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 48
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Mr. Buckles speaks of the sudden change in the weather in December, 1836, and says that the water froze in ridges as it was blown by the wind. His brother Robert was then taking a drove of hogs to Alton, and when the wind-storm struck him he was obliged to go a quarter of a mile for shelter. When his men arrived there they could scarcely stand. The hogs demanded the most constant attention, for if left to themselves they would pile on top of each other as high as a hog could climb, and those at the bottom of the pile would be smothered and crushed to death.
The Buckles family were great hunters, and made a specialty of killing wolves. Thomas Buckles has, perhaps, killed more wolves than any other man in McLean County. He ran them down, shot them and caught them in traps and pens. A pen for catching wolves is made of logs and is so heavy that a wolf can not raise it. The bottom is made of logs or poles so that a wolf cannot escape by digging under. He usually took a wolf hunt every spring, and generally killed five or six. He chased one wolf fifteen miles before catching it, and, when caught, it could not have been made to live fifteen minutes. It was run to death. It was chased from Buckles' Grove to near the west end of Old Town timber, then down to Long Point, then back to Buckles' Grove, then down into DeWitt County where it was caught. One wolf, after being chased many miles, jumped into a well and there was killed.
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Mr. Buckles has had an interesting experience in hunting deer. He once wounded a deer in the fore leg and it turned for fight with its hair all standing up. When one of the dogs took hold of it, it turned so fiercely and quickly and made so sudden a dart that it ran its horns in the ground and turned over on its back. Another shot ended its life. William and Thomas Buckles once chased a fawn until it was tired out and, when Wil- liam approached, it made a spring from him into Thomas Buckles' arms. But it died shortly after, because of the length and se- verity of the chase. During the winter of the deep snow two of the Buckles brothers caught a deer and hoppled it, and tried to drive it home. It was very docile until Thomas Buckles tapped it on the nose with a weed, when it sprang up and knocked him down and jumped away. The next morning it was found frozen to death. As it was hoppled it could not exercise and the circu- lation of blood was checked.
Mr. Buekles is a skillful woodman and seldom deceived as to his position. He could always find his camp, even at night when it was so dark that he could hardly see his hand before him. He often hunted bees in the timber and had a sharp eye to detect their holes in the trees. He once went with a party of bee hunters down on the Kankakee River, and was gone five weeks. They found from fifty to sixty bee trees.
Mr. Buckles has never had any very dangerous experience with fire on the prairie. He once was overtaken by a prairie fire and jumped into a creek to save himself and the flames leaped over him. When a prairie fire moves, the heat goes a hundred feet or more in front of the blaze, and this sometimes makes the fire jump enormous gaps when it is under full headway. The game on the prairie will seldom turn and face a fire, though Mr. Buckles once saw a buck turn and charge directly through the flame. He once made a ring of fire around a piece of bottom land, leaving a gap, where the frightened deer were shot, as they came out, by two hunters stationed there.
Mr. Buckles has seen the vexations to which the old settlers were subjected. Ile was obliged to pound his corn before the deep snow, for one entire summer. He made a mortar out of an ash stump. The stump was burnt out and could hold three pecks of corn, which was beaten with an enormous pestle. He after-
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wards made a little horse mill out of nigger-heads, and with this ground five bushels of corn per day. He has often gone to Peoria to mill and far above there.
Mr. Buckles went down to Logan County about seven years ago, but moved back to near Buckles' Grove during the middle of March, 1873, and there he now resides. He is a little more than six feet in height, is muscular and active, and is an accurate marksman. But that which is most remarkable is his quickness of sight. He usually sees the game before the game sees him. He is a good-natured man, and, like all of the old settlers, is hos- pitable and kind. He has done his fair proportion of hard work, and has split more rails than Abraham Lincoln ever did.
He married, February 2, 1837, Elizabeth Jane Kimler. He has five children living. They are :
William Marion, who lives in Leroy, Illinois.
Robert Franklin lives now with his father, as he is a widower.
Amanda B., wife of George Lucas, lives in Davis County, Missouri.
Mary Ann and Peter Leander live at home.
JAMES HARVEY CONAWAY.
