The History of McLean County, Illinois; portraits of early settlers and prominent men, Part 59

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 59

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Arriving at Buckles' Grove, they had to contend with all those difficulties which settlers in a new country encounter-sickness, lack of conveniences and of markets,

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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY.

rainy seasons, fires, serpents and hard winters, and poverty. They proved the men for a new place. They have been remarkably prospered in their property and their families. Daniel has been the father of fourteen children, and Henry of twelve. Of these twenty- six, fifteen are living, and most of them in this vicinity, with children growing up around them to extend and perpetuate the good name of Crumbangh. Four sons of Daniel- Leonard, Thomas, Daniel and Frank-and four sons of Henry-James, John, Andrew and Lewis-are men of good character, and most of them of considerable farms in this and adjoining townships; quiet, peaceable, industrious and thrifty men, never quarreling nor at law. It may well be said that these two men have done more to settle this part of the county than any other two men. N. T. Brittin, from Ohio, in 1830 settled near the middle of the south half of Section 2. He owned land in Section 11, and in various other places. He had a large family, and acquired a large property, but a good deal of it was lost to him and to his heirs from his peculiar unwillingness to collect what was due him. While he was exceedingly close, yet he never would try to force collections of what was due him if such collection would prove oppressive. He loaned a great deal of money, and was always hopping around to get the interest, but never seemed to let the principal worry him. He once took a note of a man, and not having sufficient paper to write a note on, actually wrote it on the back of another note which he had taken from some one else.

He was popularly supposed to be very rich, but his estate did not divide as many thousands among his heirs as it was supposed it would, partly from the fact that the wealth of pretty nearly all men is overestimated by themselves, their children and every- body else except the assessor, and partly from the faet that many of his loans had been made to those who could not repay. Like all men who loan money, he got a name for close and penurious habits, but was really a man of many kind and good qualities.

James Bishop, another of the prosperous citizens of Empire, came here, as the Irishman would say, in several years. He came first from Ohio in 1831, and was back and forth every year until 1837, when he married, and made his home here, buying land in Section 10.

He was a man of some means, and great force and activity. Among the stories told to illustrate the man, was the stolen pig and the bull exploits, which the old settlers of Empire have told with variations, until the original proprietor could himself hardly recognize them.

He was so annoyed by wolves that he found it necessary to keep his pigs close by the house. Early one fall morning, he heard the well-known juvenile porcine squeal He had heard it so often that he knew the " first gun " in a wolf-attack as well as a breakfast-bell, and rushed out, without even dressing, to rescue his property. The wolf had got a good start, and Bishop took the line of lupine retreat, without a thought of his unlawful appearance, in his lawful endeavor to rescue the perishing. Over fences, through breastworks of briers he stormed, deploying in cornfields, without the loss of a man, throwing himself into single file, to more easily dodge the cornstalks, in light marching order, he soon overtook Mr. Wolf, who was carrying three days' rations, and captured the pig, which had only lost a part of an ear and had been frightened out of at least six months' growth. When Bishop came to make report to his wife-women are always inquiring into these matters-he found that the cuts and thrusts from corn- stalks and briers would, if estimated at 10 cents a dozen, bring the price of that pig,

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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY.

at the then market price of such articles, up to about four times what he ever expected to get for it.

The story of his trying to get his hired man to come over into the pasture, which he had suddenly and unexpectedly changed into a first-class race-track-a purely agri- cultural onc-and help him let go of the bull's tail is too well known to need repeat- ing and too well authenticated to need the certifying.

Mr. Bishop was always considered a good farmer; his traits were energy, thrift and activity. Coming at a time when everything was greatly depressed, he did not need to learn by experience that which so many others had to. He traded in cattle a good deal, and seemed to know almost intuitively when the time came to let go, for he avoided the losses which so many others met during the last ten years of his life.

He seems to have come short of the average number of children, having only five : but in all other things, his life appears to have been a success. He died in 1877, and left about three thousand acres of land in Sections 8, 9 and 10, and in Padua and West.

Hon. Malon Bishop came here from Ohio in 1835, and took up land in the north- west quarter of Section 15. When the school section was sold, in 1857, he and his brother James bought nearly all of it, and he now owns and resides on the north half of Section 16.

