USA > Illinois > Menard County > Past and present of Menard County, Illinois > Part 4
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MENARD COUNTY
"spureners that he had just passed through. Then the "well day" came, with its ravenons. unnatural appetite, demanding all that reason of common sense would forbid. At first. before the physician came with his pill-bags. the rem- (dies were "varbs and toas." prescribed by every one. but later on same "Sappington's Pills. Fowler's Solution and Quinine." No mortal man, who never had "the chills." can form any just conception of its agony. Not sick enough to be abed but a few hours at a time, yet filled with agony, compared to which being confined to bed would be a solace and relief. Some poctaster. who knew the agony of the "ager." has parodied "Poe's Raven" as follows:
And to-day. the swallows flitting Round my cabin. see me sitting Moodily within the sunshine. Just inside my silent door. Waiting for the "ager." scoming Like a man forever dreaming : And the sunlight on me streaming Throws no shadow on the floor : For I am too thin and sallow To make shadows on the floor- Nary shadow any more.
But as the prairies were broken, the ponds drained and the amount of stock increased to eat out the vegetation, the agne diminished until at last it left. to return no more. we trust forever.
THE DEEP SNOW.
One of the most conspicuous chronological landmarks in the history of Menard county, and of all central Illinois for that matter. is the "Winter of the Deep Snow." Old settlers. in fixing remote dates use this as the average mother uses the birth of her children : she says. "It was the spring that John was born." and the old settler says. "It was just after the deep -How." At the old settlers annual meetings they have badges that are worn by all who were here before 1830, which are inscribed "Snow Bird." In the year 1830 it rained for several days in -necession just before Christmas, and on Christmas day. as some say, and the day after. as other- put it. it began to snow. The snow fell -o rapidly that in a few hours there
was a depth of six inches on the ground. but it did not cease to fall with this, but continued in fall till at the very least three fert had fallen. Some claim that there was more than this, not a few placing it at Your feet, but the most conservative estimate it at three feet on a level all over the country. After this snow had fallen there came a rain and this, freezing on the snow. formed a crust that would bear the weight of a man. After this other snow fell. adding to the depth. President Sturtevant, of Illinois College, who was here at the time, says that as soon as the snow had fallen it turned very cold and that for two weeks the mercury never rose higher than twelve degrees below zoro. The ground was entirely covered from that time till the latter part of March. The settlers would break roads with ox-teams, but the snow would blow in and again they had to be broken. This process packed the snow in the roads till it formed a veritable ridge, and these ridges remained after the snow elsewhere was all gone. The writer heard one old pioneer say that these ridges remained and after the snow was gone from the prairies they looked like silver thread- winding across the country. The snow was so deep that it covered up the food that the wild animals were accustomed to subsist on and thousands of them perished. The crust on the snow was strong enough to bear up a man, and the wolves and other like animals could travel in safety on its surface. but the deer were not so fortunate. As they run by a succession of leaps and their how's being hard and sharp. just so soon as they started to run they broke through the crust and thus they lay helpless on the show. On this account the deer were nearly all killed, for the dogs and wolves soon learned that as soon as the deer started to run they would break through and then they were an easy prey. The settlers experienced terribly hard times dur- ing that winter on account of the fael that the show came so early that they were caught with their crops ungathered and they were in many ways unprepared for the winter. Another trou- ble was the scarcity of mills in the country. Many were from forty to sixty miles from the nearest mill. and. of course. it was impossible to go that distance for breadstuff. As a conse-
PAST AND PRESENT OF MENARD COUNTY
quence all kinds of expedients were resorted to. The inevitable "gritter" was called into constant use and lye-hominy was a standard article in every home. The game perished in -uch numbers that it was never as plentiful afterward. Unfortunately, the wild game was not the only thing that perished. During this winter two men who resided near the south line of what is now Menard county perished in the snow. William Saxton started out hunting. and. not returning. the neighbors made search for him, but failed to find him. The next spring his body and that of his horses were found within a mile of his home. John Barnett started after a wolf while the snow was falling. but he did not return. Search was made for him. but he was not found. The next spring the body of Barnett and that of his horse and dog were found forty miles from the point from which he started. It was supposed that the falling snow blinded and bewildered him, and, losing his bearings, he rushed on till his horse gave out and horse and dog and man perished to- gether. On Rock creek lived an old bachelor by the name of Stout, no relation to any of the Stouts there now, however, who perished in the snow, somewhere near where Pleasant Plains now stands.
