ion 'A* I ip *%£: * BUREAU COBifY £ \T| 5. ^UMWifJUsujra <• 1 A . jil Y* fvKl/I / f f i tn* I Gy^5.4-<3 for. the founding if a College in MxCclohfA >Y^IL]l«'¥]MH¥EI^SJnr¥o ¦www;-aM.wJHTO; 1933 HISTORY — o:f — BUREAU COUNTY, I LLINOIS H. C. BRADSBY. EDITOR. * * * here as else where we must search out the causes after we have collected the facts. No matter if the facts be physical or moral, they all have their causes; there is a cause for ambition, for courage, for truth, as there is for digestion, for muscular movement, for animal heat. Vice and virtue are products, like vitriol and vinegar. TAINE. ILLUSTRATED, CHICAGO: WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY. 1885. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1885, BY H. C. BRADSBY In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at "Washington, D. C. John Morris Company, Printers, Chicago. PREFACE.. HE history of Bureau County, Illinois, after much toil and patient research, is now completed, and it is believed that no object of public importance or interest has been omitted, save where the most diligent efforts failed to secure reliable results. The chief aim of this book is to give the facts and dates as we found them in the recollections of the few surviving early settlers, the private and public records in the County and State archives, the few private diaries, family Bibles and on the tomb stones placed by the hands of affection over the final resting-places of the departed, in their chronological order. The legends and traditions have been carefully gone over, and no small part of the work has been in collating and verifying them, and in every case where fiction had found its way into the web or woof of the story, to retain the true and reject the false. In some respects the reader may think, especially if he should be a stranger to the pioneers and their descendants, that at times there is a tediousness of detail, or even that some are unimportant, but a generation from now these very details will be the more highly prized the more full and complete they are. In telling the story of the general county history we have combined and woven together the account as best we could, and in addition to the county's genealogy and chronology will be found that of the people, together with the biographies and lives of the living and the dead, that will some day be an invaluable prize in the hands of the future historian, as well as of interest and profit to the readers of to-day. We believe the whole will be found clothed in a literary garb, and brightened with reflections, suggestions and philosophical deductions that will make it a store-house for the young and old, where they may find new and valuable ideas, and thus gain knowledge and pleasure that will repay them many times the original outlay for the book This work has cost us much labor and a large expenditure of money, and as the territory is but a single county, and, therefore, our patronage can be but limited, yet we have given here more than we promised, and we feel assured that all thoughtful and fair-minded people will recognize and appreciate the work and its permanent value. There is a perceptibly constant increase in the interest in the history of the pioneers. This, of course, commenced in the original States of the Union, but is extending all over the "West. In the New England States it is still far in advance of the Mississippi Valley. It may be true that these are richer historical grounds than the newer States can present, but it is not certain that, therefore, there are not great fields here for the real historian, PREFACE. because there is much in the man who writes the history of a people as to whether he finds and suitably points out, and fully works up the actual material that may lie within his possible reach. In this work we have followed no beaten track in formulating the story, the subjects treated, or the manner of treatment, and some readers may conclude that to that extent we have marred what we have done, yet we have followed a general plan, and made prominent those special subjects that we have, after long study and reflection, conceived to be for the best in the end, even if not now. And all we care to say in self defense is, that where the reader may fall upon chance paragraphs that do not meet his cordial approval, that in justice to the writer he withhold his judgments until he can fairly view and estimate the work as a whole — the story in all its lights and shadows. H. C. BRADSBY. December, 1884. CONTENTS. PAGE. CHAPTER I. — Introduction to the Subject Generally — The State's Present Growth — The Anglo-Americans — Cavaliers and Puritans— People Suffer Only for their Ignorance — Lawmakers Generally Considered— Med dlers in Social Organizations — Climate, Soil, Race, Epoch, and the Bent of the Public Mind the Great Workers of Events— History Considers Men's Errors Mostly Because These Predominate — The Measure of People's Morality is the Knowledge They Possess— The Present is Completing the Past and the Past Explaining the Present, etc., ete 13 CHAPTER II.— Why History Interests Us— What is His tory ?— Laws of Development — The Soil and its Won ders—Importance of Teaching it to All— Needs of Our People— The Coming Public Schools— Learned Igno rance Should Stop Now — Early Illiteracy and Modern Demoralization Compared — Who Are the Real Immortals — True Philosophy and Kindly Thought— Teaching Error a Crime — How to Educate — An Agricultural People Should Have an Agricultural Education— In stances Given— Education the Most Practical Thing in the World — Geological History, its Immensity and Im portance— The Rocks, Soil, Age, Climate Great Factors in Making History — Geology of Bureau County — Coal Measures — The Wonderful Stories of the Prairies, etc... 21 CHAPTER III.— The Wonders of Prehistoric People— Re mains of Great Cities — The Indians and yet Older People Who Were Here— Winnebago War, Capture and Death of Red Bird— Black Hawk War— First Bloodless Cam paign in 1831— Black Hawk Enters into a Treaty — Starved Rock, the First Settlement in Illinois— Joliet and Marquette— LaSalle's Colony and Fort St. Louis — Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Discovery and Possession of the Country — First White Settlement in the West Made in 1682, at Starved Rock — Capts. Willis Hawes, and Stewart's Companies and the Men from Bureau County, in the Black Hawk War, etc., etc 43 CHAPTER IV.— The Genealogy of the County— New France — Canada — Louisiana— Northwestern Territory —St. Clair County — Madison, Clark, Bond, Crawford, Pike, Fulton, Peoria, Putnam\and Finally Bureau County— The Several and Final Treaties — The Chain of Title to the Territory— Title to the Land, etc., etc 58 CHAPTER V.— The Grand March of Empire— The Marvels in the Sweep of Population Across our Continent — The Work of One Hundred Years — The Legislative Act Creating Bureau County, etc., etc 65 CHAPTER VI.— The Order in which the People Came— First the Explorer, then the Trafficker, then the Trap per and Hunter, and then the Settler — Their Curious Habits and Customs — The Children of the Solitudes— What They Encountered— Hog and Hominy — The Shirt- tail Age — Houses and Furniture — Suffering for Bread — Anecdotes — Some of the Experiences of Pioneer Chil dren — To Your Gums ! ! !— Experiences of a Boy at His First Hotel— He Hears a Gong — Supposes the House Busted— Board Two Dollars and a Half a Day, and He Eats Bread and Water — Witches, Wizards, and the Hor rors of Superstition— How People Forted — Weddings, Dances, and the One-Eyed Fiddler — Bottle Race— How People Dressed— Salute Your Bride— Going to House keeping, etc., etc 69 PAGB. CHAPTER VII.— The Name of Bureau County— How it Came— The First Five Families— Who They Were — Bulbona, John Dixon, Charles S. Boyd, Henry Thomas —Sketches and Anecdotes of Early Settlers— Death and Burial of John Dixon— Gurdon S. Hubbard— Who Was the First Postmaster— Oldest Living Settlers— Abr am Stratton,— His Remarkable Trip in 1829— Sketch of Him —The Brighams— The County's Total First Tax- Remarkable Career of John H. Boyd— The Three Broth- ers-in-Law — The First Death in the County, Daniel Smith— His Widow and Family, etc., etc., etc 7ft CHAPTER VIIL— Records Made by Old Settlers— On All Disputed Questions They are the Best Authority— Old Settlers Society— First Agitation of the Subject — Histor ical Importance of Speeches, Poems, Addresses, Remarks, Anecdotes and Pictures — Address of E. S. Phelps — First Old Settlers' Meeting — Who Participated — Their Records of Early Settlers, and When They Came— Poem by John H. Bryant — " Doctor Bill " — Officers of the- Society — Killing of Phillips — Milo Kendall's Address — Warren's History of Putnam County — E. Strong Phelps- — John M. Gay, Munson and Miss Hall — First Burial and First Birth— Caleb Cook — Aquilla Triplett — A Long List of the Early Settlers and Their Descendants — Arthur Bryant's Poem — Michael Kitterman, Sketch of — Thirteen Dogs and the Assessor — More Anecdotes- Rev. Martin and His Dog "Penny" — The Perkinses — George Hinsdale — C. G. Corss— And a Great Many Others, etc., etc 87 CHAPTER IX.— Lone Tree— Putnam County Organized— Capt. Haws — John M. Gay Elected Commissioner — Dr. N. Chamberlain School Superintendent in 1831 — Bureau Precinct — Its First Nineteen Voters — Their Names and Whom They Voted For — A Democratic Majority at the First Election— Bureau Men on the Jury in 1831 — Daniel M. Gay and Daniel Dinimick Elected Justices— Gurdon S. Hubbard's Account of Bur- bonnais — Peoria and Galena Road — Dave Jones — First Steamboat on the Illinois River— First Grist and Saw Mill — " Dad Joe " Smith, a Sketch— Young Dad Joe's Ride — Alex Boyd's Ride— People Flee the Country— Shabbona, etc.. etc 110- CHAPTER X.— End of the Indian Troubles— Commence ment of Permanent Settlements and Improvements- Election of 1834 — Bryant and Brigham Elected for Bureau Precinct — Estimated Number of People Here Then — Browne's Company of Rangers— Hampshire Col ony — William 0. Chamberlain Its Original Inventor — E. H. Phelp's Account of the Colony and Their Coming and the History Thereof— Names and an Account ofthe Colonists and Their Friends 125- CHAPTER XI.— "Curt " Williams, the Man of Many Marks — Smiley Shepherd — The Deep Snow of 1831 — John, Job, Timothy, Brown and David Searle — Greenbury Hall- Lewis Cobb — The Cholera in 1832 — Scott's Army and Its Suffering From the Plague — First Steamboats Arrive in Chicago, 1832 — Politicians In the Black Hawk War — " I Surrender, Mr. Indian " — Sketches of Many Early Set tlers—Henry F. Miller — M. Studyvin — David Chase — James Coddington — Enoch Lumry — James Garvin — E. Piper — James Wilson — Jacob Galer — John Leeper — John Baggs— Wis walls— Tripletts — Halls — How Negro Creek Got its Name, etc., etc 133; CONTENTS. PAGE. CHAPTEB XII.— Immke's Group Picture of Early Settlers — Of Great Value Now, But of Greater Value in the Future — Appeal to the County Authorities— The First Families, the Eeal Knickerbockers— A Chapter That Will Long Grow in Value, etc., etc 144 CHAPTER XIII.— John H. Bryant— The Farmer Poet— A Sketch of His Life and Works— His Name Identified With Every Important Movement in the County Since He Came Here, etc., etc 155 CHAPTEB XIV.— Something About a Great Many People of the County— When Different Places Were Settled and by Whom — First Government Land Surveys — The Den- hams -Moseleys— J. V. Thompson— Judge B. T. Temple- ton— Bev. E. Scudder High and Doughnuts— To Market to Sell a Pig— Walnut and Ohio Townships, etc., etc 169 CHAPTEB XV— The Churches of the County— Their Pres ent Pastors and Condition— The Growth of Church In stitutions—In God We Trust— A Well Written Chapter by H. B. Leeper, of Princeton, etc., etc 180 CHAPTEB XVI.— The Anti-monopoly Movement, its Ori- fin — John H. Bryant's Connection Therewith and Also enator L. D. Whiting— Birth of the Bepublican Party — Judge Lawrence Defeated and Judge Craig Elected Supreme Judge— The Great Contest of the People Against Corporations and Monopolies — Effect Through out the Whole Country — How Bureau Has Led in Many of These Great Movements— The Xlllth Article of Our Constitution, How it Came About — The Laws and the Courts' Decisions Founded Thereon — Illinois the Birth place of Nearly Every Political Bevolution — Some Cor rections in Current History — Much Information and Many Important Facts That Will be New to Most Bead- ers 204 CHAPTEB XVII— The Hennepin Canal— History of the Ill inois and Michigan Canal— Its Extension to the Missis sippi Biver — Its Paramount Importance — Cheap Trans portation the Great Want of the Mississippi Valley — Some Curious Legislation — And a Few Statutory Pyro- tecnics, etc., etc 217 CHAPTEB XVIII— Horticulture— Arthur Bryant the Pio neer in This Line Here — Forestry — About Fruits Gen erally, and Shade and Ornamental Trees — Sketch of Arthur Bryant, etc., etc 227 CHAPTEB XIX.— Gold and Silver Mines— Curious Super stitions About Them—" Way-Bills," Leading to Fabu lous Fortunes— How Ignorance Dupes Itself— Tenacity of Ignorant Beliefs — Ancient Fools Perished in the Hunt for the Fountain of Youth — More Modern Ones Also Pursue Their Foolish Dreams of Wealth — Counterfeiters in Their Caves, etc., etc 237 CHAPTEB XX— Debating Societies— Some Immortal Speci mens — Old-Time Church Severity— How These Things are Modified and Bettered — Forefathers' Day in Prince ton and Addresses — Discussion About it in the Press — The Puritans Attacked and Ably Defended— The Writ ers Tartly Eeview History, etc., etc 241 CHAPTEB XXL— Drainage —Swamp Lands — Illinois Drainage Laws — The Long Fight to Make Them Effect ive—How L. D. Whiting Successfully Fights out the Long Battle for the Eight — The Great Benefits His Ac tion Will Confer on the Entire State, etc., etc., etc 262 CHAPTEB XXII— Bureau County Created, 1837— Election — Bureau Triumphs and Jollifies — " Shut the Door! " — The First Highway— Part of the Old Indian Trail Yet Preserved— First County Officials and Their Acts — List of County Officers Complete, Brought Down to the Adop tion of Township Organization — The Civil History of the County, With Sketches of Some of the Prominent Actors, etc., et^c, etc 267 CHAPTEB XXIII.-Civil History Continued— Laws, Pub lic and Special, Beferring to the County of Bureau and its Towns — A Complete Index and Beference to the Same, etc., etc., etc 278 CHAPTEB XXIV.— Township Organization Adopted — Board of Supervisors Meet — John H. Bryant First Chair man — List of Supervisors — George McMannis Second PAGE. Chairman — Premium for Wolf Scalps — John M. Grimes First Attorney for the Board — Terwillsger Overseer of the Poor— E. T. Templeton County Judge— List of Town ship and County Officers to 1857 — The Anti-Duelling Oath Eequired — Jacob T. Thompson's Beport as County Treasurer — County Officers, Supervisors, and Other Officers— J. T. Thompson— 0. L. Bearss— Sketches, etc., etc., etc 280 CHAPTEE XXV.— Continuation of County Officers— Com plete List to Date— Marriages— First One J. H. Olds and Louisa C. Bryant— Powers Exercised by the County Court — Public, Civil and Private Affairs Generally— These Old Law-Makers Begulate the Price of Whisky and Eating and Sleeping and Horse Feed, etc., etc., etc... 291 CHAPTEB XXVI.— Courts— Lawyers— Judges, and Those Who Held These Offices— Legal Doings— Lawyers Who Bode the Circuit— Visiting and Local Lawyers— Simon Kinney First Attorney to Locate in the County— Cyrus Bryant the First Circuit Clerk— Sketch of Him— Fuge SongB— Judge Martin Ballou the Second Lawyer to Lo cate in the County, Now the Oldest Member— Hon. Charles L. Kelsey— How Judge Fraser Lost a Federal Judgeship — Bureau County Electors — Bepresentatives and State Senators — Congressmen, etc., etc., ete 295 CHAPTEE XXVII.— The Press— First Paper the Bureau Advocate — The Three Political Parties Bun the Same Paper— A Novel Idea— The Princetonian— Post— Herald — Yeoman — Democrat — Bepublican — Tribune — Patriot —News — Motor — Tidings— Press — Register — Indepen dent—Call—Home Guard— Times— Who Managed Them — Present Papers — LiBt of Editors and Publishers — Present Papers and Proprietors, etc., etc., etc 307 CHAPTEB XXVIIL— Agricultural Society— Its Commence ment and Who Started It — List of Offices — A Successful Institution — Its Great Value to the People — Land in the County — Agricultural Interests — Value and Tax of the Same — Farms — And Much Other Information, etc.... 321 CHAPTEE XXIX.— Hon. Owen Lovejoy— The Martyrdom of His Brother Elijah P. Lovejoy — An Event in Ameri can History — Owen Lovejoy's Mission in Life — His Death in the Hour of the Triumph of his Political Principles, etc., etc 326 CHAPTEE XXX.— The Eebellion— Bureau County and its Important Part Therein — The News of the Firing Upon Fort Sumter — A Detailed Account of the Companies, Officers, Begiments and Squads — Killed and Dead — Bat tles — Politicians — Knights of the Golden Circle — Wo men's Aid Societies — War Meetings — Bounties — Speeches — Enlisting, etc., etc., etc 340 CHAPTEB XXXI.— Schools— Beflections on the Subject Gen erally — Suggestions and History of Schools — Learned Ignorance — Classical Education — Investigation Invited — Progress of the Schools— The Present Number and Efficiency— The Princeton High School— Teachers, etc... 367 CHAPTEB XXXIL— Stock— Graded and Thoroughbreds- Growth of this Industry — Who First Experimented in This Line — Cattle, Horses, etc., etc 379 CHAPTEB XXXIIL— Political Matters Generally— Census of the County — Douglas and Stewart's Congressional Eace— The Size of the Original Districts — Post Offices and Postmasters — The County's Vote — Great Wolf Hunts — Boads — Belies— H. L. Kinney, etc., etc 392 CHAPTEE XXXIV— Odds and Ends — Betrospective— Paths, Indian Trains and Bailroads — Blessings Beceived and Anticipated — Farmers and Their Future Education — The Buffalo and the Indian — Natural Engineers and Places for Great Cities— Douglas, JBreese and the Idea of the Illinois Central Eailroad, etc., etc 404 CHAPTEE XXXV— City of Princeton— Whence its Name — First Survey — First Election — Who Voted — Officials— Improvements, Growth, Beauties, Societies, Business, etc., etc 406 CHAPTEE XXXVI.— Townships, Villages and Towns in the County — Additional Information in Regard to Each Township — The Settlers, Prominent Men, etc., ete 419 CONTENTS. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. PAGE. I PAGE. Alphabetically arranged 439 | Received too late for insertion in proper order 706 In memoriam, Hon, Justus Stevens 709 PORTRAITS. PAGE. Allen, Joseph Facing 400 Battey.Silas " 340 Boyden, A. W " 216 Brenneman, Martin " 322 Bryant, Arthur " 304 Bryant, John H " 28 Colver, Jacob " 416 Dayton, Chauncey L Between 286 and 289 Dayton, Mrs. Lydia B " 286 and 289 Edwards, Richard Facing 96 Fassett,E. W " 198 Frary,B.B " 114 PAGE. Gray, Nathan -Facing 182 Henderson, Thomas J " 80 Knox, S. M " 250 Miller, Henry J Between 164 and 167 Miller, Mrs. Jane " 164 and 167 Norris, I. H Facing 46 Beeve, Tracy. " 232 Stevens.B N " 268 Stevens, Justus " 62 Whipple, William M " 148 Whiting, L. D " 130 Williams, Solomon " 366 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. I. ILLINOIS has passed through its pio neer period of development, and from a raw state of savagery and wild waste to one of the foremost States in the Union — already the first State, indeed, in many of those stand ard articles of agriculture that are contribut ing so much to make the Upper Mississippi Valley the garden and granary of the world; a State but sixty-six years old (1818-1884) and already in the lead in the number of miles of operated railroads, as well as lead ing in many of the best agricultural products; the third State in the number of persons en gaged in the various occupations of life ; a greater population engaged in agriculture than any other State in the Union, and this industry extended during the past decade be yond anything before known in history; her mining and manufacturing industries lagging only behind her agricultural growth, and yet keeping pace well with perhaps any other similar sized community in the world. In all the elements of present wealth and future promise, the State, young as it is, bids well at no distant day to stand peerless and alone. And phenomenal as has been the growth of population and wealth, the increase bears the evidences that it is not sporadic, but regular and permanent, and the limits of its future are too vast for present possible estimate. Some measure of the mental and commer cial activity of a people may be gained per haps as well or better through the postoffice reports than from any other easily accessible source. The total postoffice expenditures for the State in 1882 in Illinois were second to that of the State of New York, although in population we are the fourth State in the Union. In illiterates — those ten years of age and over — Illinois is the fourteenth State. In newspapers, she stands next to New York; in the average daily attendance in the public schools, Illinois is the fourth State ; in col leges she is second, leading New York by one. [Railroads, in mileage, Illinois by far exceeds any State in the Union, nearly doub ling the mileage of New York] But with a much smaller mileage, the railroads of Penn sylvania have larger annual earnings than the Illinois roads. II. The prosperity of a new State, especially when it is marked, is as a rule ephemeral. At first all industries flourish, but soon com petition is felt, and the wave of prosperity is followed usually by a marked decadence of all these, or a relaxation of the active ener gies that seem to wait for the new growth of an increased demand that will come in time and revive trade and traffic to renewed energy 14 HISTORY OE BUREAU COUNTY". and effort. This general experience of new and rapidly growing communities has never come to Illinois. Flush times and hard times have come and gone here as well as else where, but they were the same in their visits, and at the same time that they made their appearance all over the land. The perma nency of her growth, and the solidity and glory of her marvelous greatness has con sisted chiefly in her farmers — those whose prudent foresight discovered here a wealth of soil and climate unequaled in the world. For more than a century after the discovery and first small settlements of what is now Illinois by Joliet, La Salle, and the Jesuits — Marquette and Hennepin — the feeble but dar ing little colonies were isolated in the heart of our great continent, and more remotely separated from the civilized world than could any people now be upon any portion of the globe; their growth was only the natural in crease, as their isolation from mankind was almost complete. Religious enthusiasts, bear ing aloft the cross of the church and the lilies of France, penetrated the wilderness and car ried to the untutored savage the sublime mes sage of "peace on earth and good will to man." And following in the long course of time these children of the church, came the "war-whoop that oft woke the sleep of the cradle," the massacres, the assassinations and the wars, and the last were the means in every instance of bringing here the first streams of immigrants, who were the base upon which has grown the present greatness of the State. It was the sons of Mars who were the fathers of our State builders. First, the war of 1776 and of 1812-15 brought the Virginians and Carolinians, and made them acquainted with Southern Illinois, and then the war of 1832 extended the acquaintance of the Northern and Southern States to the northern limits of Illinois; and the wonder ful stories of the beauties and natural wealth of the new country were told to their friends in their old homes, and thus again and again were the streams of immigrants started afresh. The first fruits of discovery and oc cupation were from the church ; the final great results came of war and marching armies. III. The controlling, the supreme human forces upon this continent are the Anglo-Americans, the commanding and master-spirits among men. And it is their restless and wandering activities, and the fact that, except the Jew, they are the most cosmopolitan people in history, ancient and modern, that has been one of the distinguishing marks of this race, and has contributed much to maintain their matchless superiority. The earliest history of the Anglo-Saxon people presents them as pirates upon the high seas and roving and dauntless invaders and robbers upon land. And when they attached themselves to the soil in the British Isles, their roving habits and knowledge of the waters resulted in making them the greatest commercial people in the world, and to this fact is due much of those characteristics that to-day so distin guish them from all other people. They traded, trafficked and warred all over the known world, and in one way or another they came in contact with every variety of peoples, and thus, in the race of life, distanced all. They are a remarkable demonstration of the fact that man's best schoolmaster is his fellow-man, in his endless varieties; and that a people that attaches itself to the soil becomes stationary, as it were, and if not visited by those of different ideas, manners and bias of mind they are never a progressive people. IV. The early settlers upon our continent were HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY". 15 the Cavaliers and the Puritans — the latter locating in New England, and the former in the South; the Cavaliers just entering upon a career of refinement and luxurious indo lence, and the Puritans emerging from the severe religious ordeals that had filled his blood with iron and had prepared him well for entering upon the race for thrift, energy, power and wealth. His sufferings had taught him the severest economy, and the people of the South were learning their lessons in indo lent ease, while their New England brothers were practicing a rigid frugality and learn ing well the fact that money is a 'direct power that gratifies tne ambition^and com mands a certain respect that need not be despised. The Cavalier grew haughty and domineering, as was natural from the position of master and slave, and the Puritan de spised these vain pretensions and soon learned to meddle in the affairs of his distant and slave-proud neighbors. And in the long- distant years ago were planted the seeds of the " irrepressible conflict " whose fat harvest was war. The misfortune to both and the whole was that our country was so large that both had taken up their abodes in the dis tant portions of the land, and in time they nearly ceased to mingle and associate together in the every-day business and social affairs of life; and in the end the war was something of a necessity to bring the two ex tremes once more together, even if it was upon the field of blood; for amid the wrecks and woe and desolation, the dead, the wounded, the sick, the dying, the hospitals, the prisons, the flying skirmishes and the great red gaps of battle, the Northerner and the Southerner met, and here and there and everywhere was that " touch of human nature that makes all the world akin." And of the many results flowing out from the war, this one of making the people of the different sections better acquainted with each other can be contemplated by all with unmixed satisfaction. In the exultation of victors (this admoni tion will never be needed by the vanquished) the North should not forget that a society cannot permanently prosper that is founded only on the pursuit of wealth, pleasure and power. A profound respect for liberty and justice are the first essentials to real national greatness and glory. Splendid cities, costly cathedrals, vast and numerous churches, many and magnificent schoolhouses, the col ossal fortunes of millionaires, and immense factories and their many hundreds of em ployes, are not the absolutely necessary finger boards pointing always to the greatest welfare and happiness of the people. The cottages vastly outnumber the palaces, as do the labor ers far exceed the idle and the rich. The real people live in humble homes; their toil is the world's wealth; and their health, hap piness, comforts and their education and content are the true measure of a nation's greatness and glory. "Genuine history," says Taine, "is brought into existence only when the histo rian begins to unravel, across the lapse of time, the living man, toiling, impassioned, entrenched in his customs, with his voice and features, his gestures and dress, distinct and complete as he from whom we have ju3t part ed in the street. " A history of a people which has passed away is the effort to make the past the present; to revivify the dead and present every phase of actual life as it once existed, with all its bad and good, its bless ings and its sufferings; the home life, the pub lic highway, the street, the field, men and women privately, collectively, at work and at 16 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. play, socially and morally, as they once were here in the struggle for life. A picture most difficult, perhaps about impossible to draw. Hence, to approach this perfection in any respect, will make a valuable book, and one whose lessons will remain perpetually to the coming generations. VI. The people of a State, or any separate civil government of laws and police powers, must be considered in reference to their local laws and government, as well as estimated morally and socially, in order to fathom the causes when the facts are once understood. This is unquestionably the freest government established among men, and it may possibly have the " finest civil service on the planet," yet one fact is patent, namely: that it is already complex and is growing in these in tricacies, and from this is and long has been coming some of that confusion among men's ideas of what are the true boundary lines where the people should cry out to the law makers, " hands off here. " We have a gen eral government and laws, applicable to all the people of the country, then State laws and institutions that are local; then county, town and city governments, laws, police and courts; and the constant tendency is to in crease these — enlarge their complexity, and the genius of our law-makers is exhausted in the scramble for new laws. From the earliest childhood, from ancient times, when civiliza tion was emerging from darkness, all were taught to respect the law and to pray regu larly for the rulers and law-makers. And to worship the flag and condone the crimes of those in power is the common measure of your neighbor's patriotism. A rather stupid judgment, truly, but the very best the average man of this age could be expected to form, The tendency of all this is to run to those most glaring evils of all governments, over- legislation, and thus what was intended for a protection, may become the heaviest oppres sion. In so far as laws and governments are concerned, they are a necessary evil — some thing not needed by the good — their only purpose or excuse for existence being to restrain the bad, and to protect all from the evil, the ignorant and the perverse. The evils of overmuch law and government med dling in the affairs of men, affairs that every one should shape and control for himself, have been too little considered by the people, those who suffer as the result of their own ignorance. The world is full of men who think a vote will make them wise, virtuous, rich and happy, and when these mistaken men are clothed with the ballot, and find themselves far from complete happiness, they are very apt to turn their eyes ever toward some new law, some commission or new office, created to relieve them of all their woes. When all these panaceas have run the gamut of experience and dismal failures, he may then wail at the demagogues, and fairly bray in a mortar, this meek and ever patient long eared animal. "The fault, dear Brutus, is in ourselves And not in our stars that we are underlings." The right of universal suffrage, in fact, all right of voting, implies and compels for the voter either the intelligence to select the proper representative to make and exe cute the laws, or he must abide the cruel con sequences of the inevitable mistakes of ignor ance. In your law-maker's hands are en trusted the great questions of not only your happiness, but of life and death itself. As new and strange as these propositions may seem to many readers, they are not new to those who think best about the great problems of life. They are open secrets, and which are yet so open that they ought not to remain HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". 17 secrets to those who take upon themselves the awful responsibility of self-government, or of electing those who are to make and execute the laws, those men who undertake the vast and terrible responsibility of dealing with millions of human beings by measures which, if they do not conduce to their happiness, will increase their miseries and accelerate their deaths. Speaking on this subject, and especially in reference to the plainest requirements that should be possessed by every law-maker, Herbert Spencer says: "There is first of all the undeniable truth, conspicuous and yet absolutely ignored, that there are no pheno mena which a society presents but what have their origins in the phenomena of individual human life, which again have their roots in vital phenomena at large. And there is the inevitable implication that unless these vital phenomena, bodily and mentally, are chaotic in their relations (a supposition excluded by the very maintenance of life) the resulting phenomena can not be wholly chaotic; there must be some kind of order in the phenom ena which grow out of them when associ ated human beings have to co-operate. Evi dently, then, when one who has not studied such resulting phenomena of social order undertakes to regulate society he is pretty certain to work mischiefs. ' 'In the second place, apart from a priori reasoning, this conclusion should be forced on the legislator by comparisons of societies. It ought to be sufficiently manifest that, be fore meddling with the details of social or ganization, inquiry should be made whether social organization has a natural history; and that, to answer this inquiry, it would be well, setting out with the simplest societies, to see in what respects social structures agree. Such comparative sociology, pursued to a very small extent, shows a substantial uni formity of genesis. The habitual existence of chieftainship, and the establishment of chiefly authority by war; the rise everywhere of the medicine-man and priest; the pres ence of a cult having in all places the fundamental traits; the traces of division of labor, early displayed, which gradually be come more marked, and the various complica tions — political, ecclesiastical, industrial, which arise as groups are compounded and recompounded by war — quickly prove to anyone who compares them that, apart from all their special differences, societies have general resemblances in their modes of origin and development. They present traits of structure showing that social organization has laws which override individual wills, and laws the disregard of which must be fraught with disaster. ' 'And then, in the third place, there is that mass of guiding information yielded by the records of law-making in our own country and in other countries, which still more ob viously demands attention. Here and else where attempts of multitudinous kinds made by kings and statesmen have failed to do the good intended and have worked unexpected evils. Century after century new measures like the old ones, and other measures akin in principle, have again disappointed hopes and again brought disaster. And yet it is thought neither by electors nor by those they elect that there is any need for systematic study of that legislation which in by-gone ages went on working the ill-being of the people when it tried to achieve their well-being. Surely there can be no fitness for legislative func tions without wide knowledge of those legis lative experiences which the paBt has be queathed." These are the thoughts of a philosopher, not a politician nor statesman: The conclu sions of a great man, a man who refused 18 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY recently to accept a seat in the British Parlia ment because he could not waste his time in trying to benefit the people by giving them a government they were not jet ready to re ceive or appreciate. YTI. A history of a people must, therefore, care fully consider the race, the epoch, aud the climate and soil and their combined effects in elucidating the causes, after the facts have been collated. Where the period of time covered by the story is short — only a little more than a generation — as in the history of this county, the effects flowing out from these causes become shadowy and indistinct — more difficult to trace out and fix clearly to the view, in due ratio to the brevity of the period which comes within the purview of the writer. These conceptions of history were unknown to our forefathers. They wrote of all men, looking always from the same stand-point, and from their abstract conceptions, exactly as though all men, of all ages, climes and surroundings, were exactly the same. Their conceptions and conclusions were abstract, and, like their philosophy, were metaphysi cal, and whence comes the fact that real his tory is a modern discovery; not wholly, but mostly so. The fact is, the so-called lore of the classi cal ages are the works of those abstruse me taphysicians who fairly dazzled the world with their brilliant writings. The genius of these men was attractive and fascinating, and its power is evidenced well by the mas tery it has wielded over men's minds for cen turies; in fact, even to the present hour, we find its influence lingering about our oldest colleges, universities and schools. The wrong bent it gave the mind in many things has been one of the heavy burdens upon the de velopment and expansion of the human mind, and the diffusion and growth of knowledge. And the misfortune was that for centuries and centuries the schools of the world were or ganized and run upon theoretical and not scientific and practical ideas. And the amaz ing facts are now that we hear only of the classical and scientific schools, the former being generally regarded as the only proper standard of a high grade of education, and when we say a man is a classical scholar, all understand that to be the perfection of learn ing. And the best ideas of science in the schools is but miserable empiricism gener- ally. The steps in the advance of civilization — that long and painful contest between truth and ignorance — are thus indicated plainly to us, and in time they, too, will bear their fruits, and men will come to know that there is nothing so practical as real learning. Our forefathers called all scientific knowledge " common sense," and unconscious as they were of the fact, they were truly defining a term that means all real knowledge; al though they may have labored under the common delusion, that there was hid away in some of the institutions of the world a won derful Arcana of wisdom and the true knowl edge, under the name of classical or scientific lore, and that " common sense " was only for common people, while the better article was reserved for the select few. The eras of development of the human mind are, first, the age of brute force and cunning and the earliest formation of the fam ily and tribal relations, for mutual protection from savage neighbors. And secondly there is the age of arts, that culminates in music, poetry, eloquence, painting and the elegant refinements of society, and the pleasures of wealth, luxuries, and the polished and court ly manners that are so beautiful to behold in HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY". 