USA > Illinois > Marshall County > Records of the olden time; or, Fifty years on the prairies. Embracing sketches of the discovery, exploration and settlement of the country, the organization of the counties of Putnam and Marshall, biographies of citizens, portraits and illustrations > Part 35
USA > Illinois > Putnam County > Records of the olden time; or, Fifty years on the prairies. Embracing sketches of the discovery, exploration and settlement of the country, the organization of the counties of Putnam and Marshall, biographies of citizens, portraits and illustrations > Part 35
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79
The settler was Livingstone Roberts, whose outfit was three yoke of oxen, a "prairle schooner wagon," blanket, axe, camp kettle and flint and steel for striking fire. The route crossed the Vermillion near the present site of the village of Lowell, where he encamped the first night. No settlers were passed during the day and he saw no signs of improvement until he reached Ottawa, then a thriving town of three cabins, where he passed the second night. Fox River was forded a mile above, and that
412
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
day he made Holderman's Grove, where he found a single inhabitant in the person of a Frenchman named Vermet. The fourth day he camped beside a big spring near the present village of Plattvile, and the fifth reached the crossing of the Du Page.
The sixth night he camped at the Summit, the only signs of civiliza- tion being two settlers' cabins skirting the timber. The next day he drove into Chicago and looked with wonder and awe upon the blue waters of Lake Michigan for the first time. The future city contained two frame dwellings and one store, the latter occupied by James Kinzie, the Indian trader. Around the fort was grouped the barracks and a few cabins tenanted by French and half breeds. Near the forks of the river a man named See kept a house of entertainment, where Roberts put up.
The thriving cities of Morris and Joliet had not even an existence at that time, and very few persons were seen upon the way. Occasionally an emigrant's wagon was passed, under whose white canvas a robust mother and half a dozen tow headed children were seen, while fastened behind was the spinning wheel, a crate of chickens and a couple of chairs.
Mr. Roberts followed the "teaming business " many years, making five or six trips to Chicago, and loading on his return with merchandise, salt, lumber, etc. His usual train was three teams made up of horses and oxen. In those days coffee cost at Chicago 12 cents per pound by the sack ; sugar, 6 to 8 cents; and tea 25 cents. Salt cost $1.05 per barrel, and sold here for $6.00 to $7.00 ..
One fall a boat from St. Louis froze up in the river near Henry, laden with forty hogsheads of sugar, and Mr. Roberts hauled three of them to Chicago for seventy cents per 100 pounds.
Mr. Roberts house was for many years a well known stopping place for travelers and a noted landmark. While the stages ran past he kept the station, and provided food for passengers. He was a man of un- bounded hospitality, and no man was ever turned away hungry for want .of means of payment. He has raised a large family of sons and daugh- ters, who have left the paternal home and raised families of their own, yet he is still as young in feeling as when he first swung an axe on the prairie fifty-two years ago.
PIONEER FRUIT RAISERS.
The first citizen who took an active interest in the cultivation of fruit
413
FRUIT GROWING-OLD FORTS.
trees was David Myers. He brought here a half bushel of seeds in the spring of 1835, and planted them on his farm. They grew finely, and five years afterward produced a good crop of excellent fruit. He used to go south often for seeds, sometimes getting them near St. Louis and other southern places.
His object was to establish a nursery for supplying others, and in the warn and fruitful soil a very few years sufficed to do this. Most of the old orchards in the County came from trees first raised by him. In those days fruit was not subject to the attacks of insects that in late years have proved such pests, but apples were free from spots and blemishes, and perfect in every respect. Those who have seen the nice fruit Kansas pro- duces can form an idea of its beauty. Along with settlement and civil- ization came mildew, moths, curculios, borers and the thousand-and-one enemies of apples, pears, etc.
Mr. Myers' taste and fame as a fruit culturist descended to his sons, who more than maintain that of their ancestor.
OLD FORTS.
When the Indian war begun most of the settlers volunteered, Living- stone Roberts and others joining Stewart's Rangers. Their families mean- while sought protection in hastily improvised forts or stockades, one of which surrounded the cabin of Jesse Roberts and another the Beck- with cabin, while. a third and better was constructed at David Griffin's. They were made in the usual way-of split logs placed endwise in the ground, with port holes, etc., for musketry. It was a time of excitement and terror, and though the alarms which occurred told to-day seem ludicrous in the extreme they were fearfully real to the actors.
