USA > Illinois > Marshall County > Past and present of Marshall and Putnam Counties, Illinois > Part 5
USA > Illinois > Putnam County > Past and present of Marshall and Putnam Counties, Illinois > Part 5
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Lacon has the usual number of secret societies. A Masonic blue lodge was organized October 4, 1848, and the Odd Fellows established a lodge October 17, 1851. At present there is, besides these, a Knights of Pythias lodge, a camp of Modern Woodmen, a Rebekah lodge, etc., which have been instituted in the last few years.
The first newspaper published in Marshall coun-
ty was the Lacon Herald, the first number appear- ing December 13, 1837. It was published by Allen N. Ford, the people of Lacon giving him a bonus of $2,000, and he was to publish the paper for at least two years. After the two years were up he changed the name of the paper to Illinois Gazette. Up to this time it had been non-partisan, but with the change of name he espoused the Whig side of politics. Mr. Ford published the paper until 1866, when he sold it to Spencer Ellsworth, who changed the name to the Home Journal. Mr. Ellsworth published it until his death, when it went into the hands of his son, Spencer, who, after a few years, sold it to W. B. Powell, and after his running it for a few months it passed into the hands of Charles F. Hacker, who had been in the office from the time of the elder Ellsworth. The paper has always maintained a high reputa- tion and in execution and contents will compare favorably with the best of the country newspa- pers. It is republican in politics and Mr. Hacker, the editor and proprietor, is now postmaster of Lacon.
In 1850 the democrats started the Lacon Her- ald, with Jesse Lynch as editor. It was published by different parties for several years with more or less success until at length it was purchased by Spencer Ellsworth, who stopped the publication and sold the material of the office.
In 1867 J. G. Ford started the Lacon Democrat, but though he published a very good paper was not as successful as he hoped it to be and moved the office to Pontiac; but a short time later Will- iam B. Whiffen brought an outfit from Chillicothe and continued the publication under the name of the Marshall County Democrat.
Mr. Whiffen was well versed in the political his- tory of the state, with a large acquaintance of the prominent men and he soon made the paper a power in democratic politics. After his death it passed into the hands of a man by the name of Day, who put in new type and machinery and greatly improved it as a newspaper. It has changed hands several times since then and is now owned and edited by F. C. Sorrells, who maintains the high reputation it has won as a newspaper and party organ.
Marshall county may well be proud of the num- ber of lawyers who have been educated in Lacon and been advanced to high public position, some of them attaining national repute and many of them attaining distinction as learned and honest
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
judges upon the bench. Mark Bangs, United States district attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; G. L. Fort, member of congress for several terms, and a strong candidate for the nomination for governor of the state; Mark Bangs, Samuel L. Richmond, John Burns, Thomas M. Shaw, all of whom served with distinction as able and upright judges, upon the circuit bench. George O. Barnes, who was honored twice as a candidate by his party with the nomination for Congress, his son, R. M. Barnes, now one of the most brilliant lawyers in this section; C. N. Barnes and Judge Winslow Evans, now among the most prominent members of the Peoria bar. It is certainly a grand record for so small a county as Marshall and a city the size of Lacon to con- tribute so many public men to the service of their country. This is the list: A United States dis- trict attorney, a congressman, five circuit judges, and two state senators.
We have devoted considerable space to the his- tory of the city of Lacon because it has made and furnished much of the history of Marshall county.
As for the rest of the townships, not so much can be said. Lacon township, as has been already mentioned, is a long, triangular piece of land with a hypothenuse of about twelve miles in length, forming the east bank of the Illinois river. The land along the river from a quarter of a mile to a mile or more wide is more or less of a swampy nature and this is bordered by a system of bluffs covered with timber of more or less value. Through the southern part of the township flows Crow creek and the country along this is very rolling and was covered with timber. The land is reasonably productive where it can be worked and the rest makes very good pasture land, while the timber is utilized for firewood. As it contains the two necessities of the pioneer, wood and wa- ter, in abundance, the Crow creek country was early settled and by 1835 there was quite a set- tlement there, but, like the face of the country, the settlers there were a rough lot and were mostly a law unto themselves, settling most of their quar- rels by fighting-the courts, justices and constables enforcing their decrees in the same way and not always coming out first best. Although they were hospitable to a degree, they would not tolerate preachers or lawyers; they could remain over night, but next day were given to understand they had no use for them. They generally took the hint and left. That part of the township was
in bad odor with the more civilized communities for a long time, but the old inhabitants have died or moved away and the neighborhood now aver- ages up with the rest of the county.
