USA > Illinois > McLean County > The good old times in McLean County, Illinois : containing two hundred and sixty-one sketches of old settlers, a complete historical sketch of the Black Hawk war and descriptions of all matters of interest relating to McLean County > Part 37
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Mr. Ball is about five feet and ten inches in height, and is what would be called a good-looking man. His hair and whiskers are beginning to turn a little gray. He has a well shaped head and eyes that are expressive of fun and good humor. He is sometimes a little eccentric in his manner, but is a man of good feeling. He takes care of his property, and is thrifty and pros- perous. When he was asked to give some information of his early life he was out attending to his property, but he sat down
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under the shade of a tree and talked easily, cleverly and humor- ously. IIe is a kind and accommodating neighbor and a pleas- ant gentleman.
WILLIAM KENDRICK STANSBERRY.
William Kendrick Stansberry was born August 29, 1820, in Washington County, East Tennessee. His father's name was Edward Stansberry and his mother's was Polly Ann Graham. Edward Stansberry and his wife were both almost entirely of English descent. Mr. W. K. Stansberry once saw his great grandmother Graham, who lived to reach the advanced age of one hundred and ten years. Edward Stansberry was born near the close of the eighteenth century. He had eleven brothers and four sisters, enough to keep him company in his youth. He moved to Tennessee and there was married, and in Washington County his son William K. was born. In 1833 Edward Stans- berry moved with his family to Cheney's Grove, where he re- mained until the time of his death, which occurred in 1861. The Stansberry family was the fifth to come to the grove.
The journey to Cheney's Grove was long and tedious, requir- ing six weeks to accomplish it. They were one week on the Cumberland Mountains, and while there, lived on eorn-bread and pumpkins. They arrived at Cheney's Grove on the last day of October, and when they came, the neighbors all turned out and helped them build a cabin, which they succeeded in finish- ing within three days. It was made of logs, of course, with a puncheon floor. They made their bedsteads by inserting poles in auger holes bored in the wall. The bedstead had only one leg out in the room. They made a table by splitting two broad puncheons and putting legs to them. They had stools made of little puncheons, and during the following year they indulged in the luxury of a loft made of Linn bark.
During the fall after they came to Cheney's Grove, Edward Stansberry went with a party of men after wild hogs, and they killed twenty-five or thirty, and Mr. Stansberry's share of the pork amounted to five or six hundred pounds. They went to Perrysville, Indiana, for their grinding. In 1834 the family suffered severely ; they all had the ague except Kendrick, and
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were at one time obliged to go eight weeks without corn-meal, except what they could grate for themselves.
When William Kendrick Stansberry became sixteen years of age, he was a great hunter, and from that time until the age of twenty-five he scarcely ever killed less than fifty deer per annum, and great numbers of turkeys. He killed one turkey which weighed twenty-five pounds dressed. Ile once shot a doe and knocked both eyes out, but when he took hold of her she nearly kicked the clothes off of him. On the day that Polk was elected president he went to see the voting, and on the way killed two bucks at one shot. At one time he shot a buck sixty or seventy yards distant through the heart, and it ran towards him and fell about ten feet away. He also hunted wolves and caught a great many in traps, on horseback and by running them down.
Mr. Stansberry occasionally did a little trapping. In Feb- ruary, 1842, he caught in the Sangamon River, in a steel-trap, the largest otter he ever heard of. He discovered its track in the snow on the ice and found its habitation. It had cut a hole in the ice between the forks of a tree in the water. Mr. Stans- berry watched the hole and tried to shoot the otter, but it was too sharp for him. He at last went to Farmer City and bought a steel-trap, which he set by its hole and caught the animal by the fore-legs, and its tail was frozen fast in the ice. It measured nine feet from the tip of its tail to its nose. The skin was sold for ten dollars.
Mr. Stansberry has some lively recollections of Ephraim Myers, one of the greatest hunters in the West. Mr. Myers is a humorous man and has a great many queer traits of character. At one time Ephraim Myers, Edward Stansberry and Fielding Lloyd were taking up a bee tree and the little Stansberry boys were looking on and eating honey. Old Ephraim thought the little chaps should have something to do, so he pretended to be afflicted with the colie and made them rub him down. If they stopped rubbing for a moment he would groan and make them work again.