James H. Conaway was born July 14, 1819, in Bourbon County, Kentcky, within three miles of Millersburg. His fath- er's name was Aquilla Conaway, and his mother's name was Ra- chel Barnett. His father and mother were American born citi- zens. Aquilla Conaway came to Kentucky from Maryland at a very early day. The Conaway family left Kentucky when James was only eight years of age, and he does not remember much of that State. The only thing, which impressed his boyish imagina- tion. was a little incident which happened while a negro woman was " toting " water from a spring. Her bucket of water was on her head, and as she passed under a tree, a squirrel, which was jumping from one branch to another, missed its hold and fell on the edge of the bucket and was killed.
In the fall of 1827 Aquilla Conaway brought his family to Illi- nois. He came very near becoming swamped in the quicksands of White River. His wagon was driven by an obstinate negro, named Moses. When the journey was ended, Moses was sent back to Kentucky with the wagon and team, and instrueted to
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take care of everything and not to steal from the people on the route. Moses faithfully obeyed all instructions except those with regard to stealing.
Mr. Conaway came first to Vermilion County, where he re- mained for a few monthe, and then came to Buckles Grove, Mc- Lean County, Illinois, where he arrived February 8, 1828.
The first notable event, which James Conaway remembers, was that some of the Buckles boys caught a large black wolf in a trap and fastened the wolf to the middle of a pole and showed it alive to the new-comers. He has often seen the black wolves play on the snow where Leroy now stands. This was during the winter of the deep snow. During that winter he saw several deer frozen to death standing in their tracks. The deer lived during that winter on the bark of the sumach, and in the following spring the groves of sumach were completely skinned of bark. Mr. Conaway has often chased wolves and deer and has sometimes run down two or three in a day. He remembers when a party chased a deer until it was so exhausted that one of their number, John Knott, jumped on its back and cut its throat.
James H. Conaway is about five feet and five inches high. His head is a little bald and his eyes are dark and bright. He has a pleasant, smiling countenance, and seems a very straight- forward man. He is a very hardy, active man, and enjoys the best of health. He married, December 6, 1849, Axey Deffen- bangh, and has six children. He has never lost any of his chil- dren by sickness and never callled a doctor on their account.
ESEK EDDY GREENMAN.
Esek Eddy Greenman was born January 23, 1616, in Wash- ington County, Ohio, about twenty-three miles from Marietta, the county seat. Three miles from his birth-place was the little town of Waterford with its block-house, which afforded protection to the people during the war of 1812. Mr. Greenman's father was John Greenman, of Welch descent. His mother's name was Ruth White, before her marrirge. She was the daughter of Deacon David White, who came from Vermont to the Muskingum River, Ohio. He was of the fourth generation from Elder White, of Revolutionary fame. Mr. Greenman's grandfather, Jeremiah Greenman, was a lieutenant in the Revolutionary war, and parti-
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cipated in many of the contests of that seven-years' struggle. He was twice captured, once on board of a ship and once by the Indians, and his life was one of suffering and adventure. At the close of the war he became a member of the Order of the Cinein- nati, which admitted to its membership all who had been com- missioned officers during the Revolutionary war. But the order was short lived, as General Washington and many others were afraid it might be the beginning of a titled aristocracy. The old gentleman kept a journal for a long time, but would never allow it to be published.
John Greenman, the father of Esek, was a farmer in summer and a school teacher in winter. The last winter of his school teaching was the one of the memorable one of the deep snow, when he kept school at Blooming Grove. While living in Ohio, John Greenman was for a while deputy sheriff, and it required a good deal of nerve sometimes to serve in that capacity. During those early days, as well as at the present time, medical gentle- men were very anxious to obtain subjects for dissection and were . willing to pay quite a sum of money for them. The love of money, which is occasionally the root of some evil, induced a person named Dow, to decoy a crazy man into the woods for the purpose of killing him and selling him to the medical institute ; but the crazy man escaped. Dow afterwards stole a corpse from the grave where it was buried and dragged it through the fields and hid it in a barn and covered it with corn-stalks. There it was found by Constable Greenman who arrested Dow and his ac- complice.
When Esek Greenman was nine years of age his father moved to Waterford, where he kept a hotel ; and one year later Esek be- came a little water-rat and could run a ferry across the Muskin- gum River. In about the year 1826 the Greenman family moved on a farm about three miles up the river and there Esek could work to his heart's content. His associates were some very bad little boys who loved trickery better than they loved their mush and milk ; nevertheless he worked faithfully at grubbing trees and stumps.
