USA > Illinois > Adams County > Quincy > Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. I > Part 19
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THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC OF 1849
The thirteen years which had elapsed since cholera made such in- roads to the population of young Quincy and Adams County had brought several more physicians into the ranks of the profession, and in other ways the communities were better prepared to cheek the epi- demie ; but no section of a county or state is really prepared to fight the unexpected. Cholera did not make its appearance until the be- ginning of the warm weather of that year, and did not obtain a foot- hold in Quincy until brought by immigrants or by passengers from the river boats.
One of the first deaths to get wide notice and spread the alarm in Western Illinois was that of Capt. C. L. Wright of Galena, who, ou April 20, 1849, died of undoubted Asiatie cholera on the steamer "War Eagle," at some point south of Quiney on the way to St. Louis. Pre- viously, there had been some cases at Leonard's Mill, and on the 17th of March three Irishmen had died in Quiney. One of them had oeeu- pied a room in St. Louis in which a person had recently died of the disease. According to Doctor Ralston and some other of the physicians on home ground, that circumstanee had no bearing on the death of the Quiney vietim; they denied their belief in the contagious nature of eholera.
The Latter Day Saints had not a few eases to combat and a local paper speaks of their methods of treatment in the eases of two of their young ladies who were attacked : "The process consisted in anointing with oil, prayer, brandy, psalm-singing, flannels, exhortation and hot water. The prescription was carried into effeet with great vigor and perseverance throughout an entire night, and in the morning the patients were quiet and without pain-both being dead."
But the progress of the disease soon became too serions a matter for the application of any facetiousness, especially after the death of Charles Steinagel, an active and prominent German citizen of Quiney. By the 10th of May, according to the report of Adam Schmidt, ten deaths had occurred the previous week among the German emigrants and their relatives. Among the number were Mrs. Gertrude Gost and child, Adam Elder and his wife and Philip Zink. It is stated that Mrs. Elder wrapped herself in the blankets in which her husband had died and joined him as a suicide.
There appears to have been a lull in the late spring in the progress of the disease, but in June it reappeared in an even more persistent form. The "sulphur remedy" seemed to be the favorite among the loeal physicians. At this time, when deaths in St. Louis were oeeur- ring at the rate of fifty daily, another meeting was held in the court house at Quiney. A local newspaper of July 30th states that on the previous Saturday afternoon and night there were five deaths from cholera, and many talked of leaving town. Travel upon the river and country trade were both suspended, and a portentous silenee seemed to rest like a pall over the land. During the week preceding July 15th
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there were thirty-five interments of cholera victims at Quiney, among whom was the wife of Capt. B. M. Prentiss. There were fifty-five deaths in the next week, Mayor Enoch Conyers being among the num- ber of the deceased. He was interred under the auspices of the Masonic fraternity. Another prominent victim was Charles Gilman, a leading attorney, author of Gilman's Supreme Court Reports and editor of the " Western Legal Observer."
The "Quiney Whig" of July 31, 1849, has the following: "Whole number of deaths the past week, sixty-three; the greatest number buried any one day was fifteen, on Sunday, the 29th.
"Notice-Friday, the 3d of August, being recommended by the President as a day of general prayer and supplication, our offices will therefore be closed on that day. (Signed) Land Office,
"SAMUEL HOLMES, Register. HIRAM ROGERS, Receiver. A. JONAS, Postmaster."
The deaths for the following week deereased to twenty-seven, but the pestilence still lingered, and on August 13th announcement is made of the death of one of Quiney's old and honored citizens. Artemus Ward. It was a siekly season altogether and cholera cut a particularly wide swath. The total of deaths from the epidemie up to the fourth week of August was 286, divided by months as follows: In March, six : April, none; May, fifteen ; June, twelve; July, 139; August, 114. Later in the fall commenced a marked deeline in eholera fatalities and soon afterward, as the tireless efforts of the citizens were supplemented by the natural advantages of high altitude and pure air, the dark eloud of death and apprehension passed away completely.
ADAMS COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY
The hard campaign waged by the physicians of the county against cholera and other diseases which swept the country in 1849 ealled very foreeful attention to the necessity of organization and co-opera- tion, both to meet emergencies and for purposes of consultation and progress in ordinary times. The Adams County Medical Society was organized at Quiney, March 28, 1850, at a meeting presided over by Dr. Samuel W. Rogers and in which the following participated : Drs. Warren Chapman, James Elliott, J. W. Hollowbush, F. B. Leach, .Joseph N. Ralston, M. J. Roeschlamb, M. Shepherd, Louis Watson and Isaae T. Wilson. Of those named Doctor Elliott was a resident of Clayton and Dr. Shepherd of Payson ; the others lived in Quincy.