19 any people. The crown and culmination of the age of art, is in Jenny Lind, Raphael, Shakespeare and the orators and metaphysi cians of Greece and Rome. And thirdly, the mind progressing still from this grand epoch, enters upon the age of inductive philosophy, the highest type of human perfection possi ble to reach — the age of discoveries, inven tions and of true knowledge; the knowledge which betters the conditions of all men, making them healthier, happier and longer lived; dispelling pain of body and suffering of mind; awakening men from the long nightmare of superstitious fears and ignor ant beliefs, driving from the walks of life the once successful and adored mendicant quacks, shams and impostors, who, for the long ages, so flourished fattened and battened upon the hard earnings of ignorance and folly, the curse of bigotry and the fatality of empiri cism. VIII. The man who never had occasion in his life for the use of a thought above bread and bacon (and we would not deride such men, for with the great mass, these are the first and only real questions of their whole lives, and ^to answer them well is their noblest mission), we say, many such men are truly amazed when we have asked them for the story of their humble, but sincere and honest lives. And sometimes, like certain rich men who are vain of their ragged and dirty clothes, and who sneer at a clean man, they have gloried in telling us that we did not understand our own business nearly so well as they did, and they knew their own lives were too trifling to tell, and that it was a fraud to attempt to print them. Parading their own pride of ignorance, they give instantaneous judgments upon the philosophy of historical data, thus settling profound questions that have taxed for many years some of the greatest minds that ever lived. Another will tell us that he is a " new comer " and is not a part, nor has he any interest in the history of the people, either of the past or present. Another will notify us that the history of a county can only be properly written by its living cotemporaries. There is no blame to attach to these mis taken people, because history is more an account of men's errors than of their correct judgments — ignorance has largely predom inated in the world, possibly it always will. We are not excessively concerned on this point, but content to contribute our humble mite to the story as it is, conscious of the fact that that history which fails to give an account of men's errors, as well as their sparse triumphs in behalf of truth, would be no history at all. The history of the insignificant, the ignorant, good and bad, the old and the young, in short, the majority, the mass, exact ly as they were and are, is the real bulk and important part of the lesson. In the hands of the historian every grade and shade of human life and its conditions, from the idiot to Lord Bacon, are the materials from which he raises the structure, the imperishable records of a people. Do you suppose the birds that made their tracks in the plastic mud, which afterward hardened to stone and became locked in the bowels of the earth for centuries and for geological ages, were any more aware of the immense importance their rude records would be to us than the millions of men, who lived and died and whose chance fossil remains are being unearthed, and are enabling us now to write something of the story of prehistoric man and animals ? The lowest and meanest worms have lived and made their imperishable records. Nothing escapes history. The name of Charles Augustus, or Nehemiah, or Praise- God-Bare- bones, will pass away and be soon forgotten; 20 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. it is an impalpable nothing, but the life, the bones and flesh, the blood and tissue are a solid something, which, amid ceaseless changes, will exist for ever. And it need not humiliate the said Charles to learn that this physical fact is equally true of the toad and the mosquito. Hence, an accurate biography of every man, woman and child that now lives and has lived in the county would be the full and complete materials in the hands of the histo rian, by which he could write a history of unsurpassed value. To obtain these now is impossible, and we can only do the next best thing, namely, to procure as nearly as possi ble the life records of those from whom we may strike that average whose beautiful laws are certain and immutable, and which, when correctly interpreted, yield infallible truths. IX. A book to be read by the average man, in order to be appreciated or understood, must be addressed to his understanding, and it should steer successfully around his cherished prejudices of faith, and his distorted or total absence of all views on political economy. The successful book-makers, those who jump into sudden fame and reap the golden har vests, are those who catch the popular breeze and sail with it. They criticise nothing, and with devout hearts they bend the knee and bow the head at the shrine inscribed, " The voice of the people is the voice of God; " or that other and worse maxim, " The people are always right; " " The divine right of Kings," and " The majority are always right and the minority are always wrong " — these are some of the arrant follies that have held their places in men's minds persistently and almost perpetually. From the hustings, the rostrum, the sacred desk, the bench and bar, these fulminations are poured out, and to question them is to have your own sanity suspected. " Might is right " is just as true as are any of the other time-worn maxims about the majorities — the people as a whole, or that other nonsense, that for all men to vote is the priceless boon of freedom — or " Universal suffrage assures the perfection of a good and free government — so long as you can vote you cannot be enslaved." These maxims are the droolings of imbe cility, and it is he who pours out upon this wicked nonsense his fulsome panegyrics of praise, who reaches best the public heart and pulse and reaps the golden harvests. When the people act aB a body upon any subject, there cannot be any action that is superior to the average man, and the chances are as one in a thousand that it will not be above this measure, but is nearly certain to be below it, for the reason that error is near ly always more active than intelligence. It is more self-asserting, more confident, and infinitely more satisfied with itself. The whole is admirably stated in formulating the terms which describe the contest between knowledge and ignorance. Knowledge is a saint, ignorance is a criminal. Hence, a people is moral or immoral, good or bad, virtuous or vicious, as the collective body is wise or ignorant. A high or low standard of sobriety, integrity or morality in a people is the exact measure of the knowledge it pos sesses. This, like the law of averages, may not be demonstrably true of the individual, but is unvarying of the people as a whole in its self-demonstrations. So far as we can know, everything in all nature — the whole mental and physical world — is a growth, not in a single instance a miraculous bursting into the full bloom of existence. And that growth is governed by omnipotent laws. To know these laws and apply them to man, to the family, to society, HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 21 to the community, to the State, to the race, is the exalted work of the historian. In a historical point of view, then, " The present is completing the past, and the past is explaining the present. " And this becomes plain and its value incalculable in so far as we may from the records and data that come to our hands, be enabled to point out the laws of growth that have led us to where we now are. CHAPTER II. Why History Interests Us — What is History? — Laws of Devel opment — The Soil and Its Wonders — Importance of Teach ing it to All — Needs of Our People — The Coming Public Schools — Learned Ignorance Should Stop Now — Early Illiteracy and Modern Demoralization Compared — Who are the Beal Immortals — True Philosophy and Kindly Thought — Teaching Error a Crime — How to Educate — An Agricultural People Should Have an Agricultural Edu cation — Instances Given — Education the Most Practical Thing in the World — Geological History, Its Immensity and Importance — The Bocks, Soil and Climate — Geology of Bureau County — Coal-Measures — The Wonderful Stories of the Prairies, etc., etc., etc. " Where once slow creeping glaciers passed Resistless o'er a frozen waste, Deep rooted in the virgin mould The dower of centuries untold." — John H. Betant. MAN'S nature is such that he is deeply concerned in the movements of those who have gone before him, and this interest intensifies the closer the strain of blood that binds him to the memories of those predeces sors. If his earliest forefathers had their forerunners, even if they were of an unknown time and race, either savages or enlightened, who lived and struggled and died, passing away and leaving not a wrack behind, their term reaching beyond the gray dawn of earliest history, yet their dimmest marks and fossil remains are deeply interesting, and beckon us on in the eager hunt to unlock the mystery that has so swallowed them up. Who were they? How did they live; what did they do; what did they know? Where were they from ? How did they so completely pass away from the face of the earth"? And when the inquiry comes down to the period of the immediate ancestors of the inquirer the inter est intensifies, and the minutest, dry details become profoundly interesting. Were they wise or foolish, strong or weak, happy or wretched? And we re-create in the mind as well as we can the picture of their daily and hourly life, customs, habits, temperaments, their wisdom and follies, successes and fail ures. The proper study of mankind is man. Here is the great fountain of valuable knowl edge; and the " man" that is best studied, at least is the easiest and best to understand, are our immediate forefathers or predecessors. To know all about them is all you can learn of the human race that it is essential to know. To solve the complex problem cannot be done by a surface knowledge of all the races, but by a thorough comprehension of those about whom your every nature and impulse leads you along in the investigation. Could the graduates of the schools be turned out with their diplomas, when these would mean that they knew the history of their own race, to a degree even approaching perfection, then indeed might we rest content in the possession of that great boon, the best educated people in the world ; the word history being here used in that broad and true sense that means a mastery of the high est type of knowledge, the understanding of the mental and physical laws, and in contra distinction of those terms the annals, the chronology, the dates, the disconnected and often trifling incidents that were once con sidered history, such as the births of kings and princes, their deaths and pompous 22 HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY". burials, battles, famines, epidemics, great conflagrations or political revolutions. A true history of a people is a mastery of the laws of race and the laws of heredity, climate and soil, epoch, momentum — the understand ing of the laws of mind -growth as well as those controlling the growth of the physical body, society, church, State and all the won derful developments of a civilized people. Everything is a growth — a development — a passing from the simple to the complex. Thus it commences with the legends, then the traditions, the chronicles, the annals, and last, the history: the bud, the seed, the tender sprout, the sapling, and the tree, which in the long years is drawing its sap and food from the deep soil and giving off its luscious fruit in the distant and glorious summer. The greatest always is the slowest and last to perfect itself. Hence, we say, the true con ception of history is modem, and so far we have yet no complete history of any race or people, but the materials for the coming his torian have been being gathered since the days of Herodotus. When the world is ready for this great man he will come, and in a sin gle book he will confer upon mankind some thing incomparably superior to all that has ever yet come from the printing press, Some geological ages ago preparations commenced to make this the fit abode for man. The oscillations of the earth's surface commenced, it is said by geologists, about the Huron region on this continent, forming there the first dry land, and this process pro ceeded slowly in a southwesterly direction until our hemisphere has grown and fash ioned itself much as we have it now. The commencement of this continent-building was the yielding up by the waters of the first pages in geological history. And what can be more interesting and instructive than these wonderful and unfailing records, when brought under the trained eye of intelligence and made to reveal the startling story of their existence ! The soil is the Alma Mater— the nourishing mother, indeed — of all animate life in this world. Without it nothing — from it all that we possess. The wealth and joys, the hopes and ambitions, the beauties of nature and of art, the new mown hay, the maiden's blush, the love lit eye, the floating Armada, the thundering train, the flaming forge and the flying spindle, the hand of friendship, the sweet rippling laughter of childhood, all that we can conceive of utility or beauty, men tally or physically, are from the cold, dull soil upon which we tread. From here alone comes life and all its belongings. The sun worshipers were not base in their adorable ideal — light and heat were the near approach to the sources of life, and yet it was only an aid to the soil ; a laboratory dis solving and combining the elements of the air and rocks and creating the soil, the great fountain of all. The works of these sun worshipers are scattered over the face of the earth, furnishing us some of man's earliest records. None ever worshiped the soil For it they had no just appreciation; its all- commanding value is yet little understood, and in the world's slow progress the soil and the slavish drudge — the lowest menial and the ignorant lout were about the only things that were a part and portion of the soil or identified with it in men's minds; and for ages agriculture and unwashed ignorance were regarded as much one and the same thing. In that first nation whose air was too pure for a slave to breath, was inaugurated the long reign of a feudal system, where the laborer and the soil passed by the same title deed, and the allegiance and the lives of the serfs were bought and sold as the meanest of merchandise. While the soil has found no HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 23 worshipers and but few who cared to under stand its value, it has proceeded in its benefi cent works, showering its benefits upon all until it has lifted us from dull and dirty savages into the joys of the splendid civiliza tion that now smiles upon mankind. Why should we teach our children to un derstand the stupid dirt beneath their feet? Build schoolhouses and teach them metaphy sics — the involved and abstruse speculations and problems that dazzle and bewilder the mind; make them classical scholars and take them far away from the dirt that flies as dust, sticks to your clothes as mud, and is only vile and nasty. And thus a vital error has gone on and on, and is still wielding its power for evil throughout the world. The soil comes of the rocks, and except in the instances of drift, its component parts may be instantly identified with the sub jacent rocks, and in' the drift sections, as is nearly all the surface of Illinois, the under lying rocks are always the index to the sur face qualities. To the intelligent eye that examines the stratified rocks of a country it is plain enough what elements of plant food it contains, and what particular vegetation it will best produce. Our people are agricultural in their pur suits. The Mississippi Valley will be the storehouse and granary of the world. It can always say to hungry man, " In thy Father's house is enough and to spare." With its wholesome and generous products, it will freight the ships whose sails will fleck every sea. Teach the people to read the secrets of the soil, and give them cheap transportation and the unobstructed and free markets of the world, and then, indeed, will come that boundless wealth which nurtures those master spirits among men who shape and fix the proud destiny of civilization. It has never occurred, it seems, to the school men, that the public schools should be organized and operated in reference to local ity or the peculiar controlling interests of the people; that certain portions of the world will produce different industries, and differ ent occupations for the people; that one place is for mining, another for certain manufac tories, and another for agriculture, and of this last we have an endless variety of pro ducts. One portion of our country produces mostly rice, another cranberries, another sugan, another tobacco, and often a single variety of the many kinds of this product, another cotton ; and then we have here, in the Upper Mississippi Valley, that wonderful garden for the production of that great vari ety in abundance, including nearly every thing except those articles named above. And to this is added the raising of stock, which nearly equals the immense values of the immediate soil products. The coming school teacher will see to it that the bent of the schools are directed to best preparing the rising generation for the successful struggle of life by educating them for their life surroundings. There is noth ing so practical in life as knowledge, and the best knowledge is that which betters men's lives. A common affliction all over the world is "learned ignorance," and a people may suffer more from this evil than from those illiterates whose columns of per cents figure in our census reports. There can be no cen sus taken of "learned ignorance," and hence its prevalence in a people may not be easily detected, and its inflictions difficult to meas ure. The shrewd observer may pick them out by their loud advocacy of, and unfalter ing faith in all the many errors that were instilled into them in their own school edu cation. They believe wisdom is born as you first enter the school room, and is full grown and perfected when you leave its doors with 24 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. a diploma; that knowledge is in the text books, and that the professor who knows all these must be the greatest man in the world. It is this ' ' learned ignorance " that measures the people of a community by the school- houses, the number of teachers and the grad uates they turn out, and the absence of illit erates among them. These are grievious errors, and they are most apt to pass from father to son, and thus become fixed as axiomatic truths. It is the home influence, the laws of hered ity, the environment of life, the age, the momentum and public sentiment that are man's architect and controlling influences. And the artificial, unphilosophical, empirical contrivances of the world's reformers and Utopia builders, are as the feather in the bal- lance against the mountain in shaping men's destiny. The schools upon which the present sys tem is based, were founded seventeen hun dred years ago, for the sole purpose of edu cating young men for the priesthood — to teach them how to teach morality — possibly how to proselyte. The study of the catechism and the Lives of the Saints were the whole of the curriculum. They were a mere addenda to the Catholic Church, and committing to memory constituted the entire process of the school room. They were Catholic schools, and in the course of the world's revolutions came the Lutheran, the Methodist, the Bap tist, and the innumerable other schools as the sects multiplied, all enlarging the scope of their work, until they came to be the teachers of all classes of men. They wran gled and struggled and spread, keeping even pace with the growth and power of their re spective sects, until sincere and good men were led to believe that knowledge and doxy were synonymous terms. Nothing has, per haps, filled its mission better than the theo logical schools— Jew or Gentile. Their ex istence in the organization of society was probably an imperative necessity. But Jew ish education to teach the child knowledge (understanding the mental and physical laws) is a companion piece to that startling cry that runs over the land about every time the tax- gatherer comes around, that the public schools are "Godless schools." Education, we are told, is furnishing the mind meDtal food, as we give the physical body bread and meat. If Knowledge is a hard-shell Baptist, then why do we not hear of the Godless saw-mills, fish ponds, pig pens or cattle ranches? The original idea of the school was to pro pagate morality. And the way men in that age thought, they were justified in the belief that if you cultivated the moral, the intel lectual would take care of itself. Many able and good men think so now; possibly a large majority of mankind. And the roaring dema gogue will tell you that the majority, espec ially the large majority, cannot be in error. The truth is, a nation, people or race are good or bad, moral or immoral, honest or thievish, drunken or sober, pure or vile, no ble or ignoble, exactly as they are removed from the thrall of ignorance. Give people , knowledge, and you give them, in exact pro portion to the amount thereof, pure morality, virtue, health, and all that ennobles and makes them great and good. This alone is the great teacher and reformer. Ignorance is a thief, robber and murderer, and it is but idiocy that gabbles about the " bliss of ignorance." It is the monster criminal, and pity it all we may, its horrid possession of men, its grim and fatal clutch, can only be loosened by real knowledge, and not by "learned ignorance " nor sham reformers. Ignorance is the major ity enthroned, levying blackmail and war, making laws and ruling empires, sowing HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY". 25 death and despair, and scattering its wrecks along the shores of the stream of time. The trend of the average mind of this age is to education, to better its thoughts, to gain knowledge, and to this achievement it puts forth its best efforts. If it is given ' ' learned ignorance " for the genuine article, it cannot be blamed for taking the poison in the faith that it is healthful food. Again, no one truth is the whole truth about even the simplest act or thing in life. To make a fire in the cook-stove, feed a pig or raise a hill of corn requires, in order to do either properly, to understand many of the physical laws applicable to each case. To rush at the doing of either with the mastery of only a single truth that will come in play, is to open a Pandora's box of disappoint ments, failures, evils. If this is true of the simplest acts of life, how much greater self- afflicted evils are goiDg to come to us when we move in the great and complex affairs of life, our education, our political economy, our religion — in short, the individual and society life itself. Here come into play the innumerable and the great physical and men tal laws — omnipotence itself — that must be at least partially understood and obeyed in order to live at all. It is this jumping at judgments that are founded upon one or two truths concerning little and great affairs that brings the shams and frauds, the bigots and fanatics, the general demoralization and the " learned ignorance " that so retards the spread of knowledge among men, and thus beats back the cause of progress, and kills the brightest hopes that send their sunshine across life's pathway. II. The very earliest settlers in Illinois had neither schools, churches, doctors, preachers nor lawyers. A good dog and a trusty rifle were then a greater necessity than any of these, and there was as little demand for the luxurious pleasures of modern people as there was for the evils that accompany the increase of societies, and the denser population of these days. Being without schools, etc., they were also without penitentiaries or police officers. Gov. Reynolds came to Illinois in the year 1800; born in the old commonwealth of Penn sylvania. After he had lived here fifty-five years, he wrote down his recollections in his " Pioneer History of Illinois," of the people he found here when he came. He says, they were removed from the corruption of large cities, and enjoyed an isolated position in the vast interior of North America. He thinks that a century before 1800, they bad solved for themselves the problem that neither wealth nor splendid possessions, nor an extraordinary degree of ambition, nor energy, ever made a people happy. They resided more than 1,000 miles from the older colonies; they were strangers to wealth or pinching poverty, but they possessed con tent and real Christian virtues of head and heart, and were consequently happy. Their ambition did not urge them to more than an humble and competent support, and their wants were few and simple. They did not strive to hoard wealth, they seldom drank to excess, and he pronounces them a " virtuous, contented and happy people." This is the testimony of a man who tells what he saw, and he knew well the people of whom he is speaking. There are none living now who were here when Reynolds came, to tell their recollections of the people, and excepting what he tells us about them, we are ignorant, save faint traditions, shadowy tales reciting the story of "Where nothing dwelt but beasts of prey, Or men as fierce and wild as they." 26 HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY". Accepting the ¦' old Ranger' s " account of the people as literally true, we find they had no schoolhouses, and they were illiterate as a rule, and he who confounds the terms illit eracy and ignorance, would say they were, of course, very ignorant. Yet the truth is, among the early settlers of Illinois, history will forever preserve the fact that there were even then men here who, were they living now in the prime of their manhood, would take rank with the foremost men of the age. In the way of superstitious dreads and beliefs they were more ignorant than we are now — that is, than some of us. But remember, the whole world then believed in witches, and goblins, spooks and spells. Hideous appari tions then confronted men in every turn of life, projecting their ghastly presence into every family circle, between husband and wife, parent and child, and often crushing all the highest and holiest human impulses and passions. The revolutions of the earth have, in the distant past, brought their long periods of the same faith and beliefs among the nations. Beliefs and moral codes that were enforced by eloquence, by pious frenzy, by the sword, the fiame and faggot, by the gibbet and the headsman's ax and by those great and cruel wars that converted this bright and beautiful world into a blackened and desolate waste, and sincere men became moral mon sters, who converted the fireside into a penal colony, punishing the flesh until death was a welcome refuge, and torturing frightened imaginations with the pictures of a literal hell of fire and brimstone, until poor men and women and even children could only escape by suicide — that mad plunge into the incon ceivable horrors of the damned. Time when, not only society, but all civilized nations, believed substantially the same beliefs, and hunted down heretics and billed them; when State and church were one and the same thing. The State was supreme over body and mind, and legislated for body and soul, and glutted itself with persecutions and slaughters. It enacted that the literature and philosophy of the world was contained in the "Lives of the Saints," of which the pious and good had gathered many great libraries of hundreds of thousands of volumes. Here then are the two extremes — the ear liest pioneers without State or church — the old world with little or nothing else but church and State. The latter went daft and dried up the fountains of the human heart, and made the world desolate and sterile: the first wresting the desert wilderness from the savage and the wild beasts, and literally making the solitude bloom, and bear the im mortal fruit of glorious deeds. These State less, schooless, churchless, illiterate people blazed the way and prepared the ground for the coming of the school teacher and the church, the lawyer and the hospitals, the in sane asylums and the penitentiaries, the les sons of life and the hangman's rope, the saloons and the gambler, the broken-hearted wife and the bloated sot, the sob of innocence betrayed, and the leering human goats as they wag their scut and caper upon their mountain of offense, the millionaire and the tramp, and the other perhaps inevitable evils that mar and check the joys and bles sings of larger and older societies. In the slow growth of our common pests, intertwin ing their roots and branches with the beauti ful and the good, most fortunately there can be found the gleams of sun- light from those who came and asked questions, who dared to investigate and "drag up drowned truths by the locks." In the long "night of storm and darkness " these were the beacon lights shin ing out upon the troubled waters. After the brave and illiterate pioneer HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 27 awoke the resting echo, and had fought out the long battle with the beasts and the sav age, there came together here from the ends of the world the various degrees of life and social rank that now offer to the State his torian the busiest, most extended and varied subjects for an enduring literary work — a story that of itself is an epic *poem: their present struggles, their vast schemes of em pire, their growing wealth, their grand suc cesses, their short-comings and great failures — the swing of the pendulum in the vast clock of God, ticking off the centuries and geological ages. The sweeps onward and upward, the retreats and revulsions back ward, the sublime march of the human race, the travail of the ages, the revolutions, wars, beliefs and bloody reforms and reviv als — things that seem to retard, but really are the demonstration of the progress of man ; all is but the creation, molding and building up of that philosophy that reaches out to the great mass of mankind, and results in that culture and experience which deepens and strengthens the common-sense of the people, rectifies judgments, improves mor als, encourages independence and dissipates superstitions. In this prolonged human trag edy of the ages — this apparent chaos of ignorance and riot of bigotry and all shades of persecution — there have been born at cer tain undeviating periods, the great thoughts of the world's few thinkers, giving us the truth, which grows and widens forever, for it alone is immortal, and in time it yields us a philo sophy that worships the beautiful only in the useful, and the religious only in the true: a philosophy that is the opposite and contra diction of sentiment as opposed to sense; that requires a rational personal indepen dence of thought on all subjects, whether secular or sacred, and that equally rejects an error, whether it is fresh and novel, or glo riously gilded by antiquity — a philosophy that yields no homage to a thing because it is a mystery, and accepts no ghostly authority ad ministered by men, and the root of which lies in a florid mysticism. There is now a per ceptible intellectual activity that marks the present age, and that is beginning to pervade all classes, asking questions, seeking causes. It is practical, not theoretical, and its chief aim is to improve the arts and industries, to explore and remedy evils, and to make life every way better worth living. Its types are the electric light, tbe telephone, better ships and railways, draining the lands and cleaner habits and better houses, healthier food and wiser institutions for the sick, destitute and insane. And scored upon its victorious ban ners is that one supreme boon of lengthening the average life of a generation ten years. Let the mind dwell a moment upon this mag nificent miracle, and then call these men, these practical philosophers, what you please, but tell us what coronet is fit to bind their brows, save that of the divine halo itself. They taught mankind the sublime truth that God intends us to mind things near us, and that because knowledge is obtainable, it is our duty to obtain it, and that the best morality or religion is that which abolishes suffering and makes men and women wiser, healthier and better; that the disputes- of the schoolmen and the sectarians are to be re garded as a jargon of the past, and to listen to them is time wasted; nothing is worth studying "but what can be understood, or at least sufficiently understood to be usefully applied. This is a kindly, tolerant, courageous thought, free from the disfigurement of bigot ry and prejudice. It alone, and only it, brings the perceptible advancement in the school, the press and the pulpit and every where. It is irresistible, and its inflowing 28 HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY'. tide is sun-lit with hope, like the blueEgean, when the poet spoke of ' ' the multitudinous laughter of the sea waves." The labors and sufferings of these men, who gave the average man the new lease of ten years of life, were long, patient and immeasurable, and their innocent and heroic blood has stained the stream of time from its source to the present hour. They worked out their inventions and discoveries, offered them to the world, and were led to the rack or became hiding fugitives from the inappeas- able wrath of mankind. The brutal mob tore assunder their quivering limbs, threw their flesh to the dogs often, and then complacently erected those monumental piles to ignorance and baseness that pierced the heavens and disfigured the face of the earth. Such was the long and unequal fight between ignorance and knowledge, and that is now going on, not with the bloody ferocity that characterized the ancient type of ignor ance, but with equal determination and more cunning in its attacks, and more stealth in its assassinations. It can be conquered only by its extermination. To look at the world in these travails — to reflect how pure and stainless is truth, how it seeks modest seclusion and eludes notoriety, how weak it seems when assailed by the countless majorities, by panoplied ignorance, brute force and the wild fanatic and the relentless bigots, is to despair and conclude the creation itself is but a hideous nightmare. Yet looking down the long centuries, averag ing the conditions of the people of the sep arated centuries, and then indeed do her white robed victories assume the proportions of the marvelous. In return for the perse cutions and frightful deaths and tortures that were lying in wait upon every foot of the pathway of these children of thought, they have given us the sunlight of the gilded civ ilization we now enjoy. " Return good for evil," saiththe command of heaven; but here is more, for it is the freedom and joys, and noble hopes and pleasures that endure for ever. It is the exaltation and purification of life itself far beyond the comprehension of the ignorant receivers of the heaven-sent boon. And above all, be it said in behalf of these great benefactors, no lash was ever raised, no law was ever enacted, no pain ever inflicted, no schoolhouse was ever built, no policeman ever starred, no judge was ever ermined, no sword was ever drawn, no diploma was ever granted, no tax was ever gathered, no contribution ever collected, and no mistake or crimes ever committed; but in pain and persecutions, in outlawry and poverty, in the cold garret and the hiding caves, they thought, invented and discovered, and their works are strong and great enough to lift up mankind, and bear aloft the freedom and glo ries of this great age. Immortals! You lived and died in obscur ity, but few of your names known to men, yet we say, great immortals! and bow the head in profound reverence and respect. m. If it is once conceded that all real educa tion is wholly practical — the most practical thing in life — then is it not self-evident that the schools of every people should be upon a system adapted to their leading and special wants — the habitat of that people ? Then, is not this further proposition true, namely, that the only way that real knowledge is diffused, placed in the hands of the average man in such a way that it may be of any intrinsic value to him, is to make it always experi mental knowledge — through some of the five senses or all of them ? Is is not a mistake bordering upon a high crime to teach the child error of any kind? trL^ y4r HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". 31 How few grown people there are in the world who have not by experience, often sad and bitter, had to unlearn the lessons instilled into them, the errors that they once accepted as truths, either in the nursery or school room ? The average graduate even from our best modern institutions can count off these experiences in life by the score. He came from his Alma Mater stuffed with errors, and his future life was a success or failure just in proportion as he was successful in pu tting aside this costly ignorance. This is not say ing that he got nothing at school of utility; but it is saying, that with the good, if any, he had to swallow the poison measured out by ignorance with the best intentions. He must learn to unlearn after he leaves school, and often this is the big end of his real edu cation. At school he is set to delving among the classics, cultivating a taste for the abstruse and involved speculations of metaphysicians, and he sits in admiration at the feet of the inductive philosophers, contemplating the glories of their ethereal castles and the glit tering splendors of their florid rhetoric. And weighted down with these tinkling cymbals, he enters the busy, practical world a ' ' very learned man," who is certain to be inglori- ously unhorsed every time he comes in con flict with "horse sense," as the slang puts it, when it chooses to describe one of more knowl edge than education. Because the "very learned " may be without much knowledge, and the man who never entered a university or college may have a vast store-house of knowledge. Neither of these are always true by any means, but the first should never be true, and would not if the schools were founded upon the best system. How to best educate the rising generation, how to improve our schools, is the prime sub ject of importance to every one. And it is the duty of each who can to point out errors and to suggest improvements; not to take everything for granted that is claimed by its friends, and not to rest satisfied that a thing cannot be mended simply because of its an tiquity. The aged think everything was in comparably better when they were young than it is now, and old and young think in some indefinite way that the ancient in everything was the best. The Free Mason can pay no higher eulogy to his order than to add to its name "ancient." The lawyer believes that in the black-letter of the law alone is the gar nered wisdom of the fathers; and poets sing the glories of the mythical golden age. And all are more or less influenced to strive con tinuously to get things again back into the ancient, beaten paths, believing the follies they detect are the result of the unfortunate departure from the wisdom of the fathers. And so we may trace the influence and author ity of the ancient throughout every institu tion and all the phases of society. Reference is made to this general peculiarity of the pub lic bias in order to somewhat prepare the reader for a brief consideration of what is to immediately follow, and which is the lead ing idea to which the foregoing is all intended to point. IV. Illinois being peculiarly the home of an agricultural people, and this particular coun ty being the very heart of the rich garden — possessing already a large population and rich and intelligent enough for as good and extensive public and private society and edu cational institutions as any rich and cultured commonwealth, the people are ready for all practical improvements that may be properly presented to them. What is their chief edu cational interest then ? Clearly, it is the dif fusion among the rising generations of a bet ter and more general knowledge of the econ omical geology of this section of country. 