USA > Illinois > Lee County > Recollections of the pioneers of Lee County [Illinois] > Part 36
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We often took fish in quantities with a seine-black bass, white perch, red horse, buffalo, pike, and sometimes that survivor of the Silurian sea, the worthless gar-fish. Sturgeons there were too, sometimes five feet in length and catfish of fifty pounds weight; these latter corned and smoked were very good, but the best were inferior to sea fish. Quantities of mus- sels afforded food to fish and muskrats. The red-horse, a species of sucker, feeds largely on them and at midsummer, when the river is low, a stranger would be puzzled to account for the constant thumping sound proceeding from it. This is caused by the red-horse beating on the shells to open them. Pearls are often found in these mussels, but of ir- regular shape and of little value.
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But to take fish without hook or spear, net or poison, how? When the river rises with the June rains the fish, mostly pike or bass, run in close to the shore to feed at night; then a boat is paddled along as noise- lessly as possible close to the banks; as it approaches, the fish-alarmed- rush for the deep water, but meeting the impediment of the boat try to jump over it, in which they seldom succeed, but falling in are captured. We had turtles too in the river-the soft shell, about the size of a din- ner plate and very good eating, though troublesome to prepare, and the snapper. Both of them are very destructive to young ducks, swimming under them and pulling them noiselessly down. It is curious to see the mother duck when she begins to miss the young. Knowing but too well the cause, she rushes furiously back and forth beating the water with her wings and quacking loudly in dire distress, then hurriedly brings her brood ashore.
A new bird to us was the sand-hill-crane, sometimes called the the prairie turkey, but a very dry and tasteless one. It stands about three feet high, is of a pale straw color with a red stripe on the head. The bird has a curious habit of assembling in large flocks on moonlight nights on some knoll on the prairie, where they will dance around in a circle, like Macbeth's witches over their cauldron, uttering a curious grating cry. They are easily tamed. Scallan, the carpenter, had a tame one which he taught to dance with him. He would say "Conie Sandy," and waving a cornstalk in time they would prance around together. His tenant, McGraw, fearing Sandy's assault on his little boy's eye's, cut his head off. The prairie wolves were very numerous, cunning and extremely bold. They would sometimes come right up to the house in broad daylight and kill poultry, young pigs, lambs, etc., not only to eat but from a love of slaughter. I once counted thirteen ducks killed at regu- lar distances between the house and cornfield just as the wolf had over- taken them. On another occasion thirty-two well grown turkeys were killed in a night-one bite across the neck finished them. Woe betide the cow which calved out, she was sure to lose her young. The wolves generally hunted in pairs; one would come close to the house at night, give a few yelps, when the mongrel, puppy, cur or hound would be out and after him in full cry; then his mate would steal up and carry off a pig or lamb. One morning early, looking over the river, I saw a wolf, evidently on picket duty, trotting along the high bank, while lower down was another driving a good sized shoat before him. When the pig stopped or tried to turn the wolf would run in and give him a nip, when piggy would squeal and go on lamenting. So they drove him over the
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i e to an island, when we ran over, and giving an unsuccessful shot at the thieves, saved the pig.
The first winter when we moved into our log house our nearest neigh- bors were a family of Kentuckians in which were five brothers. They soon came to pay us a visit, walking along in Indian file, the eldest with a long rifle over his shoulder. They stalked in, formed a semi-circle around the fire and stared at me, and everything in the room. I in turn stared at them. Had they been beings from another planet I could not have been more at loss what to say to them. They marched out as silently as they came in. As time went on I was constantly thrown in with the young men and always found them most obliging, regardless of gain. They could neither read nor write, "swore like our army in Flanders," yet were always particular in avoiding foul, indecent lan- guage. There was an innate delicacy in many respects about them whichi was truly remarkable and at the table they watched with close attention lest they should make any mistake. The eldest on one occasion seeing a man dip his bread in the dish said, "Uncle Ed, if you want some of that gravy I'll help you with a spoon." "Why, Kernel," he replied, "I didn't know you minded, down in York state I paid two bits extra for the privi- lege." The York Staters from the Erie canal were dreadful.
