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 68
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young ladies. They found where the Indians had tied their hor- ses in the woods and where they had retreated to the creek, but there the trail was lost. The Indians had walked down the creek for a long distance and their track was lost. The evening after they buried the families at Indian Creek they marched to Ottawa and built a block-house ; then went to Chicago and built another which required a week; then went to Milwaukee where they stayed three days and then marched back to Ottawa and were discharged. Mr. Rutledge re-enlisted for sixty days, but remained at Ottawa until his time was nearly expired. When the Black Hawk war was nearly closed the company to which he belonged marched up to Prairie Du Chien on the Mississippi River. They arrived there shortly after the battle of Bad Axe, the closing fight. From there his company returned to Ottawa where they remained until their discharge. In his discharge Mr. Rutledge was directed to visit the Kickapoos at Old Town timber to see that they kept their arms stacked and manifested no hostile disposition. He found them as quiet and peaceable as if they had never heard of wars or rumors of wars.
Such was Mr. Rutledge's experience in the Black Hawk war. No very accurate account of the famous fight at Stillman's Run has ever been published, because unfortunately, the most of the gentlemen who were engaged in it had taken too much spirits from the barrel which was broken open in the afternoon of the last day of the expedition.
When Mr. Rutledge was discharged from the service he re- turned to his plow. He had all the adventures of a pioneer and all the sharp experiences which were common to the early set- tlers. His experience with the sudden change in the weather in December, 1836, was the same which has been so often described Mrs. Rutledge says, her chickens and geese were frozen to the ground by the sudden cold.
Mr. Rutledge has never been much of a hunter. He has some- times shot deer and turkey and often hunted wolves. He has often- times pulled off the harness from his horse while ploughing and ridden after wolves, when they troubled him too much. This was a common occurrence. The prairie fires sometimes came after them and then it seemed that the whole earth was on fire. He thinks the great conflagration at Chicago is nothing compared to
.
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a prairie fire, which blackens everything in its track. It moves slowly at first, but gathers speed as it goes so that it soon moves faster than a horse can travel.
Mr. Rutledge is a very humorous gentleman and appreciates a rich joke as well as any of the old settlers. He tells many hu- morous things of the Buckles family, particularly. At one time while on the way to Pekin, with a load of wood, he saw Mr. Wil- liam Buckles at Gaylord's tavern in Bloomington. The landlord was exceedingly polite and wished to do everything to please his guests. As Mr. Buckles was about to retire for the night the landlord offered him a pair of slippers to wear to his chamber ; but he could not understand the meaning of such a favor. At last an idea seemed to strike him, and he told the landlord that "he'd be dog goned if he'd trade his boots for them slippers."
When William Buckles was young he followed the example of other young men, and occasionally " went sparking." At one time, while he was making a visit to a young lady, the family treated him with great politeness, and at dinner offered him some white sugar for his coffee. But he had never seen white sugar before, and replied very promptly, " No, sir, he didn't take salt in his coffee."
Mr. Peter Buckles, a brother to William, was a great hunter, and sometimes he could not resist the temptation to go after game on the Sabbath day. But after a while, when a revival was in progress, he made a profession of religion, and promised never again to hunt on Sunday, unless, he cautiously added, a wolf should take some of his pigs, or his sheep, or his chickens, or some of his other stock. With these exceptions, he promised the brethren and sisters faithfully never again to hunt on Sunday.
Mr. Abraham Buckles, another member of this celebrated family, now lives at Buckles' Groye. In early days he had never seen a railroad and never expected to; but in course of time a railroad came working its way through to Bloomington, and although Mr. Buckles lived out at the grove, which bears his family name, he at last came across it, and his experience was most interesting. Shortly afterwards he was taking a young lady some distance in his buggy; but when he came within two miles of the railroad he told her she would have to walk the remainder of the journey, as he would not, under any circum-
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stances, go nearer than two miles of the track, for he said he had been, but a short time before, on the track with his horse and buggy, and the engine came after him like a threshing machine and whooping like an Indian, and his old. mare went faster and faster, and when she left the track, she nearly upset the buggy.
Mr. Rutledge has paid very little attention to politics, and never held any office except school director and overseer of the poor. Since coming to Randolph's Grove, he has always lived where he first settled, on the land pre-empted, about two miles east of the present town of Heyworth. He has had twelve chil- dren, nine of whom are living. They are :
John T. Rutledge, who is now living in Kansas.
