USA > Illinois > Peoria County > Peoria > Peoria city and county, Illinois; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Vol. I > Part 46
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"The big prairie team with four or five yoke of oxen, and the huge breaking plow rapidly turned over the native sod. Houses sprang up in all directions and a wave of prosperity seemed to have struck the country. The light steel plow, introduced by Tobey & Anderson, of Peoria, took the place of the wooden moldboard and heavy cast iron plow brought from the east, the reaper took the place of the back-breaking cradle : the Brown corn planter did away with planting by hand ; the thresher with its simple cylinder throwing straw, chaff and grain out together. displaced the flail and the tramping floor only to be displaced in its turn by the separator, which also took the place of the Nurse or Proctor fanning mill, formerly in use. The single shovel plow doing duty with one horse, traveling first upon one side of the road and back on the other. was superseded by the two-horse riding or walking cultivators. The complete outfit for husking corn was one team. two men and a boy taking five rows, the team and wagon turning down the middle one which was the boy's share to pick up.
"The first reaping machine known in Radnor and perhaps in the county was owned by Alva Dunlap and was built by George Green Wood, of Peoria. It was so constructed as to throw the cut grain directly back the width of the swath, which had to be bound up before the next swath could be cut. It did clean work and he used it for several years in cutting his own and his neighbors' grain. It was built about the year 1846, only seven years after Cyrus McCormick gave the first exhibition of his reaper on the farm of Joseph Smith in Augusta county, Virginia. The next was a McCormick, the grain being raked off on one side. This was followed in a few years with a self-raker and in a few years by the self- binder. Through these improvements the hard labor of eight men was done away with and the women of the household were relieved of the labor of boarding a large number of men during the heat of the harvest time. Before that time harvest hands would begin in the south where the season was earlier and work their way northward as the grain ripened. These traveling men were thrown out of employment by the self-binding reaper.
"One of the serious problems with the farmers was to get their products to market. In the spring of 1841 John Jackson built two flat boats and loaded them with ear corn and bacon for the purpose of coasting along the Mississippi and selling to the planters and negroes. As was customary, the boat was floated with the current. They had long sweeps or oars to guide them and keep them off the snags. To build them two large trees would be found (generally hack- berry), which were hewn flat for the sides, and planks spiked on the bottom. the ends sloped like a scow. The roof or deck was made of boards sawed thin enough to bend across the boat and thus make an arched roof. The crews of these famous boats were John Jackson, Elisha Barker, John Peet, Warren Hale, William Harlan and Napoleon Dunlap. The two latter went as far as Natchez but concluding they had had enough of the life of boatmen they begged off and returned by steamer, working their way by helping to take on wood at the wood- yards along the way."
Before the building of the Rock Island & Peoria railroad, a postoffice was
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kept by Enoch Huggins on section 35, where he received mail from Peoria three times a week. There was also a mail route from Peoria by way of Lafayette through Medina and Akron but most of the people received their mail at Peoria. Mary J. Peet, daughter of Erastus Peet, the first settler, who lost her life by being burned by a prairie fire, was the first person to die in Radnor township. The death of Henry Martin on November 10, 1836, was the second. John Harlan, born in October. 1836, was the first white child whose birth occurred in this township. He died in 1847.
Miss E. R. Dunlap taught the first school of the township in the summer of 1840 in a diminutive frame house which stood on section 37. It was built by a man who subsequently committed suicide. Horace Bushnell taught a sing- ing school here the same summer. In the summer of 1841 Miss Dunlap taught school in a log house on section 13, which she found to have been vacated by its tenant. In 1841 Charles Kettelle, school commissioner, had surveyed and laid off the school section No. 16 into forty-acre lots, had these lands appraised and offered for sale. Cyrus W. Pratt bid off three of them for $170. He made no payment but gave a mortgage for the purchase price, with interest at twelve per cent. After making two or three payments of interest, nothing further was received and the land reverted to the township. About the same time school trustees were appointed and Peter Auten was made the first school treasurer. At the first meeting of the trustees, April 4, 1842, they laid off the town into six school districts. That winter a log schoolhouse was built on section 15, in which Sarah D. Sanford and Anna McKnight taught. The next winter William Gifford was the teacher, after which the schoolhouse was moved to section 22 on land subsequently owned by George B. Taylor. There were three schoolhouses built in 1842-the one just mentioned, a small frame on section 2, and a log cabin on section 1. In the latter Catherine J. Jamison taught in the summer of 1842, her pupils being seven children of the Blakesleys, five Wakefields, four Chapins, three Van Camps, two Gordons, two Rogers, a Hall, Gilkinson, Hatfield and Slaughter. The directors were Parley E. Blakesley and Joseph Chapin. Deborah L. Woodbury taught his school the next term. Elisha Barker taught in a log schoolhouse on section 22, built in 1842. His successor the next winter was William Gifford. In the spring of 1842 a small frame schoolhouse was built on section 2 by voluntary labor. The lumber was sawed at the mill of Ralph Bette and William Bruzee on the creek on section 23. Miss Margaret Artman taught there in 1842, having for her patrons Ira Smith, J. J. Hitchcock, Anson Bushnell and his sons Alvin and Horace, Samuel and William Seeley, William Moore, O. L. Nelson, Ira Hitchcock and a Mr. Goodell; which indicates the school was conducted on a subscription basis.
