USA > Illinois > Lee County > Recollections of the pioneers of Lee County [Illinois] > Part 10
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James W. was one of the first volunteers in Co. I, 46th Illinois Regi- ment. He fought at Donelson and Shiloh, was in the siege of Corinth and the battle of Hatchie and the siege of Vicksburg, where he was wounded and taken prisoner. He was discharged Dec. 1863 on account of his wound, leaving a noble record as a gallant defender of the flag of our Union. All the children but Isaac, James, Jacob and Mrs. Cushing have joined their parents on the other shore. Mr. and Mrs. Warren Hill, and Mr. Elijah Hill have also passed away.
Mr. Moses Crombie was born in Cheshire County, New Hampshire. in 1804, was married to Miss Louisa Morse, a native of the same state, in 1828, and moved to Lee County in 1837. While living here he was one of those engaged in work on the first plows manufactured in Lee County. His home was where Mr. William Acker now lives, his brother, Wilder Crombie, living on the same road, which ever since has borne the name of Crombie Lane. Mr. and Mrs. Crombie were useful citizens, and their memory will live as the generations pass away. Mrs. Crombie opened a school in her house before any school house was built, and "was like a mother" to her pupils, who remember her with affection. Among her scholars were Roxy Wasson (afterwards Mrs. Simon Badger), Warren Wasson, Lewis Bridgman, Sally Bridgman, Emily Bridgman, Sarah and Rowena Badger, Mary and Clara Frisbee, her own sons, Thaddeus and John, and two little girls, Delilah and Rhoda (last name forgotten.)
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The little Frisbee girls were carried to school every Monday morning and sent for Friday night. Mrs. Frisbee sent with them a basket of roast chicken, doughnuts, pies, etc., and they sat at the table with the family through the week, exchanging the good things of life and partaking of Mrs. Crombie's warm food with her children. Mrs. Clara (Frisbee) Davis speaks now with enthusiasm of Mrs. Crombie's motherly care; of the kindness, friendship, and hospitality among the people; of the good they were ever doing each other without money, if not always without price.
Mrs. Crombie taught every useful thing to her little flock, not neglect- ing knitting and sewing. Among the books used were Webster's Ele- mentary Spelling Book, Olney's Geography, History of the United States, Common Arithmetic and Grammar. But few as charming reminiscences have been related as those of Mrs. Crombie's home school for her own and her neighbor's children, before "the first log school house" was built in 1839.
At this same home, on July 5th, 1843, the first religious society here was organized, called "The Congregational Church of Palestine Grove." Mr. Crombie was chosen one of the deacons. The first minister was Rev. John Morrell, the second Rev. John Ingersoll, father of Robert G., the third Rev. Joseph Gardner.
Samuel L. Pyle came to Amboy from New Jersey in 1845, and bought of the government 160 acres of land in the western part of the township. A son-in-law, P. Battles, now owns the place. "The Wood Hotel" painted on a sign in front of Mr. Pyle's house, brought to his door many farmers who stopped with him on their way to and from LaSalle, where they went to market their produce.
Through Mrs. Pyle's efforts a Sunday School was opened at her home, where, during the summer months, children received religious instruc- tion. Mrs. Pyle was a most estimable woman. There was a large family of boys and girls, all highly respected, who married, one after another, and moved away. The old couple spent their latter days in the city of Amboy.
Samuel Bixby came here in 1844 from Hornby, New York, and was 44 years old. His bell-crowned white hat and dialect proclaimed the genu- ine Yankee. He was born and reared in Vermont. He purchased a claim of Rev. Joseph Gardner and is still living on it, his house being on Crombie Lane, while Mr. Gardner's was on another part of this farm.
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Mr. and Mrs. Bixby were excellent people. They had four children. When they first came they united with the Baptist Church and he is now the only living representative of that early association. His house was the stopping place for pioneer ministers and they were always given good cheer. His first wife, who was familiarly known to the neighbors as. "Aunt Lucretia," died many years ago, but her good influence still lives. Mr. Bixby is enjoying his ripe old age in the society of his second wife, who was formerly Mrs. Elijah Hill.
Lyman Bixby came the same year.
Mrs. McKune gives us the following story of her pioneer experiences, which, written by one nearly eighty-two years old, is a veritable "old set- tler's story." She says:
"My husband, Hezekiah McKune, with myself and four children, left our native home in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, June 10th, 1845. We came to Binghampton, New York; from there we took passage on a canal boat for Utica, thence to Buffalo, from there by steamer to Chicago, where we were met by a man by the name of Peterson from Palestine Grove, our place of destination, in this country.
