USA > Illinois > Henry County > Portrait and biographical album of Henry County, Illinois : containing full-page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county > Part 109
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112
It was appropriately named after Merritt Munson, one of the county's prominent and most enterprising citizens,-an honor upon a worthy citizen of the county worthily bestowed. During the latter part of Mr. Munson's life he lived in Geneseo, and there, as well as in Munson Township, his memory will be kept green as long as history or tradition may recount the growth and glory of Henry County.
No railroad touches its boundries, but it finds easy market and shipping at Geneseo and Cambridge. It is well drained by Spring Creek, which rises in several branches in the southwest corner, and passes out at the northeast corner. It has no waste land and in a few years every quarter-section will be tile drained. There are seven commodious school- houses for the education of the young, and the pious and godly find convenient and comfortable places of worship in any part of the township. Here is loca- ted the County Farm, where the county's unfortun- ate find a welcome refuge, and a warm retreat from the bitter storms of a cold, and certainly to them a cheerless, world. A full account of this institution may be found in another chapter.
Many of the first settlers here moved to the line of the railroads when they began to build through the county. The majority of these going to Geneseo, of those who were content to remain, we note Elisha Atwater, who came in 1840 and improved section 19. He was a native of New Haven, Conn .; born Dec. 18, 1810. His farm contained 208 acres. He was in the service during the late war ; 2d Lieut. Co. H, 112th Reg. He was married to Miss Margaret Wright, at Harrisburg, Pa., May 18, 1838, where she was born, Feb. 28, 1821. They had II children.
OSCO TOWNSHIP.
HE first symptons of the tremendous finan- cial revulsion of 1837 were beginning to be felt in the city of New York as early as 1835. There was a crop failure, and prices began to climb toward high and impossible figures for many of the poor in the cities. Shrewd business men began to dimly forecast the se-
816
HENRY COUNTY.
rious outlook, and there were not a few who promptly began to furl their sails before the coming storm. Every movement of this kind touched to the quick the sensitive nerves of the laboring people, and early in the spring of 1836 the cry of "Bread ! Bread !! " rang out upon the streets of New York, and the mob gathered in front of the flour store of Eli Hart & Co., and gutted the building from cellar to roof, because, as the hungry people said, they had bought up the flour of the country and were putting up the price to $Ic and $12 a barrel, out of the possible reach and means of the poor. Fortunes began to topple, and many men, who a short time before had supposed they were on the top wave of financial prosperity, suddenly saw but little else before them than pinch- ing poverty.
It was largely the class of men who turned their eyes Westward, and gave to Northern Illinois that stream of immigration that marked so strangely the settlement of this portion of the State. They were intelligent, educated in the avenues of business, en- ergetic, hopeful and determined upon the full realiza- . tion of that sublime watch-word that has peopled this continent-" Homes for the homeless, land for all." This was the grand idea in American civilization. It bore rich fruits, especially in the Mississippi Valley -that garden and granary of the world.
In the winter of 1835 a notice was published in the New york papers calling " a meeting of all persons interested " at Congress Hall, to organize a colony of those interested or desirous to emigrate to Illinois. So few people responded to this first call that a ,second notice was published, and at this meeting an organization called the "New York Colony " was formed, and between 40 and 50 members were en- rolled.
Charles Oakley, at one time Fund Commissioner of Illinois, was the prime leader in this movement. He had previously traveled West and had examined the Prairie State, and gave glowing descriptions of all that he had seen in this portion of Illinois. The members signed an agreement, and Charles Oakley and C. C. Wilcox were made Trustees and author- ized to go to Illinois and locate for the Colony about a township of land, the general idea being to locate some where near the Illinois River. Oakley had in his mind when he started on his Western mission a point now in Bureau County, but when he reached
this place he found it already taken up by the Provi- dence Colony, and he pushed on West ; and to this fact the welfare of Henry County is indebted to the Colony coming here, and the selection of the land in townships 16 and 17 north, ranges 1 and 2 east, cov- ering at the time about 30 sections.
It would be very interesting to posterity could we procure and print a copy of the original agreement of the Colonists, but this remarkable document seems to be hopelessly lost. Substantially, the terms were : Each individual in the Colony bound himself to erect within two years a building to cost about $200 on his tract of land. In case he failed to do so, then the land reverted to the Colony, with this unfortu- nate condition,-the Colony thus taking reverted lands was to pay therefor at the rate of $3 per acre. this tempting offer of 100 per cent. was enough to make a great many neglect to build and let their lands be forfeited. This and the fearful panic of 1837 overloaded the Colony, and it was wholly una- ble to comply with its agreements or pay anything for the forfeited lands, and hence the entire sales thus soon were made void and worthless.
