The History of Menard and Mason Counties, Illinois, Part 59

Author:
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 848

USA > Illinois > Mason County > The History of Menard and Mason Counties, Illinois > Part 59
USA > Illinois > Menard County > The History of Menard and Mason Counties, Illinois > Part 59

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The year 1840 seems to'have been favorable to the immigration of pioneer adventurers and home-seekers. Robert Melton and S. D. Swing, at Swing's Grove, and Stiles and Homer Peck, on Prairie Creek, settled in the township that year. S. D. Swing, now, and since 1860, a resident of Mason City, improved the greater part of the farm now owned and occupied by C. L. Stone. Having married Mary A. Sikes, daughter of Edward Sikes, Sr., an old set- tler of Salt Creek Township, Mr. Swing and his young wife settled there in 1840, where, by years of toil and privation unknown to the beginners of life's matrimonial voyage now-a-days, they built up a beautiful home and valuable farm. Swing's Grove Cemetery, a beautiful location on a high point of Salt Creek Bluff, about one-eighth of a mile southwest of the house, was set apart for that purpose by them, and consecrated to the dead by the burial there of their first-born, in 1846, since which time the public has used it as a repository for the remains of the departed, until this " village of the dead " now numbers its inhabitants by the hundred. Earlier burials were made at the place now owned by Malcom Robertson, and on a knoll in the west part of the grove; but only a few were buried in each, and they were entirely abandoned after the one given by Mr. Swing was started. Stiles and Homer Peck, brothers, made a settlement on Prairie Creek, in 1840, about a mile northwest of where the village of New Holland now stands. They erected there a water-power, saw- mill, and the mill-dam was used as a public wagon road in crossing the creek.

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HISTORY OF MASON COUNTY.

Although this saw-mill was a very small affair, it was by common usage and general consent a "signal station " from which "bearings " were given and taken to all surrounding points for many miles distant, and is yet relatively referred to by old residents. As there were no means of estimating distances, the traveler in those days was given the course from one point to another. At this saw-mill, the pioneer obtained the sawed lumber with which to make the doors, door and window frames of his crude dwelling, and from which they obtained, after a few years' progress in aristocracy, the lumber to take the place of the primitive puncheon floor. A. S. Jackson, of Mason City, made a wal- nut table from lumber sawed at that mill in 1843, which relic is now in posses- sion of Mr. Cooper, of that place.

The reader will pardon the digression for a moment while we give a brief description of the dwelling-house of this early day. The usual size was 18x20 feet, made of round logs, notched at the corners so as to make the logs fit as closely as possible together, and give strength to the building to withstand the frequent storms of wind which swept over the prairies with the violence of a hurricane. Chimneys were constructed of split sticks and clay, and were inva- riably placed on the west end or side of the house, so that the strong winds which nearly always came from a westerly direction, would be the better resisted. Those primitive domiciles all had a kitchen, sitting-room, parlor and bedroom-but all in one. At the usual mealtimes, it was all kitchen; on rainy days, when the neighbors of four or five miles away came in to have a chat about the number of deer and wild turkeys killed since they last met, it was all sitting-room ; on Sundays, when the itinerant preacher was around, and the young men, with their " new jeans," paid their tender respects to the young ladies in their best "tow dresses," it was all parlor ; at night, when the "wee, sma' hours " passed imperceptibly over a sleeping world, it was all bedroom. The crevices between the logs (the best that could be done to fit them) were large, and, with all the chinking and daubing, afforded ample ventilation ; a laughable illustration of which means of a " free circulation," is given by John Powers-"Irish John," as he was universally cognomened in the days of this incident. He now lives in a beautiful and substantial farm house about a mile south of Mason City ; but when he first went to housekeeping, about twenty- five years ago, he lived in a round-log house of the primitive pattern, a quarter of a mile south of his present residence. This house was not in any inclosure of fence, and was protected from cattle making too free of the premises, by dogs. One Sunday, he and his young wife went to spend the day with a neighbor ; and, while they were gone, the cattle gathered about his house and, with their tongues, they pulled out of his bed, through the crevice between the logs, the straw of his bed, and finished up the day's sport by chewing the tick into the consistency of a cud, in which condition he found his dormitory depart- ment on his return. These log huts were covered with "clapboards " about three feet in length, and held to place by "rib poles " underneath and "weight

