USA > Illinois > Coles County > The History of Coles County, Illinois map of Coles County; history of Illinois history of Northwest Constitution of the United States, miscellaneous matters, &c., &c > Part 44
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*Oakland Herald.
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HISTORY OF COLES COUNTY.
dren sent to Ohio, and ultimately brought them all to this country. Her most judicious advisers, including her husband, had urged her to sell them, to put them in her pocket, etc., and showed her the 'black laws' of Illinois and all the difficulties of the situation. But no, the memory of that woman and horse toiling in the sun, to raise bread for her and her children when she lay sick and prostrate, was not to be overcome. Worldly woman as she was, she -X- * possessed a determined will, and she decided never to sell them.
Mrs. Sargent was a woman of limited education, and knew nothing about the abstract doctrine of human rights. She was a Baptist, and neither knew nor cared, perhaps, for Wesley's opinion on the 'sum of all villainies,' and of Abolitionism, she concurred in the then common opinion, that its advocates were thieves of a hideous character. What was it that caused her to withstand the pressure of interest ? Was it gratitude, or was it instinct, or was it both ? Thirty years have passed away, but it seems to us as but yesterday that we saw her sitting by her great fire-place, indulging in her pipe, with death awaiting at her elbow ; a picture of stoical cahn, which we have never seen equaled within our threescore years of time."
Another of the early settlers in this township, and who deserves more than a mere passing notice, was Thomas Affleck. He came from the "lowlands " of Scotland in 1832, and first settled on the Wabash, near Clinton, but came to this settlement in 1836. His wife is said to have been a most amiable woman, and died in 1840. Mr. Affleck is spoken of as a fine violinist, and spent much time in exercising on the sweet and pathetic airs of " Bonnie Scotia." Says one : " His rendering of ' Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch' was such as none but a native Scot could equal. With his chin pressed down upon his fiddle, his large head and great staring eyes above, together with his powerful voice, he repeated and practiced the music of his native land." He was a model farmer and spent much time and labor in looking after his farin, digging ditches and otherwise improving it. He had once been a grocer in Dumfries. Scotland, his native place, and though long out of the business when he came to this country, it is said he was almost unequaled in putting up packages of goods, and could put up more coffee, sugar or pepper in a paper than any merchant in Oakland. And that when he had completed a job of this kind, the form of the package and the turns of the wrapping thread would be very artistic. He was quite a hunter, and when he wanted game he would "harness " up a yoke of cattle to his sleigh and strike out for the hunting-grounds, where, turning his cattle loose to feed, he would sit and wait and watch for his game, and would rarely miss a single shot in bringing it down. He was a great mechanical genius, and on this point a Dr. Pease, an amateur phrenologist, found his head on measure- ment to be twenty-four inches in circumference-equal to a No. 9 hat-and his " bump of mechanics " the largest he had ever examined. Referring to his mechanical genius, the reminiscences published in the Herald, from which we have already quoted extensively, say : "One of these was a mode of
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HISTORY OF COLES COUNTY.
sandbars and deepening the outlet channels of rivers and harbors. This proc- ess, as he often described it to us, was very similar to the jetty system now used by Capt. Eads at the mouth of the Mississippi. It consisted in first confining the water by the means of ballast and piling on each side of the desired channel. This means he held would, of itself, in time effect its purpose, but to hasten it on he next proceeded to drive in the channel, every eight or ten feet, iron piling. These iron piling consisted of two flat bars perforated with inch holes and joined at the points, but designed to be separated above by the distance of an inch or less. He next let down between the bars thus constructed, sections of boiler- iron, twenty or thirty feet long, to a point near the bottom, where it was secured by pins placed in the bars. Thus, when the work was completed, it somewhat resembled the lower board of a plank fence, and the water forced underneath was expected to tear out a channel. This, in brief, is an outline of his idea. He claimed that he had successfully applied it on the Clyde, and in other har- bors in Scotland, and had presented his project and claims to the Board of Admiralty. Of Sir James Graham, the then head of the Board, he spoke with his characteristic bitterness, and, being in lack of means, he turned his back in disgust upon the Old World, to find a home and a grave in Illinois." The Herald, concluding it lengthy notice of Mr. Affleck, says : "But the habit of strong drink was the evil genius of his latter days, and when under its influence his temper and invective were peculiar and terrific. He thus went on drinking himself to death as fast as he could, hoping, in his unhappiness, soon to be at rest by the side of his deceased wife. His son-in-law, Rev. A. O. Allen, per- suaded him at last to go with him to his residence at Terre Haute, but not until the old man had exacted a pledge of Mr. Mosely and other citizens that they would see to the return of his body when the end should come. He did not stay long ; he parted with the world and its troubles on the 2d of June, 1852, aged 67 years : and Mr. Mosely and the citizens of Oakland fulfilled their pledge and laid him by the side of the wife of his youth."
