USA > Illinois > Washington County > This is Washington County; its first 150 years, 1818-1968 > Part 11
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Presumably the oldest building still standing in Richview, still in use, is the Reed Grocery, shown here. Operated by Delmar Reed, who has been there for 57 years, the building is about 115 years old.
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tire populace of Old Town came down to see the first train pass through.
The new town took root, and in a short time the two separate communities, Old Town and new, had a combined population of a thousand, with the following business places: House and Bingham, Joel Edmiston. C. W. Oppenlander. W. W. Shanks. Samuel G. House, Cooper and Wall, and L. R. Barners, all in the general store business. W. S. Merrill had a drug store: B. F. Willis, hardware: Wm. Sproul and John H. Atkins, furniture: R. B. Keyes, undertaker. H. P. Ingram and J. Dillingham had meat markets; N. F. Tate. Wm. Sproul and James Withchurch had blacksmith shops.
L. Benjamin and Morgan Woolley had a flour mill; S. J. Chapman, a castor oil mill; Holcomb & Cooper ran the exchange bank: S. P. Cooper was proprietor of the Richview House: E. Harvey ran the American House, and S. T. Howard and John Bell were lumber dealers.
Professional men included Drs. W. H. Burns, H. B. Lucas, G. W. Downey and J. B. Houston. John Breeze was the town lawyer: E. Wright was police magistrate. Geo. T. Hoke was justice of the peace and notary public.
Grand Lodge No. 152. of the Illinois Order of Masons, was once the most flourishing lodge in the county.
Another historic institution at Richview was Washington Seminary, projected by a few leading citi- zens who desired, as stated in their first deed, to es- tablish a school of elevated character to diffuse the fine benefits of higher education. As an incentive. the Illinois Central donated 75 lots upon which the school was to be built. These lots sold in June, 1857, for $4,000.
The foundation was laid in October, 1857. The lower story was divided in two rooms, and a grade school opened. N. E. Way, assisted by his sister, Mrs. Cope, were the teachers for two years. Miss Minnie Graham, later Mrs. Moody, also taught. Prof. II. C. Hillman assisted Mrs. Cope, and a Miss Irwin followed. But the building was found to be too large and expen- sive, and by a vote of the district the trustees sold the seminary to R. G. Williams for $1500 on August 22, 1864. It was resold to S. J. P. Anderson. D. D., of St. Louis in 1870. later resold by his heirs to Rev. Edgar Clark of Sterling. Il.
The seminary was incorporated in 1865 with a board of 30 trustees. with power 5 to grant degrees. It had a full college charter. Its students were taught cur- rent educational courses, as well as geometry. naviga- tion. surveying, astronomy, chemistry, Latin and Greek.
The first church in Richview was the Methodist Episcopal, organized at the home of Samuel White.
Later the first Methodist Episcopal church was built in Old Richview.
The first Baptist church was organized in 1855. Elder Wm. Mitchell was the first pastor. Membership was 53.
The Presbyterian church was organized in 1863, original members being 25. The brick building they erected was dedicated in 1865.
The Richview Phoenix, first newspaper here, was published by M. L. McCord in 1856, and continued until March 1858, when the press was moved to Centralia.
A Hamlet Called Plum Hill
The small community of Plum Hill is without doubt the only hamlet of its size in the county with two places of worship. The St. John's E. and R. Church building is in the center of the photo as the camera faces south, and the former Bielefeldt store, now a meeting place of Jehovah's Witnesses, is in the far right. Busy route 160 intersects the two.
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BROCKSCHMIDT PARK
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THE BROCKSCHMIDT ANVIL
Washington County has several unusual memor- ials, but the one that really is unique is shown here, the Brockschmidt family anvil, now permanently mounted at the gateway to the Brockschmidt village park at Venedy.
The 700-pound anvil was brought to this country well over a century ago from Germany, the three months voyage across the Atlantic being by sailboat.
The anvil has been in the Brockschmidt family well over a century, is heavier than those in use today. It also is shaped differently.
The Joseph Kinyon family was the first to settle in the area that later became Venedy, in 1822. Fifteen
years later, G. H. Brockschmidt bought out Kinyon's land interests, and became the first German settler here, if not the first in the county.
Brockschmidt came from a little town in Germany called Vene. He merely added the "dy" and Venedy was born.
