USA > Illinois > Stephenson County > The History of Stephenson County, Illinois : containing biographical sketches war record statistics portraits of early settlers history of the Northwest, history of Illinois, &c. > Part 19
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HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY.
top of the rock under consideration, exposing the usual red clay, and over this a gravelly subsoil. About three miles northwest of Freeport, there is an exactly similar cut. About a mile further on toward the northwest is another, which measures 1,000 feet long and twenty-four feet deep in the middle. Further on, and a little over a mile west of Rock City, is another cut 350 yards long and fifteen feet deep in the solid stone at the deepest place, and the stone covered by about ten feet of the usual gravelly clay. Here the stone is hard, glassy, conchoidal in fracture, and begins to assume the characteristics of the blue or Trenton proper. One-half a mile further on and nearer Rock City, there is a cut about twelve feet deep, the lowest part exposing the real blue limestone. Further on, and one mile east of Dacotah, there is another cut in the yellow Galena. Further on, at the railroad bridge over Rock Run, there is a cut about twenty-two feet deep. The first four feet is the usual reddish clay, the next twelve feet is Galena limestone, assuming characteristics of the blue, and the last five feet is into the blue itself. The union of the Galena and blue, passing into each other almost perceptibly, may be satisfactorily examined here. The next and last cut is about one-fourth of a mile east of Davis, almost on the county line. It is over 1,000 feet long and thirty-one feet deep ; the upper seven feet is the usual clay, with some gravel in it; the lower twenty- four feet is Galena limestone, solid, a little bluish in color and of a somewhat conchoidal fracture. In fact, all these exposures along the eastern part of the county, in their blue color, conchoidal fracture and hardness, differ consider- ably from the Freeport quarries. They are lower down in the series, and assimilate somewhat into the character of the blue below. So true is this that in some of the exposures it is hard to fix upon the line of separation between the two.
From Freeport, south along the railroad track, no other exposures of the Galena limestone are visible.
Leaving the railroad cuts, the streams present the next best opportunities to trace the superficial area, thickness and phenomena of this deposit. The Pecatonica River, about four or five miles after entering the county, strikes the Galena limestone, and for its whole distance in the county, exposes this forma- tion where any rocks are exposed along its banks. There are no very good exposures, however, on this stream, except those at Freeport, already referred to. At Bobtown, or New Pennsylvania, an outcrop is worked near the river, and at or near the mouth of Yellow Creek the formation is dug into in an old crevice lead mine. Richland Creek and Cedar Creek both expose the Galena rocks for their entire length. Both these streams have cut deep into the solid rocks, and at many places along their banks heavy outcrops and escarpments stand out in bold relief. At Buena Vista, on the former stream, there is an out- crop of twenty feet, quarried into for its full depth. At Cedarville, on the lat- ter stream, the outcrop is seventy feet thick. A large quarry is here opened, out of which the stone in Addams' mill-dam have been taken. At the Scioto mills, below the confluence of the two streams, and in many places in that neighborhood, the same rocks are exposed and quarried. Crane's Creek, where it washes the west end of Crane's Grove, exposes the Galena limestone, and the the same limestone is worked into at Rosensteel's quarry, near Freeport, to a depth of twenty-two feet.
Leaving the streams, reference will next be made to other portions of the county examined. Burr Oak Grove, half-way between Lena and Winslow, has near its eastern limits an interesting outcrop. About two and a half miles west of the latter place, almost every little prairie hill-top is dug into, and several
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HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY.
small quarries opened. An exposure of twenty-four feet was also examined at the limekiln, a little southeast of Rock City. The top of this quarry is Galena limestone, but it gradually changes into the blue before the bottom is reached. In the township of Ridott, the Galena is the underlying stone, changing into the blue toward the eastern and southeastern part. In the township of Oneco the formation is heavily developed. In short, the outcrop of this well-known formation, or division of the Trenton rocks, are so numerous that it is not neces- sary to particularize more fully than to briefly state their superficial boundaries and area.
All that part of the country between the Pecatonica River and Yellow Creek, except a small strip east and south of Winslow, and except the* developments of the Cincinnati group at Waddam's Grove, New Dublin, Kent and along the banks of the Yellow Creek, is underlaid by the Galena rocks. All that part of the county north and east of the Pecatonica River, except in the bed and along either side of Rock Run, is underlaid by the same. The southeastern part of the county, nearly up to the Pecatonica River, and nearly to the track of the Illinois Central Railroad, with the exception of a strip along the south- eastern corner and a few isolated patches in the eastern part of the township of Silver Creek, is also underlaid by these same rocks.