VILLAGE OF DUNLAP
The village of Dunlap was laid out by Alva Dunlap on section 11, June 12, 1871. That same year Dr. John Gillett erected the first building in the place. It stands opposite the railroad depot and is now the property of B. C. Dunlap. The village is a thriving one and an excellent trading point. It is situated on the Rock Island & Peoria road. There are stores, two grain elevators, three churches, a graded school building erected in 1899 at a cost of $4,000, Odd Fellows' hall and shops. The population is now 172-a considerable decrease from that of the census of 1900. In the year 1848-9 a number of families from the Panhandle of West Virginia settled in Akron and Radnor townships and at first connected themselves with the church at Princeville, but the distance was too great for them to travel, so that they asked the Presbytery for a separate organization, which request was granted. Rev. Addison Coffee, of Peoria, Rev. Robert Breese, of Princeville, and Elder Henry Schnebly, of Peoria, as a committee of Presbytery, met the congregation June 8, 1850, in the schoolhouse where they had been accustomed to worship and the Prospect Presbyterian church was organized with
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fifteen members as follows: From the Princeville church, Joseph Yates, Sr., and Mary, his wife; John Yates, Sr., and Eleanor, his wife; Samuel Keady and Eleanor, his wife; Thomas Yates and Mary, his wife; John Hervey and Sarah, his wife; and Miss Margaretta Yates, from the West Alexandria, Pennsylvania, church ; David G. Hervey and Jane, his wife; and from the church at West Lib- erty, Virginia : Adam Yates and Sarah, his wife. The first house of worship, a frame building 36x46 feet, which cost about $1,400, was erected on a lot con- taining about seven acres, donated by Adam Yates, and dedicated in June, 1854. After the village of Dunlap sprang up the meeting place of the church was re- moved to Dunlap and a new house of worship erected at a cost of something over $5,000. The old church was torn down and the land on which it stood deeded to the church as a burial ground, which is known as Prospect cemetery. A parson- age was added to the church property in 1867, at a cost of $3,000, and in 1878 it was sold and a new parsonage erected at a cost of $1,700, on lots donated by David G. Hervey. Among the pastors who have served this church are Revs. David Hervey, John Turbitt, Thomas F. Smith, George Cairns, J. A. E. Simp- son. A. S. Gardner, John Winn, Silas Cook, H. V. D. Nevins, D. D., Harry Smith and R. C. Townsend. Several of the members of this church have gone into the ministry, among them, Rev. George Dunlap. Rev. Thomas C. Winn, missionary to Japan, William Jones, William Y. Jones, his son, missionary to Japan, William Ayling and Franklin Brown.
The Methodists and Catholic church histories will be found in another place in this volume.
TIMBER TOWNSHIP
Timber township acquired its name from the fact that its territory was covered at one time with a very fine body of timber, consisting of white, black, red and bur oak, white and black ash, white and black walnut, elm, cottonwood, hard and soft maple, linn, sycamore and others. The township is located in the southwest part of the county and has for its southern boundary the Illinois river. On the west is Fulton county, on the north Logan township and on the east Hollis town- ship. The timber land upon being cleared, developed valuable farms and the bot- tom land extending from the bluffs to the river, in width from a half to two miles, interspersed with beautiful lakes, namely, Stillman, Clifton, Scott and Murray lakes, are not surpassed for fertility and productiveness anywhere. Stillman lake has its history. It received its name from General Stillman, who passed the remainder of his days on his farm near by, after having commanded a body of troops in the Black Hawk war. In the early days this region was a mecca for the hunter and fisherman. The lakes abounded with a fine variety of fish, while within the woods roamed deer and small game. Wild turkeys and geese were plentiful and often the settlers brought them down with their long flint-lock rifles while standing in their cabin doors. It was a veritable paradise, where flowed milk and honey, the wild honey being frequently found in the trees.
