The history of Adams County Illinois : containing a history of the county - its cities, towns, etc. a biographical directory of its citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion; general and local statistics, portraits of early settlers and prominent men, Part 34

Author:
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : Murray, Williamson & Phelps
Number of Pages: 1254

USA > Illinois > Adams County > The history of Adams County Illinois : containing a history of the county - its cities, towns, etc. a biographical directory of its citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion; general and local statistics, portraits of early settlers and prominent men > Part 34

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

divisions of this group, and is the oldest known form of this intersecting genus of fossil Bryozoa.

The lower division of the Keokuk group consists mainly of bluish- gray limestones, in quite regular beds, varying from six inches to two fect in thickness, separated by intercalations of buff or blue shale, or marly clay. Toward the base, it is very thin-bedded and cherty, the flinty material predominating over the calcareous. These beds are well exposed in the upper part of the quarries at Quincy, especially in the northern part of the city, where extensive quarries have been opened in these cherty beds, and also on the small creek at Whipple's Mill, where they gradually pass upward into the more regularly bedded limestone above. At Col. Jamison's place, two miles northeast of Quincy, the regularly bedded limestone of this group, the equivalents of the beds quarried at Nanvoo and Keokuk are exposed, and higher up on the creek above mentioned and a mile and a half further east, the quarries were opened in this lime- stone to furnish the foundation limestone for Gov. Wood's mansion. These quarries furnish an evenly bedded bluish-gray semi-crystalline lime- stone, in beds from six to twenty inches thick, and furnished large slabs of dimension stone from the facility from which the rocks could be split in the desired form. The quarry rock at this point is directly overlaid by the brown shales of the geode bed.

From Quincy to the north line of the county this limestone outcrops at various points along the bluffs, and is well exposed on Bear creek, near the Lima and Quincy road, where it forms a mural cliff from forty to fifty feet in height. It is also found on all the small, streams in the west- ern part of the county, as far south as Mill creek, and on both forks of that stream, though not on the main creek. The regularly bedded lime- stones of this group are mainly composed of organic matter, and are formed from the calcareous portions of the molluscs, crinoids, and corals, which existed in such countless numbers in the carboniferous ocean during this period of the earth's history, as to furnish the greater part of the material required to form entire groups of limestone strata. All these animals secrete the carbonate of lime to form the habitations in which they live and the solid integuments of their various parts, and these calcareous fragments, cemented together by the chemical precipitation of the mineral matters held in solution by the waters of the ocean, now constitute many of the limestones and marbles out of which our cities are built, and which enter so largely, in various forms, into the economic use of human life. The alternations of limestone with seams of clay or shale indicate the changing conditions that prevailed in the ocean at this time, as these clay seams were formed by the muddy sediments that at various times were introduced by the currents, or other causes, into the ocean, which, settling to the bottom, formed the shaly, sedimentary strata by which the lime- stones were separated. The characteristic fossils of this group occur

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

almost everywhere that the rock is exposed. In the debris of the old quar- ries, northeast of Quincy, we found Archimedes, Owenana, Agaricocrinus Americanus, Actinocrinus pernodosus, A. biturbinatus, Spirifer Keo- kuk, Productus punctatus, and Zaphrentis dalii. In the quarries at Quincy are obtained Aviculopecten amplus, Spirifer striatus and Pro- ductus semireticulatus from the cherty beds at the base of the group.

Burlington Limestone .- This formation differs but little in its litho- logical characters from the lower portion of the Keokuk limestone, but is usually of a lighter gray color; and contains intercalated beds of buff or brown limestone, while the bands of the argillaceons shale, which separate the beds in the Keokuk group, are not seen in this. There is, however, one band of green clay, or clay shale, from one to six inches in thickness, intercalated in the beds at Quincy, about midway from the bottom to the top, at the exposure at the lower end of the city, where the beds are well exposed. At the quarries, in the upper layer of the limestone, opposite the steamboat landing, the cherty beds belonging to the Keokuk group are quarried, but in the lower part of the city the underlying limestones are well exposed, and are extensively quarried to supply the demand for build- ing stone and for burning into lime. The rock is tolerably even bedded, and affords some layers two feet or more in thickness, which, when free from chert, may be cut with facility, and forms an excellent building stone. The following is a section of the rocks exposed in the bluffs, in the lower part of the city of Quincy:

Loess, capping the bluff .