There is no "spreading chestnut tree" shading the old anvil today, but it is reminiscent of the pioneers who labored hard to change the brome-sedged prairies of this county into fertile farms. The anvil in its gold paint is reminiscent of an age that is gone, growing more valuable with the passing of the years.
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PIONEER BURIAL SITE
The photo on this page shows all that is left of an old pioneer burial plat known as the Weaver Cemetery. When this writer was a boy, there were a number of graves here. But since then, vandals and time itself, have all but destroyed the old cemetery.
The location is five miles south of Okawville, about a half mile south of Illinois 460, in what is now the Schuetz pasture, on the right side of the blacktop road leading south from what is known locally as Ead's Corner. The burial site was on a hill facing Weaver Creek.
The creek itself was named after the Weaver families who settled on it. It is a tributary of the Elk- horn, and crosses Plum Hill township from east to west. Sometime ago, vandals threw most of the stones into the creek, but Mr. August Schuetz retrieved most of them and piled them back, under a tree where the original graves were located. The Weaver name has died out in the area of the county where these first settlers carved out their homesteads from the forest.
The Weaver Cemetery - after a century of neglect.
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Beaucoup Once Largest Town in County
Following closely upon the Lively Massacre near Covington, the settling of Washington County took on considerable speed. The most rapid growth areas cen- tered around Beaucoup, four miles east of Nashville, and in the Elkton-Oakdale area, in the southwestern part of the county.
According to old-time records, there was con- siderable rivalry between these two settlements, both as to size and in religion. In the Beaucoup area the Methodists predominated. At Elkton, the Baptists had the plurality. At Oakdale, the first settlers were
members of one or two branches of the Presbyterian Church, the Scotch Covenanters (the Reformed Church ), or the United Presbyterian.
On the whole, this was a healthy cleavage, al- though there were times when denominational differ- ences even influenced politics. For instance, in the political campaign of 1826, the candidates were asked to declare themselves in advance, concerning the site for the new county seat.
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The L&N depot at Beaucoup before it was razed.
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By the time Illinois was admitted as a State in 1818, Beaucoup probably was the largest community in the county, although there are no existing records to prove it. Its roster is replete with such family names as White, Whittenburg, Livesay. Lyons, Henry, Ander- son, Jack, Walker and others. Many of these names have come down through the history of the county to the present day.
In the Elkton-Oakdale area were the Ayers, Evans, Rountree, Maxwell. Mcclurkin, Hood, and Me- Cord families, most of them represented in our present generation.
William Ayers was the first settler (1816) in the Elkton-Oakdale area, and among the first in the coun- ty. He stopped for a time on Elkhorn Creek, near a road that led to present Fayetteville, and not far from the site that later became the village of Elkton. He afterwards moved to Ayers Point ( Oakdale), which is located on an old Indian Trace that now is known as the Vincennes-Kaskaskia Trail. Incidently, this was the route traversed by early Pony Express riders be- tween Vincennes and Fort Kaskaskia.
The Organ in the Venedy Church
Without doubt. one of the most historic pipe organs in the state graces the balcony of the San Salvator Ev .- Lutheran Church at Venedy. Recently restored, the organ has an historic background that adds to its charm.
Delving into the records of the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church, it was found that the organ was brought from Germany to St. Louis in 1839 by the Saxon Fathers, along with four church bells and three bolts of cloth to be used for vestments. Its first destination was the Old Trinity Lutheran Church, then located on Fourth Street near the St. Louis riverfront.
Evidently it was the first organ used by the Mis- souri Synod of the Lutheran Church, a faet that en- hances its value today.
When a new, larger Trinity Church was built in St. Louis at Grand and Soulard, it was found the organ was not large enough for the new building, so it was put up for sale. San Salvator Church at Venedy purchased it, through the efforts of its pastor, the late Dr. C. F. W. Walther.
Six Venedy farmers volunteered to send over wagons and teams to St. Louis, to bring the organ to its new home. The year was 1865, and our country was in the last days of the Civil War. The trek to St. Louis via horse and wagon was a momentous journey for the six farmers, involving a week's time and several over- night stops enroute.
The organ has been at Venedy ever since.
Back in 1963. the congregation was about ready to scrap the ancient musical instrument. Pipes were off-key, some didn't even respond. The organ hadn't been tuned since World War I. The debate arose
whether it should be rebuilt or replaced with a new electronic type instrument.