Lyman, Almon and Daniel Keyes were from the Empire State, and settled at what is still known as Donica's Point. They are all long since dead. Lyman went to the Mexican war, and left his bones to bleach on the bloody field of Chapultepec. Thomas Blair was another old settler at Donica's Point, but his native place is not now remembered. L. E. Archer was a Ver- monter, and came to this settlement in an early day. He was an odd charac- ter, and many hard stories are still told of him. He was very close in his dealings, and always got the best end of a bargain in a trade with his fellow- men, even stretching the truth to accomplish his purpose. It is said that his capacity for drinking whisky was almost unbounded, and that he always bought it by the gallon, in order to get it a little cheaper ; less than that quantity did him no good or harm, but after he had drunk a gallon it then began to "fly into his head." He died at the age of eighty-four years, and his family are scattered to the four quarters of the earth. A man named
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HISTORY OF COLES COUNTY.
Donica, was the first settler at this place, and from him it took its name, but we were unable to obtain much information in regard to him.
William Nokes, or "Uncle Billy " Nokes, as he was called mostly, was an extraordinary character that should have special notice in these pages. He was from Kentucky, and came here at an carly day in the settlement of Oak- land Township. Like the great lawyer we have heard of, he
" Prided himself on his learned diction,
And diluted the truth with a good deal of fiction."
He was a great romancist, and like the majority of that class, he was usually the hero of his own stories. He used to say that in his younger days in the old Blue-Grass State, he had been a great favorite among the ladies, and had been compelled at a single term of the court at Louisville, to answer to a dozen different suits for breach of promise. From the personal description we received of him,* we do not doubt his power of attraction with the daugh- ters of Eve. He went by the name of "Old Bag o' Shot," a name given him in honor of one of his stories, in which he claimed to have carried a . bag, containing half a bushel of shot, along the streets of Louisville, and as the frost had just come out of the ground, he sunk to his knees every step, while the bricks of the pavement piled around his feet. This story, it is said, grew by repetition until the shot became two bushels and the displaced brick reached to his waist. Another story told of him, is that he once went to old 'Squire Ashmore's and made a complaint against a young man of eighteen years, for assault and battery. Though he was considerably "bunged up," the 'Squire persuaded him that it would not look well in a man who had carried two bushels of shot to prosecute a stripling of eighteen years, and so in his good-nature, Mr. Nokes withdrew his complaint. He removed to Iowa many years ago, where he died.
The winter of the " deep snow " (1830-31) two families encamped on the Embarrass River, near where the railroad crosses. After the melting of the snow, the river rose higher than ever known before or since. One of these fam- ilies was that of Aaron Collins, mentioned among the early settlers of Morgan Township, the other was a Mr. Mason, who settled on this side of the river, on what is now known as the Naphew farm. He did not remain here long, but sold to a man named William Chadd, a blacksmith, millwright and jack-of-all trades. Chadd was from the White River country in Indiana, possessed con- siderable means, and by the aid of three sons and seven daughters, soon opened a large farm. He is described as a " little, wizened, dried-up man of sixty, with a large nose and a very full eye." "Old Shad," the people called him for short, like Nokes, often regaled his friends with some very extravagant stories. Speaking of his resources, one day, he said he had a bushel of " cut money " laid by for a "rainy day." Like many of the other early settlers, he took the mill fever, and in addition to his blacksmith-shop, built a "corn-
* A snub-nosed, big-mouthed, coarse-featured, stoop-sbouldered man."