Owen C. Rutledge, who lives in Heyworth, where he is in business in a warehouse.
Mrs. Amanda Elder, wife of William Elder, lives in Hey- worth.
Mrs. Mary Washburn, wife of John Washburn, lives in Hey- worth.
Andrew S. Rutledge lives near his father.
James B. Rutledge lives on a farm about one mile east of his father.
Mrs. Pamelia Loer, wife of B. F. Loer, lives in Normal.
Charles L. Rutledge and Oliver Rutledge, both live at home with their father.
Mr. Rutledge is about five feet and ten inches in height; his hair is gray, what there is of it, and his head is bald. His eyes are bright and pleasant, and the lines on his face seem laid out for the purpose of making an honest, pleasant smile. The dim- ples still come in his cheeks, and he is full of the best of humor, and, like all of the old settlers, wishes to be a good friend to all of his neighbors, and indeed to the whole world. He is in very good health, and seems inclined to work more than he should in the later years of his life. He is always glad to see his children and his friends.
ROBERT H. RUTLEDGE.
Robert H. Rutledge was born March 21, 1810, in Henderson County, Kentucky, near the Red Banks. His father, Thomas Rutledge, was born October 17, 1768, in South Carolina. He
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lived for a while in Georgia, and there married Sallie Smith. He also lived near Nashville, Tennessee, and moved from there to Henderson County, Kentucky, where his son Robert was born. The Rutledge family came to Illinois in December, 1814. They came to Shawneetown, and afterwards moved out in the country about thirty-five miles. The county was then called Gallatin. Thomas Rutledge was there chosen justice of the peace in 1813, and held his office for ten years. In 1826 the family came to Randolph Grove. On the twentieth of August, 1830, old Thomas Rutledge died, in the sixty-second year of his age. His wife, Sallie Rutledge, was born August 20, 1778, and died December 12, 1843.
Robert Rutledge says that when he came to Randolph Grove in 1826, the country was an uninhabited wilderness from Pekin to the eastern state line, and from La Salle to Decatur. The coun- ty was then called Tazewell, with the seat of justice at Mackinaw- town. William H. Hodge was then sheriff. Since that time Macon County has been taken off on the south, and Champaign, Vermilion, and our own county of McLean, have been taken from the east.
Mr. Rutledge, like many other settlers, has had a hard milling experience. The family first did without a mill, and Mr. Rut- ledge, sr., made a hominy mortar and a pestle attached to a spring pole, by means of which the hominy was beaten. But when the little " nigger head" horse-mills came in use, young Robert was obliged to take his sack of corn, go to mill on horseback one day and return with meal the next.
Mr. Rutledge was a lively hunter, and he had plenty of oppor- tunities for exercising his skill, for deer were as " plenty as black- berries." In 1826 he saw from the door of his cabin more than a hundred deer walking one after the other. At one time, during the fall of this year, Mr. Rutledge, sr., killed three deer in the morning before breakfast.
The wolves were then very numerous. Mr. Rutledge, at one time during the fall of 1826, was traveling in an ox-cart a short distance west of where Heyworth now is, and there saw within forty yards of him twenty-eight large gray wolves and one prairie wolf. He often went on the " ring" hunts, as they were called, and was in the great hunt described by John Price, which appears
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in the latter's sketch. Mr. Rutledge also says that the great wolf, which was for a long time the terror of the whole neighborhood for a great many miles around, once got into his traps and lost its toes ini getting out. This was the wolf which was afterwards killed by John Price. Mr. Rutledge's last wolf hunt was in the month of June in about the year 1838. He started out one rainy morning with John Weedman. They went not more than a mile and a-half before starting three large black wolves. Weedman shot one through the shoulder, and Rutledge, while riding at full speed, shot another.
