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 55
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78
On the 27th of August, 1862, Mr. Sloan enlisted in the Nine- ty-fourth Illinois Volunteers, Company E., commanded by Capt. John L. Routt. The regiment was commanded by Colonel Orme. Mr. Sloan was chosen orderly sergeant in Bloomington on the twenty-seventh day of August, 1862, when they were mustered into service. He became sick at Springfield, Missouri, and was utterly prostrated and on this account was discharged at New Orleans, February 7, 1864.
Mr. Sloan has had five children. They are:
William Henry Sloan lives in Mackinaw timber, about three miles south of his father's.
Sarah Ann, wife of Darwin Phinney, lives in southwestern Minnesota.
James Milton Sloan lives about four miles northwest of his father's, and is teaching school. He was a soldier in the Thirty- third Illinois, Company E., commanded by Captain E. R. Roe, and afterwards by Captain E. J. Lewis. He was in many bat- tles, was at Cache, Champion Hills, Black River Bridge, Spanish Fort, Fredericktown, Port Gibson, siege of Vicksburg, siege of Jackson and Fort Esperanza.
John Nelson and Albert Owen Sloan live in Spencer, Owen County, Indiana.
Mrs. Sloan died, and on the 14th of February, -, John Sloan married Mrs. Susan Smith from Iowa. No children were born of this marriage.
John Sloan is five feet and eight inches high, has blue eyes; his hair was once dark, but is now somewhat gray. He is full faced, has a sanguine complexion, long whiskers nearly white, weighs one hundred and eighty-five pounds, likes fun, is a good man, talkative, pleasant and hospitable. He is generous and has helped to build four Methodist churches and a great many school houses.
615
M'LEAN COUNTY.
JONATHAN COON.
Jonathan Coon was born April 4, 1815, in Madison County, Ohio. His parentage is given in the succeeding sketch of his brother Isaiah. He tells an incident of his mother, which gives an idea of the condition of things in a new country. While a girl, living in New Virginia, she and her sister went out in the evening to hunt the cows, taking for protection a dog, belonging to the family. They remained until after dark in the moun- tains, and after a while their dog began barking in a hollow. They went there and found a panther in a tree top. After throwing stones at it for some time, one of the girls went for help to kill it, while the other remained to watch the game. Their father came to their assistance and shot the panther down.
During the winter of 1823-24, the Coon family moved to Crawfordsville, Indiana, and settled within half a mile of the town. They lived there and in that vicinity until July 4, 1837, when they came to MeLean County, Illinois. Crawfordsville was a small place, when the Coon family came to it. It had a store, a land office, a little hotel, a few dwellings and a little corn-cracker mill. For two years the breadstuffs, on which the people lived, were brought up Sugar Creek near by in a perogne or large poplar canoe about forty feet in length and three feet in width. At the end of that time the people had cleared enough timber to raise their own wheat for flour. The town grew, and in 1837 became a flourishing little place.
Mr. Coon speaks of the animals of the early days and par- tieularly of the hedgehog, which was protected by quills, which bristled ont on every side. These quills easily pierced whatever touched them, and they did not come out easily, but had a ten- dency to work in deeper and deeper. The domestic animals of those days were very different from those at the present time. The Poland-China hog could not have been raised with profit in the early days, as it could not have been driven to market. The settlers were obliged to raise the long-nosed, long-legged hogs, which could travel to market. They were called "prairie rooters" and " wind splitters," and various other names, which were suggested by the appearance of the animal. In Ohio and
616
OLD SETTLERS OF
Indiana they were collected by drovers and taken to Cincinnati, Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Mr. Coon tells some wonderful snake stories of Indiana. He says, that two great dens of rattlesnakes, near Crawfordsville, were attacked and cleaned out, and that about a thousand snakes of different varieties were taken out of one den, and about thir- teen hundred were taken from another. It was considered a pretty good day for snakes.
When Mr. Coon lived in Indiana he had many opportunities for exercising his muscle. People were obliged to clear the timber there to make their farms, and had "log rollings." The young men came from all parts of the country to roll together and burn the logs of trees, which had been chopped down for a clearing. The log rollers were divided into two parties, each with a captain, and the logs were also divided, and the two par- ties engaged in a race to see which could accomplish their work first. Mr. Coon says, " that was work such as young bucks now know nothing of." They also had husking bees when they gathered the corn, and at night would go coon hunting. The Coons were successful in catching coons, and in one fall slew eighty of their namesakes.