Settling here at a time when political excitement ran high, and in a community which held the political tenets which he did by a large majority, he naturally got into political and official life. Empire Township has always been, under all the changes through which we have passed, steadily Democratic. Mr. Bishop was elected a Justice of the Peace in 1837, and, in 1842, during the most depressed time in the history of the State, he was elected to the Legislature. A few now of the elder settlers are left who well recollect the discouraging prospect at the time that Legislature met.

The panic of 1837 had prostrated every industry. The State was hopelessly in debt, and only required a resolution of the Legislature to that effect to put it in the class of repudiating States. Taxes were payable only in gold and silver, of which there was, practically, none to be had. The bank currency, which went by the name of " wild-cat," "red-dog," " stump-tail," and other significant and insignificant names, had. received legislative authority to circulate, and was received generally, but not by the Tax Collector or Postmaster. People were shunning the State, and Eastern merchants did not wish to "extend their credit " in this State. Everybody thought the Legisla- ture "ought to do something," and every man who did not spend his time getting his living by hard work, spent it on dry goods boxes, explaining how this thing could be remedied. Indeed, the county of McLean has only just now gone through the expe- rience of listening to the second batch of statesmen which sprung from the "panic of 1873," and the governmental policies of our own day.

Mr. Bishop went to Springfield as the representative of' McLean, to do whatever was in his power to restore confidence and breathe new life into the lungs of trade and agricultural pursuits.

That he labored faithfully to do the best he could for his people, no one who knows him will doubt. If he did not succeed in legislating money into every man's pocket and title-deeds for farms into every family, he and the men who were with him kept the State in the line of honest ones, prevented official repudiation, raised the amount

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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY.

necessary to go on with the Illinois Canal, and took their own pay in the same kind of money as other people received.

It is a strange commentary on our ability to learn by experience that, at this present time, " currency questions " are still fruitful subjects for discussion and legisla- tion.

Thomas D. Gilmore came from Kentucky in 1836, and took up land in Sections 3 and 4, along the Old Town timber. He was a blacksmith by trade, and soon went to work in Le Roy. Esquire Buck shows a pair of fire-dogs which Gilmore made for him more than forty years ago. The Gilmore family had a little experience with the "Sud- den Change." They had come from Kentucky, and had but just got their little cabin so that it was comfortable to live in in ordinary weather, when this " Change " struck them "in the twinkling of an eye," as it were. They could hardly have been more surprised or more struck had the veritable sound of Gabriel's trump been heard in connection with this. They all thought that if this was Illinois, they wished to be- carried back to the Kentucky shore as soon after the weather should permit as was agreeable.

Mr. Gilmore's father, a hale and rugged old man, accompanied the family here, and lived here until 1870, when he died, at the age of ninety-eight. He was strong and quite active to the last. Mr. Gilmore now lives on the northwest quarter of Section 3, and owns about two hundred acres.

As early as 1830, the following persons were in Buckles' Grove in addition to those whose sketches have been given : Richard Edwards, William Davis, Catharine Johnson, James Lawrence, Levi Westfall, H. Huddleston and Ambrose Hall. Most of them had families, and many remained here for several years.

Yes, and there is Esquire Buck. Though not one of the earliest settlers, he has formed so important a link in the history of Empire and Le Roy that it will hardly do to leave him out. He was born in Seneca County, N. Y., and early went to North Bend, Ohio, the home of Harrison. Here he taught school and worked around ; tried flatboating for awhile, and then married in 1827. Under the law of Ohio, he had to give security for his wife's maintenance, as he had no worldly possessions. This rather stirred the Revolutionary blood with which his veins were largely supplied, and he thought tea-taxing and stamp-acting were mild as compared with this. As soon as he could get enough together to start with, he came West by way of the Ohio, Missis- sippi and Illinois Rivers to Bardstown, thence across the country with teams to Ran- dolph's Grove, where he remained until 1837, when he sold his claim to Gen. Gridley, and came to Le Roy to build and keep a hotel. While living in Randolph's Grove, he was Deputy County Surveyor, and laid out the new towns which were then springing up all over the country. The three years following the close of the Black Hawk war had brought a tide of immigration and speculation into this country. Gen. Gridley's active mind had been busy laying out new towns and inducing immigration. He was a thorough judge of human nature, and always knew how to enlist the right kind of men in his undertakings. He immediately saw in Mr. Buck the man for him to work up his Le Roy undertaking, and made him an offer. The opening was a flattering one, and but for the panic which immediately followed, bursting the bubble speculation on all sides, its realization would have been complete. The demand in 1836 for accommo- dation of strangers was beyond the capacity of entertainment all over the State.