The "Kernel," as he was called, had an intense craving for cducation and at last succeeded in learning to read and write and he was ap- pointed a school director. His notice to the people of the district I kept for many years as a model of composition and orthography. He was "full of wise saws and modern instances" as Sancho Panza, and when told that "a rolling stone gathered no moss" retorted with "a setting goose don't git no new feathers." On hearing of Columbus making the egg stand on its end, took all point out of the anecdote by saying, "Why that's no trick at all," and to the surprise of those present proceeded to stand an egg on its end without, like Columbus, having recourse to crack- ing it.
These traits of character I have been attempting to describe, I met with very frequently among "the poor white trash" of the South, arising I think from the consciousness of belonging to a superior race to the ne- groes by whom they were surrounded. They have now all disappeared, there was no room for them here when the great rush for immigration set in with the railroads, bringing a horde of toiling, saving, grasping foreigners, better calculated perhaps to develope the resources of the country but very far from as pleasant to live among. With them have
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come the rats, the weeds, the overproduction, the low prices and the sur: vivalof the fittest.
Elkanah B. Bush, from whom we bought our claim, was also a Ken- tuckian, higher in the social scale than those I have been describing, but equally improvident; in fact, prudence and economy seem to be a matter of climate and soil, those from a mild climate and fruitful soil being generally careless and improvident, while those from a cold climate and thin soil are prudent and saving. The sum Bush received from his claim, crops, etc., seemed an immense one to him and he was perplexed how to dispose of it, so he bought some medical works and began to study for a doctor. When he thought he was pretty well posted he went down to Peoria, and laying in a big supply of drugs, began to practice lris new profession in Elkhorn Grove, but after one patient had died and lie had nearly poisoned two or three others he got scared, and giving up medicine, put what was left of his money in an oil and saw mill. He offered us one dollar a bushel for castor beans and the same for flax seed. This seemed immense and many of us went into it. He, too, rented ground and planted largely. The flax grew finely, when ripe we cradled and bound it and then proceeded to thresn it as we did wheat or oats by laying it on the ground and then tramping it with horses; but so it was that when the horses had made a few rounds they t:amped the bundles into ropes which became entangled with their legs and moved the whole mass. We couldn't fork nor handle it in any way, and so gave it up. The castor beans grew equally well but they were in all stages from the blossom to the ripe bean, which kept popping and flying about in all directions. The beans being tempting in taste and appearance were eaten by children, who required no further dosing that summer: but this was the only use inade of them, for we could not dispose of the few that were saved as Bush's money gave out and no one else wanted them. For his saw mill speculation he had taken "the Kernal" as a partner, whose contribution to the partnership consisted of his skill as an axe- man, for those were days when "a man was famous according as he lifted up the axe on the thick trees," and a colt valued at thirty dollars. To celebrate this great era in their lives and the promotion of their brother all the Kentucks combined to buy a jug of molasses, drank molasses and water and fired their rifles all day. When the inevitable collapse came the Kernel, never having studied commercial law, only saw that he had lost his horse and his time, so he sued Bush for wages. In those days lawyers were at a discount as too expensive luxuries for common folk, and suits were generally left to three umpires, who almost invari-
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ably divided the thing between the parties, which is perhaps the fairest way after all. In this case "the three men," as they were called, gave the plaintiff half wages. Poor "Kernel," he went to Fulton, where he was made a constable, wore store clothes and a gold watch, had a little brief prosperity, but died in the poorhouse. '
We had may transient visitors who would stay for a time and go on. Among these was a young man named Budd, the son of Lieut. Budd, who was killed with Captain Lawrence in the Chesapeake at the time of the celebrated engagement of the Chesapeake and Shannon. Budd stayed with me for some time. I learned that after being married little more than a year he had lost his wife and child. In his melancholy musings he would wander about the country at night, and finally went down the river in a small boat. Not long after I got a letter from him, dated at Rock Island, saying he had been arrested there for the murder of Major Davenport, and wishing me to do something for him. It appeared that this Davenport, an old Indian trader, lived on an island, called by his name at the mouth of Rock River. He was reputed to be wealthy. On the morning of the 4th of July, 1845, his family had left him alone in the house while they went over to the main land to take part in the cele- bration of the day, and on their return at night had found the dead body of the Major, and the house robbed.
