USA > Illinois > Lee County > Recollections of the pioneers of Lee County [Illinois] > Part 7
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From this the party proceeded to Nauvoo in spite of the protests of sheriffs Reynolds and Wilson, whom Sheriff Campbell had compelled to give up their arms, because of the threats they had mnade. They reached Nauvoo, the home of Smith, on June 30th, he having been all the time, since the 23rd, in the custody of these sheriffs without legal writ.
As soon as Mr. Smith was arrested, Mrs. Smith determined to reach her home as soon as she could. After ascertaining the course affairs were likely to take at Dixon, under the vigorous regime of Col. Dixon, and Attorneys Patrick and Southwick, Mrs. Smith started with her children for Nauvoo, a young man named Loring Walker driving the team. She reached home some three days before the cavalcade accompanying her husband, and when he and his captors, Sheriff Campbell and the posse reached the city and her home, she was ready to receive them; and not- withstanding there were many to partake at her board, all were amply provided for and treated by her with every mark of kindness, hospitality and respect. The executive ability and energy of Mrs. Smith are demon- strated by the fact that at every stage of her husband's peace, prosperity, peril and distress, she proved equal to the emergency and conducted the affairs of his household, her station in society, and her publicappearances, in the calm dignity and conscious rectitude of splendid womanhood. In August, 1843, she became landlady of the Nauvoo Mansion, a hotel quite noted during the last year of Mr. Smith's lifetime and for many years after.
On June 12, 1844, Mr. Smith was again arrested and again dismissed. June 24th Joseph Smith and his brother, Hiram, were again arrested on the charge of treason. After consultation with Gov. Ford and others · who advised that they should put themselves into the hands of the civll authorities to answer whatever charges might be made against then. and upon express promise of the governor that they should have a fair and impartial trial, Joseph and Hiram Smith did, on the 24th of June,
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1844, proceed to Carthage and presented themselves before him to be taken into custody. At this interview with the governor he pledged his own faith and that of the State of Illinois, that they should be protected from violence, and have a fair and impartial trial. At dark that night the constable appeared with a mittimus commanding him to commit Jo- seph and Hiram Snrith to jail on a charge of treason against the state, issued by Justice Robert F. Smith. Appeal was made to the governor, but he permitted them to be lodged in jail.
On the morning of the 26th, the governor, at 9:30 o'clock, visited the prison and had a lengthy interview with Joseph and Hiram Smith, in which he was fully informed of what had been done at Nauvoo, and upon which action the charge of treason had been made, and that it was done at the direction of the Governor himself. Governor Ford again gave his pledge that these men should be protected from illegal harm. At 2:30 of the same day, on June 26th, the Smith brothers were taken by Constable Bettisworth before Justice R. F. Smith to answer for treason, and, on proper showing the trial was adjourned until noon of the 27th, to allow of getting witnesses from Nauvoo, eighteen miles distant. Afterwards, without notice to defendants, the trial was postponed until the 29th, and the prisoners were remanded to jail.
On the morning of the 27th. Governor Ford and his escort went to Nauvoo. He had disbanded a portion of the state militia, but left the Carthage Grays in charge of the place (Carthage) during his absence, a detail from which body of troops had been stationed as guards at the jail.
Threats had been made openly that the Smiths would not be permit- ted to leave the town alive. These threats had been made in the hear- ing of Governor Ford; one Alfred Randall stating that he heard one of the soldiers say to Governor Ford: "The soldiers are determined to see Joe Smith dead before they leave town." The Governor replied, " If you know of any such thing keep it to yourself."
About five o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, June 27, 1844, while Governor Thomas Ford was addressing the citizens of Nauvoo, a mob of armed men, some two hundred strong, disguised by faces black- ened, coats turned, and in other ways, approached the jail, a stone and wood building in the south western edge of town, and overpowered the guard, who fired over their heads, killed Joseph and Hiram Smith, and wounded John Taylor nigh to death. There were in the room, Joseph and Hiram Smith, John Taylor and Willard Richards, the last two named being the only friends of the two men killed whom the officers
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would allow to stay with them. Each of the men killed and Mr. Taylor were struck by four balls. Hiram Smith fell in the room; Joseph ran to the window and in making an effort to get out was struck by a ball and fell some feet to the ground. The mob, by order of the leader, set his body against a well-curb near the house, and would have fired a vol- ley at it, but he was already dead.
