Peoria city and county, Illinois; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Vol. II, Part 92

Author: Rice, James Montgomery, 1842-1912; S.J. Clarke Publishing Company
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 930


USA > Illinois > Peoria County > Peoria > Peoria city and county, Illinois; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Vol. II > Part 92


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


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On October 12, 1886, in Wooster, Ohio, Mr. Slemmons married Nettie Tay- lor, a daughter of Bruce and Jane Taylor of that city. Mr. Slemmons is in the full tide of his career, active, busy and prosperous and his life has been an exemplification of the rewards of honesty and ability in his chosen field of endeavor.


HORACE CLARK, SR.


When sound business judgment is combined with the principles of integrity and morality the end is certain. The success which Horace Clark, Sr., achieved was the logical outcome of his intelligently directed industry and his fair dealing. He worked for many years as a representative business man of Peoria and one whose personality was a factor in the business development and growth of the city. He was born at Sardinia, Erie county, New York, January 6, 1823, his parents being Horace and Malinda (Condee) Clark. In the maternal line he was descended from Prince Conde, a French Huguenot, who survived the massacre of St. Bartholomew and, being expatriated, fled to England. Crossing the At- lantic he joined the New Haven colony, becoming the founder of the family in the new world. The Clark family as far back as the ancestry can be traced had its origin in England, where representatives of the line are still prominent in manu- facturing circles. Horace Clark, the father, was a capable attorney and promi- nent business man and also became a recognized political leader of Erie county, New York, where he filled the office of county clerk to which he was elected in 1834. At that time the family removed to Buffalo, making that city thereafter their permanent home, the father there passing away in 1858.


HORACE CLARK


THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY


LOTON, LENOX AND - W. FOUNDATIONS.


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HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY


Starting in life at the age of sixteen years, Horace Clark spent two years as a clerk in a country store and then removed westward, impelled by the double purpose of benefiting his health by a change of climate and the desire to enjoy the business advantages offered in this new but growing section of the country. He first settled at Morton, Tazewell county, Illinois, upon land which his father had purchased, and began the development of three hundred and twenty acres which up to that time was raw prairie. He more closely identified himself with the middle west two years later when he married and thus laid the foundation for a home. He continued actively to engage in farming until 1861. when he came to Peoria and engaged in the milling and feed business as a mem- ber of the firm of Clark, Hanna & Company. In 1877 the firm was dissolved, Mr. Clark remaining as sole proprietor until he admitted his sons to a partner- ship, the firm style of Horace Clark & Sons Company being then assumed. In all of his business undertakings the father met with substantial success which had its foundation in sound judgment and correct business principles. He never sought to take advantage of another in any business transaction. Ile was strictly fair and just and his enterprise and progressive methods constituted the motive power in his continuous advancement. Men learned to know that what he promised he would do, that his estimate represented real value. His course was not molded by public opinion but by principles which had their basic root in the highest moral civilization and Christian teaching.


In many ways Mr. Clark was closely identified with Peoria and her progress. He was elected the first president of the Board of Trade following its organiza- tion and was the only man ever reelected to that office, and was identified there- with to the time of his death. His political allegiance was originally given to the whig party and he was a member of the state convention at Bloomington which in May, 1856, organized the republican party in Illinois. He remained thereafter one of its most earnest advocates and yet he never countenanced a political measure that would not bear the strong light of close investigation. He did not believe in party management for individual ends but believed that political power should be used to conserve the best interests of the majority and ever labored along political lines with that end in view.


Mr. Clark was married in 1845, the lady of his choice being Miss Mary Eliza- beth Kingsbury. They became parents of four children, the only daughter dying in infancy. The three sons, George C., Charles D. and Horace Jr., are all active business men of Peoria. The first named became connected with his father in the milling and feed business while Charles D. is engaged in business as the president of the Clark-Smith Hardware Company. Special mention is made of him on another page in this work. Horace Clark, Jr., is a representative of the coal trade. The home relations were exceedingly happy, Mr. Clark being devoted to the welfare of his wife and children. Great sorrow, however, came to him on the 15th of February, 1889, in the death of Mrs. Clark, whom he survived until the 11th of August, 1902. They had both been active and helpful members of the First Congregational church, making generous contribution to its support and doing all in their power to extend its influence. For thirty-eight consecutive years Mr. Clark was chairman of the board of trustees and was serving in that capacity when the present house of worship was erected. His work in the church, however, was but one phase of his Christian life. His religious prinicples became a part of his daily living and thought. He endeavored ever to follow the Golden Rule in his relations with his fellowmen nor was there about him the least show of a pharisaical spirit. . A word of encouragement here, a kind deed there, a work of charity, and thus day after day he exemplified in his life the Christian teaching of Him who came to minister and not to be ministered unto. He was in his eightieth year at the time of his death. To him was accorded the precious prize of keen mentality until the last. His friends have missed him but the mem- ory of his upright life, of his sincerity and simplicity, are not forgotten. His