One incident is related of a not very warlike man who hid his wife and children beneath the cabin floor and himself climbed down the well. The woman and children were the first to emerge from their concealment, when the head of the family too, consented to come forth.
A German had a sick wife who could not well be moved, and he stayed behind to protect her, but the moonlight transformed every bush and tree into an Indian and he rushed to his wife in great fright exclaim- ing: "Katrina, we was all scallupped by the Injines of I don't go away so quick as never was. I get on my pony und go under the fort. You
414
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
don't be afraid. Dey not hurt you." Off he went, and she caught another horse and reached the fort before her husband ..
Another incident occurred elsewhere and is strictly true. An eastern settler, who had brought with him a stove, caught the prevailing scare, and loading his portable property into a cart started to seek safety. His stove could not be carried and fearing to risk it with the deadly redskins he tumbled it down a deep well.
FROZEN TO DEATH.
In the spring of 1833 the body of an unknown man was found near the corner of the Stateler field, by the roadside, where he had evidently frozen to death. A passing traveler found the body, a coroner's jury was summoned, of which David Stateler and C. S. Edwards were members.
The investigation proved the corpse to be the remains of a young Eng- lishman, who had been teaching school at Partridge Point. A few weeks previous he had been to Ottawa, and returning, stopped with Mr. Roberts, where he left a satchel with a few things therein, and informed the family that he was going to Washington, Tazewell County, to collect his school money. Mr. Hawkins had ferried him over Crow Creek on his return toward Roberts, about two weeks before the body was found, and he had undoubtedly perished from cold. On his person was found a case of medicines, indicating that he was a doctor, and in his coat pocket an empty bottle that once contained whisky.
The wolves had eaten his face slightly and otherwise disfigured him. Some papers found upon him indicated that he had been an officer in the British army, but his name has been forgotten. Letters were written according to such addresses as were discovered with him, but no answer was ever received. His body was buried as decently as circumstances would permit, in the corner of Hoyt's field, near where it was found.
THEFTS AND ROBBERIES.
In those days, as at the present time, though not so numerous in pro- portion to the population, thefts and robberies occurred. Then the most satisfactory mode of punishment of offenders was a resort to the law of mutual protection, where the people were judge, jury and executioner, but there is no record of infliction of the death penalty upon any white per- son, that dernier resort being occasionally presented as an alternative of
415
THEFTS AND ROBBERIES - WOLVES.
leaving the settlement, and the' convicted party invariably choosing the latter horn of his peculiar dilemma.
Horses were frequently stolen, but oftener by the cunning red man, than by whites. Cattle were occasionally driven away, and depredations upon corn-fields sometimes made.
Mr. John Myers, son of the pioneer of Robert, relates a case which occurred in 1837. In the house at the time was a sum of money locked up in a chest, the key being hidden in the bed-clothing. 'A young man in their employ feigned sickness and remained about the house until he discovered where the money was kept, and the hiding place of the key, when he soon succeeded in transferring the treasure from the chest to his pockets. A few hours later the chap disappeared, and soon after the money was missed. The alarm was quickly given and pursuit made by the entire male population of the neighborhood. The fellow had tried to catch a horse pasturing near by, and thus add the crime of horse-stealing to the theft of the money, but failing, was compelled to foot it, and took to the prairie, where he was speedily overtaken and captured by Mr. John Burns. He had thrown away the money, but threats of lynching soon caused him to divulge its whereabouts, and it was all recovered. The thief was taken to Lacon for trial, and sent to the penitentiary for three years.
A DEN OF WOLVES.
- Late one evening, in 1841, Mr. Green and Morgan Barber were in the timber at Shaw's Point, when the dogs drove a she wolf to her den. Mr. G. made a fire around the entrance and watched all night, determined to catch her, Barber returning for help. About daylight four small whelps came out and were captured, and later the dam was also caught in a trap, her mate the while prowling around but keeping out of shooting distance.
The whelps were taken home by Mr. Green and tamed, together with four small ones captured a few days before, and two more which he had bought from a neighbor's boy. He had the whole ten alive and playing around his house, under which they burrowed, keeping them for a couple of months, but they soon became troublesome and made war upon the chickens and turkeys. The old she wolf was given to Mr. Edwards to be used as a decoy, and was kept chained up near his house. She grew quite tame. and apparently harmless, but one night, getting loose, she attacked and badly mutilated a cow, gorging herself and remain- ing near her victim until morning, when both were shot.