Mr. Richards remained unhurt in the debtor's room where the pris- oners had been confined. Their work accomplished the mob retired.
The tragedy was over; the long, long struggle was ended; the loving wife who had been faithful through all things for "better or worse," had only to wait in tearless woe the last home coming of him with whom she had plighted her faith for seventeen years.
In the afternoon of the 28th the bodies of the two men were brought home to their grief stricken families and friends. The long pending stroke had fallen, and Mrs. Smith was a widow with a family of four children, the eldest thirteen. She shed few tears, but in stony eyed, silent grief bore her trial, and waited until thousands had passed the bier on which her dead was lying, when, with her children by her, she sat down by the silent form. "My husband, O, my husband! Have they taken you from me at last?" That night she parted from her only stead- fast, earthly friend, and began the singular life of patient endurance and self-denial to which his death subjected her.
An administrator was appointed to take charge of Mr. Smith's estate. That it was not large may be known by the fact, that with the usual widow's exemption the sum of $124.00 per year was allowed her for the care of herself and family. A number of creditors appeared, and what property there was left became the prey of the creditors and the legal costs, so that, by the time the estate was settled, it gave Mrs. Smith a few lots with their buildings in the town of Nauvoo, and some acres of land lying in the country. With this, and patient industry, she set herself to the task of rearing her family, which on the 17th of the next November after her husband's death, was increased by the birth of a son, whom she called David Hiram, for her brother David and her hus- band's brother.
The troubles between the people of the adjoining counties and the Mormon people culminated in the expulsion of the latter from the state. Mrs. Smith had, by her opposition to the measures and policy of Presi- dent Brigham Young, become obnoxious to him, and to those who ac- cepted him, so that when in the fall and early winter of 1846 the Latter Day Saints left the state, she, ostensibly one of them, and yet opposed
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to their policy, was included in this extradition. Determined not to be ' compromised with evil and its consequences, Mrs. Smith, to avoid possible insult, if not injury from the anti-mormon forces when they should enter the city according to the terms of capitulation, left Nauvoo with her family on board the steamer "Uncle Toby," Captain Grimes, com- mander, on the 12th day of September, 1846, for Fulton City, Whiteside county, Illinois, whither one of her friends, William Marks, had preceded her. She was accompanied by parts of four other families, whom she took under her guidance and care. Wesley Knight and family, Loring Walker (who had married a daughter of Hiram Smith) and his family, two orphan girls, (Angeline and Nancy Carter), and a young man by the name of William Clapp. Mrs. Smith remained at Fulton City until Feb- ruary, when, learning that the man whom she had left in possession of her hotel was going to dismantle the house and embark for Texas with the spoils, she made the trip by carriage to Nauvoo, which she reached in the afternoon of February 19, 1847, and so determinedly pushed her claims, that in three days she was again installed in her house as its mistress.
Mrs. Smith nobly and faithfully fulfilled a mother's duties for her children until by marriage and death they left her. She continued to live in Nauvoo until her death, April 30, 1879. Her last words were, as looking upward, with feeble arms outstretched toward some one whom she seemed to see, "Yes, yes, I am coming."
She became a member of the church over which her husband presided in June, 1830, and remained always in the faith she then embraced, so that when at Amboy, Illinois, in 1860, her son joined the Reorganized or Anti- polygamous branch of the so-called Mormon church, she was with hin, and also united with that church In that faith she lived; in it she died, undeviatingly devoted and faithful.
The life of this rare woman was passed in a remarkable period of our Nation's history. The same firmness and independence, love of right and hatred of wrong, which characterized her sister, Mrs. Wasson, and others of her family, also characterized her. From her own statement, if her husband was a polygamist she did not know it. She was not taught plural marriage, either before or after she united with the church in 1830. She knew of no such tenet in connection with the published faith of the body she was religiously associated with. If Joseph Smith ever had or claimed to have had a revelation from God authorizing the practice, she was not informed of it; and she stated positively and frequently during her lifetime that she neither saw nor heard such a document read during
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· her husband's lifetime. After Smith's death and the succession of Brig- ham Young to the leadership of the church, Mrs. Smith steadily and positively opposed, not only the dogma and practice of polygamy, but Mr. Young's rule as well. She was never a convert to plural marriage or spiritual wifery, but always, from her inate womanly qualities, vigor- ously opposed to it. She was trusted by Mr. Smith in every station to which his work or station called him, and she always proved herself equal to the situation.