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friends do not mourn for him as they would for a young man cut off in the flower and promise of his youth, but they rejoice in and honor his memory as that of a man who laid down his task in the twilight of the day, when all that he had to do had been nobly, beautifully and fully completed.


HON. MARK M. BASSETT.


Hon. Mark M. Bassett was long an honored resident of Peoria and the strongest characteristic of his life, perhaps, was loyalty. It was manifest dur- ing his service as a soldier of the Civil war, afterward as a citizen in both official and private relations ; it was an equally strong element in his home and in his friendships and was a forceful element in all of his business and professional connections. Illinois has every reason to be proud of the fact that Mark M. Bassett was one of her native sons as well as her citizens for many years. He was born in Schuyler county, Illinois, March 27, 1837, and died in Peoria on the 16th of June, 1910. His father was a native of Kentucky but passed away during the infancy of Mark, who spent his youth upon a farm while a near-by school afforded him a few weeks' of educational opportunities each year. His only sister married when he was seven years of age and offered to him and the widowed mother a home. He thereafter devoted the greater part of his time each year to the work of developing wild land and ultimately improving and cultivating the fields that had been reclaimed, so developing habits of industry, energy and perseverance which were added to the quality of sterling integrity which was ever a characteristic of the Carlocks of Virginia, from whom he was descended in the maternal line. When he was twenty years of age he left the farm in August, 1857, and formed a partnership for the conduct of a grain and stock business and general country store. The new venture proved profit- able and in time Mr. Bassett bought out his partner's interest, continuing alone until after the outbreak of the Civil war, when, in December, 1861, he responded to the country's call for troops and went to the front as a Union soldier belonging to Company E, Fifty-third regiment of Illinois Volunteers. He participated in a number of the hotly contested engagements during the early part of the war and was one of the hundred or more men who tunnelled under the earth and made their escape from Libby prison. The in- teresting and thrilling story of how he finally fought his way to freedom is perhaps best told in his own words. Writing of this experience he says: "After the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 4, 1863, that branch of the army to which my regiment belonged was ordered to pursue General Joseph E. John- son, who had been attacking it in the rear, and five days' rations were issued to us; but while we were getting ready to break camp thirty-one thousand rebels, who had surrendered under General John C. Pemberton, thronged over their breastworks and ours, and, as they had suffered from hunger during the siege, we gave them all of our five days' rations. So it was not until the fifth that we received an additional five days' rations and started on the march to Jackson, Mississippi, fifty miles east of Vicksburg, which place we reached on the evening of the IIth. On Sunday, the 12th, our brigade, consisting of the Third Iowa, Thirty-third Wisconsin and Twenty-eighth, Forty-first and Fifty-third Illinois, attacked the Confederate breastworks at Jackson and after hard fighting was re- pulsed with great loss. Our regiment, the Fifty-third Illinois Volunteer Infantry, was a large one, yet on the morning after the battle only sixty-six officers and men responded to roll call and the other regiments suffered accordingly. Many were killed, among them our colonel, S. C. Earle, from Earlville, Illinois, and many line officers were wounded and captured. I was one of these, having been wounded by a fragment of a bursting shell, though not seriously. The officers