McLean County was organized in 1830. The first couple married in the county after its organization were Robert H. Rut- ledge and Charity Weedman. They were married June 9, 1831, by Father T. Brittain, who lived at the head of Old Town. The first license granted in MeLean County after its formation was given to them by Isaae Baker, the first county clerk. Charity Weedman was born July 21, 1812, in Perry County, Ohio. Her father came to MeLean County in 1830. He was an active man of considerable influence, and was for some time a county com- missioner. He was a great hunter, was wide awake, arose early in the morning and at one time killed two deer before breakfast in order to have a good appetite. His daughter Charity was a lively young woman ; she was up and doing and at one time walked four miles to weave in order to earn some chickens to get a start and raise a flock. Robert and Charity built their first cabin in the fall of 1831, on the ground where they now live. Their little cabin had neither floor nor door until the following spring. Their bedstead was made by boring holes in the side of the house and driving in poles for rails and using elapboards for bedchords. Robert Rutledge and his brother-in-law, Jacob Bish- op, thought they must have the luxury of tables, so they cut a log and each of them split out a table from it. The first prairie which Mr. Rutledge broke was in the spring of 1832. He then worked under some difficulties. Mrs. Rutledge had one child, which she would lay on the bed and go out and drive the oxen, while Mr. Rutledge held the plow.
Mr. Rutledge made his first journey to Chicago with Garson Wright and Jacob Bishop, and it required four or five weeks to
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make the round trip. While they were gone, their unprotected families were obliged to be on their guard against Indians and wild animals. The three men went with ox teams to where Pon- tiac now stands, thence to Sulphur Springs and the Kankakee River, where they forded, thence to Hickory Creek, north of Joliet, and from there to Chicago. They were loaded with corn and oats, and sold the corn for $1.50 per bushel and the oats for $1.00. They found in Chicago only one family of white folks, that of William Clybourne. They did their trading with two Frenchmen by the name of Beaubean. They loaded their teams with salt and started on their return to their anxious families. After going twelve miles they came to the river Desplaines and were there water bound three days. At last their fifteen teams were taken over by half-breed Indians for $1.50 a piece. They were water-bound two days at the Dupage River, and amused themselves during their enforced idleness by going to hear a Methodist preacher, who was exhorting to the Indians. They crossed the Dupage in canoes and the Desplaines in the same way. From there they went to Sugar Grove on Fox River, and thence to Ottawa, where they crossed the Illinois. From there they went to Panther Creek, thence to Crow Creek, then on to Havens' Grove across the Mackinaw, thence to where Blooming- ton now is, and on home to Randolph's Grove.
When Mr. Rutledge came to Randolph's Grove, there were Gardner Randolph, Captain Stringfield and his mother's family, James Burleson and family, Jesse Funk, Mr. Dickerson and W. Games. Isaac Funk, Robert Stubblefield and William Brock lived at Funk's Grove. John Hendrix, William and Thomas Orendorff, William Walker, Ebenezer Rhodes, John Rhodes and John Benson, lived at Blooming Grove.
The changes which have taken place are of every kind and description. The face of the country is changed by the fields and houses and roads, by the timber which has been cut down, and by the timber which has grown up. Mr. Rutledge has cut timber, grown since his settlement here, that squared eight inches.
Mr. Rutledge has had few misfortunes, but one has been something of a difficulty for him. Mr. Rutledge's house burned down on the sixteenth of October, 1872, but it is now replaced
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by a new and substantial building which will be his homestead for the remainder of his life. But notwithstanding this misfor- tune, Mr. Rutledge has usually been very successful. He has acquired a competence of this world's goods ; he has been blessed with good health, a splendid wife and a magnificent crop of children. He has had twelve children, seven of whom are living.
Mary J. Rutledge was born March 7, 1832, was married to John Halsey in 1849, and lives in Iowa.
Sarah L. Rutledge was born March 13, 1833, was married to Joseph T. Martin in 1852, and lives in Ford County, Illinois.
George T. Rutledge was born August 26, 1834, married in 1860, Miss A. M. Wagner, and lives in McLean County, Illinois.
Harriet Rutledge was born June 13, 1836, died April 18, 1862. Nancy E. Rutledge was born September 11, 1839, was mar- ried to J. C. Daniel, and lives in Ford County, Illinois.
Benjamin F. Rutledge was born May 19, 1842, and died the seventeenth of the following October.
Leander Rutledge was born December 5, 1843, married in 1844, Mary A. Tilghman, and lives in McLean County, Illinois.
Charity A. Rutledge was born July 21, 1846, was married to John T. Ellsworth, and died November 30, 1870.
Robert M. Rutledge was born August 7, 1848, and died September 6, following.
America C. Rutledge was born March 17, 1850, and died November 9, 1870.
Martin A. Rutledge was born October 27, 1853, and died September 16, 1854.
Marcus D. Rutledge was born February 20, 1856, and lives at home with his parents.