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She was patient and just with her children, reared her four sons to manhood, to honor and revere her name, and to bear the cross she bore so long, and to represent her in her opposition to the evil wrought to her husband's life by the introduction of false doctrines, productive of the evil with which the Nation has wrestled in Utah. She had the courage of her convictions, she hated tyranny and oppression, and her sons inher- ited from her the same spirit. Patiently she bore what she could not avoid or correct, fully believing in the law of compensation, and waiting until He who can, will make the evil give place to the good, the wrong to that which is right.
Her advice to her son Joseph, on his leaving home to study law with Hon. Judge William Kellogg, at Canton, Illinois, is the key to her char- acter and the steadfast policy of her life. Handing him a Bible, she said to him: "My son, I have no charge to you as to what your religion shall be. I give you this book with this admonition; make it the man of your counsel; live every day as if it were to be the last, and you will have no need to fear what your future shall be."
In 1840 Reuben Bridgeman and wife, Cynthia (Dort) Bridgeman, and children arrived here from Bainbridge, Alleghany County, New York, and located a claim about one mile north of this city. After land came into market Mr. Bridgeman bought several eighties and when his four sons, Curtis, Lewis, Edgar and Otis, became of age he presented each of them with a farm. Their daughters were Sally and Emily. Mr. and Mrs. Bridgeman were honorable people and always willing to lend the helping hand to their neighbors. They have long since passed to their reward, Mr. Bridgeman dying in 1866, Mrs. Bridgeman in 1871. Their son Otis was one of the first from here to enlist in the Union army. He was a member of Co. C., 12th Illinois Intantry, and was a brave soldier; but was taken sick while in the service and came home to die. The only member of the family living here now is Curtis T. Bridgeman, who re- sides on his farm south of the city.
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Jacob Doan, with wife and six children, came here in 1840 or 1841 from Ohio. They came by way of the Ohio, Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, taking a steamboat at Cincinnati. The boat was named "Old Detroit." They had a very pleasant journey which lasted about two weeks, the weather being warm and comfortable; but when they landed at Peru, Ill- inois, it was so cold that they nearly froze making the trip across the country to Palestine Grove. Mr. Doan soon bought the house which John and William Church had already built on the place now owned and occu- pied by Ira Smith. Here they lived for a number of years; then they moved to Rocky Ford and kept a store and hotel, but at last moved back on a part of the old farm, where they lived with their son David until after Mr. Doan's death. Mrs. Doan and her son David and family now live in Louisiana.
Mr. James Daley, one of Amboy's oldest citizens, was born in Ireland in 1818. When nineteen years of age he emigrated to America. In the spring of 1841 he married Miss Ellen Prindle of Ottawa. Soon afterwards he came to Amboy and worked for several months on the old Illinois Cen- tral R. R. He received not a cent for his labor and the five hundred dollars which he loaned one of the contractors is due him to this day. Mr. Daley was left without anything. He next worked for Thomas Fes- senden two months at fifty cents a day. In the spring of 1842 he moved to the Wasson farm, where he remained nearly three years. In 1845 Mr. Daley settled on the farm where he now resides; and through a life of economy and fair dealing he has amassed a competency. Mr. and Mrs. Daley are quiet, kind, excellent people who command the respect of all who know them. ( Since this was written Mrs. Daley has died.)