W. K. Stansberry has many recollections of old times and the fashions of early days. IIe particularly remembers the Methodist preacher, who could be recognised as far as seen, by
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his horse and saddle-bags. The preacher's salary was a hundred dollars a year. The one, who had Cheney's Grove in his circuit, traveled from Big Grove (Champaign) to Middletown, (now called Mahomet,) then to Cheney's Grove, then to Indian Grove (near Fairbury), then to Mackinaw timber (where Lexington now is), then to Blooming Grove, Randolph's Grove and Hur- ley's Grove (where Farmer City now is), in succession, and finally back to Big Grove the starting point. It required four weeks to make the round trip. He wore a white cravat and a plain, round-breasted, jeans coat. But afterwards the fashion changed, and he wore his coat straight-breasted. No person was allowed in the meeting-house, who wore ornaments of any kind. Mr. Stansberry was once careless enough to wear a shirt which had the pleats on the bosom running crosswise instead of up and down, and he was not allowed to enter the meeting-house or attend divine service at all. The meeting at Old Town tim- ber was held in an old barn, which is standing yet. In early days people yoked up their oxen to go to church, and the smart young men took their sweethearts on horseback behind them. Mr. Stansberry sometimes went as far as Farmer City, a distance of eighteen miles, to take his lady to church. After church he would go back, stay all the night with the family and return home the next day. He has frequently seen half a dozen young men riding to church with their sweethearts on behind them and has often seen a lady riding on horseback to church and her husband walking before.
Mr. Stansberry has had the experience peculiar to the early settlers ; he has driven pigs to Chicago and sold them for $1.25 per hundred weight, has chopped wood for twenty-five cents per day, has harvested for fifty cents and hauled wheat to Chicago for thirty cents per bushel.
Mr. Stansberry's hunting days came to an end at the age of twenty-five, when he was married. This important event oc- curred January 8, 1846. His bride was Miss Sarah Jane Yazel. He has had five children, all of whom are living. They are :
Mrs. Harriet Emeline Hyre, wife of Jonathan Hyre, who lives in Saybrook.
Mrs. Olive Jane Simmons, wife of D. Haldeman Simmons, lives in Saybrook.
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Edward Stansberry lives at home.
Mrs. Cora Bell Smith, wife of Clinton Smith, lives in Say- brook.
Milton Stansberry lives at home.
After Mr. W. K. Stansberry was married he stopped his hunting, except occasionally for bee-trees. Year before last he found thirty bee-trees from which he took three hundred pounds of honey. Last year he found twenty-one bee-trees. He has in the house honey which is three years old. He is about five feet and six inches in height, is heavy set, and weighs one hundred and eighty pounds. He is a good-natured man and would seem to be on good terms with all of his neighbors. He has dark eyes and heavy black hair, which has hardly yet begun to show the effects of time. He is somewhat stout in appearance, has a clear and rather heavy voice and a heavy, black moustache, and would be called a good-looking man if he would dress himself up. He is now the postmaster at Saybrook. He has been a very temperate man and has never drank whisky. He says that if he had his life to live over he would be a preacher !
OTHA OWEN.
Otha Owen was born October 5, 1823, in Mechanicsburg, Champaign County, Ohio. His father's name was Uriah Owen, and his mother's maiden name was Kesiah Jaco. His father was partly of Welch descent and was born in Virginia. He was a soldier in the war of 1812. He died in 1832 or '33, and his wife followed him two years afterwards.
Otha Owen lived in Champaign County until he was ten years of age, when he was sent to Green County to live with his uncle Elias Owen. He came with his uncle Elias to Cheney's Grove, where he arrived September 6, 1834. The journey was pleasant and uneventful. They immediately went to farming. Otha Owen was obliged to work hard, but found some time for school, though not as much as he would have liked. He was often sent with the grist to mill in his younger days, and some- times made the grand journey to Chicago, camping out at night. He speaks very warmly of the manners and customs of early days, when everybody was acquainted with everybody, and peo- ple made it their duty to visit the sick and see that they all received attention.
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During the greater part of the years 1844 and '45, Mr. Owen lived in Sangamon County, where he worked for eight and one- third dollars per month.