In July, 1829, the Greenman family started for Illinois, where they arrived on the twenty-ninth of August. They came with Major Seth Baker's family to Blooming Grove. The roads were
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very muddy and at one time they passed through a place where the wheels sank to the axletree, and were obliged to put all their horses on each wagon separately in order to get through. It was called the Devil's Mush-pot. There were two roads leading through it, and they were told to take their choice, with the warning that whichever road they went they would wish they had taken the other !
Upon their arrival they rented a house of Squire Orendorff, and in October, Mr. Greenman, sr., began teaching school. Esek went to work for Thomas Orendorff; he husked corn and took the " down row," and worked hard until winter set in. In 1830 he ent logs for the double log cabin built by James Allin, it being the first house in Bloomington. It is the one now occupied by Dr. Stipp. In the spring of 1830, Mr. James Allin offered Mr. John Greenman some money to enter the W. half of the S. W. quarter of section four, township twenty-three, range two east, on condition that Greenman would deed to Allin a part of the east side of said land, amounting to about twenty acres, for the purpose of being used to lay out a town. The offer was accepted. Mr. Greenman entered the land, deeded a part of it to Allin, who gave it to the town of Bloomington.
When his school was ended, John Greenman cut logs, built a cabin between Washington and Front streets, broke five acres of land, sowed it in wheat and fenced it ; but before being fenced it was rooted up by pigs and sowed over again. The following winter was the one of the deep snow; but the wheat was un- injured, and was pronounced the finest west of Maryland.
Mr. Esek Greenman had very little to do with the Indians. He remembers that a great crowd of them once came to a spring near the north shaft, to see his sisters wash clothes, for this ope- ration was a novelty to the savages.
During the winter of the deep snow, John Greenman was teaching school on the old Jim Cannaday place. Esek remem- bers that the great storm of snow, which really commenced the period of the deep snow, fell on Friday. That day his father let out school early, as he had a little "chore" to attend to, which was to transport to his house a hog which he had obtained in the neighborhood. He carried it on horseback and young Esek fol- lowed on foot. But the snow fell so deep that Esek stayed over
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night at old Johnny Maxwell's house, while Mr. Greenman, sr., ยท proceeded. He reached home with the porker, but was two hours in traveling the last quarter of a mile.
The day before the deep snow, Moses Baker and William Oney went to Orendorff's mill on Sugar Creek, about twenty-five miles from Bloomington, and on their return, at Murphy's Grove, William Oney wanted to lay down and sleep; but Baker whip- ped him and abused him, and at last he was ready to fight; but Baker insisted that he should arouse himself or he would cer- tainly freeze. Then they scuffled and wrestled, and ran about and climbed trees to keep from freezing, until morning broke, when they heard roosters crowing, and found themselves within three hundred yards of a house !
People caught deer and wolves very easily until a slippery crust formed on the snow, after which they could catch the deer, but not the wolves. The crust was slippery and the wintry winds whistled over it and had the whole matter to themselves. Occa- sionally a man would lose his hat and see it seud away out of sight.
In 1830 the doctors were not so numerous as at present. Young Esek remembers some horseback exercise when he rode to Pekin, a distance of thirty-three miles, without saddle or stir- rups, for the doctor. On his return with the doctor he forded the Mackinaw on the upper side, so that, if swept from his horse by the current, the doctor could catch him.
In the spring of 1830 there were three houses between the spot where Bloomington now stands and Mackinawtown, and fourteen houses at the latter place, including barns. Between the latter place and Pleasant Hill were no houses at all, and Pekin only contained fourteen or fifteen houses, including barns.
In July, 1831, Mr. Greenman, sr., sold his land in Blooming- ton and moved three miles below Waynesville. But he found it a sickly spot. Out of three families, numbering in all twenty- four persons, twenty-two had the ague. After a long sickness, John Greenman died there, and was buried at Pilot Grove, and his family returned to Blooming Grove and entered the last re- maining eighty acres there. It was the eighty adjoining the Nathan Low, sr., place at the old camp-ground. They lived in the Isaac Murphy house during the winter. In the summer fol-
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lowing, Esek Greenman had his last shake with the ague. This memorable event occurred on his sixteenth birthday. For three days previous, he had taken each morning a teacupful of whisky and ginger, and the ague departed forever.
