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 95
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In Oct., 1778, the House of Burgesses of Virginia created the county of Illinois, and appointed John Tod, of Kentucky, Civil Governor or Commander, and authorized " all the civil officers, to which the inhabitants had been accustomed," to be chosen by a majority of the citizens. Then all this county was a province and belonged to Virginia. And John Tod established the first civil government in this valley.
Kaskaskia was settled by the French as early as 1707.
In 1788 Gov. St. Clair was made Governor of the entire Northwest Territory, and the seat of govern- ment for this vast wild was Marietta, Ohio. The territory was at that time divided into three coun- ties : Hamilton, now Ohio; Knox, now Indiana, and
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St. Clair, now Illinois. Hence, the student of Illi- nois history will know that St. Clair County was formed in 1788; is the mother county of all the counties in the State, and is the starting point in tracing the county's genealogy in the long line of carving the many counties out of the one.
The next change was that, what is now Illinois became a part of Indiana, and the capital was at Vincennes. This condition of affairs contisued until 1809, when a territorial separation was effected, and the Illinois Territory was divided into two counties- Randolph and St. Clair. And for two years what is now Henry County was a part of St. Clair County. On the 14th of September, 1812, Madison County was formed, and then the young and old swains of Henry County, had there been any here, would have had to go to Edwardsville to get their marriage license. Unless they had adopted the soldiers' plan in the early day and married a squaw. In that case no license was required. The wife was purchased, a pony or two, according to the quality, being the usual price.
Jan. 4, 1817, Bond County was organized, and then this was Bond County.
March 22, 1819, Clark County was created; and so little was known of this part of the world that the act creating Clark County fixed the northern line as "ex- tending to the Canada line."
Jan. 31, 1821, Pike county was formed. Then had the reader or any other white man been here he would have been of the order of Pikes.
Jan. 28, 1823, Fulton County came into existence, and then we would have been Fultonians if anything.
Jan. 13, 1825, Knox County was organized, and this then included Henry County. The same act, it seems, created Henry County, so far as to give it a name.
The law at that time required there should be 350 inhabitants in the territory before a new county could be organized. The Legislature often created a county, and provided it should be organized and become in fact a county when the proper population had become residents of the county territory.
In an act of the Legislature " forming new coun- ties out of the counties of Pike and Fulton, and at- tached portions thereof," approved Jan. 13, 1825, section 6 creates Henry County by defining the boundaries.
By an act approved Jan. 15, 1831, "To establish the county seat of Knox County and for other pur- poses," the boundaries of Henry County were re- established and the county attached to Knox County for judicial purposes, until organized.
It was enacted by the Legislature Jan. 5, 1835, in section 3 of said act, that the boundary lines of Henry County are defined as follows: "Beginning at the southeast corner of township 14 north, in range 5 east of the fourth principal meridian ; thence north between range 5 and 6 cast, to the middle of the channel of Rock River; thence down along the middle channel of said river, with the meanders thereof, until it intersects the fourth principal merid- ian; thence south with the said meridian line to the southwest corner of township 14 north, in range I east; thence due east on the line between town . ships 13 and 14 north, to the place of beginning."
These boundary lines made Rock River the entire north and northwest boundary line of the county, and included nearly one-half of the territory of what is now Whiteside County.
By an act approved March 2, 1837, Henry County was organized and the proper Commissioners ap- pointed to locate the county seat, and to do and perform such acts as were necessary to enable the county to assume its position as an organized county.
The Pioneers.
HE thrilling story of the pioneers of the Upper Mississippi Valley, involving the proud results that we all are now enjoying, is easily touched into romance by the glowing imagination, to be proudly repeated by every generation of the English-speaking race, will live and breath and burn, in legend and in song. In its greatest incident it is a story of achievement unparelleled in the annals of the world for the maj- esty of its purpose and the poverty of its means, the weakness of the beginning and the grandeur of the result. Contemplating the unnoted coming of the first sparse wandering nomads of the wilds and the dreary wastes-the peaceful exiles in life-the adventurous voyagers, piloted on their way by the
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north star, the first frail settlements-yet the shred of the most intense and tenacious life, fringing the dark edge of outer civilization, harassed by Indians, beset by beasts, by disease, by exposure, by death in every form, beyond civilization and succor, beyond the knowledge or interest of civillzed communities, a thin thread of the old settlements, yet what incalcu- lable destinies hung upon their lives and the success of their heroic labors. Contemplating this spectacle our hearts break into the language of the proud prophecy accomplished : "The desert shall rejoice and bloom as the rose." "A little one shall become a thousand and a small one a strong nation."
