USA > Illinois > Jo Daviess County > The History of Jo Daviess County, Illinois, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., a biographical directory of its citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion history of the Northwest, history of Illinois Constitution of the United States > Part 101
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Timerman Pat. farmer; Sec. 36; P. O. Ex- celsior Mills.
VANDERVEAL H. farmer; Sec. 31; P. O. Galena.
Vanderveal A. laborer ; P. O. Galena.
VERHOEF REV. W. C. Clergy- man Menominee Parish; Sec. 30; P. O. Excelsior Mills; born in Holland in 1828; came to this country and Wis. in 1855; settled in this Co. in 1864 and was settled over this Parish same year; he has offici. ated 13 years; his Parish numbers about eighty families Irish and German; he as- sisted in organizing a new Church and in erecting their new and beautiful edifice, which is 96 by 44; it was commenced in 1875 and finished in 1876.
Vesterbeck Albert, carpenter.
Vogal A. farmer; Sec. 16; P. O. Galena. Vogel Henry, farmer; Sec. 16; P. O. Galena.
W ALIN LAWRENCE, laborer; Sec. 7; P. O. Galena.
Walin M. laborer; Sec. 7; P. O. Galena. Walin Pat. farmer; Sec. 7; P. O. Galena. Wederhold Chas. farmer; Sec. 31; P. O. Excelsior Mills.
Weders H. farmer; Sec. 9; P. O. Galena. Welter Mark, farmer; Secs. 25 and 26; P. O. Excelsior Mills.
WEST JOSEPH, Farmer; Sec. 28; P. O. Excelsior Mills; born in Kingdom Hanover, Prussia, Jan. 31, 1844; came to this country and Lyons, Iowa, in 1860; moved to Grant Co., Wis., in 1863; settled on his present farm in 1866; married to Miss Christine Fleege in 1866; she was
born in Menominee Tp. in 1848; had five children : Philo M., Clemens A., Mary J., Frances M., Joseph Leo; he has 185 acres land.
White Pat. farmer; Sec. 19; P. O. Dunleith.
WHITE WILLIAM. Farmer and Miner; Secs. 19 and 25; P. O. Dunleith ; born in Ireland, Wexford Co., in 1808; came to this country and Vinegar Hill Tp. in 1846; settled on his present farm in 1847; he has 119 acres land; married to Miss Margaret Furlong in 1837; she was born in Ireland in 1812; had eight chil- dren; Moses E., Ellen, Alice, Esther, John H., Richard, Patrick H., William W .; Patrick H. lives with his father and mother and carries on the farm.
Wilking Jno. farmer; Sec. 21; P. O. Ex- celsior Mills.
Williams Garrett, farmer; Sec. 29; P. O. Ex- celsior Mills.
WUBBEN BERNARD H. Mer- chant and Justice of Peace; Sec. 21: P. O. Excelsior Mills; born in Prussia, Nov. 9, 1834; came to this country and Ohio in 1850; enlisted in 15th Kentucky Regt. in 1861; promoted to sergeant in 1862, mustered out in 1865; settled in this Co. in 1865; married to Elizabeth Hargrafen, Menominee Tp., in 1867; had five children : Henry, Mary, Anna, Bernard, Theresa; held office of Justice of Peace 10 years.
WUBBEN JOHN G. Farmer; Sec. 19; P. O. Excelsior Mills; born in Amt. Friern, Prussia, Jan. 7, 1837; came to this country and Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1854; came to this Co. in 1855; settled on his present farm April, 1864; he owns 141 acres land; married to Mary T. Fleege Feb. 3, 1863; she was born Sept. 18, 1840 in Amt. Friern (Hanover) Prussia; had five children: Regina H., Mary A., Clemens A., Annie C., Annie Louisa ; held office of School Director 6 years.
817
HISTORY OF JO DAVIESS COUNTY.
· PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.
(Taken from Illinois Geological Reports.)
This large and important county is situated in the extreme northwest corner of the state. It is bounded on the north by the State of Wisconsin; on the east by Stephenson County, in the State of Illinois; on the soutli by Carroll County; and on the west by the Mississippi River. From north to south it extends twenty-one miles; from east to west, along the south line, twenty miles, and along the north line, thirty-six miles.
PHYSICAL FEATURES AND CONFIGURATION.
