USA > Illinois > Menard County > Past and present of Menard County, Illinois > Part 3
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MENARD COUNTY
reflect that these people held in high esteem and regard the divine injunction to "multiply and replenish the earth." as is proven by the fact that James B. Short ventured no less than live times into the bonds of matrimony. But. seriously, we seldom find a community in which so many enterprising. industrious and success- ful men are associated together: and such a large per cent consistent. Christian men. Most of these men reared large families and they in turn, following their fathers' footsteps, have built up a community, noted far and near for its wealth. refinement and morality.
About the year 1820 Joseph Smith. from Kentucky. and his brother-in-law William Ilol- land. from Ohio, came and settled in the south side of the Indian Point timber. Matthew Rogers, of New York. came the same year and located one mile northeast of the pres- ent site of the town of Athens, From this time on the stream of immigrants became so overflowing that nothing reliable can be giv- en with regard to the order of arrival. ilv- ing thus sketched these three centers of early settlement Clary's Grove, Sugar Grove and Indian Point-we will now turn to the most important locality. so far as early settlement is concerned, in the county: New Salem. This was the first town or village laid out in the county. At a point some two and a half miles above Petersburg. the Sangamon river washes the foot of a high hill or bluff whose precipitous sides and level summit were. in an early day. covered with a thick and luxuri- ant growth of timber. The country back from the crest of the hill is almost perfectly level for miles to the west and formerly the timber grew dense and heavy for the distance of a mile or more. From this point the prairie stretched on westward in unbroken sameness for several miles. At a distance of perhaps three miles up the Sangamon the little stream for it is hardly worthy of the name of a creek -- of Rock creek mingles its waters with those of the "St. Camo," as the Sangamon was sometimes called by the early settlers. This little stream, rising in the western part of the county and flowing almost due cast enters the Sangamon at almost a right angle. Its hor- der on either side were formerly covered for
a distance of a mile or more. north and south, and for six miles east and west, with a mag- nificent growth of timber. The land north and south of Rock creek is neither level or hilly but is gently undulating and the soil is of the richest and most productive quality. Taken altogether. there is no more attractive or more productive section of country in cen- tral Illinois than that around Rock creek and New Salem, Just on the brow of the impos- ing bhiff, described above, was located the vil- lage of Salem. This locality, though not so at present. will in time become alnost as his- torie and sacred as Mount Vernon. Although Nature has not been so liberal and profuse in the gorgeousness of the scenery bestowed as in that of the Old Dominion, nor is the quiet Sangamon to be compared to the ma- jestic Potomac. yet in many respects Salem is a> sacred to the lover of human liberty as Mount Vernon in all her historie glory, Many a visitor, from far away, zecks the spot where President Lincoln spent the days of his early manhood, where he studied law and states- craft. where he wrestled. romped, raced and sported with the young men of his age. and where those principles were imbibed and ma- tured, which, in after years, made him the idol of a great nation and inscribed his name on tablets more enduring than granite, brass or bronze-the tablets of living, throbbing, Jov- ing, Iniman hearts. Standing on the bluff. near the site of the store where Lincoln served as clerk. you may gaze on the Sangamon river far below you, which in the sunshine looks like a ribbon of silver. as it meanders through the timber or among the hills: or jon may turn and view the hills and groves where in years long, long agone, he wandered with Anna Rutledge by his side and told her the story of his love and the devotion of his "great big" heart. Could these inanimate things have tongnes, what stories they might tell! As you stand on the hillside, you look down upon the river's bank where once the old watermill stood. Nothing is there to remind you that it ever existed save a part of the broken wall of the old foundation of the mill, and farther down some rotting timbers, half concealed in the bank. mark the location of the dam, over
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MENARD COUNTY
which the mad waters were wont to pour, and were, perhaps, the first merchants in the coun- you almost imagine that you hear, above the roar of the waters, the shouts of the Clary's Grove boys as they and "honest the" engage in some rude sport.
Not a vestige is left of the once prosperous village of New Salem to tell where once it stood. The mill is long since gone: nothing remains of the dam, save a few blackened tim- bers, hall buried in the soil; and where the houses once stood and the streets ran, brush and briers grow in wild tangles. Not a single location is pointed out, except the depression where the store, in which Lincoln sold goods. oner stood, and out of this old cellar two trees have grown-nature's monuments, rebaking the ingratitude of man. Not a sign of human life or labor is to be seen in half a mile.