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HISTORY OF COLES COUNTY.
cracker " near by. Being asked one day if he could grind wheat on his mill, replied, " Well, yes, if I had a bolting-cloth ; in fact, I told the boys the other day that we'd try it, so I took a bushel of very clean, nice wheat and ground it. I then took the grist over to Mr. Reddin's and bolted it. Well, sir, I had a hundred pounds of flour and two and a half bushels of bran." Again we extract from the Herald's reminiscences: "Mr. Chadd was possessed in a high degree with personal dignity. His children treated him with profound respect; he was no joker, and did not permit anybody to joke him. Any insinuation as to the truth of his stories he promptly resented, for he told them in dead, sober earnestness. Seated on a horse-block one day, conversing with Mosely and Pemberton on the subject of music, he observed that the jew's-harp, if properly made, was the best instrument known. That he had once made one for a boy, a good big one several feet long. The bows or frame he made of "tire-iron " and the tongue was an inch steel bar. 'Why, you could,' said he, 'hear it three miles !' At this point Mr. Pemberton stupidly inquired as to how the boy got it into his mouth. Chadd treated the query with contemptuous silence, but afterward remarked to Mr. Mosely, 'Jack Pemberton would like to say something smart if he knew how.' The limits of this article forbids further details. A volume would scarcely contain all the incidents of Mr. Chadd's eventful life. Who has not heard of his duel before breakfast, when in a room eighteen feet square, securely locked, he and his antagonist armed with knives, fought for eight hours, ankle-deep in blood ? Who has not heard of his quarry- blast on White River, which required the labor and teams of a hundred men six months to remove ? Who has not heard of his snake story, of his fish story, and his perpetual-motion saw-mill? Mr. Chadd was gathered to his fathers long ago, in the fullness of time and a good old age." We will give one more instance of his India-rubber stories, and then pass on to other scenes. This was of his professional experience, which he related to Dr. Rutherford, and exhibited to him his " spring lancet " and his "pullikin," the latter for extracting teeth, and estimated the number of teeth drawn with them, or it, at several barrels, and the blood shed by the "lancet " at the hogshead measure. He stated to the Doctor that he had once been applied to tap a woman for dropsy. From this duty he had shrunk, pleading ignorance and other disqualifications, but as no physician was in reach, he made an effort, and although the woman was a small one, he drew from her one hundred and twenty gallons of water.
Martin Zimmerman came from Augusta County, Va., in 1836, and settled first in Edgar County, where he remained about a year, and then removed to this township. He resided here until his death, which occurred in 1852. He has many descendants still in the county, who are among the prominent farmers and business men of the country. Enoch Sears and Asa Reddin were also early settlers in this township. David Winkler and the Hoskinses settled on Brush Creek. There are, perhaps, other old settlers whose names should be mentioned, but we have failed to obtain them. And then, after the Black Hawk
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HISTORY OF COLES COUNTY.
war, emigrants came in so rapidly that it is impossible to keep track of the period of their settlement and where they came from. So we will not attempt to further particularize, but take up other matters of interest.
FRAGMENTS OF HISTORY.
By reference to the map in the front part of this work, it will be noticed that there is a jog, of two sections in width, in the north line of the county, the full extent of Oakland Township. When Douglas County was set off from Coles, says Capt. Adams in his Centennial Address, the village of Oakland was regarded as having "great room for outgrowth and development" (and, we may add, it still retains this expectation of its people). Therefore, Coles County, as well as the people of Oakland, were unwilling that the village should be cut off in a new county ; hence the jog above referred to was made to keep the village of Oakland in this county.
Here, as in all newly-settled communities, attention was directed at an early day to mills ; for, with all the great inventions of the age, there has not yet been one devised by which the human race can live without bread. And in this town, as elsewhere, the mill business was in high popular favor forty years or more ago. To own a horse-mill gave one an air of importance, and a saw or grist mill, as an old settler expressed it, rendered the fortunate owner " the biggest toad in the puddle." One of the first efforts at a water-mill was by Mr. Laughlin, where the river crosses the northwest corner of Section 12: but he was not very successful in his attempt. It passed into the hands of Henry McCumbers, familiarly called " Old Sport." But he never realized much from it, and, after struggling on with it for a few years with a persever- ance worthy of a better cause, he finally gave it up entirely. A man by the name of Whitlock also tried : and after a year's hard work, saw a friendly (or unfriendly) flood carry it away on a " march to the sea." Mr. Chadd referred to as the man of long-winded stories, in another part of this chapter, had a genius for mills as well as for story-telling. He built a mill near the present railroad-crossing. He tried undershot, turbine, and re-action wheels ; but they amounted to little, and finally a flood took the whole structure away, and sent it after its predecessor, down the river. David McConkey was another who spent more on a mill than he ever succeeded in getting back. It was the same old story-the floods carried it away, and left its owner in poverty. The era of steam-mills will be noticed in the history of the village.