Then an organ specialist, Richard Hosier. exam- ined the ancient organ and labeled it "finest." It was rebuilt. its 891 pipes cleaned and re-glued. Inside its mechanism were found the skeletons of four birds, many insects, and the dust of years. Hosier set a value of $20,000 on the organ. That's a tidy sum for an art object that almost went into the junk pile!
The late Rev. E. J. Saleska, farmer pastar at Venedy a the keyboard of the historic pipe argan.
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Where Two Railroads Cross
Ashley Once "Trail's End" For War Refugees
If Ashley hadn't been exactly 98 miles from Cairo, it still might be nothing more than a whistle stop of the St. Louis Division of the Illinois Central Railroad. But in that statistical fact lies a story, musty with age, but most appropriate for this history of the county.
During the Civil War, with most of the South devastated, refugees started the slow trek North. Real- izing there was a better future for these luckless peo- ple north of the Mason-Dixon line, the Government promised free railroad fare for one hundred miles north of this line.
Ashley, strung along the newly-laid tracks of the Illinois Central, was the "jumping off" place for
many of these refugees. Daily they came in droves, riding freight trains, and huddled in cattle cars, to get away from the poverty of the South.
The people of Ashley suddenly found themselves responsible for the care of a long line of refugees. Feeding them was the big problem; finding housing was another. Most were penniless, with their meager belongings in carpet bags.
At the time, the John Robinson Shows, one of the larger circuses of the day, heard about the plight of these people and donated two hundred dollars worth of food, which saved many a life until an ad- justment could be made in this strange territory.
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Where the L&N and the IlInois-Central cross at Ashley.
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Today, the I. C. and the L. & N. Railroads cross at Ashley, the only place in the county where two major railroads cross.
Men toiled with wheelbarrows and spades to build the right-of-ways through virgin forest and un- broken prairie sod. An old record at Ashley shows that a crew of about a hundred men worked for weeks to complete the earthwork at Double Rock Creek, to the north.
The first locomotives were fired with cordwood, which was stored at convenient spots along the right-
of-way. At first the newly laid road was without rock ballast. and mud splashed over the coaches during the wet runs, while in dry seasons, the passing of a train set up a dust cloud that could be seen for miles.
The train consisted of two or three freight cars, with a combination baggage-passenger car.
Even today, more than a century later, one finds names sprinkled throughout the Ashley area, reminis- cent of those early way days when the most important item in the day was a morsel of food.
ST. CHARLES OF BORROMEO, DuBOIS
St. Charles of Borromeo Roman Catholic Church at DuBois has been visited by tourists from all over the nation because of its unusual beauty. Its twin spires rise 116 feet and dominate the tiny town. The briek structure is 131 feet long. 80 feet wide, and 58 feet high. A combination of Roman and Byzantine archi- tecture. its pictorial windows are art treasures. The present pastor. Rev. Paulin Dobkowski, succeeds the late Msgr. Jos. Ceranski, who served the parish for 64 consecutive years, until his death in 1962 at the age of 88. In fact, Msgr. Ceranski helped build the huge church, working with the carpenters and masons, day after day.
The name of the town, DuBois, is French, but the community is predominantly Polish, with a slow infil- tration of German. In fact, the town has two names. On the Illinois road map it is listed as DuBois. But until the Illinois Central Railroad razed its depot here, it was called Bois. The Post Office directory of Post Offiees spells DuBois as one word. as do several map- makers. But the new official highway map of Illinois spells it Du Bois.
The community, first called Coloma, was formed by a tight group of ten Polish - Catholic families, who fled Europe to escape the Prussian Kulturkamph, and the religious perseention imposed by the German Chancellor, Bismarck. Even today, the Poles predom- inate. The names on the rural mail boxes are tongue- twisters. But the younger generation rarely use the mother tongue.
St. Charles Church towers over the town like some giant. About 200 families in the farm area sur-
rounding it are its mainstay. Currently there are 126 pupils in its school, taught by three sisters of Notre Dame. Various writers, enthusiastic about the church, have labelled it "The Cathedral of the Prairie."
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St. Charles Borromea Roman Catholic Church at DuBois, and (inset) the late Msgr. Joseph Cer- anski who served that charge for 64 years.
