The History of Peoria County, Illinois. Containing a history of the Northwest-history of Illinois-history of the county, its early settlement, growth, development, resources, etc., etc., Part 41

Author: Johnson & co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : Johnson & Company
Number of Pages: 932

USA > Illinois > Peoria County > The History of Peoria County, Illinois. Containing a history of the Northwest-history of Illinois-history of the county, its early settlement, growth, development, resources, etc., etc. > Part 41

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"After Eads and his family were landed on this side of the river, the balance of the trip to the location of the new colony only required a few hours, and it was not long until the presence of his wife relieved the monotony of bachelor life in the wilderness. Mrs. Eads was the first American woman to see the site of Peoria."

While Eads and his family was toiling over the prairie, where roads were unknown, Captain Jude Warner arrived in the lake from St. Louis with a small fishing smack. They made the trip from St. Louis in a keel-bont, and brought seines, salt, etc., and

river. This was called " bushwacking." Sometimes a long line or rope would be attached to the mast, and the crew. walking on the shore with the other end, towed the craft up stream. This was " cordelling." At other times when cordelling was impracticable, in crossing rapids, a long line would be carried ahead and made fast to a tree or rock, or lo a small anchor, and the crew in the boat, taking the line over their shoulders, would walk from bow to stern, drop the rope, then walking back on the other side to the bow, lake it up again in the rear of the others, and thus keep the boat in motion.

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HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY.

came to spend the season catching and salting fish, with which the lake then abounded. Only the choice kinds, such as bass, pickerel, pike, etc , were saved, and these found a ready market at St. Louis and Louisville at sixteen dollars per barrel.

Warner's company, on arrival, consisted of Isaac De Boice, James Goff, William Blanchard, David Barnes, Charles Sargent, and Theodore Sargent. The arrival of this fishing party increased the number of men at Fort Clark to fourteen, "and we were just about as happy a little circle," says Mr. Fulton, " as has ever lived in Peoria. We were isolated, completely shut out from the rest of mankind, it is true. We heard but little from the outside world, and the outside world heard but little from us. But little was known at that time about the Fort Clark country. There were no roads, nor steamboats, nor mail routes, nor communication of any kind, so that in point of fact, we were as much a community by ourselves, as if our cabins had been built on an island in the middle of the sea. Our post-office was St. Louis, and we never got our mail, those of us who got any, only when we went there for supplies, and then our letters cost us twenty-five cents, and we couldn't muster that much money every day.

" Mrs. Eads was duly installed as housekeeper, and the rest of the company, except Hersey, who didn't remain long, boarded with her. It was a pretty hard Winter on us, but we managed to get through. Breadstuff gave out and we had to fall back on hominy-blocks and hominy. It was a coarse kind of food we got this way, but it was a good deal better than none, and served to keep hunger away. Hominy blocks went out of use long ago, and there are thousand of people in Peoria county that never saw one, but they were a blessing to hundreds of the pioneers to Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and in fact to the first settlers of the entire country, and were the means of keep- ing many of the pioneers and their little ones from starving to death."

Hominy blocks are so long out of use that a description of them is introduced here as pertinent to the memory of pioneer times. They were made from a section of a suit- ably sized tree, say from twenty inches to two feet in diameter. The tree was felled, and the stump and squared or " butted" with a cross-cut saw or the axe. The desired length, three to four feet was then measured off, and the axe or cross-cut saw again brought into requisition, and the section or block cut off. It was then hauled or rolled if there happened to be no teams at hand, to the cabin of the settler whereit was set on one end, and the work of preparation continued. The mortar end was made by boring or burning out. Sometimes both fire and auger were used, the auger first, and then the fire. The holes were bored slopingly from near the outer edge towards the center, the auger being directed so as to attain the required depth, and have the several holes meet at a common center. A fire was then started at the bottom of the auger holes, and care- fully watched until the end had burned out. Then the "ragged edges" were dressed away with such tools as happened to be most convenient, after which it was ready for use. The pestle or crusher was made by fastening an iron wedge, with the large end down, in a block of wood. Sometimes the wedge was fastened to a spring stick attached to an upright post, like an old fashioned well-sweep, to which handles were attached, when the operator commenced pounding, the elasticity of the spring stick lightening the labor by raising the wedge after it had struck the corn. Sometimes one hominy block would serve a whole neighborhood. With hominy, venison, wild turkey, wild honey, and wild fruit, and plenty of fish, the pioneers in most of Illinois fared sumptuously. At least with such fare there was not much danger of starving.