Rev. John Cross, a Presbyterian minister, lived at Temperance Hill and named the place Theoka, but for some reason it has outlived that name. Mr. Cross was a warm advocate for human freedom, a friend and fellow worker with Owen Lovejoy, and was imprisoned at Ottawa for his services as conductor on "the under-ground railroad." He made no secret of his work. He posted bills in Mr. Bliss's bar room side by side with Frink and Walker's stage ronte advertisement :- "Free ride on the Underground Railroad, and signed his name "John Cross, Proprietor." He had a pair of horses, one cream colored and the other bay, with which
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he took his passengers, who were flying from slavery to freedom, often going through from here to Chicago in a day, sometimes having as many as four passengers. Palestine Grove being but about forty miles from the Mississippi River, it was easily reached by those who were sheltered and directed by other friends of the slave, who often helped them on their way to this point. These under-ground depots were stationed all along the way from "Dixie's Land" and the station-agents were in commun- ication with each other. There was another station at Aurora. There were young lads who used to hear and take note of all these proceedings, who, when they grew to manhood, buckled on their armor and fought valiantly for the Union, and for that Freedom of which our starry flag is the ensign.
In 1841 Martin Eastwood left his home in Alleghany County, New York, when a young man with his wife and one child, nine months old, to seek his fortune in the west. They came all the way in wagons. A man named Munger, with his wife, agreed to drive one team through, but stopping in Michigan with relatives they were persuaded to remain, and Mrs. Eastwood was thus obliged to drive in his stead, the rest of the journey. The two wagons were covered and contained their household goods. Three chests were made to fit Inside the wagons. They crossed the Illinois River below La Salle, and came north to Inlet Grove, stop- ping a few days with David Tripp. At that small place there was one store kept by Mr. Haskell. From there they went to Temperance Hill and stopped with Mr. Hannum's family, who were living in a sod house at that time. After remaining there a few weeks, Mr. Eastwood com- menced western life by breaking the sod for a living. He built a house which could be moved from place to place by the ox team, and he, with Mrs. Eastwood and child, lived in it; changing their locality when the work of breaking prairies was done for the last employer; his oxen, with which he had done the work moving them, his wife and child living in the house at the same time. This was the way he supported his family for a while. After a few years he was able to buy a tract of land, paying $1.25 an acre for it. He built a house 14x28 feet, with two rooms. The posts were set in the ground and boards nailed on them. At this time there was but one house between them and Dixon. That was occupied by Levi Lewis. Mr. Farwell's farm comprised the track of land where Amboy now is. They did their trading at Grand Detour.
Mr. Eastwood succeeded in raising a crop, but his only way of realiz-
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ing any money from it, was to take it to Chicago, and that was easier said than done. The roads were not in as good condition then as now, and a great many times they mired down in the slough. One man could not venture to go alone, as it was often necessary to unload the wagon, and take two teams to draw it from the slough. Afterall this hard labor and privation, which required so much time, they would sometimes re- turn with nothing, their expenses having exceeded the amount received for their produce, although having taken provision with them from home, which they hoped would be sufficient for the trip; as places where it was possible to secure a lunch were few and far between.
One day when Mrs. Eastwood was alone with the children, she dis- covered that a drove of cattle that was herding on the prairie, had broken down the fence and was in the corn. At first she knew not what to do. She could not take both the children with her; but, equal to the emer- gency, she soon found a way. Tying the little boy firmly to the bed post so that she would know where he was, she took the youngest in her arms and went a mile to the boundary of the farm and drove the cattle out of the corn and then repaired the fence as best she could to save the crops which her husband had toiled so hard to raise. At another time she left her little boy alone playing on the floor for a short time while she was engaged with her work. She returned just in time to see a snake crawl- ing on the floor, and the little one reaching out his hand to take it, think- ing it a pretty plaything. Mr. Eastwood lived on this farm twenty-one years, after which he moved to Whiteside County, and from there to Kansas. He and his wife were both living when last heard from.
Mr. Joseph and Mrs. Cyrus (Davis) Farwell moved to this place in May, 1841, and bought a claim of 160 acres of Mr. Sawyer for $100. His farm embraced all south of Division street as far as the river, and as far east as the brook which crosses Main street, east and west to the bridge on West Main street, extending over all the ground on which the railroad buildings are now located.
This farm house was a log cabin situated where Mr. Zeek's house now stands, on the corner of Main street and Adams avenue. It was the one · owned by Mr. Sawyer, removed from the head of Dutcher's pond to that place.