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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY.

Mr. Buck built the hotel, the rear of the present one, and kept it sixteen years, holding the office of Postmaster and Justice of the Peace cach, for several years. In 1851, he had become thoroughly satisfied that he would never amount to anything if he remained in the hotel. A new son had come into his house and a desire seemed to take possession of his mind to " do something for that boy." He got hold of a piece of land in Section 6, south part of town, and has since spread over 1,100 acres of as good land as there is in McLean County. He was elected a County Commissioner in that year, and was twice re-elected. During the last term, the County Court, of which he was a member, voted to give $70,000 from the first proceeds of the Swamp-Land Fund to secure the location at Normal of the State Normal School. This action was so unpopular in the country towns as to cause a general demand for township organization. Mr. Buck admits the unpopularity of the act, but justifies his course. This retired him to private life for a few years-a penalty he did not much regret. Since then, he has been repeatedly elected Supervisor. He was appointed by the Governor a Trustee of the Industrial University at Champaign, and held the position until the law was changed reducing the number of Trustees. He was elected several years ago a Trustee of Lombard University, a college under the auspices of Universalists and liberal believers, at Galesburg, where his youngest son was edueated. That a man at the age fifty, when in most men the habits of life have become fixed, and, by common acceptation, man has arrived at the time when he begins to grow old, should have left a country tavern and begun an active, successful farmer's life is remarkable, and shows the strong characteristics of Esquire Buck's nature. Careless in his personal and even in his busi- ness habits, with a strong taste for political diseussion and partisan display and action, a free reader, a generous liver, fond of investigation, and deeply interested in public affairs, the strong contrast of his later successes was hardly to be expected, and, indeed, is almost anomalous ; for a lively interest in politics and attendance on caucuses and con- ventions is enough to financially injure most any man. Five of his six children are liv- ing near him, all married and comfortably fixed in life, and were able to be with him at the fiftieth anniversary of that Ohio wedding when he gave his bond to the county of Hamilton that his wife should not come on the county as a pauper. Mr. Buck ought to get that bond from the authorities and present it to the Le Roy Library Association.

Though closely approaching his eightieth birthday, he shows, except in his wrinkled face, no appearance of his advanced age ; his mind is as clear and his step as firm as a man of fifty.

The hunting was so excellent at an early day, and was really so much a part of the regular business of every family, that the raising and care of dogs became so common that no family was without its complement of the different popular canine families ; every dog-family down to rat-terrier and Spitz was represented in Buckles' Grove; and when all other sport slackened they " let slip the dogs " and cried havoc !

About the year 1830, the hydrophobia made its appearance among them, and the dogs lost their popularity at once. Two persons were known to have been bitten, and a canine slaughter right and left and a general clearing-out of all in the neighborhood was threatened. No injury came to those who were bitten except a very serious scare, which was almost as bad as death itself.

A year or two before Le Roy was laid out, J. W. Baddeley spread out a town which he named Munroe, and put up a building for a store and stocked it for trade, about one

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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY.

mile south of where Le Roy is. When Gridley and Covel laid out their town, they bought out the interest of Baddeley in Munroe and squelched it.

The citizens have not, as a general thing, fed cattle as largely as in some of the surrounding towns, and before the new railroads were built, the grain had to be hauled a long distance. The earliest trips to Chicago were shortened to Pekin when the Illi- nois Canal was completed, and to Bloomington and Heyworth after the completion of the Illinois Central Railroad.

The building of the present Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western Railroad was deemed by the people of Empire as a matter of vital importance to them. The history of the road, as far as its connection with Empire is concerned, is about that of every similar road.