Amidst these abounding joys of wealth and happy content, we are surrounded to-day by other tradi- tions and solicited by other memories. But under these radiant heavens and these surpassing beauties, our hearts go backward to a winter day. The roaring cities sink to a silent wilderness-the rumbling high- ways of steam and fire into the thread-like Indian trails, the busy throngs to the silent, grave-faced lone hunter and trapper. The contrast is complete.
The great region of the Northwest lay in primeval wilderness awaiting the creative touch that should lift it into amazing and rejoicing life and in fulfill- ment of the aspirations of Jefferson in the Ordinance of 1787, that consecrated to freedom all this part of the world. The blood of the pioneer flows with energizing power in the veins of every State and his undaunted spirit animates the whole continent. Did they know, think you, what a destiny they bore in their silent and heroic bosoms! Perchance not ; and it is possible they builded wiser than they knew, but their imperishable crown of glory is here, the fruit is rejoicing in the distant and glorious summer, where they alone planted and watered.
An instance of early social life was related to us by Mrs. William Miller, of Geneseo, is a valuable index to the social life of the first. beaux and belles of Henry County. She says among her early recol- lections, when the earliest settlements were still new, that she was at Mr. R. R. Stewart's house one day, and, as a child, had gone with the girls to the creek, where they were to do the family washing. When the work was well under way, one of the girl's broth- ers came running from the house to the creek to tell the young ladies there were some gentlemen at the house and they must go home at once. The girls
knew they had to go, and yet they were in their wash-day clothes, probably, no, of course, barefoot ; there was but one room to the house, and their clothes were in the " loft," and this was reached by cleats fastened to the logs on the inside of the house. What were they to do? The girls were terri- bly distressed, but what could they do? It was soon settled ; they made their brother go to the house, clamber into the garret, get their clothes, and they made their toilet in the thicket, and in due time ap- peared at the house, where awaited, one of them at least, her future husband.
The seaside belles of to-day would regard this in- cident as horrible; and yet at that day and time it was what would easily and naturally happen, even in the proudest first family of the county. The young ladies in the Stewart family were much in advance of the average girls of their time, as is evi- denced by the fact that they were the first school- teachers in the county, and were all married to the best of the young men, and to this day easily main- tain their places as influential leaders in our best social life.
Dr. Thomas Baker is universally conceded to be the first settler in Henry County. There are none of his family or descendants here from whom to gain the details of his early life, except the meager details to be found elsewhere in this work as they were gleaned from those old settlers who knew him best.
The second family to make a permanent settle- ment in the county was Earl P. Aldrich with his wife and five children, in an ox wagon. Henry S. Aldrich was born in Henry County Dec. 16, 1835, and Mrs. Aldrich thinks he was the first white child born in the county. (See page 305.)
There were three young men who believe they came to the county before Aldrich's family, namely, Thomas and James Glenn and Anthony Hunt, who arrived here the 13th day of May, 1835. They were all single men, and there is a strong probability that they were the first to arrive after Dr. Thomas Baker.
The next arrival was George Brandenburg, in the latter part of July; then P. K. Hanna, John P. Hanna and George Colbert.
James Glenn built the first log cabin in the county, made the first plow and turned the first furrow.
The population of Henry County, or what is now the county, in the first year of its settlement con-
0
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sisted of Dr. Thomas Baker and family, George Brandenburg and family, Earl P. Aldrich and family, John P. Hanna, P. K. Hanna and family, James Glenn, Thomas Glenn and Anthony Hunt.
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Firsts.
HE following is a complete list, in their order, of the first separate acts and events as they occurred in the history of Henry County. They will prove a source of easy reference and great interest to the readers, as well as valuable in the settlement of those vexing questions that sometimes find their way into the legends and stories of the early settlements, and especially as to where, how and when given events transpired, and who were the actors and participants in those interesting beginnings of things :
First settler, Dr. Thomas Baker, April 8, 1835.
First white child born, Henry S. Aldrich, Dec. 16, 1835.
First white female child, Hattie Hanna, now Mrs. Odell.
First cabin put up, James Glenn, May, 1835.
First tavern, kept by Geo. Brandenburg.
First town laid out, Dayton.
First Postmaster, Geo. Brandenburg, Dayton.