The officers selected at the organization of the Adams County Medical Society were: President, Joseph N. Ralston ; vice-presidents, S. W. Rogers and M. Shepherd ; recording secretary, JJ. W. Hollow- bush ; corresponding secretary, Louis Watson ; treasurer, F. B. Leach : censors, I. T. Wilson, M. J. Roeschlamb and L. Watson. Vier-Presi- dent Shepherd was elected a delegate to the American Medical also- 11. 1-12
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ciation, meeting that year in Cincinnati. Thus was fully organized the second oldest medical society in Illinois, its only senior being the Æsculapian Society of the Wabash Valley, founded in 1846. The Adams County society antedates the State Medical Society by about two months.
The career and personality of Doctor Ralston, the first president of the county organization, as well as of Dr. S. W. Rogers, the vice-pres- ident, have been already depicted.
Before means of travel were at all easy, and during a period when the few members of the society had wide stretches of territory to cover in the prosecution of their practice, it was most difficult to get a quorum together even for the annual meetings. There is, therefore, a break in the records from November 10, 1850, to April 19, 1856, at which date the society held a special meeting, or what proved to be a revival; for at the annual gathering of the following month fourteen new members were elected, and the organization has since remained unbroken, though its line was considerably bent during the Civil war, when so many of its members were called into the service.
EDWARD G. CASTLE
Perhaps the best known member of the society who joined during the 1856 revival, was Dr. Edward G. Castle, surgeon in charge of Di- vision No. 1, Quincy Hospital, in the War of the Rebellion. From 1867 to 1873 he was absent from the United States as consular agent at Carlisle, England, the early home of his wife. After his return he did not resume active practice in Quincy, but continued his old-time interest in matters connected with his profession, as they assumed a semi-public scope. He accepted re-election to the presidency of the County Medical Society and as head of the medical staff of Blessing Hospital, and was holding both of these positions at the time of his death, September 20, 1880. Doctor Castle was the personification of courtesy and honor and all meanness was shamed by his presence.
IN THE UNION SERVICE
Down to the close of the Civil war fifty-seven members had been enrolled in the Adams County Medical Society, of whom the following were in the Union service : Dr. Moses M. Bane, colonel of the Fiftieth Illinois Infantry, who lost his right arm at Shiloh, and was subse- quently assessor of internal revenue and register of the General Land Office (at Salt Lake City) ; Dr. Garner K. Bane (brother of Colonel Bane, whose arm he amputated on the field), assistant surgeon of the Fiftieth Illinois Infantry; Dr. Frederick K. Bailey, surgeon of the Twentieth Illinois Infantry, detached and in charge of Division No. 3, Quincy Military Hospital; Dr. Leander D. Baker, surgeon Twenty- Fourth Missouri Infantry and afterward division surgeon of the De- partment of the Gulf; Dr. Moses F. Bassett, assistant surgeon for the
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Board of Enrollment, Fourth Congressional Distriet, Quincy; Dr. Edward G. Castle, temporarily in charge of Division No. 1, Quiney Hospital; Dr. Henry G. Churchman, surgeon, Army of the Potomac ; Dr. Bartrow Darrack, surgeon, died of smallpox soon after being mustered; Dr. Samuel W. Everett, brigade surgeon on staff of Gen. B. M. Prentiss, who was killed at Shiloh while rallying retreating troops; Dr. A. M. D. Hughes, adjutant of the Fiftieth Illinois In- fantry, killed at Shiloh ; Dr. J. R. Kay, surgeon of the One Hundred and Twenty-Fourth Illinois Infantry; Dr. Henry W. Kendall, surgeon of the Fiftieth Illinois Infantry ; Dr. Samuel C. Moss, surgeon Seventy-Eighth Illinois Infantry ; Dr. Charles H. Morton, major and afterward lieutenant-colonel of the Eighty-Fourth Infantry, who was captured at Chickamauga and confined in Libby Prison and after the war became elerk of Adams County; Dr. Virgil MeDavitt, surgeon First Alabama (eolored) Cavalry ; Dr. N. II. MeNeall, assist- ant surgeon One Hundred and Thirty-Seventh Illinois Infantry ; Dr. George O. Pond, surgeon Seventy-Third Illinois Infantry; Dr. Daniel Stahl, surgeon Seventh Illinois Cavalry; Dr. Joel G. Williams, assistant surgeon Seeond Illinois Cavalry ; Dr. Louis Watson, surgeon Sixteenth Illinois Infantry and later medieal inspector of the Army of the Cumberland; Dr. Isaac T. Wilson, contraet surgeon in charge of Di- vision No. 2, Quiney Hospital : Dr. Reuben Woods, surgeon One HInn- dred and Nineteenth Illinois Infantry and later division surgeon of the Department of the Gulf. Dr. Robert W. MeMahan, who joined the society after the war, was, during the earlier part of that period, sur- geon on the Mississippi River fleet commanded by Colonel Ellet, and later surgeon of the One Hundred and Forty-Sixth Illinois Infantry.