Otha Owen married, November 20, 1845, in Sangamon County, Susannah Cline, and came immediately to Cheney's Grove. It was then bitterly cold weather, and their journey was a hard one. Mr. Owen says it was the coldest weather he ever experienced, and has since often wondered why he did not freeze to death. The chickens fell from their roosts and died of cold. It did not thaw for nearly three weeks. During that winter Mr. Owen bought his meat for five dollars per hundred; but during the following year he had pork for sale and received for it only one dollar or a dollar and a quarter per hundred. The pigs, which the farmers raised, were little long-nosed fellows that could put their snouts through a fence and eat up a potato hill.
Mr. Owen has had his experience with fires on the prairie, and has had some fencing burned by them. He says the worst prairie fire he ever saw was on the farm of a certain Mr. Went- worth, who lived within eighteen miles of Chicago. Six teams, including Mr. Owen's, were passing at the time, and the team- sters took off their horses, put them in the barn and began fighting fire. They succeeded in saving the house and barn, but the remainder of the farm was simply a waste of cinders.
Mr. Owen never hunted much, but has chased wolves, which were the farmer's greatest pest. He chased them on horseback and says that there was a great deal of difference in their speed, so much so that he could tell at almost the first jump whether or not he could catch the wolf he was after. If it was a fast wolf it would run slowly at first and look over its shoulder in an impudent, suspicious way, and when pressed more closely would show speed, but would never take the trouble to do more than keep out of the hunter's way. But if the wolf was a slow one it seemed to know that it must do its best and get down to its greatest speed immediately. When Mr. Owen saw a wolf of this kind he always felt sure of catching it in a short race. He says the slow wolves have all been caught off, and those which are now left can searcely be caught at all. The breed has been improved and made a faster running breed by a process of
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" natural selection." A wolf was recently started in Belleflower township and chased ten miles before being caught. Such a chase never was formerly made after a prairie wolf. Occasion- ally the early settlers chased the timber wolves more than ten miles, but never the prairie wolves. The early settlers would sometimes run their horses to death or break their wind, or run into an ant-hill or a badger's hole in chasing the wolves, and it was not always a safe business. Mr. Elias Owen had a severe fall by his horse running into a hole, and Mr. James R. Means killed a horse on one of these fast chases.
Mr. Owen has had eleven children, and of these eight are living.
Otha Owen is five feet and five inches in height, has a san- guine complexion, but is somewhat slim in build. He is like the most of the old settlers, cordial and friendly, and his manner is warm and pleasant and honest. His hair is nearly gray and his whiskers likewise. He has a good, kind expression, and will be remembered as one of the best of the old settlers.
JOSEPH NEWCOM.
Joseph Newcom was born August 25, 1814, in Clark County, Ohio. His father, whose name was Ethan Newcom, was a Jer- sey Yankee, and his grandfather, whose name was also Ethan Newcom, was a Jersey Yankee and a Revolutionary soldier. Ethan Newcom, jr., the father of Joseph, married a widow, Mrs. Mary Woods, whose maiden name was Mary Marsh, and she was a Jersey Yankee, too.
Joseph Newcom says that nothing of importance occurred during the first fourteen years of his life, and thinks that chil- dren did not know as much and were not as smart as the chil- dren are at present with all the advantages that schools can now give.
In the fall of 1828 the Newcom family came to Sangamon timber, Illinois, to what was afterwards called Newcom's Ford. There they arrived one evening tired and hungry, and the next morning Ethan Neweom found a bee tree before breakfast. The family went on to Blooming Grove, but after staying there for two weeks, went back to Newcom's Ford, which took its name from them. During their first winter at the ford they hauled
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corn from Blooming Grove, forty miles distant. Newcom's Ford was a stopping place for travelers, and the Newcom's kept a house of entertainment. Sometimes, in the fall of the year, twenty-five or thirty teams would stop there at once. The price of entertainment was eighteen and three-fourths cents per meal and fifty cents for keeping a man and horse over night. They went to Eugene, on the Big Vermilion River, near the Wabash, for their flour and groceries. But, notwithstanding some little inconveniences, the Newcoms lived well and happily. At one time Joseph Newcom went with his sister on horseback to Big Grove, fifteen miles east of the ford, to a wedding. While there the weather turned cold and everything was frozen up. On their return they found the sloughs all easy to cross, except one, which the horses refused to touch. It had frozen over and had fallen and the crust of ice on top was held up by the grass, and the horses refused to cross it. Joseph Newcom was obliged to go into the water up to the waist to break the ice while his sister followed on horseback.
