USA > Illinois > Lee County > Recollections of the pioneers of Lee County [Illinois] > Part 27
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As the saying goes, "the latchstring always hung ont." Houses were not locked at night nor in the absence of the occupants. Frequently the settlers on coming home after night have found a roaring fire in the stove and people sitting around and enjoying it, whom perhaps the owner of the dwelling had never seen. Explanations would be in order, and usually it was a case of being lost on the prairie, and in wandering about they had discovered the house and simply made themselves at home until they could get their proper bearings for a new start. Often we would hear men hallooing out on the prairie in the night, and would say to each other that some one was lust. Putting the light in the windows we would go out and call in return, and usually would find them; but sometimes their voices would fade away, they not being able to hear us owing to the direction of the wind. Some people would get lost more easily than others.
There were many jokes about old man Brill being so easily lost, and it was said that in going home after night he always got lost and often slept in his own straw stack not far from the house; indeed, Andrew Cus- tiss said that if Brill went out after a pail of water in the evening he probably would not find the way back to the house, but could always bring up at the straw stack.
There was a raffle for turkeys one night at Brill's, four of the players putting in twenty-five cents each, making a dollar for each turkey, the high man winning the fowl. After a while those not winning went home. by two's or three's, the winners remaining and "sawing off" with each other. When they were ready to go home not a turkey was to be found, those who had departed early having passed near the turkey roost. The following day Brill, who was quite a hand to visit, called at a house two miles away where there were eight men, aged from twenty-five to thirty, "keeping bach." They were a jovial lot of fellows, always cutting up all kinds of pranks and literally "made Rome how]." When Brill arrived there there were two of his turkeys in the oven and the men were prepar- ing for a great feast. Knowing Brill's tendency to always open an oven door so as to warm his feet in the oven, they kept a man on each side of the stove to fence him away. Brill sat and visited all day. They tried to entice him out to the barn to show him a new horse they had traded for, but he would not budge. He still sat there and as the weather was cold they had to keep up a roaring fire. They had no dinner and as no preparations were made for supper, at dark Brill went home. On opening the oven door, it is said, the turkeys were about as large as a couple of jack-snipes; they were thoroughly cremated.
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About this time came Patrick Grogan with a family of small children. Grogan was a jovial, lazy kind of a character, brimming over with fun and good nature, and enjoyed nothing more than to play the "Arkansaw Traveler" on an old three-stringed violin, while two of his barefoot chil- dren danced a breakdown by the hour. Or perhaps he and his sweet- faced wife, with a little child tugging at her breast, sang old-fashioned songs around the glowing embers of a fireplace in their log house. The firelight, flitting across their faces, both in sweet content, with their poverty, made a sweet picture of home life and wretched happiness, if I may use such a term, that will never fade from the memory of the silent boy who often sat and watched them, and who as a man has often wished he might exchange years of his life for part of Grogan's placidity.
Thomas Sutton also lived in a log house. In those days there were royal oaks in Palestine Grove to be had by taking, or more plainly, steal- ing them. Sutton's father, old Uncle Joe, lived with him and was a queer character, with a comical Irish touch in his speech, a love of home- raised tobacco in his heart, and a "showing" around his mouth. He had seven mongrel dogs, all of different breeds, from a small "Fice" to a large, vicious female bulldog. These dogs were always with him, and followed him in any neighbor's house he chanced to visit. They were a terror to the residents of the community, as well as to the cattle that roamed at will on the prairie. The cattle would at times feed up near to the growing crops, and as there were no fences, "Uncle Joe" being on the watch would call, "Her, Fice! her Tinker! ver Watch! hi, Bull! you, Tige! come, Ginger! run them out o' that! Pluck them well, Tinker! Pull the lugs off 'em, Watch! Put them to h-e-l-1!" the last sentence ending in a high keyed shriek that we have often heard a mile away. The cattle were in great terror of these dogs, and soon came to know that voice so well that they would raise their heads high in the air, and with their tails over their backs run as if for their lives. The bulldog has frequently been seen to leap up and seize the tail of an ox close to the body, bite it off, carry it back and lay it at the feet of "Old Joe," who never failed to praise the act and to gloat over the trophy. Bull guarded the old man jealously, and many of the residents of the neigh- borhood were bitten by her. She would never attack a person watching her, but would steal around behind one, snap and spring away. She was the most treacherous and vicious dog Lee county ever contained She was low and heavy, of a dirty brindle color mixed with a little yel- low, her tail was cut off close to her body, and her legs were strong and very wide apart. Her head was carried low down to the ground, her eyes
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were bloodshot and never left your face, while her lips hung down, show- ing a cruel set of the whitest of teeth and the blood red gums below. She was always dreuling at the mouth, and her sinister look always meant mischief. A person's only safety was in being pivoted so as to whirl and keep hier continually before him.