Allen L. Fahnestock, in his sketch of this township, as published in McCul- loch's history of Peoria county in 1902, gives the following list of early settlers of Timber township: "Daniel J. Hinkle, wife and family, of Virginia; Jesse and William Egman and families and Thomas Ticknor, of New York, came in 1826; William Scott and family, of Kentucky, in 1829; William Duffield and family of Virginia, and George Griggs and family, of New York, in 1829; Theodore Vick- ers and family ; Elijah Preston and family ; Timothy Gridley and family ; John Runnels and family ; Jacob McCann and family, from Ohio, came in 1830; Boyce Haves, Isaac Bush, Thomas, John and George Hunt, Charles Fielder, Thomas Webb, Elizabeth Duffield and Regina Green and families, of Virginia; John Congleton and James Congleton and families, of Kentucky ; Jonathan Newman, J. Thurman, Alexander Brown and Isaac Preston and families ; Dr. Sealy, William Gibbs and son, of New York; John and Thomas Baty and families, all came in
-
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1832; John McFadden and family, George Stewart and family; Walter Stewart and family, in 1833 ; Dr. C. A. Buck, H. Partridge, David Spencer and families, 1834; Rice Smith and family, George Fritt and family, Robert Mckay and family, 1835; M. B. Murray and family, and John Shock, of Virginia; S. F. Bolinger, of Pennsylvania; Orange Babbitt and family, 1836; Jacob Fahnestock, of Pennsylvania ; W. C. Andrews, William Webb, George Clark, Matthew Ellis, John Ellis, James O'Connor, K. Palmer, George C. McFadden, Nathan Wells, James Hamilton, Nathan Johnston and family, of Kentucky; Joseph Doll, Jacob Doll, M. F. Wells, S. F. Underwood, S. Clark, Elias Jones, Sr., Elias Jones, Jr., Samuel Farmer, Solomon Hootman, David Hootman, William Jones and John McFarland, 1837.
The habits and customs of the settlers were in keeping with the newness of the country. Even their food and clothing were very primitive. Most of the latter was made from the wool by the women of the household. After the routine work of the home was finished the spinning wheel was made to whir and the loom rattled and clattered until time to prepare the next meal. Linsey-woolsey was the chief adornment for both men and women, although on rare occasions the head of the house had a suit of Kentucky jeans, and the women a calico dress.
Wild animals and birds were the pests of the early settlers. 'Coons and deer robbed the fields at night, while the birds played havoc in them in the daytime. These were the days of clearings, when at times great frolics would be had upon the occasion of a log rolling. Then all the neighbors came in and assisted one of their number to gather the logs that had been cut, into piles, so that they could be gotten out of the way for the plow. Salt was scarce and often needed not only to cure the meat but to preserve the hides accumulated by the hunters. But all these difficulties were met, in one way or another, and the settlers contrived, with- out any great effort, to live comfortably and happily. The Indians were also a source of annoyance, many of them still retaining their habitations in the town- ship long after the first settlers had gained a foothold. Strenuous methods finally had to be adopted by the pioneers to rid themselves of the red man.