These are more diversified and interesting than are to be inet with in any other county in this part of our state. The whole county is a part of the side of an extensive water shed, with a slope to the southwest. The county. is excellently well watered. All the streams flow in nearly the same direction; from the northeast to the southwest. The principal of these streams, commencing at the eastern part of the county, and going west- ward, are: Plum River, Camp Creek, Rush Creek, Apple River, Small Pox Creek, Galena or Fever River, Sinsinawa River, Little Menominee and Big Menominee Rivers. Apple River and Fever River are considerable streams; the latter, in high stages of water in the Mississippi River, will float the largest steamers from that river to the City of Galena. Most of the others afford abundant mill sites for light mills and manufactories. At Hanover, on Apple River, there is quite a heavy power used, for the purpose of driv- ing the machinery in an extensive woolen mill. Along the southwest part of the county there is some alluvial bottomn land, made up of deep, black Mississippi mud bottoms and sand prairies; but these are not extensive. Some of the smaller streams have narrow and fertile alluvial bottoms. These are walled in in most cases with bluff ranges, more or less precipitous and rocky. The trend of the bluff line along the Mississippi River winds and bends with the general course of that stream. These bluffs are high, and gently rounded along the northwestern part of the county, but assume a more picturesque and castellated appearance as they enter Carroll County ou the south.
It is almost impossible to give a correct description of the surface of Jo Daviess County, without a minute reference to almost every township in it. In general terms, there are all varieties of surface found in the north- ern part of the state. Level prairie, rolling and undulating prairie and oak openings, uneven, hilly, rocky, and bluffy timbered and farm land tracts, may all be found in almost any portion of the county. The eastern and northeastern townships are generally prairie; soil rich, warm and deep; some of its regular level Illinois prarie land; some of it, towards the centre and south of the county, undulating, uneven, partly covered with scattering and scrubby timber. The southern tier of townships is uneven, sometimes hilly, sometimes rocky, with some prairie in Berreman, Pleasant Valley and Hanover. The western and northwestern townships are generally timbered, hilly, rocky, and even bluffy. The central townships are generally uneven and partly timbered.
The prairies of Jo Daviess County are not"excelled in fertility by any upland prairie in the state. The soil of the rough, uneven and hilly land, when cleared of its timber and underbrush, and laid open to the genial
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HISTORY OF JO DAVIESS COUNTY.
influences of good cultivation, is quick and fertile, being composed of a clayey, somewhat marly base. Numerous farms, some of them quite large, open in the rough lands in every part of the county, attest the truth of this statement, and amply repay their owners for the labor of putting them under cultivation. Some of these reddish clayey soils might not look fertile to the husbandman used to the blacker prairie soils, but the large yield of cereal grains and grasses would soon convince him that their pro- ducing powers were almost equal to the vegetable molds and humas-charged soils of the leveler portions of the state. Indian corn, of course, is not so heavy a staple crop here as in other portions of the state farther south; still, good crops are raised with reasonable certainty.
Stock raising is also an important element of wealth in the county. The range is good, and sheltered situations for the Winter are abundant. The citizens of the county, many of them, are largely engaged in this very remunerative business.
The agricultural resources, stock raising capabilities, and mineral wealth hidden away in the underlying rocks, are all leading elements of wealth in this county.
The county has an abundant supply of timber, for its own consumption, for many years to come. The oak family is largely represented among its trees; basswood, hickory, walnut, and, in short, all the trees, wild fruits and shrubs, catalogned for this part of the state, may be found in the bottom timber, barrens and groves.
Fruit growing and vine raising may both be carried on successfully. The hills about Galena, and in many other portions of the county, produce the hardy fruits and grapes in great abundance. The business has not been gone into extensively, but there is no reason why wine making miglit not be made to pay in favored localities. On the Galena hills I have seen grape vines purple with thick hanging clusters, while apple trees near by bent beneath their ripened fruit. The garden fruits attain also to great perfection.
A prominent feature in the landscape of portions of the county, is a number of natural mounds, rising to a considerable height above the gen- eral surface.
Pilot Knob is the most conspicuous of these. It is about three iniles south of the City of Galena, and about two miles from the Mississippi River. It is a conspicuous landinark to tourists and river men, passing up and down that stream. Towering above the surrounding high bluffs, it reaches an altitude of 429 feet above ordinary water mark in Fever River, according to barometrical measurements, made by Whitney.
There is a chain of some half dozen of these mounds, running north- east of Pilot Knob four or five miles, among thein Waddell's and Jackson's Mounds, well-known local elevations. Around the City of Galena there are several mound-like elevations and ridges, the most conspicuous of which terminates in a group of castellated rocks, near the residence of Mr. Hal- lett. These rocks overlook the city, and crooked valley of Fever River, for some distance.