Mr. Farwell planted the cotton wood trees which now shade Main street on each side, past the Congregationalist church, in 1847. In 1852 Mr. Farwell sold his farm to H. B. Judkins, who bought it for the Illinois Central R. R. Co. He then purchased the farm now owned by Mrs. A. H. Wooster, where he lived till the weight of advancing years caused
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SCENE ON MAIN STREET, AMBOY.
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him to sell his farm and move to town. He owned and occupied the pro- perty now improved by Dr. Travers.
Mr. Farwell built Farwell Hall, which was used for religious services, schools, place for polling, public hall, etc., etc. He was a public spirited and useful citizen, foremost in every good work. He was an anti-slavery man when it was unpopular to be so; was for temperance and the reforms of the day, and occupied many places of honor and usefulness in the town.
Mrs. Farwell was very active and capable. "She looked well to the ways of her household and ate not the bread of idleness." In 1875 her husband died, and after spending some time in her daughter's family she went to a son's in Colorado, where she died. She expressed a great desire to be buried by the side of "that dear friend," referring to her husband.
The following is taken from a local paper. "Died. In Amboy, Illi- nois, March 5, 1875, Mr. Joseph Farwell, aged 85 years.
"The deceased was born in Fitchburg, Mass., May 14, 1790, of the orig- inal Puritan stock, which settled throughout the New England States. While a child, his parents mnoved to Harvard, and at the age of 25 years, he united with the Congregational Church of that place. The aged couple, who have lived so long and happily together, were married in 1819, and they moved to Lowell, Mass., in 1826, where Mr. Farwell united with others in forming the first Congregational Church of that place. In a few years he helped establish the second Congregational Church in Lowell, and again the third church of that order, in all of which he was held in high esteem, and officiated as deacon.
In 1836 the family moved to Amboy, Michigan, where Mr. Farwell aided again in founding the first Congregational Church of that place. In May, 1841, he moved to this place, then Palestine Grove, where he and Mrs. Farwell united with the Lee Center Congregational Church, but in · due time they united with Mr. and Mrs. John C. Church, Mr. and Mrs. Blocher, and Dr. Abbott, wife and daughter, in organizing the present . Congregational Church of Amboy. Mr. Farwell remained a consistent and influential member of the church until his death. He built the old Farwell Hall, on the west side, near the old U. B. church, and for a long time his church, and nearly all the public meetings were held in that building. At the time Amboy was laid out, he was the owner of the land in the original plot. The Monday before he died was the first election at which he ever failed to vote. Mrs. Farwell was ten years his junior. Their children are Joseph, Cyrena (wife of Deacon Church), Cyrus and
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Brainard, and this is the first death in the family. His last expressions gave evidence of the faith and hope with which he lived. His last sick- ness was brief, having suffered but a day or two, and retaining his con- sciousness to the close. His last utterances were about "going home," and 'Glory to God in the Highest.' His funeral last Sabbath was largely attended."
Among those who came at an early day, to what is now, the pleasant town of Amboy, was Mrs. Cyrene Church. In the year 1836, Mr. and Mrs. Farwell, with their three sons and one daughter, then Miss Cyrene Far- well, left their home among the hills of Massachusetts to journey to the far west; settling for a few years in the wilds of Michigan. These few years gave them a severe experience of frontier life, and in 1841 they left a region filled with malaria and ague and finally settled at Palestine Grove, as it was then called. For a time they shared the log house of Cyrus Davis, a brother of Mrs. Farwell.
Those log houses by the way, were a little like the traditional omnibus we hear so much about, for they not only could always hold one more, but could take whole families into their elastic embrace. In those days it was comparatively a simple matter to enter a claim, and build a little house, so a short time only, passed, before our friends found them- selves in their own home.
In 1842, Miss Farwell was married to John C. Church, familiarly and affectionately known to many, in his later years, as Deacon Church. For years they enjoyed the simple pleasures, and shared the more sober inci- dents, which always attend life on the frontier. One experience our friend enjoyed, which seldom falls to the lot of people in these days; and that was, assembling with her husband, and four others, at her father's house, on the 27th day of June, 1854, for the purpose of organizing a church. It was was the first religious society, and was the first church formed in the town. It must have been a great pleasure, to see from this small beginning, a church grow and prosper so wonderfully, and become such a power for good.
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