People often had great difficulty in crossing at Newcom's Ford, and were frequently obliged to swim the creek with their teams. A man named Henry Pitts had a horse drowned in crossing the creek, as it did not swim well, but went to plunging when it struck the deep water.
The hogs belonging to the settlers would run wild when turned loose for any length of time, and were sometimes very dangerous. On one Sunday Ethan Newcom went out to hunt bees, when he saw a hog in the distance coming towards him. He thought he would let it come up to within a short distance of him and then frighten it, but when the hog approached it be- gan to bristle up its hair and walk sideways, and Mr. Newcom saw that he must "get out of that" very quickly. The timber was about fifty steps distant, and he broke for it on the keen run with the hog after him. He reached the timber in quick time and sprang up a tree, and the disappointed hog could do nothing but walk around and raise its bristles. Such was Ethan Newcom's attempt to frighten a wild hog!
While the Newcoms lived at Newcom's Ford the flies were very bad on the horses and cattle. For about six weeks in the year the large green-head flies prevented all travel by day.
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Everybody was obliged to travel by night, and even then they were troubled with the flies at moonlight. The flies were so thick and so bad that they would kill a young horse if it were turned loose. They would drive it nearly crazy and suck its blood ; but now they are comparatively rare even in the worst part of fly time. The long prairie grass on which they used to breed has been eaten off and has become almost a rarity. Jo- seph Newcom says he has many times been obliged to travel by night, and would bend forward and sleep with his arms around his horse's neck.
During the winter of the deep snow Joseph Newcom was sent to Cheney's Grove to school. He boarded at the house of Benjamin Thomas, and went to school to Mary Cheney. He rode to school on a blind horse with two of Mr. Thomas' little girls, one on behind and one on before. IIe was obliged to break the road a great many times, but always succeeded in keeping it clear. On the last day of February, when the snow was about to melt, he walked home to Newcom's Ford on the crust. Had he delayed another day he could not have gone home for a month, as the melting of the deep snow kept every- thing swimming. A year or two afterwards Mr. Newcom went to school at Blooming Grove, to old Billy Hodge.
The Newcoms were great bee hunters and found many trees. The bees were very different in their dispositions. Some would allow their honey to be taken very easily, and would make no trouble ; some would fight, but would be cowed by smoke, and some would fight and pay no attention to smoke. At one time Ethan Newcom and Joseph each found a bee tree, and as they were in the vicinity of other bee hunters, decided to cut the trees immediately, although the day was a warm one in Septem- ber. They cut Ethan Newcom's tree first, and when it fell the hollow burst open and the bees fought desperately all the time the honey was being taken out. Joseph Newcom was stung again and again. He was in his shirt sleeves, and wore shoes without stockings. As the day was warm the perspiration made the sleeves of his shirt cling to his arms, and the bees stung through it again and again. They lit on his legs and crawled up his trowsers and lit on his face and nearly stung him crazy. At one time he ran off, whipping bees with his hat, and acci- 27
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dentally threw it in some high grass, but kept on running and whipping at the bees. When he became free from them he hunted for his hat, but never found it, and was obliged to go bareheaded for two weeks. They took twelve gallons of honey from the bees and a great deal more was wasted, as the gum had split open in falling. The next tree they cut yielded about eight gallons of honey, and the bees fought harder than the first swarm. Joseph was obliged to cut it and take out the honey alone, as the flies were very bad, and his father had to attend to the oxen. He was sore for several weeks after this bee hunt. Honey was the most abundant article raised. Mr. Newcom once took a thousand pounds of honey and sixty pounds of beeswax to Chicago in one load. He received six cents per pound for the honey and twenty-five cents per pound for the beeswax.
In October, 1835, the Newcoms came to Cheney's Grove, to the north side, and settled where John Newcom now lives, and went to farming. They bought their place of Henry Pitts.
Mr. Newcom was a great hunter after wolves and coons. During one fall he and his father killed twenty-five wolves and twenty-eight coons. Ethan Newcom killed the wolves, and Jo- seph and his dog, Ring, killed the coons. During the spring of the year, when Harrison was elected President, a snow came two feet deep and stayed on for eight days, and during that time everybody hunted for wolves. Every grove in the country was alive with hunters, but Cheney's Grove beat them all, for the hunters there killed sixty-cight wolves.
The Newcoms were in the habit of making maple sugar, as that was the only sugar used. During one spring they made two thousand pounds of sugar and a barrel of syrup. They made eleven hundred pounds in seven days and nights with eight kettles, and could have made a third more if all the sap had been saved. The Cheneys made about fifteen hundred pounds. The sugar sold for ten cents per pound.