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HISTORY OF MASON . COUNTY.

poles " on the top of each course of boards. The floors were laid of puncheon slabs, split from three to four inches in thickness, and from six to eight feet in length. The top side and edges were hewed so as to make them as nearly level as possible, and fit close enough together to prevent the foot from going down between them in walking about the house. The fire-place was from four to eight feet wide, and supplied cooking facilities, heat to keep the inmates com- fortable, and light to do the night indoor work by. The jambs, in the proper season of the year, were decorated with strands of apples, cut in quarters with the peel on, and the joists bore a heavy burden of pumpkins, cut in rings and hung on poles. The bedsteads were improvised by boring holes in the logs and driving in wooden pins supported at the inner end by upright pieces. This rude frame was interwoven with buckskin rawhide or bedcord, if the lat- ter could be had ; and with a tick of prairie hay and one of wild-goose feath- ers, our ancestors slept soundly and snored as contentedly as the people now do on veneered bedsteads, woven-wire mattresses and all the gaudy surround- ings of a high-toned bed-chamber.

In 1846, John Douglas built a log house in the prairie, about a mile and a half west of Peck's Mill. This was the first house out in the prairie, and his venture so far from timber was looked upon as a daring one. The site of this habitation is now marked by a few dilapidated apple-trees, which are desolate monuments of the first settlement of this prairie. Mr. Douglas died a few years ago, and two of his sons, Ebenezer and William, now reside on good farms with their families, near the wild scenes of their boyhood days. A man named Tullis also settled on the place now owned and occupied by Alexander Appleman, about the same time that Douglas settled there.

INCIDENTS OF PIONEER DAYS.

The first school ever taught in this township was in the winter of 1846-47, in a log hut, near the county line, about a half-mile north of the site of New Holland. The name of the heroine who was destined to become immortal in history by this circumstance was Miss Sarah Ann Stephens, who afterward became the wife of Randolph Robins, and died in Kansas a few years ago. However insignificant and crude this school, it was the beginning of what is now justly and really the grandest and most prominent feature of our society, and of which we shall write in full and detail in its proper order. But at this time it is due the pioneer school teacher to say that he, she or they will be remem- bered in history with unfeigned gratitude for the labors and toils of these early days. The pioneer teacher who had to contend with the almost untamed spirit of the wild girls and boys of this wilderness, submit to being barred out of the schoolhouse on Christmas and New Year's mornings, until compromised with a " treat," trudge through the snow and driving storm for miles, in " boarding around among the scholars," collect his money after his term was ended, in such installments as he could get, is deserving a prominent place in history.

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HISTORY OF MASON COUNTY.

Settlements now began to increase rapidly, and the log huts dotted the prairie with the habitations of the aggressive pioneers farther and farther out into the boundless wilderness of grass, hitherto the undisputed home of the ' deer and wolf. The former ranged together in herds of sometimes over a hundred, and the latter had cities of dens in the favorable locations, where they held their nocturnal orgies of yelps and howls. Those prairie wolves were usually harmless, except as to domestic animals, for which they manifested a disas- trous fondness, and they were especially partial in the selection of the tender meat of lambs and pigs, when it was a matter of choice with them. But, under certain conditions of hunger, and favorable circumstances of advantage, they would show a disposition to attack the human family, illustrative of which is the following incident, which occurred about the year 1848: "John Auxier, who had been to Pekin with a drove of hogs made up by himself and several of his neighbors, and who had remained behind, as was the usual custom, until the hogs were slaughtered and weighed, started home on foot late in the afternoon. In assisting in the slaughter, he had received a cut in the arm, which bled con- siderably, and in crossing the sand ridge, which is now High street, Mason City, the wolves scented the blood, and immediately set up their characteristic howl, which was well understood by the pioneer to "mean blood " of some kind. This midnight declaration of war and no quarter, served to quicken Mr. Auxier's steps, and until he reached home on Salt Creek bluff he could hear the yelps and howls of his bloodthirsty pursuers as they gained upon, but, fortunately did not overtake him.

