USA > Illinois > Peoria County > Peoria > Peoria city and county, Illinois; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Vol. I > Part 51
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CHURCHES
The Presbyterian church was organized August 16, 1834, as Prince's Grove church, and was the first to have a house of worship, which was a log school- house. In 1844 a frame structure was built on the southeast corner of block 12, at a great sacrifice on the part of the founders of the village. Mr. Stevens, Thomas Morrow. Erastus Peet and others. Morrow, Peet, and William Cluss- man each hauled a load of lumber for the building from Chicago. This house was used until September 6, 1866, when the main part of the present church was dedicated. The chapel rooms were added in 1888 and $1,000, bequeathed by Miss Mary C. Clussman, was expended for installing seats, furnaces and repairs in 1899. Those who have ministered to the wants of this charge are Calvin W. Bab- bitt, 1835-38; George C. Sill, 1838; Robert F. Breese, the first regular pastor, 1843-51; Robert Cameron, 1851-57; George Cairns, 1857-58; Jared M. Stone, 1858-64; William Cunningham, 1864-71 ; Arthur Rose, 1871-77 ; Samuel R. Bel- ville, 1877-86: Charles M. Taylor, 1887-95 ; D. K. Preston, 1896-97; Charles T. Phillips, 1897 -.
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Rt. Rev. Philander Chase, Episcopal bishop of Illinois, upon occasions preached in the stone schoolhouse. A Congregational church existed for a short time, with Rev. B. F. Worrell as pastor. This was in the '50s. The Christian church was in existence here in the '50s and had a house of worship on Canton street, just east of the present public-school square. The building was later removed and used for city hall purposes. Early in the '6os the membership was mostly merged into the Seventh Day Adventist church. The latter society pur- chased the Methodist Episcopal church building in 1866 and used it until 1888.
For history of the Catholic and Methodist churches see articles devoted to that subject under those titles.
FRATERNAL ORDERS
The fraternal organizations and other societies of Princeville are as follows : J. F. French Post, No. 153. G. A. R .; Modern Woodmen of America, Prince- ville Camp, No. 1304; A. F. & A. M. Princeville Lodge, No. 360; Order of the Eastern Star, Union Grove Chapter, No. 229; Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows. Diligence Lodge. No. 120; Daughters of Rebekah, Princeville Lodge No. 351 ; Fraternal Army of America, Princeville Post, No. 96.
MILLBROOK TOWNSHIP
THE PIONEERS AND THEIR TIMES
Seventy-eight years have elapsed since the first white settlement was com- menced in what is now the organized territory of Millbrook township. The first pioneers found the country a wilderness of grass, with trees along the streams in the ravines, on the hillsides here and there a clump-occasionally, scattered trees-nothing like the timber of the eastern states. Deer, wolves, raccoons, opossums, foxes, rabbits, squirrels, prairie chickens, ducks, geese, wild pigeons, quails, jacksnipes, sandhill cranes and wild turkeys were plentiful. Wild pigeons and prairie chickens were trapped by the thousands. Geese and ducks were harder to get.
There have been more wolves killed during this winter than for several years previous ( February 8, 1912).
In January, 1855, I counted thirty-two deer in one herd on section three in this township. At one time the wild pigeons were so numerous as to darken the sun in their flight from the roosting place to the fading ground. I have seen forty rods of rail fence literally covered with prairie chickens at one time.
The streams were well stocked with red and white suckers, croppies, black bass and pike. After the county became somewhat populated, a few nearby neighbors would join in the ownership of a seine and on a Saturday afternoon would go to the river and make a few hauls that supplied all the families with fresh fish for Saturday's supper and over Sunday ; and not a detested fish warden within a thousand miles.
There was no road, school, church, mill. market, buzz-wagon, telegraph, telephone, railroad or cultivated field.
After the frost killed the prairie grass in the fall, the pioneers were terrorized by the thought of a prairie fire with its concomitant train of desolation. The country was frightful in the silence of its own solitude. To add to the horrors of the situation, in the warm summer months, it was infested with loathsome and venomous reptiles.
Wild plums, crab apples, elderberries and grapes grew on the low ground near the streams; gooseberries, blackberries and raspberries on the hillsides ; strawberries on the second bottoms : samiel berries and mulberries on the sides of the bluffs.