Budd had often been seen wandering about the island at night and had been in the habit of buying provisions in the town and taking them . to his camp up the river, where he was supposed to have accomplices. When the people heard of the murder the whole town was in commotion. Budd was at once suspected, and learning that he had been seen leaving the town that morning, armed bodies went in pursuit of him and he would certainly have been lynched had he not returned unperceived, given himself up to the sheriff and was put in jail .. All my efforts in his behalf were of no use to him; public opinion was so strong against him. He lay for some months in jail and might have been executed had not a detective caught a man on a lake steamer with the Major's watch in his possession, which led to the capture of the gang and Budd's acquittal. It was not safe in those days to be melancholy or mysterious.
In that early day we had only a weekly mail from the east, which came in on Saturday by Winter's, and afterward by Foinck & Walker's stages. All who expected letters went to Dixon that day for the mail; first to the postoffice and then to the hole-in-the-wall, a log saloon, after- ward used by Lorenzo Wood to store his woolen goods and later pulled down by Bovey for his lumber yard. Here we met all of our acquaintan-
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tances. Every one was called on to drink; a bargain was always sealed by a drink, an introduction to a stranger followed by a drink; on a journey or in the harvest field, it was the same thing. Any excuse was sufficient to'call for a drink and to refuse was to give mortal offense, there were very few scruples to a dram in that day A very singular custom it seemed to us who had never been accustomed to wines or liquors except at the dinner table, never before eating, while here it was considered a sufficient excuse sometimes to say "thank you, but I've just eat." The drink was pure corn juice distilled by Fred Dutcher, too cheap to be adul- terated, for a bushel of corn, value ten cents, would buy a gallon of whis- key and little else.
Here, then, we met everyone from all parts of the country, except our farming friends from the Sugar Grove road, and a curious assortment it was. There was one, Lem Paul, known to be a regular highwayman, and that he laid in wait to rob John Dixon on his way up from Peoria with funds to pay the workmen employed on the canal at the Sterling rapids. Mr. Dixon got a hint of it and came another way. Paui lived on un- molesed in Dixon till he severely wounded Crowell with an axe, when he was driven out of the town and took up his abode in Copper Harbor. There he was shot in the arm in a fight and his arm broken, he advised the man who fired at him to shoot and kill him or he would certainly kill him as soon as his arm was well. This the other declined to do, but Paul was as good as his word, and lying in wait for him at the spring, shot him as he came for a pail of water and then took refuge in the Indian nation, that Alsatia of outlaws.
Another noted character throughout the country was Billy Rogers, a tall, good looking man, always well dressed. It was said he had belonged to a noted band of outlaws on the Mississippi and he was known to have been the only gambler who escaped from the people of Natchez when they made their great raid on the gambling houses "under the hill." Billy cut his way through the crowd with his bowie knife, and swimming the Mississippi, escaped. He was a gambler by profession, and "as wild a mannered man as ever cut a throat," still his jovial temper and gener- ous dispositien made him a general favorite. On one occasion, as he was just starting on a contract to remove the Indians west of the Mississippi, the stage was surrounded by the sheriff with a posse to take Billy on some debt. Drawing a pistol he said to the sheriff, "Morse, I know there are enough of you to take me, but you know I'm good for you first; now if you will make no fuss but let me go and carry out my contract I'll pay wien I come back." The sheriff knowing Billy's word to be good both ways let
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him go. Some years after this I was on the grand jury when Billy was indicted for gambling, keeping a quino table. Hearing of what was going on he came into the jury room and in answer to questions from different members of the jury, gave a full account of his mode of life, how much he made yearly by gambling, and wound up by inviting all the members of the jury to his saloon where he would teach them how to play quino, and treat them besides, free. When the California fever broke out he went to that state, was elected sheriff of Eldorada county; and in the Piute war was ex-officer in command of the armed force of that county; tho' he could neither read or write he made a very efficient officer.
In this Indian war a Dixon man, Major Hutchinson Mckinney, was . killed in a singular manner. He was on horseback running an Indian down, and catching at his scalp lock when the Indian, who had lost his bow, turned suddenly and stabbed him to the heart with an arrow, he held in his hand. The major had life enough left to knock him down with his pistol and other soldiers coming up, finished him.
