USA > Illinois > Lee County > Recollections of the pioneers of Lee County [Illinois] > Part 32
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Of the merchants of the early days Solon Cummins was the principal. Mr Throop continued his business there almost fifty years, retired from its duties a few years since, but still resides in Grand Detour, its oldest settler. I asked him of the recreations and amusements of the early days; if they had any? "Yes, and we enjoyed them too. Those were the happiest days of my life. I remember the first pic-nic in Grand Detour. We rigged up a team, found one old worn out harness in one place, and
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another in another. Got one horse here, and another there, and the wagon somewhere else, and went to the Ridge and had a day of real enjoyment." ..
1 Again, "There was to have been some kind of an entertainment at Oregon. Mrs House and her sister Sophionia Wetherby both wanted to . go, but it was cold weather, and they had but one cloak between them. One of the gentlemen lent Miss Wetherby his old green blanket coat and she was just as happy wearing it as though it was sealskin."
Once, on a very cold 'night, Miss Wetherby and"Mr Throop were returning from an evening party. When two or three miles from home they became so cold the gentleman alighted, threw the wraps over the lady, seized the horse by the bridle and walked home. Miss Wetherby afterwards became Mrs. Stephen Hathaway.
In those days the Indians sometimes annoyed the tidy housewite by walking in with their moccasins wet and muddy. To defend herself, she would take the broom. point to the door and say "Marcheer and they would obey without offense.
Mr. Abbott, father of the famous singer, Emma Abbott, at one time lived two or three miles up the river from Grand Detour. He was con- siderable of a musician, and on one occasion was to supply the music at an entertainment at Franklin Grove. One might, in those days, walk from Grand Detour to Franklin Grove and from Franklin Grove to Jefferson Grove without seeing a fence and scarcely a dwelling. Mr. Abbott started on foot with his violin for his companion, but found on entering a tract of timber, that he was closely pursued by a wolf. He sought safety in a tree which his weight bore almost to the ground, and in this uncomfortable position, played all night on his instrument to keep the wolf at bay. At daylight his unwelcome companion departed. It is re- Jated that, while living at the above named home, his daughter, Emma, then perhaps twelve or fourteen years of age, hearing that Miss Kellogg the vocalist, was to sing in Chicago, started on foot to hear her. She was successful and by the aid of interested friends obtained an introduc- tion to Miss Kellogg and by her friendly influence the way was opened for the cultivation and development of Miss Abbott's musical gift.
The first visit I made with my husband, beyond walking distance, · after coming to Illinois, was at Mr. Ruel Peabody's home, on the Days- . ville road, some five miles from Kingdon. I had counted Mrs. P. and her daughter among my friends from our first meeting at Mr. Wetherbee's
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home, before moving into our own, and every subsequent one has but added links to our friendship's chain.
Mr. and Mrs. Peabody are "pioneers" in the full sense of the word, the former settling on the land on which he now lives in 1834. He built a cabin and lived as best he could, till his marriage fifty-two years ago, to Maria M. Newton, since which time they have together braved many trials and hardships with unfaltering courage, writing their names by kindness and love on many hearts. Three children were given them, of whom but one survives, Emma, who about the ti ne of my first visit graduated from Oxford Seminary, Ohio, now the wife of Rev. R. E. O'Byrne, and at present ministering to the needs of her aged parents in the home in which she was born.
Mr. Peabody, although now in his 87th year, and physically infirm, retains his mental faculties remarkably well, and to him and his honse- hold I anı indebted for varions reminiscences. He came from Newport, . N. H., in 1834. He journeyed on foot, with a traveling companion, except that they patronized the Erie canal and a boat across the lake, landing at Toledo. Averaged about forty-five miles per day. Chicago contained at that day a U. S. garrison, with a regiment or two of soldiers stationed there and ten or twelve houses.
A steamboat had landed the day before he reached Chicago with about three hundred passengers, and to use his own words "we could not get the privilege of leaning against a post; had to walk on. Across the plain where Chicago now stands, for nine miles, the water was leg deep. My feet was badly swollen. A man told me to put a pint of whiskey in each boot and the swelling would go down. I said I would put it in my boots but not in myself. I did, and it worked as he said."