FT.

Thin bedded cherty limestone (Keokuk) 13

Light gray limestone (Burlington). 12

Band of green shaly clay (Burlington)

Buff and light gray limestones (Burlington) . 36

The lower forty-eight feet of this section belongs to the Burlington limestone, and furnishes most of the building stone and limestone for the manufacture of quick-lime, to supply the city and adjacent country. The light gray limestones are nearly pure carbonate of lime in their composi- tion, and often contain pockets lined with beautiful crystals of calcite. The buff and brown layers contain carbonate of magnesia and iron in small quantities, and some of the lower beds of this formation are highly magne- sian, and approach a true dolomite in their composition. On Mill creek, at the old mill, six miles southeast of Quincy, there is about forty feet of this limestone exposed, the lower part of which consists of alternating beds of light gray and brown limestone, all of which are probably more or less magnesian in their composition, and afford an excellent building stone, comparatively free from chert and sufficiently massive to furnish dimension stone of any desired size. From this point to the south line of the county, this limestone forms continuous outcrops along the river bluffs, the expos- ures ranging from twenty-five to fifty feet, or more, in thickness. This limestone outcrops only over a limited area in the southwest part of the

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

county, and a line drawn from the city of Quiney to the southeast corner of township 3 south, range 7 west, would represent, very nearly, its eastern boundary, while its western would be determined by the river bluff's.

The quarries at Quincy have afforded a good many fine examples of the fossils peculiar to this group, among which the following are the most common species :

Spirifer plenus, S. Grimesi, Athyris lamellosa, A. incrassatus, Chon- etes Illinoisensis, Productus semireticulatus, P. punctatus, Metoptoma umbella, Platyceras Quincyensis, P. biserialis, Actinocrinus Verneu- iliarnus. A. oblatus, A. Hugeri, A. Christyi, A. pyriformis, Granat- ocrinus Norwoodi and G. melo.

From the lower beds of this limestone, exposed in the river bluff's, between Mill creek and the south line of the county, we obtained Antino- crinus carica, a very rare species not yet found in any other locality of the State, A. unicornus, A. clarus, A. discoideus, A. verrucosus, Stroto- crinus umbrosus, Codonaster stelliformis, and Pentremites elongatus, with three species of Platycrinus not yet determined. At Quiney we obtained a number of specimens of the remains of cartilaginous fishes, consisting of teeth and spines, and noticed one layer of limestone in the upper part of the quarries, that was well filled with these fragmentary remains. The " first bed" of this division of Lower Carboniferous series was first noticed at Quiney, and a fine series of teeth and spines were obtained from it as early as 1854. The fossil shells and erinoids above named were nearly all of them peculiar to this roek, and an acquaintance with them will enable the observer to distinguish this limestone from the Keokuk group, to which it is closely allied in its lithological characters, being largely composed, like that of the calcareous, of the marine animals that swarmed in count- less numbers in the old carboniferous ocean, in which these limestones were formed.

Nearly all of the purely calcareous strata of this formation are made up of the remains of marine animals, in which the Crinoidea or Encri- nites, largely predominate, and hence it has been called the Crinoidal or Encrinital limestone by some of the early observers. It contains a good deal of chert or flint, disseminated through it in seams and nodules, some- times forming irregular layers between the limestone strata, but more fre- quently in detached nodular or ovoid masses, in the limestones. These chert bands and nodules furnished the flints so much used by the Indians in the manufacture of spears, arrow-heads and other rude instruments, and it was probably the most useful and valuable mineral known to them, ante- rior to their acquaintance with the white man.

Kinderhook Group .- Immediately beneath the Burlington Limestone, we find a series of sedimentary strata, consisting of sandy and argillaceous shales, and thin beds of impure limestone, only a portion of which appear above the surface in this county, to which the name Kinderhook Group has

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

been applied, from their fine exposure near the village of Kinderhook, in Pike county. The first considerable exposure met with in this county was at Fall creek, twelve miles below Quincy, where there is about thirty feet of this group to be seen in the creek bluffs, beneath the Burlington lime- stone. The section here is as follows:

FT.