In the summer of 1832, Esek Greenman worked in a brick- yard for Peter Whipp. During the hot summer days he arose early every morning and went to work. Then he had a rest while eating breakfast and while Mr. Whipp gave them a season of prayer. But Mr. Whipp finally concluded to dispense with the prayer as it delayed the men too long from their work. During 1832 and '33, the Greenman family lived north of Old Town, but in the latter year they went to Bloomington, and there Mrs. Greenman was married to Dr. Isaac Baker.
In 1833 the sporting fraternity began to make their appear- ance. It was then that the first race-track in McLean County was prepared. The first purse ran for amounted to, Mr. Green- man thinks, one hundred and fifty dollars. Four horses were entered for it : the Bald Hornet, owned by Henry Jacoby, was ridden by Esek Greenman; the Gun Fannon, owned by Jake Herald (Mr. Greenman thinks); the Tiger Whip, owned by Pete Hefner and ridden by James Paul, and Ethiopian, owned by a man near Waynesville. Mr. Greenman put Bald Hornet in training sometime before the race. He kept the horse in a stable on the Leroy road; but one morning he found that his horse had been turned loose to green corn in a field near by. It was sup- posed that Bald Hornet's racing days were over, but care restored him. After this, Esek slept with the owner of the horses in the haymow, and watched the animal every night. When the race came on, the owner of Gun Fannon hinted to Esek that he could make something by holding up his horse: but Esek neglected to take the hint. When the race came off the Bald Hornet was coming in finely, but the Tiger Whip came up behind and trod on its heels, and the Bald Hornet was beaten. (See Peter Hef- ner's sketch !) He was badly crippled, and beaten on a second race. Some time before the race a Mr. Vesey was struck by lightning while putting a horse in training for the course. This was not considered a visitation of God, for the horse was ridden on the course by T. J. Barnett. Bad luck seemed to attend it, for it fell in the midst of the track. But the horse started up,
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followed the other horses, and saved its distance; nevertheless, it was beaten a second time worse than ever. " It never rains, but it pours." This ended Mr. Greenman's carcer on the turf. He had ridden horses, but never staked his money on the result of a race.
When Mrs. Greenman was married to Dr. Baker a load of responsibility was taken from the shoulders of Esek and he was no longer obliged to look after the welfare of the family. Nev- ertheless he worked at whatever his hands could find to do. He helped Father Baker to lay out the school section into five and ten aere lots ; he worked in a brick-yard at Chatham's Spring ; he broke prairie for Wilson Lindley south of Blooming Grove, started at daylight and hunted his oxen, had a little shed of prai- rie grass in the field to protect him from the storm, and worked fourteen hours a day. He drove up calves for General Gridley from where Leroy now stands; indeed he did anything and every- thing in the line of honorable employment. In 1834 he began to learn the carpenter's trade of Wilson Allen and G. D. MeEl- hiney. He had a very good opinion of MeElhiney, and of him learned to be a Democrat. The workshop where he labored belonged to the widow Vesey, but in some way it came into the possession of Allen who incautiously allowed himself to be drawn into some litigation with Mrs. Vesey. He learned to his cost to " bevare of the vidders," for Mrs. Vesey took forcible possession of the shop while the hands were at dinner, and Allen brought suit to recover it. The widow's case was pleaded by 'Squire C. C. Cory (an uncle of Mr. Greenman). The jury of Western men always sympathised with a woman in distress and were nat- urally inclined in her favor; in addition to this they were great lovers of humor, and 'Squire Cory succeeded in winning the case by telling the pig and puppy story. It was as follows: A child wished to present his aunt, on Christmas day, with a little pig, and started to her with one in a basket. But, having incautious- ly set down his basket, the pig was stolen from him and a puppy inserted in its place. When he came to his aunt he opened the basket and found the puppy, and returned home disappointed. But in the meantime the puppy was stolen and the pig returned to its place. So when the innocent child opened the basket again and saw the pig, he exclaimed: "It can be a pig when it's a
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mind to and puppy when it's a mind to." "Now, gentlemen of the jury," said 'Squire Cory, " that is the way with the plaintiff in this case, who would steal the property of a widow. He can be a pig when he has a mind to and a puppy when he has a mind to." Mr. Allen was unable to bear up against the combined in- fluence of 'Squire Cory, the widow, the pig and the puppy, and lost the case.
