USA > Illinois > Marshall County > Past and present of Marshall and Putnam Counties, Illinois > Part 8
USA > Illinois > Putnam County > Past and present of Marshall and Putnam Counties, Illinois > Part 8
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The next settler was Solomon Brewer, who settled one mile south of Coulson on section 25 in 1834. Brewer moved to Iowa in 1844. The third settler was James Kenyon, an Englishman who settled on section 26 in August, 1836. The government land offce at that time was in Quincy and when Mr. Kenyon came to the place he was so much pleased with it that after coming he and his family camped under a tree, and he left early next morning for Quincy to enter the land. He became a prosperous farmer and in 1847 moved to Peoria.
In the southeast corner of the township were some settlements made about 1833. Mr. Elisha Stowell settled on section 33, about two miles east of Lawn Ridge. James Caldwell entered a part of section 25 in 1836 but did not come to reside on it till 1838. Some ten families came from Ohio and settled in Halleck township, ad- joining La Prairie in Peoria county, in 1832 or thereabouts and Erastus Root, who was with them, bought the principal part of his farm in La Prairie township, but his home was in Peoria county.
These were about all the settlers up to 1845, but after that the country began to settle very fast. Charles Stone came in 1845 and closely following him were Joshua Powell and "Deacon" Smith, Rev. Mr. Ordway in 1846, and the Hurds
the same year, and the next year came Wm. Ste- venson, the Stowells, the Vincents, Jos. Calder, Ransom Caldwell and Jacob Booth.
In 1848 to 1850 Elisha and Amos Leigh and Joel and William Atwood with his sons, Andrew, William and James. In the northern part of the township, Stephen Wilmot, Levi Holmes and James Doran located in 1847; Alden Hull in 1845.
In the Scotch neighborhood James Davidson, Robert Pringle, James Leigh and others located from 1845 to 1853.
About the year 1845 the first church in La Prairie was organized, the first services being held in a barn belonging to Samuel McCoy, on the first Sunday in June, 1844, and meetings were held from time to time in cabins or barns as ministers would be sent them, till in 1849 Rev. Nathaniel C. Weed came into the neighborhood and for twelve years was the pastor. The meetings at that time were held in the Hull school-house and about this time assumed the name of the Fairfield congregation of the United Presbyterian church, a name we think it still bears.
At the time Father Weed organized the church the membership consisted of Thomas Henry and Janet Scott, William and Wilhelmina Smith, John and Jennie Wylie, John and Jeannie David- son, George and Helen Hastings and Janet Rid- dle, with John Ross and George Hastings as rul- ing elders. Rev. Weed preached twelve years for the society and surrendered his charge in April, 1864. Rev. Weed was an old fashioned preacher who believed in long sermons, preaching for two and sometimes three hours.
A peculiarity of the United Presbyterians is, or was at the time he was preaching, that they thought it profanation to sing anything but the Psalms, and as it was sometimes difficult to get a perfect meter in paraphrasing the sentences there were times when the music was hardly in- spiring. Father Weed was a very good man and the church flourished under his administration. In the twelve years of his ministry eighty-eight were added to the society, thirty-three on profes- sion of faith. During the last year of his pastor- ate a very neat church was built. It was finished in September, 1863, and the first service held in it the first Sunday in October, when it was turned over to the society free from debt.
Through the good work of Dr. Wilmot, Ebe- nezer Stowell and Nathaniel Smith, who were
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
exerting themselves to form a Congregational so- ciety in the lower part of La Prairie on what is. generally known as Blue Ridge, a society was organized January 16, 1846, by Rev. L. N. Par- ker, of Galesburg.
The stern and courageous nature of these pio- neers of La Prairie in their stand for what they believed was right and justice and which is a marked eharaeteristie of their descendants to this day, shown by their adding to the usual Articles of Faith the following preamble: "Whereas, amid the light now shining, the manufacture, use and sale of intoxieating liquors, as well as the holding of slaves or apologizing for slavery by enaeting pro-slavery laws are sins against God and these eovenant vows, etc."