There are a few sections of fine prairie farm- ing land in Lacon township, but the greater part of it is rolling and was at one time covered with timber. It has been largely cut away and the land cleared, some of it utilized for crop raising and some for pasture.
CHAPTER X. HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP.
This township, being township 30 north, range 2 west of the third p. m., lays partly along the Illinois river and partly east of one of the frac- tional townships composing the township of La- con, the river extending about four miles along the northwestern corner in a southwesterly direc- tion, cutting off parts of sections 5 and 7 and most of section 6.
The land along the river is swampy and the greater part of it worthless, so far as crop raising is concerned, for something like a mile back from the river, when bold bluffs covered with timber take up the land for about two miles further back, although in many places the timber has been cut off and the land cultivated. Along the north side of the township are the bluffs of Sandy creek, but the southwestern part of the township is fine prairie land and contains many excellent farms.
The first settler in Hopewell was George Wag- ner, who put up a cabin in 1830, on the farm known as the Jerry Feazle farm. James Hall, William McNeill and Newton Reeder, Lot and Joshua Bullman and Jacob Smalley came in 1831.
In that year Elisha Swan, who afterwards fig- ured extensively in the history of Lacon, with a man by the name of Deming, put up a log building on the Broaddus farm, near Strawn's landing, and with a small stock of goods opened the first store in Marshall county, where he sold such things as the settlers needed and traded largely with the Indians.
Those mentioned settled in the southern part of the township. In the northern part Jesse Sawyer and Caleb Forbes settled in 1831. The Free- mans, William White and John Benson, came in 1833, as did Robert Antrim, Lemuel Russell, Peter Barnhart and William Boys. John
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
Brumsey settled on Sandy, on the farm where his grandson, James Brumsey, now resides, in 1833.
From this on settlers came in rapidly and as the country filled up the people began to think of schools, and the first school was built about two miles west of Jesse Sawyer's in 1835. It was a single log house with a door and a log cut out and a hole left for light, but the door was usually left open and was more depended upon for light than the window. In the fall of the same year, 1835, another school house was built further south by Lemuel Russell, James Hall, John Wier, John Strawn, James Kane, William Hancock, the Bull- mans and others, which was in comparison quite a pretentious building, and was used for meetings, debating societies, public meetings, shows, etc. It served its turn for several years and at last was, after a more up-to-date house had been built, turned into a stable for horses.
There many of Marshall county's future citi- zens imbibed their first ideas of learning and in 1880, forty-five years after the building of the old school house, a picnic composed of those who had attended school there in the early days was held on the spot and some eighty persons were present and among them were represented some of the most prominent names in Marshall county's history.
The first mill in Marshall county was (we had almost said built, but there was no building) lo- cated on Sandy on the Broaddus place by Zion Shugart in 1830. He made his own millstones, fastened one of them to a large stump and, fix- ing up some machinery, revolved the upper one around on it. It was a slow process and only. cracked the corn into small pieces-did not grind it into meal-but it beat the hollowed stump and hickory pestle which had been in use, a long way.
Mr. Shugart, who appears to have been an in- genious and practical man, built a mill the next season to run by water and was, under good con- ditions, able to grind about two bushels of dry corn an hour into very fair meal, but if the cus- tomers wished the bran and chaff taken from it they had to winnow it out in the wind. A freshet the next spring swept away every vestige of the mill except the stones.