As the years passed other settlers came and "Uncle Joe" used to visit at a house occupied by a man named Spangler, who had a house full of grown sons and daughters. Delia, the eldest daughter, was housekeeper, and was often provoked by "Uncle Joe" missing the ash box and spitting on the stove hearth. After months of patience she declared she would wash Uncle Joe's face with a dish rag the very next time he spit on that hearth. Everybody laughed, nobody believed her. But one blustering day when he was in the interesting part of a fight he had once had in Limerick he missed the ash box, when without an instant's warning the robust daughter of Spangler seized him around the neck with the left arm and for about two minutes scrubbed his mouth vigorously with the dish cloth. He was white with rage but stalked away, and the last time the writer saw "Uncle Joe" was on that darkest of days for the nation- when standing on the north bank of the Lake, his voice raised so that he was heard distinctly nearly half a mile away, he devoutly thanked God, again and again, that "Owld Abe Lincoln" was shot. Such was the dif- ference of opinions even here in our Lee county.
In 1856-57 settlers came thick and fast. Joseph Julien, a brother of Antone and John Julien, settied a mile to the southwest. At threshing time Mrs. Antone Julien always came from Dixon to assist in cooking for the threshers, and the wonderful meals this lady prepared were the talk of the neighborhood. The threshing time at Joe's was always looked forward to with keen delight by about a half dozen of us hungry young- sters who loved her sweet, gentle manner even more than her cooking, and each one was sure of a recognition from this sweet faced woman. And to this day the writer never meets her or walks by her honie without a feeling of glad thankfulness for the sunshine she scattered along the way, so lasting are influences in our early life.
E. A. Balch, C. H. Seifken, Israel Perkins and James Porter, with their families, and George Stillings, Charles Carby, "Yankee" Tuttle and others were aniong the early settlers.
Two brilliant young men, accustomed to good society and luxurious homes, with some money, but no knowledge of farming, canie from the city of Boston to make their fortunes in the new "Eldorado." They quickly became the prey of the neighborhood, and many of the spavined,
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worthless horses and unruly oxen were tethered around their place on Sunday, and usually sold to them at large prices. John D. Rosbrook often lectured them for being so easily separated from their money, and cau- tioned them again and again not to deal with certain unscrupulous neighbors. Owing to their want of knowledge of farming their crops were a failure, and in the fall they were obliged to send home for money to return with. They abandoned the house and land, which was known for years as the "Boston" house.
Henry and Louis Isles, the sons of a very wealthy German family of New York city, were taken from the study of a classic course at home and sent here to learn to farm, and to harden their muscles with rugged work. Both were graceful and courteous in behavior, and their fine con- versational powers left with us a sweet remembrance of them in after years. They worked by the month for John D. Rosbrook, and manfully stood up to what to them must have seemed herculean tasks, while their blistered hands often gave us the heartache. One summer finished their apprenticeship.
One mile to the east lived, for a year. the Robinson family. Mcses Dillon, the now flourishing business man of Sterling, was a stepson of Mr. Robinson. "Mose," a little fellow in checked aprons, spent many of his hours at the Lake farn; and Mary, the wife of George Rosbrook, often gave him cookies to pick up chips for her. "Mose" told the writer not long since, that he had traveled wide, and eaten many toothsome dishes, but no morsel ever passed his lips that was as good as Mary's cookies. He showed the same ability in picking up chips as in his busi- ness career. Even in that carly age "Mose" was a "hustler."