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OLD SALEM
This volume is devoting considerable space to old Washington County cemeteries for one reason if noth- ing else: a matter of historic record, long neglected. One of these pioneer burial grounds is Old Salem, described here. Located in the extreme southwest part of Washington County, seldom visited except by area residents, it is nonetheless, a large cemetery, replete with the names of many veterans of the different wars, and once the site of a church. Burials are still made there. The cemetery is fenced, and given more care than most old burial plats.
The oldest document pertaining to this cemetery and church is in the possession of Willis Coulter, ceme- tery trustee, and is dated February 17, 1838, showing its great age.
According to the Cyclopedia Manual of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, the Salem Church once standing adjacent to this cemetery, was organized in 1844 as an Associate Reformed Church, and disbanded in 1867.
The Mud Creek congregation of the United Pres- byterian Church was organized on June 1. 1871. dis- banded in 1880. Evidently both these congregations used the same church building, although there is no record to prove it.
The late Dr. S. Cameron Edmiston of Los Angeles, California, reminisced at length about the Old Salem Church, which he had attended as a boy:
"The old church on Mud Creek is no more, but the cemetery is still there, occupied by many of our old neighbors. In a recent visit there, it wasn't difficult to close one's eyes and visualize those scenes of long ago, the farmers' rigs, the horses tied to the trees, tails swishing at the insects bothering them; the drone of the preacher's voice, and the singing of the Psalms. At intermission, the old folk would huddle together in cager friendship, telling of their joys and problems. Perhaps a boy and a girl would walk down the hill, hand in hand, the beginning of a romance.
"It was an attractive church for its day. had three windows on two sides, with a double door at the front. and a wide aisle up the center, with pews on either side. There was a raised dias for the preacher, and to his left was a chair for the precentor who lined the
CEMETERY
Psalms for the congregation to sing, two lines at a time."
Five soldiers of the War of 1812. James C. Ken- nedy. Daniel McMillan, Sr., John Wylie, Francis B. Green and James Gillespie, Sr. are interred here, show- ing the age of this burial ground.
Following are the list of Civil War soldiers in- terred here: Thomas J. Smith, Joseph Mulholland, William E. Paul, William C. Crain, John Dickey, Samuel W. Dickey, James Riley Coulter, Christopher Kingston, David Slater, Daniel Gibson. James K. Mc- Intosh. Joseph Patton, Travis Thompson, Samuel Gib- son. John Paul, J. M. Skelly, James B. Lyons, William Gibson. David East, Silas East. John Hair. William McMillan, David Mckinley, Samuel Dickey and W. H. Kennedy.
There are no World War I soldiers buried here, and a single interment of a World War Il casualty, the grave of James Gillespie, 1913-1965.
One of the oldest stones still standing here is that of Martha Hemphill, wife of William M. Hemphill, who died January 4, 1839 in her 33rd year.
It is interesting to note the mistakes in grammar on the epitaph. The word Heaven, for instance is spell- ed "Heven." Several other words ( if you use a magni- fying glass ) you'll find are spelled phonetically.
Services are still held at Old Salem on Memorial Day. under the auspices of the American Legion of Marissa and other interested persons.
A document dated January 10, 1848, in the pos- session of Miss Clara Mathews of Marissa, is of inter- est. It reads as follows:
"We, the undersigners promise to pay the sums next to our names for the ministerial labors of the Rev. Mr. Harshaw at the Salem Meeting House on Mud Creek: John R. Lyons $5.00; Henry L. McGuire $8.00; Thomas Gillespie $5.00: a man named East, $3.00; Arch McFie $3.00; James McIntire $5.00: Anny Mc- Guire $1.50; John Craig $2.00; William McKee $2.00, H. L. McGuire for 1849, $5.50."
There are over 300 stones in Old Salem. Herewith is a list of the family names taken from the stones still in existence:
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Anderson, Brown, Campbell. Crain. Carson, Case, Curtis, Coulter, Dickey, Daniel, East, Elliott, Green, Gibson, Goodman, Gillespie, Hamilton, Hair, Hemp- hill, Howard, Henderson, Hill, Kane, Kennedy, Kings- ton, Lyons, Logan, MeMillan, MacFie, McGuire, Me- Dougall, MeDowell, MeLaughlin, MeKinley. MeIntosh, MeClinton, Morrow, Mulholland, Morton, Mearns, Ne- vin, Patton, Prest, Rainy, Paul, Steward, Stephenson, Smith, Slater, Skelly, Shankland, Shanklin, Thompson. Wallace, Wilson and Wylie.