A man of the name of Robert Bell was the first regular carpenter in Oak- land Township, and, it is said, was a superior workman. Many specimens of his work still remain to testify to its quality. The finishing-lumber then was rough-sawed poplar, and had to be " dressed " by the carpenter, as planing- mills and sash-factories were unknown. Everything needed in the construc- tion of a house. including flooring, molding, etc., had to be worked out by hand, and the frames were generally of hewed material. The erection of a
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HISTORY OF COLES COUNTY.
frame house, at that early period, was a much bigger job than at the present day ; and, in the place of the large lumber-yard we find in every town and village now, at that time the market was usually supplied by " whip-saw." At a very early day, Andrew Gwinn, with the aid of " Old Billy " Nokes, ran one of these " whip-saw" mills. Two men could saw 200 feet in a day, and this sold at $4 per hundred.
One of the first wagon-makers was a man named Alpheus Jacques. He, it is said, used to make wagons and buggies out of old rails and "'most anything he could pick up." His skill with the draw-knife was remarkable, and the rapidity with which he turned out work was truly marvelous. Among the early blacksmiths were David McConkey and William Chadd. McConkey made considerable money as such, and then spent it in his attempts at a mill on the Embarrass, as already stated.
The first store in Oakland Township was kept by a man named Sheriff, an uncle to the present Postmaster at Paris, Edgar County. It was located on the road east of the village of Oakland, and his goods were hauled from Chicago by 'Squire Pemberton. " Chicago, then," says the 'Squire, " was no larger that the village of Oakland is now." The first post office in the township was kept by Wilson Morrison, east of the village. It was on the confines of a large grove, surrounded by oak-trees, and thus received the appropriate name of Oak- land-names since bestowed on the village and the township. In was on the mail-line between Paris and Decatur, and the mail was carried weekly on horse- back between those places.
EDUCATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS.
The name of the first pedagogue in Oakland is not now remembered, but schools were taught in the neighborhood quite early. The people have ever taken great interest in educational matters, and, at the present day, no town in Coles County is better favored with school facilities than Oakland. The matter will be again alluded to in the history of the village.
Church organizations, also, will be further noticed in the village history, as the Presbyterian, the oldest organization in the town, is located in the village of Oakland. The only church edifice outside of the village is Prairie Union Christian Church, located in the southern part of the township. It was organ- ized in the neighborhood schoolhouse, March 1, 1871, with thirty-two mem- bers ; three elders, viz., A. J. Shulse, S. D. Honn and D. W. Honn. The church was built and dedicated the same year the society was organized, and cost $1,830, not including the lot on which it stands. The present Elders are D. W. Honn, A. J. Shulse and John Childress. Previous to the erection of the church, the people of the neighborhood attended divine worship at the village of Kansas, in Edgar County. It is in a very flourishing state, with a present membership of about sixty-five, and a Sunday school during the sum- mer season.
0
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HISTORY OF COLES COUNTY.
When settlements were first made in this part of the county, there were plenty of Indians in Southern Illinois, and likewise in this section. They were the Pottawatomies, Winnebagoes and the Kickapoos. They were friendly and did the whites no harm. The fright of the Black Hawk war had little effect here, from the fact that at the time it took place, there were very few settlers in this neighborhood. The Indians had a trading-post near the village of Camargo, in Douglas County, established by two men named Vesor and Bul- bery, French Canadians. Near this post, the Indians had a burying-ground, and once every year held a grand powwow for the benefit of the departed souls of their deceased friends. In Morgan Township they had a camp, which is noticed in the history of that town.
Oakland Township is Republican in politics at the present time. In the old days of Whigs and Democrats, it was Democratie by a small majority, not- withstanding it gave Harrison a small majority in 1840, and Clay, in 1844. With these exceptions, it was Democratic. In the late war, Oakland did its duty nobly, and sent many of its young men, and old ones, too, to do battle for the Union.