First election, Dayton, June 9, 1837.
ยท First County Commissioners' Court, P. K. Hanna, Thomas Pillsbury and Jno. Browning.
First Sheriff, Robert Mccullough.
First Coroner, R. R. Stewart.
First Recorder, Joshua Harper.
First Surveyor, Arba M. Seymour.
First term of the County Commissioners' Court, in Dayton.
First County and Circuit Clerk, James M. Allan. First Treasurer, Charles Atkinson.
First license granted by the Court, to John P. Hanna and George Taylor.
First school, taught by Narcissa Stewart.
First chartered ferry, at Cleveland.
First newspaper, started by I. S. Hyatt.
First plow in county, made by James Glenn.
First furrow plowed, in 1835.
First School Commissioner, James M. Allan.
First census, 1840, by Arba M. Seymour.
First charity subject upon the county, John Thom- as, 1840.
First Doctor, Thomas Baker.
First wedding, J. P. Dodge and Samantha Col- bert, Feb. 7, 1836.
First lawyer, Samuel P. Brainard.
First term of the Circuit Court, at Richmond, 1839. First case in Circuit Court, Job Searls vs. Moses
T. Stimpson.
First criminal indicted, John Porter.
First dairy, 1837, by Cromwell K. Bartlett.
First land purchase, by William Paddelford.
First frame building, 1836, in Cleveland, by At- kinson & Wells.
First temperance society, organized in Geneseo, 1836.
First wagon road petitioned for by the people, Andover to Geneseo.
First land entry of the Government, by Giles Will- iams, which was the north half of section 34, town- ship 18 north and 2 east, now Hanna Township.
First wheat planted, by Washburne, 1835.
First mill, at Andover, built in the winter of 1836-7. First militia officer elected, James M. Allan, Ma- jor, 1837.
First Member of Congress, John S. Stewart.
First member of the State General Assembly, Joshua Harper.
The first attempt at fruit-tree growing here is told of fully elsewhere. The trees were seedlings, and the first crop of apples ever gathered in the county con- sisted of 36 specimens, and even then this was a marked event among the people.
About the first grafted apples raised in this por- tion of Illinois were the Milam, under the name of Winter Pearmain. These were not really grafted trees, but had been propagated from the suckers.
The winter of 1855-6 was noted for the wholesale destruction of fruit-trees. It was estimated that one- half of the bearing apple-trees were destroyed or rendered worthless. This for some years greatly discouraged tree-planting, especially fruit-trees. All the orchards in the county have been planted since.
Lewis Hurd and Miss Caroline W. Little were married by Rev. Ithamar Pillsbury, Aug. 22, 1837 . This it appears by the records was the first marriage in the county. Possibly, there may have been an earlier marriage ; but if so it was while this was still
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Knox County. The next wedding was the festive Rev. Ithamar himself with Miss Caroline E. Miller, of Andover, December 18. This knot was tied by Rev. Enoch Meade. The next was W. B. Goss, of Jo Daviess County, and Ellen Baldwin, of Cleveland, by the above Rev. Ithamar.
There were five weddings in the county in the year 1838. In the year 1839 there were six. " It is not good for man to be alone;" but a more impera- tive order just then prevailed here: It is good to people this rich waste.
James M. Allen and Susannah D. Stewart were married by Rev. James Wilcox, March 6, 1839. In 1840 there were ten couple spliced for life. (Di- vorces not yet fashionable.) In this year Morristown had her first wedding, Mahlon Lloyd and Miss Ame- lia L. Davenport, December 30. In 1841 there were twenty-two marriages. Tis year James Knox, after- wards in Congress, was married to Miss P. H. Blish, January 20. In 1842, 23 marriages ; 1843, 15 ; 1844, 18; 1845,21; 1846,25; 1847,23; and 1851, 63.
The first election in Henry County was held June 19, 1837, to elect a Sheriff, Coroner, Surveyor, Rec- order and'three County Commissioners. The Judges were John P. Hanna, Charles Atkinson and Roderick R. Stewart. Clerks,-James M. Allan and Arba M. Seymour. Ithamar Pillsbury, Philip K. Hanna and Joshua Browning were elected County Commission- ers. Rufus Hubbard had 21 votes for Commission- er. Joshua Harper was elected Recorder, receiving 24 votes ; Thomas R. Saunders got 22 votes and Eben Townsend had 11 votes. For Surveyor Arba M. Seymour received the full vote cast-58 votes. For Sheriff Robert Mccullough was elected, getting 31 votes, to Stephen Marshall 24 votes, and for Cor- oner R. R. Stewart got 58 votes.