On Mud Creek, which is an east-west stream through Lively Grove township, is still visible one of the largest Indian mounds in the county. mute evidence that a prehistoric culture thrived here, long before the first white pioneers moved in.
Geographically. Old Salem Cemetery is slightly northeast of Marissa, within Washington County borders.
Old Salem Cemetery, in the extreme southwest corner of Washington County, is a spot very few residents know even exists, although Memorial Services are held here yearly.
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Washington County, with the rest of the nation, went through a depression during the tumultous thir- ties that still shows its scars. Perhaps you're too young to remember. But many of the readers of this book still poignantly remember. There were bread lines and bankruptcies. Financiers jumped out of windows when the stock market crashed.
Photo shows Supervisor John Grattendick and helper, with a shipment of food for the indigent.
Yes, it got that bad!
But Washington County, staple and economically conservative, got off lightly. No one actually starved to death. There were no jobs. And then the WPA came along. America pulled itself out of the muck by its own bootstraps.
Remember?
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MOMENTOUS DAY!
The late afternoon of March 15, 1938 will long be remembered in Washington County. For suddenly there was a ery of "Tornado!" and there it was, roar- ing and hissing, rolling up from the southwest. The funnel was pronounced, a spiral of death from the black cloud above to the ground below.
People at Okawville stood enthralled, watching the whiplash of the funnel, spewing up debris as it moved over the prairie. Each time it struck a farm- stead, there was a whirling mass of debris and shat- tered buildings.
Death was moving over the prairie, inexorable. cutting a swath of destruction as the storm moved into the northwest.
And then. miracle of mirneles, as the funnel ap- proached the L&N section houses on the southwest outskirts of Okawville, it suddenly whipped up into the cloud-mass, disintegrated. There was the clatter of falling bricks from chimneys, the roar of wind
high in the elond. then a great silence, as if the town itself was suddenly wrapped in a giant vacuum.
But death had passed it by!
Soon the reports drifted in, of farm damage to the southwest: the church was leveled at Darmstadt; Belleville was hard-hit.
On a farm near St. Libory, a cow moved about, with a long piece of wood impaled in her back; straws were driven deep into tree trunks; chickens were alive, but denuded of their feathers. The freaks of the storm were amazing. Death and destruction told of its fury. But by the grace of God Okawville escaped.
Such is the fury of a tornado.
There have been other tornadoes and storms in Washington County, down through the years. There will be storms in the future. Man talks much about the vagaries of the wind, the weather, but somehow it is bigger than he is. despite all his twentieth-cen- tury technoeraey.
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Venedy Mill still a County Landmark.
VENEDY MILL NEARING CENTURY MARK
The large flour mill, now being updated at Ven- edy, is a product of another century. The first mill was erected in the year 1859 by J. F. Brockschmidt and company. It was operated by this firm for two years, then became the property of the Brockschmidt Broth- ers. It was destroyed by fire in 1873, rebuilt the same year. The substantial brick structure still stands, and is used daily.
From 1873 to 1879 the mill was owned and oper- ated by the firm of J. F. Brockschmidt and Son. Dur- ing those years it had a capacity of 200 barrels of flour in a day. After 1879 the property stood idle for about ten years. Then in 1890 it was remodeled to a roller system and was operated by Herman Rede and Wil- liam Meyer. When Rede died two years later, Peter Jost took his place.
During the five years that Jost was in the firm William Sieving was a miller apprentice. In 1897 the firm dissolved and William Meyer became the sole owner.
On January 7, 1898, disaster struck the mill when the twin boilers blew up. Fortunately the blast occurred when the mill was idle, and there were no casualties.
The mill stood idle until the turn of the century. On July 1, 1900, the work of remodeling and repairing was started, and by Angust 15 the mill was back in operation. From this time until 1923 it operated on a reduced scale of about a hundred barrels of flour daily.
Then came World War I, and again the mill was idled. Finally acquired by Wm. Noser, the mill was sold to the Huegely Elevator Co. of Nashville in 1946. Today, the same is operated as a feed warehouse and service institution by the Washington County Service Company, with Stanley Schuessler as manager. The huge brick building is a landmark in Washington County, and seems about as rugged today as it was when it was built.
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THE WATER WITCH
A county history would not be quite complete without mention of its native water witches, irre- gardless of whether or not you believed in the "seience." Washington County had its share, down through the years, still has a few devoted followers of the willow twig.