CITY BOARD OF HEALTH CREATED
Naturally, general sanitation early engaged the attention of the so- ciety. In November. 1865, Drs. E. G. Castle and Joseph Robbins ap- peared before the City Council and asked that, in view of a probable visitation of epidemie cholera, steps be taken to put the city in a proper sanitary condition. The authorities aeted promptly, ereated a Board of Health of which Doctor Castle was made president, and un- der his direction the eity was placed in such hygienie condition that when, in the following summer, disease eame up the Mississippi River, Quiney escaped with less than a dozen eases, and only two or three of these were fatal. In the late '60s the society indueed the City Council to provide regulations by which records of deaths and certificates of burial should be required, and its efforts were supplemented by state laws providing penalties for neglect. In 1870 an efficient City Board of Health was established, replacing the old body which had virtually fallen into deeay. The reorganized board comprised five members, three of whom were regular physicians, with one layman, like them appointed by the mayor, who was himself a member ex-officio. Later, the Board of Health lost its medical character, and, many think, much for the worse.
CHAPTER VIII
ROADS AND BRIDGES OF ALL KINDS
QUINCY MAILS THROUGHI JUDGE SNOW-ILLINOIS AND MISSOURI BOUND BY FERRY-NORTHERN CROSS RAILROAD, OLD AND NEW-OPERATIONS RELUCTANTLY SUSPENDED-OUTLET FURTHER NORTH-CONNECTION WITH CHICAGO COMPLETE-EXPRESS LINES EXTENDED-THIE WA- BASII-FIRST VOTING OF RAILROAD BONDS-THE QUINCY & TOLEDO RAILROAD COMPANY-RAILROAD CONNECTIONS WEST OF THE MISSIS- SIPPI-RAILROAD BRIDGES ACROSS THE RIVER-ALL SECTIONS BEING GRADUALLY ACCOMMODATED-ADAMS COUNTY HIGHWAYS-LEADING TO THE QUINCY, ATLAS & WARSAW ROAD-WHY HIGHWAYS WERE NOT NEEDED UNTIL 1825-VIEWERS REPORT ON STATE ROAD-PIO- NEER ROADS AND BRIDGES-IMPROVEMENTS IN ROAD AND BRIDGE BUILDING-THE TICE HARD ROAD LAW-GRAVEL AND MACADAM ROADS-ILLINOIS STATE HIGHWAY PLAN.
If any other proof were needed that man is naturally a gregarious and social animal it could be eonelusively furnished by the persisteney with which he euts roads through the forests and swamps of a new country, throws bridges across its streams and finally baeks his instinet with his money and strength in the building of permanent highways and iron ways. Of course, it is a matter both of normal love for mutual intercourse and of self-interest, as the healthy human being long ago discovered that he can do much more and be much happier by working as the unit of a co-operative body than by laboring as a soli- tary and lonely individual.
From the first the settlers in Adams County were of that tempera- ture which inelined them to get together, to interweave their lives one with another as you see cows and horses, face to face and neck to neek in the fields and woods, obviously seeking comfort and strength in companionship. Man's determined efforts to get together in settle- ments, communities, towns, cities, states and nations, through the various means of transportation and communication which have so multiplied with the years, is a higher and broader manifestation of this common and suggestive picture set forth by the beasts of the field, wild as well as domesticated.
QUINCY MAILS THROUGH JUDGE SNOW
The dozen people who had settled within the present limits of Adams County before it was politically created in 1825 received a
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letter, now and then, when they could raise the price of the postage, T'rom Carrollton by way of Atlas. Very soon after the original plat of Quincy was filed in the office of Henry H. Snow, county clerk. probate judge, ete., that ardent office holder was also appointed postmaster ; which was in 1825. Judge Snow kept the postoffice at John Wood's house as his own was fully occupied with other official business. Quincy was then the northernmost postoffice in the Mississippi Valley and expresses were sent to that point for the military posts as far up as St. Peters, Minnesota. The tocal office was kept in a stout pine chest in Mr. Wood's house, and two soldiers usually called for the mail destined for northern points above Quiney, So, even at that carly day, the people of Adams County were getting in loose touch with quite a stretch of country; and they rejoiced accordingly.