Oakley and Wilcox were to receive for their ser- vices 25 cents an acre for locating and superintending the business ; this was also to pay for the surveys and platting a town near the center of the Colony's land. The lands and town-lots were to be put up at auc- tion, where members could bid for preference in se- lections. Eight lots went with each quarter-section of land. This distribution took place in the fall of 1836 (the lands were entered in June of that year). Between $7,000 and $8,000 were paid at the sale for. preferences, some of the first choice quarter-sections selling as high as $400. This preference money was a fund for the benefit of the Colony, as follows :
First. To have a Colony house built for the mem- bers to live in until they could provide their own homes. This house cost $3,000.
Second. To build a mill, school-house, or other- wise appropriated as the Colonists might determine.
Only a few of the Colonists came in the sunimer of 1836. Charles Oakley and C. C. Wilcox did not remain long. Wilcox finally settled in Chicago and Oakley died some years ago. Arba Seymour sur- veyed the land. A log house was put up in Morris- town ; afterwards a Colony house was erected by R. R. Stewart, of Geneseo. It was a large two-story
HENRY COUNTY.
building and was well finished, at the time the most pretentious building in the county. By mistake the building was on a lot belonging to Oakley, and by this error Oakley laid claim to the building, which he sold to Joel Wells. A mill was built on Green River.
Joshua Harper, N. W. Washburne, Luke C. Shel- don, Charles W. Davenport and a Mr. Tompkins were the total of the Colonists who were here and in possession in the fall of 1836. In 1837 John Apple- ton and Charles W. Davenport, Sr., ond their fami- lies came, and with them the venerable Thomas Fitch, the father of Mrs. Davenport. He died at Morristown in a short time after, aged 80 years. For the next 14 years after the settlement of this Colony the families above named and a few others-in all 10 or 12 families-were all there were in the New York Colony or in this part of the county. These were widely scattered over Morristown Prairie ; and these pioneers worked their way in the wilderness, patient- ly awaiting the oncoming tide that the next wave of immigration would bring to them. Nothing really came until 1852, when 'commenced the memorable rush of people to this portion of the county.
Osco is almost exclusively a prairie township, less than one per cent. of its surface being originally covered with timber. Its surface is beautifully un- dulating, with just sufficient declination to make perfect drainage, and with no level, wet or marshy areas to mar its beauty or excellence. The soil is a rich, black alluvium, of marvelous fertility, and vary- ing from 18ginches to two feet in depth. In the early days of its settlement it was noted for the luxuriance of the grass and other vegetation that grew upon its broad prairies.
The first settlement within the limits of the town was made by Israel Crocker, who located on the north half of section 3, at a place which was known in those days as Crocker's Grove. Here, according to the traditions of the early settlers, the elder Crocker located in the year 1838, built a house of considerable size and enclosed with a sod fence about 160 acres of land, and imported and placed on his farm a large flock of sheep, out of which he intended to amass a fortune. Ill success attended the venture, and after eight or ten years' struggling with bad luck with his sheep and poor health in his family, he finally succumbed to adverse circumstances and sold out to Ben Graham, who continued the business so
inauspiciously begun by Mr. Crocker, with about the same results.
After the settlement of Mr. Crocker, in 1838, no further attempt was made until the year 1851, a lapse of 13 years. In May of that year, Albert Wel- ton moved upon the Crocker Grove farm, which had been purchased by F. P. Brown; in June, Willis Hinman "settled in the south part of the township, and was soon followed by S. C. Welton and Benja- min Manning, Philip Emmert and John Weidlein. The next year came Francis Gerard and Hiram Woodward, and in a short time A. A. and E. M. Crane, Jared H. Smith and Lester C. Welton.
The first school district was formed May 24, 1852. The meeting was at the house of Willis Hinman. The first school-house was built in 1853, on the northeast quarter of section 26. This was long known as the Hinman School-house.
In 1854 the district was divided, and the north half became District No. 2. Two school-houses were built in this District,-one in the northeast corner, and known as the Van Order school-house, and one at Morristown, in the northwest corner.
In 1859, the town was divided into nine districts, each two miles square.
The first Board of School Trustees was elected in 1852, and consisted of Willis Hinman, Samuel Ham- ilton and S. C. Welton.
The school section was sold in 1857, and $1 3,958 was realized from the sales.
Morristown.