Ethan Newcom had eleven children in all, and of these five lived to have families. They are :
Mrs. Mary Vanscoyoc, wife of Perry Vanscoyoc.
Joseph Newcom, whose sketch we are writing.
Mrs. Rosanna Smith, wife of Jacob Smith, lives in Arrow- smith township.
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John Newcom lives at the old homestead.
Mrs. Elizabeth Arbogast, wife of William Arbogast, is now dead.
Joseph Newcom married, February 2, 1844, Eliza Jane De- vor. He has had eleven children, nine of whom are living. They are :
Nicholas, born January 26, 1845.
Mary Ann, born August 16, 1846.
Nancy Jane, born March 22, 1848.
Ethan Allen, born January 1, 1850.
Joseph Aaron, born May 28, 1851.
Isaac Luther, born May 8, 1853.
Owen, born February 24, 1855.
Mereposa, born August 14, 1856.
America Catherine, born September 23, 1858.
Jesse, born January 4, 1861.
Sarah Elizabeth, born June 29, 1862.
Isaac Luther and Owen are dead. The latter died in in- fancy. All who are living reside at home, except Nancy Jane, who is married to Richard Ball, and lives in Howard County, Kansas.
Joseph Newcom is five feet and eleven inches in height, is rather slender in form and has bright, humorous eyes. He be- lieves in getting up early in the morning and going to work. He is honest hinself, and will not deal with any one who is not also honest and truthful. At one time a person who was known to be a good workman and an industrious man, and had for- merly worked for Mr. Newcom, wished to come back again. But although no fault could be found with the young man's work, he was not permitted to come back, as Mr. Newcom would not allow anyone around his premises who could not be relied upon to tell the truth.
ISAAC STANSBERRY.
Isaac Stansberry was born July 13, 1805, in Greene County, East Tennessee, within twelve miles of Greenville. His father's name was Ezekiel Stansberry, and his mother's name before her marriage was Esther Neil. His ancestors were of German and Welch descent. Ezekiel Stansberry died when Isaac
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was about nine years of age. Isaac Stansberry remembers very clearly the war of 1812, as several of his elder brothers served in it and were at the battle of Horse Shoe, under Jackson. Be- fore this the family had moved to Washington County, and there Isaac lived until September 29, 1825, when he married Ruth Lacy. He then moved to Greene County, where he went to farming. In about the year 1832 Isaac Stansberry went on a flat-boat with a load of produce down the Noulachuckee River into the Holston River and thence into the Tennessee and down over the Muscle Shoals at Florence. They sold out their load at Tuscumbia and returned home. He made several such trips and saw something of slavery there. At one time he saw forty mule teams abreast ploughing cotton. The teams were driven by negroes who were followed up by an overseer with a whip, which had a lash six feet in length. The whip was made for business, too, and not for ornament. The overseers sometimes combined generosity with brutality. An overseer once brought some negroes on board of a steamboat and gave them each a drink of whisky. Then, at a nod of his head, they ran off to work; but one of them was a little slow about starting and the overseer shoved him overboard into the water.
In 1836 Mr. Stansberry came to Cheney's Grove, McLean County, Illinois. He came with a party of about thirty-six persons. They had a pleasant journey, though rather a long one. Mr. Stansberry immediately went to farming on his brother Abraham's place. He found the times very hard and would have gone back to Tennessee immediately, but could not get away. He arrived late Saturday night, and on Sunday morning went to mill bright and early. The people at Cheney's Grove were very sociable and welcomed all new comers. Mrs. Stans- berry says they were all "big bugs" together.
During the winter after his arrival Mr. Stansberry went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with Thomas Cheney. They took with them a drove of pigs. They had no very dangerous adventure, except that once while camping out they became very cold and were afraid of freezing to death, and went six miles farther on to a house where they found shelter and a warm fire. On their return they had difficulty in crossing some of the streams, which were about to break up in the spring. The water along the
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shores of the Mazon was rising above the ice. They threw pieces of wood on the ice along the shore in order to make a bridge for the wagons to cross. At that early day Milwaukee was not half as large as Saybrook. The buildings were rough, "ornery" looking things and gave little promise of the present city.
Mr. Stansberry has had ten children. They are :
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