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 74
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Sangamon County was then a very unhealthy section of coun- try and in the spring of 1823, the Benson family moved to Bloom- ing Grove. James and Jesse cut and hauled house logs for ten days before the family came. They were visited by Severe Stringfield and Gardner Randolph from Randolph's Grove. On the last of May, the Benson family came on. They first moved into a linn bark camp, which had, three sides closed up and the
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fourth side open. The floor and roof were linn bark. That summer the family raised very little grain, and during the fol- lowing winter many of their cattle died. They were subjected to many inconveniences. James was obliged to go thirty-five miles on horseback to the lower end of Lake Fork to get his plow sharpened. He crossed the Kickapoo by hanging to his horse as it swam over, and then going back with a canoe for his plow. Mr. Benson married, November 6, 1828, Polly Ann Hinshaw, who was born in Overton County, Tennessee, and had lately come to Blooming Grove. Then he went to Harley's Grove and improved a place, sold his improvement, and in 1831 moved to White Oak Grove. Here he and his brother John built a cabin and broke ground. During the following spring, they volunteered in Captain McClure's company, and went to the Black Hawk war. They went up to Dixon's Ferry and were mustered into the regular service. The famous defeat of Major Stillman's battalion occurred on the evening of the day after their arrival. In the middle of the night, Mr. Benson was awakened from his sleep by a voice calling "halloo!" On answering, he was told that Stillman's men were all killed, that the Indians had crawled on them and said "woo, woo," and butchered them all in their camp! During the following morning, Captain Eades, of Peoria, who had been in the " Run" and lost his hat, came around the camp with a handkerchief tied to his head and his sword at his side. He tried to collect his men, but they were badly scattered, and he could find but few. The greater part of the troops went up on the battle ground. Nearly all were mounted, but a few out of each company were dismounted, and these formed a company by themselves. After marching to the scene of the fight, about thirty-five miles above Dixon, and bury- ing the dead, the men returned. Shortly afterwards, three com- panies, one of which was Captain McClure's, were sent to Ottawa, and on their arrival were ordered to Indian Creek, to bury the families of Davis, Hall and Pettigrew, which had been murdered by the Indians immediately after the fight of Still- man's Run. They found these families buried on the outside of the house near the chimney. But they were only lightly covered with earth and were taken up and reburied in a trench. The two boys, who escaped and who, he thinks, belonged to the Hall
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family, were able to identify the dead, and by their assistance the bodies were separated and those of each family buried together. Shortly afterwards the volunteers were discharged.
Mr. Benson has made the usual trips to Chicago. He hauled wheat and drove hogs there, and sold them for prices which would not now be considered worth the trouble of the journey. At Peoria, pork brought $1.25 to $1.50, provided the larger part of the pay was taken in goods. Vinton Carlock succeeded in getting $1.00 per hundred in cash.
Mr. Benson has had fourteen children, of whom eleven are living. They are :
William Benson, who lives east of Lexington.
Mrs. Elizabeth D. Knight, wife of Moses H. Knight, who lives in Cropsy township.
Mrs. Nancy Gilstrap, wife of Henry Gilstrap, lives in Cow- liek, Kansas.
Cyrus H. Benson, lives in Lawndale township.
Mrs. Sarah Jane Chisholm, wife of Jesse Chisholm, lives about three and a-half miles east of her father's.
Jesse M. Benson, lives in Lawndale township.
Mrs. Susannah Arnold, wife of James C. Arnold, lives in Cropsy township.
James P. Benson, lives in Lawndale township.
Emily W., Edward C. and Horace M. Benson, live at the homestead in White Oak Grove.
Mr. Benson is about five feet and six inches in height, is squarely built and quite strong. His hair is perfectly white. He has a sanguine complexion and temperament, is a kind man and a gentleman of the strictest integrity. He has a cataract in his eye, which has been of great trouble to him and has nearly destroyed his sight. He has had several operations performed, and it is hoped that it will now improve and his sight be restored. He has a patient and hopeful disposition, and his affliction has not affected his kindness of manner.
WILLIAM THOMAS TAYLOR BENSON.