At this time it must be remembered both the slavery and liquor questions were in a very dif- ferent phase from what they are now. An abo- litionist then was considered but little if any better than a horse thief, while liquors were found in every house and not to offer a friend or neigh- bor when he called on you something to drink was considered almost an insult, so that it re- quired a good amount of courage to take such a stand and put themselves on record for doing it. But no member was admitted without subseribing to it and it is said no one refused to join be- cause of it.
The society grew and flourished and in 1856 a very neat little church was built which was badly wreeked in a wind storm two years later, but was repaired and served the purposes of the congre- gation till 1876, when a new ehureh, one of the finest in the county, was built.
Near the center of the township stands a very neat church which was built by the Methodists. The society was first organized and a class in- stituted in 1850 by Rev. Samuel Smith, and Thomas Huff was appointed class leader, but his health failing he was sueceeded by Amos F. Leigh. The original elass consisted of Amos F. Leigh, Thomas Huff and wife, Mrs. Hay, Mrs. William Hart, William Haneoek and wife, and Naney Hull. In 1859 the church was built at a eost of $1,825, the Leighs contributing about one-half of the eost. When the new church was built, in the winter of 1860, the Rev. Samuel Smith held a season of revival meetings of such power that over one hundred eonverts were added to the membership, the church was dedieated in 1861 by Elder Ritehie.
In 1830 a stage line was established from Peoria to Galena which passed through La Prairie. A man by the name of John P. Winters had the contraet for carrying the mails. The stages were light, two horse wagons in the summer and a sled in the winter. The road ran from Peoria to Northampton and then to Boyds Grove, but after Coulson built his cabins, as mentioned above in 1832, the stage line made that a stopping plaee. This stage line was kept up till about 1840, when the towns along the river having obtained considered importanee it was changed to the west side of the river and four-horse coaches were used. When the railroad was built in 1854 the stage lost its usefulness and the route was discontinued.
The only town worthy of the name in La Prairie is Lawn Ridge, situated in the extreme south- west eorner of the township, the western bound- ary being only eighty rods from the Stark county line and the southern on the Peoria eonnty line, and in fact the town juts over somewhat into Peoria county. It takes its name from the "di- vide" between the Illinois and Spoon rivers, a slight rise of land that slopes each way to the east and west and extends the whole length of the township, and extends down into Peoria eounty, where it is known as the "Blue Ridge." Farther sonth it is of a hilly order and covered more or less with timber, but in Marshall county it is prairie and much more gradual in its slopes and in the early days conveyed the idea of a well kept lawn. It is now covered with farms and has lost some of its early characteristies.
The town of Lawn Ridge never was platted. Land was plenty when it was laid out and the lots are described by metes and bounds and not by lots and blocks. It is a very pretty plaee, the streets running north and south, east and west, erossing at right angles. Although it was originally open prairie, it is now finely shaded with noble trees, which the inhabitants have set out. It is sup- plied with water by wells, plenty of good water having been obtained in the early days by digging from twenty to thirty feet. As the town is off from any watercourse or railroad it has no eom- mereial advantages, but beeame a kind of central point for the farmers and appears to have grown more than most "eountry corners." In 1880 there were a postoffice, a general store, a groeery, two drug stores, a harness shop, three blacksmith shops, two wagon shops, a barber shop, two hotels, etc., and between one and two hundred inhabitants, so
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
that it ean be seen that at that early day it was pretty well patronized by the surrounding farmers.
Of late years there has come a change in the manufacturing of nearly everything and many of the shops that once resounded to the hammers and other tools of the mechanie have passed out of existence. A railroad runs within a seant mile of Lawn Ridge and the little town of Speer is there, Camp Grove and other towns have sprung up near it and are dividing the business with it.
In 1864 a number of the eitizens and farmers of the neighborhood asked for a charter for a Masonic lodge, which was granted to them Oc- tober 5, 1864. The lodge has flourished and they have a ncat and serviceable lodge room over one of the stores.
There is also a hall large enough to serve their purpose, two churches, a Union Presbyterian and Methodist, and a fine school-house, 35x70 feet, in which is maintained a graded school. Every- thing is in good shape, both public and private buildings, and the villagers take pride in keep- ing them so.