Two of the more noted families of Hopewell are the Sawyer and Forbes families. Jesse Sawyer and Caleb Forbes came into this county on horseback in 1830. They liked the country so well that they concluded to return and settle in it. They went
to their home in North Carolina and the next April packed up their effects and, loading them into wagons, they started. The family of Mr. Sawyer consisted of himself and wife, four sons and a step-son, Lemuel Russell, who became quite famous. Mr. Forbes had two sons and two daugh- ters. They traveled across Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana, a distance of 1,100 miles, and after going through many trials and hardships arrived at their destination September 2, 1831, having been on the road for five months. Mr. Sawyer, who was somewhat of a rover, explored the east side of the river that fall for many miles, but as he found no country that suited him better came back. In the meantime Mr. Forbes had built a very comfortable cabin of hewn logs, which some- what later was arranged with port holes, etc., and used as a fort to protect them from the Indians, but they were never attacked.
For some time after their settling they were often visited by roving bands of Indians, who would come into the house, sit down wherever the notion took them, after begging for food, which was generally given them. They were scared at times, as the Indians could not speak a word of English and their motions would not be understood, but they were never molested. The Indians disappeared from this section at the time of the Black Hawk war and never returned in any numbers.
The lands that Sawyer and Forbes settled upon are now occupied by their descendants, they never having gone out of the families.
Probably about as peculiar a case of long dis- tance walking as ever occurred started from Hope- well. In 1833 a Mrs. White and her son, who had come from North Carolina the year before, became so much discouraged by the wildness of the country that they determined to go back. Mrs. White was over 70 years of age. They had no money to buy even the food they would need, the country they would traverse was for several hun- dred miles but little better than a wilderness, with a settler here and there, yet so strong was her desire to see her old home that, braving all ob- stacles, they set out. Their pathetic story made them friends everywhere they went, who furnished shelter and food, and they actually reached home after a tramp of nearly 1,100 miles. It was a most wonderful journey when it is remembered what the condition of the country was in 1833-
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
few roads, no bridges, and houses scattered in clusters many miles apart.
Hopewell township, with its swampy lands along the river, covered with grass higher than a man's head, its heavily timbered bottoms and the hills and hollows, was an ideal place for game. Deer and wild turkey abounded, rabbits, raccoons, muskrats, mink and other fur-bearing animals were to be had for the taking. It was a paradise for a hunter. Long after the game had mostly disappeared from other parts of the country hunt- ers from Henry and other places would go over there for deer and turkeys. It was also a great place for wolves, both of the large gray timber and smaller prairie varieties, but the wolf is a cowardly animal and seldom attacks man.
The northern part of Hopewell township is, as we have said, somewhat rough for farming, though the soil is excellent. It makes excellent pastures and most of the farmers have turned their at- tention to raising improved stock. Here, on the farm first settled upon by their ancestors in 1831, live I. M. Forbes and his son Rankin, whose names and whose magnificent herd of Shorthorn Durham cattle have a national reputation. Wher- ever shorthorn cattle are raised the name of I. M. Forbes is a household word.
On the Sawyer farm, upon which live the Saw- yer brothers, grandsons of the original Jesse Saw- yer. They have made a specialty of fine Poland China hogs, of which there are no better in the country.
T. W. Stoner & Son, later comers, but still old settlers, are making quite a reputation on a par- ticular strain of Duroc Jersey hogs. Others also are engaged in improving stock, and Hopewell township and the adjoining township in Putnam county are having a reputation for their finely improved breeds of horses, cattle and hogs all over the country.
About one-half of the township, the southeast- ern part, was originally prairie land and some of the finest farms in the state are found in it. You may travel far before you find a country where everything denotes a more prosperous community than you will find in Hopewell. The homes are elegant, roomy and commodious, the barns are large and well built, the outhouses and sheds are plentiful and well kept up and everything denotes an industrious and painstaking people, as well as one on whom prosperity smiles.
The Lacon-Varna branch of the Chicago &
Alton railroad runs through the southern part of Hopewell and on it, on section 25, is located Held, named after a prominent family. An elevator and a small store are located there and but little else. Considerable shipping is done there and passen- gers are taken on and let off.
There are no churches in the township and but four school houses, but many of the children at- tend school in Henry, Lacon and other outside townships.
CHAPTER XI. HENRY TOWNSHIP.
This is the smallest township in the county, but not the most insignificant by any means. Its legal designation is town 13 north, 10 east of the 4th principal meridian, or, as it is generally writ- ten, town 13 N., 10 E. of 4th p. m.