William T. T. Benson was born October 12, 1811, in Gibson County, Indiana. At the age of nine years, he went with his father's family to what is now Logan County, Illinois. In the
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spring of 1823, the Benson family settled on the farm now occu- pied by Andrew W. Scoggin and there remained about thirteen years, after which they came to White Oak Grove. Mr. Benson married at Blooming Grove, September 25, 1834, Nancy Hin- shaw, a sister of George Hinshaw, jr. He built the first house on the prairie near White Oak Grove, about half a mile south of it. He sawed lumber wih a whip saw and it was the first, he thinks, that went into Bloomington. He helped to make the first brick that went into that town, in the brick yard of Peter Whipp, where George Hinshaw now lives. But as the clay proved to be poor, the yard was moved to the Big Branch. Mr. Benson sawed lumber for Colonel Gridley to build his store- house, but it was burned in kiln drying. Mr. Benson put up various buildings as he acquired property, and the country became developed in wealth and prosperity, and at present he has a fine, large house, with good outbuildings. He has had some experience with fires on the prairie, but only once suffered from them serious damage. This was at Blooming Grove.
Mr. Benson has been very successful in life and acquired a fair competence. He raised an orphan boy whom he has treated as his own child in every respect, even in the division of his property. He gave to three of his children and to this boy, each ninety acres of land with stock and farming implements, on condition that they should each pay him three hundred dol- lars. He has acquired four hundred and thirty acres of land altogether.
Mr. Benson has had five children, of whom three are living. They are :
George Benson, lives at Champaign, in Champaign County, Illinois.
Mrs. Susannah Lollis, wife of Mitchell W. Lollis, lives in the edge of White Oak Grove.
Mrs. Melissa Hand Conger, wife of Robert Conger, lives in Lawndale township.
Mr. Benson is five and one-half feet high, is rather squarely built, has a good head with a good development of intellect. His hair is almost entirely white, and his whiskers are silver. He wears spectacles, is a very pleasant man, is strictly honest in his dealings and friendly in his manner. He lives in the edge
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of White Oak Grove with the family of his daughter, Mrs. Susannah Lollis.
ELISHA DIXON.
Elisha Dixon was born June 14, 1809, near Romney, Hamp- shire County, Virginia, not far from the battle-ground of Win- chester, where General Shields whipped Stonewall Jackson. There are in that country many stone fences, and it was behind one of these that Jackson's army took refuge after its unsuccess- ful attack on that of Shields; but the army of Shields followed up its advantage, and the troops of Jackson were flanked and driven from behind the stone wall and completely routed. Elisha Dixon's father was John Dixon, and his mother's maiden name was Drusilla Harvey. His father was of English, Irish and Scotch stock, and his mother was of German descent. He was a rela- tive of Jeremiah Dixon, who with Mason made the survey known as Mason and Dixon's line. John Dixon was a farmer and stock- raiser, was very honest and much respected. In 1815 the Dixon family came to Ohio, and settled on the Stillwater River in Har- rison County, near the town of Freeport. Here they saw many of the privations of frontier life. They were obliged to go fifty miles distant to buy frost-bitten corn, for which they had the privilege of paying seventy-five cents per bushel. About one- fourth of all the corn raised in that section of country was eaten up by squirrels. The instruction given in the schools was little. enough, and only extended to reading and writing. In 1828, Elisha Dixon came to Dry Grove, in that part of Tazewell Coun- ty, Illinois, which now forms the county of McLean. Here he lived two years, with only one room to his little cabin. He visited Peoria, when it had only four houses. It had a store kept by a man named Bogardus, and very little else was to be seen. A part of the piekets were still standing around Fort Clark. Mackinaw- town was simply brush and woods ; it had the name of a town, but the town was not there.
During the fall before the deep snow, Mr. Dixon's stacks were burned to the ground, and he was obliged to winter his stock on bran and boiled turnips. One of his pigs was caught under a drift of snow and lived six weeks without anything to eat. Mrs. Dixon also tells of a turkey that was under the snow during this winter and survived.
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During the Black Hawk war, Mr. Dixon enlisted in Captain McClure's company, and was mustered into service at Pekin, in Tazewell County. They went on to Dixon's Ferry, and after the fight of Stillman's Run went upon the ground and buried the dead. On their return to Dixon's Ferry four companies under Colonel Johnson were sent to Ottawa for the defence of that place. Captain McClure's company was then sent up to Indian Creek to bury the three families that had been murdered by the Indians there. After the burial of the bodies, they went back to Ottawa, and shortly afterwards were honorably discharged and returned home.
After Mr. Dixon's return he went to farming on the place now owned by Charles Johnson, at White Oak Grove. He worked hard and succeeded in keeping the fire out of the grove, and now a fine growth of timber has come up, equal perhaps to any in MeLean County.