The first Justice of the Peace in this section, was Samuel Ashmore, the old patriarch of the Ashmore family. The present justices of the township are, J. J. Pemberton and William Hunt. When Coles County adopted township organization in 1860, G. W. McConkey was the first Supervisor of Oakland Township. The present Supervisor is H. Rutherford, and N. P. Smith is the present Town Clerk.
This concludes the general history of Oakland Township, and we will now proceed to devote a few pages to the history, laying-out and the location of
THE VILLAGE OF OAKLAND.
This enterprising little village is situated on the Illinois Midland Railroad, about twenty miles northwest from Paris. It was surveyed and laid out by Reubin Canterbury, County Surveyor, for Madison Ashmore, on the 12th of May, 1835. James Ashmore built the first residence in the village. McCord built a residence soon after the one built by Ashmore. Some say that McCord's was built before the village was laid out, while others hold to the fact as given above. The first store was kept by a man named McCleland. Another was opened very soon after McCleland's, by a Mr. Trembly, but neither lasted long, and both " broke" in the business. Says the Herald reminiscence : " For the next four years, no goods of any kind, save what a peddler might bring in, were sold in Oakland. Our trading had to be done in Charleston or Paris. Not a spool nor a thread, nor even a pin, was to be had short of these towns. There was nothing here to buy goods with. Four-year-old steers went at $10 per head, and the only good horse we ever owned we bought for $50. Corn for many years never rated above 10 cents per bushel, and then was not consid- ered a merchantable article."
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HISTORY OF COLES COUNTY.
The next effort at merchandising was made by Robert Mosely. In 1844, he opened a small stock of goods, and for a time had what little trade there was, all to himself. John Mills and R. T. Hackett were the next merchants, and about this time " Matt" Ashmore opened a kind of curiosity shop in Pem- berton's old tavern stand. In the year 1847, Pemberton went into partnership with Mosely, and thus began their long partnership business. But we have neither time nor space to follow the mercantile business through its long and eventful career to the present time. Other points demand our attention.
The first tavern in Oakland was kept by Daniel Payne, soon after the lay- ing-out of the village, and the next, perhaps, was kept by 'Squire Pemberton. The village at present has two first-rate hotels-the Oakland House, kept by H. A. Frederick, and the Union Hotel, by Mrs. Jones. The first post office was kept by McCleland, elsewhere mentioned as the first merchant. The pres- ent Postmaster is L. C. Thornton. The first blacksmith in the village was a man named Maxon, and his shop was a counterpart of that described by Long- fellow, except that instead of the " spreading chestnut-tree " it stood under a spreading oak-tree. We are informed that it consisted mainly of a bellows and anvil, rigged up under an oak tree, and that there was no building belonging to it. The first doctor to practice in this section was of the name of Montague, but of him we learned but little. The next was perhaps Dr. H. Rutherford, who came here in 1840, and practiced the healing profession until he amassed quite a snug fortune, and physicians became so plenty that he could retire from a long life of laborious work.
In 1854, Clement & Clark built a steam-mill in the village of Oakland. It was a great institution in this primitive settlement, and people came for miles to see the engine work, and were frightened out of their wits when the steam blew off. A sash saw was added to it, but was soon dispensed with. The mill has several times changed proprietors and is now owned by John Burwell. The Smith mill, as it is called, is of rather recent building, and was put up by W. P. West some eight or ten years ago. The Herald's reminiscences thus speak
of the originator of this last enterprise : " This man was what might be termed a fool for luck, and a spendthrift by nature. His father gave him a large farm at Culver's Grove. Getting embarrassed, he sold out, came down to this part of the country, and worried awhile with the McConkey mill. He next got hiold of the Frank Williams' steam grist and saw mill. He succeeded in trading this worthless property to Thomas Kinney for a good farm in Edgar County. Sell- ing the farm, he commenced building the mill before referred to, and at the same time he set up a grocery. About this time he succeeded in becoming guardian for the William Franklin heirs, for whom he drew pension money to the amount of $1,100. His luck continuing good, his grocery burnt down, and he received $1,500 of insurance. His borrowed money began pressing him and he sold out to his partner, W. O. Smith, at a very good figure. If he had stopped here he would have had a good living remaining, but a man of the name of Foulke, of
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