It is a fractional township containing only ten full sections and eight parts of sections, the others being cut off by the Illinois river, which flows in a southwesterly direction along its east- ern boundary, but, unlike the eastern side of the river, it here washes a bold bank from fifty to seventy-five feet above the stream, which slopes from the top down to the water's edge.
In the township of Henry is located the city of Henry, one of the important cities of the county. It is built upon a bold bluff overlooking the river, the soil below being a loose gravel, giving at all times a perfect under-drainage, so that, except for a few days in spring, when the frost is going out, there is very little or no mud, the streets being dry and dusty, while the towns of the prairie are wallowing in mud hub deep, yet the gravel is cov- ered with a fertile, sandy loam which enables all who wish to raise fine gardens.
Running back from the brow of the hill at the river banks lies one of the most beautiful prairies mortal eyes ever rested upon. It is some six or eight miles long and about three miles wide and as fertile as it is beautiful. Who was the first settler in Henry is very uncertain. A man by the name of Hart is said to have built a cabin or shack on the site in 1830 and another cabin is said to have been built and occupied by a man named Stacy, who moved the next year to Web- ster, but be that as it may the first permanent settlers were Elias Thompson and his family, Mr. Thompson and his eldest son, David, opening farms and cultivating small pieces of land, rais- ing mostly vegetables, in 1833. Mr. Thompson
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
also "kept tavern" in his house, which was situ- to victory over the hostile Sac and Fox Indians ated across the ravine near the old Bowars mill. in the year 1832, and who lately died of disease caused by the arduous service." His son David's farm was a little further out on what is now known as the Davis place.
As early as 1832 there was a wrangle over the claim to the land that Henry stands on, although the land was not yet on the market. The site was too fine a one to be passed by.
Erastus Wright and William Porter of Spring- field were passing through and, seeing the pros- pect of a future town, made a claim and also pro- cured a license for a ferry. In 1833 Anson L. Deming and Elisha Swan made a claim and to strengthen it Mr. Swan procured a boat for a ferry and engaged Mr. Thompson to run it. He also had framed a store building, which he ex- pected to erect on the site and put in a stock of goods.
After some wrangling over the matter the rival claimants agreed to get a surveyor to lay off a town and they would sell the lots and divide the profits.
They sent to Springfield for a surveyor, but when he came he discovered the proposed town was on section No. 16 and therefore could only be sold for school purposes, by school authority.
The claimants then abandoned the project, Mr. Swan took his store back and located it in Colum- bia, afterwards Lacon, the ferry he left in the possession of Thompson, who operated it for some years. During this time a few transient men had come into the region, some of whom took claims or rather "squatted," for they could get no title to the land whatever, and these petitioned the superintendent of schools of Putnam county, as it was then, for permission to sell the school land, alleging there was fifty white people and fifteen voters in the district, though they must have stretched the limits of the township to have secured the requisite number of voters. The neces- sary permission was granted, rather loosely, it must be confessed, to sell it and on April 22, 1834, Charles Nock, Elias Thompson and Reuben Convers, as school trustees, employed B. M. Hayes to survey the section into town lots. They reported to the superintendent as follows :
"Lots from No. 30 to 291, inclusive, with streets and alleys within and thereto appertaining and the public grounds on said map designated, we propose as a town by the name of Henry, in memory of the late Gen. James D. Henry, de- ceased, who gallantly led the Illinois volunteers
The suggestion of the name is ascribed to Mr. Hooper Warren, who was an intimate friend of the general.
A week after the survey a public sale of the lots was held in Hennepin by Nathaniel Cham- berlain, school commissioner of Putnam county. There was no speculative bidding and the lots were generally sold at a dollar a lot, equivalent to about $1.25 an acre, the price of government land, and in that way the wise provision of the govern- ment for the use of schools was frittered away be- fore anybody was here to look after the people's interest. In less than five years $300 to $500 was asked for these same lots. Had they been held by the school authorities for a few years they would have supported a good school here for several years. The sale of the lots did not at the time stimulate the building of the city, but the country around it began to fill up rapidly. A number set- tled along what is called Crow creek, west of Henry. The Mallorys, a father and several grown sons, came about 1836; David B. Culver and Orsenus Culver and a brother-in-law, Hiram Kel- logg, about the same; Laton Frisbee, a brother- in-law of the Mallorys, and Andrew Styles came in 1835, Col. Henry Snyder, William Kidney and Simeon Pool came in 1836.