He journeyed on until reaching Rock river. Choosing his location, he built his cabin and, roughed it, at first, with neighbors few and far between .. He remembers counting fifty-six deer in sight at one time: that he was the first to cross the creek above the present boundary be- : . tween Ogle county and Lee with a team.
In those days the Pottawattamies and Winnebagoes were his frequent guests, and were ever friendly. "Treat an Indian well and he will treat you well" he said. Once when he had invited one to take dinner with him, some one at table asked the Indian, "Why do you not use your knife and fork as 'smokey inen' do?" Indian replied: "I do not know . whose mouth the knife and fork have been in, but I do know where the fingers have been."
In 1837 flour was twenty-five dollars per barrel, and very scarce. The .
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nearest market was Chicago and no means of transportation but ox teams. It took ninc days at least for a trip, often from ten to thirteen. It became customary to go in company that they might help.each other over the bad places, each team carrying rails with which to pry out the wheels when stuck in the mud. They took their provisions and provender for the whole timc. Children didn't know the bearded, tired-out fathers on their return. The women "who stayed by the stuff" had some experiences, too. I asked Mrs. Peabody to relate some of hers, but she sadly said she "had so long been trying to forget those days, she did not feel like recalling them." Those who best know her life's history fecl that she has, in the solitude of her hoic, had many a conflict with lonc- liness and sorrow, enduring all with heroic fortitude and patience.
One Mr. York, whom Mr. Peabody knew, lived at Byron eighteen months before seeing a white woman. He was the ancestor of the York prominent in the history of Kansas, the exposer of the Benders.
I will here insert some of the early recollections of Bradford McKen: ney, a nephew of F. C. McKenney, now a farmcr neighbor of Mr. Pea- body's, but in the years of his prime, a lawyer of Rockford, Ill. His father, Danicl McKenney, moved into the then just completed log housc in which he and his two interesting daughters now live, on Nov. 27th: 1837. It is the only habitable log dwelling of which I know.' The only Indians whom I remember were camped at Washington Grove in 1837. They were the Winnebagoes. Father took all of us children over to see them.
- In those days, the first house on the Daysville road, after leaving Dixon, was John More's where L. E. Hart now lives. The next was a log house of John Chamberlin's, on what is now knewn as the "Stiles placc." Then came Squire Chamberlin, but further east even, than where Mr. Wetherbee's house now stands. The Wetherbce Crcek, at that time, was crossed further east than now. The next house, and last one before reaching my home, was on the place on which Charles Floto now lives. HIcre, at my home, was a small poplar log cabin, twelve fect square. The only other house in sight was Ruel Peabody's log house, some little dis- tance north and east of the house they now occupy. 1
In the spring of '38 a brother of Emma Abbott's built a saw-mill, and also made shingles, on what is now known as the Atwood Creek, some of the timbers of which are now standing south of the bridge. He also built a chair factory on the bank south of the bridge. 1 now have in my pos- essian two chairs made there. He sold out to Atwood.
I am sorrowfully aware that the foregoing incidents are but a very
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meagre list as to numbers, interest and variety, of those which survive in the memory of living pioneers or their descendants, but circumstances . have been unfavorable to my seeking them out. One dear friend, Mrs. Hillis, from whose interesting store-house I hoped to gather largely, has been too much of an invalid to be invited to explore it, and the writer too much of a "shut in" to fulfill her hopes in regard to this paper.
How wonderful it seems to us that so many of eminence in all the walks of life were evolved from such lives of deprivation and solitude! After all we can comprehend of the mode of life and lack of privileges of the days when our beautiful land, now so rich in resources of progress and enjoyment, was being uplifted from the abode of the savage, to be- come the home of a higher and nobler civilization, how little do we real- ize the cost? Papers and books fill our homes. They had none. Musi- cal instruments abound and a diversity of adornment hitherto un- dreamed of. Steam carriages transport us to and fro, and from end to end of the earth. The electric wire transmits our messages of friendship or of business. The telephone annihilates distance, and through it we speak as face to face.
All these wonderful aids widen our opportunities for helping those less fortunate. Human beings are remarkably responsive to sympathy.