416
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
The old white wolf, her mate, which had successfully evaded pursuit and been a terror to the neighborhood for years, was captured at the big wolf hunt near Varna the same season, by Livingston Roberts, on which occasion Col. John Strawn made a characteristic speech.
Mr. Green's ten pets having become a nuisance, were beheaded. The bounty then receivable for taxes was one dollar for large and fifty cents for small wolves. The scalps were taken to Lacon and the bounty drawn. The officer who took charge of the scalps was careless in his duty, and instead of burning them, as required by law. threw them in a vault near the Court House, where a man named Quigg extracted these and other scalps and received the reward anew. On discovering the fraud a breeze was stirred up and some investigation followed, but as no evidence was produced of criminality on the part of the official concerned, the matter was finally dropped.
A NIGHT OF TERROR.
In the summer of 1833, a Mr. Hale living south of Beckwiths lost a child, and sympathizing neighbors came over to sit up with the corpse and comfort the bereaved family. The father, too, was lying very low and none but women about, when a pack of wolves, made daring by hunger, and doubtless scenting the dead child, came to the house and began to howl. They got beneath the floor, and scratched at the doors, seemingly determined to get inside.
The women were greatly terrified and threw brands of blazing fire- wood to drive them away. Mrs. Beckwith, who narrates this, says it was the most dreadful night she ever experienced.
Another instance related is of a young mother, who was left alone with a sick babe and no one near. The cabin had no windows, and the only door was a blanket hung before the opening. During the night her babe died, and then began the awfulest uproar outside imaginable. A gang of twenty or more wolves appeared and seemed determined to force an entrance.
The mother's fears were for her dead babe, which she wrapped in blankets and placed upon a bean over head, and then barricaded the door with the table. Throughout that long and dreadful night the poor woman stood against the frail protection, through which the infuriated brutes outside tried to force an entrance. Morning came at last, and
417
SNAKES - AGUE-MOSQUITOS.
during the day her husband returned, and friends came to assist in the burial.
SNAKES.
The wooded ravines and prairies of Roberts specially abounded in snakes, and fifty years of unceasing war has not entirely subdued them. The common varieties most abounded, but the deadly rattler was often found and the settlers were compelled to be constantly on their guard.
Mr. Joshua Foster relates that in 1834 fifty-three rattle snakes, beside a large number of other varieties, were killed on his land. He was once removing his pants preparatory to retiring for the night, and thoughit he detected the rattle of one, and the next morning in taking them off the floor where they had lain, the source of the music was discovered. Mr. Foster had been out late searching for his cows the night before, and the reptile had probably struck at him and its hooked teeth catching in the pantaloons, was thus brought home.
It is a fact no less notable than true that the bite of a snake has no effect on a hog, and that these animals pursue them and search them out with an industry quite remarkable. And the snake, too, which stands its ground and seldom retreats from a man, will run at once from a hog.
A writer says: "The hog, in battling with a snake, strikes its sharp hoofs into the struggling folds of the reptile and eats up his erstwhile foe with a degree of gastronomic delight known only to the hog."
Between the snake tribe and the deer there is special animosity. The fleet-footed quadruped, one would think, had but a slight means of dis- patching its agile enemy, but with its sharp hoofs it stamps them to death in a few minutes.
A SICKLY SEASON.
The year 1849 will be remembered by old settlers for the great preva- lence of bilious diseases. It was known as the "sickly season." It was ushered in by a wet, dismal spring, a backward summer and very high waters in June, running down in August and leaving ponds of stagnant water everywhere to rot and breed pestilence and death. Ague was universal, even far out on the prairies among the few settlements that had been attempted in the wildernesses of grass and sloughs. Along the liver bottoms and borders of streams ague was the universal, continual, unrelenting and incurable malady; never yielding to anything but its
418
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
higher type of bilious or intermittent fever, either of which in those days very frequently ended the patient's career.