In July, 1866, a vote was taken, which resulted affirmatively, for granting $50,000, in twenty-year 10-per-cent bonds, for the Danville, Urbana, Bloomington & Pekin Railroad. Soon after this vote was taken, the officers of the road discovered that the company had not been organized in conformity to law, and the matter rested until the Legislature should meet and give the embryo road legal life. Such an act was passed February, 1867 ; for, under the old constitution, any person could get any charter he asked for, but the State authorities were so jealous of their prerogatives that, while it was admitted that the Legislature would give any railroad company all the authority or power it wanted, no such corporation could act until it had first got legal authority. This charter of 1867 gave to the township of Empire authority to subscribe not more than $250,000, in aid of the building of such road. In June, 1867, the vote was again taken, resulting a second time affirmatively, by a vote of 202 to 6. Things went on swimmingly and the road was commenced, the bonds issued and went, with the thousands of others, into the great maw of the construction companies, who hypothe- cated them for half their face, and then let them slide. In 1869, October 12, the road having been consolidated, had become the Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western, and work had come to a standstill. More bonds must be forthcoming. The township authorities submitted to the legal voters the question of issuing $25,000 additional. This resulted in the affirmative by a vote of 228 to 100, and three blanks. Within the past year, the legality of this last issue has been questioned, and the matter has been tried in the United States Court, resulting in sustaining the legality of the issue. The ground upon which the township sought to question their validity was that, in taking the former vote, the power to subscribe in aid of that particular corporation had been exhausted, and thus there was no authority for the second vote. The Court did not take that view of it, however.

The road proved a great convenience to the people, and everything seemed to work nicely. Pretty soon, however, they found that they were paying higher freights than they ought, and they set about finding a remedy.

After a good deal of canvassing, it was decided to ask the people along the line of the proposed route to subscribe enough to grade, bridge and tie a narrow-gauge road from Rantoul to Le Roy, and to bond it for $4,000 per mile for the iron. This was done, and the men of Empire did the heavy end of the work by subscribing liberally to this undertaking. It is now built and in running order, and fulfilling the most san- guine expectations of its projectors.

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HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY.

The first school in the township was held in the house erected for it in 1832, near the residence of James Kimler.

For several years, the affairs of the school treasury have been in the hands of S. A. Moore, Esq., and his successor in office, Mr. E. E. Greenman.

From the last annual report, the following figures are taken : Number of districts, 11; whole number of children under twenty-one years, 1,132; number of children between six and twenty-one years, 748; whole number attending school, 544; average number of months' school, 73 ; teachers employed, 20 ; number graded school, 1 ; num- ber brick schoolhouses, 2; value school property, $11,700; township fund, $7,612; paid teachers, $4,858 ; total amount paid for schools, $7,165.

Next to Bloomington and Normal, Empire has the largest attendance in the county, and draws the largest from the State appropriation.

Empire has a large number of men who are recognized as good farmers. Hiram Buck, J. H. L. Crumbaugh, A. Murray, Malon Bishop, J. A. Bishop, F. M. Crum- baugh, T. Ross, Jackson Oliver, and many others. have made the raising and feeding of cattle a specialty.

John Kline, James Barnett, John E. Crumbaugh, have each very fine farms and excellent buildings.

The following table gives a list of the township officers elected from township organization down :

Date.

Votes Cast.

Supervisor.

Clerk.

Assessor.

Collector.

1858

296 James Wiley.

J. M. Shakleford

James P. Craiger ..

V. H. Roach.

1859

James Wiley

R. S. Willhoite.

Robert Barr.

R. F. Dickerson.

1860

228 James Wiley.

R. S. Willhoite

Robert Barr.

R. F. Dickerson.

1861

M. Crumbauglı

R. S. Willhoite

Robert Barr

R. F. Dickerson.

1862

R. F. Dickerson

J. W. Brown.

Robert Barr

J. F. Bishop.

1863

Malou Bishop.

George W. Pence

Robert Barr

F. M. Crumbaugh.

1864

286 Malon Bishop.

George W. Pence.

Robert Barr

F. M. Crumbaugh.

1865

R. F. Dickerson

George W. Pence

Robert Barr.

1866

R. F. Dickerson

M. M. Dickerson.

Robert Barr.

1867

277 James Bishop

M. M. Dickerson

Robert Barr.

M. E. Ferguson.

1868

263 James Bishop.

G. W. Pence

Robert Barr

M. E. Ferguson.

1869

James Bishop.

M. M. Dickerson

Robert Barr.

A. J. Thomas.

1870

J. V. Smith

M. Burns.

O. Smiley

J. Crumbaugh.

1871

J. H. L. Crumbaugh. M. H. Stone

S. L. Bishop.

C. Howard.

1872

John Kline.