The geographical designation of this township for all legal purposes is : Township Eleven, north of the base line, Range five east of the Fourth Principal
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Meridian. The exterior or township lines were surveyed in 1815. The interior or sectional lines were run in 1816. The field notes and plats were not filed in the general land office until the early part of 1817. James D. Thomas was the surveyor. This is the first record we have of the presence of a white man in Millbrook Township.
It appears from correspondence on file in the war department that the sur- veyors were harassed by Indians belonging to the Sac and Fox or Winnebago tribes. It appears of record on the 15th day of October, 1817, warrant 561 was issued to Peter Bleson, Private Smith's 38th, for the southeast quarter of sec- tion thirty-two.
The south two-thirds is a rich prairie soil, raising abundant crops of all kinds of grain. The north part along Spoon river, being an argillaceous loam, pro- duces the finest of blue grass, owing to the presence of quantities of lime and iron in the soil. The pastures impart a strength, elasticity and firmness to horses rivaling the celebrated stock of Kentucky. Underneath the surface is a porous subsoil, varying in depth from one to several feet, which is succeeded by the glacial drift and beneath this the coal measures Vein number six, usually about four feet in thickness, and occupies an area equal to twelve sections, while num- ber three probably underlies the whole township. The first is reached by drift and shaft along and near Plum Hollow, the latter by a shaft ( now abandoned ) on section six.
Fine beds of gravel, suitable for road making and concrete work, are found in the bluffs of Spoon river. Thick beds of shale, belonging to the same geologi- cal horizon as that at the Purington works near Galesburg, occur in a number of places and will in all probability one day be utilized for brickmaking.
While it is true that the early settlers were without newspapers, telephones. telegraphy, etc., they did not by any means lead a hermit life like an anchorite "far out in a desert drear." There were various avenues of communication with the outside world. At the gatherings to raise a log cabin, the local happenings would be related. The traveling preachers, like the palmiers and pilgrims of crusader days, brought the news from farther away. As a matter of course it was rather prosaic. The land hunters were the most prolific dispensers of news. They were prospective settlers in search of an "eighth" or "quarter" that was not already entered, and would ride about over the country in quest of what they wanted. When evening came they were at the nearest house applying for a night's lodging, which was granted with alacrity. The saddle, bridle, and saddle bags were carried in the house, and the horse stabled and cared for. After supper, if the weather was cold, the stranger and the family gathered around the fireplace. As a general thing the land seeker was from some eastern state and would be able to give an outline of the prominent events of the nation or the world at large. He often proved to be an old neighbor from the home "seat." If so, a thousand questions were asked and answered. Perhaps, the next man that came along would be a capital storyteller and would keep the host and his family in a roar of laughter from start to finish. Neither Clay, Webster nor Ingersoll ever had a more appreciative audience than the wayfarer in the humble log cabins of the frontiersman.
The township is rich in the evidence of the dwellings of a prehistoric race. At the confluence of Walnut creek and Spoon river, there appears to have been a large village, which is shown by the finding of all kinds of flint and stone implements that enter into the domestic economy of savage life; kitchen Micens of varying dimensions, burial mounds, one containing some thirty or forty skele- tons, piled in a heap with the long ones at the bottom and the short ones on top.
On the ranch of Robert L. Clark, between the two streams, are traces of an old fort, octagonal in form, the outlines of which are nearly obliterated by the ravages of time. In the northwest angle is an oblong elevation, sixty-four by forty-seven feet and six feet in height. An exploration to the base of the turnuli disclosed the presence of small pieces of galena, copper beads and awls, leaf-
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shaped flint implements, red ochre, charcoal ashes and faint traces of human bones, the lime only. Twenty rods west of this is a low mound, sixty-two feet in length from east to west, nineteen feet wide and one foot in height. Just west of this is a small round mound. On section four on land owned by MI. Rile is an important group of mounds. The first is a small round mound, from the center of which to the center of the second is a distance of thirty-nine feet ; thence to the center of the third thirty feet; thence to the south end of the fourth is fifty feet ; the fourth measures eighty feet from south to north, with a cross at the center, thirty-three by twelve feet, and two feet high. There is also a fire place, with burnt stones, charcoal and ashes, at the center of this mound. From the west end of this one to the center is one hundred and twenty-three feet. This is a common round mound, forty feet in diameter and three feet high ; thence to number six is fifty-eight feet. This one is ninety-eight by eighteen feet and is two feet high. Thence in a northwesterly direction it is seventy-five feet to still another one hundred and four feet by eighteen feet, and two and a half feet high. From the north end of this, it is one hundred feet to the south end of the last of the group. This mound is one hundred and forty feet from south to north, is twenty feet wide and three feet high. An immense number of flint or hourstone chips are scattered through the material from which this mound is constructed. the nearest known out-cropping of which is at Burlington, Iowa. This group commences in the valley just above high water mark and extends northwesterly terminating on a bluff sixty feet above high water.
