. It afterward passed into the hands of Fisher & Co., who built a still larger boat and stretched a rope across the river to pull it back and forth. They also assisted materially in build- ing the causeway that runs from the river to Sparland. In 1879 the ferry rights passed to the city of Lacon, which, after maintaining the ferry for many years, in 1882 built a pontoon bridge, which was renewed in 1900, which with some re- newing and repairing is in use today, a very satis- factory bridge.
In 1836 the Lacon academy was organized and one thousand dollars pledged for its support, a building was built that year capable of accommo- dating sixty or seventy pupils, but the building was intended for more than school purposes, and served for a church, a town hall, where elections and courts were held; for lyceums and other pub- lic purposes, but no school was taught there till the spring of 1837, which was the first school in Marshall county, when Miss Jane M. Kilgore was employed as a teacher. This school house an- swered the purpose for a few years, which it was necessary to build a larger one, which in 1856 gave place to a much larger and better building, which in 1878 was reconstructed, more room added and other improvements made. This building had become superannuated and out of date, when in 1902 John S. Thompson, a wealthy and public- spirited citizen, offered to give twelve thousand dollars towards a new school house if the board would build one worth at least twenty-five thou- sand dollars. The board took him up on his offer and had a fine building erected, up-to-date in every particular, costing about thirty thousand dollars. It is undoubtedly the best school house in the county.
LACON PUBLIC SCHOOL.
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
The first church was built by the Methodists in 1837, and was the only church building for sev- eral years. Other societies were formed, but wor- shiped generally in the school house already men- tioned. A Presbyterian society was formed also in this year and a remarkable revival experienced and some thirty-five members brought into the church.
January, 1839, the act establishing Marshall county was passed and under the instructions of the law the commissioners appointed for the pur- pose made Lacon the county seat, April 6, 1839. The first circuit court convened in Marshall county April 23 of that year, with Thomas Ford as judge and J. M. Shannon as clerk. A grand jury was summoned and impaneled, but as there were no cases to come before the court no petit jury was called. The first sessions were held in the Methodist church, but in December a contract was let for the building of a court house of stone and brick, forty by fifty-five feet, at a cost of eight thousand dollars. January 5, 1853, this building was burned down through some defect in the chimney, but fortunately the records were saved. Another building was built in 1854, at a cost of seven thousand eight hundred dollars. This building was entirely remodeled and rebuilt and greatly enlarged in 1893, to what it is at present, 1906.
Besides her pork packing interests Lacon at one time had extensive flouring mills. In 1855 Will- iam Fisher built a mill that he called the Phoenix mill, at a cost of over forty thousand dollars, and soon after the firm of Fenn, Perry & Dobbs built the Model mills, costing about the same amount, and later added to it a small distillery. Both the mills flourished for several years. The Phoenix burned down in 1871 and was never rebuilt. The Model mills partially burned in 1862, but the next year was purchased by two brothers by the name of Thayer, who rebuilt the mill and greatly in- creased the capacity of the distillery, and in a single year paid the government one million nine hundred and ninety-three thousand dollars in revenue tax. August 12, 1864, the boilers of the distillery exploded, nearly demolishing the build- ing and killing five men. The building was patched up after this but the Thayer brothers dying, the business ran down and was some time after aban- doned. The bonded warehouse in use when the distillery was running was afterwards converted into a hotel, and today has the only hall of any
size there is in Lacon, but there has been no hotel in it for several years, though the owner and wife have their residence there.
We must not omit mention of the woolen mill industry of which the citizens of Lacon are justly proud, and they may well be, for if we except probably a brick yard or two it is the only manu- facturing establishment in Marshall county. About 1862 Spencer Ellsworth, then editor of the Lacon Journal, wrote for the Chicago Tribune an article on manufactures, which came to the atten- tion of two gentlemen who were interested in woolen manufactures, and they opened a corre- spondence on the subject with him. The corre- spondence led to a meeting of the citizens and William Fisher and Mr. Ellsworth were appointed a committee to meet the gentlemen, and the out- come was that a company was organized and in- corporated under the name of the Lacon Woolen Mill Company, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. D. E. Thomas was chosen presi- dent and Spencer Ellsworth secretary. During the winter books were opened and fifty thousand dol- lars worth of stock subscribed for, and the next summer the necessary buildings were built and the machinery installed, and Mr. Grieves employed to superintend it. The mill was run for several years quite successfully in making a certain kind of shawl, which found a large demand, also cer- tain kinds of piece goods were made that gave ex- cellent satisfaction, the mill giving employment to about seventy-five persons, but during the hard times of 1896 to 1898 the business fell off and the- mill was closed down. It remained closed for about three years, when it was bought by Mr. Grieves and was again run by Grieves & Son, and was doing a good business, when it took fire and was burned to the ground in the spring of 1901 .. It was a sad loss to the Messrs. Grieves, as the. insurance was light and they were not able to rebuild. However, a popular subscription was started that fall, the building rebuilt and some- what enlarged, new and up-to-date machinery in- stalled the next summer, and it was turned over to the Messrs. Grieves. It was too good a thing for Lacon to lose.
Lacon has a number of fine churches. The. Presbyterian society in Lacon was organized May 12, 1837, the first minister being the Rev. Aug- ustus Pomeroy, who had come to Columbia, as it was then, with a number of others, the year be- fore, from Ohio. For several years services were:
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
held in the house of Henry T. Crane till the school house was built. The present fine building in which they worship was started in 1849 and con- secrated in 1851. It cost four thousand dollars and has a fine bell and church organ.
In 1836 the Methodists formed a society, the Rev. A. E. Phelps, with John McMurtrie, a sweet singer, holding a meeting in an unfinished mill. On his next visit, two weeks later, the Methodists there, to the number of sixteen, handed in their letters, a class was formed and the Methodist church society was organized.
For the first year meetings were held in a frame building. It had neither fireplace nor stove and was used summer and winter by both Methodists and Presbyterians. In 1837 the Meth- odists erected a building which was dedicated in November of that year by the Rev. William Can- diff. For twenty years they used this building, and in 1855 began building their present place of worship, which was dedicated on June 24, 1860. It is a large, roomy building and well fitted for their accommodation.
A Baptist society was organized in February, 1855, under Elder I. L. Mahan, but it was not until January, 1856, that they decided to build, and in the latter part of 1856, after having raised $4,500, they proceeded to erect a building, trust- ing in the Lord for aid to finish it. They erected a substantial, convenient church and have a flour- ishing society, with resident minister.
The Congregationalists also have a fine place of worship and a large congregation. The church was organized October 1, 1865, with a member- ship of forty and a church building, costing $4,- 200, was erected the same year, the lots upon which it stands, valued at the time at $1,000, were donated by Washington E. Cook. In 1879 the Presbyterian and Congregational socicties were united upon a common confession of faith as the Union Church of Lacon.
There is also a Catholic society and church, built in 1867. It is one of the finest church build- ings in the county and cost about $13,000.
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