1. It seems not wise or right to give all our time or, energies to the details of business or the pursuits of pleasure, but with so many advantages above our ancestors, emulate them in every virtue, and see to it that our progress in mind and heart keeps step with our advance in opportunities ..
MRs. M. D. GILMAN.
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DR. CHAS. GARDNER.
1
Some Pioneer Stories.
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I
WISH to disclaim, at the outset, any idea of acting as the historian either of the township or of my parents. The former has been done in more ambitious volumes than ours, and I have only some stories of the pioneer days with which my father and mother were connected, that I felt might interest their friends, and to pay some slight tribute to their acknowledged worth. Had the call for incidents and particulars in the lives of other pioneers in Nachusa township met with a full response, I would gladly have yielded these columns to a more able pen; as it is I can only wish that more had done as I have, as well as time and circum- stances would permit and then our book would have been far more com- plete and satisfactory.
I also wish to offer a word of explanation for Mrs. Gilman who follows me, in the papers of this township. She, though a resident of Nachusa township, is quite near the extreme northern end-and being something of an invalid was unable to extend her inquiries much beyond that limit; but as those whom she could reach were old friends and acquaintances, and at one time, at least, citizens of Lee county, we felt that her paper was a very pleasant addition to our collection.
In behalf of both Mrs. Gilman and myself I might quote a remark of an old settler of Lee Center during a revival. He was urged to take more active part, but declined on the score of unworthiness, yet added in his own behalf that he "was as good as he could be out of the material he was made of."
The force of its application to the Columbian Club sketches needs no comment to print it, and I will go on with my story.
There has always seemed to me to be a similarity of spirit between the pioneers of the Rock river valley that I have known, and the Pilgrims and Puritans of Massachusetts. Like them, they were of good ancestry, they came from homes of comfort and abundance, many from those of luxury, to the rude cabins and lonely prairies of the west. Like them, too, they came to found homes. Theirs was no"paper city" speculation;
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no squatting for a time and moving on, but the patient, steady settling of the country, and founding of homes for their children and children's children.
They established schools and Sunday schools at once, built churches and school houses as soon as possible, improved the land, planted trees, and laid the foundations of society amid difficulties of which we have no conception, and all with more thought of us than of themselves. How often have I heard my Grandfather Pearse say, as he sighed over the toil and privation which my parents were enduring, "You may never reap the benefit, May, and Charles, but your children will." And does not the condition of our beautiful western country prove the truth of his words?
My father came from a homestead still in the family by an Indian grant of the year 1600. My mother from a colonial home on the shore of Narragansett Bay, a church where for over a hundred years there has been a Pearse in the choir and for over sixty in the warden's seat. Neither of them had any thought but of a home equally dear and enduring for their children, and it was a source of inexpressible regret to father that we children did not share the feeling or care for the homestead after mother's death.
Father had suffered greatly from some mysterious trouble which baffled the skill of the best physicians of Boston and Providence and had been completely cured by old Dr. Thomson, the founder of the Thom- sonian-now Physio-Medical school. This led him to spend nearly three years with that venerable man, studying his remedies and methods, and when he left him with full credentials, to set up an "Infirmary" in the city of Newport; R. I., then the storm of indignation broke! His father poured upon his head the wrath of an irate sea captain, threatening to disown him (which he did not do), while my mother's father, a more gentle and godly man, said sadly, when asked for his daughter's hand: "I don't suppose you will starve in a christian land. but I cannot feel that Charles has an honest calling."
But I think my father felt, what his years of most successful practice proved, that he had an "honest calling," to the profession of a physician, rather than a mere money-making occupation; so he and mother were married and bravely began their life together, in 1835. In spite of the fears of the two grandfathers, at the end of two years father had the largest city practice of any physician in Newport, and his infirmary of eighty beds was always full to overflowing. A year and a half more of the necessarily severe labor connected with such a field, told upon both s) heavily that they felt they must make a change or fail in health.
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Westward Ho!" was the cry all over the land, and In 1838 father came to Illinois. He came first "prospecting," and I have often heard hin say, "I could have bought Chicago and not spent all I had."