LSEWHERE in the ALBUM this place is fully spoken of. In 1852 Henry Selby built a store in the place. It soon became the chief trading and business place for the thriving farming country around it. At one time it had a postoffice, two stores, a church, a school-house, harness, blacksmith and other shops. The building of the railroad and the location of a town and depot at Osco, soon took away about all there was of the place.
814
HENRY COUNTY.
a Kentuckian, residing at Henderson Grove, Knox County. The route was in three sections-from Beardstown to Knoxville, from Knoxville to Albany, on the Mississippi River, and from Albany to Galena. Uncle Billy carried the mail from Knoxville to Al- bany and return once a week. The next year a horseback mail was carried from Morristown to Gene- seo by Captain J. B. Brush. This was the first mail route established in Henry County. Soon after a postoffice was established in Andover, and the mails became regular. There were no envelopes in those days, and the postage on letters was 25 cents, and it took about a week or ten days to get a letter from New York, and four or five days from Chicago.
In the fall of 1840 the county seat was located at Morristown, and Colonel Oakley, through Mr. Har- per for the colony, donated the Colony House for the use of the Courts ; also a quarter section (160 acres) of land, and $1,ooo in cash for the county.
In 1841 the first County Court and in 1842 the first Circuit Court was held in the Colony House, which had been rented to Thomas W. Corey and George Brandenburg, who agreed to furnish rooms for the Courts of the county until the court-house was built. They also had contracted for the build- ing of the court-house and jail, to be built within two years. This court-house to be 18 x 24 feet, one and a half stories high; the jail to be similar to the one contracted for at Richmond. The court-house was built, and in 1844 was hauled to Cambridge across the prairie by a procession of some 35 yoke of oxen, amid the loud cheers and hurrahs of the boys from Sugar-Tree Grove.
The question has often arisen, What became of the fund of $7,000 belonging to the Morristown Colony ? It was said that some $3,000 was put into the Colony House and improvements at Morristown. This was conveyed to the county for county purposes, and by the act removing the county seat to Cambridge it was ordered to be re-conveyed to the Colony. It
seems that the house was sold by Colonel Oakley to Joel Wells. The saw-mill was built on lands of Colonel O. and also sold. The school-house was never built. We suppose very few of the Colonists who settled here ever saw Colonel Oakley. He has been dead many years. The only person who would be likely to know, Joshua Harper, is also dead. We do not suppose the question will ever be answered.
It is not supposed it will make any difference to any one now of the original settlers of Morristown Colony. It is believed all are dead except Captain Joseph B. Brush and Charles W. and T. F. Daven- port. There is not one left on the Colony lands. After the removal of the county seat to Cambridge, in 1844, most of the lands remained unoccupied for some 12 or 15 years, until the projection of the Chi- cago & Rock Island Railroad gave a new impetus to immigration, and after 1850 the Colony lands passed into new ownership. A number of thrifty Germans gathered around the Davenport, Brush and Bolmer farms and bought them all out, and these lands are now among the richest and most valuable farms in the county.
OXFORD TOWNSHIP.
S the southwest-corner township in the county, its boundary lines for six miles on the south and an equal distance on the west, forming the county line. There were neither groves nor mounds to tempt the first comers to this part of the State to "stick stakes " and " hang out their banners on the outer wall " of civil- ization, inviting all the world to come and partake. The very first settlers looked upon its level, wet wastes, and no more supposed it would ever be cov- ered with farms and fine improvements than would the deep lakes or the rock cliffs where the eagle rests. When they saw their cattle grazing upon its nutri- tious grasses they began to realize it was not wholly worthless for all purposes, and slowly they settled down to the conviction that for generations to come here would be free feeding grounds for their stock. The cattle made paths and these were washed by the rains into drainage ways for the surplus water, and in the course of time dry, solid ground appeared where before was the bog, in many places of which a person could stand upon the tough grass sod and by jumping on it shake the ground for several feet about him.
Eastern speculators had entered the lands mostly without ever seeing them, when the craze for Illinois lands ran over the whole country, and men became eager to buy lands here, scarcely caring what might be the kind or quality.
The first settler was Almeron Underwood, from Green Co., Ky. His small brother, Milton Under-
815
HENRY COUNTY.
wood, came with him. A. D. Underwood was born in the township Dec. 11, 1839, and until other pio- neers came in may be called the township's first white squatter.
R. D. Timberlake came in the fall of 1837, and he remembers that at that time Almeron Underwood was the only person he found here.