Sammy Robinson, a nephew of Mr. Robinson, taught our country school. He was very small, about five feet high, and weighed, it would seem to me, about eighty pounds. At the breaking out of the war he went into the army and was pushed through to the front. One day in summer a party of twelve soldiers were sent out foraging, and donning anything but the army blue, they passed boldly into the Confederate lines. Coming to a railroad track they followed it for miles, when on turning a sharp curve they found themselves in the midst of about a hundred con- federate soldiers loading ties onto a railroad train. They at once went to work assisting in loading ties. The overseer of the squad gruffly asked what they were doing here. The leader answered, "Detailed to help; this work must be pushed." With no conversation, but all senses on the alert, the northern soldiers watched each other. During the work, at a signal from the leader, they suddenly took possession of the train. Some
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started the engine and the rest fought the confederates off so they should not board the train. The train was run northward a few miles and then it was stopped while the boys placed ties on the track behind it in such a manner as to ditch the following train. But the train in pursuit was run by a fellow with nerves of steel, and, never hesitating at these obstruc- tions, his train kept the rails, knocking the ties like kindling wood from the track. In the chase the captured engine was run into another squad of confederate men. The engine was abandoned and a break made for liberty; but they were captured, and Sammy Robinson with the rest of the twelve suffered for this foolhardy trick by being hung by the neck until they were dead. A history of this escapade has previously been published. I have simply brought it in here to show that one of this party was a former resident of Harmon.
In those days Dixon was our market town, all farm products were hauled there. Between our settlement and Dixon were several sloughs, one of which was a terror to us, and was known as the "big slough." It was more than half a mile wide with water nearly all the way across, and a deep plunge in the middle, where we always expected to get stuck in the mud. Carefully looking back to that time, I cannot remember an instance in which we were disappointed.
On the Fourth of July two of the Rosbrook boys started for Dixon at daybreak with two yoke of oxen and a small load of hay. They had been three days in cutting the grass with a scythe and raking it up with a hand rake. When crossing the big slough the wagon settled to the hub, and the oxen mired down. Most of the hay had to be pitched off before the oxen could draw the wagon out. They arrived in Dixon at 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon and sold what hay they had left for seventy-five cents. They started for home at 4:00 o'clock, their conversation touching but lightly on patriotism. Indeed, as it is now remembered, they considered Washington's act in saving the country rather insignificant, and in regard to their locality, wholly unneccessary. We had often heard Lyman Rosbrook, who had lived in Lee Center many years before this time, tell of the hardships experienced by the early settlers in hauling grain to Chicago, but we doubted if their trials were any greater than were expe- rienced years afterwards in the shorter haul to Dixon.
Prices of farm produce were low in the early days; eggs, four cents a dozen; butter, six cents a pound. Thomas Sutton once hauled two loads of an excellent quality of barley to Sterling. The buyers offered eight cents per bushel for it. Mr. Sutton not being satisfied with the offer hauled it to Dixon, where, after being at the expense of staying all night
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he sold the barley for six eents a bushel. Whiskey was ten cents a gallon, and other-so ealled-necessities were correspondingly low. Whether or not those were "Free Trade" times, the writer is not prepared to state- but pardon me; this was in the days of Buchanan.
Game of all kinds was very plentiful from 1855 to 1875. Charles K. Shellhammer has shot in one day, one hundred geese (a farm wagon box full). Kipp, a hunter from Dixon, shot sixty-six Mallard ducks at one shot. A drove of thirteen deer were ehased by men on horse baek by our place one day, and five of them killed after a run of several miles, but a pair of beautiful sorrel horses belonging to George Stillings were ruined in the chase.
This George Stillings was a great wrestler and quite a good jig daneer. He was so fond of daneing that a quiek tune would at any time or place bring him to his feet for a break-down. He wandered away, and our neighborhood entirely lost track of him for more than thirty years. One evening, since the eommeneement of this article, there walked into our house a short, strong man, elderly, and gray as a rat. It was Stillings. Two of my sons now grown to early manhood were playing a mandolin and a guitar. They soon strack into "Money Musk," and then the "Devil's Dream." At the slightest hint from me Stillings, despite his sixty years of rugged life, was on his feet, and daneed as lightly and airily as of yore to the great delight of my family.