The Rock River valley charmed him, and here he made his claim-the farin which still bears his name, though owned by another-six miles each way from the groves at Lee Center, or Inlet, Palestine, Franklin and Dixon. On it stood the only frame house within that limit, and at its door the only tree, a scrubby thorn apple.
There were three rooms and a "real stairs," so it was "quite a place in those days," mother used to say. It was sold about 1849 or '50 to "uncle Bill Hopkins," and moved off the place. I do not know its ultimate end. It stood very near the gate to the door-yard of the present house, which is the third dwelling which has been built on the place, and is now owned by Mr. Burhenn.
In February, 1839, father returned with his household goods, coming by sloop from Newport to New Orleans, up the Missippi, and Illinois rivers to Peru, where he bought wagons to cross the country. We have - still a few pieces of furniture which he brought at that time, which we cherish as treasures and heir-looms. Mother followed in June of the same year, coming across the states. She was three weeks on her way, bringing with her her little daughter, two and a half years old (my sister Mrs. Hawley) and a woman who was to he companion and maid for a year, in consideration of the payment of her fare in addition to her weekly stipend. She stayed just three weeks; she was "homesick; and she left my poor young mother (only twenty-two years old, to face the foe, to the care of a large family, and much heavy work, to which she was totally unused, all alone, so far as feminine aid was concerned. And we complain if we have to "do our own work" with seamstress, laund- ress, butcher, baker and hotel at our service.
Trials and discouragements thickened about them. They were in- volued in a financial scheme which the Rev. Mr. D. Wolf, husband of my mother's aunt, with more great-souled ambition than business foresight, had planned. This gentleman will always be better remembered in Lee county for his business failures, I fear, than for the really good qualities of heart and mind, which his visionary brain sadly overbalanced. But be that as it may, when father and mother had added the expense in which he had involved them, to their other necessary demands upon their means, they were left about as poor as any common emigrant who arrived in the country with an old wagon and a broken down team.
They lost nine horses the first year, and mother sold her best dresses,
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shawls, watch, jewelry, everything she could spare, to buy stock and pay heip "out doors and in." How often I have heard her tell of the red and green delaine dress in which one of her maids was married. "'She had no counsellor; the resources for her table were meager, and many of them strange to her, but she was one of those rare good cooks who can always make something out of nothing, and will always give a welcome, and share a meal cordially, even though it be the very plainest. The family was necessarily large, and she entertained all sorts of people from Bishop Chase down to the roughest man shivering with ague who begged to stay till he was better. Never a "movers' wagon" haulted by the gate that she did not have a kind word, a bit of food, or a nourishing drink for some homesick body in its cheerless shelter, and I can remember seeing twenty of these wagons camped about our premises on a single night; (this was during the gold excitement) and many times during bad weather their stay extended to days or even weeks. Not infrequently both before and after iny recellection whole families were installed in the house while the father prospected, or the children had the measles, or the mother a bilious attack, to the great discomfort of us children, and, I doubt not, to tire sore trial of mother's patience. -
To go back; ali these losses and unfortunate plans might have result- ed in much greater privation than they did, had not my grandfathers kept informed and visited their children frequently; paying up the help, bringing stores of clothing, groceries, dried fruit, bacon and salt ilsh, and such other things as could be shipped, (there were no canned goods then), but most of all, cheering and encouraging them by their very presence. It was on one of these visits when my two grandfathers came together, and with them an old family friend, that they were made the victims of a joke by the latter. They had the usual fortune of travelers of that day in crossing the country by stage; were mired or "sloughed" seven times before they reached father's. Now in R. I. to get "sloughed" is the exact counterpart of our phrase "tight," or drunk, and it struck Mr. Monroe very funnily to hear this new use of the word. So he wrote home, among other matters, that "it was very singular that one could never thoroughly know even old friends until he had seen them away from home influences and surroundings. Who would have supposed that men of the staunch temperance principles of Capt. Gardner and the Hon. Geo. Pearse would have so far forgotten themselves as to get sloughed, and that, too, seven times on the way to Dr. Gardner's; yet such was the lamentable fact."
The consternation which that letter caused was a source of amuse-
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ment and a jovial reminiscence to the end of the days of the four old friends.