Pictured here is the late Joe Palek, Sr., who was known as one of the best. With a peach twig held before him. as shown in the photo, he would start walking. And suddenly the peach twig would dip
sharply downward, quiver and twitch in his hands. Invariably there was water where he indicated.
There were a dozen, more or less, all with a certain degree of fame. Some people scoffed, others believed. But whether or not you believed, the water witch was often called. Washington County, rural as it is, has more than the usual number of wells. Each farm has at least one, most of them quite deep, to assure good, cold, germ-free water. The water witch of the past century located many of these subter- ranean streams.
The late Joe Palek Sr., witching water on a farm near Plum Hill.
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ELKTON
UNION CHURCH
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The community life of Elkton todoy centers around this church.
Elkton Once Was Thriving Community
Although Elkton today is a small roadside com- munity, almost forgotten in the southern part of the county, its life centered around the Union Church, it once was a thriving place.
The town itself was laid out by Henry H. Talbot and James Steel, Jr. in 1837. John Raney was the first settler in Elkton Precinct in 1822. He located on the old Vincennes-Kaskaskia Trace about two miles from Mud Creek. He was followed by William Rountree, Sr., a year later. Rountree, a Virginian, settled in sec- tion 16. present site of the village. He died at his homestead there in 1859. left a large family.
A first settler in Elkhorn Prairie, the Hon. James M. Rountree was later state's attorney of Washington County.
His father, Greenville Rountree, came to this same prairie in 1816, lived there all his life, had eight children, died in 1860.
A post office was established by Thomas Bird in 1850 at Ayers Point, to the east, now Oakdale.
Elkton once maintained three general stores, kept by J. Blum. August Fisher and Henry Dunkhorst, who also was an early postmaster. There also was a harness Continued
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shop, two blacksmith shops, a hotel. The two physi- cians were Dr. R. E. Vernor and Dr. S. F. Wehr. A later (and final) physician at Elkton was Dr. Jack.
There also were two churches. The old briek Ev .- Lutheran church stood just west of the Lathrup pro- perty. The Union Church ( still in use) was built in 1875. Trustees at that time were L. R. Kinyon. Dr. J. J. Troutt and C. M. Hawkins. The last trustees eleet- ed were John Reinhardt. A. C. Shubert and Charles Rezba. Sunday School is still held here, with John Reinhardt as superintendent.
West of Lively Grove was a church known as the Baptist Church of Elkton. Later it was reorganized and services shifted to the Elkton Union Church.
The Elkton Lodge No. 453. 1.O.O.F., was organ- ized Oct. 10. 1871. Charter members were MI. Fox, R. B. Klane. H. F. Dancke, Hy. Bollmeier, E. Hulse- mann and II. Hahne.
The land, now the Venedy Coal Company, was once owned by John Kinyon in 1833. He sold out and went to Missouri, then returned and settled in Elkhorn Prairie, in the area that is now the Venedy community. Joseph Kinyon was another pioneer settler in the Elk- horn Prairie. He once operated a horse-driven mill.
The first store in Elkton was opened in the resi- dence of William Rountree by H. H. Talbot; the last store in Elkton was owned and operated by George Rezba in the old Blum building. - Contributed by Mollie ( Kinyon ) Rezba.
"Long - Sweetenin"
Great-great-grandmother called it "long - sweete- nin'." Grandmother referred to it as sorghum. Grand- father called it molasses. and planted the sugar cane needed for its making.
At one time. Washington County had several sorghum mills that operated each Autumn, squeez- ing juice from the sugar cane brought in to the mill, then cooking it into sorghum. Very few county homes were without it.
But today. sorghum has lost much of its pop- ularity. The mills are gone - at least most of them. If you look long enough. you might find sorghum on the supermarket shelves. but only in limited quantity.
America's taste for cane sorghum has waned, for no apparent reason. It is a healthy product. tasty too. But eorn syrup has taken its place on the breakfast hotcakes.
Other legumes have taken the place of sugar cane on most farms. If it is raised, it is a minor item.
The photo illustrating this page was taken years ago. when the Juenger Sorghum Mill, in the south- west part of the county, was at its heydey. Farmers brought their sugar cane. stripped and topped. to this mill in great quantity. An old steam threshing engine supplied the power, as well as steam for the cooking
vats. The cane was first fed into a crusher that ex- tracted the juice. Then the juice was cooked, and by a process of evaporation. turned into a golden syrup.