C. G. Lanzen

G. W. Pence

R. C. Hallowell.

1873

275 D. O. Howard

M. Burns.

G. W. Pence.

R. C. Hallowell.

1874

D. O. Howard

C. A. Barley

J. P. Melchi

L. Hetlling.

1875

Hiram Buck

C. A. Barley

J. P. Melchi

L. Heffling.

1876

Hiram Buck

C. A. Barley

J. P. Melchi

Samuel Sterling.

1877

Hiram Buck

C. A. Barley.

John Funk.

J. C. Baddeley.

1878

Hiram Buck

C. A. Barley

John Funk

J. C. Baddeley.

1879

John Kline.

S. Vandeventer

John Funk

Z. Chick.

Justices of the Peace: S. A. Moore, H. Gilbert, L. M. Bishop, Robert Silvey and H. M. Phillips.

Commissioners of Highways: T. D. Gilman, Robert Barr, H. Chapen, M. Crum- baugh, D. Cheney, J. W. Williams, A. Buckles, J. Kline, H. Crumbaugh, L. A. Crum- baugh, H. C. Dickerson, G. W. Buckles, James Bishop, D. H. Schoch, J. Crumbaugh, S. R. Mitchell, C. P. Dickerson, J. W. Murfield, R. Rutledge, M. Wyckoff, John Dun- lap, J. H. L. Crumbaugh, A. J. Crumbaugh, James York, P. C. Eskew.

525

HISTORY OF MCLEAN COUNTY.

LE ROY.

The location of Le Roy was one of the most beautiful in the county, and its selec- tion anomalous. Near the line between Sections 21 and 22, almost in the exact eenter of the township, was a round elevation of land, hardly amounting to a hill, still so descending in all directions as to make drainage easy. About one mile to the grove on three sides, and on the north about three miles from Old Town Timber, its peculiar fit- ness as a convenient point for the settlers who inhabited the grove, to the number of some twenty-five families, was apparent. Gen. A. Gridley and Gen. Merritt Covel, of Bloomington, readily saw the peculiar position of this little mound, and in 1835, pur- chased the eighty acres of land and laid out the town, making the mound the center of it. At the sale of lots in December, the bidding was spirited, and some of them sold at very good prices. Building was, however, very slow. Two years later, Gridley induced Hiram Buck to go there and build a hotel. In the fall of 1836, there were a few log houses there, and Edgar Conkling put up a frame store. The same fall, Buek surveyed and platted Conkling & Woods' addition, embracing about one hundred and twenty acres, lying on three sides of the original town, east, north and west. Mr. Conkling was the first to do any business here. A post-route was established in 1838, and a post office was opened, with Hiram Buek first Postmaster. The route was from Danville through Bloomington to Peoria. At first, the service was by post-rider, and then by Fink & Walker's mud-wagons, which, by courtesy, were called stages. This firm, for a long time, ran nearly all the stage lines in the northern half of this and the adjoining State. Mr. T. J. Barnett, who came to this township in 1832, and com- menced trade in Le Roy in 1852, says that Amos Neal and J. W. Baddeley were the first to sell goods here, and the Conklings and Proctor were among the first. Neal & Withers put up a log cabin in 1836, east of the public square, and, about the same time, Baddeley put up one on the south side of Center street, between the hotel and the pub- lic square. He had laid out the town of " Munroe," and commenced selling goods one mile south of here, and had been offered very liberal inducements to abandon that and make Le Roy the place of business. He conducted trade here for several years. James Wiley, an Irishman by birth, came here from the West Indies, and engaged in trade on the north side of Center street, on Block 15, where the meat market now is. He was successful and bought a fine farm from Conaway, and others east of town, and died there.

E. E. Greenman, one of the old guard, who has lived here and been engaged in active business during nearly all the life of Le Roy, came here in 1843. He is now one of the oldest residents of the county now living in it. He helped to build the house of James Allin, in Bloomington, and lived a neighbor to him.

In 1843, he was engaged in peddling through this part and some of the citizens, who thought he would be a valuable addition to the town, bantered him to hire a hall and locate here. He made a contract for board at $1 per week as long as he wished to stay, and rented the store near by for $1 per month as long as he wanted to keep it. He stocked up and sold goods there one year, when it was rented to some one else for $2 per month, and he had to get out. He bought the corner lot across the street where Fisk's drug store now is, for $10, and sent a man into the woods to hew the timber and in twenty-one days moved into his new store. S. D. Baker, now of

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The History of McLean County, Illinois; portraits of early settlers and prominent men, Part 59

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