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were taken to Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia, arriving there July 20. The men from the ranks were taken to Belle Isle, on the James river, near by. Libby Prison was a large, thick-walled brick building, three stories high on one street -the front-and having a basement under the opposite side on a lower street, was four stories. The lower street bordered on the canal and took its name therefrom. The higher street at the front was Carey street. Just prior to its being used as a prison the building was a tobacco warehouse, owned by Libby & Sons. On each floor of this warehouse were three rooms, each of which I should say was one hundred and twenty feet long by forty feet wide. The doors and windows were all heavily iron barred. On our arrival there were already about twelve hundred prisoners-all officers, remember, for except for a very short time early in its use as a prison, only commissioned officers were confined there. This will guide you in knowing the false from the true aspirant to the fame of having been a prisoner in Libby. Fifty surgeons and as many chaplains were included in this list. Among these Chaplain McCabe, since Bishop Mc- Cabe, and the great temperance apostle, General Neal Dow, of Maine, Colonel A. D. Straight of Indiana and others, men of note at that time and since then widely known. Our beds were our blankets, with our boots for pillows on the hard floor. Our food was coarse corn bread, rice and sometimes bacon and beans, in whatever degree of staleness the meat happened to be, and of the poorest quality. There were games for some of the men who were expert chess players ; others studied such books as they could get, but our pastime was mostly hunting vermin, varied only according to individual need and opportunity. One could have learned something of the languages and history, for men of education were there and time hung heavily on our hands and heads and hearts. But the foremost thought of each one was of 'home' and how to get out of this 'hole' and back to 'God's country.' Of recreations in Libby Bishop McCabe has spoken for many years, but his 'Bright Side of Libby' picture, to those who shared that prison life and have heard his lecture, is colored almost beyond recognition. The prison was closely guarded and 'rules' were very strict and cruelties were repeatedly practiced which were not set down in the rules. When a 'Yank' was seen nearer a window than the 'dead line' he was liable to be shot at without warning. I was witness to one such instance. Lieutenant Forsythe of the One Hundredth Ohio ( from Toledo, I think ) sat near a window reading a paper, when a guard outside shot him through the head, spattering his blood and brains around. No provocation whatever! There came in after years a romantic sequel to this sad story and it should be recorded here. In 1897. at the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic in Cleveland, Ohio, I related the manner of Lieutenant Forsythe's death. A reporter reproduced my account, greatly en- larged and elaborately embellished, next day in the Leader under sensational headlines. Not long after my return home I received a letter from a lady in one of the New England states saying that some one had sent her a copy of the Leader' containing the account of Lieutenant Forsythe's death; that she was his betrothed wife at that time and had never before known how or when or where he died. For years she had hoped for his return, but had mourned him for a third of a century. This positive knowledge had been a satisfaction, though a sad one, to her, and with pitiful yearning she asked if he really had spoken to me of her, his affianced. I was obliged to tell her that that portion of the article was purely a figment of the reporter's fancy for I was not acquainted with him sufficiently to warrant such confidences.


"It is useless to dwell upon the indignities habitually practiced against Union men in Confederate prisons, since it is held that the north and south are again united; but I know one man who, while insane because of his capture, was carted around the streets of Richmond, naked, in a cage, like a wild beast, and exhibited as a 'specimen of the damned Yanks.' This was W. G. Mellar of Vermont, Fulton county, Illinois, for a long time member of the Illinois State