Burlington limestone. . 20

Sandy shale and sandstone 20

Thin bedded silicious limestone 10

Shale to the creek level.

This formation is altogether about a hundred feet in thickness, and fre- quently has a bed of black or chocolate-colored shale intercalated in the lower portion, which has lead many to believe that coal might be found in it.

This black shale was reached in the boring, made just below the city of Quincy, in search of coal, at a depth of about one hundred and fifty feet, but does not come to the surface anywhere in this county. As it lies nearly four hundred feet below any coal seam known in this county, all the time and money spent in the search of coal in this formation, can only result in pecuniary loss and disappointment.

This group is exceedingly variable in its lithological characters, and at some localities it becomes quite calcareous, and consists mainly of calcar- eous shales and magnesian limestones.

The bed silicious, near the base of the above section, may represent the light blue or dove-colored limestone, called, in the Missouri Report, "Lith- ographic Limestone," but at this locality it appears more like a stratified flint than anything else. Fossils are quite abundant in the silicious grit stones at Kinderhook and several points in Pike county, but none were found at the exposures on Fall creek. The outerop of this formation, in Adams county, is restricted to the vicinity of the river bluffs, from this creek to the south line of the county.

ECONOMICAL GEOLOGY.

Bituminous Coal .- About one-half of the entire area of Adams county is underlaid with coal measures, embracing the central and eastern portions of the county, and the strata developed here include the three lower coal seams, and the beds usually associated with them, but the coal seams, except the middle one, are very irregular in their development, and therefore become of little value for the production of coal. The middle seam, or No. 2, the equivalent of the Colchester coal in McDonough county, is gen- erally quite regular in its development, and will be found underlying most of the region north and east of Columbus. Its average thickness is a little over two feet, though it frequently attains to thirty inches, and sometimes to three feet. The coal it affords is of fair quality, and in some respects above the average of our western coals. The analysis of Basset's coal will

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

serve to indicate the quality of the coal obtained from the southern part of the county, and may be compared with the following analysis of Higby's, two miles north of Mendon, which I believe to be an ontlier of Coal No. 1. This analysis was made by the late Henry Pratten, and is given in "Nor- wood's Analysis of Illinois Coals:"

Specific gravity. 1.3354

Loss in coking.

48.4

Total weight of coke ..

51.6

100

Analysis: Moisture. 10.0

Volatile matters

38.4

Carbon in coke

41.2

Ashes (yellow) 10.4

48.0 100

Carbon in coal

This is heavier than that from No. 2, and contains about seven per cent. less of fixed carbon, according to the analysis here given.

The coals from Nos. 1 and 3 are usually inferior in quality than that obtained from No. 2, and the two former are not likely to be found suffi- cently persistent in their development in this county to be of any great economical value for the production of fossil fuel. Over all the northeast- ern portion of the county No. 2 has been found wherever the measures have been penetrated to the proper depth, or where the right horizon has been exposed by natural causes.

The principal drawback to the successful mining of this seam is the slialy character of the roof, which is usually a blue clay shale, though it has been seen at a few localities where it was overlaid by a bituminous shale, which forms a good roof. This coal seam will afford, according to the usual min- ing estimates, about two million tons of coal to each square mile of surface which it underlies, and although at the present time there is but little demand for coal except along the railroad lines, yet the time is not very remote when a good coal two feet or more in thickness will be considered of sufficient value and importance to be opened wherever it can be reaelied at a depth not exceeding one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet below the surface.

Building Stone .- All the principal limestone groups of this county furnish more or less building stone of good quality, and there are but few points in the western part of the county where some of them are not easily accessible in the bluffs or valleys of the streams. The Burlington lime- stone, which is extensively quarried at Quincy, is one of the most import- ant and valuable deposits of building stone, in the county, and as its aggre- gate thickness is about one hundred feet, nearly all of which may be used as building stone, the supply from this formation stone might be fairly considered as inexhaustable. It is for the most part a light gray or nearly white semi-crystalline limestone, which cuts easily when free from chert, and is an excellent stone for dry walls as well as for caps and sills, and all the ordinary purposes for which eut stone is required. The buff and brown

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

layers contain a small per cent. of iron and magnesia, and the surface becomes more or less stained by long exposure, but the light gray beds are nearly pure carbonate of lime in their composition, and generally retain their original color. The brown magnesian limestone of the St. Louis group is an evenly stratified rock admirably adapted to common use in foundation walls and especially for bridge abutments and culverts, where a rock is required to withstand the combined actions of frost and moisture.