Mr. Dixon has taken great interest in schools, has done every- thing to help them along. In 1845 he was elected school treas- urer, and kept the office fourteen years. He used to draw money from John Price, who was school commissioner for the whole county. Mr. Dixon took the best of care of the school money, but it sometimes made him feel very uneasy, as two attemps were made to rob him. The care and anxiety after a while seemed to him greater than the honor, and he refused to hold the office longer.
In June, 1872, Mr. Dixon was summoned on the grand jury of the United States District Court at Springfield. There he had a varied experience. He came across men who could talk. He first came in contact with a spiritualist, who was quite handy with his tongue. Mr. Dixon does not usually allow any one to get the start of him in talk, and when the spiritualist claimed to have seen signs and wonders, and to have looked on the face of the Almighty, Mr. Dixon called the gentleman's attention to the fact, that when Moses went up the mountain and looked on the face of the Almighty, and returned to the children of Israel, his brother Aaron could not look on his face on account of its bright- ness; but the most careful scrutiny would fail to discover any such brilliancy on the face of the spiritualist, (except that peeu- liar brightness which comes from spirits of the "other kind.")
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While the grand jurymen were at Springfield, they had only seven cases before them ; but Mr. Dixon says they were receiving three dollars per day, and wished to prolong their sitting by con- tinually adjourning, in order to continue drawing pay. Mr. Dixon was excused at his own request and came home.
Mr. Dixon married in December, 1828, Mary Brown, of Dry Grove, who came from Overton County, Tennessee. He raised a family of five children, but only two of these are living. They are :
William Dixon, who lives at Minier, in Tazewell County.
John F. Dixon teaches school in the neighborhood of Pontiac.
Elisha Dixon is six feet and two inches in height, is heavily built, has a large and well-shaped head, covered with hair thick and white, has a pleasant smile, is kind to every one, and takes pleasure in talking to whoever calls on him. He has done fairly in life, and is disposed to be generous. Mr. Dixon can talk when he gets himself started. He can embellish matters and make them shine by the power of his imagination. When people talk to him, he can see the sharp corners and the inconsistencies of their conversation, and woe to the incautious man who makes wild statements in his presence. He takes a great interest in the events of other days and the doings of the carly settlers. In religion he wishes it clearly understood that he is a degree man, and that he thinks the planetary world is a type of the spiritual world. He thinks that men will be different in intellect in the world to come, and that no one will be kept back in order that another may catch up with him in intellectual or moral develop- ment.
SMITH DENMAN.
Smith Denman was born September 6, 1799, in Essex County, New Jersey. His father was Mathias Denman, and his mother's name before marriage was Rhoda Elston. Mr. Denman is, as far as he knows, of English descent. In 1804 the Denman family moved to Washington County, Pennsylvania, where they re- mained two years, and then went to Licking County, Ohio. There they began farming. Smith Denman married, June 27, 1821, Elizabeth Dixon, and set up for himself in life by leasing land. By hard work he made money enough to come to Illinois, which
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he did in September, 1829. He had a pleasant journey, and set- tled at White Oak Grove, McLean County, Illinois. He lived quite comfortably during the winter of the deep snow. He worked well and carefully, though he was not a large farmer.
Mr. Denman has had eleven children, of whom four are living. They are :
Jabez Harris Denman, who lives in Bolinger County, Mis- souri.
Mrs. Drusilla Buck, wife of Daniel W. Buck, lives in Pales- tine township, Woodford County, Illinois.
Smith Denman, jr., lives in Montgomery County, Illinois.
Mrs. Mary Benson lives in McLean County, about ten miles east of Lexington.
Mr. Denman is six feet in height, is slenderly built, is a pleas- ant, accommodating gentleman, and a straightforward, honest man.
ABRAHAM W. CARLOCK.