A Sad Life.
WAY back in 1848, Mr. and Mrs. Pollock, of New York, made the acquaintance of some of the leaders in the Swedish Church that was founded by " Prophet " Eric Jansen, from which came the Bishop Hill Colony. Pollock and wife were refined and educated people and had been accustomed to the comforts and social life of what may be termed the well-to-do peo-
ple of New York. Mrs. Pollock was, it seems, of a strong religious turn of mind, and she listened to the new faith, shed tears over the persecution of Jansen and Olsen in Sweden ; and the cruel story made her a believer, and not only aroused her deep sympathy for the cause, but awoke within her a religious en- thusiasm that was strong and unconquerable. She induced her husband to come West, and they located among the Swedes of Bishop Hill Colony. Mr. Pol- lock was a man of fine accomplishments and he opened a school for the Colony, and taught school and suffered and died. Mrs. Pollock then took up the work where her husband had stopped and for some time was the school-teacher of the Swedes. She married one of the wealthiest men and leaders in the Colony, named Gabrielson. This man had brought a considerable fortune to this country, and had purchased vast bodies of the Colonists' lands and had in many ways advanced about all his fortune in behalf of his poorer Church friends. Gabrielson died in a few years after his marriage and the Church leaders wound up the estate, and the widow and child in some way came out of the ordeal penniless. But her devotion to her Church and its members remained unshaken. In a few years she was married to Eric Jansen, the " Prophet " and head of the Church, and here were new fields of usefulness opened to her to minister to the Church and the Colonists.
In 1850 " Prophet " Jansen was murdered in the town of Cambridge, and again this good woman of Christian charity was a widow and penniless. Old. age and infirmities were coming swiftly upon her; her heroic struggles grew more and more feeble and for the past six or eight years she has been an inmate of the county poor-house.
This simple and brief statement is one of the most pathetic stories we remember ever to have met in real, every-day Christian life. When she cast her fortunes, her life, her everything with the Church and Colony, the people were in poverty, ignorance, squal- or and want. Her money, life, work and suffering with these people, instructing them, guiding them and more than dividing with them, her presence among them was truly that of a ministering angel. These good, Christian people are now rich in this world's goods ; their broad and fertile acres smile their bless- ings upon them and theirs, and they may well and fervently thank God for his loving beneficence through this devoted and self-sacrificing woman.
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Doctors.
OCTORS were a necessity before lawyers in the pioneer settlements. Pills and po- tions, "hot water and bleeding," boneset tea, and dogwood, wild cherry and aloes bit- ters, were the charms that soothed the ancient stomachs and exorcised away the demon ma- laria, and sod-corn juice was essential in every well conducted pioneer cabin against snake-bites. The old-fashioned ague-no, s-h-a-k-e-s! the kind when they got under-hold of a fellow and proceeded to shake him up in a style that would have made a sad wreck of a full set of false teeth upon the instant- these and snake-bites, milk-sick and spring fevers lay in wait, lurked in the tall grass and swamps, seeking whom they might make a rattle-trap of.
The medicine man of the Indians had not folded his brush tent and stole away when Dr. Thomas Baker, the first settler in the county, came. The first fellow upon the ground, and not a soul to dose but himself! It is not to be wondered at that for him life was rather shortened up at both ends!
As already intimated, the first settler was the first physician. He was rather corpulent, and supposed by all envious people to have been slightly lazy. It is said that, especially in very warm weather, it actu- ally 'grated on his tender feelings to see any one at work. In a few cases he has warmly remonstrated with parties he found working away on a hot day. The Doctor died in the county, resulting from in- juries received by a horse kicking him, and his family and descendants have all long since disappeared from the county.
Dr. Maxwell was the next in order. He located on Rock River, Phenix Township. He died in 1844. In 1838 Dr. King settled in the same neighborhood, on Rock River. Said to have been a fine-looking man, but there were evil stories told of him, and in about a year he left the county. In 1839 Dr. Enos Pomeroy located in Geneseo. In 1845 Dr. S. T. Hume located in Geneseo.