AN OLD-TIME MAN. COACH
As the years went by Quincy achieved the triumph of seeuring a regular weekly mail from Atlas and the South, and, of course. if the settlers had any good reason to expect communications through Unele Sam they could make the trip and get them, without waiting for the official carrier. In those days of scarce and hard-earned money, post- age was an item which meant considerable in the economics of the average pioneer: for instance, in 1835, the rates on "a single letter, composed of one piece of paper. " for any distance not exceeding thirty miles, were 6 cents; over thirty miles and not exceeding eighty, 10 cents: over eighty and not exceeding 150, 1212 cents; over 150 and not exceeding 400, Isa, cents; over 400, 25 cents. It is safe to say that in 1835 the settlers of Quiney and Adams counties received few letters with the message "inclosed find stamps for reply. " and it is equally safe to add that they seldom made the self-sacrifice them- selves.
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ILLINOIS AND MISSOURI BOUND BY FERRY
The Quincyites looked longingly across the Mississippi at their fellow Missourians, but it was some years before they commenced to operate a ferry and thus have comparatively free communication with them. Steamboats plied up and down the Mississippi River, row and sail boats moved across as occasion required, and as early as 1827 the commissioners granted Ira Pierce the right to operate a ferry be- tween the two shores. The County Board even went so far as to estab- lish the rates for ferrying across the Mississippi, loaded and unloaded wagons drawn by horses or oxen, pleasure wagons or carriages drawn by either animals, foot passengers and all kinds of live stock other than human.
But nothing came of these attempts to bring the eastern and west- ern shores of the Mississippi together at this point until in May, 1838, when Woodford Lawrence, in company with two other men, built the first ferry boat that ever crossed the Mississippi River in the vicinity of Quincy. It was constructed of two canoes, a platform comecting them, around which a railing was built to keep the animals and other passengers from falling off into the water. The first passengers were three horses which were safely carried across, one at a time. The ferry's eastern terminus was the mouth of Mill Creek, and its special design was to carry horses over the river for those starting on trips along the Missouri shores-or vice versa.
NORTHERN CROSS RAILROAD, OLD AND NEW
Before this primitive horse ferry had commenced its trips across the Mississippi, enough able and far-seeing men had gathered at Quincy to participate with a controlling influence in the movement to bind Chicago and the East with the Mississippi Valley, by way of Northern Illinois. That movement was a part of the proposed internal improvement system inaugurated by the state in 1837. Various lines of railroad were prescribed by the Legislature, among which was the "Northern Cross Railroad from Quincy on the Mississippi River, via Columbus and Clayton in Adams County. Mt. Sterling in Brown County, Meredosia and Jacksonville in Morgan County, Springfield in Sangamon County, Decatur in Macon County, Sidney in Champaign County and Danville in Vermillion County ; thence to the state line in the direction of Lafayette, Indiana." Under this system and act the state commenced the construction of railroads in various sections of the state, but in the course of three or four years. after an expenditure of some $8.000.000. and the placing in operation of only sixty miles of inferior road from Meredosia to Springfield, the project was abandoned as a state enterprise and the railroad sold at public auction.
On the 10th of February, 1849, the Legislature passed an act in- corporating the Northern Cross Railroad Company. with James M. Pitman, Samuel Holmes, John Wood, C. A. Warren, Gershom B. Dim-
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ock, Iliram Boyle and Isaae N. Morris of Adams County, and James Brockman and James W. Singleton of Brown County and "their asso- ciates, successors, assigns," etc., empowered to "construct. maintain and use a railroad from the west bank of the lllinois River, opposite the town of Meredosia, to the Mississippi River at Quincy." Under the legislative act of October. 1849, Governor French offered that sec- tion of the old Northern Cross Railroad for sale, and it was purchased for $1,850 by James W. Singleton, Samuel Holmes, Horace S. Cooley, Calvin A. Warren, James MI. Pitman and Isaac N. Morris, most of whom were among the incorporators of the new Northern Cross Rail- road Company. On the line thus purchased. the state had expended more than $500,000 in preliminary surveys, gradings. etc.