Abraham W. Carlock was born April 7, 1800, in Hampshire County, West Virginia, near the west branch of the Potomac River. His paternal grandfather emigrated to this country from Germany, and settled in Virginia shortly before the outbreak of the Revolutionary war. During the war he was a soldier in the Continental army. Shortly after Abraham's birth his father moved to Overton County, Tennessee, about fifteen miles from Livingston, the county seat, on the Obey River. Here he began farming on a small scale, and hunting on a large scale. Young Abraham was then quite a rambler. His son, W. B. Carlock, says of him: "He busied himself in rambling over the moun- tains, hills and valleys, gathering chestnuts, chincapins, black- berries and whortleberries, and chasing squirrels and ground hogs (woodchucks)." If he did all of that in one day, it cer- tainly must have kept him quite busy. But it seems that the big game was left for Abraham's father, for the same good au- thority says; "There were a great many bear in the country at that time, but that sort of game was left for the old gentleman to attend to, and it is safe to say that bear meat was no rarity in the old man's family." Abraham Carlock was a good, indus- trious boy, and did not neglect his "chores." He "tended" the
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farm well, and raised corn, tobacco and sweet potatoes. He raised pork, too, for the Southern market, though his pigs had a bad habit of running wild and becoming, as his son says, "as wild as the wildest deer." At the age of twenty-four Abraham was married to Mary Goodpasture, and in his subsequent pros- perity he might exclaim :
" She has my faithful shepherd been, In pastures good hath led me."
In the spring of 1827 Abraham Carloek, with his wife and two children moved to Morgan County, Illinois. They walked nearly the whole distance. After remaining there three or four years he moved to Dry Grove, McLean County, and in 1836 he moved to White Oak Grove. At White Oak Grove his boys caught many prairie chickens close to his house, even within thirty yards of his door. Sometimes they would catch twenty or thirty in a trap. They were dried and hung on strings to be pre- served. Shortly after the Black Hawk war he traveled over the northern part of the State, and especially over the Fox River country, to find land to purchase. While on his travels he met the old Indian chief, Shabbona, who lived on Fox River at the grove which bears his name. This chief had been a warm friend to the whites through good and evil report, and saved many lives during the Indian troubles in early days, by warning settlers of approaching danger.
In the fall of 1833 occurred the celebrated phenomena called the falling of the meteors. Mr. Carloek was at that time in the Fox River country, and the meteors fell at all points of the com- pass, and lit up the whole heavens. Of course this phenomena alarmed the superstitious, as such things always do, and many people thought the millenium was surely at hand.
In 1836 he sold his property at Dry Grove, and moved to White Oak Grove. His land at White Oak Grove lies partly in MeLean and partly in Woodford County. His house stands about one hundred yards outside of the line of McLean County. Nevertheless he considers himself a McLean County man, as nearly all his interests are connected with it. Mr. Carlock and his careful wife have been blessed with twelve children. Ten of these grew to manhood and womanhood, and eight are now living.
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Old Mr. Carlock will be seventy-five years of age on the seventh of April next. He is nearly six feet in height, has round shoulders, a fair complexion and a strong constitution. His hair is perfectly white. He is very active, full of life and humor, and does as much work as any hand on the farm. He is a great hunter, and has been known to kill three or four deer in a single day. He is now worth about one hundred thousand dollars, and has fairly earned it by patient toil and strict economy. He has about one thousand acres of choice land, finely improved and under good cultivation. The old gentleman is jovial, kind- hearted and hospitable by nature, and has a great many friends. In politics he is an uncompromising Democrat, one of the strict- est kind. There is no milk and sugar about it; he takes his Democracy clear. He cast his first vote for Andrew Jackson, and his last for Horace Greeley, because Mr. Greeley was nom- inated at Baltimore. He is such a staunch, uncompromising Democrat that many people who are unacquainted with his name know him as the "Old Democrat," and his son says his paper would pass current if signed with that soubriquet.
In religion Mr. Carlock is a Universalist. His son says he has "read the scriptures strenuously," and believes in the salvation of all mankind. If a traveling minister of any denomination comes along, Mr. Carlock will entertain him most hospitably, but will probably make him sit up until two o'clock in the morning to discuss doctrinal points. He is full of eccentricities. In the presence of his children he pleads great poverty, in order to in- duce them to study economy. He was never known to make a visit, in the strict sense of the word. He is very much attached to his home, and never gets into debt, and it would be well if people generally had these eccentricities. He has never ridden in a railroad car, a steamboat or even an omnibus.
Mr. Carlock is one of the most hospitable of men, indeed this seems to be the case with nearly all of the early pioneers ; his "latch-string is always out;" in his home there is good cheer, and in his welcome, good feeling.
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STEPHEN TAYLOR.
Stephen Taylor was born in Washington County, Ohio, Feb- ruary 28, 1814. His father's name was Stephen Taylor, and his mother's, before marriage, was Lovisa Rathbone. His parents were Americans, as were their ancestors, so far as he knows. His father was born in New York, and his mother in Maine. Stephen Taylor, sr., enlisted during the war of 1812, at the last call for volunteers, and died at Detroit, Michigan, of sickness. There were four children in the Taylor family, and they had left to them four hundred dollars each. Their money was put into the hands of Squire John Brown, who put it into the hands of some one else, and it went the way of all money.