32 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. To be taught the effects of their soil and cli mate ; where so much wealth is created as there is every year in this county — there is no estimating the money value of this knowl edge. Let us illustrate: There is a county in southern Illinois that is splendidly adapted for raising apples. About forty years ago a man located there and started this industry, putting out extensive orchards and supplying the people with trees, and soon the orchards became numerous. The man had learned the business in a different part of the country, and supposed the best growing varieties where he formerly lived were the best in the new locality. Just now the fruit growers have learned that he was wholly mistaken. The result here is a generation whose ener gies were misdirected, and whose losses can hardly be estimated — a severe penalty for the want of that knowledge of soil and cli mate that the improved schools will some day impart. In the instance given, this knowledge by this single individual would have been worth more to the people than all they have paid for school purposes in fifty years. Another large section may be found where for fifty years the people have been building houses, and yet the intelligent traveler can not find a house containing the architectural beauty and conveniences of even the average better houses of some other localities. Upon looking into this strange fact it will be found that from the first the leading so-called archi tect and builder who did the first and for years the large part of house building knew little or nothing of modern improvements ; was an ignorant stickler for the ancient, and he clung to the obsolete. Another county may be found in the Mis sissippi Valley where the tax books show more dogs than sheep. And the astounding part of the facts are that it is, or would be if it had the chance, the natural home of the sheep — where they can be raised to the best advantage and with the greatest profit. But the sovereigns in the exercise of their divine privileges run to dogs. One distinguished citizen's name on the tax books was charged with $8 dog tax, and 50 cents for all other property. The barbarous instinct that breeds these wretched cur dogs and revels in their possession, costs that particular county nearly a million dollars a year, and has for the past seventy-five years. The spot most celebrated for the produc tion of fine horses, especially the fleet-footed coursers, is the Blue Grass region in Ken tucky. The horse-breeders have made money and fame, and many years ago they com menced an intelligent study of their locality and its especial adaptations. The constitu ent elements of soil, water, grasses, and an understanding of the peculiar blue limestone rock that is found in all this region, was scientifically investigated. To get the par ticular strain of horses adapted to their fav ored locality they turned their scientific atten tion to the study of the horse by long obser vation and intelligent experiments. They hunted out effects, and then sought for the causes, and here, as everywhere in the world, practical knowledge of their surroundings has paid immensely. This part of their real education was with reference to their sur roundings, to the immediate sources of their wealth, to their section of country, their home. Almost any work on the Kentucky horse will explain the difference in texture of the bone of one of their thorough-bred horses, or how much finer it is in texture than the common horse of other localities; that the bone is much heavier to the square inch, and comparatively approaches in fineness, compactness and strength to ivory. In a simi lar way the entire animal has been studied, and the results are known throughout the world. HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY", 33 We have no hesitation in affirming that the school children could be much more easily taught the elementary principles of the eco nomical geology of this portion of the valley so as to comprehend them tolerably well, than they can be taught to grasp the understand ing of the English grammar, or the majority of things now taught in the public schools. A competent teacher rambling about the hills and streams and highways with his pupils would at once see that he is in a practical way giving the young and naturally inquisitive mind the very food its hungry nature eagerly craved. If he was competent to really teach he would at once see before him a method of giving to his school information and some real knowledge that never could come in the lesson tasks of the school room, that mental stupefying routine process of committing to memory. They would learn geology exactly as a boy learns to be a carpenter or black smith, assisting in the work ; and this educa tion, in the free air and sunlight, would be holiday playing with the keen zest of inno cent childhood. There is no recitation here, no task, no stupid committing to memory, to be forgotten next week or next year, or at least very soon after leaving school. But there is gaining insight into some of the physical laws by the young mind, real knowl edge, none of which will or can ever be for gotten. This is the difference between infor mation and knowledge. The geological history of a country deter mines its agricultural capacity, as well as the amount and kind of pojiulation it will event ually contain. It carries us back to a period when the material of which the earth is composed existed in a state of fusion, so in tense that the solid elements we now see were in a gaseous state, and the process of cooling eventually formed the rocks, the base on which the thin earth's crust rests; rocks formed by the cooling of molten mineral matter as they are now formed by matter thrown out by existing volcanoes. These changes have been going on through count less ages, or better, through geological peri ods, immeasurable cycles, that tell us of the eternity of the past as well as the eternity of the future; the story of ceaseless changes, and that nothing is ever annihilated. A chemist may resolve a grain of sand into its original elements, but it still exists in another form. Life and death are but a part of the ceaseless changes in everything, a mere mode of motion, a great law of matter, working like the law of gravitation. All natural forces are manifested by motion. Each min eral assumes its peculiar crystallization with perfect certainty. This may be regarded, so far as we can investigate, as nature's first beginnings of organic creation, the first result of that great law that culminated in the high est forms of life. Millions and billions of years have passed since the first organic life appeared in this world, and since the highest type of life — man — came, there are indubitable evidences that millions of years have again passed away. We are taught this by the incontest able records of geological history. The system of rocks is, first, the igneous rocks or formations, then the stratified rocks, originally made of a sediment deposited in the bottom of the ocean. Sometimes the stratified rocks have been subjected to the ac tion of heat and their condition thus changed into what are called motamorphic rocks. Thus sandstone is converted into quartz rock or quartzite, limestone into crystalline mar ble, etc. This process usually obliterates all traces of the fossils that are to be found in stratified rocks, and makes it often impossi- 34 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. bie to determine the relative age of the meta- morphic rocks. These are the three distinct classes of rocks which enter into the formation of the earth's surface ; the simplest distinctions, which any child can learn as readily as its alpha bet, and that contain the most interesting story in the universe, and are a great store house of knowledge. The manner in which the stratified rocks are formed, the successive beds accumulating in regular order, one above another, repre sent distinct periods in the chronological his tory of the earth, and in these enduring leaves of history are found the fossils of the ani mals and plants that existed during the period of their formation. Thus the geologi cal chronology of the earth is not only its correct history, but the only possible history of the various creation of plants and animals. And from the earliest corals of the primeval ocean down through all succeeding periods to the present time, there is the evidence that cannot be questioned, that in all animate life, as in the mineral and its various crystalliza tions, the same general plan or law in the formation of the four great sub-kingdoms of existing animals, played its resistless forces. Some of the stratified rocks, especially the limestone, are composed almost wholly of the calcareous habitations and bony skeletons of the marine animals that lived in the ocean during the time these were in process of for mation, with barely enough mineral matter to hold the materials together in a cemented mass. A similar process is going on now un der the water, and thus making the imper ishable records for those to read who may, many millions of years from now, come after us. The links in this long chain of geologi cal history are joined together by the unerr ing characteristics of a common origin, that weaves them into a complete chain of organic existence — the astounding story from pro tozoa to man — the complete result of creative energy, that has worked forever and will never stop. As is said elsewhere, nearly the entire sur face of Illinois is drift, loess and alluvial de posits; reddish-brown clay forming the subsoil through this county, except beds of clean gravel that are found in certain locali ties ; loess being found along the streams, as it is a recent deposit of fresh water. A large portion of the drift came from a distance by the waters and glaciers, those crystal ships that once moved over Illinois, bearing their rich cargoes of food-plant and spreading them about for our enrichment. No sailors walked their glittering decks, no pilots direct ed their course or took their reckonings. It was nature's free and untrammeled commerce, carrying its boundless wealth to the oncom ing generations. Soils are composed mainly of mineral mat ter in a finely comminuted condition, to which is added the vegetable and animal matter ac cumulated on the surface. If there are no superficial deposits then the soil is formed by the decomposition of the rocks. If the rock is sandstone it will form a light sandy soil ; if a clay, shale or argillaceous rock, a heavy clay soil will be the result, and if a limestone a calcareous soil. In the drift deposits will be found no valuable deposits of mineral wealth. It was ignorance of this fact that so often allured some of the early settlers of the country into patient and expensive hunts for silver and lead mines. Their education on the subject of soils was so imperEect that they could not see that the lead-producing regions of north western Illinois and portions of Wisconsin and Iowa, were in the drif tless region. The Government surveys pronounce this the most interesting portion of Illinois. Its HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 35 present and prospective resources, salubrity of climate and beauty of location are not sur passed in the world. The general configuration of the face of the county, its groves, streams, soil and gen eral characteristics, have been the delight and admiration of all beholders. The fertile, rolling prairies, the timber skirting the streams, and the magnificent natural groves, standing like islands over the rich expanse of prairie. The streams wind in long and grace ful curves ; the soil is deep, rich, warm and light. The staple products of this rich re gion, corn, grasses, fruits and potatoes, grow in boundless luxuriance. Green River enters the county about twelve miles from its northwest corner, flows south with crooked windings through Greenfield Township, and then turns westward through the north part of Gold to the west county line, cutting off from the corner of the coun ty Fairfield and parts of the two townships above named. In these two townships are the Green River swamp lands. Big Bureau Creek comes in from Lee County, near the northeast corner of Bureau. It flows in a general southwest direction to a point a short distance west of the city of Princeton; from thence it takes a south course for ten miles, and turns nearly due east, and empties into the Illinois River, some five miles from where the south boundary line of the county strikes that river. The stream has very little allu vial land along its course. The prairies rise in rather abrupt swells from the banks of the creek. About Tiskilwa and on the Illinois River there is considerable rich bottom lands, covered with'' fine heavy timber. Little Bu reau Creek has a tributary west of it, which rises in the northern part of the county and forming a junction a few miles southwest of Princeton. Coal Creek and Brush Creek are also drainage outlets of the county. On the southeast corner of the county, the Illinois River forms the boundary line for a distance of sixteen miles. There is a broad alluvial bottom along the Bureau side. The lowest bottom is mostly a swampy, grassy plain, interspersed with sloughs, and ridges of river sand, and subject to inundations when the Illinois river sends out its floods over the low banks. One of these sloughs is Lake DePue, which communicates with the river at its southern terminus. The town of Trenton is built upon the west of this lake, half a mile from its outlet. At ordinary stages of water, boats pass through this out let and land at Trenton. The heavy portion of the timber is along Big Bureau, south of Princeton. Big Bureau Grove, in the western part of the county, has quite a body of good timber. Crow Creek, in the town of Milo, and Pond Creek, west of Tiskilwa, have only scattering timber. Dad Joe's grove is in the northwestern part of the county, is on a very high elevation, and since the first discovery of the county has been a conspicuous landmark. The grand undulating sweep of the prairies, and the great abundance of orchards and beautiful shade trees and the numerous cul tivated groves, and improvements that dot the county thickly over, present to the eye as fine landscape scenery as can be found in the world. But few counties in the State present so poor an opportunity for an examination of its geological formations. With the excep tion of the Illinois River and a small ravine near Tiskilwa, there is hardly an outcrop of rocky formation in the county. The excava tions along the line of the C, B. & Q. road, which runs through the county a distance of forty-five miles, present some of the clay and gravel-beds only. The Rock Island & Chi- 36 HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY". cago road traverses the roughest portion of the county, and the same is true here as on the Bureaus and their tributaries and Green River; and yet all these streams and railroads traversing the county in every direction, show no natural section of rocks. Most of the first bottom on the Illinois is subject to overflow, and but little of it can be cultivated, but such as is dry enough, yields enormous crops of corn. From forty to fifty feet above the first bottom of the Illinois River, and lying along its western bluff range, is the second bottom. This is from a few hun dred yards to half a mile wide, and its sur face is a sandy and marly clay, intermixed in places with marly-mixed gravels. It is a regular river terrace, and the traveler, from the car window, obtains a fine view of the valley of the river, stretching away with its dark serpentine belt of timber, and glimpses of the slow-moving, shining water. In the diluvial epoch, when the water spread all over the bottom, the river, lake-like in its expanse and slowness of current, must have ' presented a body of water larger than the Mississippi River even in its high stages of water. The lower valley of the Big Bureau has also a narrow alluvial bottom, back a few miles from its confluence with the Illinois River. This bottom is narrow, crooked and covered with timber. The deposit is rich and marly, and when cultivated is very productive and inexhaustible. The swamp lands of Green River are allu vial deposits, but are more or less of a peaty nature. It is black mud, muck and impure peat. The Illinois River bluffs show the loess in the deposits. At places these bluffs rise to a height of nearly one hundred and fifty feet. The exposures show also a marly, partially stratified clay and sand. Between Bureau Junction and Peru there are several places where landslides have taken place, and the formation is more easily recognized. One of these is a marked feature in the landscape; at a distance it presents the ap pearance of a heavy outcrop of white sand stone. A closer view shows it to be a heavy bed of sliding, crawling sand. It is a white, yellow-banded sand, marly in its composition, and exhibits the most marked lines and bands of stratification. The outcrop is about thirty feet in thickness. It may be found in the bluff, near the railroad track, three miles east of Trenton. The caving sands have crawled down the hill almost to the railroad track. The yellow and blue clays are found nearly all over the county in a thick deposit. The digging of the artesian well in Princeton, shows these to be seventy-nine feet thick, be fore the rock was reached. This first rock reached was only a thin bed, only three feet thick, and then was reached a hard-pan clay of a depth of 114 feet was passed through. The record of this well is very imperfect, and it is not at all certain that the thin rock passed was a regular stratified deposit. It may have been a detached mass sticking in the drift, and therefore the real depth of these clays may be nearer 200 feet than sev enty-nine feet. In many of the high prairie ridges are de posits of gravel, clean and finely assorted; the largest quantities so far found are be tween Tiskilwa and Sheffield, and along the railroad track northeast of Princeton. De tached boulders of red and black granite are found on the prairies. VI. Coal-Measures. — The northern boundary line of the Illinois coal-field passes through the north part of Bureau County. Accord- HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". 37 ing to the geological map, the line commences at a point on the east line of the county, ten miles south of the northeast corner of the county, nearly due west of Homer station on the Illinois Central road; thence west, but bellying a little south, until it crosses the track of the C, B. & Q. road a little south west of the village of Maiden; thence it bears off a little north of west until it inter sects Green River at the northeast corner of the township of Gold; thence down Green River to a point north of Geneseo. All of Bureau south of this line is nnderlaid by lower coal measure deposits. This is about two-thirds of the county. As the county lies on the northern limits of the coal-fields of the State, the deposits are somewhat irregular and detached. Sheffield mine is one of the oldest and most prosperous mining enterprises in the State. The mines at this place were opened more than thirty years ago, about the time of the construction of the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad, and have always been an important coaling point on this line. The seam is reached by an inclined plane, carried down to the level of the coal, about forty feet below the level of the surface. ThiB is the No. 6 seam, and is geologically identified with that at Kewanee. It has an average thickness of four and a half feet, and no trouble occurs from water. This deposit has been considered local and limited, but has been very productive, and presents uniform ity and persistence. The main entries are now advanced to a great distance from the original dump, and, aside from local ine qualities, the seam is continuously good. A constant demand at this point for loco motive coal has led to comparatively uniform output for many years, and has gradually de veloped a permanent and prosperous com munity of miners, many of whom possess comfortable homes and surroundings. The average price of mining is $1 per ton, sub ject to such variations as the seasons may cause, or as sometimes affected by contracts agreed upon. Disaffection among the men is unusual, and few efforts at strikes have occurred in years. The next mine of importance is in the southeast corner of the county, near Peru. The formation here corresponds with that at Peru and La Salle. The shaft is about 300 feet deep. This vein is No. 2, and is about three feet thick, of superior quality. The Hollowayville Mine is 385 feet deep, to the same seam. In the southwest corner of the county, near Kewanee, is a shaft 186 feet deep, to the seam worked both at Kewanee and Sheffield. Outcrops of coal are also found in the ravines and along the bluffs of Bureau Creek, which have been the local source of supply to the village of Tiskilwa and the surrounding country for many years. The most noticeable, however, of the mines in the county removed from railway connec tions, are those near Princeton ,from which this town secures its supply chiefly. In this mine are found two seams, No. 7 being about two and a half feet thick, but of inferior quality; while the lower one is a bright, hard coal, four and a half to five feet thick, and about 150 feet below the surface. This is No. 6, the same as the seam at Sheffield. The mines in this locality are free from water, and the deposit is of considerable local ex tent, and the coal is sufficiently free from the sulphuret of iron to be used in the man ufacture of gas at Princeton. Thomas Elliott, Inspector of Mines, reports the following for Bureau County mines for 1882: 38 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. oo .2 O a a a § 9 IS (f^ a a © _^ .eS P. ,= S S '"O n3 CZ i =S 3 s *1 a S *^ *? v. , 0 0 , 0 1 ° *3 2 x £ a ¦h ^ Name of owner or operator of mine. Postoffice address. M u oM o«9ad O T3 o T! o Co© O 0 •_ 0 - Ba Is 0 "3; 0 4iVi a 5 to Or a £ to KO at ^3 £ h 0 0 &+* <~ s O 0 5 "§ 1 v ~ ° E.t- = g — - c 0 «3OOa V- ^ 0 ^ 0 a ¦3*S ft "3 0V0 0ttJ9 t 2 a Is 1 CI0 "a 00p H. O >. - <9O J G. <-. O - — P S ci = g J §-£ 5» .2-2 ST3 t» - a ^ Z jz; r- h a , a W S5 is S5 a < 1,250 4,000! 1 7,0001 2 1.800J 1 u 2080 1010 4' 6 2 9 151385 " 2 " 1 2 8 12 8 1,0891,085 2 00 2 00 5,000 7,000 181 - 61,454 82 03S98.00O 214,287 1 5 From this mention ot the different coal- seams and their outcrops, it will be seen the county is possessed of important mineral resources, which materially augment its man ifold advantages of soil and climate. The output of coal for 1881, in spite of very un favorable season, was 61,454 tons, of an av erage value of |2.03 per ton, at the mines, or a total value of $124,751. Of this amount about $75,000 were paid out in wages to about 225 men. The extent of the coal-deposits and their value in the county can only be ap proximated, owing to the irregularities pe culiar to the strata on the outer edges of the coal-measures, but there is little doubt that coal will continue to be discovered, especially in the southwest part of the county, for years to come, at least as fast as the demands of the country require. VII. The Prairies. — Having dwelt at some length upon the subject of rocks, and the formations therefrom, and the soil, it is in the proper order that this chapter should conclude with that crowning work of the sur face of our great and rich State — the prairies. Their history is now being, for the first time, investigated. Many years ago man looked upon their enchanting beauties, and specu lated upon how they came to be. One of the earliest writers who referred to them at any length was Gov. Eeynolds. The summing up of his conclusions was, they were increased and kept free from timber by the annual fires, and, he says, that the evi dences of this are abundant in the fact that since the fires have been kept out and the tall prairie grasses have disappeared, the timber has encroached upon the prairie limits in each instance where it was not prevented by culti vation or otherwise. But we incline to the belief the Governor was mistaken in his facta ; that the instances where hazel and brier thickets, when not visited by fires, have HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY" 39 eventually changed to timber growth, were in every case spots where the surroundings differed materially from the general prairie soil. More than thirty years ago Judge W. B. Scates wrote and delivered a lecture upon the subject. In 1856 Prof. Whitney, geolo gist of Iowa, and soon after Prof. Winchell, in Silliman's Journal, created a wide interest and drew much attention to the subject, by their investigations. A clear understanding of this subject is of vast importance to our large agricultural community, as indicating the best management and cultivation of the peculiar soil they present. The ablest thoughts, probably, on this subject, are well summarized by Prof. Leo Lesquereux, whose observations were published in Silliman's Journal, in 1857. Before summarizing what he has to say, it is proper to state that none of the given deductions are accepted as con clusive, and that some of them are ably dis puted by eminent investigators. Prof. Lesquereux believes that prairies are still in process of formation, going through the identical process that has formed sub stantially all prairies. These may be seen on the shores of Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and along the Mississippi and its affluents, especially the Minnesota River. The forma tions of those prairies differ from the prime val only in extent, and each bears a strong analogy to the peat bogs. Where the lake waves or currents strike the shore on the low grounds, and there heap materials — sand, pebbles, mud, etc., — they build up more or less elevated dams or islands, which soon become covered with trees. These dams are not always built along the shores ; they do not even always follow their outline, but often enclose wide shallow basins, whose waters are thus sheltered against any move ment. Here the aquatic plants, sages, rushes, grasses, etc., soon appear, these basins become swamps, and, as can be seen near the borders of Lake Michigan, the waters may surround them, even when the swamps became drained by some natural or artificial cause. Along the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers the same phenomena is observable, with a difference only in the pro cess of operation. In time of flood the heaviest particles of mud are deposited on both sides of the principal current along the line of slack water, and, by repeated deposits, dams are slowly formed and upraised above the general surface of the bottom land. Thus, after a time, of course, the water thrown on the bottoms by a flood is, at its subsidence, shut out from the river, and both sides of it are converted into swamps, some times of great extent. Seen from the high bluff bordering its bottom land, the bed of the Minnesota River is in the spring marked for miles by two narrow strips of timbered land, bordering the true channel of the river, and emerging like fringes in the middle of a long, continuous narrow lake. In the summer and viewed from the same point, the same bot toms are transformed into a green plain, whose undulating surface looks like a field of green wheat, but forms, in truth, impassible swamps, covered with rushes, sedges, etc. By successive inundations and their deposits of mud, and by the heaping of the detritus of their luxuriant herbaceous vegetation, they become, by and by, raised up above the level of the river. They then dry up in the sum mer, mostly by infiltration and evaporation, and when out of reach of floods they become first wet and afterward dry prairies. The lowest part of these prairies iB therefore along the bluffs. In that way were the high locations for river towns and farms built up along the shores. In that way were made the sites for Prairie du Ohien, Prairie la Fourche, Prairie la Cross, etc. These 40 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". patches of prairie, though of a far more recent origin than the immense plains above them, are, nevertheless, true prairies. Bor dered on one side by the high, timbered banks of the bottoms, a fringe of trees sepa rates them still from the actual bed of the river; nevertheless the trees do not invade them. This peculiarity of formation explains, first, the peculiar nature of the soil of the prairies. It is neither peat nor humas, but a black, soft mold, impregnated with a large propor tion of ulmic acid, produced by the slow de composition, mostly under water, of aquatic plants, and thus partaking as much of the nature of the peat as that of the true humas. In all the depressions of the prairies, where water is permanent and unmixed with parti cles of mineral matter, the ground is true peat. It is easy to understand why trees cannot grow on this kind of land. The germination of seeds of arborescent trees needs the free access of oxygen for their development, and the trees especially demand a solid point of attachment to fix themselves. Moreover, the acid of this kind of soil, by its particular an tiseptic property, promotes the vegetation of a peculiar group of plants, mostly herbace ous. Of all our trees, the tamarac is the only species which, in our northern climate, can grow on peaty ground, and this, even, happens only under rare and favorable cir cumstances, that is, when stagnant water, remaining at a constant level, has been in vaded by a kind of moss, the Sphagnum. By the power of absorption, their continuous growth and the rapid accumulation of their remains, these mosses slowly raise the surface of the bogs above water, and it is there, in this loose ground, constantly humid, but ac cessible to atmospheric action, that the tam arac appears. An examination of the prairies, according to this idea of their formation, shows that from the first trace of their origin to their perfect completeness, there is nothing in their local or general appearance that is not ex plained by it, or does not agree with it. The Bay of Sandusky is now in process of transformation to prairies, and is already sheltered against the violent action of the lake by a chain of low islands and sand banks, most of them covered for a long time with timber. All these islands are built up with the same kind of materials, shales, with la custrine deposits, either moulded into low ridges under water, or brought up and heaved by waves and currents. Around the bay, especially to the southwest, there are exten sive plains, covered with shallow water. In Western Minnesota especially, the process of prairie formation is plainly to be seen at this day. Here are various sized lakes, some small and circular — true ponds — others thirty or forty miles in circumference, and in this case shaping the outlines of their shores according to the undulations of the prairie, dividing into innumerable shallow branches, mere swamps covered with water plants, and emptying themselves from one to the other, passing thus by slow degrees toward the rivers, not by well marked chan nels, but by a succession of extensive swamps. These are the sloughs which separate the knolls of the prairies, or so to say, the low grounds of the rolling prairies. They are nearly dry in summer, but covered in the springtime by one to three feet of water. Their vegetation is merely sedges and coarse grasses. Wherever the borders of the lakes are well shaped, not confounded with or pass ing into swamps, they rise from five to six feet above the level of the water, and are timbered mostly with oak and hickory. This elevated margin is more generally marked on HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 41 the eastern side of the lakes, a record of the action of the waves under the prevailing winds. From such facts the conclusion is drawn that all the prairies of the Mississippi Valley have been formed by the slow recess of sheets of water of various extent, first trans formed into swamps, and eventually drained and dried. The high and rolling prairies, as well as those along the wide bottoms of the rivers, are all the result of the same course, and form an indivisible system. The surface of the prairies is rolling and not continuously level as are the bottoms of swamps, because of the action of water, in the process of its natural drainage, as the waters in the arms of the lakes passed from one to the other. The bend of all our prai ries "is toward the rivers that furnish the drainage. The bottoms of the great lakes and oceans are marked by swells and depressions. That the prairies have been originally cov ered with water to their highest points, is a fact well known to geologists, and proved by traces of submergence and deposits left along the course of our rivers to the highest point of their sources, in places at an alti tude of 5,000 feet above the sea level. The Glacial epoch, followed by the oscillations of the earth's surface, — submergence and upheavals — the Champlain epoch, are still active, .especially the latter, working in great activity upon our continent. The records of this movement are marked in de nudations, deepening of channels, moulding of terraces along the lakes and rivers, and in the prairies formed — the prairies being the places covered by vast sheets of shallow water, during the process of slow emergence. The growth of certain mosses under shal low, stagnant water in swamps and lagoons, forms in decomposition the peculiar clayey sub-soil of our prairies, a fine, impalpable substance when not mixed with sand or other substances. In the lakes of the high prai ries the phenomenon presents sometimes a peculiar character. At the depth of from one to three feet the mosses, Conferrea and Charas, form a thick carpet, which hardens, becomes consistent, like a kind of felt, and floating about six inches above the bottom, is often nearly strong enough to bear the weight of a man. This carpet is pierced with holes, where fishes pass to and fro; and the bottom under it is that fine, impalpable clay, evidently a residue of the decomposi tion of its plants. This never extends into deep water, and near the shore the carpet of mosses, etc., begin to be intermixed with some plants of sedges, which become more and more abundant in proportion as the depth decreases. As soon as the blades of these plants reach above the water, they ab sorb and decompose carbonic acid, trans form it into woody matter, under atmos pheric influence, and then their detritus is, at first, clay mold, and then pure black mold, the upper soil of the prairies. These are the leading principles which ac count for the presence of the prairies upon the American continent, around the lakes, and of the broad, flat bottoms of the south ern rivers ; of the plattes of the Madeira River; of those of the Paraguay; of the pampas of Brazil, or the desert plains of the Salt Lake region; the low natural meadows of Holland, the heaths of Olden burg, the plains on the shores of the North and the Baltic Seas and in Asia, and the steppes of the Caspian, are presented every where the same evidences, the same results of a general action, modified only by local causes. The roots of trees absorb a certain amount of oxygen. This is essential to their life. Hence you must not plant a tree too deep. 42 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. Most of the roots of trees will perish when covered with clay impermeable to air, or un derlaid by clay impermeable to water. Water standing constantly over the roots of trees kills them; even running water will kill trees when its movements are slow; and the bald cypress of the South or the tupelo will soon die if the water around them is protected from winds producing waves, or currents that carry always more or less air. De Can- dolle, in his Vegetable Physiology, holds that the constant irrigation necessary for the rice culture in Lombardy has a great incon venience, because the water penetrates the ground of the neighboring properties, and kills the trees; that "water left stagnant for a time on the ground rots the trees at their column, prevents the access of oxygen to the roots, and kills the tree;" that "in the low grounds of Holland they dig, for planting trees, deep holes, and fill the bot tom with bundles of bushes, as a kind of drainage for surplus water, as loDg as the tree is young enough to be killed by humid ity;" that "the true swamps and marshes have no trees, and cannot have any, because stagnant water kills them. " But trees will grow on the prairie when planted. Would they grow, though, if plant ed without properly preparing the soil 1 The clayey subsoil, when dug and mixed with the mold, forms a compound lighter than the clay, admitting air and giving the roots all nutritive elements. Did any in stance ever occur of oaks growing in the prairies from acorns being scattered over the surface ? The prairie soil, or humas, is generally much deeper than the soil in the timber, and, as said before, more peaty. It contains ulmic acid, as is shown by the slow decomposition of the sod when turned. It is this acid that makes what you will sometimes hear called a sour soil. Ulmic acid is a powerful pre server, an antiseptic, and it holds, therefore, longer than any other soil, all fertilizing ele ments mixed with it. Under the influence of stagnant water, and the remains of ani mals which have inhabited it while the soil was in process of formation, silica especially, with alumina, ammonia and other elements, have entered it in sufficient proportion, and caused its great and inexhaustible fertility, especially for grasses ; for by the impermea bility of the under-clay the fertilizing ele ments have been left in the soil. As natural meadows our prairies fed for centuries great herds of buffalo, deer, etc., which roamed over them, and now they will feed and fatten our herds of cattle for as long a time as we may want it, as well as indefinitely produce the wonderful crops of the cereals, etc., as great as the deep alluvial lands of the river bottoms. Even if by successive crops of the same kind, the upper soil should become somewhat deprived of its fertilizing elements, especially of the silica, lime and alumina, so necessary for the growth of corn, the subsoil is a mine that deep plowing will reach that will return the primitive wealth to the soil and restore the ancient bounteousness of the crops. For the culture of trees these explanations of the prairies are equally useful. They tell the horticulturist that to plant fruit trees — a tree that never likes humidity — dig deep holes, pass through the clay to the drift and thus establish a natural drainage. Fill, then, the bottom of the hole with loose materials, pebbles, bushes, sod or mold, and then you will have the best ground that can be pre pared for the health and long life of trees. The prairies are sources of even greater wealth than are the immense coal-fields and their rich deposits, and like those sources of combustible materials, they point out the HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 43 great future of the race of men which is called to inhabit them and profit by their rich stores ; while one of these formations is destined to furnish an immense population the elements of industrial greatness, the other is ready to provide it with both the essential elements of life — bread and meat. Hence the prairies have their place marked in the future history of mankind. They foretell, not of idle luxury and indolent ease, laziness and dissipation of life, but hard work, abund ance, and the development of freedom and true manhood. CHAPTER III. PKEHISTOEIC PEOPLES THAT WERE HERE. The Remains of Great Cities — The Mound Builders — The Indi ans — Winnebago Wab, Capture and Death of Bed Bird — Black Hawk War — First Bloodless Campaign in 1831 — Black Hawk Enters into a Treaty — Starved Bock, the First Settlement in Illinois — Joliet and Marquette — La Salle's Colony and Fort St. Louis— Two Hundredth Anni versary of the Discovery and Possession of the Country — First White Settlement in the West, Made 1682, at Starved Bock — Capts. Willis, Haws and Stewart's Compa nies and Men from Bureau County, in the Black Hawk War, etc., etc. etc. "He sleeps beneath the spreading shade, Where woods and wide savannahs meet, Where sloping hills around have made A quiet valley, green and sweet." — John H. Bkyant. THE investigations of archaeologists show that there have been several distinct races of people here prior to the coming of the present inhabitants. By this enumeration are placed the founders and builders of those great cities of Central America, whose exten sive remains have been found, as one race, the Mound Builders as another, and then the Indians, who were here when America was discovered. But many suppose from the va riety and characteristic differences in what are known as the Mound Builders, that is, in the marked differences in the mounds found, that there were distinct races among these, which, for convenience, we now designate as one. The crumbled walls, fallen columns, the debris of great temples and pyramids, and perhaps palaces, that cumber the ground in profusion, in places, for a circumference of miles, give evidences which cannot be mis taken, of great and splendid cities, " whose lights had fled, whose garlands dead" ages before were laid the foundation stones of Balbec or Troy. The mind is dazed with the idea of the remoteness of their antiquity. The slow crumbling of these colossal walls of hardest stoDe tell of a people whose civil ization had reached far beyond any race of whom we can find any living evidences, and that ante-dates the coming of the Anglo- Saxon. In fact, so long has been the sweep of time since they lived, built their great cities and wholly passed away, that some eminent antiquarians believe they were here and had gone before the coming of the Mound Builders, and they do not hesitate in the expression of the judgment that this continent is truly the Old World, and that the crowning act in the creative energies that brought man first into existence, were mani fested here ages and centuries before a sim ilar development in the East. Probably the mounds are the oldest records obtainable of the works of man, and there fore these remarkable antiquities are intensely interesting. Within the limits of the United States are the great majority of them, and so varied and widely scattered are they over the continent that they may well be considered of chief interest to the antiquarian and edi fying to students of history everywhere. The oldest records of the works of man in the 44 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. world! How they extend the horizon of the past; how eloquent they are! Here the faintest tradition is at fault, and the oldest human bones yet discovered are modern com pared to these mute monuments of man's thought and patient, combined labors. Sir Charles Lyell concedes that certain human bones found in California must have lain there 80,000 years. These mounds and other works of the Mound Builders consist of remains of what were apparently villages, altars, temples, idols, cemeteries, monuments, battle-fields, forts, camps and pleasure grounds, etc. And they enable us to tell something of the civilization and industries and habits of a people, every vestige of whose physical bodies has long since dissolved into its original elements. One system of mounds is traced from Lake Ontario in a southwestern direction by way of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, the Gulf, Texas, New Mexico and Yucatan, into South America. In New York is a chain of forts, not more than four or five miles apart, and extending more than fifty miles in a southerly direction. Further south they increase in magnitude and num ber. In West Virginia, near the junction of Grove Creek and the Ohio, is one of the most interesting monuments found in the whole country. It is 90 feet high, diameter at the base 100 feet, and at the summit 45 feet. Many thousands of partial human skeletons were found in it. At the mouth of the Mus kingum, in Ohio, is a number of curious works, among others a rectangular fort con taining forty acres, encircled by a wall ten feet high, in which are openings resembling gateways. At Circleville on the Scioto, there are two forts in juxtaposition, the one an ex act circle 60 rods in diameter, and the other a perfect square, 55 rods on each side. The circular one was surrounded by two walls, with an intervening ditch 20 feet in depth. The remains of a walled town were found near Chillicothe. This was built ou a hill 300 feet high, and surrounded by a wall ten feet high, the area inside containing 130 acres. On the south side of it were found the remains of what appeared to have been a row of furnaces, about which cinders were found several feet in depth. In the bed of the creek which runs at the foot of the hill were found wells that had been cut through solid rock. These were three feet in diame ter at the top. One of the most singular of these earth works was found in the lead-mine region. It resembled some huge animal, the head, ears, nose, tail and legs and general outline being very perfect and easily traced. It was built upon a high ridge in the prairie, the eleva tion being 300 yards wide and 100 feet in height, and rounded on the top by a heavy deposit of clay. Along the line of the sum mit and thrown up three feet high, is the out line of the quadruped, measuring 250 feet from the nose to the tip of the tail, and a width of body of eighteen feet ; the head is thirty-five feet in length, ears ten, legs sixty, and tail seventy-five. The curvature in the legs was natural to an animal lying on its side. The general appearance resembled the figure of the extinct megatherium. Why this singular work, involving so much labor, or for what purpose it was intended, cannot now be conjectured, nor by what people it was made. Many similar figures have been found in Wisconsin. Thousands of mounds are found along the Mississippi River and all over northern Illinois. Mr. Breckinridge, who studied the antiqui ties of the western country in 1817, referring to the mounds in the American Bottom, says: "The great number and the extremely large size of some of them may be regarded as HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". 