From 1833 to 1835 the fine gentlemen of Bloomington seemed to think it necessary to take their occasional sprees, and Mr. Greenman remembers one famous spree which perhaps some old settlers of Bloomington can now call to mind, for some of them were in it. Perhaps they can remember when one of the party became weary and went home and crawled into a garret and went to sleep on a board plank, and how the crowd followed him and brought him back; how they weighed out liquor in scales and drank it; how they weighed out oysters and ate them; how they stood across the room and threw oysters at each others' mouths, and how, in order to vary the amusement, they marched around the stove and at last pitched it out of the window, and did many other things which must be nameless.
In the fall of 1835 Mr. Greenman started for Northern Illinois with a man named Jim Paul. The latter was "on his muscle," and occasionally indulged in a match fight. They went to Dixon's Ferry, and while there made an excursion to the battle ground of Stillman's Run. They worked hard and built cabins for persons making claims. After spending a few weeks there, Mr. Green- man and a man named James Durley started for Platteville, Wis- consin, and on their way, not far from Dixon, he saw the grave of Joe Draper, who had been killed in the Black Hawk war. After some delays he went to Platteville and clerked for John Lytle who kept a grocery store. . After a while he went to Galena and there, it is to be regretted, fell into evil ways. He learned to play cards and led rather a hard life. In the spring he started to dig for mineral and found very good signs, but stopped digging to play euchre and attend to other duties equally important, and lost his claim. Shortly after this he met an impecunious "dead broke" miner and bought his claim for one dollar, but the con- ditions were that if he struck mineral he should pay the miner five dollars. But Mr. Greenman played euchre and neglected
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the claim and lost it altogether. It afterwards turned out to be worth twelve thousand dollars. His first claim, where he had found signs of mineral, was pushed by other parties and one-half of it was sold for thirty thousand dollars. He had better have burnt his cards. But after a while he determined to reform, so he took a good game of euchre, drank some ale, went to a revival and walked forward to the anxious seat and reformed.
In the spring of 1837 he went to Savannah, with Deacon George Davidson. He carried the mail from Galena to Cleve- land on Rock River, fifteen or twenty miles from Rock Island. He carried it regularly twice a week for a month or two.
He returned to Bloomington and worked as a carpenter du- ring the following winter. He went to McHenry County and there worked for a Mr. Foster, for a dollar a day and his board, and was dunned by Mrs. Foster for his Sunday board. The next summer he went to Cedar County, Iowa, on foot, and had various adventures, made a claim at Onion Grove where a town was after- wards laid out, and after various travels and adventures he found himself in Leroy, McLean County, Illinois, with one hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket. He borrowed a hundred and fifty dollars more and went to Chicago for goods and there was offered two lots in the heart of the city for a horse and buggy. He spent fourteen years in the dry goods business, and has been a very successful merchant. He was for four years in the grocery business, and in everything has prospered well.
He married, February 14, 1848, Miss Martha Pierce. Mrs. Greenman died July 14, 1864, and since then he has remained unmarried. He has had eight children, of whom three are living, two boys and one girl. In 1844 or 1845 he was postmaster at Leroy, and this is all the public office he ever held. In politics he was a Democrat until 1856 when he became a Republican and has remained so ever since.
Mr. Greenman's character is pretty well shown by his life. He is very plucky and adventurous, but very kind and polite. After he really settled down to business he succeeded well and acquired property. He is obliged to look at a thing several times to understand it, but is pretty sure to see through it in the end. He is a self-made man, and his success in later life was due to himself, for certainly his early experience and training would not
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be recommended as conducive to moral elevation. His judgment is the very best, and he is possessed of a great deal of natural shrewdness. He loves fun and a good story, and enjoys a practi- cal joke. He is of medium size and is finely proportioned. His hair is very white, and his cheeks have a healthy, pleasant glow. In his youth he must have been quite a favorite with ladies. He takes a great interest in matters pertaining to the early settlement of the country, for he has seen the adventurous side of it, which is pretty sure to be the humorous side, and is very pleasant to remember though not always pleasant to endure.
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