"Mr. Peterson had two yoke of oxen and a wagon. We had four wagons, and purchased a pair of oxen, and after four days travel we - reached our home, which we bad traded for. It was a log house with lean-to and attic, which we reached by climbing on pegs driven into the wall. We could count stars through ,the roof; sometimes as many as twenty at a time.
"On our trip I sometimes got tired of riding. and would walk until a rattlesnake would buzz across my path, then I would take my place in the wagon again. I saw one rattlesnake crawl through the floor of our house, it was a small one and I killed the intruder.
"We had the usual amount of sickness and privation incident to a new country. Three times we took families in to live with us, of from three to six in number, who stayed as many months apiece. We enter- tained ministers, travelers and tramps, and as we were on the road from Dixon to Peru it was a convenient stopping place. I recollect several of those early settlers who used to call at our house; among the most note- worthy were Dr. Gardner and Rev. DeWolf, as they were hauling onions and other produce to Peru.
"We had no great trouble with wolves, although when Mr. McKune was returning one evening from helping a neighbor butcher, they came
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so close to him he could hear them breathe and snap, but he hung on to the liver he was carrying, and reached home safely with no further trouble. : "
"I am now in my eighty-second year and have survived my entire family except one, my only daughter, Mrs. Thayer."
REMINISCENCE FROM DR. WM. WALLACE WELCH.
"The sun was tipping the western horizon and I was starting for further west from the Davis house. Somewhere between there and J. B. Apple- ton's, not far from where the Passenger house stood afterwards, and where the present Illinois Central railroad depot now stands, there was a bad slough, a rather broad, treacherous place to cross that looked dan- gerous. But in those days we had to take a good many risks, and I started in-very unwisely as it proved. The horse went in, out of sight, all but his head and neck. Though summer, the water was very cold, being a spring, and I had to be active to contrive to get him out before he should become weakened, or perish. It was beyond call of anybody and soon would be dark. I was alone and "something had to be done pretty quick." I got out horse and buggy too; no need of detailing how it was contrived, but I had no help. Most of us in those times, were often forced to be "a law unto ourselves." I knew good men, pioneers then, who became wonderfully self-reliant, forced to it by overmastering cir- cumstances.
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ANOTHER REMINISCENCE.
Mrs. Wasson was full of energy, determination and fertility of resource in trying situations-the very woman for pioneering. In the early days fresh meat was furnished to a neighborhood by "changing around." One, . when about to "kill a critter," would notify in advance, and when butcher- ed, the meat would be distributed in proper proportions to different families, according to size. One winter morning, Mr. Wasson (Uncle Ben) and the boys, Lorenzo, Harnion and Warren were about to start "down into Palestine" with the ox-sled "to get up wood." Mrs. Wasson, somewhat emphatIcally told them she was "out of meat and she had got to have a hog killed before they started into the woods." (Nothing about dressing.) They caught the hog, "stuck" and bled it to death, flung it into the kitchen and started for the woods. When they got in from their work there was waiting for them a good meal of fresh pork, cooked in acceptable manner, served with vegetable accompaniments. Mrs. Wasson was famous for keeping up a good garden. She was, as I can
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testify, a most estimable, judicious woman; indeed of all the typical pioneer women of the early settlement 'round about Amboy township, there was no more compendious, representative woman, whose own per- sonal history was almost the history of the region itself, than Mrs. Benja- min Wasson; and I personally know she was good. She was a joyful pres- ence at the bridal, an angel of mercy at the bedside of the dying. There was no trouble within her range, she was not ready as far as possible to alleviate."
Frank Northway and family came here in 1844 from Steuben county, New York, and took up a claim two miles north of Amboy. His house stood in the track of the cyclone of 1861 and was torn to pieces, his family almost miraculously escaping death. Some years ago the family moved to Chicago, where Mr. Northway died at a good old age. His wife and daughters still reside there.
FIRST FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION.
Patriotism, the memory of the way the Glorious Fourth was observed at the old home in the eastern states, and the love of a good time gener- ally, constrained our pioneer friends to celebrate the day in this place. If we are overstepping the boundary of 1845 by two. or three years, we trust our friends of The Club will forgive us, since it was the first-and all the first there ever will be-which was observed within this township, and most of those who took part in it have passed away or are pressing hard upon the unseen boundary line.