Father brought with him stores of nuts, seeds, cuttings, grafts and slips, with which he planted a large grove, still a beautiful addition to the prairie landscape. Hle also took great pains to secure a pleasing variety of fruit and ornamental trees about his house and along the street line of the entire farm, and many of the trees about the farm houses for miles around are from his seeds and'cuttings, not only freely giyen, but urged upon people that they might eujoy the shade and beauty in time to come.
He did what the government has done in the farther West, by encouraging the planting of "tree claims," and I feel that it is not idle boast to say that Lee county owes more to my father's precept and ex- ample in matter of shade and ornamental tree planting, than to any other man, unless it be to Mr. J. T. Little, who always understood and appreciated father's efforts more than most people.
I will also add that in 1873 father built a large hay barn, the heavy timbers for which he cnt from the grove which he had himself planted. Mother, too, always had her "flower beds" bright with old-fashioned annuals, and also adorned with many choicer shrubs, bulbs, and the like, of which she always gathered a full store on her visits to the east. In 1855, when my sister was married, she had eighteen varieties of roses in bloom, the white ones which were the bride's special adorning, being from a root brought from my grandmother's, and that in turn from her mother's fifty years before.
Some months after mother came, her aunt, Mrs. Hannah D' Wolf, followed, and purchased a home about a mile distant, on the place now owned by Mr. Miller. 'The second house which she built is still standing and in very good preservation. She was a singularly noble woman, a devoted christian, and a heroic pioneer. What her counsel and compan- ionship was to my mother and the little circle of their acquaintance cannot be estimated, but it is an inspiration to those whose lives seem hedged in by circumstances to see, even in these pioneer stories, how simple, unaffected goodness wins its way and leaves its record by noting the mention in various papers of such persons as Mrs. D'Wolf, Mr. 'and Mrs. Hannum and others of whom nothing remarkable can be said, yet whose lives have made a lasting impression on the minds and hearts of those who knew them, and through them on many more.
Mother and she established the first Sunday school on the prairie, in Aunt Hannalı's "other room," and there was never a Christmas or an
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Easter when, in spite of privations and scant resources, they did not keep the feast, and try to teach their children something not only of the lessons of those holy seasons, but of the way dear friends were keeping them in beautiful churches with services of praise and prayer "at home."
The first school in the township was kept in Aunt Hannah's house; the children had been sent to Mrs. Edson's house before, in what is now South Dixon. The first teacher was Miss Betsey D'Woif, a very lovely woman, who soon after married Mr. John Barnes, a brother of Asal and Nelson Barnes, well remembered in Dixon. 'Here, as elsewhere, it was the pioneer women who made the sacrifices necessary to found the schools. They did not wait for a school house, or until they could "spare' a room, but freely gave up their own comfort and convenience for the schools, or for religious services; and when the time came to put up buildings they were among the first to help. Indeed I am positive that if the records of every church building in the county could be searched, it would be found that the first contribution to their erection was from the efforts of some "sewing circle," or society of similar character, and that often the last payment for seats, carpet or furnishings was made by the same unwearied workers.
The first death in the township was that of "old Michael", a man who worked for Aunt Hannah, and she gave, at that time, probably about 1840, the little burying ground still called by the D'Wolf name. For many years the little railing around old Michael's grave in the northwest - corner, was a marked feature in it; but it has fallen to decay and there - is now nothing to tell where the old man lies.
Here in 1841 or '42 the first school house was built and Miss Betsey D'Wolf again taught, also a Miss Hunter. The school house was after- wards moved to the southwest corner of father's place, where it was known for many years as the "Locust street school house," from the numerous trees of that variety which father had planted along the road. But the locusts are dead, and the school house removed to the crossroad, where it bears the name of the family living near, "Hollister," a family of old settlers whose kindnesses to father and mother are not forgotten. I do not think this group of pioneer women entered into the "good times" of singing and spelling-schools and picnics and the like very large- J'y, but I have heard mother say that they greatly enjoyed their visits to each other, the seconding each other's efforts to keep up religious ser- vices and Sunday schools, to have their children neatly dressed and care- fully taught, and the exchange of letters, books and papers which came from distant friends. In those days the sons of farmers were not so anx-
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