The clothing in the early days was buckskin jeans and linsey-woolsey for winter, and flax and tow linen for summer. The most elegant suit, which a young pioneer could wear, was of buckskin dyed green. Mr. Coon relates an incident of a young gentleman, who started forth, arrayed in a suit of green buckskin, to visit a much admired young lady. He sat up with her pretty late, as was the custom in those days, and she gave him a place to sleep in the end of an unfinished log house, which had no door. While the young man was dreaming of the hand- some young woman, whom he so much admired, some hungry hounds came into the log house and captured the new buckskin pants and ate them up. He was obliged to borrow a pair next morning to return home.
Mr. Coon describes the arrangements for ploughing in the early days. The plough was the barshear; the horse was at- tached to it by ropes, which looped over the single-tree and passed from there to the hames, to which they were fastened by being tied through auger holes. The hames were tied over a
617
M'LEAN COUNTY.
collar of corn husks. The backband was leather or coarse tow cloth, and the line was a single rope.
While the Coon family lived in Indiana game was plenty and bears were sometimes found. Once while the Coons were out with a party after ginseng, they discovered a bear. They chased it until it was completely exhausted and laid down. One of the party then came up and killed it by striking it on the head with a mattock.
In 1837 the Coon family came to Illinois and settled in Money Creek township, near Towanda. Jonathan Coon was a farmer and a mechanic. At that time the country began to be a little settled around the timber, but the wild animals were numerous and seemed to thrive well in the neighborhood of approaching civilization, and the settlers were obliged to be active in defend- ing their crops and stock. The wolves were easily killed, though not always easily caught. Mr. Coon speaks of killing one by striking it on the head with his boot, as he had no club or gun. He tells a strange incident of Major Dickason, while out making a survey. The Major in walking to set a stake took sight on a thistle, butin walking towards it was carried out of the true course. Mr. Coon called to him to make him notice his error. A close observation showed that the thistle, which he took for a sight, was moving off. It was the head of a wolf! The wild animals seemed to be very free, and often came near the dwellings of the settlers. The wolves were the most impudent and saucy in this respect, though some of the other wild animals were not at all bashful. At one time, while Mr. Coon was away from home, a panther passed his dwelling, and Mrs. Coon had an opportu- nity to study natural history all alone. She was not at all afraid, and afterwards described the doings of the animal very clearly. This was in 1843, when Mr. Coon lived between Mackinaw and Money Creek. Many animals, which are now found only in the extreme west, lived in this part of the country in the very early days. Mr. Coon has found the bones of buffalo and the horns of elk on the Mackinaw, but these animals seemed to scent the coming of civilized men from a long distance, and no living settler has ever seen buffalo or elk in McLean County, so far as the author can learn.
When the Coon family first came to McLean County the set-
,
.
618
OLD SETTLERS OF
tlers "neighbored from grove to grove," that is, the people liv- ing in adjoining groves, five, ten or twenty miles distant, were neighbors. They met together, whenever a preacher came to the neighborhood to give them a good old backwoods sermon. Rev. Ebenezer Rhodes preached about twice every summer in Dickason's dwelling on Money Creek, near Towanda. Mr. Coon sometimes went to hear preaching at White Oak Grove, and formed the acquaintance of many valued friends, as the Bensons and Browns.
It was an interesting question in the early days as to where the thriving towns would be located. Lexington, Pleasant Hill and Clarksville, were then little places rivaling each other in growth and importance. A store was once started in Lexington, afterwards moved to Clarksville and then to Pleasant Hill. But the Chicago and Alton Railroad settled the matter by passing through Lexington, the other places could not keep pace with a railroad town. The greater part of Lexington belonged to A. Gridley. Clarksville belonged to Samuel Clark and George and Marston Bartholomew, and Pleasant Hill belonged to Isaac Smalley.
The earliest settlers came to McLean County from a wooded country, and did not understand the value of prairie land. It will scarcely be believed, but it is a fact, that many of them made their first farms by clearing timber in the groves, while the prairie was before them and needed no clearing ! Of course it was not easy work to break prairie, and it required usually six yoke of oxen, which drew a plow, which cut a furrow of eighteen inches, and sometimes two feet; but it was very easy compared with the labor of clearing timber. Mr. Coon was a farmer and mechanic. In 1840 he and Joe Benson built the first court-house in Pontiac, but Benson died before it was finished.