Pages might be written of the stories told by old pioneers of the privation and suffering of that winter. There is no doubt that it was the most severe winter that has ever been known since the country was settled. The snow at three feet deep would have been nothing ro- markable in the cast. but it was unknown to the people here, and, beside this, they were un- prepared for such conditions, and the country being now it is no wonder that there was great inconvenience and suffering. It must have been a remarkable time, to mark a period that still stands as a chronological monument, mark- ing a period of time so abidingly as not to be erased by years.
THE SUDDEN CHANGE.
The Indians had a tradition, which they told to the early settlers of Illinois. that many. many winters before the paleface came to make
his home here, that there was a winter of tor- rile suffering in all this region on account of the deep snow and the long continued cold. They related that early in the fall the snow began to fall and there were no warm days in cause it to melt, but every few days fresh snows would fall, and thus it continued to grow deoper and deeper until, as they said. it was deeper than the height of the tallest man. . As a consequence, the game was nearly all starved or frozen to death and many of the Indians per- ished from cold and hunger. The early settlers noticed on the tall hills in the prairies there wore vast number of buffalo and deer bones in an advanced stage of decay. The Indians ex- plained this by saying that during that winter. as the snow grew deeper in the low ground and being blown off the higher ground. the game retreated to those spots of high ground and perished there from want of food and the in- tense cold. It appears that there are periods when the elements are "out of joint": times when the influence of the planets or of sun- spots, or something else, brings about strange and disastrous effects. Such was the case "the winter of the deep snow"-the winter of 1:30- 31. The deep snow began to fall between Christmas and the New Year. It is a little re- markable that the "sudden change" was at the same season of the year. On the 20th day of December, 1836, the sudden change came. The weather up to this time had been mild and pleasant. There had been but little snow and no severe cold had been experienced. The ground was frozen to the depth of three or four inches. On that morning. December 20th. some time before noon. it began to rain and continued to rain till after noon. The rain came from the northeast. and between twelve and one o'clock p. m. a very dark cloud ap- peared. low down in the northeast. and as it came nearer a rumbling. roaring sound could be heard, and in a few moments a strong wind swept over the woods and prairies and the cold became at oner intense. Perhaps a more sud- den change was never experienced in this lati- tode. Chickens and grese had their feet caught in the suddenly congealed mud and water and later had to be cut out and their feet released by thawing them out at the fire. Falls con-
PAST AND PRESENT OF MENARD COUNTY
corning this change, as told In men of un- Mr. Heredith at once realized it- severity, and doubted veracity, are almost beyond belief. calling all the men to his aid they overturned the wagons and replacing the beds upon them they entered them and drove as rapidly as pos- sible to the nearest residence, which, fortu- nately, wa- not far away. When they reached the farmhouse their clothing was frozen solid upon them and the men had their hands and feet and cars frozen. The hogs crowded to- gether in order to keep warm, and as the cold grew more severe they literally piled up in piles, and as a result those in the center smoth- pred and those on the outside froze to death. Those that did not die outright scattered over the prairies and finally perished. Mr. Heredith returned home as soon as the state of the weather would permit, but the loss had broken his spirit and he pined away and in a year or two died. Alexander Montgomery. of Greenview, gives the following account. as told by his father. who then lived where H. H. Marbold now ro- sides. West of the house is a low piece of ground which had been filled by the rain to the depth of eight or ten inches. West of this Slough Mr. Montgomery had a lot of calves in a pen. and realizing the intensity of the cold he started as soon as the change began to feed them. He waded across the slongh. the water being almost to his boottops, and fed the calves as quickly as he could, and returned, as he said. in less than twenty minutes, and when he re- turned he crossed the slough on solid ice. Rev. Josiah Porter. of Chatham. Illinois, was at that time a traveling evangelist and traveled over a large territory of Illinois, Ile relates a cir- enmistance that occurred in the west part of James H. Hildreth and a young man by the name of Frame started to Chicago on horseback and by the 20th of December they reached the region of Hickory creek. a tributary of the Iroquois river. Here the storm struck them. They wandered about till night overtook them and. seeing that they were doomed to perish. they killed one of their horses and. removing the entrails, they crawled into the carcass and remained there till about midnight. when the animal heat having been exhausted, they came out, determined to kill the other horse and utilize it in the same way, but in their be- numbed condition the knife was dropped and could not be found. They stood around the living horse till two or