Anson Calkins, at one time Assessor of the town- ship, came here in 1841. He was born in Austerlitz, Columbia Co., N. Y., Nov. 14, 1818. His recollec- tions are that there were very few if any permanent settlers in the township when he arrived. After fixing his first abode he has never changed it. He prospered from the first, having a farm of about 400 acres of very rich land. He reared five children, in their order as follows : Maria P., Mary E., James B., John F. and Winfield C. His wife was Miss H. Griffin, of Berkshire Co., Mass.
,A. B. Cole was one of the settlers found here when Calkins came. He came and settled in Oxford Township in 1839. Cole says there were but six voters, counting himself, in the township at that time. His family consisted of a wife and four chil- dren; she was Augusta Briggs, of Worcester Co., Mass. Mr. Cole was County Commissioner one term ; also was Assessor of the township.
John W. Cox came in 1849 from Wayne Co., Ind. He died March 2, 1869, leaving his widow, Mrs. Julia Etta Cox, and five children.
Robert M. Wilber came in 1849. He died on the place where he first settled, leaving a widow and 13 children. Two of his sons were killed in the late war.
J. B. Hoag, of Rensselaer Co., N. Y., came in 1839 ; reared a family of four children, and was mar- ride four times.
Alpha.
HE village is nearly in the center of the township, at the crossing of the Galva & Keithsburg Branch of the Chicago, Bur- lington & Quincy and the Rock Island & St. Louis Railroads. It was laid out by Anson Calkins, June 1, 1872. It has never made any great splutter in the way of big booms, but has moved along quietly and surely, content to attend to its
ever-growing shipping and business interests. It is one among the several favorable points of shipment in the county, having a north and south and an east and west connection with all the markets.
There are two dry-goods stores, a grocery store, a hardware store, two blacksmith shops and two hotels ยท in the place. They have a nice school-house just completed, at a cost of $1,800.
The building of the railroads and the laying out of Alpha was practically the doom of the village of Oxford, which was a few miles to the southwest. This latter place was laid out in 1858 by Daniel and James Briggs, on section 30. The main historical point that may perpetually preserve the history of this village was that it was the location of the wild- cat bank in 1860, known as the " Bank of the Miss- issippi Valley," whose assets were said to consist in its best days of an old rusty safe without a lock, one old-fashioned copper, part of a cheap lead pencil, rusty steel pen and a scribbled-over half-sheet of foolscap paper !
When Alpha was started the people of Oxford started too, and they took their houses with them, as a rule, and now the merry plowman whistles his tunes and turns the furrows over the once nestling home of the village.
In September, 1867, a Baptist Church was organ- ized in Alpha, and in 1878 a church building was erected.
PHENIX TOWNSHIP.
HIS township nestles along the borders of Rock River, in the northwest part of the county, the natural places for those first pioneers to settle who formed those outer fringes of civilization, where the solitary pio- neer piloted his lonely way. The second white family to settle in the county was Earl P. Aldrich's, who came in the summer of 1835, and in his little log cabin was born, on the 15th of the following De- cember, the first white child in Henry County that with wide eyes looked out astounded, but not dumb- founded, upon this new and curious world.
A very full account of all these early settlers is given in other chapters, to which the reader is re- ferred.
Amariah Withrow landed in the township but a
Y
816
HENRY COUNTY.
evry short time after the Aldriches. He was a native of White County, Illinois, born May 4, 1831, and came with the large family of Withrows, of whom also is given a full account in another place. Amariah Withrow married Mary J. Huston, born in Licking County, Ohio, Oct. 6, 1832. They were mar- ried August 8, 1856. Had four children.
It properly should have been stated above that the families, the widows and children of the Aldriches are still living, and the aspirations and hopes of all for these two venerable old grand-mothers are that the quiet comfort of their declining years may be long in the land, with only a gradual flow and increase of temporal blessings to their departing hour.
Jacob F. Butzer settled on section 4, in 1837. He was only second to Anthony Hunt in the coming of a German into the county.
David B. Barge, a native of Ohio, came in 1841. His fine farm contains 620 acres. He married Eliza M. Aldrich, born in Pickaway County, Ohio, May 7, 1828.
George Arnett, whose family first settled in Lo- raine, removed into this county at an early day, and secured his valuable farm of 640 acres.
The township is untouched by a railroad. Has no town. Sharon postoffice is a little north of the cen- ter of the township.
WELLER TOWNSHIP.