Mr. Rutledge is of medium stature. He is as good and honest a man as ever lived. He appreciates a funny story, but would rather not have too many practical jokes played on himself.
JESSE FUNK.
Jesse Funk was born December 15, 1803, in Clark County, Kentucky. His father was Adam Funk and his mother's maiden name was Nancy Moore. Nancy Moore was the daughter of Mr. Philip Moore, who came from Germany. Adam Funk, the father of Jesse, was the son of Adam Funk, who, while only six years
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of age, was brought by his father Adam Funk, from Germany. The child Adam was left by his father in Philadelphia in charge of a friend, while the father went to seek a place of business, but never returned and was never again heard of. The child Adam grew to manhood and married Miss Sarah Long, and their chil- dren were Adam, Margaret and Jacob. Adam married Miss Nan- cy Moore, as above stated. Their children were Absalom, John, Jacob, Sarah, Isaac, Dorothy, Tabitha, Jesse and Robert.
In 1808 the Funk family moved to Fayette County, Ohio. Jesse Funk remembered the war of 1812, although but a very small lad. Two of his elder brothers were soldiers in that war and served under General Cass. At the close of the war Gene- ral Cass came home with them and made a visit of several days.
Jesse Funk's business while a boy was the herding of pigs on the White Oak Plains, where they were taken to feed on mast. This occupation and hunting kept him busy. He hunted bees, bear, wolves and panther. In addition to his gun he carried, on his hunting excursions, a butcher knife and a three-pound axe for a tomahawk. His hunting companions were frequently the Indians, with whom he was on terms of friendship. He often had shooting matches with them. Mr. Wesley Funk tells of a bear fight, in which his father and Isaac Funk and a Mr. Pancake were engaged in Ohio, and which he has often heard his father relate. They started out one morning on horseback with the hounds and went to a little stream called Deer Creek. Before going a great way they started an enormous bear. Isaac and Mr. Pancake being somewhat excited, gave it a hard chase and drove it to its nest. This was made of grass piled on the ground five feet high, and underneath was the bear with her cubs. Isaac, who was then a reckless youth, rode his horse over the nest, bear, cubs and all. This brought out the beast and a general fight took place. It was tackled by nineteen hounds, but the bear came off first best and nearly killed three of the hounds, before they could be called off. The animal was then furious; the hunters tried to drive it towards their shanty before shooting it. But Isaac became impatient and wanted more sport and again he charged on the bear and and rode his horse over it. But the brute was a little too quick this time ; it caught the horse in the edge of the hair on its left fore foot and tore the anele and hoof on the front side.
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The horse fell, and Isaac was thrown. The horse ran for home while the bear took after Isaac and would undoubtedly have killed him, had not Jesse rushed on with the dogs and drawn off' the attention of the brute, until the reckless Isaae could escape. The bear climbed a low tree and Jesse tried to shoot it, but the flint in his gun would not make fire. The powder was lit with a splinter, and when the gun fired the bear came down, and Isaac picked up Jesse's tomahawk and went for the brute again and struck it. But the bear reared up for another fight and again Jesse rushed on with the dogs to save Isaac from the results of his recklessness. Jesse rushed his horse on the bear's heels and when it turned on him he rammed the gun barrel down its throat and stabbed it with his knife behind the left shoulder. Between Jesse and the dogs they succeeded in killing it.
But Jesse Funk was not always successful in securing his bear meat, when he had killed it. At one time he killed a bear's cub and started for home, but was delayed, and the wolves came howl- ing after him. They came thicker and thicker and closer and closer, and at last he was obliged to drop his bear, and while the wolves were eating it he and his dog went home,
During the last year before he came to Illinois he worked for a Mr. Rankin and received as his pay one hundred and twenty dol- lars in American half dollars.
On the fifteenth of December, 1824, Jesse Funk came to Ran- dolph's Grove in what was then Fayette, but is now McLean County Illinois. During the first year after his arrival in Illinois he lived with his brother Isaac at Funk's Grove. On the fifteenth of September, 1825, he married Miss Fannie U. Stringfield.