three o'clock in the morning, when Frame became drowsy and Hil- droth was unable to keep him awake and he sank down and was soon beyond all human suf- fering. As soon as light came Hildreth mount- ed the remaining horse and after wandering for hour- reached a cabin. where the inhuman wretch who inhabited it refused him aid. He finally recovered. with the loss of his hands and fort. and reared a family, the descendants of whom now live in Logan and DeWitt conn- ties. Henry and John live in Logan, and his daughter Sarah. ( Mrs. William Weedman ) lives in Farmer City. I can not leave this story withont stating another fact in connec- tion with it. The wretch who refused Mr. Douglas county, near the corner of Piatt and Moultrie counties. Two men. brothers, by the name of Deeds, started out to cut a bee-trcc. which they had found in the fall. and were overtaken by the cold of this sudden change. Not returning home, a search was instituted. but they were not discovered for nearly two works, when they were found frozen to death some three miles from their home. Andrew Ileredith, who was formerly a merchant, miller and pork-packer in Cincinnati, having met with reverses, came to Illinois to retrieve his for- tune. He settled in Sangamon county. about three miles west of Loami, near Lick creek, and called the place Millville. He bought wheat and made four. but seeing, as he thought. an opening for great wealth, he began buying hogs and driving them to the St. Louis market. His first ventures were very successful. so he do- cided to venture on a larger scale, So in the fall of 1836 he bought up a drove of twelve or fifteen hundred hogs and in December ho started to drive them to St. Louis. By the 20th of December he had reached the prairie of Maconpin county, He had taken with him a muuber of wagons and teams for the purpose of hauling corn to ford the hogs on the way. As soon as the corn was fed out of a wagon it was utilized in hauling those hogs which were giving out. When the storm struck them
PAST AND PRESENT OF MENARD COUNTY
Hildreth aid in his dire extremity was named Benjamin Russ. The story of his inhuman treatment of Hildreth being circulated in the settlement. the ire of the honest pioneers was aroused and they gathered to deal out sum- mary justice, but in some way he got wind of what was in store for him and iled to more congenial climes and was seen there no more. Many other and equally remarkable incidents of the sudden change have been told the writer by men of undoubted veracity, but the above will serve to give an idea of its suddenness and severity. It was the opinion of many of those who experienced this storm that it traveled at a rate of at least seventy miles per hour.
HAIL STORM OF 1850.
At irregular intervals of time strange and re- markable meteorological phenomena occur for which no one can account=whether they are caused by sun-spots or planetary relations, no one can tell, for some continue but a few hours. while others last through an entire season. The Indians have a tradition of a winter. per- haps in the first half of the eighteenth century, which far surpassed anything known since the paleface came west of the Ohio river. It was undoubtedly confined to the west. for if it had extended to the east we would have had a record of it by the white man. The winter of 1830-31 was remarkable for its severity and the depth of the snow. and it has long been a chronological landmark and old settlers count time from "the winter of the deep snow": an- other was the awful "sudden change" on the 20th of December. 1836 : and -till later the de- structive freeze on the 24th day of August. 1863. which many persons now living still distinctly remember. The corn. which was just in good roasting-ear. was frozen hard and all creation literally stunk with the rotting vegeta- tion, but the event that I am going to relate was confined to very narrow limits. It is the hail storm of May the 20th. 1850. It was confined to Menard county. being only seven miles wide and only ten or twelve miles in length. Greenview and Sweetwater were near the center of its destructive power. The day- May 27. 1850-had been extremely warm for
that time of the year. Late in the afternoon a cloud appeared in the northwest and came up very rapidly. It was, perhaps, between five and six o'clock in the afternoon when the storm broke. It came with a very high wind and the rain fell in a perfect torrent, accompanied by a hail storm such as was never witnessed before by those who experienced it. In fact, the state- ments made by the most reliable men in the county at the time, and in which they all agree, are almost beyond belief. The hail stones were large-many of them larger than a lin's egg- and they fell in such vast quantities that they lay to a depth of a foot at least on the level prairies. Elder William Engle, a man of un- impeached veracity. told the writer that he and I'nele David Propet gathered the hail stones thirty-eight days after they fell and made ice water of them to drink. This is literally frue. as will be explained further on. The hail stones were so large and came with such driving force from their momentum and the force of the wind that it is strange that much greater dam- age was not done. Many hogy and calves were killed outright. while all the poultry which was not under shelter suffered a similar fate. The wild birds, rabbits and other small animals in the range of the storm were entirely extermi- naled. It is a fact, authenticated beyond dis- parte, that