Ferris Fineh, Wellington Davis, Jerome Hollenbeck and Lon Herriek often eame out on the prairie hunting, and usually made their head- quarters at the farm by the lake. We have known them to shoot in one day two hundred and fifty prairie ehiekens, many of them being shot from the carriage as they were driving over the prairie. One day after dinner Wellington Davis, who had drunk most of the milk puneh that he had brewed for the erowd, was still sitting in the house by the punch bowl; Ferris Fineh drew the charges of shot from Davis' gun when the latter was not looking, and then offered to bet him a dollar that he could not shoot two swallows in suecession as they were flying around overhead. Davis, who was game and a craek shot, immediately accepted the chal- lenge. The sight he presented in whirling round the vard (one leg being about six inches shorter than the other), endeavoring to get aim, was very ludicrous. He, of course, missed both shots and immediately handed over the dollar, but he then wanted to wager ten that he eould shoot the next two. The explosions of laughter that followed convinced him that his gun had been tampered with and he offered to whip Ferris Fineh, to the great amusement of Herriek and Hollenbeck, who were lying on the grass shouting with laughter.
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1
In 1867 an insane woman wandered from near where Walton is out into the swamps and was lost., During the winter several hunting par" ties were organized to hunt for her. In those days everybody possessed or borrowed a good saddle horse. There were many expert riders and fleet horses in the vicinity. Shortly after the start, one day in February, a wolf was sighted, and everybody cut loose for a run. Within a mile all. gave up but two horsemen. In three miles the wolf disappeared in the tall grass and some deer tracks were discovered. These were followed several miles, when by certain signs we knew we were close to the quarry, and rightly conjectured that the deer were in some heavy swamp grass half a mile to the westward.
The saddle girths were tightened, conversation was held in whispers, while the horses rubbed their noses together, pricked up their ears and gazed excitedly toward the tall marsh grass, and pranced around over the snow. The mare nipped at the ear of the stalwart gelding, who stood out in bold relief against the fast approaching sunset. He seemed as if carved in stone, but the play of his muscles beneath the surface gave token that he understood the nature of our preparations and was anxious for the fray.
Then we mounted, and with tightly grasped. rein, they were sent like a ball from the cannon's mouth straight to the westward, and the two best running horses in that part of Lee county were exerting every nerve and sinew to push their nuses past each other, when about forty rods ahead of us, out of the long swamp grass, sprang nine deer. To those who have never seen wild deer run the sight is indescribable. They leaped up from the ground twenty feet and appeared, from a short dist- ance, to come down where they went up; but really they covered a dist- ance of from thirty to thirty-eight feet at each bound. They went up with head, legs and flanks stretched to the utmost; not a muscle moved while in the air, and it gave them the appearance of a flying squirrel or a great monstrous bat. They were dark brown as they went up showing the back and head and stiffened legs; they were white as they came down, showing the under side of the body only. They leaped in different directions, and as some went up while others were coming down from those terrific bounds, the sight was thrilling and awe inspiring. And afterwards, when riding at bare-neck speed, right in among them and close up 'to a monstrous buck that was perfectly frantic with fear and desperation, it become not only exciting but very dangerous.
It was an experience that but few people will ever have; a sight that only the great minority will ever view; and the remembrance of that
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thrilling chase will never fade from the minds of the two riders who rode at such a terrific clip across the bogs and snow, in the Winnebago swamps near Palestine. George Berlin succeeding in killing a fine buck after a hard chase for miles, -the only deer captured that day. Berlin was rid- ing a race horse valued at three hundred dollars, belonging to Charles Sheilhammer. After that day he was worth about fifty dollars; but Ber- lin was more famous than General Grant ..
The woman was found the next spring, by the cattle in the large herds bellowing and pawing around the place where she lay.
The herding of cattle in those latter days was a great industry; some herds contained as many as three thousand head of cattle. The charge was about a dollar and a half per head during the season. The expense was simply the hire of two men to guard them.