In 1844, Mr. Coon commenced improving the place where he now lives. This place had first been selected by Squire Sloan, who was attracted by the fine spring of water, which never runs dry ; but Mr. Sloan thought the country would never be settled, and he moved away, but came back, and now lives near his old place. In 1862, Mr. Coon built the house where he now lives, and no one could wish for anything more convenient and pleasant.
619
M'LEAN COUNTY.
Mr. Coon married, October 28, 1841, Nancy Mouser. She was born March 9, 1822, in Fayette County, Ohio. She died May 11, 1852. Mr. Coon married, July 27, 1854, Celina Bil- brey, daughter of Young and Amanda Bilbrey. She was born October 14, 1829, in McLean County, and died August 8, 1855. He has never had any children of his own, but he has taken care of two children, Mary E. and Nancy J. Young, who were placed by their mother, on her death-bed, under the charge of himself and his sister. Mr. Young, the father of the children, died the year after the decease of his wife, and Mr. Coon is now the guardian of the children. The parents of Mr. Coon lived with him from 1854 until their death. His sister Ruth keeps house for him. He is a member of the Christian Church, was baptized near Crawfordsville, Indiana, by Rev. Michael Combs. The Christian Church was organized on Money Creek, at the house of Young Bilbrey. The first elders were Isaac Hinthorn and Adam Coon, and, on the resignation of the latter, Jonathan Coon was elected to fill the vacancy. In 1860 he united with the Buck Creek congregation, as that was nearer to his house, and was chosen elder by them, and still holds that position. The present church on Buck Creek was built in 1858.
Mr. Coon is about five feet and eight inches in height, is a very careful and honest man, and no doubt made a most excel- lent mechanic. He is a man who attends carefully and well to whatever is put under his charge, and as elder in the church he no doubt shows a great deal of watchcare. His health has been, for some time, very poor, and he has not been able to do much work since December, 1871.
ISAIAH COON.
Isaiah Coon was born July 21, 1813, in Madison County, Ohio. His father's name was Adam Coon, a Pennsylvania Dutchman, born December 1, 1782, and his mother's name before her mar- riage was Ellen Dickason, of English and Irish descent, born April 14, 1790. Adam Coon moved to Virginia at an early day, and from there to Ohio, where he was married in 1811 or '12. About that time he moved to Madison County, where Isaiah Coon was born. On Christmas day, 1823, the Coon family started for Indiana, and arrived near Crawfordsville in January,
620
OLD SETTLERS OF
1824. In 1836, Isaiah Coon came to McLean County, Illinois, and in April settled near where Towanda now is. The family came during the following year, starting July 4, and arriving July 12. They lived for two years near where Towanda now is, then two years near Clarksville, on the Mackinaw, in Money Creek township, and then moved to what is now Gridley town- ship, north of the Mackinaw. Here Adam Coon passed the remainder of his days, and died July 9, 1863, and his wife fol- lowed him on the 18th of November of the same year. Their home, for some time preceding their decease, was with Jonathan Coon.
When Isaiah Coon came to the country his occupation was farming and splitting rails. For the latter he received fifty cents per hundred, and could split two hundred per day. He married, October 30, 1844, Maria Ogden, daughter of Jonathan Ogden, whose sketch appears in this volume.
Mr. Coon has kept a record of the weather since his arrival and speaks of several notable phenomena. On the 13th of May, 1858, occurred a great wind storm, which tore down timber along the Mackinaw, and unroofed and tore down many houses. It was not a whirling tornado, which passes along in a mo- ment, but a steady blow, which lasted for two hours and had a track seven miles wide. It blew in a northeasterly direction. The Coons lived in about the middle of the track of the storm, and the rain was so great that the creek by their house rose to their door-step, and the mud from the field above was washed down over their door-yard, covering it in some places six inches in depth. The cloud was green in color, and while the storm was raging, everything appeared green. Such a storm as this is very rare, and the author never before heard of one in the West, although the whirling tornadoes have been often spoken of. Mr. Coon also speaks of the great sleet storm of January 13, 1871, which weighed down the timber with ice, and broke down many trees. Mackinaw timber still shows the effect very plainly.
It was very common for the early settlers to go on regular bee hunts, and they would frequently bring home large quanti- ties of honey. Mr. Coon went bee hunting during the fall after he came to the country, with Major Dickason and Richard Mc-
621
M'LEAN COUNTY.