Some of the good people of "Inlet" joined in the celebration with ready heart and willing hands, rendering such aid as to insure success. Dr. Welch, then a young man of .enthusiasm and great executive ability, did much to make it what it was-a most satisfactory and delightful oc- casion. The people met in the Wasson School House, where, after reli- gious exercises and music, Rev. James Brewer delivered the oration.
The choir was made up of Dr. Welch, Rev. James and Deacon Ira Brewer, Mrs. Brewer, Mrs. Welch, Miss Pratt and Misses Sarah and Rowena Badger-Deacon Farwell adding the music of his violin.
Mr. Brewer, in his address, dwelt upon the advantages and beneficient working of our government as established by ourselves to satisfy the de- mands of our circumstances and needs as a people. He compared the heavy burdens of taxation and labor resting on the populations of other and what were considered the most favored people of other, lands; of the shameless extravagance of wealthy and titled classes, as witnessed by the
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suffering poor of those lands, etc., with the freedom and the compari- tively happy condition of the people of this land. Deacon Farwell, as one of a committee, asked it for publication, but Mr. Brewer modestly de- clined the honor.
The choir sang "with spirit and with the understanding" "The break- ing waves dashed high," "My country, 'tis of thee," and the following hymn to the tune of Dort:
"God bless our Native Land, Firm may she ever stand Through storm and night;
When. the wild tempests rave, Ruler of wind and wave,
Do Thou our country save By Thy great might.
For her our prayers shall rise
To God above the skies; On Him we wait. Thou, who art ever nigh, Guarding with watchful eye, To Thee aloud we cry God save the state!"
A bountiful and delicious dinner had been prepared, to be served in a charming spot under the shade of large trees on the banks of Green River, near the Binghampton bridge and Plow factory. All the ladies in the vicinity had been notified, "and many, like the Badgers and Wassons, were paragon caterers and cooks." Mrs. Welch and her sister, Mrs. Has- kell, roasted a pig, too large to go in an ordinary stove oven, so each roasted a half, fitting each half skillfully together when served. Dr. Welch contributed a large quantity of delicious peas. Mrs. Jonathan Peterson, the champion biscuit maker, furnished biscuits, butter, and honey, and others furnished chickens and various other dainties. The tables were spread with the cleanest and whitest of table cloths brought from the family stores of New England, New York and Pennsylvania.
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Grace was asked by a Free Will Baptist minister, Mr. Chamberlain, of Inlet. Mr. Warren Badger was toast-master. Squire Haskell's toast is the only one remembered-"Thespirit of '76! It has kept well for seventy- two years; and is good proof yet, thank God! and please Him it will pre- serve its strength and purity untold ages yet to come! "
Dr. Welch pronounced the speeches, toasts and responses equal to any he had ever heard in Buffalo, New York, his eastern home, and the dinner a sumptuous banquet.
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Rev. Jas. Brewer writes: "We were Independent of Oranges Groves or Oyster beds. Our ice cream was in its liquid state, as it always had been. We were in Palestine, yet near to Paradise, and feeling almost as independent as certain ones we read of when they were there. We were a family gathered from the north, south and east, and were at the ex- treme west. Not one of us but might boast of the fact that he had by labor earned what he had, and was using, and that he coveted no advan- tage over others which was not justly his own. Each of us saw in every other a brother and a friend. I would go farther to attend another like it than any I have attended for many a year.
"It has done me good to turn my thoughts for this little while to the 'long ago' of my own life and the lives of so many others in your vicinity who were blessed and a blessing while living there, some of whom-dear friends, may God bless them ever !- still remain, while others have passed into the skies."
Conclusion.
N TO SKETCH of the pioneer women would be just, without linking their names with the first religious services held. Every one will realize how joyfully they would welcome the messenger who brought the glad tidings, and the healing balm from the Great Physician to their . lonely lives and weary hearts; how the choicest viands which their cabins could yield, and the best of the flocks from barnyard or field would be prepared for the itinerant laborer in the divine work. The bless- ed souls who hunger and thirst after righteousness, and to whom the promise of relief is given, are not found among those who are most ready to wrangle about the form of the cup from which the life-giving draught is partaken. Turn back to the lives of the first women here, in proof of this.
It is with deep regret that we bring this imperfect sketch of the pion- eer women of Amboy to a close, having left so many of the most beauti- ful lives unmentioned. We leave them with the unfaltering belief that an angels' hand has recorded every gentle deed of every earnest. loving women, whose life may often to herself and to others, appear to have been too much obscured; whose lot in life may have seemed to be cast in a place for which Heaven had not designed it, but who will find as the shadows of earth flee away, that she had never been forsaken even "for a small moment, and that through the furnace, one had walked beside her "whose form was like the Son of God."