But it was not long after settlements were commenced until mills, of some kind, superseded the hominy blocks. Some of the first mills were very primitive concerns. They were made of two prairie boulders, fashioned like ordinary mill-stones. One of them was fastened to a beam or block of wood, and served as a lower mill-stone. An eye was drilled through the one intended for the upper stone, which was hung as all mill-stones are hung. This kind of mill was operated with an upright stick, one end of

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HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY.

which rested in a socket drilled towards one side of the upper stone, and the other end in a socket or auger hole in a beam overhead. Such mills were usually operated by two men. There were no hoppers, and while each of the two operators took hold of the up- right stick with one hand giving it a circular motion, and turned the upper stone, they fed the grain into the eye of the revolving stone with the other. Many hundreds of bushels of corn and buckwheat were ground in this way in the first settlement of the western country. There was no bolting apparatus, and the only refining process to which the meal or flour was subjected after leaving these hand mills, was a wire sieve. Under the manipulations of the pioneer mothers, corn meal ground at these mills made the best kind of Johnnie-cakes - that is made in dough of the proper consistency, spread on a board and baked before the fire in an old-fashioned open fireplace.

The Shoal Creek pioneers were soon followed by others, although the settlement of the country was very slow as compared with that of many of the northern counties after settlements commenced there, or of Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota and Wisconsin. It must be remembered, however, that 1819 was a long while ago. Ohio. as a separate organization, was only in its teens, and but very little of its territory, comparatively speaking, occupied by settlements. Hundreds of thousands of acres of the lands were vacant, and Illinois was " away out west," Indiana, with millions of acres of unoccupied land and a climate equally as good as Illinois, was awaiting settlement. Then come the other great facts - the great distance of Illinois from the centers of civilization, and the difficulty and trouble of getting here. There were no railroads in those days to reduce distance to hours, nor steamboats to defy wind and waves. The first steamboat, the Clermont, the invention of Robert Fulton, had been launched on the Hudson river in 1807, only twelve years before this settlement was commenced. Ten years passed away after the launching of the Clermont before steamboats were introduced on Western waters. On the 2d day of August, 1817, not quite two years before the Shoal Creek colony came to Fort Clark, the General Pike, the first steamboat on the Mississippi, as- cended as far as St. Louis. Previous to that time, all foreigu products consumed in Illinois were first brought to New Orleans in ocean sail vessels, and from New Orleans they were brought up the Mississippi in keel-boats, which, with their mode of manage- ment, have already been described. When not brought that way, they were wagoned across the Alleghany mountains from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, or from Baltimore to Wheeling, thence floated down the Ohio river in flat boats, landed at convenient points, and wagoned to their final destination. A trip with keel-boats from St. Louis to New Orleans and return generally consumed six months. As stated elsewhere, the most of the settlers in the southern part of the State came by keel-boats, or family boats-i. e. boats made expressly for the journey, in which several families had a co-interest.

Steam railroads were not introduced in the United States until 1829 - ten years after the date of the planting of the colony at Fort Clark, and it was more than a quarter of a century after that before iron ways and steam locomotive whistles were known in Illinois. In addition to the absence of steamboats and railroads, there were neither canals, wagon roads or bridges, and it was a long tedious way to come down the Ohio and up the Mis- sissippi and Illinois, or by the lakes and down a hundred miles overland to the navigable waters of the Illinois and Mississippi. Besides all thesc obstacles, it was more than a hundred miles from the centers of emigration to either the lakes or the Ohio. These were all hindrances to travel and immigration, and under them it was not to be wondered at that the country settled up slowly.

PERSONAL.

Of the first seven men who came to Fort Clark in 1819: Josiah and Seth Fulton went across the river in 1820, selected a claim on Farm creek, at the place now owned by Thomas Cornlin, and commenced to make a farm. They sold that claim in 1824,

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after which Josiah pre-empted the quarter section now owned by William Hall, near Peoria. He subsequently sold that, and in the Fall of 1832 bought what is known as the " Pulsifer Eighty," and in 1834 settled at his present residence in Richwoods.