45 furnishing, with other circumstances, evi dences of their antiquity. I have sometimes been induced to think that at the period when they were constructed there was a population as numerous as that which once animated the borders of the Nile or the Euphrates, or of Mexico. The most numerous as well as con siderable of these remains are found in pre cisely those parts of the country where the traces of a numerous population might be looked for, namely, from the mouth of the Ohio, on the east side of the Mississippi, to the Illinois River, and to the west from the St. Francis to the Missouri. I am perfectly satisfied that cities similar to those of an cient Mexico, of several hundred thousand souls, have existed in this country." Nearly opposite St. Louis are traces of two such cities, in a distance of five miles. The largest mound in the United States is in the American Bottom, six and a half miles northeast of St. Louis, known as Monk's Mound. >It is over 100 feet high, and 800 yards in circumference at the base. The top contains three and a half acres, and half way down is a terrace, extending the whole width of the mound. Excavations show human bones and white pottery. Generation after generation lives, moves and is no more; time has strewn the track of its ruthless march with the fragments of mighty empires; and at length not even their names or works have an existence in the spec ulations of those who take their places. II. As many as thirty mounds have been found in Bureau County, none of them large either in height or circumference, and every thing about them indicates they were not probably built by the same tribes or perhaps nations, that constructed the immense mounds in Southern Illinois or Ohio. A group of eight mounds is situated in the bottoms of the Illinois River and Bureau Creek, near Bureau Junction. The land on which they are located has been farmed for near half a century, and this cultivation has so changed and moved the surface soil that their true dimensions can only be approximately deter mined. Three of the smallest of these mounds lie to the northeast at a right angle to the other five, which are somewhat larger and extend in a direct line toward the south west. They range in distance apart from fifty to one hundred feet, and are in height above the natural surface from two and a half to seven feet. Mr. A. S. Tiffany made openings in the extreme northeast mound. At a depth of fifteen inches was found a bed of ashes sev eral inches in thickness, which extended in all directions beyond the opening. At a depth of five feet a few bones, much decomposed, were found. They were parts of two indi viduals. A small number of bone awls were lying near them. The opening was extended sixteen feet and the remains of two individu als were found with their heads toward the north. Under the head of the individual lying upon the west side was discovered a porphyry crescent- shaped implement of rare beauty. It is polished on both sides and all its edges are nicely wrought. A flint knife was found in the same place, about where the right hand of the skeleton would rest. At the northeast corner of the excavation, with the decomposed bones of another person, a bone awl or needle was found, about four inches in length, but a portion had been bro- kenoff. It was gracefully tapering and finely pointed. A few pieces of pottery, all of the same character generally obtained from mounds, occurs or has been frequently found in this locality. The crania of the skeleton found 46 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. were too fragile to be preserved. A few unio shells and water- worn pebbles had been de- positedjn different parts of the mound. In another one of the small mounds was found the much decayed bones of a youth. In the other mounds no remains of especial interest were found. Another group of twenty mounds are situ ated on the bluffs near Bureau Junction. This group varies in height from eighteen inches to three feet. They are systematically arranged and are from eighteen to three huD - dred feet apart. Explorations in this group revealed one skull, decayed wood and coal, and pebbles. On one is an oak stump, show ing 450 annular rings; another similar stump shows 160 rings. On another stands a large white oak tree. The Indians have no traditions that give any reliable account of who built these mounds or who used them for burial places. In Arizona are to be found many remarka ble evidences of prehistoric peoples whose history has never been written. It is only told by the empty irrigating canals, the ruins of populous towns, vacant cliff dwellings, inscribed rocks, and broken pottery found in many parts of the Territory. Before the Euro pean saw this continent two races had lived and died in Arizona. The earliest people built their houses in valleys that are now deep ravines, and the cliff dwellings that are seen to-day resting in the sides of deep arroyos two hundred feet above the bottom of the gorge once stood upon solid ground, and yet so many years have elapsed since then that now the houses are high and dry and accessible only to hardy climbers. Time has dug away the foundations as well as scarred and chipped the inhabitations. Between the age of the cliff-dwellers and that of the white man come the race who built the canals and formed the valleys. Dry and parched and barren as a great part of Arazona is to-day, there was a time, of which abundant proof exists, when the valleys were rich and fertile, and when great cities were populated by an active, capable, and energetic people. Who were those industrious beings ? No one can tell. Toltec or Aztec, black or white; from Egypt or Peru, none can say. Time has nearly de stroyed evidences of oheir existence. In the lapse of ages their history has grown almost a mythology. What a race they were, though! No farming for them, if you please, on any small scale. They had ditches to bring water to their crops that would astonish the soil-tillers of to day, and their houses were castles. Perhaps the most extensive of their ruins now, are at the place called Casa Grande, in the Gila River Valley, six miles below Florence and five miles south of the river. When first discovered by the Spaniards, in 1540, the largest building of the group was four stories high, and had walls six feet in thick ness. A hundred years ago one house still remained which was 420x260 feet. To-day there is but a suggestion left of the former magnificence of the houses, but one may still see that the walls were made of mud and gravel, held together by a hard cement, and rooms are still coated with cement. Near Casa Grande are the remains of an irrigating canal which has been traced for forty miles, and which must have watered thousands of acres which to-day are dry, neglected wastes. Miles of these wide canals can be seen scat tered over the Territory. Everywhere are the evidences of a prehistoric occupation of the land. In building the city of Prescott, workmen unearthed not only household and farming implements, but discovered old foun dations as well, and as Arizona is settled and explored there may yet be found more traces of the people who lived and died here, leav- utWa^ HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 47 ing suggestion as to who they were, where they came from, whither they went. What care we for Pompeii ? We have a vaster, richer field in which to search for treasures hid for untold ages. III. Indians. — Vast number of Indian tribes were all over the continent when it was dis covered. Some were numerous, powerful and warlike, and others were feeble remnants of once great communities, and all were with out cultivation or any refinement or the sem blance of a literature, and were far behind in the early advance of civilization of the Mound Builders. Ethnologists are not agreed that they were an original race of men, indigen ous to the Western Hemisphere. The hair of the red man is round ; in the black man flat, and the white man's is oval. These dis tinctive traits are unvarying and are strong evidences of original different races of men. In the pile of the European's hair the color ing matter is distributed by means of a cen tral canal, but in the Indian and black it is incorporated in the fibrous structure of the hair. The differences, therefore, in the hair of the European, Indian and Negro, are rad ical, and indicates three distinct races of men, or branches of the human family, and a tri- nary origin. A religious bent of mind char acterized all the tribes, but it was of the rudest order of ignorant and childish su perstitions and horrid ceremonies. There was no progress in them from their low sav agery, and they would, had they never been disturbed by the white man, have probably remained perpetually in their degrading savagery and ignorance. And their tradition says of the coining of the white man and civilization: "The Indians had long dis. cerned a black cloud in the heavens coming from the east, which threatened them with disaster and death. Slowly rising at first, it seemed a shadow, but soon changed to sub stance. When it reached the summit of the Alleghanies it assumed a darker hue; deep murmurs, as of thunder were heard ; it was impelled westward by a strong wind and shot forth forked tongues of lightning." Pontiac saw this coming storm and said to the Saxon: " I stand in thy path." To his assembled chiefs he exclaimed: "Drive the dogs who wear red clothing into the sea." Fifty years after the defeat of Pontiac, his follower, Tecumseh, plotted the conspiracy of the Wa - bash. For years the forest haunts of his clansmen rang with his stirring appeals, and the valleys of the West ran with blood of the white invaders. In the south the Appalachian tribes waged cruel wars under Tuscaloosa. The Algonquins and Iroquois were the great tribes who figured in the history of Illi nois. The former occupied most of the coun try between the 35th and 65th parallels of lat itude. The Illinois Confederacy was the five tribes: the Tamaroas, Michigamies, Kaskaskias, Cahokias and Peorias. The Illinois, Miamas and Delawares, are of the same stock. Tra dition says they came from the far West. In 1670 their chief town was on the Illinois River, seven miles below Ottawa. It was then called Kaskaskia, and according to Mar quette at that time contained seventy, four lodges, each of which domiciled several fam ilies. It was visited in 1679, by La Salle; the town then counted 60 lodges and the tribes numbered 6,000 to 8,000 souls. Their chief towns were burned by the Iroquois, and their extensive patches of beans, pumpkins and corn destroyed, and the Iroquois pursued the fugitives down the Illinois River. They became involved in the Pontiac conspiracy,but through many defeats and contact with civilization, their war- like spirit was gone, and they did not yield to Pontiac's solicitations when he 48 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. threatened to ' ' consume their tribes as the fire doth the dry grass of the prairie." Fi nally, when Pontiac lost his life at the hands of an Illinois, the tribes which had followed his fortunes descended from the north and the eaBt to avenge his death and almost annihilated them. And tradition says, that a band of fugitives, to escape slaughter, took refuge on the high rock which had been the sight for Port St. Louis. They were besieged by a superior force of the Pottawattomies, which the great strength of this natural fort ress enabled them easily to keep at bay. But starvation, however, soon was a more cruel foe than the savage, and accomplished what the enemy could not. Their provisions were soon gone and their supply of water was stopped by the enemy severing the cords attached to the vessels by which they elevated it from the river below. From their high point of view they could look for the last time upon their beautiful hunting-grounds and then chant their death-songs, and with Indian sto icism lie down upon the rocks and die, where for many years their bones were seen whiten ing on the summit of "Starved Rock," by which name it will in all future time be known. Thus perished the Kaskaskias and Peorias, of whom at one time Du Quoin was chief, and of the once powerful tribes but a score are now left in the world. The little remnant of them left are in the Indian Ter ritory. The Sacs and Foxes dwelt in the northern portion of Illinois. The word " Sau-kee," now written ' ' Sac, " is derived from the com pound word " A-saw-we-kee," of the Chip- ewa language, signifying yellow earth, and " Mus-qua-kee," the original name of the Foxes, means red earth. These two tribes by long residence contiguous to each other, had become substantially one people. They came originally from near Quebec and Montreal. The Foxes came first and established them selves on the river that bears their name. They warred with the French on Green Bay and were signally defeated. The Sacs became involved in a long and bloody war with the Iroquois, and were driven west. Starting west they encountered the Wyandottes, by whom they were driven far ther and farther along the lake shores until they reached their relatives and friends, the Foxes, on Green Bay. Here the two tribes united for self-protection against surround ing tribes. The Jesuit, Allouez, visited them in the winter of 1672, and also extended his labors from the Sacs to the Foxes; the later remembering some cruel outrages at the hands of the French treated the gentle missionary with rude contempt, but by great patience, he eventually procured a respectful hearing, and they were converted, after the fashion of ignorant barbarians, and it is said every one in the village could soon make the sign of the cross. And they painted this sign on their shields and started upon the war-path and gained signal victories and firmly believed the sign of the cross was a powerful talisman in battles of conquering power. From Green Bay they came to northern Illinois, and drove out the Sauteaux, a branch of the Chippewas. They eventually formed alliances with the Pottawattomies, and warred to extermination with different tribes of the Illinois south of them. They and the Win- nebagoes, Menomonees and other tibes at tempted to destroy the village of St. Louis, and were only prevented by the timely arri val of George Rogers Clark, with five hundred men, from carrying out their designs. Fi nally their names became known to the world, and the history of these people culmi nated in the events of the Black Hawk war, where the volunteer soldiery of the State of Illinois, in 1832, closed the last of the Indian HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. wars in the West by the decisive battle of Broad Axe. IV. Black Hawk War. — -As this condensed ac count of the Indians brings us to the time of this war, and as this was the last combined act of the Indians in the valley to beat back the white race, we deem it best to conclude what we may have to say of the Indians by a short account of the Black Hawk war. Edwards' History of Illinois says: "Dur ing Gov. Edwards' administration, the In dians on the Northwestern frontier became troublesome. The tribes were at war among themselves about their boundary lines, and soon hostilities were extended to the whites. Before serious war had occurred with the whites, a treaty of peace was signed at Prairie du Chien, on the 19th of August, 1825, in which the whites acted more the part of mediators than otherwise between the Win- nebagoes and Sioux, Chippewas, Sauks, Foxes and other tribes, defining the boundaries of each. But this failed to keep them quiet. Their depredations and murders continued frequent, and in the summer of 1827 the actB of the Winnebagoes especially became very alarming. A combination was formed by the different tribes, under Red Bird, to kill or drive off all the whites above Rock River. And oper ations were commenced by the Winnebagoes and Pottawattomies making a foray and kill ing two white men in the vicinity of Prairie du Chien, on the 24th day of July, 1827, and on the 30th of the same monfln they attacked two keel-boats which had, on their upward trip, conveyed military stores to Fort Snelling, killing two of the crew and wound ing four others before they were repulsed. They threatened seriously the settlers at the lead mines, as they had always resented the act of the people in taking possession of these mines. Gov. Edwards, July 14, or dered Gen. Hanson's brigade (then located on the east side of the Illinois River) to be in readiness for immediate service. On the same day he ordered Col. T. M. Neal's Twen tieth Regiment (from Sangamon) to receive 600 volunteers and rendezvous at Fort Clark, and march forthwith to Galena. Under this call Col. Neale recruited one cav alry company, Capt. Edward Mitchell; four companies of infantry, by Capts. Thomas Constant, Reuben Brown, Achilles Morris and Bawlin Green; Adjutant, James D. Hen ry. The command marched to Peoria. Red Bird and six of his principal chiefs had sur rendered and the volunteers returned from Peoria to their homes, The surrender of Red Bird had been se cured before this force reached the grounds, largely by the action of the Galena miners, who had an order from Gov. Edwards to or ganize and place themselves under the com mand of Gen. Henry Dodge, and thus formed a valuable auxiliary force to Gen. Henry Atkinson's command of 600 regulars. These had marched into Winnebago country and captured Red Bird, by his voluntarily com ing into camp and giving himself up. Red Bird and his companions were placed in con finement, where he soon died, and some of his warriors were tried, convicted and hanged for complicity in the murder of white set tlers, on the 26th of December, 1827. Black Hawk was one of the captured party; upon trial he was acquitted. The death of Red Bird ended the Winnebago war. The tribe was thoroughly humbled and showed only the most peaceable disposition for some time. Edwards says : "A talk was subsequently had with them in which they abandoned all the country south of the Wisconsin River. Af ter this there was a general peace with the Indians throughout the Western frontier." But the Indians continued to occupy the 50 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". lands they had ceded, and Gov. Edwards urged constantly their removal by the War Department, beyond the limits of the State, as their presence was a constant menace and retarded the immigrants from occupying the lands the Indians had ceded. The Govern ment, impelled by the appeals of Edwards and the terrors of the settlers, brought the subject to the attention of the Indians, and urged them to go to their own lands beyond the Mississippi River. It was finally arranged they should be allowed to remain twelve months. In 1829 the President issued a proclama tion, and in pursuance thereof, all the country above the mouth of Rock River (the ancient seat of the Sac nation) was sold to American families, and in 1830 it was taken possession of by many of them. To avoid further threatened troubles, another treaty was entered into with the Sacs and Foxes, on the 15th day of July, 1830, by the provisions of which they were to remove peacefully beyond the Mississippi. With those who remained at the Indian village at the mouth of Rock River, an arrangement was made by the settlers by which they were to live together peaceably, and as good neighbors; the Indians cultivating their old fields as formerly. Black Hawk, however, a restless and uneasy spirit, who had ceased to recog nize Keokuk as Chief, and who was known to be still under pay of the British, emphati cally refused either to remove from the lands or respect the rights of the settlers. He insisted that Keokuk had no authority to make such a treaty, and he proceeded to gather around him a large body of warriors and young men of the tribe who were eager to put on the war paint and to adorn their belts with the white men's scalps. He deter mined to dispute the rights of the whites to their possessions in the heart of the ancient seat of the nation. He had conceived the gigantic scheme of uniting all the nations, from the Rock River to the Gulf of Mexico; and thus once more and for the last time was made the effort to combine all the Indians and " drive the white dogs into the sea." On the 9th day of December, 1830, Hon. John Reynolds became Governor of Illinois. April, 1831, Black Hawk at the head of from three to five hundred warriors, recrossed the river. He also had a large number of allies from the Kickapoos and Pottawattomies. He formally notified the whites to leave, and upon their refusing to comply with his order, he commenced a general destruction of their property. Governor Reynolds declared war and called for volunteers. This call was made May 27, 1831, and all this north western portion of Illinois at once was resounding with the clamors of war. The call was for 700 men, to report at Beardstown in fifteen days. So many re sponded that the Governor had to accept the services of 1, 600 men. They were moved to Rusbville and organized into two regiments and two battalions. The army arrived at Rushville June 25. Six companies of regu lar troops, under Gen. Gaines, from Jefferson Barracks, arrived at Fort Armstrong. Thus completed, the army encamped eight miles below the Sac village, on the Mississippi River, and Gens. Gaines and Duncan concerted measures of attack. But Black Hawk, realiz ing the danger of his position, on the night of the 25th quietly recrossed the river, leav ing his village deserted. The soldiers thus found it the next day, and completely de stroyed it. Governor Ford says: "Thus per ished this ancient village, which had been the delightful home of 6,000 to 7,000 Indians, where generation after generation had been born, had died and been buried." Gen. Gaines had to send the second peremptory HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 51 demand to Black Hawk requiring him • and his band to return and enter into a treaty. On the 30th day of June, 1831, he, with about thirty Chiefs of the Sacs came, and in full council with Governor Reynolds and Gen. Gaines, signed an agreement, stipu lating that " no one or more shall ever be permitted to recross said river to the usual place of residence, nor any part of their old hunting-grounds east of the Mississippi River, without permission of the President of the United States, or the Governor of the State of Illinois." The troops were disbanded and their surplus provisions given to the Indians, who had by their foolish invasion made it impossible to raise any crop for that season. Thus ended without bloodshed the first campaign of the Black Hawk war in 1831. 1832 — Second Campaign. This treaty with Black Hawk brought but a short respite of peace to the country. The next spring he again recrossed the river, and commenced his march up Rock River Valley, with 500 warriors mounted on their ponies, while the squaws and papooses went by way of the river in canoes. Gen. Atkin son, stationed at Fort Armstrong, warned him to return, but the savages pushed on to the country of the Winnebagoes and Pottawatto mies, and here engaged to make a crop of corn. The Chief's purpose in this was to enlist these tribes in his aid in the war, but they would not yield to his entreaties. April 16, 1832, Gov. Reynolds called for 1,000 Illinois volunteers, and they were to meet in Beardstown, on the 24th of that month. So threatening were the movements of the Indians, that Maj. Stillman with 200 men was ordered to guard the frontier near the Mississippi, and Maj. Bailey the settle ments along the Illinois River. Pursuant to the Governor's call, 1,800 men assembled at Beardstown, and were organized into a brigade of four regiments and an "odd" and a "spy" battalion. An election for field officers on the 28th was held. Col. John Thomas to command the First, Jacob Fry, the Second, Col. Abram B. De Witt, the Third, and Col. Samuel M. Thompson, the Fourth. Capt. Abraham Lincoln's company was in the Fourth Regiment. Gov. Reynolds placed Gen. Whiteside in command, and accompa nied the expedition. April 29 the army started from Beards town and proceeded to Oquawka, and here they received a boat-load of supplies from Gen. Atkinson, who was at Fort Armstrong; then to the mouth of Rock River, where they were received into the United States service by Gen. Atkinson; from this point the Com manding General with 400 troops proceeded up Rock River, while the volunteers under Gen. Whiteside marched through the swamps in the vicinity of the stream. They arrived at Dixon on the 10th of May, where they found Majs. Stillman and Bailey with their forces, where they had been some time guarding the frontier. A scouting party of five men was sent out to confer with the chiefs of the Pottawattomies, and who getting lost, returned after three days. They reported having fallen in with some of Black Hawk's men, and that his army was encamped on Old Man's Creek, twelve miles above Dixon. Stillman and Bailey besought the Governor for permission to take their forces and reconnoiter the enemy's position, which was granted. On the 14th of May they started with 275 men, and soon reached Old Man's Creek, pursuing their course up that stream about fifteen miles and camped for the night. Three Indians, bearing white flags came into camp, and were taken in custo dy; these were soon followed by five more who came near the camp, it was judged, for the 52 HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY". purpose of inviting an attack. In this they succeeded, as a party of Stillman's men started in pursuit; soon three- fourths of the command were joined in the irregular scram ble and chase across the prairie, overtaking and killing two Indians, and pursuing the others to the edge o£ the timber. Here Black Hawk, with about forty of his men, arose from their ambush naked and yelling like devils, charged the assailants, who were a mere scattered mob by this time, and who at once turned in a more eager retreat than had been their mad pursuit; flee ing in terror before the infuriated savages. Stillman and his officers had ordered and entreated the men not to go in this foolish chase, but they rushed heedlessly and reck lessly on, and as foolishly fled upon the first flush of danger, only increasing their own danger and confusion. Maj. Stillman, Gov. Zadock Casey and other officers tried in vain to prevent the panic and inglorious flight. Maj. Perkins and Capt. Adams with about fifteen men made a brave stand, and checked the savages and saved a general slaughter. The brave Adams lost his life in this heroic stand, his body being foimd the next day near the bodies of two dead Indians who had fallen by his hand before he was overpowered and slain. As a result of this shameful conduct of the soldiers, eleven whites were killed and seven Indians bit the dust before the fifteen gallant defenders of the panic-stricken army or rabble. Had half the wild mob kept their heads and joined them the enemy would not only have been defeated but probably captured. They fled back to their camp and there told the remain der of the army such horrid stories of Black Hawk and his solid legions, that these broke camp and joined the stampede, the larger por tion going to Dixon, but many were so scat tered and had become so wild with fright that they continued to flee south, and for weeks lone stragglers arrived at Peoria and at other points south as far as Beardstown and Springfield. The valor of these men was not at fault as was afterward tested. They were merely raw recruits who had not learned that in battle the safest place is in prompt obedience to their officer, and facing the enemy, regardless of the odds in the enemy's favor. This battle-field has gone into history as Stillman's Run. His defeat spread conster nation over the State. Gen. Scott with 1,000 troops was at once sent out to the seat of war. Gov. Reynolds called for new levies, the call being dated June 3d, and appointing them to meet at Beardstown and Hennepin, June 10. The men in the service asked to be dis charged, but in the great emergency they heeded the appeal of the Governor and agreed to remain twelve or fifteen days longer. When the news of Stillman's defeat had reached the army at. Dixon, a Council of War was called, and the whole army marched to the battle-field. The dead were recovered, in most instances frightfully mutilated, and were buried. Black Hawk retreated into Wisconsin, and on the 6th of June made an attack on Ap ple River Fort, near the present town of Elizabeth, twelve miles from Galena. Three messengers on their way from Dixon to Ga lena were fired upon within half a mile of the fort, but they escaped. The inhabitants had fied to the forts. Twenty-five armed men were in the fort, and they made a de termined resistance and drove off the sav ages. The savages having attacked and killed two men about five miles from Galena, Gen. Dodge, of Wisconsin, followed them, and HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". 53 overtaking them at Pecatonica, killed the entire number with the loss of three men. The new levies assembled at Beardstown and Hennepin, and the two forces were soon ordered to Fort Wilbourne, a small fortifica tion on the south bank of the Illinois River, about a mile above Peru, which had been erected by Lieut. Wilbourne for the protec tion of the stores entrusted to his care by Col. March. Several thousand volunteers had assembled, at first a promiscuous multitude. The Gov ernor appealed to the old forces who had been discharged, and among others who re-enlisted was Abraham Lincoln, who had been a Cap tain in Col. Thompson's regiment, and now entered Capt. Isle's Company as a private. On the 16th day of June the brigades were organized, Gen. Posey commanding the First, Melton K. Alexander, the Second, and James D. Henry, Third; Gen. Atkinson in general command. Four additional battalions were organized for special purposes, commanded severally by Bogart, Bailey, Buckmaster and Dement. The brigades were composed of three regi ments each. The Governor ordered a chain of forts to be erected from the Mississippi to Chicago. On the 17th Col. Dement was ordered to report to Col. Zachary Taylor at Dixon, the main army soon to follow. On his arri val at Dixon, he was ordered to take his position at Kellogg' s Grove. After the first night there a detachment was sent to examine a reported fresh Indian trail. They started at daylight, and within 300 yards of the Fort discovered several Indian spies, and despite the cries and commands of Col. De ment and Lieut. -Gov. Casey, these raw soldiers gave chase and recklessly followed them into Black Hawk's ambush of 300 naked, howling savages, whose sudden ap pearance and fierce onslaught started a pell- mell stampede of the whites for the fort. In the confused retreat which followed, five whites who were without horses were killed, and the others reached the fort only in time to close the gates upon the enemy, who attacked the inmates furiously, the fight lasting several hours, and they only retired when they had to leave nine of their braves dead on the field. No one in the fort was killed; but several were wounded, Col. De ment having three shots through his clothing. At 8 o'clock next morning messengers were sent fifty miles to Gen. Posey for assistance, and toward sundown they appeared at the rescue. Gen. Posey started in pursuit of the enemy the next day. The enemy had used his usual tactics of scattering his retreating forces, and discovering this the pursuit was abandoned. The army marched up Rock River, expecting to find the enemy near its source. On the 21st of July the enemy was overtaken on the bluffs of the Wisconsin and a decisive battle was fought, lasting till the sun went down, and driving and scattering the savages, killing 168 that were found on the field, and twenty-five were found on the trail the next day, dead. Gen. Henry lost only one killed and seven wounded. Gens. Henry and Atkinson's forces, 1,200 in all, met them at the Blue Mounds. On the 25th the whole army started in pur suit of Black Hawk, whose trail could be easily followed by the abandoned articles and dead bodies, that told plainly the story of the deplorable condition of his army. The fugitives were fleeing the State, and had reached the Mississippi River, and were mak ing hasty preparations to cross, when they were overtaken and the final and decisive bat tle of Bad Axe was fought on the 2d day of August. It was a merciless slaughter, in which warriors, women and children were 54 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". slain. Seventeen Americans were killed and over 150 Indians. Black Hawk had escaped up the river. He was pursued by a band of Winnebagoes. They were gone twenty days and returned with Black Hawk. V. Such wa3 the bloody and sad scene that closed the last great attempt at regular war upon the whites by the combined forces of the red men. Black Hawk was the true suc cessor of Pontiac and Tecumseh. He wore their fallen mantles well and worthily, but able as he was, after his daring efforts to make a stand against the oncoming invaders of his happy hunting grounds in northern Illinois, the best effort he could make was a feeble one compared to those of his prede cessors, and indicated the decay of his peo ple — swiftly dying of the contact of the white man and civilization. Since the Black Hawk war we have had nothing more terrible than local forages, and the occasional scalping of an isolated settler or traveler, or horse-steal ing expeditions, in which murder was only an incident. The Indian has gone. Here we have nothing left of him but a memory. In the struggle for existence he has paid the great penalty of ignorance and slowly but surely passed away from the earth. In the long and unknown ages he was here he did nothing — accomplished nothing — and this would have doubtless continued had he been left unmolested by the white man millions of years, save only what he had always been doing — breeding wretchedness and the vilest ignorance and savagery. He loved his wild freedom — he would not have our civilization. Ever ready to sing his death song and die, he would not be enslaved. Liberty or death was all he knew, and he stared fate in the face with a stoicism truly sublime. His ex istence here is but a memory, much like the shadowy and unsubstantial legends of his own tribes. In the long centuries of his pos session of the greatest and richest portion of the world, he did nothing, was nothing; and saving the corrupted Indian names given to certain places, there is nothing to prevent all memories of him from passing into annihila tion and oblivion with his own valueless per son and life. He lived only to hunt and ! fight — "born in the wild wood, rocked on ! the wave," he despised the refinements, the enervating pleasures, the trammels of civili zation. The captured warrior and the de coyed dupe of the cunning merchantmen, he was stupefied with whisky and sold into , slavery, yet this failed as completely to make an humble slave of him always as would an effort to make cringing menials of the eagles of the crags. In this respect his nature was the opposite of the negro; and no white race has excelled, if any has ever equaled him, in his determination to be ab solutely free — to be his own liberator and defy all the powers that might assail him here. This heroic trait saved his exit from the world from the reproach of contempt. The treatment of the Indians, from the j time of the first coming of the whites on the Atlantic shores to the present time, has been often wrong and sometimes criminal; just and sensible but rarely. Their fate was voiced well when Pontiac said, ' ' White man, I stand in thy path." It was barbarous ignorance standing in the way of intelligence and indus try; one or the other must perish. The sur vival of the fittest lays its inexorable hand here, as everywhere, cold and passionless, and omnipotent, and the weaker take their places in the ranks of the innumerable multitudes and pass away from the face of the earth. VI. The spot of oldest and greatest historical HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 55 interest in Illinois is Starved Rock, on the south bank of the Illinois River, seven miles below Ottawa. The beetling-rock cliffs rise from the waters one hundred and thirty-six feet. Three sides rise thus perpendicularly like a giant watch-tower piercing the clouds. The fourth side recedes gradually inward from the river, in one place 'very steep, and this rapid descent can be mounted only by narrow steps, and along deep crevices in the rocks that bear no signs of vegetation save sparsely scattered stunted cedars and mountain ivy. The walls are of gray sand-stone. The gen eral shape of this impregnable, eternal castle is circular, and from any point of view the effect is most inspiring and majestic. In many places are overhanging crags and deep crevices where once the wild beast fixed his lair, or the deadly reptiles retreated for safety. A part of the summit is smooth sand-stone, and the whole contains nearly an acre in area. From the midst of the flowing waters rises this wonderful rock pyramid, looking far up and down the river and away over the wind ing belts of timber and the grand sweep of rich meadow lands — the eternal, silent sentinel — and in the aeons of its watches the coming and going of nations, dynasties, races and generations of men are but as the snow-flake on the river, "a moment white then gone forever. " It is now a noted resort for excur sion and pic-nic parties, fascinating the vis itor with its romantic scenery, and enchant ing all with the wide-spread panoramic views from its summit. Of itself it will always possess a deep interest to all beholders, and it is but natural it should arrest the interest and attention of the adventurous white men who discovered what is now the State of Illi nois. Two hundred and eleven years ago — 1673 — Joliet and Marquette, in their voyage of discovery for the great river (Mississippi), which was supposed to run to the Pacific Ocean, after finding the river and passing down it far enough to learn that the river emptied into the Southern Ocean, were return ing to the St. Lawrence to report their great success, when they discovered the Illinois River and passed up it on their way to Lake Michigan. When they reached Starved Rock the party of nine persons landed their canoes and ascended to the top of the tower and erected a cross and in the name of the king and the church took possession of the country. Salutes were fired in honor of the king and prayers and invocations addressed to the Virgin. In 1682 La Salle, the earliest follower of Joliet, founded a colony here, under a charter from the court of France, built a rude fort on the summit of the rock, called it Fort St. Louis, and named the country New France. This was the first white settlement made in the West. Near the base of Starved Rock are found the works of the Mound Build ers, the flint instruments, the mounds, the pathways worn and cut in the rocks in going and returning from the top of this natural fort, plainly telling that every different race of men that ever occupied this country had found here the same land mark and refuge that attracted Joliet and La Salle and brought the first set tlement in the Mississippi Valley. The two hundredth anniversary of the dis covery of Starved Rock by Joliet and Mar quette was celebrated in 1873. The meeting was held on top of the rock, and a large crowd was present and many speeches were made. A high pole was erected on the high est point and the stars and stripes floated out on the breeze where two hundred years ago the tri-colors of France had waved as em blems of French authority and power. These revelers looked out over the same winding river which in the distant curves of 56 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. the stream became mere silver threads in the forest fringe; the same flower-bedecked prai ries, the same sweeping modulations of hill and valley; but once they were covered with great herds of buffalo, deer and elk, and the red man, with his many villages and wigwams, especially in the view westward into this county — all indicating that here were gath ered in countless numbers — like a great trysting place — the wild beasts and the wild men. Now the same enchanting view is over civilized life, equally numerous, and instead of the silent solitude of the waste places, all is vocal with the glad song of civilization and the joys and blessings of a rich, active and prosperous people. Bureau County in the Black Hawk. — At the time of this war the county was all Put nam, and it is only by selecting out of the lists furnished by Putnam County, we are enabled to give the names of nearly all who went from what was afterward Bureau County. Captain George B. Willis, of Hennepin, raised a company for the Fourth Brigade, Fortieth Regiment, commanded by Col. John Strawn. This was mustered out of service at Henne pin, June 18, 1832, George B. Willis, Cap tain; Timothy Perkins, First Lieutenant; Samuel D. Laugh lin, Second Lieutenant. Among the privates who were afterward citi zens of this county were John Cole, William son Durley, J oel Doolittle, James G. Foristal, Aaron Gunn (now. living in La Salle); John Hall, William Hoskins, Michael Kitterman; Robert A. Leeper, Charles Leeper, these were brothers of H. B. Leeper, now residing in Princeton; Roland B. Moseley, John Moore; Elijah Phillips, who was killed by the Indi ans, June 18; Daniel Prunk, whose son is now living in Tiskilwa; Joseph W. Rexford; Solomon and Leonard Roth, brothers, one of whom is still living; Nelson Shepherd, still living; George P. Wilmouth, John Williams, Curtis Williams and Hoskin K. Zenor. Capt. William M. Stewart also had a com pany from Putnam County, in the same brigade and regiment of Willis' company. We note in this company Private Madison Studyvin. Another company in the same command was Capt. William Haws' company. Capt. Haws died only a few months ago, aged eighty-four years, at his home near Magnolia; he dropped dead on retiring from the dinner table. Although very old, his sudden and most unexpected death was a great shock to his wide circle of friends and acquaintances, among whom he had lived a long and useful life. Capt. Haws' First Lieutenant was James Garvin, now living near Princeton (died a few days after this was written). Among the privates in this regiment we note Elias Isaac as a Bureau County man. His son, William L. Isaac, is now one of the influen tial citizens of the county, and a Supervisor. The Indians commenced their forays and massacres of the scattered settlements in Illinois as early as 1810. That is, they then began to sow the seeds of bloody war against the Americans