The first call to which the last named responded
was a surgical case about five miles east of Cam- bridge. He attended the call, and when he started to return it was dark. The path was very.indistinct, and very difficult to follow. Coming to " Uncle Billy Martin's " house, he applied to stay all night. He was asked who he was. "Dr. Hume, of Geneseo." " No such Doctor there. You're a horse-thief, sir, and git!" He got to the path, and finally reached the house of James S. Hamilton and called to the occupants. Here he met the same reception, only a little more vinegary than at the first house, and he resumed his devious and difficult way. He next reached Mr. Southard's and called to the occupants, and again was asked, " Who are you? " and answered again, "Dr. Hume, a physician of Geneseo." "Git out! No such Doctor there. I guess you are after my horses." Mrs. S. had heard the Doctor's an- swer, and here interfered and told her husband that she had heard there was a new Doctor in Geneseo. He was finally permitted to enter the house ; a light was struck, and the Doctor closely inspected by the whole family, and his honest face and manner soon made him the welcome guest, and the best the place afforded was gladly placed before him.
All the pith there is in this story is the fact that it is a demonstration that the horse-thief was plying his industry here at rather an early day,-and that at the time when the loss of a horse was regarded as about the greatest calamity that could befall a farm- er. There are probably more horses stolen now-days than there were then, but the loss now is not so in- curable a calamity as it was then.
About 1840 Dr. George Shipman settled in An- dover (Homeopathist), and built the house after- wards owned by Mr. Ayers, on the south side of the square. He soon left and went to Chicago to live.
Wethersfield had no resident physician for several years after its settlement, and during this time the. most of the practice was by Dr. Thomas Hall, of Stark County. He was an Englishman, and judged by his patrons to be a man of vast medical lore.
Dr. Hickman was the first to settle in Wethers- field. He was soon in a good practice. He nearly perished on the prairie one night in the winter of 1848-9. His feet were badly frozen, and he lost part of one of them. He left the county.
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Ancient Records.
S extraordinary as it may now sound to this generation, who know that Henry County remained wholly unoccupied and unknown to white nian until 1832, and was first settled R in 1835, and the county organized in 1837, yet it is a fact that as far back as October 28, 1817, William Barrows patented by military war- ran tthe southeast of section 5, Weller Township. This patent was signed by James Monroe, Presi- dent, and this then being Madison County, it was re- corded at the county seat, Edwardsville, Dec. 28, 1818. The year of the last date Barrows sold to William Hobby, consideration $160. William Ste- phenson, of Boston, Suffolk Co., took the acknowl- edgment of the deed.
On January 4, 1818, the United States issued a patent to Uriah Lockett, for the southwest of section I, in Weller Township, and Feb. 2, 1819, Lockett sold to H. Stewart. The parties were of Williamson
County, Tennessee. The consideration given was $250. Geo. Hulin, " Chairman and Presiding Mag- istrate of the Court of Common Pleas," Tennessee, took the acknowledgment of the deed.
Nov. 22, 1820, John Greenup, of Geauga County, Ohio, sold to W. Skinner, of the same place, the southeast of section 4, Weller Township. Considera- tion, $200.
S. Staples, by warrant for services in the war of 1812-15, entered S. E. qr. of sec. . 6, Weller Town- ship, and the records of Madison show that Staples on Nov. 22, 1819, sold the same to J. Rundlett. Price, $200. Staples acknowledged the deed before James Ladd, Notary, of Rockingham, N. H.
October 15, 1818, James McCartnee patented southwest section 5, Weller Township. He sold, in 1818, to M. F. Maher. Consideration, $100. The deed is acknowledged in Baltimore.
June 20, 1820, J. Van Ransalear sold to J. R. Van Ransalear, of Utica, N. Y., southwest section 8, Weller Township, and the record says "36 quarter sections in other counties," for the sum of $2,000.
July 30, 1819, R. Cushman patented southwest section 8, Weller Township. He sold to J. Van Ransalear.
HENRY COUNTY.
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Acts of the County Commissioners.
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A T the time Henry County was created, the financial and official head of the county was the County Commission- ers' Court. On the 27th of June of that year this Court met at Dayton and transacted the first official business of the county. Allan was appointed Clerk ; Atkinson, Treasurer. Clerks and Treasurers were ap- pointed-the Circuit Cleiks by the Judge of the Circuit, and the County Clerks and Treasurers by the County Commissioners until these officrs were made elective by act of the Leg- islature, February, 1837. In the next August elec- tion after the passage of the act, the people elected James M. Allan Clerk, and Charley Atkinson Treas- urer. The Clerk gave bond, with Robert McCul- lough and John P. Hanna as sureties.
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