On section 12, near the northern part of the township, flourished on paper, a town that went by the euphonious name of Chambersburg, but it has been, within a few years, ploughed up and is now a very prolific cornfield.
Near the center of the township stands a little cluster of buildings which go by the name of La Prairie eenter. Located there is a store, a blacksmith shop, the town hall and till lately a postoffice, but since the rural mail routes have been installed the postoffice is discontinued.
Of the farming townships of Marshall county, in the produetiveness of the farms, the beauty and comfort expressed by the many fine homes, the herds of fine sleek cattle and fat hogs and the stalwart character and well-to-do appearance of the inhabitants taken as a whole La Prairie stands foremost of the townships of Marshall county.
As an evidence of the intelligence and upright- ness of the people of La Prairie the township con- tains five churches and nine sehool-houses.
Of course such men as settled La Prairie and made it an article of their religious faith that human slavery was against God and the teachings of the Bible, would not sit idly by if their help was needed and they were ready to prove by their works that the faith they had proclaimed was not idle talk and in the old slavery days a station of
the underground railroad, as it was ealled, by which runaway slaves were helped on their way, was in La Prairie and many a poor fugitive was hid, fed and forwarded on his way to Canada.
CHAPTER XV.
STEUBEN TOWNSHIP.
Steuben township is called on the government maps Town 12 N., R. 9, E. of the 4 P. M. It lies along the western bank of the Illinois river and contains twenty-seven full sections and six fraetional ones, but only a few acres are cut off from sections 1 and 23, while but small bits of sections 24 and 35 are out of water. For nearly a mile along the river the land is swampy, full of small lakes and nearly all practically . worthless except for the scanty timber that grows upon it, being subject to overflow. From the low lands the land rises in bold bluffs, covered with timber and valuable on that account, to the height of seventy-five or one hundred feet, the hills being cut by ravines. These bluffs or timber lands ex- tend back from one to two miles, when prairie land is reached.
Ranging from a half miłe to a full mile from its western border, Senachwine creek runs the full length of the township and as that too has its bottom and bluffs, though not nearly as much so as the river, a large part of Steuben township is very rolling, though there are some farms as good and as profitable as in any of the townships, for the numerous small streams furnish plenty of water and the land, too rolling for other purposes, furnishes excellent pasture land and nowhere is finer stock and fatter hogs raised than in Steu- ben. But while it is true that the bluffs along the river are not well suited to farmning they are rich in other things which more than offset the advantage that other townships have over it in that respect, for in the bluff is found a very fair quality of bituminous eoal which crops, out at the side of the bluffs and is easily mined with little or no preliminary expense. This eoal has been mined in this way for more than half a century and thousands of tons have been taken out and sold to the neighboring farmers and for factory use. It has excellent heating qualities but leaves considerable cinders and ashes. About twenty years ago a shaft was sunk down to the third vein, as it is called, and the product is the equal of other Illinois coal.
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
Besides the coal which is there in inexhaustible . quantities the bluffs produee a fine limestone and a quarry was opened and kiln built some fifty or sixty years ago by a family by the name of Rob- inson, who burned lime and sold it to the sur- rounding country, but they did not earry it on on a very large seale, though they had a demand more than they eould supply, and after the rail- road was built they abandoned the lime burning and turned their attention to farming in the summer and taking out coal in the winter. Be- side the eoal under the ground the top soil of the bluff is a fine clay suitable for either brick or tile. About 1855 Colonel MeClannahan built a tile faetory and put in the neecssary machinery, and for a year or two did a good business, but the hard times of 1857 coming on the business fell off and he abandoned it and it was not, we be- lieve, ever revived.
Of late years since the demand for eement has become so great, we understand that large quan- tities of the necessary materials are found there, and there was considerable talk at one time of a company being organized to manufacture it.
At the foot of the highest bluff, and with the yields of all the valuable produets of Mother Earth that we have named, nestles the beautiful little village of Sparland, partly on level land at the bottom of the hill, and partly on the slope of the hill, the stores and other business oceu- pying most of the level land, the residenees with beautiful lawns and blooming gardens rising one above another on the bold slope of the hill till the highest towers two hundred feet above the lowlands and all of them have most magnifieent views toward the east.