Those log-driving expeditions to Pekin, and Bath in the west part of this county, were always made in the winter, and usually at the coldest and most disagreeable time of winter, but, notwithstanding the excruciating suffering from the cold, when . the party got " thawed out " by the log-heap fire in the pioneer's cabin at night, they were as jolly a set as ever " cracked a joke or played a trick." All the innate mischief and pent-up devilment of their inherent and individual natures came to the surface on such occasions, and the nightly con- vivialities of the party would surpass the wildest conceptions of this sedate and long-faced generation.

In those days, going to mill was one of the dreaded burdens of our people. With the exception of a small horse-power corn-cracker, owned by Alexander Meadows, at Sugar Grove, there was no mill nearer than the Mackinaw, in Tazewell County, about twenty miles distant, and its regularity being dependent upon the stage of water, and its capacity deficient, a trip to mill meant any space of time from two days to a week. The people would borrow breadstuff of each other until the whole neighborhood was exhausted of the supply, and then they would each put in a " grist," and two or three teams would go together to mill, taking turns.

The administration of justice and execution of the laws in those days were done with the best intentions, but in a way that would be regarded very

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HISTORY OF MASON COUNTY.

"irregular " nowadays. The Squire usually made up his decisions from his ideas of cquity, and did not cumber his mind much with the statute law. Robert Melton's court was the scene of many amusing legal contests, and during the residence of Dr. J. G. H. Smithi at Swing's Grove, from 1848 to 1850, who was notorious for litigation, this court was kept in almost constant session. One ludicrous incident is thus related : The prominent Constable in this section at that time was William Taylor, " Crooked-Necked Bill Taylor," as he was famil- iarly known. One day, while he and Dr. Smith were riding across the prairie together, the Doctor proposed to straighten Taylor's neck, and without the use of knife or any operation that would cause him pain. Taylor told him if lie would do so, he would give him the pony he was riding, which offer was accepted by the Doctor, and the pony delivered into his possession that evening, and the time, a few days on, was fixed for the operation. When Taylor presented him- self at the appointed time, the Doctor took out his knife and was preparing to restore the perpendicularity of his patient's head, by cutting into the contracted side of his neck. This Taylor objected to, and a wordy and stormy conflict between physiological and anatomical science and the legal points of a contract ensued. Taylor preferred a crooked neck to one half cut off, and demanded his

pony. This demand was peremptorily refused, and Taylor went to Squire Melton's and commenced a replevin suit against the Doctor to recover his pony. On the day set for the trial, the whole neighborhood turned out to hear the case, for they knew there was " music in the air," from the known character of the contestants. Preliminary to going into trial, the parties went out and engaged in a pitched battle with such knives and clubs as were conveniently at hand, after which they compromised the matter.

However wild the country and those pioneers, those people, with but few exceptions, were actuated by a spirit of justice and right as between man and man, and with these few exceptions, appeals to the law were unknown in their business transactions and settlements. Sometimes, unavoidable and honest dif- fcrences arose with reference to the ownership of cattle, but these were usually amicably and satisfactorily settled without the intervention of courts. 'These disputes were unavoidable from the fact that when grass came on in the spring, everybody would turn his cattle out to roam and grow, and, as was often the case, the owner would not see them again until feeding time in the fall. In this interval, young cattle would grow and change color almost beyond recognition.

In those days, and even down to the first half of the decade from 1850 to 1860, wild game was plentiful. Deer and turkeys were here in large numbers, and wild geese and sand-hill cranes abounded in immense numbers, and were a devouring pest to the farmers, whose crops, the young wheat and ripening corn, in the fall, afforded food for countless thousands of these feathered foragers. They would retire to the ponds and creeks at night, and in their flight to the fields in the morning, and return to the " watering places " in the evening, the very heavens would seem to lower with a massive feathery cloud, and the

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HISTORY OF MASON COUNTY.

quawking and screeching made a discord that could not be surpassed by a united convention of all the bedlam inmates on the continent.

RELIGIOUS HISTORY.