Quite a number of German families settled just below Henry, forming quite a settlement, that was known in the early days as the "Dutch settlement." George and William Klein, George Heller, Fred Reinbeck, Anton Appel came in 1837 and later came Valentine Wies, Anton Sidel, Fred W. Troendley and Balser Klein and Joseph Merdian. Others also were coming in: Young Wren, Sampson Rowe and William Lottrop, and a man calling himself Joseph Burr, all three of whom married daughters of Elias Thompson, the pioneer of Henry. Mr. Thompson, as we have already said, used the cabin he had built as a tavern to keep wayfarers. In or about 1840 he built a more pretentious building near the foot of Edward street and called it the Henry House. At the side of it Joseph Burr, then his son-in- law, built a smaller building and opened out a general store, the first in Henry. He was also the first postmaster, but his duties were not oner- ous, as the postage on letters was twenty-five cents and on papers prohibitory.
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
Burr had quite a history. It appears that he had failed in business in the east, and taking what he could save of his effects, dropped the lat- ter part of his name, which was Joseph Burr Bradley, and was known here and married under the name of Joseph Burr. He did a flourishing business for a while, when he sold out the busi- ness, went east and settled honorably with his creditors. He later came back and went on a farm in Whitefield, where he lived for several years and raised a fine family. Later he moved to Missouri, where he died.
With the building of the Henry House Henry began to improve. Benjamin Lombard came to Henry from St. Louis with a small stock of goods in 1840 or 1841, and he was followed by Thomas Gallaher, who came from Hennepin a little later. These stores were on Water street, that runs below the waterworks under the hill, but a firm by the name of Cheever & Cowel, start- ing a store upon the hill about 1844, soon began to draw the greater part of the trade, when Thom- as Gallaher a year or two later built what for the time was quite a pretentious building, at the cor- ner of Front and Edward streets and from that on the building was all on the hill.
Sampson Rowe put up a building about 1840 near where the Yaeger sample room stands, in which for a time he kept a stock of goods, and in 1845 Silas Lock built the building in which he kept a hotel, which was afterwards a part of the Paskell house. Up to this time, 1845, Henry had improved but slowly, the stores we have mentioned Jerry Ong had a blacksmith shop on School street and Richard Dikes a tinsmith's shop, and J. J. Merdian a wagonmaker's shop, but from this on it filled up more rapidly and by 1850 began to take on city airs. Two churches had been built, a Protestant Methodist in 1847 and a Christian church in 1849; the first was a frame building with little pretention to ornament. It was later sold to the Episcopalians, who remodeled it and used it for several years. It stood on a pretty knoll on Second street, near the corner of Carroll. The Christian church was of brick and, for the times when it was built, a fine church edi- fice. But the societies that built them gradually dwindled away and the churches, though used for other purposes, gradually went into decay and now have both disappeared.
About 1844 the first frame residence was built in Henry, on the corner of Front and School
streets. We are not advised who built it, but it was occupied in a very early day by a family of the name of Sinclair. It is still in existence and is in fairly good repair.
Between 1845 and 1850 there was a considerable influx of population and the buildings began to be more substantially built. A brickyard had been installed just below town and another west of town, a mile or so. Men with capital had come in and Henry had began to have a healthy boom.
In 1848 the Illinois and Michigan canal was completed, making an outlet for grain. Boats on the river became more frequent in their visits and the facilities for shipping products greatly in- creased. The first boatload of grain shipped from this section was in the fall of 1848. It was load- ed at Hall's Landing, about four miles above Henry, by J. C. Rolley for W. H. Kellogg. Mr. Rolley came to Henry the next spring and bought grain and shipped it to Chicago. Before this all the wheat sold had been hauled to Chicago on wagons, requiring about a week to make the jour- ney, and it brought twenty-five cents a bushel, so that the incentive to raise wheat was not strong.
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