Fossils .- Few fossils are found in the Galena limestone in Stephenson Co. The characteristic Receptaculites sulcata, called by the miners and quarrymen " lead blossom " and " sunflower coral," is found at Freeport and Cedarville in great abundance, but good specimens are hard to obtain on account of the fri- able nature of the stone in which it is found. At the former place, a specimen of Receptaculites orbicularis was noticed. Two or three species of Murchi- sonia, fragments of several species of Orthocera, one or two well-known Orthis, two species of Pleurotomaria, a small Bellerophon, and a rather well- defined Ambonychia, were the fossils most usually observed. They all exist in the form of casts, and perfect specimens are hard to find.
THE BLUE LIMESTONE.
This, the middle division of the Trenton, is of limited extent in this county. Of course, in many places marked on the map with the color indi- cating the Galena, a shaft sunk down a short distance would strike the blue limestone, but it is described as the surface rock. Rock Run cuts into the blue limestone soon after entering the county, and all along its banks on both sides, until within a mile or two of its confluence with the Pecatonica, this rock out- crops and shows itself. Some of the high, rocky banks, are overcapped with the Galena, but the usual rock is the blue. At the railroad bridge of the Western Union Railroad Company, over Rock Run, the railroad track is about six feet below the junction of the Galena and the blue. Stepping west out of the railroad cut, there is a perpendicular descent of thirty-three feet from the track down to the water level, making the whole thickness of the blue, at this place, about thirty-nine feet. The lower part of this outcrop is very blue, the upper part yellowish, with thin strata, and gradually changing in lithological character, until the overlying Galena just east of the bridge is reached. This is a very interesting section. One and a half miles below this locality is a quarry, opened in the west bluff of the stream. The outcrop is twenty-five feet thick. The top part is shaly and yellowish and the bottom becomes heavier and bluer in color. Some of the thin shaly strata are full of small-sized orthis. These two outcrops are fair representations of all the others along the stream. Some
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HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY.
indications of underlying blue limestones prophesy its existence in the south- eastern part of the county, and have so been marked on the county map.
Some slabs with fossils similar to those found in the Dixon marble were picked up ; these with the fragmentary stems of Eucrinites, were the only fos- sils found. A small specimen of the "sunflower coral " was found in the blue limestone, at Rock Run railroad bridge, the only one ever found by the party making the examinations in this rock.
The Buff Limestone .- The only place where this, the lower division of the Trenton, is developed in this county, is at Winslow. It is doubtless the underlying rock for a few miles below this place and on both sides of the Pec- atonica River for this distance. Here it presents very much the appearance of a quarry in the blue. The top is shaly, thin bedded, and of a yellowish choc- olate color. At Martin's mill in Wisconsin, one mile above, the outcrop is much heavier, the bottom layers more massive and very blue. Professor Whit- ney pronounces these exposures of the buff, and the fossils seem to indicate that he is correct in this. The lithological character of the quarries would indicate the same thing, but in a less satisfactory manner. On either side of this strip of buff, and within a short distance of its outcrops, the Galena lime- stone comes to the surface, so that the latter seems to rest uncomfortably upon the former; but in following the stream to the northward, a few miles above the mill, the St. Peters sandstone begins to show its outliers. The quarry at Winslow is worked twenty-three feet deep, and at Martin's mill thirty-five feet, and at both places it is some ten feet from the bottom of the quarries to the surface of the water. Geologically, the locality is one of the most interesting in this part of the State.
FOSSILS.
Many well-preserved casts of fossils were found here. Among them the most characteristic were Pleurotomaria subconica; a large Orthocera, five or six inches in diameter and six feet long, with a part of the shell still wanting; a Cypricardites Niota; Oncoceras pandion; some two species of Tellinomya, etc., etc.
ECONOMIC GEOLOGY.
The chief sources of wealth in Stephenson County are to be found in the richness and productiveness of its soil, and in its abundant agricultural resources. It is as less waste land, and is regarded as the best agricultural county in the State. In her fat, rich soil, therefore, is contained the first and chiefest source of wealth in the county-that which nourishes all the rest, and fostering and building up the city of Freeport in a wonderful manner. But, aside from this, there are other sources of wealth and industry demanding attention.