or English, as much of their previous intercourse had been with the French in this part of the West. The first massacre of note was on Cache River, not far above Cairo, where they murdered two families. Seven persons — three women and two children — were of the victims. Then a murderous foray was made by them on Wood River, now in Madison County, and soon the burning cabins and the fleeing fugitives from all the outlying settlements told the story of the progress of the awful visitation through out southern Illinois. Those who escaped fled to the forts, and for four years the peo ple thus existed, suffered, were massacred, and many good people were driven penniless from the county. The war of 1812-15 was finally brought to a close, and treaties of HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 57 peace were made, and people again resumed the work of building homes and laying the foundations for the great State of Illinois. The Indians of southern Illinois had been driven mostly away, or they were pretty thoroughly subjugated. But in northern Illinois it was different. The white man was only at Fort Dearborn, and in 1827 he was in the northwest corner of the State in the hunt for fortunes in the lead mines, and his presence here was regarded with an evil eye by the Indian. His jealous nature and his treacherous disposition were soon aroused, and he wanted to fill himself with patriotic whisky and commence his congenial work of massacring the weak and defenseless, espe cially the women and children, or where a hundred of them could find an unarmed white man to torture and kill. This con tinued until it culminated in the battle of Bad Axe in 1832, and the overthrow of Black Hawk and his co-conspirators. Nicholas Smith, only surviving son of " Dad Joe " Smith, informs us that his fath er's family was, in 1829, on a claim where Rock Island now is, and that near them was an Indian encampment, and, especially when they could get whisky, they were often very threatening and annoying. One day his father had gone to Galena after some of their remaining goods, and he, only eight een years old, was mowing about a mile from home, when his younger brother came as fast as he could with word that the Indians were about to murder the family. He dropped his scythe and hurried to the house and found two bucks trying to kill a man, a neighbor who happened to be there, and his mother with the two little girls had taken refuge in the weeds near the house. He relieved his neighbor and then rushed into the house and got his gun. An Indian followed him and struck at him with his tomahawk, and when he got his gun the Indian ran. He heard an outcry from his mother and looking saw an Indian holding her by the hair and trying to tomahawk her. His little brother had fortunately arrived on the horse and see ing the Indian trying to kill his mother, had spurred the horse upon him, and the boy and mother were in the life struggle when he started to their rescue with his gun, which unfortunately was not loaded, and the Indian fled. He had inflicted an ugly wound in his mother's face. On another occasion he was hewing logs for their future house, and sev eral Indians came up and were loafing around. He was working away and pay ing no attention to them, when one of them slipped up and told him an Indian was following Smith's little sister, and was go ing to kill her. He dropped his ax and saw the savage following the child with his butcher-knife concealed by his side in his hand. He fled , when Smith noticed and started toward him. We only give these as evidences of the disposition of the savages when they had whisky, and as historical facts in the inception of those Indian depredations that finally led to the Black Hawk war. Another incident related to us by Mr. Smith was connected with the outbreak of 1832. It is not only of interest as one of the first scenes in the actual war, but it is strongly illustrative of some of the incidents of frontier life. He had gone to Ottawa to mill. The trip was a very serious and tire some one, as he had to hire a skiff and ferry his grain over the river, and then go to the mill and borrow a wagon to haul it from the skiff to the mill — about two miles. He was gone nearly a week and got home, and the first thing he noticed was his father walking up and down the road, gun in hand, and greatly excited. He soon learned the whole country was threatened with an Indian out- 58 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. break; people were fleeing for their lives. The Smiths locked up their smoke-house and loaded a team and started for Galena, and here they stayed for several months. The Galena stage was stopped, and every house on the way to Galena was deserted, and they were about the last family that passed along the road. CHAPTER IV. The Genealogy of the County — New France— Canada, Louisi ana — Northwestern Territory — Indiana — Illinois — St. Clair County — Madison, Clark, Bond, Crawford, Pike, Fulton, Peoria, Putnam, and Finally, Bureau — The Sev eral and Final Treaties that Passed — Title to the Land — etc., etc. "Moss-hank and rock, brown trunk and ancient tree, Woodbirds and wild flowers are thy company." — John H. Bryant. THE genealogy of the county, that is, the civil divisions, changes and transfers of allegiance from one government to another, and then to the United States, and from one State to another, and finally a chain of title from county to county, ending in the present civil community of Bureau, is a material part of the county's history; and yet, how many are there who can tell its chronological story? In even a Teachers' Institute, com posed of the educators of the county, and where the subject of history is often treated at great length, could any of them, after much reflection and reading on the subject, tell anything about it ? Nearly all know that Bureau County was carved out of the terri tory of Putnam County, and there, as a rule, their information stops. Suppose aboard of examination in the best of our high schools should ask the class, by the aid of their teachers, to give an abstract of the title to any quarter section of land, tracing it back to the original tribe of Indians, who were the owners in possession when the country was discovered. A legal abstract of the title of a piece of land is by law complete when the title is traced from the General Government, and in this transfer there are no notes of the different counties of which the particular tract may have formed a part, because the title to the lands does not vest in the State or county, only aR it passes to them from the Government. Yet the descriptive part of the title is incomplete without naming both the State and county. Hence in a chain of title, where any special day or time might be called for, it is of the first importance to tell exactly the name and territorial title at each change that has occurred in its history. What school-child or teacher could readily tell how a letter should have been directed to have reached a person, supposing one had been here, and there had been mails deliv ered, during all the time of the known his tory o$ this part of Illinois? Suppose, reader, you had been here the past two hun dred years, and without ever removing from one spot, in what empires, nations, and gov ernments, Territories, States and counties would you have lived ? Going back to the time of the Indians, you would have been of the tribe of the Potawatto- mies, then a citizen of New France, and a sub ject of the French Empire. This was a province of France for about one hundred years. We have seen elsewhere in a preceding chapter that La Salle and Tonti made the first white settlement in Illinois, before the close of the seventeenth century, on the borders of Bureau County. The next white settlement was made in Kaskaskia by the French, in 1707. * * William H. Brown, of Chicago, was in Kaskaskia in 1818, and gives it as a fact, that he then learned from old settlers, and he found other evidences, that this date (1707) was correct. HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 59 The next move the " old settler ' ' would have found made for him by the changes in government, while he was stationary, was that he was a Canadian. Then, in 1673, by the treaty of Paris, the title of all this part of the world passed to the British Empire. Thomas Gage was the ruler by virtue of being Commander-in-chief of the British troops in North America. In ] 764 he issued a proclamation, in which he most graciously authorized the Roman Cath olics of this part of the world to exercise the worship of their religion in the same manner here as they did in Canada, and granting them the further permission " to go about and look at the country, even to New Orleans." During all this century of changes and transfers there was no civil government established here. The only government was military, and the title to the country a mere claim of discovery and possession to the time of the treaty of Paris. * October, 1778, the House of Burgesses of Virginia created the county of Illinois, and appointed Lieut. John Tod, I ivil Commander, and this appointment authorized all the civil officers to whom the inhabitants had been accustomed, to be chosen by a majority of the citizens of their respective districts. This was the establishment of the first En glish civil government in what is now Illinois. The act of the House of Burgesses above re ferred to, defined the Northwestern Territory, with the seat of government at Marietta, Ohio. The whole territory was divided into three counties, namely: Hamilton, now Ohio; Knox, now Indiana, and St. Clair, now sub stantially Illinois. If our imaginary Bu- * November 2, 1762, France made a secret treaty with Spain, by which the Louisiana Country was ceded to Spain ; this treaty was not made known until 1764. At this time, and just before the treaty was made known, the villages of St. LouiB and Bte. Genevieve were founded. reauite had then wanted to marry a dusky maiden he would have had to go to Marietta for his license. Gov. Tod was commissioned by Gov. Patrick Henry, who wrote his commission and instructions within hearing of the guns of the American Revolution. The book con taining Tod's commission and an account of his official acts while at Kaskaskia was recently picked up by accident in a wood- box in Chester, 111. , by one who thus rescued this valuable document from the flames, and thus supplied a missing link in the history of the State, the complete loss of which would have been very great indeed. All the upper Mississippi Valley was con quered from Great Britain by Gen, George Rogers Clark, who has been often styled " The Hannibal of the Northwest. " In the American Revolution he certainly was the hero standing second only to George Wash ington. He conceived the plans, and wilh an army of less than 200 poorly armed, half fed and worse clothed soldiers, wrested all this rich empire from England and the Indian, and by able diplomacy, the most daring enterprise and heroic bravery and endurance, and a tact and strategy never surpassed, kept and preserved a conqueror' s title and trans mitted it to us. No romance compares with the wonderful achievements of Gen. Clark. In 1795, a mere youth, he penetrated the wilds of what is now Kentucky. In connec tion with Gabriel Jones he founded and erected the county of Kentucky in 1796, and fought out the wars with the Indians that gave that fair land the name of " The Dark and Bloody Ground. ' ' In war and in founding and erecting Government and Commonwealths he was the leading and master mind everywhere. Without men, with out money, without support from any source he conquered, held and handed over to his CO HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. Government empires that in their extent and magnificence dwarf the proudest achievements of the flaunting eagles of Napoleon; and we have no hesitation in claiming that con ceiving of the plan and the remarkable man ner in which he executed his designs, find no parallel in American history. When the Revolution had been fought out and Gen. George Rogers Clark's great work was done in that wonderful play on the chessboard of nations, he retired to private life, to obscuri ty and poverty that was only equaled by that the humblest soldier in his ragged squad. If the deeds of our great men are ever to be measured by the greatness of the results that come of their acts, rather than by the pomp, the ceremony, the loud blasts of fame and the pageantry of great numbers, then the future historian of the United States may burn his brightest fires in illuminating the greatest chapter in his book, where he tells the story of George Rogers Clark and the Northwest. It is no part of our purpose here to attempt to tell the interesting story. We merely point it out, and hope the young who may peruse this page may be induced to take up the subject and follow, it through. From 1732 to 1759 we were under the control or rather belonged to the Company of the Indies. M. Penier was Governor-Gener al, and M. D'Artaguette was Local Governor of Illinois. This brave and chivalrous man Was killed in the Chickasaw war, where he had been called to assist the people of Louisiana. Illinois at this time was a part of Louisiana and a province of Canada. The Company of the Indies failing, the French Government again assumed the control and title to the country. The treaty of Greenville (this point is now in Darke County, in the southwest part of Ohio) was made in 1795. This was a treaty with the Indians, and at the time was not con sidered of any value in defining the future boundaries of the country, but in the end it became a very important matter in the settle ment of our boundary lines with Great Brit ain. When the treaty of Ghent was being negotiated in 1814, and the American Com missioners met the English, the former were much surprised at the demand of the British for recognition of that treaty as the basis of negotiations for the western boundary of the United States. At first the English refused to negotiate except on that basis and insisted upon the entire sovereignty and independence of the Indian confederacy. They claimed the Indians as allies, and oven subjects they were bound to protect in all their defined rights. It was a fact the Indians had received annuities, first from the French, and that af terward the English had continued these after the treaty of cession in 1763, and also after the acknowledgment of our independence. The Indians had annually sent delegations to Canada to receive these annuities. During the negotiation of this treaty it was brought to light, a fact that had been denied by the parties to it, that there had existed an alli ance offensive and defensive between Tecum- seh and the British. The American Commis sioners peremptorily refused to recognize the sovereignty of the Indians, or that they had any right to dispose of their territory to a foreign power. The British Commissioners then proposed that the English and American powers arrange matters so that they might jointly exercise protectorate powers over the Indians, and consider all the territory not ac knowledged to belong, by the treaty of Green ville, to the United States, as embraced with in that proposed joint protectorate. This would have left six miles square of the heart of the city of Chicago permanently Indian territory, and would have placed the upper Mississippi Valley exactly as was left the HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 01 western slope which now includes Oregon and Washington Territory. These were long un der this joint protectorate or joint occupation by the United States and Great Britain. And the final result of the joint protectorate would have been a division of the territory, as was the case in Oregon, when perhaps all this portion of Illinois would have fallen to the portion of Canada, and in that event we would to-day have been Canadians instead of Illinoisians. In 1787 we were a part of Virginia, as be fore stated, and were by that State erected at that time into the Northwest Territory, and became Illinois County. No one civil act in the country's history has exceeded in import ance the celebrated ordinance of 1787 (July 7). By it the whole country northwest of the Ohio was constituted one district. A governor and secretary was provided for ; a court consisting of three judges was also provided for, and this court with the gover nor enacted laws for the government of the country; with many other provisos "the ter ritory was not to be divided into less than three States, and at its option Congress might form one or two [more] States in that part which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan." If the reader will keep in mind the words italicized, he will find it a convenient explanation of certain otherwise puzzling points that arose in fixing the north boundary line of this State ; but more espe cially when Wisconsin, when applying to be admitted as a State, put forth the claim to all that portion of northern Illinois to a line running due west from the extreme south bend of Lake Michigan. The ordinance of 1787 also specially pro vided ' 'that there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory." Tn the summer of 1778 this new territorial government met at Marietta, the seat of gov ernment. October 5, 1787, Maj. -Gen. Arthur St. Clair was by Congress elected Governor of the Northwestern Territory. October 6, 1789, President Washington wrote to Gov. St. Clair: "You will also pro ceed, as soon as you can with safety, to exe cute the orders of the late Congress respect ing the inhabitants at Post Vineennes and at the Kaskaskias, and the other villages on the Mississippi." He says: "It is a subject of some importance, that the said inhabitants should, as soon as possible, possess the lands which they are entitled to, by some known and fixed principle." Accordingly in Feb ruary, Gov. St. Clair and the Secretary, Win- throp Sargeant, arrived at Kaskaskia. The country within the bounds of our present State, extending northward to the mouth of the Little Mackinaw Creek on the Illinois River, was organized into a county and called after His Excellency, St. Clair, and this is therefore the mother county in Illinois. It was divided into three judicial districts, and three judges appointed; Cahokia was the county seat. Had our imaginary Bureauite been here then he could have gone to Caho kia if he wanted a marriage or liquor license, or to administer on his mother-in-law's estate. Cincinnati had become the seat of govern ment for the North western Territory. By the ordinance of 1787 the country was entitled to the second grade territorial gov ernment as soon as it contained 5,000 inhab itants. By act of Congress, May 7, 1800, the Ter ritory of the Northwest was divided, and all that part of it lying westward of a line be ginning on the Ohio River opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River, running thence north via Fort Recovery to the British Possessions, was constituted a separate territory and called 62 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". Indiana. This comprised the present States of Indiana (except a small strip on the eastern side of the State), Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. The white population at that time in all this vast region was estimated at 4,875, about the population of the city of Princeton. Had they been evenly scattered over the country it would have been, in Yankee par lance, " a right smart step " between neigh bors. In 1803 Louisiana was purchased from France and annexed to the Indiana Territory, and thus again we became a part of Louisi ana. But this was of very short duration, as in 1 SOS Louisiana was detached and erected into a separate Territory. At this time Aaron Burr entered upon his treasonable effort to wrest from the United States this territory of the Mississippi Valley. He visited Vin- cennes and Kaskaskia and by his smooth and artful tongue induced in each place a few to consent to become his followers. But the scheme was soon exposed and he was arrested in Mississippi in 1807. We were a part of Indiana for nine years. By act of Congress, February 3, 1809, Hli- nois was created and set apart from Indiana. This included not only the boundaries of the present State but all of Wisconsin, the whole containing an estimated population of 9,000. Still, had the people been evenly distributed over the country the neighbors' chickens would have been kept separated without very high picket fences between them. Ninian Edwards became Governor of the Ter ritory of Illinois. April 28, 1809, Illinois was divided into two counties, St. Clair and Randolph. Then the imaginary Bureauite would have received his mail " Shakerag, St. Clair County, Territory of Illinois," and if he had wanted a squaw, by marriage, unless he had done as the offi cers of the army often did in those days, buy one, he would have had to go to Cahokia for his license. In September, 1812, Madison County was created and that then included all this part of Illinois, and we could all then attend court at Edwardsville. In March, 1819, we would, had we all been here then, have become citizens of Clark County, with our county seat at Palestine, on the Wabash River. There were only fifteen counties in the State when it was admitted into the Union. In January, 1821, we would, without any act of our own, have all become citizens of Pike County, and could have joined in the refrain of '"Joe Bowers, all the way from Pike." In January, 1823, never leaving home, we would all have been in Fulton County. Then in 1825 in Peoria County, and the same year we were placed in Putnam County, provided it had enough people to organize, and it seems it did not have, as the steps to really form Putnam County were not taken until 1831, and we remained in happy content until 1837, when poor Putnam County was divided, as the clown cut off the dog's tail, "just behind the ears," and Bureau County came into existence. As a part of the history of the abstract to all our land titles in this portion of Illinois, it may not be amiss to here note the fact that the French had for a century lived with the Indians, and there had been no serious dis putes as to the titles to the lands. At the conclusion of the Revolution and when Wash ington was President, and the present race of men were commencing that flow of immigra tion that has never ceased, the Indians con federated together and determined to con test the right of these ' ' white dogs " to come among them. They took the position that the Ohio River was the extreme northwestern boundary line, and thus, commencing at Pitts burgh, all the Northwest should be left to H.CCanpar Jr £ Cn -s^L <^& Cn6,tyE.G William, i. Br NY HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 65 them " as long as grass grows and water runs." Pontiac, and then Tecumseh and finally Black Hawk, were the respective Indian lead ers in warring upon the white invasion. Ev ery defeat of the Indians was followea by new treaties, in which the red man moved west and the Saxon extended his dominion across the upper Mississippi Valley, and it was the final treaty with Black Hawk, in 1832, after his defeat and capture, that for ever settled the title to the lands in Bureau, or in fact, to all territory east of the Missis sippi River. CHAPTER V. The Grand March of Empire— The Marvels in the Sweep of Population — The March of One Hundred Years — The Act of TnE General Assembly Creating Bureau County — etc., etc. " Thus came the restless Saxon tide, Resistless, broad and deep and strong ; That on its bright, free, crested wave, New life and learning bore along." — John H. Bryant. IN the preceding chapter is traced the genealogy of the county down to the period of its formation and the commence ment of its municipal existence under its present designation of Bureau County. The geological history, involving to some slight extent, the play of nature's great forces, and aeons of time in continent-building were first referred to ; the strata which are the base upon which rests the crust of the earth's sur face, and the surface itself, and the long and slow process of forming our prairies, and the preparations that were made for the coming of animate life, and eventually of man, were briefly touched upon; and then following cur sorily the evidences that for millions of years different races of men were here and had passed away before the coming of the red men and their congeners ; and from such hasty glimpses, we catch enough to tell us some thing of the weird and wonderful story that is contained in the little world, even that is bounded by the bending horizon of each living inhabitant of this particular portion of the globe. The mind staggers under the astound ing revelations of the historian, and at the same time, if the picture has been at all drawn to the facts, they have enlarged the views of the student, and, it is hoped, will broaden the av erage ideas of men and materially aid them in grasping those larger and more generous plans of human life that will ennoble and bet ter the condition of all. The plan of this work compelled only the briefest allusion to the past, so slight indeed, that it is feared the majority of readers will fail to feel the impress of the important hints it gives, and thereby lose much of value and deep interest. With this expression of perhaps a groundless regret, we turn from the Then to the Now, and what do we find ? A story that grows, if that is possible, in interest as we approach our own age and time. Nothing in the history of the globe is so extraordinary in its topographical and moral results as the vast western march of the American people within a hundred years. Let us look, for instance, at the excellent French map of what constituted the northern part of the United States in 1798. The western boundary of the visible settlement is the Genesee River of New York. The names on the Hudson are like the names of to-day; all beyond is strange. No railroad, no canal ; only a turnpike running to the Genesee, and with no further track to mark the way through the forest to " Buffalooe " on the far-off lake. Along this turnpike are settlements — " Schen ectady," "Canajobary," " Schuyler or Utica," "Ft. Stenwich or Rome," " Oneida Cassle," 66 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. " Onondaga Cassle," " Geneva" and " Can- andargue," where the road turns north to Lake Ontario. Forests cover all western New York, all northwestern Pennsylvania. Far off in Ohio is a detached region indicated as ' ' the Connecticut Reserve, conceded to the families who had been ruined during the war of independence," whence our modern phrase " Western Reserve. " The summary of the whole map is that the United States still consisted of the region east of the Alleghan- ies, with a few outlying settlements, and nothing more. Now pass over twenty years. In the map prefixed to William Darby's tour from New York to Detroit in 1818 — this Darby being the author of an emigrant's guide and a mem ber of the New York Historical Society — we find no State west of the Mississippi except Missouri, and scarcely any towns in Indiana or Illinois. Michigan Territory is desig nated, but across the whole western half of it is the inscription: "This part very imper fectly known." All beyond Lake Michigan and all west of the Mississippi is a nameless waste, except for a few names of rivers and of Indian villages. This marks the progress — and a very considerable progress — of twen ty years. Writing from Buffalo (now spelled correctly), Darby says: "The beautiful and highly-cultivated lands of the strait of Erie are now a specimen of what in forty years will be the landscape from Erie to Chicaga [sic]. It is a very gratifying anticipation to behold in fancy the epoch to come, when this augmenting mass of the population will enjoy in the interior of this vast continent a choice collection of immense marts, where the pro duce of the banks of innumerable rivers and lakes can be exchanged." Already, it seems, travelers and map-mak ers had got from misspelling " Buffalooe " to misspelling " Chicaga." It was a great deal. The Edinburgh Review for that same year (June, 1818), in reviewing Birkbeck's once celebrated ' ' Travels in America," said : " Where is this prodigious increase of numbers, this vast extension of dominion to end? What bounds has nature set to the progress of this mighty nation? Let our jealousy burn as it may, let our intolerance of America be as unreasonably violent as we please, still it is plain that she is a power in spite of us, rapidly rising to the supremacy; or, at least, that each year so mightily aug ments her strength as to overtake, by a most sensible distance, even the most formidable of her competitors." This was written, it must be remembered, when the whole population of the United States was but little more than 9,000,000, or about the present population of New York and Pennsylvania taken together. What were the first channels for this great transfer of population ? The great turnpike road up the Mohawk Valley in New York; and farther south, the "National road," which ended at Wheeling, Va. Old men, now or recently living, as, for instance, Sewall Newhouse, the trapper and trap-maker of Oneida, can recall the long lines of broad- wheeled wagons drawn by ten horses, forty of these teams sometimes coming in close suc cession; the stages, six of which were some times in sight at once; the casualties, the breakdowns, the sloughs of despond, the pas sengers at work with fence rails to pry out the vehicle from a mud-hole. These sights, now disappearing on the shores of the Pacific, were then familiar in the heart of what is now the East. This was the tide flowing westward; while eastward, on the other hand, there soon begins a counter- current of flocks and. herds sent from the new settlements to supply the older . States. As early as 1824 Timothy Flint records meeting a drove of HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 67 more than a thousand cattle and swine, rough and shaggy as wolves, guided toward the Philadelphia market by a herdsman looking as untamed as themselves, and coming from Ohio, "a name which still sounded in our ears," Flint says, " like the land of savages." The group so well known in our literature, the emigrant family, the way-side fire, the high-peaked wagon, the exhausted oxen, this picture recedes steadily in space as we come nearer to our own time. In 1788 it set off with the first settlers from Massachusetts to seek Ohio; in 1798 it was just leaving the Hudson to ascend the Mohawk River; in 1815 the hero of Lawrie Todd saw it at Rochester, N. Y. ; in 1819 Darby met it near Detroit, Mich. ; in 1824 Flint saw it in Missouri ; in 1831 Alexander depicted it in Tennessee; in 1843 Margaret Fuller Ossoli sketched it be yond Chicago, 111. ; in 1856 in Nebraska and Kansas; in 1864 Clarence King described it in his admirable sketch, "Way-side Pikes," in California; in 1882 Mrs. Leighton in her charming letters pictures it at Puget Sound, beyond which, as it has reached the Pacific, it cannot advance. From this continent the emigrant group in its original form has almost vanished; the process of spreading emigration by steam is less picturesque but more rapid. The newly published volumeB of the United States census for 1880 give, with an accuracy of detail such as the world never .before saw, the panorama of this vast west ward march. It is a matter of national pride to see how its ever-changing phases have been caught and photographed in these vol umes, in ways such as- the countries of the older world have never equaled, though it would seem much easier to depict their more fixed conditions. The Austrian newspapers complain that no one in that nation knows at this moment, for instance, the center of Austrian population; while the successive centers for the United States are here exhib ited on a chart with a precision as great, and an impressiveness to the imagination as vast, as when astronomers represent for us the successive positions of a planet. Like the shadow thrown by the hand of some great clock, this inevitable point advances year by year across the continent, sometimes four miles a year, sometimes eight miles, but always advancing. And with this strik ing summary, the census report gives us a series of successive representations and colored charts, at ten-year intervals, of the gradual expansion and filling-in of popula tion over the whole territory of the United States. No romance is so fascinating as the thoughts suggested by these silent sheets, each line and tint representing the unspoken sacrifices and fatigues of thousands of name less men and women. Let us consider for a moment these successive indications. In the map for 1790 th6 whole population is on the eastern slope of the Appalachian range, except a slight spur of emigration reaching westward from Pennsylvania and Virginia, and a detached settlement in Ken tucky. The average depth of the strip of civilization, measuring back from the Atlan tic westward, is but 335 miles. In 1800 there is some densening of population within the old lines, and a western movement along the Mohawk in New York State, while the Ken tucky basis of population has spread down into Tennessee. In 1810 all New York, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky are well sprink led with population, which begins to invade southern Ohio also, while the Territory of Orleans has a share; and Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, the Mississippi Territory — including Mississippi and Alabama — are still almost or quite untouched. In 1820 Ohio, or two-thirds of it, shows signs of 68 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. civilized occupation; and the settlements around Detroit, which so impressed Darby, have joined those in Ohio; Tennessee is well occupied, as is southern Indiana; while Illi nois, Wisconsin and Alabama have rills of population adjoining the Indian tribes, not yet removed, still retarding southern settle ments. In 1830 — Adams' administration now being closed — Indiana is nearly covered with population, Illinois more than half; there is hardly any unsettled land in Ohio, while Michigan is beginning to be occupied. Popu lation has spread up the Missouri to the north of Kansas River; and, further south, Louisiana, Alabama, and Arkansas begin to show for something. But even in 1830 the center of population is in Moorefield, West ern Virginia, not yet moving westward at the rate of more than five miles a year. This is but a short scene in this wonderful drama of state building — populating a belt across a hemisphere, within certain line3 of latitude indicated by the soil and climate, as the working grounds of what will some day be the most historic people that have ever lived. Hon. John Wentworth says that the Black Hawk war, 1832, was what led to the real discovery and settlement of the Upper Mis sissippi Valley. Evidently it was the march ing of these soldiers through what is now this county, that first made known to the real pioneer people, those hardy and heroic advance couriers of civilization who eventu ally came here with a fixed determination of staying, the wonderful country that awaited their coming. As noticed in the preceding chapter, this county was carved out of Putnam County, and the Illinois River was mainly the dividing line. It was the topography of the country that not only fixed the boundary of the new county, but that compelled the people to seek the aid of the legislature in bringing about the division that would enable those west of the river to have their own county seat and trading point of access without com pelling them to cross the river and the often impassable roads across the river bottom in the approach to Hennepin. Hence, as early as 1833 interested parties, living on this side of the river, began to at tend the sessions of the Legislature at Van- dalia, praying the assembly for relief, and that a new county be created. On the 28th of February, 1837, the follow ing law was passed by the General Assembly of Illinois: Section 1. Be it enacted, etc., That all that tract of country lying within the following boundaries, to-wit: Beginning at the northeast of Putnam County, running thence south on the east boundary line of said county to the center of the main chan nel of the Illinois River; thence down the main chan nel of said river to the place where the line divid ing Townships fourteen and fifteen north intersects said river; thence west on said line to the west line of said county; thence north on the western line of said county to the northern boundary thereof; and thence east with said county line to the place of beginning, shall be created into a new county, to be called the county of Bureau, Provided, however, That the legal voters of the old county of Putnam, including also, the voters of the contemplated county of Bureau, shall be given for the creation of said county as hereinafter provided. Sec 2. That on the first Monday in April next, there shall be an election held at the several pre cincts in the present county of Putnam, and the polls shall be open to receive votes for and against the creation of the aforesaid county of Bureau. Said election shall be opened and conducted in all respects in the same manner, and by the same judges as other elections in this State are; and if a majority of the votes given shall be given in favor of the formation of such new county, then the said county of Bureau shall be considered and taken as permanently and legally established with the aforesaid boundaries. Sec 3. That William Stadden, Peter Butler and Benjamin Mitchell are hereby appointed com missioners to locate the seat of Justice for said new HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 69 county. Said commissioners or a majority of them shall meet at the towD of Princeton on the first Monday of May next or as soon thereafter as may be, and be first duly sworn before some justice of the peace faithfully to take into consideration the convenience of the people, the situation of the set tlements, with an eye to future population and eli gibility of the place, shall proceed to locate the county seat of said county. If said commissioners shall select any town already laid off they shall require the proprietors or owners of said town to donate to said new county for the purpose of erect ing public buildings, a quantity of lots of an aver age value with the remaining ones, which together shall amount to twenty acres of land, or shall donate and give in lieu thereof not less than $5,- 000. And if said commissioners shall locate said county seat on land not having been laid off into town lots, they shall secure the title to not less than twenty acres to and for the use of said new county, and the court house shall be located on the same. Sec 4. That the legal voters of said county shall meet at the several places of holding elections on the first Monday in June next, and proceed to elect county officers, and returns of said election shall be made by the judges and clerks to the justices of the peace of said county; said justices shall meet at the town of Princeton, within seven days after said election, and proceed to open said returns, and in all things perform the duties required by law of the clerks of the county commissioners courts, and j ustices of the peace in like cases. Sec 5. That the county commissioners court shall meet at Princeton within ten days after their election, and being first duly qualified shall proceed to appoint a clerk, and lay off the county into justices' districts and order an election to be held for the purpose of electing additional justices of the peace and constables for said county, and all officers elected agreeably to the provisions of this . act shall be commissioned and qualified as required by law; all officers shall hold their office until the next general election and until their successors are elected and qualified. Provided, That nothing in this section shall be so construed as to repeal out of office any justice of the peace or constable elected for the county of Putnam and living within the limits of said new county. Sec 6. Provides for the holding of courts at some suitable place, designated by the commission ers, until a court house and county building can be provided. The Circuit Court to be holden twice a year. Sec 7. Provides for the new county to vote in all elections, except county elections, with the districts to which the county belongs. Sec 8. Provides for the payment of $3 a day each to the commissioners selected above to locate the county seat. Approved February 28, 1837. CHAPTER VI. First the Explorer, then the Trafficker, then the Trap per and Hunter' — Their Curious Habits and Customs — Children of the Solitudes — What they Encountered — Hog and Hominy— The Shirt-Tail Age — Houses and Fur- niturf. — Suffering for Bread — Anecdotes— Some of the Experiences of Pioneer Children — To Your Guns I! — Expe rience of a Boy at First Hotel — He Hears a Gong — Sup poses the House Busted — Two Dollars and a Half a Day ¦ and Eats Bread and Water — Witches, Wizzards and the Horrors of Superstitution — How People Forted — Weddings — Dancing and one- Eyed Fiddlers — Bottle Race — How Peo ¦ ple Dressed — Salute Your Bride— Going to Housekeep ing — etc., etc. " He knew each pathway through the wood, Each dell unwarmed by sunshine's gleam, Where the brown pheasant led her brood, Or wild deer came to drink the stream." — John H. Bryant. THERE is much of romance in the story of the first white men who came to the West, who saw what is now this county, when only the savage and wild beast held possession of this rich and beautiful spot of our continent. The spirit of adventure allured these pioneers into this vast wilderness. The first was the lonely adventurer who cared only for the chase and the eternal solitudes, and some times the white men who had, from crime, but more often from an instinctive love of wild life, abandoned civilized homes and had hid themselves away from light, and become Indians to all practical purposes, preferring their barbarous freedom to the trammels of civilization. From the first landing of emi grants on the Atlantic shores, there was 70 HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. always a portion of the whites who looked upon the wild man of