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Board of Equalization. These are side entries but they are true, however, future historians may ignore or deny them. Note that in July, 1863, I took my abode in that notorious hostelry. And at that time President Lincoln was calling for more men, and in some way we had knowledge of it and were anxious to be exchanged, or if this could not be effected, were eager to escape and go again to the front. In about three months thereafter the 'tunnel' was planned by certain men. Lieu- tenant Colonel Rose of Pennsylvania, a civil engineer, being one of the princi- pals. Their plans and also their work were necessarily kept a secret among a selected few, less they should be disclosed by an unguarded word or look to our captors. The entrance of the tunnel was through an outer wall at the end of the warehouse, in a basement room under the hospital of the prison, a room used onty as a dumping place for rubbish from the one above. This basement was reached through a fireplace in the middle room above by removing some of the bricks and passing down through the chimney, not into the room beneath, but to the one adjoining, by means of a rope ladder. When men had gone down to work the bricks were replaced and the fireplace looked intact. This was no Hoosac tunnel, but was about sixty feet long, undulating in its course and only large enough to permit the passage of a man's body. If the man was a large one it was a 'tight squeeze' to get through, and for any one no easy process, for the effort was suffocating. Colonel Straight, who was a large-framed man, had to remove his overcoat and tie it to his foot, and then the man ahead helped to pull him and the man behind pushed and, at last, almost overcome, he succeeded in getting through. The excavation was made with such bits of hard wood or iron as could be found and utilized in that way. When I worked my implement was a piece of gate hinge, a strap hinge, and the dirt was put into a wooden box, such as was made for a spittoon, about ten inches square at the bottom, flaring at the top, and perhaps eight inches deep. To this a string was tied, one end of which was tied to the foot of the man at work and the other was held by a 'helper' at the entrance. A jerk on the string from within signified the box was full, when the helper drew it out and emptied it on the floor, covering it with straw and discarded rags of clothing and other rubbish which was dumped there from the beds and bodies of patients who had died in the hospital just above, from smallpox or other infectious diseases. The question has often been asked, 'How could so much dirt be hidden?' In this way it was well hidden, and in this way only, for the white southerners avoided this rubbish for fear of infection, and the colored roustabout, from superstitious fear of the dead, so recently con- nected with the cast-off things. So we were not detected in our work, which was done at night undisturbed. After several schemes had been tried and found lacking or abandoned because not deemed feasible, the tunnel was decided upon and finally finished, and in the night between February 9 and 10, 1864, one hun- dred and nine or one hundred and ten men made their escape through it. There has always been a difference of one in the various records. It was the intention that some should escape each night, so long as it was possible to cover the loss; and to that end when roll was called on the morning of February 10 some of the men who had already answered would slip out into another room, come in again through another door and answer 'here' to some other name. This puzzled the sergeant who called the roll, for though he had learned that some of the prisoners had escaped, there was no lack in number. Lieutenant Griffin of the One Hundred and Twelfth Illinois Infantry, who was unable, because of rheumatism, to at- tempt to escape, told us of this and of how loyally all the prisoners present tried to shield the absentees, and by so doing to make their own opportunity to escape later by the same avenue more certain. Some time during that day one Lieu- tenant Hall was recaptured within the city limits and gave the facts of the es- cape so far as he knew them, and so, of course, put an end to any more de- liveries. When the officers in charge realized that men had escaped they had all the guards arrested, believing that they had connived with us for our escape; for


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they could find no way of egress and not until Hall divulged the secret did they know of the tunnel, for its exit was across the street in a lumberyard behind a high board fence. I am explicit in this writing, believing you will care to keep it as a document and authentic record, to be referred to and treasured as an tin- biased, uncolored, unprejudiced statement of one of the participators, which has been several times compared with others kept by men of unquestioned integrity who shared this experience, and found to be in agreement. I followed Captain J. D. Hatfield, of Company H, Fifty-third Illinois, into and out of the tunnel, and we had intended to keep together (we were captured in the same battle ) but when Hatfield found himself at the surface the impulse of self-preservation gave emphasis to the fear of recapture and he started off alone. When I could see the stars above me I heard some one breathing heavily behind me down in the tunnel and, waiting a moment, found it was my friend, Dr. Crawford, of Havana, Illinois, my own neighborhood, so we made a start for freedom to- gether. Our main trouble was to pass the rebel lines surrounding the city, which was closely guarded, but the feat was accomplished before daylight by our as- suming to be in search of fuel to make a fire to warm by ; so picking up bits of wood here and there we were supposed to be freezing "Johnnies' and were not challenged. We headed for the 'White' house, eastward on the Pamunky river, where we believed the Union troops to be. We traveled only by night and away from public roads, hiding in brushwood or fallen tree tops by day. On the fourth night out, when we supposed we had passed beyond the probable danger of recapture, we neared a cabin where there must have been Confederates who discovered us, for soon they had bloodhounds out after us. We carried sticks of iron-wood, which we used as staves, and these were also our only weapons of defense, and with these we beat the hounds so they would not follow the scent, for they are trained to hunt in packs, and when the leader is hurt the pack scatters. The scars where some of them grabbed my calf are still visible. In the fight and confusion consequent upon such a 'surprise' we ran into an ex- tended line of rebel pickets and two South Carolinans, who seemed to our as- tonished eyes like giants with mammoth double-barreled shotguns, persuaded 11s to stay our flight ; and we were returned to our former boarding place and were crowded into underground dungeons reeking with filth and vermin of all sorts and sizes up to river rats. I say 'crowded,' for about sixty of those who escaped through the tunnel were recaptured at different times and there was not room for each body to rest on the earth floor of the dungeons. Heads rested on others' bodies and knees were drawn up to give room for others' limbs to pass under them ; and there was no release from such eramped conditions. In this day of deadly fear of microbes the sometime tenant of Libby finds grand occasion for smiles. Here our fare was less sumptuous than before and consisted of corn bread and water only. The corn bread was made of corn cobs and husks all ground together, and so made up without sifting. In these dungeons we stayed from the middle of February until removed in April, when Grant's proximity to Richmond and the rebels' consequent fear of his taking it led to our being sent farther south, to Danville, Virginia, and a short time later to Macon, Georgia. Next we were sent to Charleston, South Carolina, and afterwards- sometime probably in October, 1864. to Columbia, South Carolina, to new grounds, which were to become a stockade prison. There we remained, still planning escape, until it was seen that the stockade would soon be completed and our chance of getting away more hazardous, if not quite impossible. A stock- ade is made of heavy timbers, somewhat like railroad ties, driven into the ground close together, making a solid wall from ten to fourteen feet high. This, well guarded, made a seentre prison, with the sky for roof and the earth for floor. So before the gap was closed a party of nine officers ran the guard in the dark- ness of midnight, about two o'clock A. M., and joined company for a tour, yea. a detour, of the north. We soon heard shots fired after us by the guards, who