Some day. perhaps. the cane syrup will come back in a dressed-up can or bottle. But today its pop- ularity has waned. What a pity!
In Memoriam
Check any obituary column, and you'll find the great and near-great, those rugged individuals who through faith and hard work, undying enthusiasm, and the will to "build a better mousetrap," find them- selves at last on that enviable plateau called success. The people listed on this page deserve our respect, even though the recognition is posthumous. Perhaps we've missed some. If we have, the editors assure you it was not intentional:
Louis L. Bernreuter, who served as Circuit Judge in southern Illinois for over thirty years.
Major Herrin, first purchaser of government land in Washington County, settling near what is now Plum Hill, in 1815.
Reuben Wheeless, early settler of Nashville ship, first cousin of President Andrew Johnson.
William Bradsby, first circuit clerk, county clerk, probate judge, surveyor and physician in Washing- ton County.
Ptolemy Hosmer, attorney and representative in the State Assembly.
Andrew Bankson, one of the county's earliest settlers, delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1818.
Major John Wood, one of first settlers of Nash- ville, builder of the Wood Tavern, long a famous half- way house on the Shawneetown-St. Louis Trace; vet- eran of the Blackhawk War.
Thomas Seawell, made a brevet Brigadier Gen- eral on the Civil War battlefield, died at the age of 25, while home on furlough at Nashville.
Abner Jackson, a freed slave, native of North Carolina, who celebrated his 100th birthday in 1876, and had a part in the 4th of July Centennial Celebra- tion in Nashville that year, as one of the oldest men in the county.
William A. Rodenberg, son of a German Metho- dist minister, spent his boyhood in the county, served as Representative in Congress prior to World War I.
John Calvin Atchison of Oakdale township, the first man from Washington County to lose his life in World War I. He enlisted in the Second Marines on May 27, 1917, and embarked for France in Septem- ber of that year. On April 13, 1918, he was hospital- ized, having been the victim of a German gas attack. He returned to action after several weeks, and was seriously wounded on June 3. A leg wound necessi- tated amputation, and eleven days later death claimed him at the age of 23. He is buried in France.
June Smith, native of Irvington, who rose to the high office of Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.
Thomas B. Needles, first Republican County Clerk, U. S. Marshal, Indian Territory, member of Dawes Commission which terminated tribal govern- ment of the five civilized Indian tribes in Oklahoma; state representative, state senator and auditor.
Ralph L. Maxwell, orphaned when his father lost his life in a Nashville coal mine accident, be- came a Circuit Judge, later Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court; died in office in the sixth year of his term.
Zenas H. Vernor, pioneer settler of Nashville; State Representative and member of the Constitution- al Convention of 1848.
Francis G. Blair, native of Nashville, served as State Superintendent of Public Instruction in the 1920s.
Frederick E. W. Brink, who emigrated to Wash- ington County from Minden, Germany in 1845; resi- dent of Hoyleton; served two terms as State Senator.
George H. French, one of the faculty at the Ir- vington State University, later going to SIU at Car- bondale; noted botanist and authority on insects; served as Assistant State Entomologist, holder of many scientific degrees and author of numerous sci- entific books; did pioneer research on cause and treat- ment of epilepsy and Bright's disease; lived to be ninety.
John Meyer of Addieville, last surviving Civil War veteran, who lived to the ripe age of 97 years, four months and 26 days. He died December 9, 1939.
Dr. Simeon P. Schroeder of Nashville, first phy- sician in Illinois to successfully operate on an ab- cessed lung.
Morris A. Kugler, Okawville, president, Illinois Telephone Association; director, Lions International 1954-56.
Homer Edmonds, Ashley, first reported casualty, World War II (Bataan).
General Walter Krueger, former Stone Church boy, Commander of the Sixth Army in the Pacific, World War II, awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by General Douglas MacArthur. He was one- time commandant at Jefferson Barracks. The Krueger family lived in the Stone Church area for about eight years.
Dr. Paul Schroeder, Nashville - served under the Gov. Henry Horner administration as State Psy- chiatrist; served as psychiatrist in the Nuremberg trials of World War II. Before his death, won national and international fame in the field of neurology and psychiatry.
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Q UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA L 977.388H62T
C002 THIS IS WASHINGTON COUNTY NASHVILLE
3 0112 025399368
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