Aferty. They went to Iowa, beyond the range of civilization, and at the end of six weeks returned with four barrels of the finest strained honey, and one hundred and fifty pounds of bees- wax. During the fall of the year following, he went with Jacob and Albert Dickason and Lewis Sowards to the sand ridges of the Kankakee, and at the end of five weeks returned with six barrels of strained honey and two hundred and forty pounds of beeswax.
Mr. Coon has had six children altogether, of whom three are living. They are :
Mrs. Isabel Robinson Tarman, wife of A. B. Tarman, lives in Gridley township, about three and a half miles northeast of her father's.
Mrs. Sarah Ellen Kearfott, wife of William Kearfott, lives about three and a half miles southeast of her father's, in Money Creek township.
Clara Estelle, the pet, lives at home.
Mr. Coon is five feet and ten inches in height, is strongly and squarely built, has a sanguine, hopeful disposition, gray eyes, a good head with what appears to be a good development of brain. He seems a very honest, kind and pleasant man.
The following are the children of Adam and Eleanor Coon, the father of Isaiah :
Isaiah, born July 21, 1813.
Jonathan, born April 4, 1815.
Ruth, born January 8, 1817.
Michael, born April 5, 1819.
Albert and Henry died in infancy.
James S., born March 21, 1825.
Nancy J. R., born February 22, 1827.
Margaret W., born June 20, 1831.
JAMES SMITH COON.
James S. Coon was born March 21, 1825, in Montgomery County, Indiana. (For his ancestry see sketch of Isaiah Coon). He lived there near Crawfordsville until the fourth of July, 1837, when he came to Illinois with the family, and lived for a while on Major Dickason's farm, near Towanda, McLean County. Afterwards they moved to Clarksville and then to Taylor Lov-
622
OLD SETTLERS OF
ing's place in Gridley township. There James began to do some of the hunting for which he afterwards became quite famous. He and his brother Michael set large steel traps for wolves, and in one season caught seventeen of these animals (the eighteenth left his toes), two or three badgers, one gray eagle and one white owl. A steel trap set for a wolf was never fastened immovably to the ground, but was tied to a heavy pole, which the wolf could usually drag for some distance. It would be likely to pull itself loose and leave only its toes, if the trap was immovable. Mr. Coon once caught a lively wolf, which pulled the trap loose from the pole and when he came up with it and tried to strike it with his horse's bridle, the lively animal grabbed the bridle in its teeth every time. He was obliged to bring on his dogs. Mr. Coon never considered the wolves dangerous, though they sometimes came very close to him while traveling in the night time, so close that he could hear the patter of their feet.
In about the year 1843 Mr. Coon took claims north of the Mackinaw and James set out apple and peach trees. The latter began to bear fruit before the land was entered. He experienced great difficulty in protecting his first trees from the deer, during the latter part of October, when the velvet was shedding from their antlers. For the deer would rub their antlers against the trees to get rid of the velvet.
Mr. Coon often hunted deer with horses and hounds, and thinks it the most exciting of sport. He once remembers a most exciting chase, which he and his brother Michael had after a buck. They started with two grayhounds, a black dog named Peter Logan (after a negro), and several other dogs of various kinds. They found a herd of deer about half a mile distant, and the grayhounds started on low ground. The deer did not observe the hounds until the latter were very close. The dogs singled out the leader, a large buck. The latter ran a short distance, when he turned for fight. It was a large and powerful buck and fought the hounds most savagely. It gored first one and then the other with its long antlers. The hunters came up but had no guns or clubs and could only look on. The buck would pin one dog to the ground, when the other would grab it; then it would pin the other to the ground, when the first one would take hold of it. At last Peter Logan, the black dog,
623
M'LEAN COUNTY.
came up and all three of them mastered the buck, and the hunt- ers finished it. One of the grayhounds was so terribly gored, that it had to be wrapped up, and carried home in a wagon. The other was gashed in the shoulder clear to the bone, but could walk home. It was a plueky dog, and caught another deer on its return. The buck would have undoubtedly whipped the grayhounds and perhaps killed them both, if old Peter Lo- gan had not come to their assistance.