The people were poor in every sense of the wore. Ragged, shrunken of form, living skeletons, with nothing to eat, nobody to cook it, and no appetite to eat if food were cooked. The prevailing malady not only afflicted human beings, but even the dogs and cats dragged their hollow carcasses into the sunlight and trembled and shook as if stricken with the dread contagion. The calves grew too poor to bawl, cattle, neglected, roamed off among the timber, and the very chickens seemed to crow with . 'a melancholy languor. Of course, these were exaggerated descriptions of the general complaint, but several of our old physicians, then young men, who went forth to battle that universal malady, still insist that the accounts cannot be overdrawn. During the great freshet in the spring, one or two steamboats and wrecks of others were seen in the cornfields between Ottawa and Hennepin by Dr. Perry, who soon after had occasion to note " the tallow faced " people he met. All were sallow, hollow-eyed, blue-lipped and ready to shake on the slightest provocation. Children died of fever and dysentery, and quinine, or "queen ann," as they called it, was the staple diet of everyone. A store keeper of a neighboring county said that region produced two articles, "queen ann and mos- quitos." The mosquitos were pests of the most aggravating character, and owing to the extent of their breeding places from the unusual over- flow and consequent stagnant water, their increase favored, too, by a fiercely hot sun, the winged messengers of sharp bills swarmed and grew to monstrous proportions, and as the modern appliances of wire screens and mosquito-bars were then unknown, the miserable victims of the double affliction were defenceless indeed.
But there is no evil without its corresponding good. The great flood drove the ducks out upon the ponds in the edge of the prairies, where they reared large flocks. They swarmed the country everywhere, and became so numerous and so accustomed to the new haunts of stubble field and corn that the settlers had no trouble in supplying themselves and neighbors with duck meat in abundance.
FORGOTTEN INCIDENTS.
Prairie fires were the great bane of the new settlers and usually caused immense damage. At one time a "back fire," set out by C. S. Edwards
- 1
419
INCIDENTS AND MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.
and David Stateler, to protect their own property, swept across Sandy doing heavy damage, and the exasperated sufferers procured their indict- ment, but it appearing there was no malice in the intent they were acquitted. At this term of court Stephen A. Douglas was present, and served as public prosecutor pro tem.
Though prairies fires were numerous and the damage to property great it was seldom persons were caught in them, yet James Croft relates an incident where an emigrant was surrounded by fire and had to abandon his wagon. His horses were rapidly unhitched, and lashing them into a gallop he crossed the line of fire without danger, but his wagon and all its contents were destroyed.
Late in the fall of 1835 a destructive fire from the neighborhood of Martin's Point, or head of Crow Creek timber, swept over the prairies and did considerable damage to the settlers along Sandy Creek. It burned a half mile of fence on Mr. Shaw's farm and also destroyed his wheat stakes, as well as W. B. Green's corn crop.
All kinds of game was plentiful in those days. In fact there was no great demand for venison until the supply had become nearly exhausted. Quails were numerous, and any boy old enough to comprehend the mys- teries of a stick trap could catch them near any barn yard. But as in those halcyon days butter often sold for four cents per pound and wild honey was everywhere plenty and very cheap, it was only in keeping with other things that the bird which "on toast" tempts the epicurean to ex- travagance in the purchase of a single specimen, should then have sold for a trifle over a penny when ready for the cook. A good horse which then commanded $40 would now sell readily for $150; oats and corn were a "bit" a bushel, and hay, $3 per ton. Blue grass had not begun to appear in 1843 to 1845, except along the Ottawa and Bloomington road where travellers had fed their teams, and now and then a few straggling bunches were found around the cabins of the settlers who had brought the seed in trappings of their harness or wagons or crevices of feed boxes and wagon beds.
The old Adam was quite as predominant in those days as in these latter times, particularly among school boys, as the following incident
420
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
shows : A teacher named Williamson, who was excessively pious, was engaged at the Myers school house. He read and expounded the Scrip- tures daily and made long prayers- much longer in the estimation of the pupils than the circumstances required. Besides it was his custom to re- tire early and often to the woods to weep over the sinfulness of mankind in private,-or, as was surmised, for more worldly purposes. One Christmas day, when he had retired as usual, the boys barred him out. Great was his wrath, and his prayers for the time savored strongly of profanity, but with a rail he forced an entrance and made demonstrations of punishing the offenders, when he was unceremoniously hustled out, nor was admission given until full pardon was promised and an agreement exacted to forego his longest prayers.