HIS is a splendid township of land, is well improved and settled by an industrious class of people. Its history is largely in- cluded in that of the Bishop Hill Colony, which follows. James Withrow was the first settler in this part of the county. He located at the east end of Red Oak in 1836. He died on his farm in 1839, and his estate was the first probated in the county. There seems to have been few or no other settlers in this part of the county prior to 1853. Among those who came to this township were Lars Anderson; came in 1846, and died Nov. 16, 1869, leaving a son, Gilbert A. Andrew and Jonas Berg- land came from Sweden to this county in 1846 ; John Bjork came to America, 1840, returned to Sweden and in 1847 settled in Bishop Hill; Peter O. Bloom-
berg came in 1846; Jacob Bricker came in 185 1 ; John P. Chaiser came in 1850; Jonas Elblow came in 1846; Lars Ericson came with his parents in 1847 ; Lars Forsberg came in 1847. John H. Grammar, born in Germany, came to the county 1847 ; William Grammar came in 1843; Hans M. Hollander came in 1847; Jacob Jacobson and wife came "on foot," 1847; John E. Lindbeck, 1849; Olof Moline came 1846; William L. Neuman, German, came 1846; Hans Nostrum, 1846; Eric Olson came with the Swede colony. He was rich in the old country, but was made treasurer for the colonists and paid out for necessaries for others all he had in the world. Jonas Olson came at the same time and he also thus paid out his total fortune ; Olof Olson came 1847 ; John Piatt came in 1840; he was one of the oldest settlers in Weller; Henry Poppy came 1847; J. E. Stone- berg in 1847; Olof Stoneberg in 1846; Andrew Stoneberg came in 1846; Swan Swanson in 1846; Peter Wexell and Peter Wickblow in 1847 .
Bishop Hill Colony.
B ISHOP HILL Colony came in 1846-7. It was entirely a religious movement -- a rebellion against religious intolerance and bigotry. It is a singular fact in the history of mankind that there is hardly an exception, no, not one, where a people, after much suf- fering for religion's sake, long and cruel persecutions, and many suffering death rather than renounce the right of freedom of opinions, and often great commu- nities driven from theirnative land -- fleeing and skulk- ing fugitives, or extirpated by the sword and fagot, yet when their religious ideas have taken hold and gathered converts and became strong, fearless and conquering, then those martyrs to the freedom of re- ligious opinion invariably are ready to turn and inflict upon others who do not adopt their worship the same stern" and cruel persecutions that they themselves had suffered from.
Martin Luther's rebellion against the Catholic Church took complete possession of Sweden, and the Holy Lutheran Church became the State religion ; and when once in power it ruled that country with an iron hand. The Church and State were one, and that one was the Church, --- keen-eyed, vigilant and sleepless in the hunt of those who dared to think
6
HENRY COUNTY.
817
that they were not God's appointed guardians of all men's bodies and souls. Their entire idea of relig- ious freedom of opinion was to present to every one the Church creed, and with the presentation there was no alternative except the manacles and the dungeon. Thus have worked out in the long time inevitable growths of Luther's religious rebellion. He fought religious intolerance, stood ready to die for the freedom of opinion, and the moment he was enabled to seize the power he was just as earnest and determined as had ever been the most bigoted Catholic to restrict all liberty of thought in the blind submission to his narrow creeds.
Eric Jansen was the founder of the sect that con- stituted the Bishop Hill Colony. In his native Sweden, when a young man, his mind began to find many and strong objections to the Lutheran Church. He abdicated the faith-preached a new doctrine; was bitterly persecuted by the bishops, the ruling power in Sweden, and, like every new religion the world has ever known, " the blood of the martyr is the end of the Church; " he gathered rapidly about him con- verts and fellow sufferers. In three brief years after he had commenced proclaiming the new faith he had gathered over 1,100 followers. His first convert and ablest lieutenant was Mr. Hedine. Jansen and Hedine went to prison together, and many times had they been consigned to the gloomy dungeons, where they could only peep out upon the free air and dis- tant sunshine through iron grates. Every visitation from the Church authorities became more and more severe, until finally Jansen became a fugitive from his native country and in disguise fled to America. When his converts found he had fled to this country, that here all men could enjoy freedom of conscience and speech, a colony was organized consisting of about 700 members, and they came as soon as they could to this country and selected their future homes in township 14, range 3. This point was fixed upon by Olef Olson, who had come in advance and made the selection. These immigrants came to Henry County in 1847. They were very poor and for a long time lived in miserable tents and rude caves dug in the sides of the hills, with but scant and innutritious food ; they presented a scene of squalor and suffering. The majority of them were ignorant in their own country, belonging to the enslaved peasant class, and when suddenly dumped in such a great drove into a new hemisphere-a new and
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.