CLAYS AND SANDS.
Almost everywhere beneath the soils and sub-soils may be found clay beds, out of which an excellent article of common red brick can be manufactured, This is more especially true of the reddish clays overlying the Galena limestone. Beds of sand are also found, sufficiently pure for mortars and plastering pur- poses, but they are far less numerous than the clay beds. A tough, tenacious, dark-colored fire-clay also underlies some of the peat marshes, which has been dried and baked into a tenacious, light-colored brick, as an experiment, but this is not, perhaps, of much economic value.
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HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY.
QUICKLIME.
The more solid portions of the Galena limestone burns into a quicklime of excellent quality, and there are many limekilns in the county. Certain portions of the blue limestone also burn into a good lime, and at Martin's mill certain por- tions of the buff are being successfully made into lime of fair quality.
BUILDING STONE.
All the rocks hitherto described furnish building stone of better or worse qualities. The Niagara is quarried in several places. It furnishes a handsome- colored, enduring building material, but is unshapely and unmanageable on account of its irregular stratification. The Cincinnati group, although con- sidered an invaluable building material, is much quarried about New Dublin and in that region. It comes out of the quarry in good shape for light work, and does not crumble and decay when exposed to the weather, as it has been known to do farther west. Farm foundations, houses, bridge abutments, and such other work may be seen built out of the Cincinnati group, at many places in the western part of the county. The Catholic chapel before alluded to is built out of this material, and does not, as yet, exhibit much signs of decay. Indeed, some of the bottom strata are massive, very blue and excessively hard ; but yet the Cincinnati group would not furnish stone suitable for massive and solid masonry, or for long-continued resistance to the action of the elements. The Galena limestone furnishes a good material for the heavier kinds of masonry . It is a rough, unshapely stone, requiring much labor to lay it, but when well dressed and laid, it seasons into great hardness, and takes a beautiful cream or chocolate color. Nearly all the stone work in the city of Freeport is built of this stone. The blue and buff both afford a good stone for building purposes. The upper strata are too thin and irregular, but the lower blue strata afford the most beautiful building stone to be found in this part of the State. The only difficulty seems to be the great labor in quarrying, on account of the great amount of worthless materials to be removed upon reaching the handsome and valuable portions of the quarries.
MINERALS.
Some bog-iron ore may be found in some of the marshes, but it is of little value and limited extent. Pieces of flat copper have been picked up in the gravel beds, but they are of rare occurrence, and come from regions far remote. Galena, or common lead ore, is and has been mined for to some extent. There is an old crevice mine near the mouth of Yellow Creek that has often engaged attention in years past, but no heavy amounts of mineral have ever been taken from it. From the quarries near Lena, " chunks " as large as the fist have been taken. In the township of Oneco a company of Freeport men prospected to a considerable extent, and obtained several hundred pounds of mineral. Near Weitzel's Mill some "prospecting" has been carried on. Along the banks of Yellow Creek some "float mineral " has been picked up; and in almost any of the quarries small bits of ore may be detected. But none of these localities have shown heavy bodies of lead. Indeed, the Galena lime- stone, notwithstanding its general prevalence in this county, seems to be very unproductive of rich bodies of mineral wealth. The probabilities are that no rich, or even good-paying, diggings will ever be discovered, for the simple rea- son that they do not exist within the borders of the county. Small deposits
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HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY.
undoubtedly do exist, and will occasionally create some excitement, and invite the expenditure of mining capital, but, in the opinion of many, capital thus expended will never make remunerative returns.
PEAT.
At several localities peat-beds of some value have been discovered. On the farm of a Mr. White, in Township 26, Range 9, a bed of about fifty acres was discovered. It was from three to six feet, and underlaid by a tough, tenacious, dark-colored fire-clay. The peat is of a rather poor quality, and is probably of no great value as fuel. Near Lena and Burr Oak Grove the same indications exist. On the low, level prairies south of Yellow Creek, and rang- ing between Florence and Crane's Grove, almost every swale and marsh has more or less peat in it. One of these beds is quite extensive, and will become valuable as soon as the peat experiment succeeds. It is found in the township of Florence, between Sections 25 and 26, the section line running along near its middle. Careful borings show a depth of from six to nine feet of peat.
The peat experiment is not yet fully solved, but its solution will not only enrich the experimentalist, but confer great blessings upon the inhabitants of these northern prairie counties.