To give the present generation of farmer boys an idea as to the primitive means of raising a crop. the following excerpt from Mr. Fahnestock's article is here reproduced: "It was under great difficulties that the settlers could raise enough to support their families on account of the birds and wild animals. The 'coons and deer would be in the fields at night and the fowls during the day. There was also great difficulty in getting the land cleared of large trees and brush, the settlers having nothing but rude tools, such as the ax and grubbing hoe. The trees were girdled and left standing until they rotted down and were then rolled in heaps and burned. All the neighbors would help at the log rolling and at night the log cabin would resound with the music of the old violin and then the dance commenced with the Virginia reel, money musk and the French four. The little brown jug was passed around and a happier set of people was hard to find. Whiskey was cheap at twenty-five cents per gallon, but was not the fighting kind we get at the present time. The land was plowed with a wooden moldboard plow, having a steel point and share. We were compelled to carry a paddle to clean the moldboard every few rods. The other farm implements were a shovel plow, wooden harrow, rakes and forks, sickle and cradle to reap the grain. The wheat was tramped out with horses on the hard ground, then two men with a sheet would create a wind and blow out the chaff. The first small mill was built of logs by the sons of the widow Green. The small stones would crack the corn. By use of horses or oxen it would grind a few bushels a day. The next mill was built at Utica, Fulton county, on Copperas creek, also Lowe's mill on the creek and Hale's mill on Kickapoo creek. The great difficulty was to get a good grist ground, as people would go to mill sixty miles away, taking meat and corn dodgers along to eat until the grist was ground. People were sometimes compelled to live on hominy and dried pumpkin, meat and sweet milk for a week at a time until their grists were ground. Still, for dessert, we had stewed
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pumpkin and crabapple sauce with honey. During the summer we fared much better, having wild fruit of all kinds."
From 1840 on the township settled up quite rapidly. About this time Samuel Bailey built a sawmill at Palmyra, now Kingston mines, disposing of the product at Pekin and Peoria. It was within this period also that the mine was opened at Kingston by Thomas Robinson, the coal being hauled by oxen to the mill for fuel. It was about 1843 that Samuel Bandy and Solomon A. Glasford arrived in the township, and in 1846 A. D. and H. Reed, of Farmington, built a slaughter and packing house near Lancaster Landing, where hogs were bought and pre- pared for market. They were brought from Galesburg, Farmington, Knoxville, Elmwood and Trivoli to the landing and sold for $2 to $2.70 per hundred pounds, dressed. In 1851 David McCook and family moved to Kingston Mines and ran the mines under a lease from J. P. Eddy & Company of St. Louis, and also operated a store there. Finally the family moved back to Ohio, whence they came. Several of the sons became soldiers and served with distinction during the war of the rebellion. The father was killed during the Morgan raid through Ohio in 1864.
There were schools in the township early in its history. A small log cabin was built at Lancaster and another at Dry Run, where school was taught during the winter months. The teachers were Samuel Farmer and a Mr. Weston, who received remuneration for their services through subscriptions paid by the parents of their pupils, the teacher's salary being partially eked out by "boarding round" among his patrons. The books most generally used in those early days were the New England primer, Pike's arithmetic, Webster's speller and the Old Testament. In 1835 section 16, set apart for school purposes, was sold in lots, some as low as $1.82 per acre, which the trustees invested. As early as 1837 there was a board of school trustees, composed of S. F. Bolinger, Thomas Tickner and John G. McFadden. The latter was school treasurer.
For many years there was no church building in the community, the old log schoolhouses, cabins of the settlers and their barns being used for religious purposes. The ministers, if they may be called such, were compelled to work as others to keep the wolf from the door. Their parishioners were generous, however, and they were furnished by the hunters with all the meat they desired. It was a common occurrence to see the settlers getting meat on Sunday, both (leer and turkeys, for the minister.
There were no postoffices in those days and Allen Fahnestock carried letters on horseback once a week to Peoria, receiving twenty-five cents in trade for each trip and a furnished horse. This same Fahnestock, with nine other residents of the township, enlisted in Captain May's company at Peoria in 1846 for the Mexi- can war, but as the governor had all the troops he needed the boys returned home from Peoria without going to the front.
VILLAGES
The town of Glasford was laid out December 9. 1868, by Samuel A. Glas- ford, a native of Ohio, who came to the county in 1842. It is a station on the Toledo, Peoria & Western railroad and has a population of 625. It is quite a stirring little village, with good stores, mills and shops, an elevator, a church and schoolhouse. Colonel A. L. Fahnestock, who came to the county in 1837 from Adams county, Pennsylvania, located at Lancaster, where in 1856 he engaged in the mercantile business. The colonel afterward moved to Glasford and became its leading merchant and also held several local offices. He was at one time treasurer of the county. His Civil war record is a good one. He entered the army as captain and was commissioned colonel. To him the compiler of this history is indebted for many of the facts contained in this article, as he has quoted quite liberally from Mr. Fahnestock's sketch published in McCulloch's history of Peoria county in 1902.