a large amount of timber, especially white oak, was killed. The leaves and smaller limbs were beaten off. the back on the side next the storm was pulled off. and scores of trees two feet and two feet six inches in diameter were killed and stood for years a- silent but unimpeachable witnesses of the severity of the storm. The crops were a total wreck. being leaten into the earth. Corn, wheat. oats and even grass were a total loss. A Mr. Laach, then living near Greenview, was a mile or two from home on horseback and was caught in the storm. and being some distance from shelter he soon realized that unless he got protection in some way he would assuredly perish. So. as quickly as possible, he dismounted and ungirthing the saddle he put it over his head as a helmet. He told the writer, thirty years ago, that even with this protection he thought that he would as- suredly he killed. Now and then a stone of unusual size would strike the saddle with such
PAST AND PRESENT OF MENARD COUNTY
force as to stagger him and cause him to see whole constellations of stars. The rain which fell with the hail. together with the melting hail stones, produced such a torrent of water that the small streams were soon raging floods. By these the hail was, in places, piled up to a depth of ten and fifteen feet. Grove creek, in Sugar Grove, became a raging river, piling up the hail in vast heaps and in many cases cover- ing it over with leaves and trash till a perfect ice-house was constructed. It was from one of these that Engle and Propst. on the Ith of July thirty-right day- after the storm -- got ice with which to make icewater for the people who were gathered together not far away to cele- brate the birthday of our independence. We have in this story a fine illustration of the spirit of "grit. gumption and go-aheaditiveness" of our ancestors. With the fields as bare as in the midst of winter. the season's labor all destroyed. with the crops all beaten into the ground and the winter soon to come. with biting. bitter blasts with all this they gather together to spend a day in social converse, to renew ac- quaintaner and to cultivate the spirit of patri- otic devotion to God and native land. Ah. that is what has made this land what it is to-day ! We boast what we have done. but we forget that that class of men and women who preceded us -our fathers and mothers-are the force that made this country what it is to-day. I verily believe that the world has never known so grand a race of men and women as the pioneers of these western states. They come of the best stock of the world. Out of every nation on carth. there came to this country the most lib- erty-loving. the most independent. the bravest, the most self-reliant and determined people ever known. and by amalgamation and training they produced our fathers and mothers, who drove out the wild beasts, subdued the wild prairies and forests. laid the foundations of education and of moral and religious training. leaving to us this glorious heritage that we pos- -ess. Many of them were not educated in books. or in the fashions and follies of some classes of social life, but they had that higher and nobler development of head and heart, that fitted them to the plant. the germs of which. under God. have grown into this, the grandest and greatest
nation on earth. Will we preserve what they left to ne? But I have gotten off the track. In my imagination i can see the people at that celebration. U'nele "Bill" Engle was a promi- nent ligure among them. True, the crops were ruined and the prospect for the coming winter was a little dark. It what good would fore- bodings and repinings do? ! see him, with his kindly face and portly form. as he tried to enver up his disheartened neighbor, and friends. With words of encouragement and cheer. he admonished them to look on the bright side and then, with an appropriate story. the whole company would be put in a good humor and. forgetting their troubles, all would go "merry as a marriage bell." A> I -poke of "Ehele Bill" telling stories. I should explain that he was an expert story-teller. Like Lincoln, he had an exhaustless store of "varns" and ance- notes and no one could surpass him in telling them. Out of that vast store he could always find one just suited to the occasion. and when he told a story he entered into the spirit of it as he preached that is, with his whole soul. le and the martyred president. Abraham Lin- coln. had many a tilt at spinning yarns during the terms of court in Petersburg. If the old "Menard House" had the power of speech it would entertain for days and weeks. repeating the unnumbered "good ones" that were told when Lincoln. Engle and other home and im- ported talent spent an evening at that old-time hostelry. Not only the evenings were passed in this way, but I have it from the very best authority of the time that on one occasion at hast. when "Uncle Bill" had met a forman "worthy of his steel." The battle raged. with varying fortune, until the rising of the sun and even then the referees were compelled to declare if a "draw." Elder William Engle was a very remarkable man in many respects and left his impress upon all the enterprises of this county. an impress which will last for years to come. Ile performed a very important part in the development of the resources of the county: he also aided largely in the elevation of social life, and to him we owe a lasting debt of gratitude for the part he played in shaping the moral and religious sentiment of the pen- plo.