the country they found here, and at once they were ready and eager to abandon civilized life and become savages, and of these men often were the most danger ous and cruel enemies of the white race. They would cast their fortunes among the Indians, become bad savages, marry a squaw and they and their half-breed posterity would wage the most cruel and vindictive warfare and murder, against the pioneers. When this class of first white savages was ever here will never be known, as one peculiarity of them was, they cut off all communication or love for their own race when once they aban doned it, and they never returned. They would, as far as possible, hide every trace of white blood about them, and they never were visible except when sometimes their bodies were found among the dead, in skirmishes and fights with the settlers, as when a ma rauding expedition after loot and scalps had been overtaken by the just avengers and slain. These white savages generally attached themselves to a particular tribe, and remained with them and would seek the position of chiefs and rulers. Yet some of them, mur derers and fugitives from justice in their native homes, would pass from tribe to tribe, the vilest of criminals and cowardly assassins, and thus like the wandering Jew, they found no place of rest. In this way there were white men possibly here 100 years before the discovery of the country by Joliet. They never returned to tell their white brethren of the countries they had seen. Hence the whites along the Lawrence only learned through the occasional Indians that visited their trading posts, that there was a great river in this part of the world, and that it emptied into the Pacific Ocean. In a preceding chapter we have given an account of the discoveries of this country and of the first attempts at settlement and the permanent possession of it. For more than 100 years their lodgement was temporary and sporadic, caused often by the change of empire and the national contentions of the French, English and the Spaniards. It was finally the Anglo-Saxon pioneers who came and " planted their feet, never to take them up." It was to traffic with the Indians, exchange those engines of civilization, trink ets, whisky and eventually powder, with the untutored savage for his pelts and furs. They were backed by the pious missionaries of the Catholic Church, bearing the cross and the pictures of Calvary, that were the first genial rays of the sweetness of civilization, in the noisome wilderness. The footsteps of the hardy trapper and hunter accompanied these traders and churchmen, and the latter were finally the little nucleus around which gathered the oncoming hosts that have truly made the wilderness to bloom as the rose. These men came in the hunt of homes for themselves and their children. The ad venturous spirit started them, but when they looked upon the country they had dreams of its great future, and were content to fix their lot where there was so much to gladden and encourage them. The beauties and nat ural wealth of the country pleased the eye, and the abundance of wild game gratified their passion for hunting and solved the problem, in one respect, in the struggle for life. They were surrounded by enemies, fierce and formidable. The luxuriant vege table growths rotting in the autumn sun was the breeding place, especially in the lagoons, marshes and wet prairies, and in the river bottoms, of malaria that poisoned the air. and carried sickness and death on its wines. The cunning and treacherous Indian with his horrid scalping-knife was everywhere in am bush or in bold war paint to assassinate and HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 71 torture the old or the young, the innocent and defenceless. But these bold borderers flinched not from the perils that beset them on every side; even the women and children at times were called upon and did perform deeds of cool valor and heroism from which the strong iron nerves of men might well have quaked. These dauntless couriers blaz ing the way to the heart of the wilderness for civilization, who slept with one hand al ways on their trusty rifles, whose minds were ever keenly alive to the dangerous surround ings, encompassed on every side with the limitless solitudes, like the lost mariner, " alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide, wide sea, " must have had brave souls to thus endure and suffer and struggle through the great problem of mankind as they did, and lay the foundations for that grand structure for the millions of happy and prosperous people, who now are reaping where they sowed. They had no opportunity for the cultiva tion of the arts and elegancies of refined life. In their trying ordeal, in their oppressive solitude, there arose a peculiar condition of society, elsewhere unknown. The little allowance of corn meal, often, that they brought with them, was too soon expended, and sometimes for weeks and months they lived literally without bread. The lean ven ison, and the breast of the wild turkey they would then call bread, and the fat portions of the bear was meat. This was a wretched artifice, and resulted in disease and sickness, when circumstances compelled them to in dulge in it too long. They would become gradually weaker and weaker, oppressed vjith a constant feeling of an empty stomach, and the poor women and children would pass the dull hours in watching the potato tops, pumpkin and squash vines, hoping from day to day to get something to answer the place of bread. The writer has been told by those who had witnessed these things, that they had eaten the young pumpkins as soon as the blossoms would drop off the end. What a delight and joy, then, were the first young potatoes ! What a jubilee, the first young corn, with its grains half grown, eaten raw or cooked! And how all this pleasure was intensified when the corn had become hard enough for the tin grater, and the glorious johnny-cake was turned piping hot off of the baking board. These were as the harbingers from heaven, bringing health, vigor and content to all. The first houses, if they can be so called, were merely brush sheds, that were but the slightest protection against the elements, and none at all against the thieving Indians and prowling wild beasts, and at times the little family would be compelled to take their turns of standing sentinel during the night, while the others snatched the short sleep that exhausted nature made compulsory. The furniture for the table for some years consisted of a few pewter dishes, plates and sometimes a spoon, wooden bowl, trencher and noggin, gourds from the hard-shelled squashes, and the cooking uteDsil was an iron skillet. These, with some salt, had been brought often on horse-back, and on this single horse often were the household goods, and the wife and child, while the husband led the way on foot with his rifle on his shoulder. Corn-bread for breakfast and dinner, and mush and milk for supper. Meat was always abundant; the wild hogs were nearly as abundant as the many varie ties of game and fish that were easily ob tained. At first game abounded; deer and bear were in great abundance. Soon after the Indians had gone, and the country was occu pied by the sparse settlements of the whites, the woods were filled with wild hogs. In the 72 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". winter, when they flocked, the prairie chickens were so abundant that at times the fences and trees were literally lined with them, and the beating of the air by their multitudinous wings as they arose from their perches or from feeding places would sound like distant thunder. Wild turkeys, quail, and the trees apparently full of squirrels, were all rather too contemptible for these hunters to waste their ammunition upon. When the bear had gone, the prize game was the graceful and bounding deer that sometimes grazed and frolicked upon the rich prairie grasses, the graceful and toothsome successors to their more noble congeners — the buffalo; as in the woods the wild hog had come in the place of the panther and bear. In the spring and fall the migrating geese, swans and ducks and other fowls at times filled the river and lakes, feeding upon the wild rice, from which in countless thousands they would rise and fly along in front of the lone canoe or the bat- teau as it came and went with the Indian or pioneer. Meat was always abundant and of easy access, until immigration came so plen tifully that the domestic animals usurped the places of the wild game. It probably was the second crop of pioneers who depended mainly upon the wild hogs in the woods for their standard article of meat. Hominy- mills and the old fashioned lye hominy (the only kind that was ever fit to eat) were the chief reliance for bread, and the phrase ' 'hog and hominy" was not a meaningless one. And for the information of posterity it is not amiss to tell, that there was once a period of time in the West that is fitly designated as the "hog and hominy" age. In fact, men who were here as boys, and from whose memories we gather these facts, will tell you with a sly twinkle of the eye that in their own case they associate another national characteristic of that age of "hog and hominy," and that was the "shirt tail age." Some boys were, with the full knowl edge of the old folks, ready to go "sparking" when the first pair of pants was ready to don. There certainly was not as much style among young people as we find now. There were more children then to the family than now, and much less for them to badger their brains about wearing. An anecdote is told — of course it is not true, but it serves to illustrate some of the econo my of the times — of a man who had too many children to array them in silks and fine linens. So, in the warm months of the year, he had prepared a gum for each and set them conveniently about the cabin. At the ap proach of a visitor he would yell, "Gums !" when each would take to his retreat, and no other part of their person would ever appear above the top of the gum except the child's Dr. Doddridge, in his diary, tells something of his recollections as a pioneer child; how he saw the first teacup and saucer, and for the first time tasted coffee. When six years old he had lost his mother, and was sent to Bedford, Md. Here he saw his first tavern. What a new world was this to him. It was made of stone, and more astounding still, it was all plastered inside, both the walls and ceiling. On going into the dining-room he was still more amazed and stupefied with wonder. He had never before supposed there was a house in the world but that was made of logs and had only one room; but here was a house and he could see no logs, and strang er still, on looking up he could see no joists. Had all this been made by the hand of man or had it so grown itself, he could not con jecture. He was afraid to ask questions about it. When at the table he watched at tentively to see what the ' ' big folks " would do with their little cups and spoons; he imi- HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 73 tated them and found the taste of the coffee exceedingly nauseous, but he continued to drink it as did the rest until the tears were streaming from his eyes, and when the tor ture was ever to end, he could not guess, as each little cup would be again filled as soon as it was emptied. His distress grew to agony, and he dared not say he had enough. Watch ing closely, he finally saw one turn his cup bottom upward and put his spoon across it, and then his cup was not filled any more, and this hint being acted upon stopped the pro longed agony of the young pioneer. The writer will never forget his first expe rience in a big, fine hotel. He was sixteen years old, and had seen only the big prairies of Southern Illinois; had once been to St. Louis, distant twenty miles from the farm on which he spent his boyhood, but had helped drive some hogs to market, and they all camped during the trip and though be wildered at the long row of big houses, he saw nothing of the inside of any of them. He had been dressed up in resplendent suit of "ready made," of the $10 pattern (cer tainly the -finest dressed lad in the world) and with 1105 in silver, had been started to find his way alone and enter Jefferson Col lege in Washington County, Penn. His first steamboat ride was from St. Louis to Pitts burgh. He had been warned against all strangers, and with the weight of the silver in his pocket, sleeping with it clutched, and in dread of fell robbers all the time, his expe riences in that twenty days from starting point to destination, would of themselves make a book of romance. He landed at Pittsburgh about midnight and the boat's porter shouldered his hair trunk, and for half a dollar landed boy and trunk in the Monongahela House. What a world! What an overpowering vastness and strangeness was here for him. He was at once taken to his room and the experienced colored porter kindly showed him how to turn off the gas. When alone in his room, the door securely locked, he drew a long breath of relief and began a survey of his surroundings. His eyes saw a printed card on the door that was full of interest, as well as conveying some information that was stunning in its effects, the most distinct item of which he can now recall was that each guest would be charged $2.50 a day. Merciful heavens! what new planet was this, where money flowed in a golden stream that enabled people to pay $2.50 a day for board which in Illinois could be had for 50 cents a week! and he went to bed and eventually was overcome by sleep, to dream of traveling from new worlds to other worlds, where the humblest house would pierce the clouds, and its immensity fill all visible space; the men as large as the mam moths of old, each with pockets as large as the boot of a Jersey coach, and all stuffed with gold. He was up and dressed, as was his habit on the farm, the next morning at early daylight, and hunted his way down stairs in some trepidation lest he was too late for breakfast. Upon reaching the hotel office, he saw the clerk, that marvellous de velopment of the century, and the first look was like annihilation; there sat the " fronts" on a long bench, and the splendors of the marble tesselated floors and the awful grandeur of the general surround ings were only equaled by the clerk and waiters, who were too immense to be ordinary mortals. The overwhelmed lad wondered if these great people knew or suspected he was fresh from an Illinois farm, and an expert at "splitting middles" in the corn rows. Was ever a boy in the hunt of an education so abashed? He finally found his way into the reading-room, where some of the earliest risers had soon gathered, and 74 HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY", were busy looking over the morning papers, and in a hurry for an early breakfast. A mir ror in one end of the room gave it the appear ance of being miles and miles in length, and this illusion was fearfully real to the strange boy. Another thing he noticed was, that below were steam works, and this added to the bewildering immensity of the place. A gong suddenly started its deafening noise — the first the boy had ever heard — and instantly he supposed the steam works had exploded. The people started up, and the frightened lad bolted out into the office; there were the clerk and the bell boys, happy and serene. The sudden shock of the sup posed explosion — the real could not have been more real or the horror more sudden and appalling — then the counter shock — instantly in looking at that calm and majestic face of the clerk, was the realization that the world was not a wreck, in fact, that there was no explosion at all, but only a hideous and hor rid din, calling the boarders to breakfast. Did that terrible clerk know why the lad had rushed so headlong out of the reading-room and into the office ? No, he was too immense to see anything short of a paste diamond, and, thank heaven, he thereby missed the funniest sight a traveling innocent ever presented. In a moment the traveler rallied his scat tered senses and demurely followed the crowd to the breakfast-room. A long table ran the length of the room, and the youth found a seat finally, after all else had been accommodated. Before him was a plate turned, a knife and fork, a glass turned, and on it a slim piece of stale bread, and he fur tively looked up and down the long table, and this was all it contained. $2. 50 a day ! and in all his life he had never seen hungry people set down to quite as slim fare as that ! A waiter, whose style was frightfully magni ficent, poured out a tumbler of water and the lad fell to work, just as he had been accus tomed all his life, to eating what was before him, bread and water though it was. And when he had finished his glass of water the colored waiter again filled it, and in less than five minutes he had devoured all in sight and he could see no further usefulness for him there and he got up and walked out, feeling as though he would not begrudge the $2.50 for a home breakfast of honest fry and fatty biscuit. To this day he remembers a most peculiar look in the faces of the waiters as he passed out. What did it mean, anyhow ? Among all the earliest settlers the men wore hunting-shirts. This was a loose frock, reaching half way down the thighs, with large sleeves, and open before, and so wide as to lap over when belted. It generally had a large cape and was made of cloth or buckskin. The bosom served as a wallet, to hold bread, jerk, tow for wiping the gun, or any other necessary article for the warrior or hunter. The belt, which was tied behind, answered several purposes besides that of holding the dress together. Moccasins for the feet and generally a coon-skin cap, completed the dress. In wet weather the moccasins were only a " decent way of going barefooted," and caused much rheumatism among the peo ple. The linsey petticoat and bed-gown were the dress of the women in early times, and a Sunday dress was completed by a pair of home-made shoes and a handker chief. The people "forted" when the Indians threatened them. The stockades, bastions, and cabins were furnished with port-holes. The settlers would occupy their cabins and reluctantly move into the block-house when the alarm was given. Couriers would pass around in the dead hours of the night to warn the people of danger, and in the silence of death and darkness the family would HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 75 hastily dress and gather what few things they could carry or put their hands on in the darkness and hurry to the fort. The settlers, as a rule, married young. Here were no distinctions in rank, and but little in fortune, and nearly the only source of amusement that was enjoyed by all was the wedding; this was anticipated from the time announced until the gay frolic was over, with the keenest anticipations by the whole people of the country for miles around. Any other general gathering of the people was either a log-rolling or a house-raising, where the men had to precede the night's roystering with a day of hard work. But at the wed ding alone, it was different. All the world, at least every one who heard of the affair in time to get there, was invited. This would be the only invitation issued to even the closest friends, and the welcome was as cor dial as the implied invitation had been uni versal. At the cabin of the bride the people would begin to assemble at an early hour — the whole family, from the cradle to the white-haired sire and matron with weak and trembling voices and the bent forms of great age, tottering to the seats of honor by the favorite side at the fire-place, or, if the weather was warm, at the side of the door; and these dear old "grandsirs " would catch the infection of the occasion, grow gleesome and garrulous about the long ago, kindling the fires of nearly extinct memories, until their blood would once more course through their veins in a rush and flow that would lighten up their eyes with the erstwhile flames of their lusty youth. During all the fore noon the people would continue to come, till about the hour of high noon. Cooking, chatting, joking and welcoming guests, with out the slightest show of formality anywhere, gave all something to do or say. The young girls in some secluded spot — perhaps, if only one room in the house, a sheet hung across the corner of the room — busy arranging the bride, and in the greatest glee, joking and talking, tittering and laughing ; the married people nursing their children, assisting in the cooking and preparing the long table (generally a couple of bare planks on wooden trussels), or exchanging sweet gossip with their neighbors ; the young men standing ' about the premises in quiet groups, trying to talk about the weather, crops, or a coon hunt, and all the time distracting their attention from each other's words by furtive glances toward the girls. If there was a low rail fence in front of the house they perched upon this, or standing with one foot on the third rail, busily whittling their riding switch; and further away down the line of fences were the young men's saddle horses and the family wagons standing hitched. In the meantime there is at the home of the groom an assembling of the young men on horseback. They are to be his gay escort to the wedding, and one is selected before they leave the house to run the "race for the bottle." At the house of the bride are out looks for this groom's cavalcade, and when discovered in the distance, the young folks, boys and girls, mount their horses and start to meet them, having first made their selec tion to contend in the race on behalf of the bride and against the groom's man. They meet at some point where there is a long stretch of straight road and the riders prepare and the race is run. What fun alive! Whether old plow horses or burr-tailed colts, under whip and spur, they do their best, and the winner takes the bottle (generally an old black bottle gaily-rigged out in nar row pink ribbons) and this, marching at the head of the crowd, he holds aloft— the proud and envied hero of the day. When this joyful procession reaches the house, the 76 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. groom is conducted to the bride, the preacher takes up his position in front of the door, the people press around, and all is hushed; the happy pair emerge, and just stepping out side the door, stop in the close presence of the preacher and slowly and solemnly he asks "John, wilt thou?" and " Mary Jane, wilt thou?" and then by the authority of heaven and the power of the law, he impress ively pronounces them man and wife. ''Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder. Salute your bride!" Then % follows dinner, and immediately after that dancing. The afternoon, the eve ning, all the night long until breakfast next morning, a single fiddle, the fiddler generally one-eyed and beating time with his foot, and away the high- stepping, fleet-footed dancing racers go; pirouetting, bounding like India rubber, whirling, double- shuffle, pigeon's- wing, the reel, the jig, the hoe-down, the walk - talk - ginger-blue, terpsichore ! what dancing, what life, what endurance! filling their innocent hearts with gladness and their legs with soreness and pain. The "infair," the day after the wedding, at the house of the groom's parents, would be simply a continuation of this feasting aDd dancing for another twenty-four hours. Then, in a few days, the men all assemble and by night the cabin for the new couple is com pleted and they move in, and commence the serious work of married life — and the wed ding is over. The tin grater, the hominy block, the hand- mill and the sweep, and the ox-mill and fin ally the water mill were the order of the coming of the mechanic arts in bread mak ing. Nearly every family was its own tanner, weaver, shoemaker, tailor, carpenter, black smith and miller. The first water-mill, or even horse-mill, was a grand advance in the solid comforts of civilization. Amusements often are imitations of the business of life, or at least of some of its particular objects of pursuit. Many of the sports of the early settlers were imitative of the exercises and strategems of hunting and war. Boys were taught the use of the bow and arrow at an early age, and acquired con siderable expertness in their use. One im portant pastime was learning to imitate the noise or call of every bird or beast in tjhe forest. This faculty was a very necessary part of education, on account of its utility in certain circumstances. The imitation of gobbling and other calls of the turkey often brought these keen-eyed denizens of the woods within easy range of the hunter's rifle. The bleating of the fawn brought its dam to her death in the same way. The hunter often would collect a company of mppish owls to the trees about 'him and amuse him self with their hoarse screaming. His howl would raise and obtain a response from a pack of wolves, so as to inform him of their neighborhood, and thus guard him against their prowling depredations. This imitative talent was often used as a protection or a deception of the enemy in the strategy of war. The Indians would often when scattered about in a neighborhood, call themselves to gether, by the turkey calls by day and the howling like wolves by night. And some times a whole people would be thrown into the greatest consternation by the screeching of an owl. Throwing the tomahawk was another amusement in which often great skill was acquired. This instrument, with a handle a certain length, will make a certain number of revolutions in a given distance. At one distance, thrown at a tree, it will stick with the handle down, and at another distance with the handle up. Practice would soon enable the boy to throw it, and with his eye HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 77 so accurately measure the distance as to stick it any way he might choose. Wrestling, running and jumping were the athletic sports , of the young men. A boy at twelve or thir teen years of age, when possible to do so, was furnished with a rifle, and in killing game he would soon become an expert. Then he was a good fort soldier, and would be as signed his port-hole in case of an attack. Among the early settlers of the Missis sippi Valley was a wide-spread belief in witchcraft. This was true at that time over nearly all the Old World. To the witch was ascribed the power of inflicting new and strange diseases, particularly incurable dis eases on children; of secretly destroying cat tle by shooting them with hair balls propelled from noiseless witch guns; and a great variety of other modes of destruction. Hunters, even to a recent date, had no doubt but that witches could put " spells " on their guns, or that men were changed into horses, whom the witches would bridle and saddle, and ride at full speed over hill, dale and moun tain, and through the air to all parts of the world, to attend the witches' pow-wows at their distant places of rendezvous. They would return the poor human horse to his bed and sleep just before daylight; but, es pecially in children's hair, would be found the witches' stirrups, that the child would fully and painfully realize when these tan gles were being combed out by the mother. The horrid and fatal powers of the witches were ample, their works abundant, their wrecks everywhere, calling up men's dread aDd fears, and appalling and weakening in their forces men's reason and intellect. States and Government invoked the laws to stamp out this terrible evil, and witches were hunted out, drowned, burned and executed in various ways. Accusers were encouraged, and it soon came to be a fact that to be ac cused was to be condemned. The victims would be thrown into the water, if they sank and drowned this proved they were innocent, if they swam ashore this proved their guilt, and according to law they were at once exe cuted. A community which could make such laws were terribly in earnest, and certainly sincere and honest in their beliefs. They s aw their own and their neighbors' cattle dy ing of the murrain; and was not this plainly the work of the witches? Cases of epilepsy, fits, insanity, strange fevers, in fact, the mul titudes of diseases which they could not un derstand, and if not witches' work, what could it be? The first victims were always old, ugly women, especially if they lived alone; then, when these did not furnish vic tims enough, others were selected and exe cuted. The ablest men then living had no doubt but that there were plenty of witches, and the most learned divines denounced them as satraps of the devil ; learned judges from the bench sent them to the rack and the gibbet. No one doubted, and many of the accused confessed, and told wonderful stories of their crimes and orgies, and would some times even beg to be executed. People throughout the Christian world were thus murdered by the hundred thousand, and mat ters had reached that climax that when one neighbor desired to be rid of another, all he had to do was to lodge a complaint against him of being a witch, until fathers deserted and denounced their own children, children accused their parents, neighbors suspected each other and horrid suspicions began to reach all, and the dark wings of death and universal gloom hovered over the world like a hideous pall, and by its growing intensity the public craze burned itself out and men began to sober up from the mad frenzy of the hour. The first step toward a cure probably was 78 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". the appearance , of the "wizards." These were men, witch doctors, who were supposed to possess all the evil power of the witches, but instead of generally exercising them for bad purposes they would cure those afflicted by witches, and in many occult ways thwart the spirits in their fell works. These witch doctors boldly stood in the way of the ma levolent influences of the bad spirits. Hence they were called witch-masters, and from patient to patient they practiced their pro fession as regular physicians. They would make "silver tea" (boil a silver coin in water) and give it to the sick cattle. They would carry to the bed-side their witch balls (made of deer and cow's hair) and in a strange manner, and muttering a wild jar gon, pass them over the sufferers, and exor cise the evil ones. One mode of cure was to make a picture of the supposed witch on a stump, and shoot at it a bullet in which was a small portion of silver. This bullet, it was supposed, transferred to the real witch a pain ful, sometimes a mortal spell, on that por tion of the witches' body corresponding to the part of the picture struck by the bullet. Other and many disgusting practices were employed as remedies, and the witch had but one way of relieving itself of any spell thus inflicted, and that was to borrow something, no matter what, of the family to which the witches' victim belonged. Thus often would an old woman only discover that she was a ' ' suspect " when she had applied to borrow of a neighbor, and had been peremptorily refused. Cattle were sometimes burned in the forehead with a branding- iron, or when dead, burned to ashes. This, it was held, inflicted a spell on the witch, which could only be removed by borrowing as above re cited. Witches would constantly milk their neighbors' cows. This, it was believed, they could do by fixing a new pin in a new towel, one for each cow milked, and hanging the towel over the door and then by incantations the milk would be extracted from the fringes of the towel, after the manner of milking a cow. Singularly enough, the cows were never milked by the witches, except when they had about gone dry for the want of proper feed. It is stated as a historical fact that the German glass-blowers once drove the witches out of their furnaces by throw ing living puppies into them. The Voudoo was brought to this country with the captured slaves from the jungles of Africa, and it is here yet, and in some form believed in by a majority of the negroes in the country. It is but another form of witchcraft. It is the negroes' horrid incanta tion and magic, and in the cauldron where is boiled the voudoo, instead of ' ' tongue of viper and leg of newt " are human remains, robbed of graves opened at midnight. Noth ing, save the imagination of Edgar A. Poe, can equal in repulsive horrors the genuine voudoo. In the year 1790 a black slave was hung at Cahokia, who acknowledged that by his power of devilish incantations, he had "poi soned and killed his master; but that his mistress had proved too powerful for his necromancy." In the same village another slave was shot down in the street for his diabolism. One of the first acts of the first civil Governor of Illinois, John Tod, was an order to the Sheriff to take from the jail a convict negro slave, to the water's edge, burn him and scatter his ashes to the four winds of heaven for voudooism. The red children of the forest were as superstitious as the whites or blacks in regard to witches. The One-eyed Prophet, a brother of Tecumseh, who commanded at the battle of Tippecanoe, in obedience, he said, to the commands of the great Manitou, ful minated the penalty of death against those HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 79 who practiced the black art of witchcraft or magic. A number of Indians were tried, convicted, condemned, tomahawked and con sumed on a pyre. The chief's wife, his ne- jahew, Billy Patterson, and one named Joshua, were accused of witchcraft. The two latter were convicted and burned; but a brother of the chief's wife boldly stepped forward, seized his sister and led her from the Coun cil house, and then, returned and harangued the savages, exclaiming: "Manitou, the evil spirit has come in our midst, and we are murdering one another! " It is a sad confession that no civilized white man had the sense or courage thus to rebuke the murderers among his own people. Pity that this one-eyed savage could not have been employed and empowered as a mission ary, to go among civilized people and save them from their own murderous superstitions. In the history of the world, the most revolt ing cruelties have been the inflictions of superstitious ignorance, and were it not yet a matter of daily demonstration, one could not easily believe how long these prejudices held fast in people's minds, and how when they are crushed in one shape, they will duly appear in some other form. The fell mon ster that has ever laid waste and made des olate the earth, is the earnest bigot, full of error and superstition, holding toward heaven in supplication, hands dripping with the blood of innocent mothers and prattling babes. CHAPTER VII. The Name of Bureau County— How it Came— The First Five Families— Who They Were — Bulbona, John Dixon, Charles S. Boyd, Henry Thomas— Some Lively Sketches and Anec dotes — Death and Burial of John Dixon— Gurdon S. Hub bard — The Ancients — First Postmaster — Oldest Living Set tler — Abuam Stratton — His Remarkable Trip in 1829 — Sketch of Him — The Briqhams— Total First Tax Bureau County — Remarkable Career of John H. Boyd — Three BaOTHERS-IN-LAW — DANIEL SMITH'S DEATH, THE FlRST IN THE County — His Widow— etc., etc. "To each are compensations given That make conditions nearly even." *. from which we swerved some little in the preceding chapter, in our account of the old settlers and their meetings and records, HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. Ill we will devote some considerable space in this chapter to those facts and circumstances as we have gleaned them of the early settlers, and the course of their lives here when all was new and wild. , Oliver Kellogg, brother-in-law of Dixon and Boyd, was among the earliest pioneers in this section, and when the route from Galena became a traveled road, it went by the name of Kellogg's trail, for many years. As early as 1829, Meredith's, Thomas's, Boyd's, Inlet's, Dixon's and Kellogg's were noted places, as well as the old Bulbona and Lone Tree, the latter giving its name to Lone Tree Postoffice. From the earliest times this great, solitary tree, standing alone in the wide expanse of prairie, was widely known. It was a grand old oak that for ages had lifted its boughs and defied the storms and pointed the way to the lonely travelers, hunters and trappers; and when civilization began to hunt out this part of the world, it was a noted beacon, a towering sentinel that told the weary pioneers that they were upon the borders of the promised land. This historic tree died some twenty years ago, and was blown down, and Mr. E. "Anderson, who had become the owner of the ground on which it stood, had made a pasture about it, and it is supposed the continuous tramping of stock was partly the cause of its eventual decay. We are indebted to An drew Anderson for a small block of this Lone Tree, which is now doing service as a paper weight on our table. When we are through with it, it will be suitably identified and placed in the custody of the Illinois Historical Association. Lone Tree is about the center of Wheat land Township, in the southern part of Bu reau County. In the spring of 1831 Putnam County was first organized into a municipality, and pos sessed of legal functions. Then new bound aries were given the county, that is, to the boundaries in the act of 1825, authorizing the county when sufficient population was had to organize. At that time (1831) the whole country north and west of Bureau set tlement to Galena and northeast including Chicago were in the bounds. According to the act of the Legislature on the first Mon day in March, 183 1, at the house of Capt. Will iam Haws,* an election for county officers was held, and to put the wheels of the new county government in operation. John M. Gay was elected one of the Commissioners of the new county, and Dr. N- Chamberlain was appointed School Commissioner. These were both Bureau County men, and at the time they were living in Bureau Precinct, Putnam County. Bureau Precinct included all of the present county and parts of Stark and Mar shall Counties. At the first election, August 18, 1831, there were just nineteen votes in Bureau Precinct, as follows: Henry Thomas, Elijah Epperson, Mason Dimmick, Leonard Roth, John M. Gay, Samuel Glason, Curtiss Williams, John and Justus Ament, J. W. Hall, Henry Harrison, Abram Stratton, Eze- kiel Thomas, Hezekiah and Anthony Epper son, E. H. Hall, Adam Taylor, Daniel Dim mick and Thomas Washburn. This vote in Bureau Precinct was given as follows, on Candidates for Congress: Joseph Duncan, 10; Sidney Breese. 1; Edward Cole, 6; James Turney, 2. As Duncan was the " out and outer " Democrat perhaps in the race, we may be safe in saying that the first vote ever polled of the good people of what is now Bureau County was unmistakably Democratic. In the month of May, 1831, the first court of Putnam County met The grand jury list * This was Capt. Haws of the Black Hawk war, and whose company was composed of several Bureau men, and who served with him during that war. His house, at which this first elec tion was held, was near where Magnolia now is. 112 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". shows the names of Elijah Epperson, Henry Thomas, Leonard Roth, Abram Stratton, John Knox and Mr. Gaylord. On the petit jury were Sylvester Brigham, Ezekiel Thomas, Eli Redmon, Justin Ament and William Morris. This court was at the trading-house of Thomas Hartzell, a well-known place to every old settler. Gurdon S. Hubbard. — Our attention has just been called to a letter from Mr. Hubbard to the old settlers of Putnam County, and as this gives us some important facts in refer ence to this county, we extract the following: " Thomas Hartzell, who was a Pennsylvanian by birth, was at that time, 1824, trading on the river below in opposition to the American Fur Company. In 1824-25, he succeeded Beaubien in the employment of the company. There was a house just below, across the ravine, built by Antoine Bourbonnais (Bul bona), also an opposition trader, but who, like Hartzell, went into the employ of the Fur Company under a yearly salary. My trading post after leaving Beaubien was at the mouth of Crooked Creek till 1826, when I located on the Iroquois River, where I continued in the employ of the company till 1830, when I bought them out. The last time I visited the place where the old trading-house stood, the chimney was almost all that remained. It was built almost wholly of clay, upon a frame-work of wood, being supported by stakes stuck firmly in the ground, the whole daubed inside and out with clay mortar. The hearth was of dry clay pounded hard. It was the custom to build rousing fires, and this soon baked and hardened the chimney and gave it durability. The roof was made of puncheons, the cracks well daubed with clay and long grass laid on top and kept in place by logs of small size. The sides of the house consisted of logs kept in place by posts sunk in the ground. The ends were sapling logs set in the ground upright to the roof. A rough door at one end and a window composed of a sheet of foolscap paper, well greased, completed the building. It was warm and comfortable, and under the roof many an Indian was hospitably entertained. " Hubbard further tells of the great buffalo herds he saw upon these prairies when he first came here, and that passing boats "were often delayed for hours by vast herds cross ing from side to side, among which it was dangerous to venture." Indians accounted for their disappearance by a deep snow and a long hard winter when thousands perished, and for years the whitening bones upon the prairies were evidences oE the truth of this story. Peoria and Galena Road. — This became a prominent thoroughfare in 1827. The first road connecting Peoria and the Lead Mines (Galena) passed by Rock Island, and this was a long and difficult route. John Dixon, Charles S. Boyd and Kellogg had hunted out this new, shorter and better road, and at the time of the Winnebago war, 1827, Col. Neale, with 600 volunteers from southern Illinois passed over this new trail. Soon after this road was opened, droves of cattle and hogs, with emigrant and mining wagons, as well as a daily mail coach, passed over it, which made it one of the great thor oughfares of the West. For a number of years after this road was opened, only six cabins were built along its entire length, and these stood fifteen or twenty miles apart, so as to entertain travelers. Besides these six cabins, no marks of civilization could be seen between Peoria and Galena, and the country through which it passed was still in the possession of Indians. This road originally passed through the head of Boyd's Grove, over the town site of Providence, a few rods west of Wyanet, and HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY". 