When the Coon family lived near Clarksville, Adam Coon found the track of an unusual animal. It was a track as large as a man's fist and almost perfectly round. A party of men fol- lowed it up and found a lynx. The animal did not seem afraid, but trotted around carelessly, though it seemed a little anxious to keep out of the way of the hunter who carried the rifle. The men wished to see some fun and sent for a couple of dogs, and when the latter arrived, Michael Coon shot the lynx in the leg and breast, thinking to give the dogs an easier fight, but it died in a few moments and they missed the fun. While it was dying, one of the dogs grabbed it, but received a terrific blow from the paw of the lynx and was sent rolling. The paws of the lynx were round and fully as large. as a good sized fist; its nails re- sembled the claws of a timber hawk, and were an inch and a half in length ; its legs were enormous in size, large, and with the heavy fur seemed fully as large as the leg of a stout man.
Mr. Coon married, February 14, 1850, Maria Young, who came to Illinois while only a small child. In 1852 he and his wife moved to the place where they now live, north of the Mackinaw. They have had three children, of whom two are living. They are : Ambrose Whitlock and Sarah Eleanor Coon, who both live at home.
Mr. Coon is five feet and nine inches in height, is strong and possessed of a great deal of pluck. He is not very heavy, but muscular. He has brown hair and reddish whiskers. He seems born to succeed in the world, and has that leading characteristic of the family, straightforwardness in his transactions. He and his brother Michael were the two coon hunters.
624
OLD SETTLERS OF
GEORGE WASHINGTON COX.
George W. Cox was born October 28, 1815, in Oxford Coun- ty, Maine, in the little town of Norway. His father, William Cox, was of Welch descent and his mother, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Phipps, was of English, but both were born in New Hampshire. George W. Cox received his common school education in Maine. He served his apprenticeship at carding and cloth-making and followed his trade for a while after coming to the West. He came to Illinois in 1837. He traveled by steamboat a greater part of the way, until he landed at Pekin, and there he continued his journey on foot to Bloomington. As he was unaccustomed to walking he was an invalid for a week afterwards. For five years he worked part of the time near Hudson on a farm, which he and his brother, Samuel Cox, opened up, and a part of the time at Bloomington as a cloth-dresser in Ort Covel's carding and cloth-dressing factory. Cloth was dressed by putting it on a cylinder and running the cards over it, and it was finely dressed by teasels or burrs, which were strung on a cylinder, or between slats running across the cyl- inder.
Mr. Cox married, March 24, 1842, in Bloomington, Nancy Jane Loving, daughter of Taylor Loving, of Gridley township. She was born in Indiana, and was brought to Illinois at an early day. Mr. Cox lived on Taylor Loving's farm in Mackinaw tim- ber for two years, and in 1844 broke prairie at the place where he now lives, north of the Mackinaw in Gridley township. He has succeeded very well in raising stock, has had no particular ad- ventures, never was a hunter because hunting was not a paying business. He could buy meat cheaper than he could kill it. If he wanted venison he could purchase it of John Messer for a little more than the cost of the ammunition required to kill it. He is a man highly respected in his township; he has been twice supervisor, indeed has held every township office, except justice of the peace and town clerk.
Mary Jane Cox died February 16, 1863. Mr. Cox married, August 12, 1863, Mrs. Nancy Potter, widow of Joseph Potter, of Kappa. Her maiden name was Nancy Hall, and her birthplace is in Indiana.
625
MI LEAN COUNTY.
Mr. Cox has had five children in all, of whom four are now living. They are:
James W. Cox, who lives a half mile east of his father's. He served in the army in the Normal regiment and was dis- charged, after two years' service, on account of sickness.
Mrs. Mary Z. Bowers, wife of Wesley Bowers, lives in Ben- ton County, Indiana.
Henry W. Cox lives in Benton County, Indiana, within half a mile of his sister, Mrs. Bowers.
Charles Sumner Cox is deaf and dumb, and has for some time been an inmate of the asylum at Jacksonville.
Mr. Cox is about five feet and nine inches in height, has a full head of hair, which was originally dark, has grayish blue eyes, a full beard, rather a thin face, is rather spare and has been much afflicted with rheumatism. He is good natured, hard working, hospitable and kind ; a man of good business qualifi- cations, has succeeded well, takes care of what he possesses, has a fine farm and a fine house and everything appears neat and tidy, as the place of a New Englander should.
The family, of which George W. Cox is a member, has been much scattered. There were fourteen children of them in the little town of Norway, where their father kept store, about forty miles from Portland. Two of the daughters are in Massachu- setts, one in New Hampshire and one in Bloomington, Illinois ; one son is at Troy, New York, two are in Maine, one at Hudson, Illinois, merchant and postmaster, one in Bloomington, and one, the subject of this sketch, in Gridley township, north of the Mackinaw.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.