William Graham, the pioneer of our colony in Palmyra, held a com- mission as a major in this war. He died at the mines at Philipsburg, Montana, in 1878. Billy Rogers, too, "Life's fitful fever past," died peace- ably in his bed not many years ago.
Another constant visitor to the Hole-in-the-Wall was Henry Truett, who had killed a Doctor Early, the editor of a paper down the river while he sat writing at his desk with his back to him. Mr. Craig, an old Irish gentlemen who had accompanied Capt. Graham to the west, was intro- duced to Truett in the saloon, but didn't catch the name. "Who was that you introduced me to, Billy?" he asked. "Oh! that is Truett, Truett the murderer." "A murderer! God bless me! Bring me some water," and he kept on vociferating for water and exclaiming "God bless me!" till a basin was brought, when he carefully washed the murderous taint from his hands in presence of an admiring crowd. Truett's brother, Myers Truett, was in after years one ef the most prominent members of the vigilance committee in San Francisco and is often mentioned by General Sherman in his account of early days in California.
Our whole family reached Rock River in the spring of 1840, and were at first delighted with the country when they only experienced the minor discomforts common to all new countries, nor did they suffer from three plagues which made life for a time a burthen to most of the newcomers- fleas, prairie itch and boils. In June the country is always lovely, there was no savagery in the flower studded prairie or the rich green of the
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groves, but a deadly enemy lurked beneath all this beauty, "latet anguis iu herba." The snake in the grass was the intermittent fever which that year generally assumed a congestive type. Many died of it and in most cases while the fever was on the patient was delirious. There were scarcely enough of those who escaped the fever to give a glass of water to the sick. One of the children died bere, another soon after in New York, whither my mother had fled as soon as she could get away, taking all the younger children. The golden hopes which had lured us here had all dled out. The state had become bankrupt, produce was unsalable, and' the future looked very dark. We had put in large crops which had grown as they only do in a new country, but with the harvest came the fever. . We had a large tent raised in the field with a table spread with cold meat, run, whiskey, iced waters, etc., which was undoubtedly appreciated by the few harvesters we succeeded in hiring, for they spent a good part of the time in it; but they too got sick and the cradled grain lay unbound in the harvest field until cool weather, when, owing to a very dry fall, we succeeded in saving some of it, tramping it out with horses.
In the course of a few years I was the only member of the family who remained here and there were very few representatives left of the many others of the New York colony. By degrees I drifted into a farmer's life, in which if there was little profit there was little care. Our principal crop was wheat, on which we depended for some indispensable cash. Up to 1846 or '47 it was almost entirely winter wheat of the finest quality, after that time it became uncertain on the prairie soil and spring wheat was substituted. We reared no cattle except for our own use. A little dressed pork was sometimes sold through the winter in Chicago or to the miners in Galena-an occasional load of oats to the stage company in Dixon or the towns on the Illinois river. Corn remained unsalable. Through August and September there would be a long string of teams going in to Chicago with wheat, through clouds of blinding, choking dust; the wheat generally sold at 50 and 60 cents. On these long drives, requiring a week or ten days to accomplish, the load was seldom more than twenty-five bushels, as there were no bridges over sloughs or rivers. With the wheat was taken food for man and beast, a scythe to cut grass by the way, an axe and auger for repairs if needed.
On looking back to those days it is a matter of great surprise to me that those who were "to the manor born" farmers from their youth up did not make any use of the great advantages the country afforded for the cheap production of wool, beef and pork. There was a boundless range of the finest grass in the world, unlimited for grazing or making
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hay, corn at 10 cents per bushel, bran was thrown into the race to get it out of the way.