INDIAN OCCUPATION.
In prefacing what it seems worth while to say upon the Indian occupation of Stephenson County, the publisher desires to acknowledge his obligations to the judicious and very valuable compilations on the subject made by Gen. S. D. Atkins, and contained in his address of July 4, 1876, from which the following. in that behalf, is appropriated. After detailing the history of Illinois from its earliest settlements to the close of the war for Independence, he says :
" After the Revolutionary war, emigration pushed rapidly over the Alle- ghanies into the magnificient country watered by the Ohio and Mississippi and their tributaries. . Many settlers in Illinois came from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. They were mostly poor people, unable to own slaves, and many were in sentiment opposed to slavery, and were seeking a new country where slavery did not exist. Southern Illinois was principally settled by these people who, with their families, penetrated the wilderness, with all their house- hold goods upon pack animals and themselves upon foot, depending upon their trusty rifles and fishing-rods for sustenance by the way. Some trace the sobri- quet of 'Suckers,' universally applied to Illinois, to these poor settlers from the South ; they were emigrants from the poorer classes of the Slave States, where the tobacco plant was already extensively cultivated by slave labor, and they, not being able to own slaves in the Slave States, came to Illinois to get away from the imperious domination of their wealthy neighbors. The tobacco plant (now so extensively cultivated in Stephenson County) has many sprouts from the root and main stem, which, if not stripped off, suck up its nutriment and destroy the staple. These sprouts are called 'suckers, ' and are as care- fully stripped off from the plant and thrown away as is the tobacco worm itself. These poor emigrants from the Slave States were jeeringly and derisively called 'Suckers,' because they were asserted to be a burden upon the people of wealth ; and when they removed to Illinois they were supposed to have stripped themselves off from the parent stem, and gone away to perish in the wilderness like the 'suckers' stripped from the tobacco plant. But we wear the title proudly now, for the 'stone rejected by the builders has become the chief stone
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of the corner,' and in intelligence, morals, material prosperity and population, Illinois has far outstripped her poor old mother, Virginia, and surpassed Ken- tucky and Tennessee. The cognomen was misapplied. Slavery was the 'sucker ' from which they fled, and the 'Subtle corps of sappers and miners " that 'sucked' the life-blood out of the States from which the early settlers of Illinois emigrated. But there is another generally accepted explanation of this sobriquet of 'Suckers, ' the nickname of the Illinoisans. Lead was early dis- covered in the vicinity of Galena, and in 1824, Col. James Johnson, of Ken- tucky, had gone there with a party of miners and opened a lead mine, about one mile above the present city of Galena. His great success drew others there in 1825, and in 1826 and 1827 hundreds, and even thousands, from Kentucky and Missouri and Southern Illinois went to that section to work the lead mines. It was estimated that in the summer of 1827 the number of miners in the min- ing region about Galena was between seven and ten thousand. The Southern Illinoisans ran up the Mississippi in the spring. season, worked the lead mines during the warm weather, and ran down the river again to their homes in the fall season, thus establishing a similitude between their migratory habits and the fishy tribe known as 'Suckers, ' that run up stream in the spring and down stream in the fall. No matter how it came about, the term 'Suckers' will stick to the Illinoisans 'while wood grows and water runs.' At that time. 1824 and 1825, there was not a white settler within the bounds of what now constitutes Stephenson County, and not a white settlement anywhere in North- ern Illinois, between Chicago and Galena. This broad expanse of magnificent country, Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, surpassing, in the estimation of the writer, any country he has ever visited ; and, in the estimation of at least one gentleman who has traveled extensively and circumnavigated the globe, surpassing in climate, soil and productions any other spot on the globe's sur- face, was in the peaceful possession of the red man. So far as the writer knows, or has been able to learn within the few days he has devoted to the sub- ject, no white man had then looked upon its beautiful prairies, grand old groves or sparkling streams. It is possible that under the treaty of 1804, the white man, the European and their descendants, might have had a right to visit this country, but, so far as the writer knows, no one ever did. It was the home of, and in the undisturbed possession of, the powerful Indian tribes known in history as the Sacs and Foxes. A subordinate Indian tribe, the Winne- bagoes, occupied Stephenson County and vast tracts besides along the Pecaton- ica, Wasemon and Rock Rivers. The chief of this subordinate tribe was Winneshiek, whose principal village was situated on the banks of the Pecatonica, at the mouth of the Spring Run, along Spring street, through the present densely inhabited portion of the city of Freeport. This Indian chieftain, Winneshiek, was a short, stubbed, powerful man, temperate in his habits, and peaceable and well-disposed toward the whites. In fact, the Winnebagoes were so well dis- posed toward the whites that they have gone down in history as pusillanimous and cowardly. 'Their lodges were on the grounds now occupied by the Illinois Central and Northwestern Railway Companies. Their corn-fields, where the dusky squaws and dark-eyed maidens of the Winnebagoes planted and raised their corn, were in the immediate vicinity of Taylor's Driving Park, and the writer has often traced their corn-hills, laboriously thrown up by these matron and maiden 'grangers, ' with no better 'agricultural implements' than clam shells, where the park now is, and no doubt traces of these corn-hills might yet be found by the curious in that vicinity. The burial-ground of the tribe was where the Illinois Central Railway freight house now stands, and, in
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excavating for the foundation of that structure, in 1853, many skeletons of the Indians buried there were exhumed by the workmen.