This rock may be found in the bluffs of McGee's creek, through nearly its whole course in this county, and also on Bear creek and its tributaries in the northwest part of the county. The bed is variable in thickness, rang- ing from five to twenty feet, and it often affords massive strata from two to three feet thick. In the vicinity of Ferguson's coal bank, four miles north- west of Camp Point, there is an outcrop of brown sandstone overlying Coal No. 3, which seems to stand exposure well, as it forms a mural cliff nearly twenty feet high along the creek for some distance, and would probably make a durable building stone. There are but few counties in this State where good building stone is so abundant and easily accessible to all parts of the country as here.

Limestone for Lime .- Most of the limestone used in the manufacture of quick-lime is obtained from the Burlington limestone in the vicinity of Quincy, and a large amount of this is produced annually for the supply of the city and the adjacent country. The light gray beds of the Burlington, and bluish-gray strata of the Keokuk group, are each of them sufficiently free from silicious or other foreign material, when carefully selected, to produce a quick-lime of excellent quality. The upper, or concretionary bed, of the St. Louis group is also, in many localities, a very pure car- bonate of lime, and may be found useful for this purpose; in the eastern portion of the county where the underlying formations are not accessible, its outcrop is mainly around the borders of the coal formation, immedi- ately below the sandstone conglomerate which usually forms the base of the coal series.

Fire and Potter's Clays .- The under clays of coal seams Nos. 1 and 2 are usually of good quality, and where the strata are of sufficient thick- ness they become valuable deposits of fire clay, and may be successfully worked in connection with the coal seams. At some points there is a bed of fine light blue clay shale intervening between these two coal seams, which, on exposure, weathers to fine plastic clay, and forms an excellent potter's clay. This is the bed from which the clay used in the potteries at Ripley, in Brown county, have been obtained. This bed of clay shale is exposed at various points in this county, and will furnish an abundant sup- ply of potter's clay, while the under clay of No. 2 may be used for the manufacture of fire brick.

Clay and Sand for Brick .- The subsoil clays intermingled with the fine sand of the Loess form an excellent material for the manufacture of common brick, and may be obtained almost anywhere in the western part

256

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

of the county, and there are but few points in the State that have produced as good an article of common brick as have been manufactured for many years in the vicinity of Quincy. In the eastern part of the county where the Loess is wanting the sand for this purpose may be readily obtained in the alluvial valleys of the small streams. These materials are so uni- versally abundant that almost every farmer in the county may find them at hand upon his own premises for the manufacture of all brick required for building purposes.

Soil and Timber .- As an agricultural region this county is not sur- passed by any portion of the State, of the same geographical area. The western portion of the county, including a belt of country from five to ten miles in width adjacent to the river bluffs, and extending through its entire length from north to south, is underlaid by marly sands and clays of Loess, and possesses a soil of remarkable fertility, with an undulating sur- face which furnishes a free drainage, so that with a rather porous subsoil it is less subject to the deleterious influences of remarkably dry or wet seasons than the other upland soils of the county. The growth of timber on this variety of soil consists principally of red, white, and black oak, pignut and shell-bark hickory, elm, black and white walnut, sugar maple, linden, wild cherry and honey locust. These lands are admirably adapted to the growth of fruit, and this portion of Adams county has been long and favorably known as one of the finest fruit regions in this portion of the State.

On the breaks of McGee's creek and its tributaries the surface is con- siderably broken, and the soil, which is mainly derived from the drift clays, is a stiff clay loam, better adapted to the growth of wheat and grass thian almost any other crop usually grown in this latitude. The growth of timber on this kind of soil consists mainly of two or three varieties of oak and hickory, which is the characteristic growth of the "oak ridges," that are so frequently met with in the small streams in this and other portions of the State. In the northeastern portion of the county there is a con- siderable area of comparatively level prairie, covered with a deep black soil, highly charged with vegetable matter derived from the annual growth and decay of the shrubs and grasses which clothe its surface. This black prairie soil is predicated upon a fine silicious brown clay subsoil, which does not permit the surface water to pass freely through it, and hence these lands suffer greatly from a surplus of water during a wet season. They are very productive, however, when the season is favorable, and produce abundant crops of all the cereals usually grown in this latitude. A judici- ous system of drainage would add greatly to the productive capacities of this soil. The alluvial bottom lands bordering the Mississippi are gener- ally similar in their character to those in Pike county, and are heavily tim- bered with the same varieties. Where these bottom lands are elevated above the annual overflow of the river they are exceedingly productive, and rank among the most valuable farming lands in the county.