Charles' Mound, near the northi line of the county, is supposed to be the highest point of land in the state. Its ridge-like, rocky backbone is 295 feet above the Illinois Central Railroad track, at Scales' Mound station; 951 feet above low water in the Mississippi River, at Cairo; and 1226 feet above low tide in the Gulf of Mexico. These are the figures given by Whitney.
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HISTORY OF JO DAVIESS COUNTY.
Scales' Mound, about a mile south of the last, is a well-known locality. Around this latter, and within a radius of two or three miles, there are sev- eral other similar but smaller mounds.
East and southeast are Woods' Mounds, in the south part of Apple River Township; Bean's Mound, near Apple River; Powers' Mound, in the northwest corner of Rush Township; Paige's Mound, near the southi line of Courtland Township; Simmons' Mound, near the northeast corner of the Township of Stockton; Benton's and Rice's Mounds, a little nortlı and west of the latter; one or two inounds or mound-like elevations east of Elizabeth, whose names I did not ascertain; an elevated, mound-like plateau of several iniles in extent, commencing about two miles north of the Village of Elizabeth; and several other such plateaus in various parts of the county. .
The geological structure of these mounds gives them the appearance of gentle sloping hills, for a part of the distance up their sides, crowned by abrupt, fancifully weathered, castellated rocks, of a reddish-brown or whitish-yellow appearance. Some of these views, from a distance, have a great resemblance to old mural walls and baronial towers, and vividy recall to memory the wild architectural structures of the middle ages.
These same Niagara Rocks outcrop in long mural escarpments along the Mississippi and Apple River Bluffs, and along many of the smaller streams in those portions of the county where this geological formation is heavily developed. The ledges and exposures, and some of the abrupt out- liers of the Galena rocks, also present the same picturesque, wild appear- ance. Some of them present scenes almost as attractive as any in Jackson County, about the Devil's Backbone and the Mississippi Bake Oven.
It will thus be seen that the topography and physical features of this county are well marked, and attractive in the extreme.
SURFACE GEOLOGY.
Alluvium .- The small water courses of the county have the usual nar- row alluvial bottoms. In some places tliese spread out wide enough for small farnıs. Pleasant Valley, along the north branch of Plum River, extends from Morseville to the Carroll County line, a distance of some. ten miles; it is from a quarter of a mile to almost a mile in width, and contains some of the very best farming lands in the county. These narrow alluvial bottoms are composed of a rich, brown, marly soil, made up in great part from the wash and detritus from the hills on either side. In but few places can there be noticed the black silt or mud or waslied sand of river alluvinm. The valleys are all ancient valleys of erosion, floored or built up by recent detritus from the hills, not transported to great dis- tances, nor greatly mixed, and belonging to very recent Quaternary de- posits.
The Mississippi River bottom, in the upper part of its course along this county, is very narrow -- in fact that stream almost waslies the rocky base of the bluffs for many miles. There is, however, a chain of slouglis opposite Galena, and along the mouthis of Fever River and Small Pox Creek, where there is a low alluvial bottom, timber grown, and made up of Mississippi mud and sand. This is the flood plain or flood bed of the stream, over which the annual overflows of high water extend. Farther down the river this bottom spreads out to several miles in extent. In the western part of the Township of Hanover, bottom timber land, alluvial grass
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HISTORY OF JO DAVIESS COUNTY.
'land, and table land high and dry, and susceptible of cultivation, exhibit all the characteristics of ordinary Mississippi alluvial bottoms.