" Col. E. H. Gratiot, so far as the writer knows, was one of the first white people who looked upon the beautiful country of Stephenson County before a plow had broken its virgin soil. Col. Gratiot is a son of the founder of Gratiot's Grove, Wis. His grandfather emigrated to America with John Jacob Astor, of New York, and his father came to the lead mines, in the vicinity of Galena, immediately after the first discovery of lead in that region. Col. Gratiot remembers distinctly this peculiar mode of burial of the Winnebagoes- ' burial in the air.' It is an interesting query, ' Who was the first white person in Stephenson County ?' I cannot answer the query. Southern Illinois was settled immediately at the close of the Revolutionary war, but Northwestern Illinois had no settlers until lead was discovered near Galena, about 1823-24. Illinois was admitted into the Union as a State in 1818, but, so far as the writer knows, no white man had yet visited the valley of the Pecatonica. Col. Gratiot traveled on horseback, in company with a single companion, in the fall of 1827, from Jacksonville, Ill., to Gratiot's Grove, Wis., passing through from Dixon to Buffalo Grove, and Burr Oak Grove to the Apple River country, and, with the exception of a man named Kirker, who settled in 1826 in Burr Oak Grove and built a cabin-which he abandoned within the year-Col. Gratiot and his companion were, so far as the writer knows, the first. Col. Gratiot and com- panion stopped at Kirker's deserted cabin for 'nooning' when on their way through this region in 1827. Col. Gratiot crossed Rock River at Dixon before any ferry was established there, fording streams, following an 'Indian trail' afterward known, we believe, as the ' Sucker trail;' at any rate, he struck the 'Sucker trail ' at that point; and he met no white man in his journey after leaving Peoria until he reached Gratiot's Grove. Kirker may have, and probably did, abandon his claim at Burr Oak Grove on account of the Winne- bago difficulty that occurred in 1827. Some of the lead miners had gone beyond what the Indians regarded as their proper bounds, and trespassed upon the lands of the Indians, and, in addition to that, there was another cause of difficulty. In the month of July, 1827, a boat left Galena for Fort Snelling, in Minnesota, and on the way up, the crew stopped at an Indian encampment on the bank of the river. Some of the Indians went on board of the boat. and were forcibly detained and not permitted to land until they had gone about twelve miles farther up the stream. The Indians highly resented the insult, and watched the return of the boat. As soon as the party were discovered descending the river, the Indians attacked them from the bank, and severely wounded several on board ; but the party reached Galena and spread the alarm, when the miners built small forts, or log block-houses, and flocked to them for safety. A fort was built at Elizabeth, another at Apple River, and another at Hamilton's Diggings, near Wyota, on the northwest branch of the Pecatonica, about sixteen miles northwest of Winslow, on the road to Mineral Point. William Hamilton, the founder of Hamilton's Diggings, was a son of the great Alexander Hamilton, Washington's first Secretary of the Treasury. Gen. Dodge who, about that time, came to the lead-mining region from Missouri, raised irregular volunteers among the miners, and began scouting the country for the hostile red-skins. Probably late in the fall of 1827, while Dodge and his irregulars were in the vicinity of Mineral Point, they espied a young Indian lad a short distance from them. Gen. Dodge ordered the guide and Indian interpreter, Jesse W. Shull, the founder of Shullsburg, to go up to the Indian boy and ascertain the tribe to which he belonged, and where his people were
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