Seth Fulton lived at different places, part of the time at the lead mines at Galena, and is now residing with a son in Henry county.

Abner Eads bought the quarter section which includes the old Peoria graveyard, and began to improve it. He subsequently bought a timbered quarter section on the south side of Kickapoo creek, now cut up in coal lots, and commenced to make improve- ments there. About 1833 he moved to Galena and engaged in business until 1854, when he went to the Pacific slope and commenced to make a farm in Lower California. After he had the farm well under way, he started back for his family, which he had left at Ga- lena. On the trip homeward he contracted was was called the Chagres fever, died and was buried at St. Louis.

Daugherty was a wild, reckless, daring Kentuckian, and was never better pleased than when he could engage in a fight. He did not remain long in the country. An in- cident occurred while he remained with the little colony, at one of the cabins, the rela- tion of which will serve to illustrate his character. Some Virginians had come to Fort Clark to locate some land for which they held military warrants, and were guests at the Eads cabin. One evening while they were here, three Indians came into the door yard having in their possession a bottle of " fire water." Two of them belonged to one tribe, and the other to a different band. They were friendly with the white colonists, but soon began to quarrel among themselves. At last one of the two kindred red men gathered up a club, and, in the presence of the "pale-faced " spectators, dealt the " lone Indian " a blow on the head that felled him a corpse at their feet. The Virginians were shocked and frightened, and declared that they would not remain a week in the country for all the land in the military tract. They urged the Shoal Creekers to abandon their cabins and flee to a land of civilization and safety, and wanted to know how they could think of remaining in such a heathenish, outlandish country, where their lives were in danger of being sacrificed to the fury of drunken Indians every hour. Daugherty had drank enough with the Indians to arouse his recklessness, and he replied to the Virginians something like this: "O, that's nothing but fun. We are used to that kind of thing, and if you are so chicken-hearted you can't stand to see one Indian kill another without getting scared, you'd better git. We have no use for such critters in this part of the country. Them that don't know any thing, don't fear any thing. You may go, but by G-d we're going to stay." But he didn't stay long, not because he was afraid to remain, for Fulton says he didn't " know any thing," and consequently ' wasn't "afraid of any thing," but because whisky and fighting white men were too scarce ; so he turned his back upon Fort Clark and drifted down the river and out of sight.

Hersey, the "New York Dutchman," as he was called, went down to the southern part of the State and, with another man, got into trouble in trying to " confiscate " a herd of catte belonging to Governor Kinney. The old court records at Bellville show that he was arrested for the offense, but by some means escaped punishment and got away. He was followed to Terre Haute, Indiana, where he was again arrested. The matter was finally compromised by the payment of damages or the value of the cattle, after which Hersey was never heard from again. When he came here in April, 1819, he had about seventeen hundred dollars in money, and subsequent inquiries, instituted by his heirs in New York, showed that he was the owner of valuable property in that State. Some years after Fulton settled out on his present farm, an agent for the heirs, a preacher, came there to find, if possible, some clue to Hersey, living or dead, The agent had been employed by the heirs, and stated to Fulton that he had traveled all over the United States in search of him, and that at St. Louis he heard that a man of that name had

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come to Fort Clark with a company from Shoal Creek in 1819. It seemed that two brothers of Hersey were conspiring to defraud his rightful heirs - whether children or not Mr. Fulton did not state -and hence the search. The description of the Hersey the agent was hunting tallied exactly with the Hersey who came here with Fulton. The agent was referred to the court records mentioned above and departed on his way. Whether Joseph Hersey was ever found or not, was never known to his old comrades from Shoal Creek.

Davis went to Farm Creek in 1821, remained there awhile, and then removed to Sangamon county. From Sangamon county he removed to Texas, where he died.

Russell was not here long until he took to the river and drifted back to St. Louis, where he was last heard from.