113 by Red Oak Grove. Afterward it was changed to pass through Dad Joe Grove, and in 1833 it was made to pass through Tiskilwa and Princeton. In the spring of 1831 Dad Joe received a large, sealed package, wrapped around with red tape, and inscribed " Official Documents." On opening it an order was found from the Commissioner's Court of Jo Daviess County, notifying him that he w%,s appointed Overseer of Highways, and fixing his district from the north line of Peoria County to Rock River, a distance of sixty-five miles. In this dis trict Dad Joe could only find four men, be sides himself, to work on this sixty-five miles of road. In 1833 an act passed the Legislature to survey and permanently locate the Peoria and Galena road, and appointed Charles S. Boyd, J. B. Merrideth, and Dad Joe, Com missioners for that purpose. Although this road had been traveled for six years, it had never been surveyed or legally established, and with the exception of bridging one or two sloughs, no work had been done on it. The Commissioners met at Peoria for the pur pose of commencing their work, and at the ferry, now Front Street, they drove the first stake. A large crowd of people had col lected on that occasion, as the location of the road was to them a matter of some conse quence. Dad Joe, mounted on old Pat, ap peared to be the center of attraction, as he was well known by every one about Peoria. Eight years previously he was a resident of Peoria, and while acting as one of the County Commissioners he had located the county seat there, and by him the name of the place was changed from Fort Clark to Peoria. Many of the old settlers will recollect old Pat, Dad Joe's favorite horse, which was ridden or driven by him for more than twenty years, and he became almost as well known in the settlement as hiB noted master. He was a dark sorrel horse, with foxy ears, a star in the forehead, a scar on the flank, and was always fat and sleek. It was this horse that young Joe rode when he carried the Govern or's dispatch from Dixon's Ferry to Fort Wilburn, as previously stated. Among the crowd that had .collected around the Commissioners on this occasion, was John Winter, a mail contractor, and owner of the stage line between Peoria and Galena. Many stories of early times were told by those present, funny jokes passed, and all were enjoying the fun, when Winter offered to stake the choice of his stage horses against old Pat, that he could throw Dad Joe down. Now Dad Joe was no gambler, and would not have exchanged old Pat for all of Winter's horses; but being fond of fun, he said in his loud tone of voice, which could have been heard for half a mile, " Winter, I'll be blessed if I don't take that bet." Dad Joe was a thick, heavy-set man, of remarkable physical power, and wore at the time a long hunting-shirt with a large rope tied around his waist. Winter was a spare, active man, a great champion in wrest ling, and wore a pair of fine cloth panta loons, made tight in accordance with the fashion of the day. When all the prelimin aries were arranged, and the parties had taken hold, Winter sang out, " Dad, are you ready?" to which Dad replied, "All ready, Winter, God bless you." Winter, as quick as thought, attempted to knock his adver sary's feet from under him, but instead of doing so, he was raised off the ground, and held there by the strong arm of Dad Joe. Winter kicked and struggled to regain his footing, but all to no purpose; at the same time his tight pantaloons burst open. At last he said, " Dad, for God's sake let me down, and you shall have the best horse in 114 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. my barn." Dad Joe released his hold, and Winter never either paid the bet or bantered the old man for another tussle.* The first wedding celebrated within the limits of Bureau County took place in the summer of 1830, and the parties were Leon ard Roth and Nancy Perkins, a daughter of Timothy Perkins. The license was obtained at the county clerk's office in Peoria, and the parties were married by Elijah Epperson. There were some doubts about Mr. Epper son's authority to administer the marriage rite, as it was obtained through his church relation some years before, while living in Kentucky, but there was no authorized per son, at that time, living within fifty miles of them, and the legality of the marriage was never questioned. For a few years after Putnam County was organized, John M. Gay, as Justice of the Peace, was the only person on the west side of the Illinois River authorized to administer the marriage rite. Abram Stratton and Miss Sarah Baggs deferred their wedding two weeks, waiting for Mr. Gay to obtain his commission, so he could marry them. Squire Gay was sent for to marry a couple at Per kins' Grove, whose names were Peter Har mon and Rebecca Perkins, a daughter of Timothy Perkins. Dave Jones, f — This individual became so notorious in the early settlement of the county, and figures so much in its history, that a further account of him may interest the reader. Dave Jones, or Devil Jones, as he was generally called, was a small, well- built man, with very dark skin, hair and eyes as black as a raven, and he had a wild, savage appearance. He was strong and active, a good wrestler and fighter, and but few men could compete with him. For a number of * N. Matson. f This account of Dave Jones is from N. Matson's Reminis cences. years he was a terror to the settlement, being feared both by whites and Indians. Jones came to the country in the spring of 1831, and built a cabin on the present site of Tis kilwa, but getting into trouble with the Indians, he traded his claim to Mr. McCor- mis for an old mare, valued at ten dollars, and two gallons of whisky. He next built a cabin near where Lomax's Mill now stands; a year or two later he went to Dimmick's Grove, and in 1835 he moved to Indiana, where he was hanged by a mob soon after his arrival. Many remarkable feats of Jones are still remembered by old settlers, some of which are worth preserving. In the spring of 1832 a dead Indian was found in the creek, near the present site of the Bureau Valley Mills, with a bullet-hole in his back, showing that he came to his death from a rifle shot. The corpse was taken out of the water by Indians, buried in the sand near by, and the affair was soon forgot ten. Jones said while hunting deer in the creek bottom, he saw this Indian sitting on a log over the water fishing, when all of a sud den he jumped up as though he was about to draw out a big fish, and pitched headlong into the water, and was drowned when he came up to him. Two other Indians disap peared mysteriously about the same time, who were supposed to have been murdered, and on that account, it is said, the Indians contemplated taking revenge on the settlers. One warm afternoon, Jones, with a jug in one hand, came cantering his old mare up to the Hennepin ferry, saying that his wife was very sick, and would certainly die if she did not get some whisky soon. In great haste Jones was taken across the river, and on land ing on the Hennepin side, he put his old mare on a gallop up the bluff to Durley's store, where he filled his jug with whisky. Meeting with some old chums, he soon l-h- ktMJ. HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 115 became intoxicated, forgot about his wife's sickness, and spent the afternoon and even ing in wrestling, dancing "Jim Crow," and having a fight with some of his friends. It was long after dark when Jones started for home, but on arriving at the ferry he found the boat locked up, and the ferryman in bed. Jones rapped at the door of the ferryman's house, swearing if he did not get up and take him across, he would pull the house down, and whip him besides. But all his threats were in vain ; the ferryman could not be moved. Jones went down to the river, took off the bridle reins, with which he tied the jug of whisky on his back, then drove his old mare into the river, and holding on to her tail, was ferried across the river, as he afterward expressed it, without costing him a cent. One afternoon, while Dave Jones was engaged in cutting out a road from Hennepin ferry through the bottom timber, his coat, which lay by the wayside, was stolen. Although the value of the old coat did not exceed two dollars, it was the only one Jones had, and he searched for it throughout the settlement. At last Jones found his coat on the back of the thief, whom he arrested and took to Hennepin for trial. The thief was at work in Mr. Hays' field, immediately west of Princeton, when Jones presented his rifle at his breast, ordering him to take up his line of march for Hennepin, and if he deviated from the direct course, he would blow his brains out. The culprit, shaking in his boots, started on his journey, while Jones, with his rifle on his shoulder, walked about three paces behind. On arriving at Henne pin the thief pleaded guilty, being more afraid of Jones than the penalties of the, law, and was therefore put iu jail. ^After Jones had delivered up his prisoner, he"got drunk, was engaged in several fights, and he too was arrested and put in jail. At that time the Hennepin jail consisted of only one room, being a log structure, twelve feet square, and Jones being put in with the thief, commenced beating him. Seeing that they could not live together, the thief was liberated and Jones retained. At this turn of affairs Jones became penitent, agreed to go home and behave himself, if they would let him out. Accordingly the sheriff took him across the river, and set him at liberty; but Jones swore he would not go home until he had whipped every person in Hennepin, so he returned to carry out his threats, but was again arrested and put in jail. A short time after the establishing of the Hennepin ferry, Dave Jones was on the Hennepin side of the river, with a yoke of wild cattle, and wished to cross over, but was unwilling to pay the ferriage. He swore before he would pay the ferryman's extrava gant price, he would swim the river, saying that he had frequently done it, and could do it again. Jones wore a long-tailed Jackson overcoat, which reached to his heels, and a coon-skin cap, with the tail hanging down over his shoulders, the weather at the time being quite cool. He drove his oxen into the river, taking the tail of one of them into his mouth, when they started for the oppo site shore. Away went the steers, and so went Dave Jones, his long hair and long- tailed overcoat floating on the water, his teeth tightly fastened to the steer's tail, while with his hands and feet he paddled with all his might. Everything went on swimmingly, until they came near the middle of the river, where the waters from each side of the island came together; here the current was too strong for the steers — they turned down stream, and put back for the Hennepin side. Jones could not open his mouth to say gee or haw, without losing his hold on the steer's tail, and was 116 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. therefore obliged to go where the steers led him, but all were safely landed some distance below the starting-place. Jones was in a terrible rage at his failure to cross the river — beat his cattle, and cursed the bystanders for laughing at his misfortune. After taking a big dram of whisky, he tried it again, but with no better success. Three different times Jones tried this experiment, each time whip ping his cattle and taking a fresh dram of whisky. At last he was obliged to give it up as a bad job, and submit to paying the ferryman the exorbitant price of twenty-five cents to be ferried over. First Steamboat. — In May, 1831, the steam boat Caroline came up the Illinois River from St. Louis, and continued up the river to the mouth of the Little Vermilion — Shipping- port. This was the first steamer that had ever ascended above Beardstown, then the head of navigation. At this point a pilot named Crozier took the boat successfully to Ottawa. In the September following the second boat came — the Traveler. The Caroline brought Captain Williams' company of soldiers. First Mill.— In 1829 Timothy Perkins and Leonard Roth came and settled near Leepertown Mills. In 1830 William Hoskins, John Clark and John Hall (bought Dim- mick's claim) and made a large farm. Dim- mick removed to LaMoille, where he lived two years and sold out and left the country. In the summer of 1830 Amos Leonard (millwright) built a grist-mill on East Bureau, about eighty rods above its mouth. It was made of round logs, twelve feet square, and all its machinery, with a few exceptions, was made of wood. The mill-stones were dressed out of boulder rocks, which were taken from the bluffs near by, and the hoop they ran in was a section of a hollow sycamore tree. This mill, when in running order, would grind about ten bushels per day, but poor as it was, people regarded it as a great accession to the settlement, and it relieved them of the slow process of grinding on hand-mills, or pounding their grain on a hominy block. Settlers east of the river, as well as those liv ing near the mouth of Fox River, patronized Leonard's Mill, and it is now believed that it was the first water-mill built north of Peoria. In 1831 Henry George, a single man who was killed at the Indian Creek massacre, made a claim, and built a cabin on the pres ent site of Bureau Junction. In 1833 John Leeper bought Perkins' claim, and a few years afterward built a large flouring-mill, which received much patronage from adjoin ing counties. Quite a village (called Leeper town) grew up at this mill; but in 1838 the mill burned down and the village went to decay. In 1834 a number of immigrants found homes in this locality, among whom were David Nickerson, John McElwain, James Howe, Charles Leeper and Maj. William Shields. As early as 1832 a number of per sons had settled in Hoskins' neighborhood, among whom were Daniel Sherley and Gil bert Kellums. In 1834 the large family of Searl came here, where many of their de scendants continue to live. Moseley Settlement. — In August, 1831, Roland Moseley, Daniel Smith and John Musgrove, with their families, came to Bureau; the two former were from Massa chusetts, and the latter from New Jersey, having met by chance while on their way to the West. The emigrants ascended the Illi nois River in a steamboat as far as Naples, and finding it difficult to obtain passage further up the river, they left their families there, and made a tour through the country in search of homes. Hearing of the Hamp shire Colony on Bureau, Mr. Moseley directed his course thither, and being pleased with HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". 117 the country, he selected a claim. At that time Timothy Perkins claimed, for himself and family, all the timber and adjoining prairie, between Arthur Bryant's and Caleb Cook's, but he agreed to let Mr. Moseley have enough for two farms, on condition of selling him some building material. A few months previous, Timothy Perkins and Leonard Roth had built a saw-mill on Main Bureau, a short distance below the present site of McManis' Mill. This was the first saw-mill built within the limits of Bureau County, and with one ex ception, the first north of Peoria. Mr. Moseley marked out his claim, cutting the initials of his name on witness trees, and contracting with Mr. Perkins to furnish him, on the land, some boards and slabs for a shanty, after which he returned to Naples to report his discovery. The three families, with their household goods, were put on board a keel-boat at Na ples, and ascended the river as far as the mouth of Bureau Creek. Soon after their arrival at Bureau they were all taken down sick with the intermittent fever, one not be ing able to assist the other. Although strangers in a strange land, they found those who acted the part of the good Samaritan. James G. Forristal, although living twelve miles distant, was a neighbor to them, spend ing days and even weeks in administering to their wants. Daniel Smith, father of Daniel P. and Dwight Smith, of Ohiotown, found shelter for his family in a shanty constructed of split puncheons, which stood on the Doo little farm. The widow of Daniel Smith, being left with three small children, in a strange country, and with limited means, ex perienced many of the hardships common to a new settlement. Mr. Moseley and Mr. Musgrove were men of industry and enterprise, improving well their claims, and lived upon them until their deaths. "Dad Joe Smith." — Among the earliest and certainly one of the most remarkable men of all the early pioneers who came to Bureau County was Joseph Smith, immortal as " Dad Joe." A very powerful physical frame, not tall, but square and heavy built, compact, and large bones and muscles, a tower of strength, with a capacity of voice that has never been equaled in this part of the world. A big brain, a strong and steady nerve and a heart that never knew fear of anything mor tal. The Smith family are a long line of he roic pioneers and soldiers, running back from the late war to the American Revolution. From the early settlements in Maryland they pressed upon the bloody tracks of the savage from Maryland through and beyond the "Dark and Bloody Ground," into Ohio, In diana, into and through Illinois and beyond the great Father of Waters. They warmed him in their cabins and gave him of their salt when he was a friendly and good Indian, and when he put on his murderous paint, they "met him in his path and slew him." "Dad Joe" Smith was the child of pioneers — "born in the wildwood, rocked on the wave " — he grew, from inheritance and from the educa tion of his life, a pioneer, that grandest type of man, of whom it has been well said they were " civilization's forlorn hope," for with out them limited indeed would be its do minions. It is a tradition that ' ' Dad Joe ' ' was one of Gen. George Rogers Clark's men, or at least it was the daring and adventurous march of this" Hannibal of the Northwest" into this part of the Mississippi Valley that resulted in eventually bringing him to this part of Illinois. His coming here was the most valuable acquisition of the time to the whole country, for he possessed the ' ' blood and iron " in his nature that awed and mas tered the crafty and cruel savage and would tame and quiet his fierce, wild nature often when nothing else would. He was brave, 118 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". sincere, manly and honest, and the red man soon learned to know that his friendship was a boon and that his enmity was to be dreaded, that his good-will was easier gained than his ill-will, and that one was to be as much de sired as the other was to be dreaded. In his heart the untutored savage must have felt that "The elements so mixed in him That nature might stand up And say to all the world: This is a man." His stentorian voice and his ever ready "Yes, God bless you!" were equally famed throughout the country, and something of the estimate the people entertained of the man is the fact that he was universally known as "Dad Joe," and to half his acquaintances to have spoken of Mr. Joseph Smith would have been mentioning a strange name — some one they had never heard of; and so marked was this peculiarity that it was quite natural for every one to speak of his boy as "Young Dad Joe," who was a chip of the old block. An inci dent occurred in the Black Hawk war that was fitly remembered at the old settlers' meeting in Princeton, in September, 1875, in the following lines: VOTJNO DAU JOE'S BIDE.* " Of Paul Revere, and Collins Graves, * * # * " And Sheridan's most famous ride, And other heroes still beside. Their praise is on the Nation's tongue." " Our hero is a stripling lad, Who was the darling of his "Dad," Yet scarce from off the apron string; Younger than was the ruddy Dave, "Who slew the famed Philistine brave." * # * * The poet then proceeds to almost literally relate the circumstance that actually occur red. Gov. Reynolds was with the army at ?Read by A. N. Bacon. Dixon, and it became very important for him to get a dispatch delivered to the commander at Fort Wilburn, a fortification on the Illi nois River opposite Peru. He called for a volunteer to carry the dispatch, a dangerous undertaking, as the country swarmed with Indians, supposed to be on the lookout for any couriers that might be passing from one portion of the army to» another in this emer gency. " Well mindful of his country's weal, And fired with patriotic zeal, Old Dad Joe unto him said, God bless you. Governor, I will send That message to its destined end." # # * # Then turning to his boy, a lad about fifteen years old, he said: " God bless you, Joe; Take this dispatch across the plain, To Wilburn Fort and there remain; Just saddle up old Pat and go! " The brave boy gladly obeyed, and in a few moments was on old Pat's back: the message carefully tucked away in his clothes, and as he turned his horse's head, and in a quick gallop started upon the perilous voyage, that great voice of " Old Dad Joe's " rang out after him: " God bless you, boy, Keep clear of timber — Indians there!" And a backward wave of the boy's hand told the father that bis boy understood him, as he sped away, bending forward his head and steadily looking straight before him with every sense drawn to sharpest tension. The boy feeling the greatness of his mission — the destiny perhaps that hung upon his suc cessful voyage, thundered across the plains,' and heeding the advice of his father in bear ing off from the timber, was able to ride in triumph from starting-point to destination, although from several coverts the armed In dians on ponies discovered him, and rode out and chased him for many a mile on his way. HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 119 Their, ponies were over-matched by old Pat, and they would soon abandon the chase as the young rider would disappear in the tall grass and the distant view, as he sped on and on over the swelling prairie. " He onward sped and reached the goal. ***** " When they the youthful horseman saw, And from its hiding place to draw The Governor's will, that they might know, A shout went up from that lone band That should be sounded through the land, Hurrah! Hurrah! for young Dad Joe. * * * * " Our story may be growing old, The incident that we have told, Was more than forty years ago; Some may our hero never know; Yet Bureau folks may well bestow Three times three cheers on Young Dad Joe." The poetry is not very much, but the heroic feat it celebrates is a part of the Black Hawk war that should not be lost in the history of Illinois. It was a brave act by this ' ' little man, in crownless hat and legs of tan." " Dad Joe" was among the first to settle at Fort Clark, at Aukas, at the mouth of Rock River, at the lead mines and in Bureau County. He spent the most of his life here and lived and died without an enemy. He got his name of " Dad Joe " from the trader Ogee, who spoke very broken English, who found no other way of designating Joseph Smith, Sr., from his son Joe. His heart was as kind as his exterior was rough. He was a native of Kentucky, and although his parents owned slaves, he had no educa tion, and refused to own a human being. He was a strong temperance man, and a good judge of a horse ; altogether a most remarkable pioneer, and whose memory will be always carefully preserved by the good people of the county. It was said of " Dad Joe " that he was a very moral and pious man, never profane in his language, but we infer from an anecdote of him related by John H. Bryant, at the old settlers' meeting August 30, 1884, that he once broke over his rule in this respect. He discovered a prairie fire approaching his farm and he and all his family were out to fight it off in order to save his wheat-stacks that were exposed. In this as everywhere the good old man worked with a will beating out the fire. His strokes flew fast and furious as the fire kept advancing, and at each stroke he would say, "God bless the fire! • God bless the fire!" and yet it advanced toward the wheat-stacks, and faster and faster he fought and also faster and faster would he ejaculate, "God bless the fire! God bless the fire!" And finally the fatal flames by a bound were upon the near est wheat-stack, and then the old man threw down his weapon and exclaimed, " God damn the fire ! " and hurriedly left the scene. Was not this only oath of the good man like Lawrence Sterne's saying of Uncle Toby's oath: " The accusing spirit flew up to heaven's court of chancery and blushed as he handed it in, and the recording angel as he wrote it down dropped a tear upon it that blotted it out forever. " Capture of the Hall Girls. — William Hall settled where LaMoille now stands, in 1830, and the next year sold to Aaron Gunn (the only survivor who was in the cabin when Elijah Phillips was killed, and who is living in La Salle), and settled on Indian Creek, a few miles north of Ottawa. He had been at his new home but a few weeks when the Black Hawk war broke out. The people had generally fled to the forts. The massacre occurred on the 21st day of May, 1831, at the cabin of a man named Daviess, on In dian Creek. Fifteen persons were killed, and the two Hall girls, Sylvia, aged eighteen, and Rachel, aged sixteen, were taken prisoners 120 HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY". and carried off captives. The attack was in the afternoon, by about seventy-five painted Indians, and was so sudden and unexpected that the people in the cabin could make but little defense. William Hall and Robert Morris were at once shot dead. Daviess, the owner of the cabin, made a heroic defense, clubbing his gun and breaking it to pieces and bending the barrel. Henry George jumped into the mill-pond, but was shot and killed while swimming across. Daviess' son, aged fourteen, was caught as he was cross ing the mill-pond, and tomahawked, and his body thrown into the water. William Hall's sod, John W., by running to the creek bank, and as volleys were fired at him, he jumped over the embankment and es caped. Mrs. Phillips was found with her child in her arms, and their heads had been split with a tomahawk. An infant was snatched from its mother's arms and its brains knocked out against the door-frame. The Hall girls and Miss Daviess jumped on the bed. Miss Daviess was shot dead, and the muzzle of the gun was so near Miss Hall's face as to burn a blister. Edward and Greenbury Hall, and a son of Mr. Daviess, were at work in a field near the cabin, when the murdering was going on. They heard it, and knew it was their fami lies being butchered. They hurried to the scene and cautiously approached and saw the number of the Indians, and all they could do was to fly and try and save them selves. Near the cabin of Daviess lived two families named Henderson — grandfather and uncle of Gen. T. J. Henderson, of Prince ton. But these families had gone to the fort, and thus escaped. After the slaughter the savages seized Sylvia and Rachel Hall, placed them on horses, and, a buck at each side to hold them, they started off. They had three prisoners when they started, having the two girls and an eight year old son of Mr. Daviess; but they soon killed the child, as he seemed troublesome to take along. Two days after the massacre a company of rangers went from Ottawa to bury the dead. The bodies were shockingly mutilated. The captives were carried north of Galena, and their captors, the Sacs and Foxes, turned them over to the Winnebagoes. A day or two after the capture, John W. Hall, the brother who escaped, at the head of a company of rangers followed in pursuit of the Indians. When the company reached the lead mines Mr. Gratiot and Gen. Dodge, of that place, employed two friendly Winne bago chiefs to buy the prisoners of the Foxes. They soon effected the purchase and a ran som of S2,000 and forty ponies and some blankets were paid over to the Indians, and the rangere conducted the girls to the fort. Nicholas Smith, of West Bureau, was a team ster in the army, and took the girls in his wag on to the fort near Galena, where they were put on a boat and sent to St. Louis, where they were met by Rev. Erastus Horn, an old friend of their father, who tenderly cared for them until John W. Hall married and settled on the Seaton farm, when the girls returned to Bureau County again. The Illinois Legisla ture gave the girls a quarter section of canal land near Joliet, and Congress donated them a bounty. Sylvia married Rev. William Horn, a son of their protector, and moved to Lincoln Neb. Rachel married William Munson, and moved into La Salle County, where she died in 1871. A remarkable Indian characteristic was manifested as the finale of this massacre. Two Pottawattomie Indians had been indicted in La Salle County for participating in the tragedy. They had been fully identified by HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY". 121 the Hall girls. They were arrested, indicted and bound over, and before they were tried their tribe moved west of the Mississippi, and in ignorance of what they should do, these criminals went with their tribe. George E. Walker, an Indian trader, was Sheriff of the county, and with others he was security for the appearance of the savages. He went alone into the Indian country west of the river, in pursuit of the prisoners. He found them and made known his mission. A coun cil was called, the matter considered, and it was decided the Indians must accompany the Sheriff and stand their trial. The pris oners bade an eternal \farewell to all their friends, and in the firm conviction they would be executed, started willingly with the Sher iff for the place of trial and execution. For many days the Sheriff traveled through the Indian country, camping at night and the three sleeping together. He would often send the prisoners off to hunt in order to have something to eat, and thus the long slow trip was made through the wild coun try, and there was not an hour they were on the road but that these criminals could have walked off in perfect security. There is no one thing that so fully portrays the stoicism and indifference of death, and a peculiar sense of Indian honor for their pledged word, as this incident. They felt that they were going to their certain execution — they were dejected and sad all the way, because there is nothing to an Indian so abhorrent as to be hung — choked to death. This is not only death but it is to be damned, because when they die, they believe the soul passes out of the mouth with the last breath, and, if choked, this cannot take place, and the soul is lost. To be shot or burned is nothing to these savage stoics, because then they can sing their "death chants, and it is glorious to die. They were duly tried at La Salle, and ac quitted. They had so cunningly painted themselves when they appeared at the trial that the Hall girls could not positively iden tify them. Alex Boyd's Ride. — In the spring of 1832, Alex Boyd being about the same age of "Young Dad Joe," also had some ex perience as a rider through the dangerous wilds and Indian coverts, bearing important messages from the commander to the fort at Peoria. In the winter of 1831 Charles S. Boyd's house, a large two- story log-house with L, burned, and in the flames was destroyed nearly everything in the house except the people. The fire occurred in the dead of the night, and when the family were aroused they could only save themselves. One bed was all that was saved in this line, and the most of the clothing of the family was de stroyed. Alex's recollection is that he saved a shirt — the one he was sleeping in. The family moved into a little smoke-house. Some time in June James P. Dixon, son of John Dixon, in company with five soldiers, arrived at Charles Boyd's late at night. They stopped for the night, and in the morn ing young Dixon told his uncle that he was the bearer of important dispatches from Ap ple River to Governor Reynolds, who was then supposed to be at the Peoria Fort. He was worn out and exhausted with his long ride through the dangerous country; he begged his uncle to have the message con veyed to Peoria. Alex was called up and asked if he would take it. He replied if his father would let him ride "Kit" he would not be afraid. His wardrobe was increased to a straw hat, breeches and shirt. He was warned by his father what particular points to avoid and where to be on the lookout for covert red-skins, especially the old empty 122 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. cabin of Joe Meredith's that stood near the road, about five miles this side of Simon Reed's. It was forty-five miles to Peoria, and the rider left Boyd's Grove at IP. M., and delivered the message to Gen. Stillman, he thinks it was before sundown of that day. People Driven Away. — From the time of the commencement of the Winnebago war, 1827, to the close of the Black Hawk war in June, 1832, the few scattered settlements of northern Illinois were often harassed by bands of savages on their marauding expedi tions. Word was passed around, and at all hours of the day and night people would start at a moment's notice, often so closely pressed that they would gather the babies in their arms and flee on foot, and sometimes their way was lighted up by the burning cabins they had just quitted. At night the families would doubly bar their doors and crawl into the cabin attics and sleep in ter ror, the men lying with hands upon their rifles. In the day the men and boys would work in the field, one standing sentinel, while the others with their guns strapped on their shoulders would work. During these dreadful years of terror and suspense, every man, woman and child was on constant picket duty, painfully alert for the sign of the ap proaching murderers. The horses, the cattle and the dogs, with their keener sense of smell, were most valuable protections often, and would give their warnings to the people. The poor, dumb domestic animals dreaded and were terrified at the sly approach of the dirty, stinking savages, and the people well understood their language of fear and terror, and saved their lives by heeding their notes of warning. Some of these were false alarms, but others were only too real. The false alarms which several times set the whole people in rapid motion for the fort on the east side of the river, would be started by some trivial cir cumstance or the sudden fright of some hunter or nervous traveler, and thus the cry of alarm would pass around and the literal stampede of the people would commence. Shabbona or Chamblee. — The most valua ble friend the whites of Illinois ever had was chief Shabbona. He professed and was the white man's friend. He admired the superior intelligence of the white race, and desired their friendship and their civiliza tion for his ignorant savages. He was a man of natural good sense, and above the low cunning and treachery of the average Indian. His superiority gave him great influence over his people, and although he several times suffered outrages and grievous wrongs at the hands of the rangers and soldiery, he re mained unfaltering in his friendship to the pioneer settlers, whose cabins he delighted to visit, and smoke the pipe of friendship, par take of their salt, and learn their better ways of living. Although a chief and one of power he was not loth to see come the com forts of industry and civilized life, and it is now well understood he would have gladly seen his people become like the white man and abandon their tribal life, and be good and industrious citizens of the white man's government. His good sense must have detected the evils that came with people who had preachers, powder and fire-water, yet he could look over and beyond surface evils to the much good that would come to the savage by institutions that would lift him from his degrading ignorance. There were other Indians that were true friends to the white man, but none so valuable as Shabbona. It is said he would go himself or have spies among the Winnebagoes, Sacs and Foxes, and when they had organized to raid the set tlers, Shabbona would make long and hard night rides and warn every endangered set- HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 123 tlement, and thus time and again he saved their lives — and especially the people of Bureau County, in the years 1831-32. After the Black Hawk war Shabbona and his 150 followers were for some time en camped on Bureau, near the crossing of the Dixon road. He was born in the Ottawa tribe; married the daughter of a Pottawatto mie chief, upon whose death he succeeded to power. He was with Tecumseh in 1811, on his mission to the Creek Indians, in Missis sippi; was present at the Vincennes Council. He was an aid of Tecumseh' s, and by his side when he was killed by Dick Johnson at the battle of the Thames. Shabbona, Black Partridge and Senach- wine, were three of the most noted chiefs of the Mississippi. They were the friends of the white man, they labored for peace and friendship, and to protect their white friends they more than once risked their lives. They possessed intelligence far above their people. When they looked upon civilization they desired their people might become civilized, and not, as their superior intelligence pointed out to them, foolishly try to live after the white race came, as savages and enemies, because this was to waste away and slowly perish from the face of the earth. Shabbona and Black Partridge were at the Chicago massacre, drawn there in the hope to save the white people. They did not reach there in time to save all, but there is but lit tle question that the few who did escape owed their lives to them. At the commencement of the Black Hawk war, Shabbona went to Dixon's ferry to offer the services of himself and warriors of his band to Gov. Reynolds, to fight against the Sacs and Foxes. Mounted on his pony, and alone, he arrived at Dixon's ferry on the same day that Stillman's army reached there. The soldiers, believing Shabbona to be an enemy in disguise, dragged him from his pony, took away his gun and tomahawk, and otherwise mistreated him, telling him they had left home to kill Indians, and he should be their first victim. A man, running at the top of his speed, came to Dixon's house, and told him that the soldiers had taken Shab bona prisoner, and were about to put him to death. Mr. Dixon, in all haste, ran to the rescue, when he found the soldiers (who were somewhat under the influence of liquor), about to stain their hands with innocent blood. Dixon, claiming the prisoner as an old friend, took him by the arm and conduct ed him to his own house, when he was after ward introduced to Gov. Reynolds, Gen. Atkinson, Col. Taylor, and others. Shabbona, with his warriors, joined Atkin son's army, although he had sided with the British under Tecumseh and Capt. Billy Caldwell, but now he was the friend of the Americans, and p*ticipated in all the battles during the last Indian war. In the fall of 1836 he and his band abandoned their reser vations of land at the grove, giving way to the tide of emigration, and went west of the Mississippi. But Shabbona's fidelity to the whites caused him to be persecuted by the Sacs and Foxes. In revenge they killed his son and nephew, and hunted him down like a wild beast. Two years after going West, in order to save his life, he left his people, and with a part of his family returned to this county. For some years he traveled from place to place, visiting a number of Eastern cities, where he was much lionized, and re ceived many valuable presents. His last visit to Princeton was in 1857, while on his way eastward. Shabbona died in July, 1859, on the bank of the Illinois River, near Seneca, in the eighty- fourth year of his age; and was buried in Morris Cemetery. No monument 124 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". marks the last resting-place of this friend of the white man. Hon. John Wentworth, of Chicago, says: William Hickling, of this city, has exhibited to me the original of the following docu ment, proving that Biily Caldwell, our Jus tice of the Peace in 1826, was an officer in the British service, after the treaty of peace; and that he styled himself Captain of the Indian Department, in 1816, at Amherstburg (Fort Maiden). Mr. Hickling resided in Chicago before its incorporation, but resided many years thereafter at Ottawa, and was a partner of George E. Walker, nephew of Rev. Jesse. Whilst at Ottawa the Indian chief, Shabbona, often visited him and remained with him over night. Not long before his death he gave him the document, asserting that he had always worn it upon his person. The manuscript proves that Caldwell was a man of education, as we all knew he was of intelligence. He was edu cated by the Jesuits, at Detroit, and, at the time of his death he was head chief of the combined nations of Pottawattomies, Ottawas, and Chippewas. He married a sister of the Pottawattomie chief, Yellow Head, and had an only child - a son — who died young. On the authority of Shabbona, Mr. Hickling denies the commonly received idea that Cald well was a son of Tecumseh's sister. He confirms the report that he was the son of an Irish officer in the British service, but he insists that his mother was a Pottawattomie. and hence he became chief of the Pottawat tomies. Tecumseh was a Shawnee, and, he contends, had but one sister, Tecumapeance, older than himself, whose husband, Wasego- boah, was killed at the battle of the Thames. She survived him some time, but died in Ohio. Shabbona (or Chamblee, in French) was an Ottawa Indian, and a chief, born on the Ohio River. The certificate was undoubtedly given him to assist him with the British Government. At the commencement of the battle of the Thames, or of Moravian Town 1 (as Caldwell calls it), the Indian chiefs Tecumseh (Shawnee) (spelled Tecumthe by many), Caldwell (Pottawattomie), Shabbona (Ottawa), and Black Hawk (Sac), were, as Mr. Hiekling learned from Shabbona, sitting upon a log, in consultation. The paper on which this document was written was a half sheet of old-fashioned English foolscap paper, plainly watermarked " C. & S., 1813," and is as follows: " This is to certify, that the bearer of this name, Chamblee, was a faithful companion to me, during the late war with the United States. The bearer joined the late celebrated warrior, Tecumthe, of the Shawnee nation, in the year of 1807, on the Wabash River, and remained with the above warrior from the commencement of the hostilities with the United States until our defeat at Moravian Town, on the Thames, October 5, 1813. I also have been witness to his intrepidity and courageous warfare on many occasions, and he showed a great deal of humanity to those unfortunate sons of Mars who fell into his hands. B. Caldwell, Captain, I. D. Amhubstbueg, August 1, 1816. There was no regular fort in Bureau, and in the spring of 1831 the entire population fled to the east side of the river, and to Peoria, and some continued their flight back to the old States and never returned. Some of the bolder men and their boys would leave their families on the east of the river and re turn to raise their corn. They were often in the midst of such danger that they dared not sleep in their cabins, but secreting in the coverts, and generally a new place every night. HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY". 