How many of those sweet women who found it impossible to "realize their ideal" have idealized their "real," and like gentle, stately Deborah Ingals, who prepared and served, in the rude cabin, from a puncheon table with puncheon stools for seats, a repast which was a foretaste of Heaven's banqueting to her loving brothers, and like the aroma of Para- dise in their memories for more than fifty years afterwards, have dis- pensed hospitality with refinement, and cultivated the most beautiful graces of womanhood, as truly and effectually as can be given now amid the rich supplies and the formalities and fashions of later years. The
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self-respect, and the giving of reverence due to others, the gentle cour- tesies and kindly acts between fellow-mortals are not dependant for their loveliness upon the latest fashion and the silver plate. The more simple the more heavenly. . That " Heaven lies about us in our infancy " is not more true of individuals than of settlements and townships and nations. The ox-cart for a chariot, the dry goods box or the crockery crate for a sleigh, holds more smiling and happy, loving faces than the . thousand dollar coupe or the escutcheoned brougham. "We are but children. of a larger growth " and like the boy astride a stick for a prancing steed, and the little girl with a row of corn cobs for her Sunday school class, imagin- ation has greater room for play, and contentment is more sure than when the ideal is realized in the things that man or woman can form. It is from such facts that we learn to know indeed that "The beings of the mind are not of clay," that nothing of earth can satisfy the soul.
One of the first settlers in this vicinity, of whom it may almost be said his "eye is not dim nor his natural force abated," although more than seventy-six years have rolled over his head, says: "The women of those early day were usually sensible, plain, industrious, economical and un- complaining. Their family cares and daily duties appeared to be their continual recreation. Domestic happiness was the rule. ยท Conjugal di- vorce was unthought of. 'Is marriage a failure' none but a lunatic would inquire about. In those days the aid of every member was essential to family success. The people were too poor to afford war with their friends. If happiness, as many claim, is the only human good, how does the case now stand? The human family have more wisdom, but some ask, " Is it not folly to be wise." In those days labor and capital had no controversy. Acquisitiveness is the lion faculty of our age. Why will sensible people be so foolish?
Assemblies of the people enacted local civil laws, 'Vox populi, Vox Dei' (The voice of the people is the voice of God), being the controlling spirit. It was enacted that all the controversies might be submitted to a board of three inen regularly elected annually, from whose verdict there was but one appeal, viz: To the People assembled in Grove meetings. Thus the time. expense and annoyance of the 'law's delays' so much in vogue today were all avoided. The salary of this unpretentious court was voted to be $1.00 each per day. Justice and equity were, in those days, more highly esteerned than technicalities of statutes or even common law. In cases of assault where both men appeared to be in fault, it has been known that both plaintiff and defendant were fined alike, with popular approval."
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For eighteen years the settlement made small progress, and good wild land was still to be obtained at $1.25 per acre. Then came, in 1854, the Illinois Central railroad which gave business and emigration an impetus which has continued with more or less activity until the present time.
As late as 1857 there was scarcely a farm south and west of the city fenced in, and one could drive miles west from Amboy with not a house in view, save two or three against the distant horizon, like ships far out at sea. A pocket compass is treasured now, the size of a watch, which was used in those days by a physician to find the most direct bearing toward some settlers' houses to be visited. No tree or fence or stone was to be seen, only wagon tracks in every direction; and the howling of wolves was no unusual sound on winter nights out on the prairie.
In summer the vast expanse of "living green," the lonliness and silence, as the traveler rode over the plain, all combined to awaken a sense of sublimity kindred to that aroused by the grandeur of the ocean. Then, after the long, still ride in the sunshine and wind, the grazing cat- tle, and the tinkling bells of flocks and herds would herald the human habitation. Will any one who has heard them in the first great despair of homesickness, ever forget the sound of those tinkling bells as their strange music fell upon the listening ear; when the bright sunshine and peaceful herds were so discordant with the sad harpings within the soul? But homesickness is not incurable.
The City of Amboy.
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EE COUNTY is divided into twenty-two townships, each town have- ing an average of 23,040 acres.
Amboy is the central town, the exact geographical center being in a grove of locust trees on the farm of William Acker, once the home of Deacon Moses Crombie, three-fourths of a mile northeast of the C. B. & Q. railroad station.