Four of the men who came with Captain Warner, Blanchard, Barnes and the two Sargents, were discharged soldiers. They had served in the United States army. and had warrants for one hundred and sixty acres of land each in the military district, which they came to locate. Blanchard has always remained in the near neighborhood, a useful citi- zen, and now lives in Woodford county, a few miles from Peoria. He married here, his marriage license being the first issued from Peoria county.

Barnes located his warrant some where in the country west of Fort Clark, and died at Bushnell some time in 1878. Charles Sargent located in what is now Hancock or War- ren county, where he was still living at last accounts. Theodore Sargent located his warrant on a tract of land with which he became dissatisfied, subsequently sold it and bought another tract at the present site of Farmington, where he died.

Some time in August, 1820, Captain Warner dreamed a dream that he didn't like. In the midst of a profound slumber it was revealed to him by an angel of the Lord that on the first of the next October, all the settlers at l'eoria Lake, except two young women, were to be massacred by the Indians. The young women were to be taken captive and subjected to a fate worse than death. The dream so preyed upon the mind of Captain Warner that he closed up his fishing and trading operations and left the country. The settlers were not massacred, nor were the young women taken captive. When Warner abandoned the lake, his employés scattered away to other parts of the country and were lost forever to Fort Clark.

The only addition to the Fort Clark community in 1819, was a shoemaker named Douglas Thompson, who came late in the Fall.

In the Winter of 1819-20, a man named Andrews came with his family down the river on a sled from Fort Dearborn. They stopped at Fort Clark a short time only, and then went over to the east side of the river.

John Hamlin, Judge Lockwood and Judge Latham came up from Sangamon county in the Spring of 1821. The Moffatt family, consisting of Joseph A. Moffatt, the father, and five children, three sons - Alva, Aquilla B., and Franklin - and two daughters - Mary and Olive -came on the 2d day of June, 1822. Aquilla, now seventy-seven years of age, and Alva, some years his senior, have lived in sight of the location of old Fort Clark for fifty-seven years, and have seen the country developed from an untamed wild to its present highly prosperous and thiekly populated condition. Aquila says when they landed from their boat, and he looked out over the prairie plain on which the busy city of Peoria has grown into existence and to the summit of the bluffs beyond, he thought it was the prettiest sight his eyes ever had or ever would behold. The prairie was cov- ered with a dense, rank growth of tall grass that was plumed with myriads of flowers of every conceivable hue. As the grass was swayed by the wind it fell and rose and rose and fell like the billows of the ocean, while the flowers seemed to dance with delight at the beauty of the landscape over which they spread their fragrance. Far away to the right and to the left, as far as sight could reach, this garden of nature's handiwork was hemmed in by a range of bluffs whose summits seemed almost to kiss the clouds and to

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have been planted there as an impenetrable barrier and protection against the cold, bleak winds as they come whistling from the snow-capped mountain regions of the far-away West. " It was a scene of natural beauty and grandeur," concluded the venerable and honored Aquilla Moffatt, " which I can never forget ; and when the time comes that I must close my eyes to all things earthly, the last sight upon which I would like for them to rest would be that landscape as I saw it on the 2d day of June, 1822. Its gorgeous beauty can only be excelled by the glories of the world beyond."

When the Moffatts came at the date mentioned, there were only four cabins at Fort Clark. Three of them were occupied as residences, and the fourth one was occupied as a chair shop by John Hamlin. The elder Moffatt built the fourth residence-cabin not far from the location of the C., B. & Q. railway depot.

The next settlement after that made at Fort Clark by the Shoal Creek company, was commenced on LaSalle Prairie, in the neighborhood west from Chillicothe and fifteen miles north from Peoria. It was called the Upper "Settlement," and was commenced about 1824. It was named in honor of LaSalle, the French explorer and founder of Fort Crevecœur in 1680. In early times it was a noted settlement, and was known all over the country.

The first settlements were generally confined to the near vicinity of the river, either in the timber or on the prairies skirting its borders. None of the pioneers ventured very far back into the country, and it was several years before improvements, to any great ex- tent, were commenced out "over the bluffs," and as late as 1832, there were- only twenty- two buildings in the town of Peoria.

The spread of settlements will be followed in the history of the several townships, which form a part of this volume.

CHAPTER IV.

ORGANIZATION OF PEORIA COUNTY.