An exploration of the small mounds disclosed the presence of a human body in a sitting posture.
Nowhere is there the slightest evidence of a contemporary occupancy of any of the village sites by the Aryan and Indian races. The little flint chips scattered over the hillsides are the monuments of a vanished race, their com- merce and handicraft.
William Metcalf was the first white settler in Millbrook township. In the spring of 1833, with his wife and two small children and a boy named Amos McRill he came by wagon from Richland county, Ohio, arriving at French Grove. That fall he built a humble log cabin and fenced a small field on the southeast quarter of section nine and in the spring of 1834, moved onto the land. The first son born to him after he came to Illinois was killed in the battle of Shiloh in 1862.
John Sutherland, a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, came to Peoria in the year 1834, and bought the lots on which the National hotel once stood and was one of the original members of the Presbyterian church, known as the Lowry church. In August. 1835, he located on section thirty-two, in Millbrook town- ship, and built a comfortable log cabin. He was a man of high moral prin- ciples, of unquestioned probity and business integrity, and inflexible in his determination to do right. His son, E. J .. informed me that his father frequently walked from his home in Millbrook to Peoria to attend church. He, of course, sided with Lowry in his controversy with the adverse party. He died September 5. 1845. None of his descendants reside in this part of the country.
John Sutherland and family formed the nucleus at French Grove around which others of like moral and religious sentiments gathered. Among others, who by precept and example added to the reputation of the settlement for enter- prise, thrift and intelligence, were Daniel McCoy, John A. McCoy, William Reed and John McConnel. They were ideal citizens.
In October, 1845. John Smith, Sr., John Smith, Jr., Therragood Smith and families, accompanied by John White and another hired man, landed on what is now the site of the village of Rochester. John Smith, Sr., located on section seven and built a good sized log cabin, John Smith. Jr., on section eighteen, and Therragood on section nineteen. They made the journey from Richland county, Ohio, in wagons. The following year, John Carter and Elias Wycoff, Sr., came from the same county and located in the township. The fall of this year
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John Slocum and family and the Simonds family located at French Grove. About 1840 John Bodine and Joseph Warne came from New Jersey and located on section sixteen. John McKune, of Scotland, at the same time located on Scot- land Prairie. In May, 1840, James Cation, his father and brothers and Thomas Thompson, came from Scotland and built and lived in sod houses on Scotland Prairie.
Alexander McDonald, a native of Ireland, made Scotland Prairie his home from about 1839 to the time of his death.
About this time, the Slocum family came from York state and settled at the head of French Grove. Mr. Slocum was a blacksmith.
After this the county settled up rapidly with people from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Scotland and Ireland who, as a rule, were industrious, enterprising and ambitious to secure homes for themselves, and a heritage for their children. Morality and respectability were dominating characteristics of their lives.
The first child born in the township was a son to Clark W. Stanton, July 6, 1836. It lived only twelve days. This was the first interment in what is now Glendale cemetery and the first in the township.
The first marriage in the township took place at the house of Clark W. Stan- ton, December 15, 1837, the contracting parties being T. Greeley, a native of Salisbury, New Hampshire, and Miss Chloe A. Barnes, a native of New York.
The beautiful Glendale cemetery is the oldest and largest cemetery in the township and is located on a gentle knoll near the village of Rochester. The interments here are made from a wide territory. There is a well kept cemetery in connection with the Presbyterian church at French Grove.
The Campbell cemetery is near the southwest corner of section thirteen, but is being gradually abandoned. There is an old Indian burial ground near the north line of section seven.
The site of Rochester was chosen for its excellent water power furnished by Spoon river.