The Illinois Central railroad passes through the town from southeast to northwest, and it is known that freight trains can be brought into Amboy from each direction with less steam power than is required to carry out the same. This has given the impression that Amboy is a "low countrie." The civil engineer of the northern division of the Illinois Central railroad company located here, F. R. Doty, has furnished the the following statistics of the survey along the line of the railroad through Lee county, the Ohio river at Cairo, at low water mark being the base of measurement. Sublette is 178 feet higher than Amboy, Eldena is 60 feet higher, while beautiful Dixon is 54 feet lower. Resting between these two elevations, with a declivity so gentle as to be unobservable and un- known to many of her inhabitants, lie her prairiesand groves and homes. Sublette and Eldena stretch their protecting arms southeast and north- west, and how much Amboy is indebted to them for deliverence from tornadoes and the destruction thence, we can never know. Physicians pronounce this a healthy locality.
Amboy township was incorporated in the winter of 1854-5, and the charter for a city in 1857 was laid before the legislature by John B. Wy- man, Wm. E. Ives and J. V. Judd, a committee chosen for that purpose. It was enacted and approved February 16, 1857, and adopted at an elec- tion on the 2nd of March.
John B. Wyman was the first mayor. The city has just held an elec- tion, and this Columbian year of 1893 which dawned with Capt. Geo. E. Young as mayor, witnesses the incoming of Dr. C. E. Wilcox, with the following aldermen:
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First Ward-C. H. Long, Lewis Entorf, W. T. Smith.
Second Ward-W. V. Beresford, Isaac Edwards, Herman Penne- backer.
Third Ward-I. R. Patterson, Frank Egan, Chas. Keifer.
Marshal-John H. Harvey.
Night Police-Thomas Monahan.
City Attorney-Charles H. Wooster.
Treasurer-M. Carroll.
Police Magistrate-Thomas Hines.
City Clerk-M. J. Monahan.
The township supervisor is A. J. Tompkins.
Amboy has two weekly newspapers published here, viz: The Amboy Journal, editor, Geo. A. Lyman, and the News, editor, James H. Preston.
The first editor of the first newspaper published in Amboy was Augus- tus Noel Dickens. youngest brother of the author, Charles Dickens. It was called the Lee County Times.
There are seven houses of worship and nine church organizations. The Congregational church, pastor, Rev. Mr. Dickerman; Baptist, Rev. Mr. Mason; Methodist Episcopal church, Rev. Mr. Morley; Catholic, Rev. Father Lonergan; Episcopal, Rev. Mr. Sweetland; Lutheran,-United . Bretheran -Advent,-Latter Day Saints.
There are four school houses, ten teachers, three assistants and (445) four hundred and forty-five pupils.
Mr. I. F. Edwards, superintendent.
Miss Anna Warnick, principal.
Miss B. Woods, grannar department.
Miss L. Merrow, assistant.
Mr. P. C. Deming, grammar department.
Miss C. Poland, assistant.
Misses M. Campbell, J. Carroll and J. Curtin, intermediate depart- ments.
Misses A. Carson, L. Morris, M. Sparks and Mrs. F. Jewett, primary departments.
The Illinois Central railroad company's shops, and the offices of the Northern Division, located here, bring to the town monthly payments of ($25,000) twenty-five thousand dollars. There is a co-operative creamery, tile factory, etc., etc. A beautiful park of twenty-five acres, shaded by stately trees, with a half mile driving course adjoins the city on the eastern limits. Amboy rejoices in a band which discourses music, always
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welcome to old and young, to the sad as well as the gay. We append the names of the "boys."
Fred J. Blocher, leader; William Keho, Jean Wamsley, Conrad Asch- enbrenner, Frank Blocher, Edward Thomas, Fred Wohnke, Percy Dem- ing, Henry Maus, Ed. Staup, C. Gilbert Emery, Hugh Carroll, Frank Fehr, Cornelius W. Maine, Henry Wilson.
The location of the town is excellent for those desiring to engage in the manufacturing business, as a direct outlet by rail in four different' directions, intersecting all other main lines in the state are available within a few rods of vacant city property; the Illinois Central railroad and Chicago Burlington & Quincy railroad crossing here. The engraving of the Illinois Central railroad depot and the company's offices is a correct representation of the building which occupies the site of the old Passen- ger House, the three story brick building with dome which was once the central building and pride of the city. Efforts have been made to obtain a picture of it but none was found. It was destroyed by fire November 15, 1875.
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