After Roberts the first settler on the prairie was a man named Eli Redmond, who opened the farm John Myers now owns and afterward sold his claim to John Myers, Sr. His reputation for honesty was none of the best, and when settlers began to arrive he deemed it best to emigrate and removed to Holland's Grove, in Tazewell County. One day he was found with a missing horse in his possession and a hasty change was desirable, so he removed to Mosquito Grove, and from thence to Mis- souri. While living near Roberts' an old lady called Grandmother Red- mond died, probably the first death in the County.
Some of the young men of Roberts Point remember the notable chase and capture of a deer one winter forty years ago. It was minus one horn and they had tired it out, and when Sam. Wright attacked it with a fence stake, and the deer made a plunge toward Samuel, who in consternation threw down his weapon and ran exclaiming, "Thunder ! boys, he's after me !" The deer was captured, but the discomfitted blacksmith kept at a safer distance while it was being dispatched.
Various were the methods adopted by the pedagogues of those days to compel obedience, but the "original Jacobs" in this line was a fellow who kept a skeleton in the loft of the room which refractory pupils were sent to interview. As a belief in ghosts was universal and few cared to see the grisly object, his plan was a success, and he had the best ordered school ever taught there.
At the time of the Indian scare a man named Daniel Sowards lived at
421
INCIDENTS AND MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.
Low Point, whose principal occupation was hunting bees. He kept a few cows, and one day was surprised by a stranger (John Myers) riding up to his cabin and asking the way to Roberts. Sowards was churning desperately, and never stopped a moment while the following colloquy occurred :
Sowards-" My God ! man, where yer gwine to ?"
Myers-"I'm going north to buy land."
Sowards-" Good heavens! man, haint yer heerd the Injuns is a killin' of the white people up thar,- men, wimmen and children ?"
Myers-"No.".
Sowards-(churning for dear life)-"Yes they be, and the white peo- . ple's all runnin' away; and I'm gwine too, 's soon as this blasted butter comes !"
The most notable public gatherings of the times were camp meetings, at which the entire population of the County was wont to assemble. At one of these gatherings, in 1841, Camp Reeves and others of the gang made a midnight raid, carrying off the brethren's garments.
Among others who suffered was John Shepherd, of Granville, and the next morning, like Brian O'Linn of old, he had no pants to put on, and cut a ludicrous figure among the brethren clad in a horse blanket. A council of war was held, while Shepherd stalked about like an Indian chief, his scanty drapery displaying his long shanks, to the great amusement of the crowd and the grief and chagrin of that worthy man.
Others were even less fortunate, and had to abide in their tents or under the friendly cover of the bushes till they could send to their homes for other garments.
In 1841 a school teacher named John Wright, without apparent cause committed suicide, and a lad named Ezra Cowan, whose parents lived on the Griffin place, shot and killed his sister. A woman living on Sandy named Wilson, hanged herself, and afterward her daughter, Mrs. McCarty, put an end to her existence in like manner.
One of the oldest remembered schools in the Township was taught in a log house, half a mile north of Sandy, by a Frenchman named Du Fields, in 1832.
The cholera epidemic raged here in 1850, 1852 and 1854, and several fatal cases occurred.
422
RECORDS OF THE OLDEN TIME.
BELLE PLAIN TOWNSHIP.
CHAPTER XLI.
DESCRIPTION.
ELLE PLAINE Township derives its name from Colonel Belle, an early settler, who built at the crossing of Crow Creek, and for many years kept a noted house of entertain- ment. It is six miles square and contains thirty-six Town- ships of diversified prairie and timber, watered by Crow Creek, Martin's Branch and other smaller streams.
A fine body of timber borders Crow Creek, and there are detached bodies elsewhere, like Hollenback's Grove, Bennington's Grove, Four Mile Grove and others. The western division of the Chicago & Alton Railroad passes through its western limits, and its principal markets are at La Rose, Rutland and Minonk. Its products are mainly agricultural, and its citizens are extensively engaged in raising cattle and hogs, which find a market in Chicago.
Though considerably broken by hills and ravines it is considered one of the best Townships in the County, and is populated by an unusually intelligent class of people.
The pioneer settler in this section is James Martin, who visited Hol- lenbeck's Grove in 1829 on a prospecting tour, bringing his family the succeeding year. He made a claim while here, which was "jumped " during his absence, and had to be bought again from the occupant at a good round price. This was "squatters' law," from which there was little chance of success in an appeal. A man named Hawkins became specially notorious as a claim jumper, earning unenviable fame, and remained until the exasperated citizens signified that his health would suffer by longer tarrying.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.