It was surveyed on the 15th of July, 1836, by George C. McFadden, deputy under Thomas Phillips, county surveyor. On the 20th of the same month, the plat was acknowledged by John Smith, Jr., before James P. Harkness, Jr., and recorded in the recorder's office. About this time Clark W. Stanton, a carpenter from Rochester, New York, arrived and bought a half interest in the town site and mill seat, and in the spring bought Smith's entire interest for the sum of thirty-two hundred dollars.
The first store to be opened was that of Thomas J. Hurd, of Peoria, who in the summer of 1836 brought a small stock of goods to the place and opened out in a small log cabin on the river bank. He was succeeded in a few months by Stacy & Holmes.
In the winter of 1836-37. John Smith, Jr., opened a stock of goods, but the ensuing spring sold out to Hon. David Markly, of Canton, Fulton county, then a prominent politician of the state. This stock of goods was finally moved to Massilon.
The first blacksmith was Jacob Boland, who came in 1836 and was succeeded by C. M. D. Lyon, who retired to a farm in Stark county.
The first physician was John L. Fifield, a native of Salisbury, New Hampshire, who came to Peoria in 1838 and soon after located at Rochester. Here he remained practicing his profession until 1845, when he removed to Victoria. He was an eminent physician, a gentleman of the courtly manners of the olden times. Years ago he answered the last call.
During the forties, Therragood Smith engaged in an extensive business of selling dry goods and groceries. In connection with this, he conducted quite a pork packing establishment. At one time he sent two hundred steers to the Chicago market. He was the first postmaster ( the office was named Elmore), and was appointed in 1845. The business perished with his sudden death in November, 1849.
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At this time, there is one store, one blacksmith shop, two carpenters, one harness maker, one shop and mill, one painter, two justices of the peace, one notary public, one mason.
On account of its desirability as a site for mills, Rochester, at an early day, attracted the attention of immigrants and soon gave promise of becoming an important business point. At one time it was the liveliest business place in central Illinois. From a sanitary standpoint there is no more admirable location for a town. The surrounding country is naturally beautiful. The winding river with its fringe of umbrageous trees ; the landscape to the east, north and west, with its vista of rolling hills and dales, stretching far away in autumn tints of emerald. ruby, and gold, is a scene of unsurpassed and indescribable beauty.
As might have been anticipated, the utilizing of the water power of Spoon river was one of the enterprises first to attract the attention of early settlers. In those days the owner of a mill, if a good one, had a bonanza. Flour and lumber were two of the essentials of frontier life and people would travel many miles and await their turn in patience to get a supply of either. It was in the fall of 1836, after the enterprising Clark W. Stanton had purchased one-half interest of John Smith, Jr. in the mill seat, that they in company erected the first saw mill, and so great was the demand for lumber that the mill was kept running day and night. After Stanton had purchased Smith's remaining interest. he erected a grist mill, which began to grind some time in the summer of 1837. People came to it from Prince's Grove, Slack Water, Massilon, Lafayette, Scot- land Prairie. French Creek, etc. By adding improvement from time to time, it became one of the most complete and best equipped flouring mills in central Illinois. The late Benjamin Huber, who at one time had an interest in it, stated that late in the fifties, the mill would grind two hundred and fifty to three hun- dred bushels of wheat per day and one hundred bushels of chopped corn, and that it was crowded with business. But the march of improvements with the com- ing of railroads to other points, deprived it of its activities and a stone pier is the only monument that marks the site of its former greatness.
About 1839, Gilbert Arnold built a sawmill on section six, on the bank of Walnut creek : but this, too, has long since gone out of sight.
In 1856, John Carter, a wealthy farmer residing in the eastern part of the township, undertook the erection of a grist mill on Spoon river, on section three : but, being unskilled in mechanical engineering, he was at the mercy of any char- latan that came along calling himself a millwright. Through floods, lawsuits and ignorance he was ruined financially. The mill, however, was finally finished and did a fair business for a few years, but has long since been utilized for other purposes.
The village of Laura is located on the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section twenty-two. It was laid out in 1888 by James M. Keller, who was the first postmaster. John Shaw brought the first stock of goods to the town. There are now two dry goods and grocery stores, one bank, one hardware and implement store, a blacksmith shop, a chop mill, two elevators, a lumber yard, one hotel, one wagon shop, one dressmaker. one physician, one livery stable, a fine commodious and well equipped public school building, a Methodist Episcopal church. The inhabitants are a religious and church-going people. The popula- tion numbers about two hundred.