Settlements had been made in this neigh- borhood several years before the laying out of Salem. Green had settled southwest of there, while Armstrong. Potter, Jones, and others had located not far away, with Lloyd and others farther up the Rock ercek timber. Somewhere. about 1824 to 1826, John Cameron and James Rutledge erected a rude and primitive mill near the site, or perhaps on the very spot, where the later structure stood. A brush and stone dam was constructed across the river, a breast- wheel was put in and a pair of home-made buhrs were set to grinding corn for the hun- gry settlers. Notwithstanding the extreme sin- plicity of this mill, it was indeed a "big thing" in that early day, for mills were so scaree that people came from a distance of fifty and even a hundred miles in every direction to have their grain ground in this mill. Such was the pat- ronage given this enterprise, that the propri- etors decided to lay out a town adjoining the mill property. Accordingly the surveyor. Reu- ben Harrison, was employed and on the 13th day of October, 1820. the town of Salem was duly and legally laid out. (See plat.)
The first improvements in the town were made by the proprietors, John Cameron and James Rutledge. Each of them began "inter- nal improvements" by building an up-to-date log cabin. The third building erected was a storeroom which, when completed, was occupied by Samuel Hill and John MeNamar. These
ty. except Harry Riggin and A. A. Rankin of Athens. At the time that Salom was laid out there had never been a postoffice in the limits of what is now Menard county, the people get- ting what little mail they received from Spring- field, then a mere village. A postoffice was at once established in Salem and Colonel Rog- ers was appointed the first postmaster. His duties, however, were not very arduous as news- papers were Then scarcely known in the west, or in the east for that matter, and but low persons received letters. The youth of to-day ean scarcely imagine how people lived in those days. To illustrate this postal system it may he stated that while Illinois County was under the government of the state of Virginia. Colonel John Todd was appointed lieutenant command- ant of said county, with instructions to report to Governor Patrick Henry, of Virginia, every month, and although Todd lived in Kentucky vet his reports were often a month in reaching Governor Henry.
Will and MeNamar were followed in the mer- cantile business by George Warburton, who soon became addicted to hard drink and ended a wretched existence by suicide, throwing himself in the Sangamon river. Warburton was a shrewd business man, well educated, and of a genial. friendly turn. so much so that he had but one enemy. and that was "John Barley- corn." He was succeeded in the store by iwo brothers from Virginia, by the name of Chris- man, but they remained only a short time. following the "star of empire" toward the west. About this time W. G. Greene. from Kentucky, and Dr. John Allen and his brother, both from the Green Mountain state, came to Salem. Dr. Allen was a thorough Christian gentleman, and stood very high in the medical profession. It was through the influence of Dr. Allen that the first Sunday-school, and the first temper- ance societies were organized in the county. The meetings of both of these were held in a log cabin that stood across the ravine that runs just south of Salem. Dr. Allen's brother soon tired of Salem and removed to Minnesota. where he became very wealthy and doubtless long ago has gone to his final home. The doc- tor remained in Salem till it began to go into
PAST AND PRESENT OF MENARD COUNTY
decline and then removed to Petersburg, where he successfully followed his profession for many years, but more than forty years ago be re- moved where physicians are not in demand.
In the spring of 1531 Abraham Lincoln was on his way to New Orleans with a flatboat load- ed with pork. lard. beeswax. ete .. when the boat caught on the Salem mill-dam. It was here that the future president performed the wonderful feat of raising the sunken boat, by boring an anger hole in the bottom. thus letting the water out. ( This is an actual fact. ) Mr. Lincoln was very much pleased with the country and probably with the people about Salem. so in the summer or fall of that same year, on his return from New Orleans, he stopped at Salem and that place became his home for a number of year -. It is needless for us to enter into the story of his life and experiences here: already the world knows it by heart. It was here on this now lonely hill that he sported with the boys of the vicinity; it was here that he read and pondered over the dry and musty pages of Blackstone: and perhaps it was here that those conceptions of human liberty and human rights were con- ceived, cultivated, matured and made a part of his great soul. It was here too that that other event occurred, which. it may be. influ- enced his whole after life: his first love epi- sode. It was sometime near the time of the Black Hawk war that Mr. Lincoln was first pierced by the darts of the cruel little blind god. Cupid. The "beautiful Anna Rutledge," as she was called, was just then ripening into a lovely and perfect womanhood and Lincoln felt the force, as Lytton says, of "the revolution that turns all topsy-turvy the revolution of love." It has been truthfully said that :
"Love, like death.
Levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook Beside the sceptre."
From the few old citizens who could remember these event- distinctly and especially from old "Aunt Jane Berry." a younger sister of Anna Rutledge. I learned many facts concerning this event in the life of Mr. Lincoln that are inter- "ting in themselves and go to establish the truth of the affection between him and Miss Rutledge but not of sufficient importance 10
be repeated here: suffice it to say that there i- no doubt that if she had bved his domestic history would have been different from what it was.
Anna Rutledge was not a beauty in the modern sense of that word for brought up in this rural district and in total ignorance of the conventional follies of fashionable life, ac- enstomed from early childhood to out-door ex- ereise, and the rough. wild pastimes of the day in which she lived, she was stamped with a beauty entirely free from art and human skill-a beauty all the result of Nature's handi- work. That the young clerk was captivated is not surprising. It is not our purpose to in- vade those hallowed precincts by describing their many strolls along the margin of the river, or over the rugged bluffs in the vicinity of Salem. Suffice it to say that his affection was fully reciprocated and the two were doubt- less pledged in the indissoluble bonds of mutual love, but in 1835 disease laid its cruel hand on the young girl and in spite of the love of friends and the skill of the ablest physicians. on the 25th of August, 1835, death came to her relief, and as Mr. Herndon has said : "The heart of Lincoln was buried in the grave of Anna Rutledge." Be this literally true or not. one thing is sure, from that time a dark sha- dow seemed to hang over him. From which he never sorined to emerge. It is said by those having the means of knowing. that even after this, whenever opportunity afforded. Lincoln would wander alone to the little hillock raised above her ashes, and sit for hours pondering in sadness. doubtless thinking over the happy hours spent with her at Salem. Notwithstand- ing his tall. ungainly form, and the abundance of his ever-ready humor, there was hidden in his breast a heart as tender and full of sym- pathy as a woman's- a heart touched by every tale of sorrow and full to overflowing with the milk of human kindness. Anna Rutledge was buried at Concord, three miles north of Peters- burg, and her remains rested there during all the exciting days of Mr. Lincoln's political career, and through the dark and bloody times of the Civil war: and after he had slept for vear- under the monument at Springfield. Sam- nel Montgomery, of Petersburg. removed her
PAST AND PRESENT OF MENARD COUNTY
remains to Oakland cemetery, and there they quietly rest with only a granito boulder, one of the transported relies of the glacial period, marking her grave with the simple words. cut deep into the solid stone, "Anna Rutledge."
EARLY EXPERIENCES.
The boys and girls of to-day can form Do conception of the inconveniences and hardships of the pioneers of Illinois, nor do any of us set a proper estimate on the worth of the men and women who wrought out for us the grand inheritance that we now enjoy. I feel safe in saying that no grander type of men and women ever lived than those who opened up the west for settlement. They were not gen- erally odneated in books-many of them being unable to read or write-yet they were edu- cated in that higher and grander sense that a knowledge of books will never enable one to at- tain. In rugged Nature's school they learned not the follies and frailties and vices of $0- called fashionable society, but they learned the more sublime lessons of justice, merey and love. In no period of human history were men more just to their fellowmen, nor was there over a time when professing Christian men were more true to the profession they had made. Men were religious then, not "for rov- enue only." but from principle. Ministers preached not for the money there was in it. but for the glory of God and from a sense of duty and for the good of their fellowman. "The groves were God's first temples." and from them arose the incense of true devotion. and it was returned in the power of the Holy Spirit. Men rode circuits of hundreds of miles. preaching in the settlers' rude cabins or in the groves, slept upon pallets and lived upon the homely fare of the hospitable early settler and received no salary whatever. At first the houses had no floors, except the dirt. tramped hard by many feet : the logs were eut ont in one end of the cabin for a fireplace. with a chimney built of sticks and plastered over with mud-called "cat-and-clay"-was the means for keeping the home warm. Cooking stoves were unknown for many long years. The young