St. Clair County - Madison County - Pike County - Fulton County - The First Election in Fulton County - Going to the Election in Canoes-The Candidates for Sheriff - Eads and Ross - Eads Elected by one Ma- jority - Ross Contests the Election - The Result - Peoria County Organized - Origin of the Name.

St. Clair is the oldest county organization in Illinois, and was established by procla- mation of Governor Arthur St. Clair in 1790. Madison county was established by proclamation of Governor Edwards, dated September 14, 1812, with the following boundaries :

"Beginning on the Mississippi, to run with the second township above Cahokia east, until it strikes the dividing line between the Illinois and Indiana Territories; thence with the said dividing line to the line of Upper Canada ; thence with the said line to the Mississippi ; thence down the Mississippi to place of beginning."

These boundaries included not only Peoria and three-fourths of the State besides, but all of the present State of Wisconsin and that part of Minnesota which lies on the east side of the Mississippi river. Edwardsville was the county seat, and some of the early documents relating to realty in what is now Peoria county, were first entered of record in the offices at that place.

Pike county, as elsewhere noted, was organized by an act of the second State Legis- lature, approved January 31, 1821, with the following boundaries :

" Beginning at the mouth of the Illinois river, and running thence up the middle of said river to the forks of the

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HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY

same ; thence up the south fork of said river until it strikes the State line of Indiana ; thence north with said line to the north boundary of this State ; thence west to the west boundary line of the State ; and thence south with said line to the place of beginning."

After the passage of this act, until 1823, the few settlers about Fort Clark were sub- ject to the jurisdiction of Pike county, and all papers of a legal character were served from the officers of that county, and land documents were entered of record at the county seat of Pike.

Under an act of the Legislature approved 28th January, 1823, Fulton county was organized from Pike county, with Lewistown as the county seat. Fulton county included all the territory north of the State line. The first election for county officers was held at Lewistown, and the few voters at Fort Clark and vicinity must either go there to vote, or not vote at all. They had a candidate for sheriff, Abner Eads, and were especially interested in that election. They mustered in full force, laid in a full supply of commis- sary stores, and went down in a body by canoes, to attend the election, two canoes being sufficient to accommodate them. They went equipped as the custom of the times de- manded. When the votes were counted, it was found that Eads had one majority over Ossian Ross, the Fulton candidate. Ross contested the election on the ground that some of those who voted for Eads were not residents of the county; that they lived on the east side of the river, and, consequently, were not entitled to vote in Fulton county ; and on the further ground that Eads could not write, and was, therefore. incompetent to dis- charge the duties of the office. To obviate this difficulty Eads took lessons in penman- ship from Jesse Wood, who was a preacher and a teacher, and in about four weeks advanced far enough to write his name. Judge Reynolds was presiding judge and ordered depositions to be taken as evidence in the case, and the log cabin office of John Hamlin, who came to Fort Clark about 1821, and who was appointed justice of the peace when Fulton county was organized, was selected as the place where the depositions should be taken. His associate, H. R. Coulter, sat with him while the depositions were being taken. It is said there was about as much excitement over that contest as there wasover the Presidential election in 1876. However, Justices Hamlin and Coulter were not ham- pered by Returning Boards, nor were they intimidated by the presence of " Visiting Statesmen." The contest was not sustained, and Eads was declared legally elected sheriff.

Peoria county was created under the provisions of an act approved Jannary 13. 1825, entitled "An act to form a new county out of the country in the vicinity of Fort Clark," as follows:

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly; That all that tract of country within the following boundaries, to wit : Beginning where the line between towns eleven and twelve north intersects the Illinois river ; thence west with said line, between ranges four and five cast ; thence south with said line to the line between towns seven and eight ; thence east to the line between ranges five and six ; thence south to the middle of the main char.nel of the Illinois river ; thence up said middle of the main channel to the place of beginning, shall constitute a county to be called l'eoria.

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The History of Peoria County, Illinois. Containing a history of the Northwest-history of Illinois-history of the county, its early settlement, growth, development, resources, etc., etc., Part 41

Author: Johnson & co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago : Johnson & Company Number of Pages: 932

Author: Johnson & co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : Johnson & Company
Number of Pages: 932