Loess and Modified Drift .- The regular marly loess of the Mississippi bluffs, such as is found opposite Fulton City, at Warsaw, and at other local- ities further down, is not a marked feature along the western limits of Jo Daviess County. Its bluffs are mostly composed of massive rocky formations. The bald bluffs, composed of whitish, partially stratified sands and clays, were not observed ; but there are mound-like elevations, and masses of brown, marly, sandy clays along, among, and overcapping some of these chains of bluffs, which undoubtedly owe their origin to the same agencies which deposited the loess of the bluffs, lower down the stream. These brown deposits are loess marls and clays, slightly modified by local conditions. Within the limits of the City of Galena, and at other points in Fever River Valley, and forty or fifty feet above ordinary water level of Fever River, there are heavy outcrops of a well marked, distinctly stratified clayey deposit, which shows every characteristic of the most marked and well defined loess of the lower Mississippi bluffs. Thin seams of reddish clayey marls alter- nate regularly with thin seams . of a whitish, tougli, unctuous-feeling clay. The seams are from one to four inches thick; the stratification is complete; the lithological character seems to be identical; the thickness is from ten to eighteen feet; and the extent into the hills indefinite, but probably limited. In the marly seams I found great quantities of a fluviatile shell, in a fair state of preservation. These shells are quite small, running from the size of a wheat grain to that of a large barley corn. I have several times, within a few years, noticed the same shell, or a closely allied species, strewn thick over the silt and mud after the floods of the Mississippi had subsided, and the flood bed had become overgrown with a dense growth of grass. Beneath the shadow of the grass the damp ground looked as if it had been thickly sown with large wheat kernels. Subsequent overflows no doubt imbedded these, and where antiseptic properties mingled witli the silt, they will no doubt be preserved, and present an appearance exactly identical with those picked out of the outcrop near the Illinois Central Railroad depot in Galena. It will thus be seen, I think, that the evidences of the desposition of loess deposits in this county are incontestible.
In the Fever River Valley, within the City of Galena, a mile or two above the city, and at several places between the city and its confluence with the Mississippi River, there are well defined river terraces of modified or river drift. These are about twenty feet above ordinary. water mark in that stream. Similar traces were observed by Professor Worthen at the mouth, and up the valley of the Small Pox Creek; and a broad, distinctly marked river terrace may be observed in the lower part of the Mississippi bottom, extending down into Carroll County.
Drift Proper .- The productive lead field lias been written down as " a driftless region; " and to some extent this is true of that part of it within Jo Daviess County. But in attempting to account for this supposed absence of the drift in the lead region, eminent geologists have fallen into a contro- versy, or difference of opinion.
Whitney contends that when the lead region was uplifted from the Silurian seas, no subsequent submergence ever took place; and that all the changes which have since taken place on its surface have been produced by agencies, such as we now see producing dynamical results upon dry land. When the broadly extended drift forces-whether broad creeping and grind-
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HISTORY OF JO DAVIESS COUNTY.
ing glaciers, or broad water currents, or ice-bergs and water acting together -moved the drift on its southwest course, according to this theory, the lead region rose as an island in the midst of the moving forces, and the drift stream was divided -- thrown to the east and west-and united again after passing the obstruction. Such being the case, the lead basin, supposed then to have been elevated above the surrounding country, escaped the action of the drift forces. During all this time, more peaceful geological causes are supposed to have been at work over the uplifted island, whose action has produced all the geological changes supposed to have taken place. Atmos- pheric and chemical agencies disintegrated the hard Silurian rocks. The surface rocks changed slowly into the clays now overlying the bed rocks, except so far as rains and winds may have transported these clays and subjected them to a mixing process. This being true, the superficial deposits of the driftless lead region are substantially in situ, at the very places where they were formed by the decay of the parent rock.
Percival believed that the high water shed, extending from the inouth of the Wisconsin eastward, rose as a reef in the drift epoch waters, and turned the drift to the west, through Iowa, and to the east, round the lead region. This reef may have permitted a sheet of shallow water to flow over it, and submerge the lead basin. In this way the action of the drift forces would be greatly modified.
My own observations upon the drift phenomena in this county have not been altogether satisfactory. In the first place, I do not think it a drift- less region. In addition to the drift pebbles and copper nuggets referred to by Professor Worthen, as having been found at the California lead dig- gings, I have observed numbers of large boulders lying over the prairie land in the eastern and southeastern portions of the county; and I am cred- ibly informed that, on the high upland some three miles north of Galena, many boulders of a sort of buhrstone, whose parent outcrop is far north in Wisconsin, are strewn over the ground. Many of the clay deposits cover- ing the very lead veins themselves, do not differ materially from the buff and yellow clays treated, and recognized every where else in the northwest, as true drift clays. The river terraces and stratified loess deposits, above spoken of; the lithological character of the clays just referred to; the few "nigger heads " and lost rocks found in several places in the county, show unmistakably, I think, that the drift forces, especially towards the close of the drift epoch, had much to do in cutting down, carrying away, and arranging the great rocky formations which once existed, but which have now disappeared over large portions of the county. Over more than half its area, perhaps, the whole thickness of the Niagara limestone and the Cin- cinnati shales have disappeared, except the mounds left standing as sentries, at long intervals; and the very galena bed rocks below where they used to stand have liad their surfaces dennded, to a considerable extent, in the opera- tion. To one standing upon one of these mnonnds, and looking over the valley-like expanses between them, with the eye of a geologist, the convic- tion that he is standing upon the old Silurian level of the country grows into a certainty. Eroding and denuding influences have removed from three hundred to three hundred and fifty feet of Magnesian limestone and shales. It is impossible to suppose that simple atmospheric or chemical causes, acting no matter how long, could prodnce such gigantic results. Many snbmergencies and upheavals may have taken place; the dynamical powers of heavy bodies of water and water currents, and other drift forces, innst have acted long and powerfully in bringing them about. 44
822
HISTORY OF JO DAVIESS COUNTY.
While these things all appear to be true, it can not be denied that the superficial deposits covering the bed rocks are, in part, derived from their disintegration, by rains, frosts and other atmospheric and chemical agencies. I have examined inany clay banks through the lead mine region which bore unmistakable evidences of this. Those peculiar red clays, characteristic of the lead region, if dug into, show, first, the clays and hard pan, without rocks of any description, but, as the deposits are penetrated, rocks begin to appear in detached pieces, becoming more abundant at a greater depth, until the regular strata of the bed rocks are reached. Now, these pieces are unworn by atmospheric influences; they lie in horizontal beds, parallel to the strata below, and are evidently the harder portions of the mass, which resisted the influences that changed a rock bed into a clay bed. Nearly all the float mineral, or clay bed mineral now found, is, also, nothing but the ore which has settled down from the decayed rocks, in which it was once held in veins; and mineral-bearing lodes.
This is also true of the clays covering some of tlie Niagara and Cincin- nati outcrops or bed rocks, for they partake largely of the underlying rocks, from which they have probably been derived. I think a chemical analysis of these clays would show a great similarity or exact identity with the rocks under them.
Professor Whitney's theory of atmospheric agencies, and no submerg- ence of the lead basin since its upheaval from the Silurian ocean, explains well these unmixed clays, in situ apparently, at the very places where formed; but it does not explain the great erosion and denudation which has taken place through the productive part of the lead basin, and is utterly in- consistent with the terraces, loess and drift phenomena plainly manifest in almost every part of this county. If we knew exactly what the drift forces were, and how they acted, we would probably have no difficulty in seeing what influences modified their force in the lead basin. That such a modifi- cation did take place in some way, there can be no doubt.
The blue plastic clays, which lie near the bottom of the drift in other parts of the state, are sparingly developed here, so far as I have been able to observe. The boulder drift and coarse gravel drift, which lie near the top of the true drift, except the few loose boulders already noticed, are, also, substantially wanting in this region. The yellowish brown clays, red clays, and hard-pan are developed here to a considerable extent; but the average deptli of the superficial deposits covering the rocks in Jo Daviess County is a good deal less than in portions of the state farther east and south. 'Ilie great denudation which took place here seems to liave been followed by transporting agencies, which bore away a large portion of the materials thus disengaged to other regions.
The phenomena here observed are probably best explained by suppos- ing two epochs, when causes somewhat different in their results were at work. The first was the epoch of erosion and denudation, accompanied by vast transporting agencies of some kind, probably flowing water or modified drift forces. During this epoch the. Niagara limestone was worn down, and the Cincinnati shales suffered disintegration, and most of the detritus thus formed was removed. The second epochi was one in which the waters or modified drift forces had partially or wholly subsided; chemical and atmos- pheric agencies worked upon the comparatively naked rocks, and the lead basin clays settled down in the places where the underlying rocks had de- cayed. Such a condition of things would, I think, explain all the phenom-
823
HISTORY OF JO DAVIESS COUNTY.
ena observed in the lead region of this county. How far it might apply to other portions of the northwest lead region, I am unable to state.
The Niagara Limestone .- All the mounds, mound-like ridges, and plateaus mentioned in speaking of the topography of the county, are capped by massive irregularly-bedded dolomitic Niagara limestone, ranging in thickness from about fifty to one hundred and seventy-five feet. Tapes- tried with lichens and mosses, of a dull brown or red color, with castellated and fantastic forms, these rocks at once attract the attention of the most careless observer. In addition to the mounds, they cover other portions of the county in the south and southwest; and their ledges and exposures all round the edges, along the bluffs, and where the streams have cut deep channels into their midst, show the same massive, ragged and picturesque appearance observable on the mounds; except that they resemble more, long, irregularly shaped reddish-brown mural escarpments or walls, carpeted with soft green mosses and feathery ferns.
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