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Lancaster is situated on section 17 and was laid out by Samuel F. Bolinger. It was quite a flourishing little village until the advent of the Toledo, Peoria & Western railroad, which took its way through Glasford and left Lancaster in the interior. As a consequence, Glasford profited by the innovation and Lancaster lost.
Kingston Mines was first known as Palmyra. It was founded by James Monroe and is chiefly noted as a shipping point for the mines located there. It has a population, as determined by the census of 1910, of 492.
ROSEFIELD TOWNSHIP
Geographically, Rosefield township is almost in the center of the county. Kickapoo township borders it on the east, Logan on the south, Elmwood on the west, Jubilee on the north. Topographically, the surface is broken to quite an extent by Kickapoo creek, the two branches of which unite at section 3. How- ever, there is a great deal of fertile and highly productive land, both timber and prairie. The farms are well cultivated and fenced, and have good buildings, many of them of a modern description. The farmers are prosperous and progressive.
Rosefield was separated from other precincts and organized into a township in 1850, and on the 2d day of April of that year an election was held, Benjamin Brown being chosen moderator and James M. Rogers, clerk. The result of the voting, there being about thirty votes cast, was as follows: John Combs, super- visor; James M. Rogers, town clerk; David Slane, assessor; Nelson Shephard, collector ; Edward D. Edwards, Isaac Clayton and Edward Coolidge, highway commissioners; Daniel McVicker, James Sherwood, constables; William W. Miller and Ephraim Rynearson, justices.
It was some time about the latter part of 1831 or forepart of 1832 that the first settlers appeared here in the persons of Minnie Ryuearson, Casper Y'inger, John and David Combs, William Nixon and Levi Coolidge. Amos Stevens, who afterwards became quite prominent in the history of Peoria county, located at the banks of the Kickapoo in 1833, where he built a log cabin, and with an ox team worked his prairie land. One of the state roads leading to Knoxville along the Kickapoo touched this point, whence the hamlets of Southport and New- burg were reached. Joseph Bohrer and Benjamin Miller settled in this township about the year 1835, among many others who came that year. Mr. Bohrer was a Virginian. In 1829 he married Harriet Dawson and with his young bride immi- grated to Illinois in the latter part of 1835, settling in this township. Along Kickapoo creek below the forks and its mouth, were three grist mills and two sawmills. Each of these had a mill dam, which occasioned at times considerable contention between their owners as to their respective rights. The commissioners under the law had authority to permit such dams to be erected under certain conditions and might also assess any damages sustained by other owners. At the June term of the commissioners' court a writ was issued in favor of John F. Kinney for the erection of a mill and dam on the northeast quarter of section 23, and at the July term David Combs applied for a similar writ for the erection of a mill dam on the southwest quarter of section II ; hence, it was not a matter of surprise to their neighbors when they got into a wrangle over their rights in the premises. The sheriff, when the case came on, submitted both cases to the same jury, which consisted of John Coyle, Stephen Carl, John H. Oliver, Andrew Race, I. S. Van Arsdale, William Stackman, Jacob Bush, W. F. Mulvaney, Adam Barfut, Asa Beal, Samuel Veacock and Benjamin Kibb. He fixed the height of Kinney's dam six feet, six inches from low water mark, determined that Thomas Slane, William Nixon, David Combs and Tom Scott were not in danger of sustaining any damages by its erection, but that John Combs was liable to sustain damages from time to time thereby, and fixed his damages at $32.50. The jury also found that the neighborhood would not be injuriously affected. The petition Vol. I-19
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of David Combs was granted without any findings. Daniel Combs, however, appeared before the court by his attorney, Charles Ballance, and opposed the granting of the Kinney petition, stating his reason therefor, first that Kinney had no title to the land; second, for informality in the sheriff's return ; and third, because proper legal notice had not been given. Kinney's counsel was Elihu N. Powell and upon his motion the sheriff was allowed to amend his return. Arguments were heard and action taken in regard to Kinney's petition.
Coal was early discovered in this locality and is now being mined quite extensively, two companies operating on the line of the railroad. The principal shipping points are at Edwards, Kramm and Langdon.
The township is well supplied with schools, it having twelve districts and parts of districts, in all of which instruction is given from eight to nine months during the school year. The first schoolhouse was built in 1838 on section 8 and Roswell Smith was the first teacher. A year previous to this, however, a subscription school was taught in a private house by Martha Miller, daughter of Benjamin Miller.
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