people of to-day will wonder how the cooking Was done. Meals to tempt the appetite of the epicure were cooked in those days. Most house- wives were equipped with a coffee-pot, a frying- pan and a "that oven," and with these the culinary work was done. And such meals as were cooked upon these three simple implements are unknown at the present day. The collve- pot. steaming on a bed of livid coals on the hearth. the flat-oven, mired down in coals, the Trying-pan, held over the blazing "fore-stick." produced the corn-dodger, the fried ham ( from hogs fattened on the mast) hissing in the pan and the coffee, with all its rich aroma retained. and made a meal that a king might desire. There is no question that the victuals cooked in this way and on these primitive utensils had a richer flavor than any of the products of the present time, but in the early days it was a serious matter to keep the family supplied with bread-stuff. When Menard county was first settled the settlers were obliged to go to Edwardsville, in Madison county, for meal or flour, or make some other shift. and as no wheat was raised at first. cornmeal was the staple. In the late smomer and early fall they had recourse to the "gritter." as the grater was universally called. Every tin vessel was care- fully preserved and ripped up to make this essential article of domestic use. This piece of tin was punched full of holes, bent into the form of a gutter and nailed to a board. with the rough side out. and the cars of corn. just after hardening from the roasting-ear state. or at other times, after broiling the corn on the cols till sufficiently soft. the corn was grated off in the form of meal by rubbing the car up and down on the "gritter." AAnd this was no play. as the writer can aver from sad experi- ence. It was a daily job, which gave notice to all in the immediate vicinity by its "grating" sound. that bread was on the way. And our mothers knew just how to make this broad : and better or more healthful bread was never raton by man. But in this case man did. indeed. "eat his bread by the sweat of his brow." The writer well remembers, when a little boy. hear- ing an old man from Tennessee, who had spent many days digging ginsang, say that he hoped the time would soon come when he would never
more hear "the sound of a gritter. or the twang of a sang-hoe." By and by water mills were built on the streams, and these furnished corn- meal for the people. but it was a number of years before wheat was ground and flour was bolted in these mills. And this brings to mind a story told to the writer by Benjamin F. Ir- win, of Pleasant Plains, more than thirty years ago, and it was written down in a diary at the time. Mr. Irwin said the story was told to him by the Rev. John M. Berry, the pioneer C'unt- berland Presbyterian preacher of this part of Illinois, and he vonched for the literal truth of the entire narrative. Mr. Berry would not give the names, but he knew the story was true. A party owned and operated a flouring mill on one of the streams in this vicinity. He was a devout Christian man, honest and benevolent in all his relations to his fellowmen. For some time he thought that some one was taking small amounts of flour from the chest almost every work. Being convinced of the fact. he determined to watch and see if he could not trap the intruder. So one night he concealed himself under the bolting-chest and patiently awaited developments. Sure enough, it was not long till a man entered the mill and walked hesitatingly to the chest. A moment's pause and the intruder kneeled down beside th . flour chest and in a low. but carnest, voice began to pray. Astonished beyond measure at such seemingly contradictory conduct, the miller pa- tiently listened to the prayer. In low and trembling tones he begged the Lord to forgive him for what he was about to do. He told the Almighty how he had tried to get work how his wife and little ones were hungering for bread. His pleading prayer fini-hol, he arose, and taking a small amount of flour in a sack which he carried. he started to leave the mill. but when he reached the door the miller called him by name. for he had recognized him from the first. and started toward him. The in- truder made no effort to escape, as a real thief would have done, but turned and faced the miller. le toll the miller the conditions at his home and also said that he had taken small amounts of flour before. The miller made him EARLY TRIALS. go to the chest and till his sack. and after some The early settlers of Illinois-and Menard conversation they separated and each went to county as much as any other part- were sub-
PAST AND PRESENT OF MENARD COUNTY
his home. These men had been intimate friends before this occurrence. each having con- fidence in the honesty and integrity of the other : nor did this break their friendship, but rather cemented it. The intruder and the mil- ler continued to live in that neighborhood for many years : the former, through industry and economy, prospered in wordly things and was respected and honored by all who knew him as an honest Christian citizen, nor did the miller ever disclose his visitor's name. and the parties to the occurrence were never named.