At a meeting of the proprietors on February 19. 1850, it was rec- ommended "to the present owners of the road to subscribe $10,000 of the capital stock of the same in proportion to their respective inter- ests therein." In pursuance with that recommendation, books were opened and the proprietors subscribed the following shares, the list of which indicates the comparative strength of their interests: I. N. Morris, J. W. Singleton. James M. Pitman and Samuel Holmes, fifteen shares each ; Calvin A. Warren, ten; O. C. Skinner, \. Bushnell and H. S. Cooley, five each; Amos Green, four; Bartlett & Sullivan, New- ton Flagg and E. Moore. three each : Henry Asbury. two. Making 100 shares, which at $100 per share, amounted to $10,000. the amount required to enable the company to legally organize. With this funda- mental preliminary concluded, the following were elected as directors and officers: I. N. Morris, president : Ebenezer Moore, treasurer: Samuel Holmes, secretary; James W. Singleton, James M. Pitman. N. Bushnell and N. Flagg. The company now purchased from the proprietors the road which the latter had bought from the state and the chain of transactions was legally complete. But the work could not practically move without more capital, and that was obtained in the winter of 1850-51. when an arrangement was effected between the company and the citizens of Quiney by which the city subscribed $100 .- 000 worth of railroad stoek payable in municipal bonds. The Northern Cross Railroad Company was to receive $20.000 of this stock as repre- senting its interest. and a new election of directors and officers was to be held. The new directory chosen comprised Nehemiah Bushnell. Hiram Rogers, Lorenzo Bull. James M. Pitman and James D. Morgan. with Mr. Bushnell as president.
OPERATIONS RELUCTANTLY SUSPENDED
I'nder the new organization the company went vigorously to work. locating and grading the road from Quiney to Clayton and contracting for the necessary iron to line that section. The road was also located to Mt. Sterling and contracts for the work made with responsible parties, when, some dissatisfaction having arisen in Brown County, the company was unable to secure the bonds previously subscribed by that
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county. That circumstance, with the faet that the Sangamon & Morgan Railroad Company had always been opposed to a connection with the Northern Cross line, satisfied the company that any further effort to reach the Illinois River at that time was uscless. Therefore it was that operations on the road between Quincy and Meredosia were reluctantly suspended.
OUTLET FURTHER NORTH
It was at this time that the company resolved to have a railroad outlet for Quincy northward. In 1851 it had proeured an act from the Legislature authorizing the building of a lateral road, branching off from the main line in Adams County toward Chicago, and when the Quincy-Meredosia projeet had to be abandoned, it entered into a con- tract with the Central Military Tract Railroad Company, then organ- ized, to build a line north from Galesburg. The contract provided that neither company would contract with any parties for construction purposes who would not bind themselves to build both lines, thus in- suring a through route from Quincy to Chieago.
Previous to that arrangement, parties interested in the Michigan Central Railroad had aequired control of the Aurora Branch Railroad extending from Chicago to Mendota, and were desirous of reaching the Mississippi River. In November, 1852, therefore, Nehemiah Bush- nell, president of the Northern Cross Railroad Company, proceeded to Detroit with a view of interesting J. W. Brooks and James F. Joy, who represented the controlling interests of the Aurora Branch Road, and eo-operating with them in the construction of the through line from Quiney to Chieago.
At this decisive stage in the railroad project the City of Quincy made a further subscription of $100,000, and its citizens also sub- seribed $100,000. Other donations were made by residents and prop- erty owners all along the line, but the raising of the necessary funds was not accomplished without persistent and hard work.
CONNECTION WITH CHICAGO COMPLETE
The culmination of these many years of strivings after fairly ade- quate railway communications with what was then the Far West metropolis and the gateway to the East was the completion of the through line to Galesburg on the last day of January, 1856. That section had been finished and was operated as far as Avon on the first of January and a short gap between this point and that portion of the road that was being built from Galesburg southward, was filled in on the above date, making the connection with Chicago complete. It was a jubilee occasion for Quiney, and the atmosphere of the time is well illustrated by an article in the local press, headed by the ponderous design of a locomotive and rrain and big black letters across the page spelling :
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"Through to Chicago. A Railroad Connection with the Atlantic Cities, All Aboard!"
The article reads: "We have the high satisfaction of announcing the completion of the Northern Cross Railroad. The last rail is upon the ties and the last spike is driven, and another iron arm reaches from the great West into the Atlantic.
"The event is an important one and inaugurates a new era in the history of Quincy. For years our citizens have been looking with an intense interest to the consummation of this enterprise which was to open, and which has opened to Quincy, a future radiant with every promise of prosperity. A new vitality and a new strength has been given to our eity, apparent in the immense increase of business in all departments transacted during the past season, and in the extensive preparations that are marking for substantial improvements in the way of buildings that are to go up this year. We have every reason to congratulate ourselves upon the present and prospective prosperity of our beautiful and flourishing eity."
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