The professed religious devotees were in a decided minority in those days, but there were enough to establish the foundation of the numerous religious societies which distinguish us as a moral people to-day. Private houses were used for religious services until schoolhouses afforded the accommodations. While these religious services were not conducted with the clock-work precision and machine worship of our later and more systematically refined worship, they had the merit of heart and soul devotion, which defied the adverse criticism of the world. The preachers were not college graduates, nor theological prodigies, but what they lacked in mental force they made up in physical power, and they could be heard a mile away in favorable conditions of the atmosphere. Peter Cart- wright, whose eccentric and " bull-dozing "* propensities gave him a continental reputation and notoriety, dispensed the Gospel to our pioneers frequently, and some of the incidents and anecdotes related by him in his autobiography find a location in this vicinity. Cotemporaneous with him was Peter Akers, now superannuated and retired, at Jacksonville, who was the very antipode of Cart- wright in mental characteristics. He was a man of great ability, learned in theology, science and literature, and a master of elocution and oratory. Thirty- minute sermons were not fashionable in those days, and often this eminent divine would storm the citadel of Satan, and expatiate upon the beatitudes of heaven for four hours at a time. So matchless was his eloquence, and invincible his logic, that his audience never tired or manifested restlessness during his discourses. To make it known that "Old Pete Akers " (for he was even then considered old) would preach at a given place on such a day, was to guarantee nearly the whole county as an audience, if the weather proved favorable. A little later, John L. Turner, a Baptist minister, settled west of Crane Creek. He was a man of good abilities, and held a place in the hearts of the people here that has never been sup- plied by any other minister. When the angel of death visited a household, John L. Turner was called upon to preach at the funeral, and, although a man of rather frail frame, he exposed himself to inclement weather, and faced storms of rain and sleet and snow in answer to the call of distress by his stricken fellow-pioneers. Of him it may may be truly said, " He went about doing good." Levi Engle, of the Christian (Campbellite) faith, occasionally preached at Swing's Grove, at some private house. These irregular services were held at such time and places as the combination of circumstances would permit, until about 1850, when the settlement had become numerous enough to organize church societies, which will be more definitely and systematically arranged under that special department of this historical sketch of the township.

* Bull-dozing, as a common term, was not invented then, but it is applicable to the old pioneer preacher all the same.

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HISTORY OF MASON COUNTY.

The population increased steadily, but not very rapidly, until 1856, when the project of the Tonica, Petersburg & Jacksonville Railroad assumed an earnest aspect by the survey of a random line during the month of July. This line barely touched the northwest corner of this township. The same year, in the fall, another line was surveyed, running almost parallel with, and less than a mile east, of the first. People were led to believe that this second line would be the permanent and fixed one for the railroad, and subscriptions were lavishly given, and bartering of lands among individuals was the order of the day .. Imaginary towns dotted the line on almost every section, and the owners of the sites reveled in their sudden transition from poverty to affluence. But these- fickle dreams of fortune were dispelled a few months later, when the third line was run, and the road located thereon-where it now is, and is an important branch of the Chicago & Alton Railway. This line was, at this point, about a mile and a half east of the second line surveyed. Grading was commenced the summer of 1857, a number of farmers working out their subscription of stock in that way. The work progressed as well as the limited means and many unfavorable circumstances would admit, until the financial crash of 1859, when the work was suspended, except the completion and putting in operation that part of the road between Petersburg and Jacksonville, and was not resumed again until after the close of the war of the rebellion. But the certainty of its. ultimate completion gave an impetus to immigration, that neither the financial crash nor the paralyzing influence of the war could very materially check. The heretofore vast expanse of unoccupied prairie was rapidly converted into corn- producing farms, and became one of the most prolific townships in the county for that king staple product of the west.

THE CITY OF MASON CITY.

The land upon which Mason City now stands was entered at the United States Land Office in Springfield, the year 1849, by an Irishman named William Maloney, who improved and settled on a forty-acre tract of his purchase adjoin- ing the present corporation line on the northwest. He built a log cabin thereon, the dilapidated remains of which are still standing, surrounded by a cluster of for- est trees. To protect his crop from stock running at large, he surrounded his forty-acre field with a sod fence, having no fencing material within his reach. Those sod fences, which were very common in the first prairie settlements, were made by digging a trench about two feet wide and two feet deep, throwing the dirt into a narrow and liigh ridge close on the inside, and then placing the sod removed in opening the trench carefully on top of the ridge, so that the grass would grow, and soon make a sod over the whole of it, thereby preventing its being beaten down by the rains. Before the railroad was located, how- ever, George Straut, a man of wealth, an influential member of the Board of Directors, and with an eye to business, bought out Mr. Maloney's land posses- sions, and laid out this town, embracing within the original plat 240 acres, in

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HISTORY OF MASON COUNTY.