The people were far more sociable in those days than they are at the present time. They were entirely satisfied if they could secure suf- ficient food and be comfortably clothed in their simple homespun attire. Then the object was to live and enjoy the blessings of life: now the aim is to get rich and live a selfish, unsocial life. Often one neighbor would hitch up his yoke of steers to the humbering farm wagon-if he had one: if not. a sled would do. even in the summer-put in some home-made. split-bottom chairs for the older women, crowd in the whole family and drive several miles to stay all night and have a good time. Then the hostess. he- side the cornbread and the savory bacon, would bring out the crab-apple preserves (made with honey) and the pumpkin pies, and they would least like lords. Perhaps there was but one room, which served as kitchen, dining-room. parlor and bed-chamber, but when bed time came the good housewife, not in the least con- 'used. proceeded to prepare for the comfortable rest of all. "Pallets" were made on the floor of quilts and buffalo robes and Fear skins, and soon the floor was almost completely covered with a mass of humanity. sleeping as sweetly as if on heds of down. This picture is not in the least over-drawn. for such seenes were of con- stant occurrence, nor should anyone infor from this that there was any want of refinement on the part of the people. for purer society never existed anywhere than among the pioneers of this whole country.
PAST AND PRESENT OF MENARD COUNTY
jected to an untold variety of trials and in- conveniences. Not only the labor connected with opening farms, clearing forests, erecting dwellings, building bridges and highways, but a great variety of other annoyances were met on every hand. We spoke in another place of the trouble in very early times of seenring meal and flour and of the ever annoying "gritter." as well as the want of implements and machin- ery with which to cultivate the soil : the wooden mole-board plow. the sickle, and later the scythe and cradle, with which the harvests were reaped, and the tail for beating out the grain. and later the more expeditions and more seien- tifie method of tramping it out with horses ; and then, last but not least, the interesting means by which the grain was separated from the chaff. Two stont men would catch a com- mon bed-sheet by The corners and while a third poured the grain, chaff and all from an elevated position, the winnowers would fan out the chaff with the sheet. After going over it three or four times in this way, the grain would be fairly well separated from the chaff. The making of clothing-spoken of more at length in another place-was an annoying but essential part of the household duties. In very early times in Menard county cotton was raised to consider- able extent, while flax was also cultivated, and every family raised sheep as extensively as the wolves would permit. All of these articles were carded by hand by the women of the fam- ily. The flax was grown in the fields, pulled by hand, watered, broken. skutched and then spun on the little wheel. The writer remem- bers distinetly to-day that when he awoke in the trundle bed, in the late hours of the night. he would often hear the swish of the cards as his widowed mother, prompted by maternal love. would ply these cards-often till the hour of midnight-in order to clothe her fatherless children. Ah, little do we realize the price our parents paid for the priceless heritage that we enjoy. We will never know the privation. sacrifice, anxiety and toil that they endured in order that we might be what we are. We boast of what we have done in the growth and devel- opment of this country. forgetting what our mothers and grandmothers in their home-spun attire and loving simplicity, accomplished in the
way of making our success possible. We are sometimes almost ashamed at the thought of the want of refinement and rough exterior of our fathers, forgetting that it was their fore- sight and rugged philosophy that laid the solid foundation, deep down on the solid bed-rock. of all that we are and hope to be. materially. morally and intellectually. They it was who made possible all that we are and all that we expect to be. One very prolific source of trou- ble and difficulty to the carly pioneers was the prevalence of disease of certain types that pro- vailed in carly times. I will name but two of these: bilious and malarial fevers, the latter taking the form of ague, as it was commonly called. or chills and fever. Some called this thread disease the "shakes." There was a vast amount of decaying vegetation, especially in the fall of the year, and the vast areas of un- drained swamps and lagoons that bred a mias- matie poison which filled the air with its poison- ous breath. True, it was not so often fatal. but it was a living death a long drawn-out agony that left just enough of life to realize the bitterness of disease. One of the most ter- rible features of it was its universal prevalence at some seasons of the year. Whole families would be down, so that one was not able to give anoties a drink of water, and entire com- munities would be in this condition for weeks. if not months, at a time. After it had preyed upon its subject for a time, the liver would be- come enlarged, the abdomen would assume un- wanted dimensions, the whole person would beemne bloated and a sickly sallow would per- sade all the saddened features. In many cases. in seeming mockery, it would assume the form of "the every-other-day ager," or the "third day ager." and return at its appointed time, as un- erringly as the planets in their course. At the appointed minute the premonitory pains would begin to shoot up the back, the sallow victim would then begin to gape and yawn and the rigors of the polar zones would seize his frame and then for from one to two hours the demon of malaria would seem to strive to shake each separate joint apart. Then came the raging fever, the torturing headache and at last the disgusting sweat, as the sufferer reached once more, the temperate zone. between the horrid
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