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PAST AND PRESENT OF MENARD COUNTY
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
The young men and women of to-day have no conception of the mode of life among the early settlers of the country and when the story i- truthfully told they can scarcely believe it. It is our object in this chapter to give a very brief but absolutely true account of this. We feel that the time will not be lost in doing this. as the lesson will be a valuable and instructive olle One can scatterly imagine how so great a change could have taken place in the space of sixty to eighty-five years, and when the simple and truth ful story is heard by our young peu- ple they will hold in higher esteem their grand- fathers and grandmothers who bore those trials and through them secured the rich heritage that we enjoy to-day. It will also lead them to hold in higher esteem those unpolished and uncultivated people whom they have been dis- pored to look down upon. In nothing are the habit -. manners and customs of the people like what they were seventy or eighty years ago. We are at a loss where to begin so as to give the youth of the present anything like a just idea of this matter. The diet. the clothing. the dwellings, the social customs in fact. every- thing has undergone a complete revolution. We spoke before of the "three-faced camp" in which some of the early settlers lived. and it may be truthfully said that the dwellings in which the pioneers lived for a number of years wore but slightly in advance of these. The house was invariably built of logs, the space between the logs being filled with smaller pieces of wood. called chink-, and then daubed over with mortar made of clay. If the floor was any- thing more than the earth tramped hard and smooth. it was made of punchoons that is, logs were split and one side was smoothed off with an av and these laid down for a floor. The openings between these puncheons were often so large that the cats could pass in and out through them. The top of the cabin was drawn in. after the fashion of a boy's quail trap, and on the poles on top, clapboards, or. as the yankees called them shakes, were laid on, and weight-poles laid on them to keep them in place. For a fireplace the logs were ent out of one side of the wall. six or eight feet wide, and
the back and sides of this were built up of logs. mak ng an offset in the wall somewhat like a modern bay-window, and this was lined with und or stone. if it could he had and served as a fireplace. The chimney was built of sticks. over which a thick coating of mind was spread. to keep them from taking fire. This was called a "eat and clay" chimney and was the only kind in use for a great many years. The door was also made by cutting out logs, making an open- ing of the desired size, and the shutter was made of boards pinned to crosspieces ( for nail- could not be had for several years after the first settlements were made), and this was hung on wooden hinges. The door was fas- tene by a wooden latch, which caught in a wooden hook on the inside. A hole was bored in the door above the latch. and a buckskin string was fastened to the latch and passed through this hole, so that to open the door from the outside all you had to do was to pull the string and this would lift the latch out of the nook and the door would open. To lock the door at night all that was necessary was to pull the string in. When the latch-string hung through the hole anyone could open the door from the outside. This gave the idea of the expression of hospitality by saying "the latch- string hang out." We describe this thus mi- hotely that the young people may understand this expression: "the latch-string is out." The furniture in the house was on a par with the house itself. A few home-made. split-bottomed chairs: a short bench or two: a bedstead tin common use) made by driving a fork in one comer of the cabin, about six feet from the wall and the desired height for the bed. theu poles ran to each wall from this fork, and board- placed across made the frame of the bed. Hundreds of these "scaffold bed-" were in use. The very early settlers had no kitchen. but the articles for cooking were as few and -imple as the furniture. A "dat-oven" or -kil- let. a frying-pan. an iron pot or kettle, and 00- casionally a coffee pot completed the outfit in this department of the best fixed cabins. Slows were then and for many years later entirely un- known, hence the cooking was done entirely on the fireplace. The flat-even was set on a bed of glowing coals, and the frugal housewife.
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