125 Henry Thomas' house was fixed up for a fort, and here the frightened people would sometimes gather in alarm. There was but little stuff raised here in 1831-32, and it was only by the Illinois soldiers coming here from southern Illinois that enabled some of the people to get enough to eat during the winter. The gloomy years of Indian troubles had finally passed, and in the fall of 1832 this particular portion of Illinois began to emerge from its severest ordeal. CHAPTER X. i End of the Indian Troubles— Commencement of Permanent Settlement — Election of 1834 — Bryant and Brigham Elected — Estimated Number of People — Brown's Company of Rangers — The Hampshire Colony — William 0. Cham berlain its Original Inventor— E. H. Phelps' Account of the Colony and of their Coming, and the History Thereof — Names of the Colonists and their Friends. WHEN the Black Hawk war was ended by the destruction of the invading army, and Black Hawk was a subdued and quiet prisoner, and the Sac and Fox Indians had passed the great river never to return, the people once more began to return to their deserted homes. So far as we can learn those who had fled and were the first to re turn were the following families: Prince ton, Elijah Epperson, Dr. N. Chamberlain, Eli and Elijah Smith, John Musgrove, Ro land Mosely, Mrs. E. Smith, Robert Clark and Joel Doolittle. LaMoille, Daniel Dem- mick; Dover, John L. Ament; Arispie, Micheal Kitterman, Curtiss Williams, and Dave Jones; Selby, John Hall, William Has- kins, John Clark, and Amos Leonard; Wya net, Abram Oblist, and Old Bulbona; Bureau; Ezekiel and Henry Thomas, Abram Stratton, John M. Gay; Ohio, "Dad Joe" Smith; Walnut, James Magby; Milo, Charles S. Boyd; Leepertown, Timothy Perkins and Leonard Roth; Hall, William Tompkins and Sampson Cole. These constituted the places settled in the county and is very near a complete list of all the old settlers who came marching home " when the cruel war was o'er." And those homes that were burned by the Indians were soon rebuilt and the work of repairing the houses and fences, and planting, late as it was, something to furnish food to tide over the winter, gave all these people who ' ' Hewed the dark old woods away, And gave the virgin fields to day," much to busy themselves about. Then began to come to this part of Illinois the benefits of the Black Hawk war. It may sound strange to speak of the advantages of war — a trade that is simply brutal, murder ous and devilish. But the word had gone out to the world that the war was over, the Indians gone, that is, the Sacs and Foxes, and all about in the older settlements, and away from the seat of war were men and families waiting for this news, and were ready to resume the journey started the year or years before, and came to this particular spot of Illinois. Then the war had sent many soldiers and rangers here and they looked upon the country and determined, if they lived, to return and build them homes on this beautiful land. All these, and still other causes, started a stream of the really permanent settlers. Capt. Jesse Browne, with a company of rangers, was in Bureau during the winter of 1832-33. A portion of the time the com pany was camped in Haskins' Prairie. Capt. Jesse Browne was a brother of Thomas C. Browne, at one time one of the Justices of the Supreme Court in this State. He was authorized by the Government to raise a com pany of rangers to guard the frontier. They 126 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. were called the "Browne Rangers." It is said that some of the settlers were disposed to believe that the Ottawas, along Rock River, were organizing a raid upon the people of Bureau. And it is further told that Mrs. John Dixon, with her children, passed down by the Bureau settlements and terribly frightened some of them by announcing that she was fleeing for her life, as the Ottawas were on the war-path. But the fact is there was at no time any sufficient general scare to interfere with the tending the crops and building cabins by the settlers. And the next two years were times of prosperity and increase in the enfeebled little colonies, which was neither marked nor rapid, yet it was pros perous, and the prosperity was permanent. In 1834 there was an election in Putnam County, and in the precinct of Bureau John H. Bryant and Joseph Brigham were elected Justices of the Peace. Mr. Bryant was the successor; that is, John M. Gay's books were turned over to him, and as Dimmick had never qualified there were no books for Brigham, and, as was expected, he gave the office little attention, leaving it for Bryant to manage mostly. The population by this time (1834) had increased to probably 250 souls. The Hampshire Colony. — Dr. W. O. Cham berlain was an apprentice in the printing office of the Hampshire County Gazette, of Hampshire County, Mass., where he served from 1828 to 1831. In the town li brary he had found a volume of Lewis and Clark's travels, and becoming deeply inter ested in the book, he published occasional extracts about the Northwest in the Gazette, and these attracted much attention. As a result of these publications E. S. Phelps and some others, called a meeting of those who might wish more definite information about the new, wild country, but especially Illinois. A larger attendance than was expected re sponded to this call, and so many expressed a wish to go West, that a colony was soon formed, and named Hampshire Colony, after Hampshire County, Mass. E. S. Phelps was elected President of the colony. At a meeting of thB society in 1830, Thom as M. Hunt, a druggist, desiring to find a new location, proposed to come and explore the northern part of Illinois, and only asked the colony to pay a part of his expenses. His offer was gladly accepted. The only conveyances at that time were the Erie Canal, the lakes and the old-fashioned stage coaches. So meager was this mode of travel that in the year 1830, only one vessel, a schooner, made one trip around to Chicago. A four- horse wagon made semi-weekly trips from Detroit to Fort Dearborn. Mr. Hunt came via. Chicago to Peoria; here he found the two-horse stage, running between St. Louis and Galena, via. Springfield. He traveled south to St. Louis, and in his report he said that he did not see an acre of waste land south of Peoria. In 1830, in the fall, Sullivan Conant and Mr. Bicknell, and Rufus Brown, father of Judge Brown, of Chicago, and Israel P. Blodgett, father of Judge Blodgett, and their families, and D. B. Jones, a young man, started to come to northern Illinois. Revs. Lucien Farnham and Romulus Barnes, each of whom had married a sister of Butler Den- ham, of Conway, Mass. , who (Denham) lately died a citizen of Bureau County, also came West under the auspices of the colony. The winter of 1830-31 was probably the severest ever known here. The snow was reported from three to four feet deep, and the cold was intense, and much of the game, especially the deer, perished. Owing per haps to the severity of the winter the home colony heard but once from Mr. Hunt during HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 127 the winter. He was then on the Big Vermil ion. The average time, in good weather, then for a letter to travel from here to Mas sachusetts was four or five weeks. In March, 1831, the "Congregational Church of Illinois," was organized, with eighteen names. It was expected by the or ganizers that when they got located in their new home their numbers would be double those given above. In the early spring of 1831, the main part of the colony left, and on May 7, they left Albany, N. Y., in a canal boat, with Captain Cotton Mather in com mand, with whom the colonists had contract ed that he would not travel on Sunday. In this company were Dr. W. O. Chamberlain and son Oscar; Levi Jones, wife and five chil dren, and the families of Rufus Brown — Mrs. Brown and four children, and Mrs. Blodget and her five children, Eli and Elijah Smith and wives, newly married, and the following single men: John Leonard, John P. Blake, A. C. Washburn, Aaron Gunn, C. J. Corss, George Hinsdale, E. H. Phelps aged eighteen years, and Charles C. Phelps aged sixteen, sons of E. S. Phelps. On the 18th of May they landed at Buffalo, expecting here to find a vessel to take them to Chicago, but were told that no vessel traveled that route, but being informed a schooner was then loading at Detroit for Chi cago, and would leave the next Thursday, they shipped by steamer for Detroit, but by stormy weather and other causes they only reached Detroit late Thursday afternoon and found the schooner already loaded and ready to sail, and it could not take their goods. The Captain informed them he would make another trip in two or three months. They stored their goods and hired two teams, a four- horse and a two-horse wagon to bring them through to Illinois. They left Detroit May 25, Monday, and reached Sturgis' Prairie the next Sunday. Here one of the horses in the four-horse wagon team died. This was the conveyance hired by the eight young men of the party. The driver then informed them it was all his team could do to haul their trunks, and they must foot it. About this time the travelers met a man who had been traveling in Illinois, and from him they learned that their friend, Mr. Jones, was at Bailey's Point, on the Big Vermilion River, where he had built a double log-cabin to re ceive them in. This was the first they knew exactly what point they were aiming for. The eight young men walked toMottville, on the St. Joseph River, and here they paid off their teamster, and purchased two canoes. They lashed these together, making a pi rogue, and putting their luggage on board started down the river. They learned that it was about 165 miles to Ottawa, 111. They expected by traveling night and day to make the trip in three or four days. For this rea son they had but little provisions. The third day out as they floated along they saw a deer and killed it,and landed and roasted enough to eat, but as they had no salt they left the most of it on the bank and resumed their journey. They passed a large encampment of Indians on the way, the first signs of humanity they saw after leaving Portage. A storm came up Saturday evening and they tied up, and sleeping in their canoes they found them selves lying in several inches of water in the morning. They built fires and spent the day drying their clothes. Their provisions were entirely out. Under these circumstances the question arose among them, especially as then they could not guess when they could com plete their trip, as to whether it would be best to travel on Sunday, or stay over hungry and trust in the Lord. About noon they pulled out into the stream and resumed their journey. Sunday night another storm com- 128 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". polled them to tie up, and in a grove they passed the night and storm. For two days all they had to eat was elm and basswood bark. They reached another Indian encamp ment the next day, but as there was trouble with the Indians they could get no food. The Indians pointed on down the river, aud gave them to understand that there they could get food. Sailing along with the current, the voyagers eventually heard the glad sound of a cow- bell and landed, and on going to the top of the bluff they saw a cabin. They found a woman and children here and made known their wants. She told them she could not feed them as she had nothing but mush and milk for her family. They informed her that they would consider this most sumptuous fare, and she prepared them a pot full — the woman first shelled the corn and ground it in a hand- mill. They learned it was twenty miles to Ottawa. The hungry men, barring the one good feed of mush, started to complete their journey, and on the way agreed that when they reached Ottawa they would put up at the best hotel (reckless as to price or style) and have the best beds, and for a few days eat, sleep and enjoy the bliss of life. About sun set they espied a little lonely cabin on the shore and rounded to, and went to it and in quired of the woman how far it was to Otta wa. She smiled and said " this is Ottawa." She informed them that the preceding win ter there had been several cabins on the op posite side of the river (the north side) but the spring high waters had washed them all away. This good woman — the then mistress of Ottawa, was French, and her husband a trader. Her father was with her and her husband was off among the Indians trading. The old gentleman had a number of bee hives and they cared for the young travelers the best they could, but all they had to eat was honey and mush, and for beds, each one picked out his puncheon and its softest side. They had been six and a half days on the journey. The good woman told them she had known several people to come by the same route they had, and the quickest trip she had known before was nine days. As the voyagers had started with only three day's provisions they felt some new twinges of the stomach when they thought that it was a mere chance that they were not exposed to a six days' fast instead of a little more than the two days they had had a foretaste of. After enjoying the hospitalities of the city of Ottawa one night, they resumed their jour ney, and at noon reached Shippingport, across the river from La Salle, and the head of navigation, owing to the rapids. Again this city consisted of one house, which was warehouse, store, dry goods and groceries and family residence, all the property of a man named William Crozier. They learned it was eight miles to Bailey's Point, where their agent was. Storing their trunks they started on foot, and just before night arrived there. Here they were rejoiced to find the other members of their colony who had come through in wagons and had reached the place only a few hours before. This was on the 9th of June, five weeks and two days from leaving home. Mr. Jones told them that the best country he had found was on the Bureau. After a few days' rest some of the men of the party came over to inspect the land, and examined the prairie as far north as Dover, a little west of which they found three bachelors: Sylvester Brigham, James G. Forristall and Elijah Phillips, who came the year previous from New Hampshire. The few settlers here at that time were mostly east of the river on account of the Indians. The men returned to their friends and gave a very favorable report of the country. They found Elijah Epper- HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 129 son on the east side of the river. His cabin was one mile north of where the Princeton depot now is, where a Mr. Stoner now lives, and he told them that if they were not afraid of the Indians they were welcome to occupy his cabin and whatever they could find there to eat. A part of the young men who did not know yet enough of the red man to fear him, started to come with two yoke of oxen and wagon. They arrived on the 2d of July, and the first news they heard was that a treaty had been made with the Indians. The result was, the next week Eli and Elijah Smith and wives came, and these and the six young men lived in the cabin together for some months. The next week came Roland Moseley and Daniel Smith. They had come from Northampton. They came by the Ohio River, and had left their families at Beards town as they did not know where the colony was. On their way from Beardstown they fell in company with John Musgrove, from New Jersey, who was looking for a place to settle. The three located on the south side of the prairie, put up cabins and returned to Beardstown for their families. E. H. and Charles Phelps, expecting their parents in August, put up a cabin. E. S. Phelps and Amos C. Morse left Massachusetts July 13, with their families, and sent their goods by ship by way of New Orleans, the families coming by way of the Ohio River. Mr. Phelps shipped his stock of jewelry, which he intended selling in St. Louis or some other large place. Failing in this he took his stock and located in Springfield, 111., where he remained until 1838, when he came to Princeton. Mr. Morse located in Jack sonville. The Phelps boys here heard nothing of their parents until in the fall, when they joined their parents in Springfield. When the Black Hawk war broke out the next spring, Eli and Elijah Smith and wives went to Springfield and remained there during the summer. Thus the colonists were scattered, and as the fall of 1831 was a very sickly time among the settlers, this and the war drove several of them away who never returned, consequently in the beginning of the year 1834 but four of the church mem bers were living in Bureau. That year Elisha Wood and family, who started here in 1832, but had stopped in Tazewell County came. None of those who started West in 1830 finally settled here. Sullivan Conant had settled in Springfield, Mr. Bicknell, in Fulton, and Blodgett and Brown at Brush Hill, about twenty miles this side of Chicago. D. B. Jones settled in Fulton County. Dan iel Smith died in less than thirty days after his arrival. (Full account of this in a pre ceding chapter). Mr. Morse died in Jack sonville, and Levi Jones at Bailey's Point. All these deaths were soon after their arrival. John Leonard married Mrs. Levi Jones, and removed to Galesburg. A. C. Washburn set tled in Bloomington, John P. Blake in Put nam County. Aaron Gunn near La Salle, George Hinsdale on West Bureau, Alva Whitmarsh and family came in 1841. Scat tered as was the Hampshire Colony, yet it was the final cause of many of Bureau's best citizens coming here. In September, 1832, Cyrus and John H. Bryant came from Jack sonville. They had visited Hinsdale Phelps in Springfield to inquire about this country. He advised them to come and see, and judge for themselves. They did so, and they fixed their claims, and through their influence came J. S. Everett, 1835; Lazarus Reeves, the Wiswalls, William P. Griffin, and John Leeper and family, 1833. The fall of 1832 came N. O. and W. C. Chamberlain, and their sister, Mrs. Flint and her family. In 1833, Asher Doolittle, Joseph Brigham, Horace Winship, Harrison Downing and the 130 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". Mercer families. In 1834 there was -added to the settlement: Caleb Cook and family, and John Clapp, from Massachusetts. From Ohio were the Mercer families and Tripletts, and Galers and Elliotts. The Masters, Ellis and Durham families came with Hinsdale Phelps from Springfield. In 1834 Hinsdale Phelps had returned here while the remainder of his father's family remained in Springfield. During the summer he severely cut his foot and returned to Springfield. While there he met C. D. Col ton, who had come from St. Lawrence County, N. Y. , the previous fall with a colony, but not liking the location in Sangamon, young Phelps pursuadedhim to come with him and see this country. He did so and made a claim and through his influence came the other C oltons, his relatives, and Alba Smith, David Robinson, Nathaniel and Joseph Smith, and Benjamin Newell all came in 1835. In the year 1834 came Butler Denham from Con way, Mass., and with him S. H. Burr, S. L. Fay, Anthony Sawyer, Adolphus Childs and C. C. Corss, all single men. They all soon be came however, the heads of happy and pros perous families. In 1835 Rufus Carey, Alfred Clark, S. D. Hinsdale, Noadiah Smith, J. H. Olds, from Massachusetts, and Ralph Wind- ship, from New York. In the spring of 1835 Charles Phelps, brother of E. S. Phelps, came out to look at the country. He attended that year the land sale at Galena, and bought the land he afterward lived on, northeast of Princeton. He brought his family the next June, and there came with or soon after him, all from Massachusetts, Seth C. Clapp, Lew is Clapp, George Brown, Cephas Clapp, O. E. Jones and Miss Childs, now Mrs. J. S. Everett, of Princeton. Of those who came here in 1831 there are now living in the county: George Hinsdale, Daniel P. and Dwight Smith and their moth er, Mrs. Daniel Smith, E. H. Smith, Mrs. Eli Smith, Michael Kitterman, John Cole and Mrs. J. H. Fisher. Of the eight young men who came with the colony, five are still living: John Leonard, the oldest of the com pany, died in 1864. Charles Phelps died in 1866, and C. G. Corss in 1866. What are the results ? Looking back fifty- four years! Then there were not half as many inhabitants in the State as are now in the city of Chicago. Fifty-four years ago, when the colony came here, the Indians, deer, prairie wolf and rattlesnakes held undispu ted possession of all this land. Fifty-four years ago and all the northern part of the State, including Quincy, Jacksonville, and Springfield, to Danville, on the Wabash, were in one Congressional district. But the pop ulation increased so rapidly in 1840, when Hon. John T. Stuart was our Representative in Congress it was said he represented the larg est constituancy and territory of any member of Congress. Fifty- four years! What great re sults the world over. Probably greater than in any previous century. What has been accom plished in Bureau County ? There were then about a dozen families — forty or fifty per sons all told; but ,one wagon road in the county, the St. Louis and Galena stage road by Boyd's Grove, and Bulbona' s. Look about you, and remember all you now see of roads, bridges, houses, barns, shops, factor ies, mines, farms, railroads, depots, cities, towns, villages, schools, churches and all these evidences of wealth, contentment and prosperity are the product of this short half century. * , *We are indebted to E. H. Phelps for the above account of the HHDipshire Colony. En^.hy E G.Williams &Bra N.Y HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 133 CHAPTER XI. :(Curt" Williams— The Man of Marks — Smiley Shepherd — The Deep Snow of 1831 — John, Job, Timothy Brown and David Searl— Greenbury Hall— Lewis Cobb— The Cholera of 1832— Scott's Army— The Terrors of the Plauge— First Steamboats Arrive in Chicago, 1832 — "I Surrender, Mr. Indian !" — Biographical Sketches of many old Settlers — Henry F. ^Iiller— M. Studyvin— David Chase— James Cod- dington— Enoch Lumry — James Garvin — E. Piper — James Wilson— Jacob Galer— John Leeper— John Baggs— The Wiswalls and Tripletts— Halls— A Negro Here in 1829. THE man who made his mark or rather several "marks" here in the squatter days was Curtis Williams — "Uncle Curt" — as he was generally known. His main busi ness was to keep well ahead of the settlement and staking out a claim and doing enough work on it to identify and hold it, and then sell out to a new comer. If he had a brush cabin up, so much the better, as the new arriv al's first want was some place to store his family — get them out of the wagon, where they sometimes had already been stored for weeks. ' ' Uncle Curt" commenced east of the river, and in the course of time passed nearly across Bureau County. If he found an un occupied claim so much the better. He was the man that Micheal Kitterman found in his cabin when he "returned with his woman." The spot where this cabin was located is now occupied by Mr. E. C. Bates' fine residence in South Princeton. But "Uncle Curt" was a bold and valuable pioneer. He was not afraid to go ahead, and he was full of that industry and public spirit which goes so far in developing a new country. He was the pioneer to that portion of the county where Buda now stands, which place was known as French Grove until after the building of the railroad and laying out of the new town. He built a carding-machine at Leepertown, and was the first to aid the good women in this portion of the country in the drudgery of making woolen clothes for the people. His aged widow is the mother- in-law of Henry F. Miller. Curtis Williams made more claims than any other one man who ever came to the county, and as a " claim maker " his name will go down in the history of the county for all time. Smiley Shepherd died at his home near Hennepin, April 4, 1882. Born March 3, 1803. Thomas Shepherd, his great-grand father came to this country in the seventieth century and settled near Harper's Ferry. Shepherdstown, Va., gets its name from this family. In August, 1828, Smiley left his father's home on horseback for a visit to the new State of Illinois. He came to Bond County, to which place the Moore family had come from Red Oak, some years before. From Bond County he came to Putnam County, in company with J. G. Dunlavey. They found Capt. Haws at Point Pleasant, now Magno lia; James Willis was on the farm now owned by Mr. Shering, near Florid. Thomas Hart zell kept an Indian trading house on the river, on the site now the home and grounds of A. T. Purviance. A few other persons lo cated claims this year in the county, but none had been on the ground over a year but Mr. Hartzell. Some time was spent visiting with the few settlers, who were overjoyed to see new comers, and their prospective friends and neighbors. The best timber lands, springs, town sites, etc., were looked at, and their fu ture value estimated carefully by these first settlers. During the visit he selected the site of the home he so long occupied. Its scenery and extensive views outweighing, in his estimation, the considerations which in duced others to pass it by. While looking at the locality, he spent his first night in the neighborhood, on what is now the northwest corner of Mrs William Allen's apple orchard, sleeping alone on the prairie grass, with his 8 134 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. saddle for a pillow, and his horse fettered near by. During the night a wolf managed to steal from his stock of provisions a tin cup of butter, but like some other thieves, he did not know what to do with it when he had it, and instead of licking out the butter closed the mouth of the cup with his teeth and left it. Leaving Putnam, he gratified his strong love for romantic scenery by visiting Starved Rock, Sulphur Springs, Buffalo Rock, and the present site of Ottawa. From this point he crossed the country to Rock River and the Mississippi, below the mouth of Rock River. On his way back he and his companions made the trip from the Mississippi to Fort Clark, (now Peoria) in one day. From this he made his way back home by way of Vandalia, Vin- cennes and Cincinnati. In a letter dated February 16, 1831, Shep herd thus tells of the deep snow. "The enow fell between Christmas and New Year to the depth of two feet, and has since that time, by repeated accessions, been kept up full that depth." From the facts before us, the difficulties these pioneers had to contend with, can be better imagined than described. During the winter of 1831-32 Smiley, as sisted by Nelson, built a log-house on his first chosen site, and moved into it in Febra ary, before the chimney was built, or a shut ter made for the door. Here he lived until death — a period of over fifty years. During these first years he became well ac quainted, personally, with Shabbona, Shick- shak, and other Indians who, before the Black Hawk war, were residents of the country, and on friendly terms with the whites, who treated them kindly. During the Indian troubles of 1832, he shared the fort life, the many alarms, real and false, of his now numerous fellow citizens; was pressed into the service of the United States as teamster by Gen. Atkinson, and taken to Chicago, with a regiment of troops on its way to Fort Dearborn. It is remarkable, that with his experience and knowledge of Indians, he should have been their friend and defender through life. For over thirty years he sent, annually, a barrel of bacon, and for some ten years in the early history of the Mission, two barrels of flour, in addi tion to the bacon, and frequently other arti cles needed by the families at the Mission of T. S. Williamson and S. R. Riggs, among the Dakota Indians. He was among the first to grow the grape successfully, by vineyard culture, in north ern Illinois. His vineyard of Catawbas and Isabellas was planted in 1849, and bore a fine crop in 1851, which sold at 15 cents per pound. He successfully fruited nearly all the fine varieties of pear, plum, peach, cherry and strawberry of his day. Naturally enough, he loved those of similar tastes and occupa tion with himself. From these years until the infirmities of old age prevented his at tendance on its meetings, he was an enthusi- siastic laborer in the cause and objects of the State Horticultural Society. Served the society one year as President, and considered many of its members among his dearest friends. The presence of a large number of friends at the funeral testified of the kindly regard in which he was held. He was buried at Union Grove by the side of his wife, who died in 1873. The last of that little band of noble men Father John Dixon, Charles S. Boyd, ' ' Dad Joe " Smith and the very few others who were here, neighbors, companions and friends in the long ago, when the daring white man first began to feel his way into this part of the wilderness. Greenbury Hall settled near where Wy anet now stands, in 1832. He reports seeing the track of Gen. Scott's army as it passed HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 135 through the north part of the county. If he was not greatly mistaken, which he probably was, then the fact is established that the great General and his army were really once on the soil of Bureau County. Lewis Cobb, of Wyanet, was one of the soldiers in Scott's army that came to Chicago in 1832, in the two vessels that were stricken so severely with the cholera plague of that year. One of the gloomiest pages in our western annals is the account of that trip, and the horrors of the ghastly plague that beset them. Gen. Scott arrived in Chicago, July 8, 1832, on the steamer "Sheldon Thomp son," Capt. A. Walker, the first steam boat trip ever made to Chicago. His delay in Chicago on account of the cholera, was such that he only reached Rock Island late in August, just at the close of the negotia tions of peace, which were finally and fully concluded in September. The Government had charted four boats and loaded them with troops. The "Henry Clay, "Superior," "William Penn," and "Sheldon." The first two were turned back when the cholera broke out, and the other two came on to Chicago. So it will be seen that the first steamboat was ' ' two boats. ' ' The cholera was so fatal that thirty bodies were thrown overboard between Chicago and Mackinaw, and about 100 died at Chicago. The deaths were so sudden and the burial so instantaneous thereafter, that the victims, in their last agonies, feared that they would be buried alive, if it could be called a burial, for they were thrown into a pit at the north west corner of Lake Street and Wabash Ave nue. Gen. Scott described this as the most affecting scene of his life. Gen. Humphrey Marshall, a member of Congress from Ken tucky, who was a Second Lieutenant, gave a description of the scene, and though thickly settled as Chicago then was, he could find the place where he assisted in depositing the remains of the victims, many being thrown into the pit in a few hours after they had as sisted in depositing their comrades there. The people all through the Fox and Rock River Valleys had fled to Fort Dearborn for protection against the Indians; but they soon fled back, having a greater dread of the cholera than of the Indians. John Wentworth says: Black Hawk, chief of the united tribe of Sacs and Fox Indians, was born about 1767, near the mouth of the Rock River, and there were his headquar ters, until he made a treaty, ceding his lands to the United States, and agreeing to go to Iowa. He went there, and settlers went upon his lands and began to cultivate them, when he repudiated his treaty, returned to Illinois and commenced massacring them. Before the United States could take up the matter, the Governor called for troops, and most of the prominent politicians volunteered their services, and raised more or less soldiers, to go under their own particular leadership. Black Hawk was chased up into Wisconsin, captured, and sent to Washing ton to see Gen. Jackson. Jack Falstaff never slew as many men in buckram as each and every one of these Illinois politicians did. Squads would often go out from camp, and hasten back with accounts of their mi raculous escapes from large bodies of In dians, when there were none in the vicinity. An alarm was given, one night, when one of the most distinguished men in the State mounted his horse, without unhitching him, and gave him a spur, when, mistaking the stump to which he was tied for an Indian taking hold of the reins, he immediately exclaimed: "I surrender, Mr. Indian!" An alarm was given that a large body of Indians was approaching the Kankakee set tlements; volunteers turned out, and found 136 HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY". them to be nothing but sand-hill cranes. If an Indian was found dead on the prairie anywhere, several would exclaim : ' ' That's the one I killed! " Mr. Lincoln had an in exhaustible supply of stories based upon his experience in this war, but he never claimed that his services there made him President. He made more, in his Presidential campaign, out of the rails he had split, than out of the Indian scalps he had taken. We believe this story was first told on Lincoln by Douglas, in 1858, during their celebrated campaign for the United States Senate. Mr. Lincoln was here as a Captain, first, and then as a private, in Capt. Isles' company, during 1832. James Coddington came to Bureau in 1831. He was a native of Maryland, born in Alleghany County, of that State, January 25, 1798. In the general hegira of the Indian war, he returned to his native place, and then came back in 1833, and settled on Section 17, in Dover. He married Catha rine Fear, of this county. She was born in Maryland, in 1814, and with her family came to this county in 1834. Of this union there were ten children, five of whom are living, two of the sons and two daughters in this county. Mr. Coddington died, June, 1876, while on a visit to his friends in the East. He was thrown out of a wagon and died of his injuries. (See biography of J. H. Cod dington). David Chase was born in Royalston, Mass. , April 30, 1811. When yet a child his parents removed to FitzwiUiam, N. H., where he was reared, where he married Lucy Brigham, a sister of Joseph Brigham (see biography) and immediately after marriage started for Illinois, arriving in 1834, and settling in the village of Dover, on the farm now owned by his son David, where the widow now resides. Mr. Chase died July 1, 1882. He was a very quiet, unobtrusive, good man, father and neighbor. They had three children — one son and two daughters. Lucy Abagail married Oscar Mead, of Dover, and died, November, 1879. And Mary Ellen is the wife of Arthur Fruett. Madison Studyvin was born in Virginia, near Grayson Court House, January 16, 1810. In 1824 went to Sangamon County; in 1829, to Hennepin County and in 1832, to Bureau. His father, William Studyvin, died in Putnam County aged ninety years and fifteen days. The mother, Nancy (Will iams) Studyvin lived to the age of ninety-two years. They were the parents of nine sons and three daughters, six of whom are liv ing. Mr. Studyvin was a soldier in the Black Hawk war. In 1835 he married Frances Ellis (see biography of Abbot Ellis) in this county. They have two children: W. C. in Brookville, Mo., and Emily, married Simon Ogaw, and resides nine miles from Clinton, Mo. Mr. Study vin is a Democrat, an estimable and univer sally respected old settler. Ezekiel Piper came in 1836; he was born in Maine, December 27, 1795, died December 31, 1875. He married Ann Roberts, of Bucks County, Penn. The family came to Illinois in wagons across the country, and settled in Leeper Township, where they lived two years and moved into Selby. They had seven chil dren, five of whom are now living. An indus trious, frugal farmer, who filled the complete measure of his earthly ambition in providing and rearing a respectable family. James Garvin came to Putnam County in 1829. A native of Kentucky. He married Mary Studyvin who still survives. Mr. Gar vin settled in Dover in 1832. He is now a very old man. (Since this was written, he HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". 137 died August 9, 1884, an aged widow but no children surviving.) Enoch Lumry was born in New York in 1810; he came to Bureau in 1836. His father was Andrew Lumry, of New Jersey. Enoch married in 1837, Amelia Mason, of Kentucky, born in 1811, and came to this county with her folks in 1834. James Wilson was born in Dover, Penn., and reared in Kentucky, and came to Bureau in October, 1833, and improved the farm he now lives on. He came to this county in com pany with Marshall Mason. His uncle Thornton Wilson was living here and it was merely to visit him and see the country that Mr. Wilson made the trip, but on seeing it remained. Harrison Hays was an early settler in Peru. He kept what was long known as "Hays' Ferry," and afterward settled in this county where he died. His son now lives in Prince ton. Henry F. Miller. — Nothing can convey to posterity a stronger picture of the real pio neers than the story in their own language of their coming, how they came, what they saw, their trials and troubles and final triumphs. To give it in their own language, is like borrowing their eyes and looking back over a real panorama of fifty years of the most important part of American history. It is a story — the plainer and simpler the bet ter — surpassing in interest any possible pict ure of the imagining of the poet or historian. It is the reproduction of the past, true in all its shadings, and standing out in the picture is the living, breathing man, and, if not now, surely in time all will contemplate it with unflagging interest. To thus borrow the eyes of the very few that were here among the first is now barely possible; to-morrow the last will have been gathered to the fathers. The writer will ever remember as the most pleasing task of his life, his interviews and social chats with these early settlers as he has here and there come across the small remnant in the county. He was in the pursuit of dates and figures, and facts on disputed points in the legends of the pioneers. Piled upon his writing-table are these bundles and scraps and "pads" of notes, and taking one at ran dom from the confused mass, it chanced to be those gathered, almost verbatim as they came from Mr. Miller's lips, in the different interviews. If this picture is placed side by side with the others given, especially Strat- ton's, Kitterman' s, "Dad Joe's," the mem bers of the Hampshire Colony and many others found in this work, the whole will round out the view most completely. Putting his answers to questions in a nar rative form. He said : ' ' Henry F. Miller is the son of Jonathan and Susanah Miller; he was born in Green County, Penn., near the junction of Cheat River with the Mononga- hela, March 30, 1807. Practically, all the- schooling he enjoyed was between the age of five and seven years. There were no English grammars or geographies in school. As soon as able he went to work on his father's farm; at sixteen was apprenticed to a joiner and cabinet trade, and during harvest time would return and help his father on the farm. When of age he crossed the mountains for the first time and made a trip to Baltimore. In August, 1830, started for Illinois, crossing West Virginia on foot to the Ohio River, at the mouth of Fish Creek. The river was very low, and he footed it down along the river to Marietta; there he boarded a small steamer, and after sticking fast at every riffle and with the other passengers getting out in the water and pushing the boat off, they finally reached Cincinnati." Here, Mr. Miller remarked in parenthesis: "I had worked at the trade with my brother; 138 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. my father could blacksmith, make shoes, har ness, and I helped him build his houses and barns," and his eyes sparkling with the recol lection, he said: "I saw La Fayette in 1824 at Gallatin, and shook hands with him." (The writer asked him to hold out that hand and let him feel it, and is content that he and La Fayette have touched the same hand. ) Resuming his story: "I changed boats and got along better. I landed and footed it across the State of Indiana, and reached Terre Haute September 30. Just as I reached this place word was passed around that the great Lorenzo Dow was in town, and would preach at the court house. Everybody turned out to hear him. After hearing him I thought he wanted to be a great prophet in his day, but as most of his prophecies failed, I con cluded he was much overrated. I remained here until July, 1831, when I went to Lafay ette and stayed until October, working at my trade. I bought a horse and started for Pennsylvania, passed through La Fayette and Wayne Counties to Richmond, Ind., Columbus, Wheeling, and thence to my old home, where I remained until January, 1832, when, in company with Dr. Shelby, 1 started South and reached New Orleans, and to Port Gibson, Miss. ; remained there until June, 1832, and left for Illinois and came to Beardstown, and after a few days there went to Jacksonville and to Springfield. Here I saw the great Methodist circuit rider, