The History of McLean County, Illinois; portraits of early settlers and prominent men, Part 30

Author: Le Baron, Wm., Jr. & Co., Chicago, Pub
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : W. Le Baron, Jr.
Number of Pages: 1092

USA > Illinois > McLean County > The History of McLean County, Illinois; portraits of early settlers and prominent men > Part 30

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We have thus endeavored to give a sketch of the part that McLean County took in the great civil war that swept like a besom of destruction over this otherwise happy land. We trust that even this imperfect representation is sufficient to prove that the county is not to be surpassed, whenever it undertakes anything in earnest, neither in zeal nor in liberality. When the painful duty of sending thousands of its citizens into danger and many of them to certain death, presented itself, there was no hesitation.

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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY.

Means were immediately provided to assist those who needed help, and bounty was piled upon bounty to relieve the families of those who, of limited means, had gone to the front.

Nor did the gratitude of its citizens stop at assisting the living. They have con- tributed liberally toward educating the orphans of those who had fallen in the field of battle, or by the scarcely less destructive diseases incident to such a state of things, and have cared for their widows and their families; but they have remembered the dead, also, and each succeeding year has witnessed the immense gathering of the people on Decoration Day to strew with flowers the graves of their dead, and publicly recog- nize the debt of gratitude so dearly earned, and suitably commend their patriotism to the rising generation as worthy of their respect and of their imitation, should occasion call upon them for a similar exhibition of it.

That these noble lessons may not be forgotten and as a lasting memento of its gratitude, the county has erected a fitting monument, consecrated to the memory of its "fallen but not forgotten" citizen soldiers. On the 17th of June, 1869, the monu- ment was appropriately consecrated, in the presence of an immense assemblage of the people of the county. We give below a poem read on the occasion, and extracts from an address delivered from the same stand, and thus close our remarks upon the military history of McLean County.

{ Poem by Dr. A. E. Stewart, of Randolph, read at the Dedication of the McLean County Soldiers' Monument.]

O) marble shaft, lift up your head Beneath this summer sky ; The record of our patriot dead Hold up to every eye !

Hold proudly up in sun and rain The honored names of those Seven hundred sons of old MeLean Whose fate your sculpture shows.

Tell how they rallied at her call When War's wild bugle blew That piereing blast, at Sumter's fall, That thrilled the country through.

Say how from shop and field they came, From anvil, plow and plane, From ease and wealth and friends and home, Her honor to maintain.

Remind us how, for weary years, They bore our banner high, Revived our hopes, dispelled our fears, And brought us victory !

How, as we watched their gallant course, Our bosoms thrilled with pride ; For us they fought, for us they bled. For us. alas, they died.

Some died upon the battle-field. Struck down by shot and shell, At Shiloh, Vicksburg, Wilderness, Where not ? Our heroes fell.

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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY.

Of slow disease in hospitals. Some yielded up their breath ; Some lived to reach their homes and friends, Then died-a blessed death !

And some the ocean swallowed up Beneath its angry waves ; And some, from rebel prison-pens, Went down to nameless graves !

Some in the first fierce combat fell- The struggle just begun- And some, just as the nation's cheers Proclaimed the victory won.

All died as brave men love to die- Their faces toward the foe ; No craven's name is sculptured there ! Our rolls no traitor show !

Battling in Freedom's holy cause, Each patriot hero fell, And left us to posterity Their gallant deeds to tell.

O not to ancient Greece and Rome, Need we for heroes turn, Nor sound the praise of those who fell At Boyne or Bannockburn !

Our heroes were our brothers, sons, Our lives were twined with theirs, And private griefs are gathered round Each name that record bears.

marble shaft ! long may you lift Your sculptured story high ; Long may your tapering beauty lure The passing stranger's eye.

Yet future years shall see you fall Despite your sacred trust : Your solid base and column strong Shall molder into dust.

Yet shall our heroes' honored names Still find a resting-place Where sun, nor rain, nor Time itself The record shall erase !

We ask no leaf from History's tome, We crave no sculptor's arts : With Memory's hand we've graven them On the altars of our hearts !

SPEECH OF HON. L. WELDON AT THE DEDICATION OF THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT, JUNE 17. 1869.

" MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : Grateful in our recollections, we have assembled to dedicate with appropriate ceremony this monument to the heroic

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dead. This silent yet impressive memorial admonishes us as to the sacrifices which have been made that freedom might live, that social and political order might be main- tained, that the blessings of a free government might descend to our children. Stand- ing as I do between the living and the dead, and remembering what the dead have done, and realizing what the living will do, I may be permitted to exclaim, ' The lines have fallen to us in pleasant places ! Yea, we have a goodly heritage !' Connected with this day are historic associations which cheer the heart of the patriot, and endear to him the memory of that Revolutionary virtue which made Bunker Hill one of the brightest spots in the landscape of human liberty.

"How shall I speak to you to-day of the heroic past ? Human imagination is too limited in the range of beauty, human genius too meager in the resources of its intelli- gence, to do justice to the memory of the men whose patriotic virtues are intended to be commemorated by this offering. They fell in the bloom of their youth, and in the vigor of their manhood ; but as the poet has said :

" ' Whether on the gallows high, Or in the battle's van, The fittest place for man to die Is where he dies for man.' *

" This cold and classic pile honors the dead. Its durability of form will carry down to coming generations the names and memories of these fearless champions of liberty. And while you and I have reared this solid granite, this noble and imposing structure, we can and may rear to their memory and to our glory a monument higher and nobler than can be built with quarried stone and chiseled marble. It may be well to say-

""' On fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And glory guards in solemn round The bivouac of the dead.'

" This is pure poetry-it is a thought worthy of the genius of American literature, and as a production of the head, it is unsurpassed in its resources of patriotic conception. But, my fellow-citizens, the heart of gratitude and the hand of substantial charity are to perform the crowning acts of patriotic benefaction. There are of the living camped around and about us, the orphan, unconscious, it may be, of its desolation ; the widow in the helplessness of woe; the aged parent, the staff of whose declining years has been taken as a sacrifice-these call to us by the memory of fathers, husbands and sons, to be grateful to them as we enjoy the full fruition of liberty consecrated by the blood and preserved by the valor of their kindred.

* *

" The struggle in which these heroes have fallen has no parallel in the history of man- kind. Its issues involve the destiny of free institutions throughout the world. It was not a contest between nation and nation to extend the area of their empire, or to settle by an appeal to arms some question of international differences, but it was the long- delayed struggle between freedom and slavery, between popular institutions founded upon broad and liberal views of men's rights, and a circumscribed and selfish policy of caste and aristocracy. Philosophically understood, the war was inevitable. The great battles of history have decided the fate of empires. The maps, not only of our own

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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY.

country, but of all civilized lands, are made and unmade by the terrible art of war. Not only are limitations to territory established by the God of battles, but limitations to laws, customs and constitutions.

" Victor Hugo asks : Was it possible that Napoleon should win the battle ? We answer, No. Why ? Because of Wellington ? Because of Blucher ? No! Because of God. Waterloo is not a battle ; it is a change of front of the universe. So, I inquire, was it possible that secession should win the battle ? I answer, No. Why ? Because of Lincoln ? Because of Grant ? No ! Because of God. Lee's surrender was not the surrender of a battle ; it was a change of front of the universe.

" The cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night had become the guardian of free- dom ; the sea was passed ; the world gazed upon the scene, and the Goddess of Liberty, moved by the ecstatic inspiration of Miriam, shouted, 'Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.'

" To such shrines as this, my fellow- citizens, you and I should often come to teach us the lesson of patriotic devotion and moral heroism, and to impress upon us our obli- gation to transmit to those who in their turn follow us, that liberty and those institu - tions of republican equality purchased and preserved by these sacrificcs. The cheer- fulness with which the American volunteer rushed to the rescue of imperiled freedom, is among the most gratifying indications of the past.

* * * -X

" The thundering of Sumter was heard in the crowded streets of the East, upon the broad prairies of the West, and reverberating onward, it fired up the patriotic heart of the bold adventurer on the shores of the Pacific, and, with one accord, there came from the cities, plains and mountains of our Northlands, an army of heroes, such as before was never marshaled by the proudest conqueror of ancient or modern times. It was a long, bloody and sometimes even a doubtful contest. ' It is an easy matter to be a patriot in the piping time of peace, in the sunny hour of prosperity.' But, when war, discord and rebellion present their horrid forms to strike the liberty of a hundred years, it is then that the patriot shines in his devotion to his country. It is then that he rises in the majestic sublimity of the great sacrifice which he is ready and willing to lay upon the altar of that country. Patriotism " is an enlargement, an exaltation of all the tender- est, strongest sympathies of kindred and home. In all centuries and climes, it has lived and has defied chains and dungeons and racks to crush it. It has strewed the earth with monuments, and has shed undying luster on a thousand fields on which it has bat- tled.' I have said, fellow-citizens, that the lines have fallen to us in pleasant places. A little over four years since, the cloud of civil war hung heavily in the zenith and hori- zon of man's hope. It had rained drops of tears and blood. To-day that clond is dis- pelled, and the sun of our glory now beams with renewed brightness, and its rays will carry joy throughout the world whenever man is to be raised up to the dignity of his creation, and whenever tyranny is to be destroyed. This is not intended to commemo- rate a mere military encounter between hostile armies ; it has a higher and nobler mission to perform. It speaks to us of individual and national suffering, of domestic privations, of weary marches, of sieges, camps, battle-fields and death ; and rising in the heroic form of the American volunteer, it is historic of the final and glorious triumph of constitu- tional liberty through the patriotic devotion of the citizen soldiery. *

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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY.

" The hurricane, as it sweeps from the mountain-top ; the gentle zephyr, as it mur- murs in the green valleys ; the sun, as it rises to gladden the landscape; the blooming prairie ; the deep solitude of the wild woods, the placid lake, the mighty river and the thunder of the cataract, proclaim, as the voice of God, the freedom and independence of our country. 'Fallen, but not forgotten.' No ; so long as liberty is loved, as valor is admired, as purity and nobleness of purpose are cherished, as slavery is revolting and freedom is lovely and fascinating, it may be said of these heroes, ' Fallen, but not for- gotten.' The county of McLean may be proud of the part it bore in wreathing around the brow of Illinois the chaplet of immortal and unfading glory. Our sons mingled in the strife from the Susquehanna to the Rio Grande, and have left upon the record of their country's history a fame that will last as long as liberty is loved and oppression hated. What citizen or son of McLean will fail to cherish with grateful recollection the memory of Col. Mccullough, with his bold and defiant heroism ; Col. Hogg, with his proud and chivalrie bearing, worthy of a knight ; Gen. Orme, with his brave and saga- cious comprehension of duty-he who sought the field, not because he loved the clang of arius, but went forth to battle because he loved his country and her liberty better than his life. I refer to these names, not because I wish to draw a distinction between them and the rest of this immortal throng, but they happened to be my inti- mate and personal friends. I mean no disparagement to those who have distinguished · themselves when I say that the private soldier, above all others, is most worthy of our gratitude and respect. His devotion to his country is unalloyed ; if he perishes in the deadly charge, his name is lost to the fame of written history-he lives only in the grate- ful recollection of his kindred and friends. This monument may crumble, its inseription may become obliterated, its stony foundation may be moved in the countless ages which are to follow ; but, my fellow-citizens, the traditions of liberty, the lessons of patriotism, the splendid achievements of valor with which these men have impressed their age, will be felt in the preservation of freedom until time shall be no more.

" ' How many ages hence shall this

Their lofty scene be acted o'er, In States unborn, and by ancients yet unknown ??

" Mr. Webster, in the dedication of the monument at Bunker Hill, looking upon the imposing structure, as its bold summit pierced the clouds, said: 'A duty has been performed ! A work of gratitude and patriotism has been completed.' So it may be said of this. Upon the cold marble are carved in letters of enduring praise the names of the dead soldiers, and to this record of honest fame the child ean point as a legacy more precious than a patrimony of gold and silver. My friends, there rests upon us a fearful responsibility. Into our hands for the time being, as the family of freedom, is intrusted the jewel of liberty. If we fail in our experiment of republican government, the hand upon the dial of time is set back at least a century. For the sake of the living, the memory of the dead, and that free institutions may be transmitted to our children, this temple of freedom, this form of national liberty, must be preserved. Let us be grateful in acts of charity and kindness to the soldier's orphan and widow ; let us remember how the dead have suffered that the living, in their political develop- ment, might be the pride and ornament of history ; let us cherish memorials like this as landmarks of freedom, union and liberty. With all its faults, the government for which these heroes have died is the best yet established in the history of the race.

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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY.

" The success of the Federal arms in the suppression of the rebellion cannot be over- estimated. The triumph of our adversaries would have been the death-knell of liberty throughout the world. The fair valley of the Mississippi, richer than the Land of Prom- ise, when the sun stood in Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, would have become the common battle-field of warring States, nations and hostile people. The Flag of the Union-the flag whose glittering stars and bright folds had been gazed upon by Washington, as he led the soldiers of the Republic-would have been driven from every sea ; national literature would have been destroyed ; the cherished memories coming up from the battle-fields of the Revolution would have been forgotten ; ruin and anarchy would have prevailed, and the rights of the people would have depended upon the caprice of some bold adventurer, whose empire of dominion would have been reared upon the broken fragments of our free institutions. But how different the result because of the patriotic death and final triumph of these heroes-' fallen but not forgotten.'

" My friends, I would be untrue to my conviction of duty, and, I believe, to your sense of justice and propriety, did I fail to refer to the great and good man who, through the fearful storm, guided our destiny as a people. The war for independence and national existence had its chieftain, who, in the resources of his grandness and greatness, was above and beyond all others; so, too, has the second war of inde- pendence given birth to a champion worthy of the praise of all history. If civilization should sweep westward to new scenes of triumph beyond our own country-if old and now desolate fields should be renewed in their pristine beauty; if the fox should look out from the windows of the American capitol ; if our glory shall live only in history, in poetry and song-yet, amid all this desolation, the patriot in every land, the states- man of progress and the lover of true liberty throughout the world, whether he be a ' castled lord or a cabined slave,' will worship at the shrine of Abraham Lincoln. How splendid, how pure his character ; how noble and yet how unostentatious in the perform- ance of the great work which has made him one of the most resplendent of all the heroes of liberty. Let us indulge the hope that the citizens of our country, in time to come, will imitate the example which these soldiers have left in their lives and by their deaths ; and that the character of Abraham Lincoln, in its outlines of moral, social and political development, may become the standard of American statesmanship. While we bring our offerings to the memory of the dead, we should not forget what the living have done in this great work.

" The women of ancient civilization gave the jewels of their hands to save the lib- erty of their country ; the women of our day have given the jewels of their hearts to save the liberty of their fathers. This work, as a mere specimen of art, is compliment- ary to the head and the hand that executed it; and as a work of the heart of the peo- ple, in the name of liberty, of justice, of humanity ; in the name of the sacred cause in which these men died ; in the name of the uprisen of liberty and the down-trodden of tyranny, upon this, the anniversary of one of the great battles of the Revolution, I now freely offer this consecrated tomb-these ashes of the honored dead. * * *

" May the sword be beaten into a plowshare, and the spear into a pruning-hook, and may our children dedicate monuments to the victories of peace rather than the triumphs

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of war. May their heroes be champions of philosophy, of art, and of social and of moral reform. May we, in the spirit of national philanthropy, cherish the union of the States, the just rights of all, and the integrity of revolutionary liberty, as our highest political interest; and as we linger in the twilight of the grave, may our vision be enlightened by a free. united and happy people, one homogeneous whole, spreading the dominion of their empire from the lakes to the gulf, from ocean to ocean.

" ' A union of lakes, a union of lands, A union of States none can sever ; A union of hearts, a union of hands, And the flag of the Union forever and ever, And the flag of the Union forever.'"

POST OFFICES.

The names of the post offices in McLean County are as follows: Arrowsmith, Belleflower, Bloomington, Chenoa, Covell, Danvers, Dart, Downs, Ellsworth, Empire Station, Garda, Gridley, Hendrix, Heyworth, Holder, Hudson, Kumler, Le Roy, Lex- ington, McLean, Meadows, Normal, Oak Grove, Osman, Padua, Randolph, Saybrook, Selma, Shirley, Stanford, Towanda, Weston.

CHURCHES.

The religious sentiment developed itself at an early day in McLean County; and its cultivation has always been a characteristic of its people. Within its boundaries may be found representatives of nearly all the denominations known in the Christian Church. As all over the West, the Methodists were here early and actively represented by plain but zealous and generally efficient preachers. The Baptists and the Presbyte- rians were also actively represented in this county in early times. There have always been people here of Episcopal preferences, since the country was settled; but they wor- shiped with other denominations until more recent times.

Tradition informs us that the first sermon preached in McLean County was addressed to a few friends gathered together by Rev. James Stringfield, in the humble abode of Mr. John Hendrix, near Blooming Grove, southeast of Bloomington, in the fall of 1823. Mr. Stringfield was from Kentucky, and was an uncle of Mr. Stringfield, the old gen- tleman still living in Randolph. Rev. Ebenezer Rhodes, of Baptist sentiments preached in several places, wherever a hearing could be had, as early as in 1824. Rev. Peyton Mitchell settled in Stout's Grove in 1825, and there introduced the Cumberland Pres- byterian Church.

In those days came also Rev. James Latta, preaching at Blooming Grove and around about wherever the people would listen ; but he seems not to have preached regularly for a few years. Mr. Latta was quite a prominent man among the Methodists, and he took a lively interest in secular affairs, occupying several positions of respon- sibility.

From 1826 to 1830, Revs. William See, S. L. Robinson, Stephen Beggs, and Mr. Shepherd had charge of the Methodist Churches in this vicinity. It is said that Rev. Dr. Crissey preached the first sermon in Bloomington proper, in 1831. Messrs. Royal, Hall, Chase and Haney were his successors.

In 1831, the first camp-meeting in this county was held in Randolph Grove-that old apostle of Methodism and of eccentric plainness of speech, Rev. Peter Cartwright,

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presiding, assisted by Rev. Mr. Latta and others. Mr. Latta was also a man of much directness of speech and occasionally made a point that was so inevitably applicable as not to be particularly gratifying to its victims.

In December, 1832, Rev. Calvin W. Babbitt came to Bloomington, and, in the succeeding January, established a Presbyterian Church. He was succeeded the year following by Rev. McGeogh, who is spoken of as a man of great learning. In the fail of 1833, Rev. Lemuel Foster arrived in Bloomington. He was also a Presbyterian ; and he built a seminary of learning here in Bloomington-the first in the county. These were the early beginnings of several churches now extant in this city. They have since prospered, and the membership of some of them is quite large. Other churches have since been organized here, of which the Catholics are the most numerous.

The new Methodist Church in the city is one of the finest in the State, seating a numerous and most respectable congregation, having a very large and excellent organ, well handled, a good choir, and first-class appointments in all its arrangements, with an. excellent man and an eloquent speaker for pastor. The Catholic Church, not yet com- plete, is an immense building and accommodates a multitudinous congregation. When complete in all its appointments, it will be one of the finest and largest churches in the West. There are other large and well-attended churches in the city, and in the country, which will receive due attention in another part of this work.

There are in the county about one hundred churches, furnishing about thirty-five thousand sittings-which is not far from the membership.

THE PRESS.

McLean County is now and it has ever been a newspaper county. In 1836, Gen. Gridley, Hon. James Allen and Jesse W. Fell, Esq., entered into arrangements to start a printing office in Bloomington. For this purpose, they purchased in Philadelphia, for early times in a new country, a very good printing establishment, and shipped it for Bloomington-having secured the services of Mr. William Hill, an excellent printer and a good man, still living in the city, to publish it. The result of these arrangements was that on the 14th of January, 1837, the first number of the Bloomington Observer and McLean County Advocate-name enough to swamp any ordinary concern-made its appearance in the town of Bloomington. The town survived the shock and so did the paper.

The Observer was of good size, a very neat and well-conducted paper. It was pub- lished about two years and a half, Mr. Hill having in the mean time disposed of his interest therein and left-it being edited by Mr. Fell, a very ready writer, assisted by Mr. Wells Colton and others occasionally. At the end of that time, the paper not being a financial success, its publication was suspended.

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The History of McLean County, Illinois; portraits of early settlers and prominent men, Part 30

Author: Le Baron, Wm., Jr. & Co., Chicago, Pub Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : W. Le Baron, Jr. Number of Pages: 1092

Author: Le Baron, Wm., Jr. & Co., Chicago, Pub
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : W. Le Baron, Jr.
Number of Pages: 1092