When Stephen Taylor was sixteen years of age, he started out in life for himself without asking leave of any one, as his mother had married a second time and was provided for. He went to Morgan County, on the Muskingum River, and began chopping wood for twenty cents per cord. It was there that he, with two others, cut. and corded in one job thirty-three hundred cords of wood. For the last wood he cut, on the Muskingum River, he received sixteen and two-thirds cents per cord; but it was nearly all tree tops. He remained there for some time, and ran down about three times a year with salt to Cincinnati. He had only one accident, that he remembers particularly. He once had a boat containing salt staved in on some rocks. It was taken near shore immediately, but all except a few barrels of salt were spoiled. Stephen Taylor worked hard, and by his in- dustry earned enough money to come to Illinois and enter eighty acres of land and buy ten acres of timber. In 1836, he came by steamboat to Pekin, and walked from there to Bloomington, then back to Madison, Indiana. On the Sangamon River, he stopped at a hotel, where he was obliged to sleep in a room with fourteen others, and one of them, unfortunately, had some gold taken from his person. All of the company were searched, but the missing gold was not found. Mr. Taylor wore, at the begin- ning of this journey on foot, a pair of calf boots, which, becom- ing alternately wet and dry, shrank and blistered his feet, and he was somtimes obliged to walk in his socks. At Danville, he bought a pair of shoes and cut up his boots, as they could not
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be sold. At Perrysville, on the Wabash, he went to a saloon and called for a pint of whisky. The barkeeper asked for his bottle, as a pint of whisky was considered rather a "stiff" drink. But Mr. Taylor used the fluid in a proper way, and poured it into his shoes to cure his blistered feet. He went on to Craw- fordsville, sometimes wading through water for long distances; but as the country was new, he could not stand upon trifles. At Madison, Indiana, he went on board of the General Pike, one of the fastest steamboats on the river. At Cincinnati, he ran out of funds, but found a friend, old Robert Fulton, who furnished the stamps required for his journey home.
Stephen Taylor married, March 8, 1837, Betsey Dearborn, and in the fall came to White Oak Grove, McLean County, Illi- nois. He started, October 16, and arrived November 3. He went first to Pekin by steamboat and there paid ten dollars to be transported to his new home. He bought a little split log cabin, about ten by twelve feet in size, with a puncheon floor, and in this he wintered. During that winter, he did some hard work. He made rails, stakes and ground chunks for a fence, and hauled them two miles. He cut out the framing for a build- ing twenty feet by eighteen; he hauled the flooring, siding and sheeting from Bloomington, hewed the framing timber in the grove, and fenced twenty acres of land, that is, made three-quar- ters of a mile of fence. This is usually considered a great deal of work for one winter; but Mr. Taylor was a practised wood cutter and understood how to wield his tools to advantage.
In about the year 1839, the farmers all over the country became disgusted with the low prices which they were receiving for pork, and all put their hogs together and sent some of their number to take them to Chicago. Mr. Taylor had eleven hogs in the "bunch," and helped to drive them. On the journey, it snowed and thawed and froze and sleeted, so that the party, which had just passed Big Sulphur Springs, returned to that place. It was so slippery that some of the hogs were carried back to that place. Here they remained twenty-one days, and here, too, Isaac Funk was weatherbound with a lot of hogs. He tried to harrow the ice and make it rough for the pigs to walk, but the experiment was a failure, they slipped on the ice in spite of him. Then he tied the hind legs of some of the pigs together
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to keep them from slipping, but all his experiments failed. The entire party stopped with a man named Fuller, and in order to pass away the time, held a lyceum and debated all the questions of the day. Mr. Fuller took part and, as he evidently thought a great deal of himself, Mr. Taylor and John Benson, jr., always decided in his favor, whenever they happened to be judges. The old fellow's vanity was so tickled that he always refused to debate, unless Taylor and Benson were to decide the question. The party was detained at the springs for twenty-one days, and bought all the corn they could find in the country to feed their swine. They went out hunting, and at one time found sixty- three deer in a drove. Mr. Taylor says, also, that it was a great place for bee trees, and that he saw from a single spot thirteen trees which had been cut down and the honey taken out.
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