About a mile to the east flows the Illinois, low flat lands separating it from the town. While the land is not as a general thing swampy it is sub- jeet to overflow and boats are sometimes landed elose to town, that at normal times would be stopped a mile away. The Peoria branch of the Chieago, Roek Island & Pacific Railroad runs through the town just at the foot of the hill and is their prineipal means of communication. It is also the place from which the Laeon people begin most of their journeys, it being connected with Lacon by a good dirt road built above high water, exeept in extraordinary raises, and the Laeon bridge. A line of stages or busses from Lacon meets every train in the day time and will make those at night if called upon. Sparland
has also for many years done a large business in buying and shipping grain and livestoek, espe- cially hogs, which a few years ago they handled in large quantities. It was the shipping point of all of Steuben, most of La Prairie and a good part of Saratoga and Whitefield. The principal industry, we might almost say the only one, is mining coal.
There is a regular mine from which the coal is taken from what is ealled the third vein, being two and three hundred feet under the surface. The mine, or shaft as it is ealled, gives employ- ment to about one hundred men. There are many other mines of the drift order. Some of these employ several men and some only one or two. The eoal from the shaft is mueh superior to the drift coal, not containing near the amount of ashes and einders. But the drift eoal burns freely, gives out heat equal to the other and is a valuable fuel. The town supports a well stocked general store, a dry goods and elothing store, two groeery stores, a hardware and drug store, a hotel and two restaurants, two or three blacksmith shops, a wagon shop, a postoffice and fancy goods store, a tailor shop, ete.
The village was laid out in 1855 by a family by the name of Sparr. At first it consisted of only two ranges of bloeks lying between the rail- road and bluff; several additions have since been added, but the name Sparland has remained.
From the first the village flourished and at the time of the war was one of the most enterprising places in the eountry, the coal beds being thought to be mines of wealth, and they became somewhat exeited. Several of the more enterprising men formed a company for the purpose of taking the eoal from the drift banks in large quantities, shipping it to Chieago and selling it. Land was purehased at a high price in Chieago for a eoal yard and a large amount of eoal was shipped there, but after a year's trial it was found that the eoal eould not compete with the Streator shaft coal, which then sold at the same priee, and the projeet was abandoned with considerable loss to those who had promoted it.
Two and a half miles below Sparland, about the same time a company eame and made preparations to mine eoal upon a large seale. They built quite a number of houses and made preparations to, and did for awhile, employ from two hundred to two hundred and fifty men. They named the place Grantville and expected to found a large,
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
thriving town there. But after expending thou- sands of dollars they were forced to abandon it, as they could not sell the coal. The houses were left till they went to decay, several blew down and all have gone to destruction.
A company from Rock Island a few years later also made extensive preparations for mining coal two miles above Sparland but found the same "rouble and were forced to abandon it.
Although the drift coal has not proved a suc- cess from a commercial standpoint, thousands of tons of it have been consumed by the people of the neighborhood, and it has given employment to hundreds of men all along the bluff. The shaft, or mine, coal of Sparland is equal to any of the Illinois coal and stands high in the market.
Although these coal ventures were disastrous to those that were promoting them they were a grand thing for Sparland. They employed many men to whom large sums of money were paid and that money was mostly spent in Sparland.
This made extremely good times in Sparland and the town grew rapidly and everything that was started met with prosperity. Then the Fassbender Brothers came in, had a large general store, a lum- ber yard and bought grain and at last built a dis- tillery and. it looked as if Sparland was soon go- ing to be the metropolis of the county. Then the failure of the coal projects and later trouble came about the distillery. It was during the time of the whiskey frauds that made so much excite- ment during the presidency of General Grant when many of the smaller distilleries that had started up all over the country were forced to close down, the Sparland distillery with others, and a disastrous fire in the business section of the village about this time gave it a blow from which it never fully recovered, or at least did not regain its former prestige.
Since, Sparland has been growing steadily but slowly but it has that within the bosomn of its mother earth that in all probability will again put it on the road to prosperity.