257

HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

CHAPTER II.

FRENCH MISSIONARIES-DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI-HISTORY PRIOR TO STATE ORGANIZATION-FIRST WHITE SETTLEMENT OF COUNTY-ORGAN- IZATION OF THE COUNTY-ORIGIN OF NAMES OF COUNTY AND COUNTY SEAT-FIRST ELECTON-COURT SEALS-ENTRY OF COUNTY SEAT LAND -QUINCY PLATTED- FIRST SALE OF TOWN LOTS-FIRST MARRIAGE.

FRENCH MISSIONARIES.

In the year 1632, seven years after Quebec was founded by the French, the missionaries had penetrated as far as West Lake Huron. The Wyandots and Iroquois Indians were at that time engaged in a war of extermination, and the priests, following their converts through good and evil fortunes, and tenaciously adhering to the altars which they had reared by perilous exertion in the wilderness, shared all the privations and dangers which usually attend these savage feuds.

DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

In their intercourse with the Indians on the shores of the north- ern lakes, the French became informed of the existence of a river flowing to the south, and desired to ascertain its character. Father Marquette, a priest, and Joliet, an inhabitant of Quebec, were em- ployed to prosecute this work of discovery; and having ascended the Fox river crossed the portage, and descending the Ouisconsin (now Wisconsin), entered the Mississippi on the 17th of June, 1673. They pur- sned the course of that mighty stream to its confluence with the Arkansas, and on their return ascended the Illinois and re-entered Lake Michigan at Chicago. Meeting with some of the natives, LaSalle remarks: "We asked them what nation they were of; they answered they were Islinois, of a can- ton called Cascaiquia." This account settles the question as to the origin of the name of this country, which some have supposed to be of French origin, and to be derived from the words Isle aux nois, but which undoubt- edly is aboriginal, although the orthography may be Gallic. The tribe alluded to were the Illini.

HISTORY PRIOR TO STATE ORGANIZATION.

In 1712 Louis XIV., by letters patent, granted to Anthony Crozat, counsellor of state, etc., and his heirs in perpetuity, all the mines within the tract of country then called Louisiana, and described in these words: "Bounded by New Mexico on the west, and by the lands

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY.

of the English of Carolina on the east, including all the ports, havens, rivers, and principally the port and haven of the isles of Danphin, heretofore called Massacre; the river of St. Louis, heretofore called Mis- sissippi, from the edge of the sea as far as the Illinois, together with the river St. Philip, heretofore called Ouabache [now Ohio], with all the coun- tries, territories, lakes within land, and rivers which fall directly or indi- rectly into that part of the river of St. Louis."

This included all the territory now comprised in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas.

Louis granted Crozat the exclusive privilege for commercial purposes for the term of fifteen years.

In 1717, M. Crozat relinquished his grant, and in the same year letters patent were granted to an association of individuals at Paris under the style of the "Company of the West," by which they were invested with the same rights and privileges which had been given to Crozat, together with others far more extensive. The territory was granted to them in allodium, in lordship and in justice, the crown reserving no other rights than those of fealty and homage.

In 1718, the Company of the West formed an establishment in Illi- nois, at Fort Chartres, and this part of the country being reported as remarkably fertile, received a great accession of population.

In 1719, by an edict of the king, the Company of the West was united to the East India and Chinese Company, under the title of "La Compagnie Royale des Indes." Finally, in 1731, the whole territory was reconveyed to the crown of France, the object of the company having totally failed.

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The history of Adams County Illinois : containing a history of the county - its cities, towns, etc. a biographical directory of its citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion; general and local statistics, portraits of early settlers and prominent men, Part 34

Author: Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : Murray, Williamson & Phelps Number of Pages: 1254

Author:
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : Murray, Williamson & Phelps
Number of Pages: 1254