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had spied us, but they only served to quicken our steps. For the first two or three nights we went towards Atlanta, which was nearly due west; but reason- ing that the enemy would probably cover more territory between us and our army at that place we changed our course to the northwest, hoping to reach Knoxville, Tennessee, by crossing the Blue Ridge mountains. Of course we traveled only by night and never on a public highway, subsisting on yams found in the fields, or on corn bread and sorghum obtained from the colored people who were always our friends and upon whom we could rely. One moonlight night, the thirteenth of our escape, while crossing a field we were discovered by Confederate soldiers who were, presumably, at a farm house near by. They set out after us on horses with bloodhounds, and though we made as fast time as possible they were gaining on us. So we halted and held a 'whispered council of war' and agreed to separate into squads of four, three and two, respectively, in the hope that by so doing some of us might get through. Lieutenants Oates and Moore made up the squad of two; Captains Wilson, Skelton, Welch and Dusenberry, the four ; and Captain Stewart, Lieutenant Young and myself, the three, each squad taking different directions. We three had not gone far when we realized that the hounds were not following us, and so continued on our way along the French Broad river toward its source. In Transylvania county, North Carolina, we came upon a Union man who had been impressed into, and had deserted from the Confederate service, Joe Flemming Cison by name, who be- friended us, as he did others in like straits, and whose knowledge of all that wild mountain country made him a desirable guide for us, as others had been. The mountaineers were generally Union men and suffered accordingly, although too poor and too remote and hard of access to be sought after or hunted up. They were loyal to all Union men or soldiers who as refugees or escaping prisoners of war were making for Union lines. One of these mountaineers, David Led- ford, had led us on our way many miles; another sent his fourteen-year-old son, Thomas Zachary, to guide us for another twenty miles or more; and I re- member another, Tom Loftus, who secreted us for several days in his vicinity before taking us on another stage of our mountain journey. Their knowledge of the 'lay of the land' and of points where we would be likely to be discovered, was invaluable to us. Ours was not a continuous journey, even by night, for there were days and nights together when we had to 'lay low,' hiding in huts or caves or thickets among the mountains, not daring to build a fire lest the smoke from it disclose our hiding place to some enemy in the 'home' or in the 'saddle.' Many thrilling incidents occurred and narrow escapes from recapture, some of which I will relate. On first finding ourselves at liberty we had cut stout branches which served as walking sticks and were also our only weapons, as was usually the case with men in our circumstances, but as we met with the mountaineers they fur- nished us with guns and revolvers and as our party was often joined by others- prisoners escaping like ourselves, or by deserters from the rebel ranks-we num- bered at different times from six to twenty or more, and were on occasion, reck- lessly brave. We had been short of food because of the well-guarded mountain passes-for some reason the enemy had been more than usually cautious-and were cold from December weather in the high altitude; and hearing, through the 'natives' that a rebel wagon train was coming through the valley loaded with provisions collected from 'up country,' for some near post of Confederate troops, one night we constituted ourselves a foraging party and made a bold attack on the train, which consisted of anywhere from three to six wagons, with a span of mules, a driver and one guard to each. So, covering wagons, mules, drivers and guards with our arms, we commanded a 'halt,' which command was at once obeyed, while we helped ourselves to hams, sides of bacon, jars of honey, chest- nuts, home-made clothing from home-made cloth, quilts and blankets-a va- riety of substantial provisions, which we carried to the secluded hut of some mountain dweller, for their and our refreshment, and also to fill the hungry




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