Rev. John S. Barger, while writing of Jesse Funk's marriage, says: " The writer remembers to have heard him say in regard to the marriage fee, that he asked the preacher his charge for his services, who replied : 'I am not in the habit of making charges on such occasions, but usually accept what the parties are dis- posed to give.' He said : 'I was much relieved by his answer, and ran my hand into my pocket and gave him $2.50. If he had made a charge and had charged me more than that small sum I could not then have paid the fee"" On the 11th of March, 1826, the newly married couple moved into their log cabin, twelve by fourteen feet, with only one side of the roof covered, a blanket for a
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shutter to the door, having no chimney and no floor but the earth. Into this humble dwelling they introduced an ox-cart load of household furniture, and a light load at that. He sold his wed- ding hat for some pigs and split rails for some of his neighbors for twenty-five cents per hundred. Mr Thomas O. Rutledge, in describing the shanty says, that Mr. Funk had a little salt meat in one corner and slept in the other, he had a little board table, a dirt floor, a hole in the logs for a window, a quilt for a door, no chimney, the roof only half on, no chair and only two puncheon stools. One would hardly think that this pioneer, who began life under such difficulties, would at his death leave an estate worth half a million dollars or more.
In 1827, Jesse Funk and his wife went to Galena. They moved to the Illinois River in an ox-wagon. There they took a keel-boat and went down to its mouth and up the Mississippi. They poled it up by having a plank walk on each side, where those who handled the poles, could walk backward and forward. Mrs. Funk steered the boat. When they came to the rapids, they unloaded the boat and carried the household goods around while the empty boat was poled and drawn up with ropes. 'When they arrived at Galena, Mr. Funk commenced digging for mineral the fore part of the season ; then he bought a team and hauled mine- ral during the latter part of the season ; then he went home and drove hogs to Galena, butchered them, and sold meat to the miners. These were the first hogs taken to Galena. In the spring of 1828 he returned to Galena, but in the fall he came home again, and took a second lot of hogs to Galena, butchered them, and returned in February, 1829. In the fall of 1829 he took some oxen to Galena, butchered them, sold them to the teamsters, and returned shortly afterwards. He always camped out in the woods. When he and his men ran out of meat, they killed a hog and scalded it by a curious process. They dug a hole in the ground, put in some stones, built a log fire in it, and after a while scraped away the ashes, poured in water, which was immediately heated by the stones, and instantly plunged in the hog, which never failed to become effectually scalded.
During the winter of the deep snow, Jesse Funk started to Galena with a drove of hogs. The men who accompanied him were James Burleson, Severe Stringfield, Robert Funk and Mar-
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tin Ruth. The last named was severely frozen on the expedition and wished to be left to die; but Jesse Funk took his whip and threshed the man severely, and made him run, and by this means saved his life. On this trip the men were overtaken by the deep snow, and for a while their swine were buried beneath it. When they took out the pigs, the latter were found by the holes, which their breath melted up through the snow. Some of the pigs had been killed by the wolves. While driving the pigs, Jesse Funk followed behind and brought up those which were tired and dis- abled. The wolves followed close after him. The cold was most intense, and many of the pigs were frozen. They would put their snouts in the snow and squeal, and freeze, and die. The snow- drifts were very deep, particularly in the hollows. They were sometimes so deep that only the tops of trees could be seen. At last the party arrived at Galena with a remnant of starved and frozen swine. Provisions of all kinds were scarce at Galena, or Mr. Funk could not have disposed of his poor, sorry-looking pigs. He only made one hundred and thirty dollars by that trip.
In the meantime, Mrs. Funk was at home at Randolph's . Grove pounding her corn into meal, and managing as best she could. The deer and wolves came into her yard very often. Mr. Thomas Rutledge assisted her in attending to the stock, cut and hauled her wood. During this winter the deer and wild turkeys ate with the cattle and chickens.
Mr. Funk was a tireless man and could endure everything. He used many novel expedients to succeed, and seldom failed to take advantage of any fortunate circumstance. At one time he killed a wild hog at Buckles' Grove, tied it to the tail of his horse and dragged it twelve miles home. On his various excursions to Galena, Chicago and elsewhere, with droves of stock, he camped out at night and made fire with flint and steel and fow. He often ran much risk from robbers and lawless men, who are always plenty in a new country, but he was a man of powertul frame, and was not exposed to so much danger as many others would be. At one time he was followed by a robber from Chicago to the Mazon River, but there the thief lost the camp of Mr. Funk, and was foiled in his design. Mr. Funk had then several thousand dollars on his person. He made a great deal of money at times in his business, and occasionally he had corresponding losses.
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