From Chicago to New York by the lakes and Erie canal freight was only one dollar per hundred pounds. Yet the only attempt made in this direction was that of Mr. John Shillaber, an old China merchant who came here in 1844, secured a large track of fine land at a nominal price, stocked it with Paular Merinos, the best sheep of that day, got Scotch shepherds, collie dogs and all things necessary, and in about five years failed utterly and entirely and the lawyers were picking his bones. His mistakes most likely were: „An investment of the whole of his capital in the venture, the immediate instead of a gradual stocking with high priced sheep, some side issues of several acres in grapes, apples, etc., too much hired help. To the inexperienced putting money in a farm is like putting manure on a gravelly soii-it leaches through and leaves no trace. Had he been a horny-handed son of the soil, with experience as well as money, he would most likely have made a splendid success, but Mr. Shillaber had to buy experience at the cost of all he possessed.
About one of the toughest labors of Hercules was his combat with the giant, Anteus, a son of the soil, who so often as he was thrown gained fresh vigor to continue the struggle by contact with his mother earth; and it was only by holding him aloft and strangling him that Hercules overcame him. Sons of the soil have not changed since the days of Her- cules; taken on their native heath they are hard to beat. All of which goes to prove the truth of the old proverb, "Ne sutor untra crepidam."- "Shoemaker stick to your last."
In 1848 we got our first reaper; in that year, too, a small trade com- menced in steers, which, with choice cows, sold from $12.00 to $45.00. These steers were driven into Ohio, wintered and. fattened there, and then driven to the seaboard markets.
Settlers came in slowly, nor was there much improvement in the price of land or produce until 1854, when the railway was completed from Chicago to Dixon and crowds of immigrants rushed in. Land went up in leaps and bounds, three, four, five hundred per cent. The treeless prair- ies, which we thought uninhabitable, were quickly seized and settled; plenty of coal and lumber coming in on the railroad. To feed this multi- tude produce of all kinds went up to high prices, corn to 65 cents per bushel, and at this price many of those who came first paid for their land with a single crop. But this was only a tidal wave, and receded with the railways as they went west, bringing in produce from newer and cheaper land. All prices continued to decline except that of land.
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The name Palmyra by which our town is called, though suggestive of waving palms and "spicy gales from Araby the blest," was given to it I think after the township organization was adopted by one of our early settlers, Fred Coe I believe, after a town of the same name in the state of New York. It contains the village of Prairieville, where is a fine church, built I believe mainly by Lutherans. There is also a very good graded school and on the grounds a monument to those Palmyra volun- teers who died in the Union cause.
JOHN THARP LAWRENCE.
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An Early School.
IN response to an invitation Mrs. L. A. Ramsay, of Whiteside County, Ill., who taught a select school for girls in Dixon in 1842 sends the 1 following:
"My first summer in the far West, fifty years ago, was spent in Dixon -then called Dixon's Ferry. It was a little village on the south bank of Rock River and straggling out a little way among the sand hills. An unpainted schoolhouse, the Court House and Land Office were its public buildings; three hotels, one called "Stage House," which accommodated travelers "Westward Ho!" three stores of general merchandise, a few me- chanics' shops, some comfortable houses and a fair showing of good and agreeable people comprised the rudiments of what is now styled the city of Dixon. A Methodist Church was already established-the congrega- tion meeting in the Court House on the Sabbath day. The minister was Rev. Philo Judson. The teacher of the public school was Miss Curtis. A select school for girls (Miss Church, teacher) was conducted in a small room of a dwelling-house a little west of the road leading to the ferry. The pupils were Mabel Nash, Ophelia Loveland, Ann Whitney, Libbie Ayers, Susanna Clute, Libbie Hawley, Harriet Whitmore, Helen Judson, Libbie Dixon, Jane Ann Herrick, Elizabeth Judson, Marianna Hogan, Harriet Edson, Abbie Murray, Susan Murray, Sybil Van Arnam, Frankie Noble, Jane Richards, Libbie McKenney, Henrietta Dixon, Mary Pratt and Adeline Gray, and a few others whose names I cannot now recall. All were interesting girls-wish I knew the subsequent history of each.
"While thinking and writing of the past many glimpses of the long ago are presented-among them I recall one picture in Dixon cemetery which I have never seen duplicated-'Tis only a baby's grave, covered as with a blanket of tri-colored violets, sometimes called forget-me-nots. "Tis nearly square and scarcely raised above the level of surrounding sand-prepared by the father for his motherless boy. No piles of marble or granite ever impressed me half so much, though I never saw either of them and knew nothing about them but the name."
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