Sandhill cranes were more plentiful than bees among the clover blos- soms, and it was not an uncommon sight to see a thousand acres covered with them. Their playful antics were interesting and amusing; they would gather in squads of four or five, form a square, or nearly so, about six feet from each other. The old, or gander crane would utter their peculiar plaintiff call, when all would leap from the earth about six feet, bounding over and under each other, and all calling their loudest, while each tried to get the place occupied by some other. A veritable "Pussy wants a corner," as we see the children play it now. A sandhill crane stands nearly as high as a man; its color is a bluish gray. When gather- ing in large bands in the fall, preparatory to migrating, their appearance was like that of a large drove of sheep. They came in the autumn and usually remained two or three weeks. One day early in the fall, when only a few cranes had been noted flying away up in the air-a crane will soar to a height to which an eagle never goes, and will stay up an hour without a movement of the wings-the younger Rosbrook boy, then quite small, heard a crane calling and knew by the sound that it was in a melon patch in the middle of a cornfield. Softly stealing through the corn, he spied near the opening the head of a crane and knew by its attitude that it was alarmed and about to fly away. With careful aim at its head, the only part visible, he pulled the trigger and took a couple of somersaults, as he always did when he shot that gun. Gathering himself up he was mystified to see the crane fly away. He could not understand it, as he knew the aim was good, and former experience had taught him that every thing went down before that gun when the aim was right. He went over to the melon patch before starting home, and there in their deatlı struggle, were three cranes! one of them shot through the head; there had been four of them in the flock, and three of them in line.
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Wolves were fleet of foot and could run away from the fastest, horse or dog. But George Rosbrook, when riding "Little Billy," a famed sad- dle horse, after cattle one day, saw and gave chase to a wolf, which after a hard run, he succeeded in killing, with no other weapon than an iron stirrup, swung by the stirrup strap.
At one time on the Rosbrook farm at the Lake there was a tame · crane, a coon and a wolf. The crane had been found when small on the prairie. The coon and the wolf were captured when small, and were from litters that were dug out from holes in the ground.
All of these pets showed their ingratitude. The crane flew away, and the wolf began catching tame chickens and was chained in the yard. One day Mary, the wife of George Rosbrook, took some scraps that were left from the table out to the wolf. After eating part of the food he went inside his kennel and lay with his head between his paws, watching the chickens as they came near to pick up the crumbs. Suddenly he sprang out and caught three of them at once. Mary who was watching from the door, ran out to save the chicks. Grasping the wolf by the neck, she choked him until his jaws relaxed and the chickens dropped out; but they were quite dead. As she released the wolf, she was rewarded by his biting her quite through the hand. The coon had been busy for the past month tearing down corn at night and eating the young roasting ears. During the day he was the meekest and best behaved coon in the world, but at night he would make as much noise tearing down corn as a small _ drove of cattle. And so the wolf and coun both went one day to help swell "Forepaugh's Great Consolidated Show."
In 1856. five thousand liead of immense Texan steers were driven past our house on their way to Chicago; the summer had been consumed on the drive. Many of them would measure seven feet from tip to tip of horns. Near the lake the owner turned them into a fine field of corn of one hun- dred and sixty acres, and then calmly rode off to find the owner and bought the entire crop at the settler's figure. It 1857 two thousand very large, fat hogs were driven past our place toward the southwest. The owner claimed to have bought them in Milwaukee and was driving them to Missouri, which we thought a strange proceeding.
I would like, if it were not encroaching, to mention some of the early days of Dixon, the days of "Rough and Ready." Hiram Ruff, nick-named "Rough and Ready," was a queer character. He was small, wiry and quick, and a genuine sport.
In those days Myron Bryson frequently drove the omnibus for the car- rying of passengers from the Nachusa house to the depot. "Rough and
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Ready" had a fruit stand where Boltzenthal's cigar store now is. Bryson would say something to him which always seemed to anger him and old "Rough" would throw apples at the driver from the time the omnibus came in sight until it turned the corner, jumping up and down on the sidewalk and yelling with rage in the meantime. Indeed, the rattle of 'bus coming down the street was a signal for all of the small boys to spread out in fan-shape from where Edward's coal office now is around to Man- gus' feed shed and "take in" the apples on the fly, as they came sailing through the air. Apples were very scarce in those days, and "Old Rough" usually threw away about a peck every time the 'bus went by.
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