Constituted as the early communities were, it could not be supposed otherwise than that the promotion of religion would be their first and chief concern.
Accordingly we find that in the fall of 1836, Rev. George G. Sill, a missionary, preached the first Presbyterian sermon in the house of John Sutherland.
A church of that denomination was organized at Rochester in the summer of 1838 with sixteen members. John Warne was ruling elder The church was taken under the care of the Presbytery in October of the same year. Rev. Robert K. Dobbin succeeded Rev. Sill, but how long he preached does not appear.
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In 1845, Rev. Robert F. Breese was installed pastor of the churches of Roch- ester and French Grove, which he continued to serve until his death, September 2, 1851.
The Rochester church was dissolved by presbytery sitting at Brimfield. Sep- tember 20, 1854, in consequence of the division between the old and new schools, the new school members had withdrawn and formed another church in Stark county.
The French Grove Presbyterian church was organized October 20, 1851, by Addison Coffey, Rev. William Candlish and Ruling Elder John Reynolds, a committee previously appointed by presbytery. There were fifteen members and William Reed and George S. Kurselle were ordained and installed the first ruling elders. Rev. John C. Hanna, a licentiate, was appointed to supply the church one-half his time and the church at Rochester as often as consistent with his other engagements. The church is now without a pastor or Sunday school.
Rev. William C. Cumming, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, preached the first sermon in the township in the house of John Smith. Sr., on section seven in the early part of June, 1836. The original members were John Smith, Sr. and wife, Therragood Smith and wife, and an unmarried daughter of John Smith (probably Lucretia), who died September 7th of that year, and William Metcalf. John Smith. Sr. was appointed class leader. A house of wor- ship was commenced in 1858 on section sixteen, which was blown to fragments by a cyclone on May 8th of that year. Through removal and death, the church at one time became almost extinct: but there are now houses of worship at Rochester and Laura, the former being the legitimate successor of the first church and worshipping in a building formerly belonging to the Congregation- alists. Rev. Earl Fahnestock is now minister of this church, which is in a fairly prosperous condition, having a good Sunday school, of which J. P. McCanley is superintendent. In addition to the foregoing. John Carter, Mr. Herst, Charles Yocum, Thomas Palmer, Thomas Lambertson, Thomas Andrew, E. P. Lambert- son and William Bates were prominently identified with early Methodism in the township.
The Methodist church of Laura was built in the summer of 1889, at a cost of thirteen hundred dollars, and furnished at a further cost of two hundred dollars. The first pastor was Rev. D. D. McComen. The present is Rev. Ward. The church is connected with the Monica charge, its members numbering about sixty. There is a flourishing Sunday school in connection.
The Christian church at Rochester was organized December 18, 1844, by John Underwood, with four members of the first meeting of seven persons, having been held in the old school house in November and conducted by Milton King. They began building a house of worship in 1858, but it was blown down by the cyclone of May 8th of that year. In the summer of 1864, they erected another, which cost between three thousand and four thousand dollars. In course of time. in consequence of deaths and removals, the membership became too feeble to maintain an organization and a few years since, Jonathan Pratz, the only remaining trustee. deeded the church property to the directors of the Glendale Cemetery association, by whom the building was repaired, repainted and placed in good condition. It is now used by the Woodmen of America as a lodge room, and for moral and religious entertainments.
The Congregational church was organized June 20, 1841, at the house of Elias Wycoff in Stark county, with nine members, the ministers being Rev. S. S. Miles and Rev. S. G. Wright. After entering into covenant, Messrs. William Webster and N. Wycoff were duly elected and installed ruling elders and Rev. S. S. Wright designated as moderator of the session. In 1854. the meetings were held at Rochester, at which time Rev. Charles B. Donaldson was acting pastor and at a meeting held April 4th of that year. the name was changed from Spoon River Congregational church to Elmore Congregational church of Rochester. During the summer and fall of 1866, was erected a house of worship, costing twenty- three hundred dollars, which was dedicated January 22. 1867. The dedication Vol. I-21
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