. During the flush time in Sparland they built a school-house that at the time and for a long time after was the finest in the county. It was their pride, and well it might be, and they have a school which they also have reason to be proud of. They employ three teachers, beside the super- intendent, who has been there for the past ten years. They graduate from threc to five each year who rank well up to the larger schools.
While they were all away from the building one day in the spring of 1904 the building, in some way never satisfactorily explained, took fire and was destroyed as much as a brick building could be, as they have no way to fight fire. It was quite a blow to the village but they soon rallied and with true western enterprise set about rebuilding it, and it was but a few months before the site, and there is not a finer one for many miles around. was graced with another fine structure which well replaced the old one. It is not quite so large, quite so imposing, but it is more convenient, more up-to-date. They also have a school, smaller to be sure, but fully equal in curriculum and completeness of study, to those of their larger sisters in the county.
Two fine churches, a Methodist and Baptist, send their spires heavenward from the hillside, which are crowded with worshipers on the Sab- bath and eloquent preachers break to the congre- gations the bread of life and grand choirs lead the people in melodious songs of praise.
Here at the foot of the hill is the Steuben town hall, a very neat wooden building covered with steel made and painted in imitation of brick, in which elections and town assemblies are held and which is also used for entertainments of various kinds.
Such is Sparland which, from the wealth na- ture has hid away in her high hills may some day outrank any of her sister cities in the county.
The first known resident of Steuben township was Franklin Ward Graves, who came there in 1831, bought of the Indians the land where Spar- land now stands and built a cabin at the foot of the hill. Mr. Graves lived here till 1846, when he sold his claim to George Sparr and with his wife and family of nine children and two sons- in-law, started for Oregon. Undertaking to cross the mountains on a new trail they lost their way and the company of ninety persons were overtaken by winter, and after one of the most heartrending experiences ever recorded in which only forty- eight survived, finally were rescued. Of the Graves family of thirteen persons only six sur- vived, five of whom were women, Mr. and Mrs. Graves and both the sons-in-law perishing mis- erably. The next known settler was John Ridge- way, who came in the fall of 1832, settling where Grantville was located, Jeremiah Cooper and family coming about the same time. George Red- dick came in 1833, S. E. Thomson and George
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES.
B. Drake came in 1834, Joseph Thompson with his sons, Asa and Ellis, came in 1834. In 1835 Francis B. Drake settled at what has since been known as Drake's Grove. Mrs. Mary Watkins, with her sons, Jekial and David, came in 1835.
David W. Bates and son, L. M. Bates, came in 1837, and the place now known as the county poor farm was settled upon by Benjamin Allen in 1837.
There were quite a number of settlers settled on the Peoria and Galena road which was laid out in 1835. Timothy Atwood settled there in 1835 and Thomas Miner in 1838, and Allen Hunter in 1837. Other settlers came in and settled along the road and it became known by the name of "Yankee Street," while another road along un- der the bluff became another favorite place of settlement and was called "Hardscrabble." Many settlers came in between 1835 and 1845. John Webster, Russell Frisbee, Joel Fosdick, Levi Fos- dick, George Mead, Amasa Garrett, the Hoskins and Tanquary families, Samuel Mclaughlin and many others.
As early as 1837 a school-house was built on the Thomson's land. It was built of logs, 16x18, with two windows, each of six panes of 8x10 glass and a large stone fireplace. The floors and benches were of split logs or puncheons, the first school being taught in the summer of 1839. In 1853 this was replaced by a very neat brick built farther west upon the road. For many years this building was used as a church by a band of worshipers of the Methodist persuasion and the neighborhood went by the name of "Bethel." Some fifteen years ago a new church was built about a mile farther west to accommodate a larg- er number of the congregation which now com- prises about one hundred families. There is also a Baptist church on Yankee street which is well kept up and which has a large membership.
Probably we can not close the history of Steu- ben township better than by a brief relation of two mysterious disappearances of men in the prime of life and no clue was ever found as to their fate.
In the fall of 1861 Michael Wyley, a farmer in the western part of Steuben township, went to Sparland. He was of a convivial disposition and somewhat addicted to drinking. He was seen on the road returning home between nine and ten o'clock in the evening somewhat intoxicated, and that was the last ever scen of him. He had
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