an oblong square of three-fourths of a mile in length, from north to south, and one-half mile in width, from east to west. The survey was made in September, 1857, by E. Z. Hunt, assisted by John M. Sweeney, the plat of which was filed of record in the Circuit Clerk's office the 29th of that month. There are thir- ty-seven full, and twenty-two fractional blocks in the original town. The blocks are 320 feet square, and divided into fourteen lots each, twelve of which are 50 x150 feet, and two are 20x150, in the center of each block and extending east and west, to correspond with the twenty-foot alley extending through each block north and south. The streets are eighty feet in width. The alley running through the blocks between Tonica and Main streets, and extending from Court to Pine streets, however, is an exception to the rule in that it is forty feet wide, the additional twenty feet of width being taken from the east half of those blocks, which leaves the lots on that side 130 instead of 150 feet in length. This wide alley serves as a very convenient thoroughfare and by-way when the streets are crowded. The lots are numbered from north to south in each block, commenc- ing at the northwest corner, which brings Lot 7 in the southwest corner, Lot 8 in the northeast, and Lot 14 in the in the southeast corner. An exception to this rule of numbering are the lots fronting Tonica street, on either side, between Court and Pine. The half blocks fronting this street, in the limit just described, are divided into lots as follows: The east half of Blocks 13 and 16 divided into twenty lots each ; the east half of fractional Block 13 is divided into thirteen full, and four fractional lots; the west half of fractional Block 15 is divided into six fractional and two full lots; fractional Blocks 8 and 12, and the east half of fractional Block 14, divided into ten lots each. These lots and blocks are made fractional, because of the grounds reserved to the railroad com- pany, upon which the depot and grain elevators are located. Block No. 30 was dedicated to the public by Mr. Straut, as a public square, and Block No. 36 as a park. The east and south sides of Block 13, east, north and west sides of Block 16, aud the east side of Block 17, contains all the mercantile business houses in the city now. Strawn's addition was surveyed by J. C. Warnock and plat filed of record August 8, 1866, Henry T. Strawn, proprietor. This addi- tion consisted of six blocks, laid off in conformity to the plan of the original plat. It is three blocks in length from west to east, and two blocks in width, from north to south, and lies on the north side of the original town, com- mencing at the northwest corner. Work having been resumed on the railroad, called forth this addition. Elliott's Addition was also surveyed by J. C. Warnock, the same year, and the plat filed of record September 25, 1866, Collin J. Elliott, proprietor. This addition consisted of three full and two half blocks, extending three and a half blocks in length from east to west, and two blocks in width from north to south. The streets and alleys correspond with those of the original plat, but the blocks are divided into four lots each, especially designed for residences, with which it is most all now occupied. It lies on the north side of the original town,

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HISTORY OF MASON COUNTY.

extending in length from Strawn's Addition east to the northeast corner of the original town.

Rosebrough's Addition was surveyed by Bentley Buxton and plat filed of record October 18, 1867, Benajah A. Rosebrough, proprietor. This addition consisted of two full, two half and one small fractional blocks, laid out on the plan of Elliott's Addition, and is situated on the south side of the original town, bounded on the east by the C. & A. Railroad.

Northeast Addition was surveyed by Bentley Buxton in the autumn of 1867, and the plat was filed of record February 29, 1868, William G. Greene, of Menard County, Gov. Richard Yates and John. Mathers, of Morgan County, proprietors. This addition contains an area of eighty acres, and is divided into twenty full, four half and one fractional blocks. Its streets running east and west correspond with and are a continuation of those of the original town ; but its streets running north and south are only fifty feet wide. The alleys run east and west through the blocks. The blocks are divided into twelve equal lots each. The lots are numbered from east to west on the north side of the' blocks, and from west to east on the south side, which brings No. 1 in the north- east corner, No. 6 in the northwest corner, No. 7 in the southwest corner and No. 12 in the southeast corner. This part of town is wholly occupied, so far as improved, by residences, except Block 11, upon which the beautiful new brick schoolhouse is located. This addition extends from the section line on north side of Elliott and Strawn's Additions south, along east end of Elliott's Addition and east side of original town, to the quarter-section line midway between Elm and Arch streets.

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The History of Menard and Mason Counties, Illinois, Part 59

Author: Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co. Number of Pages: 848

Author:
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 848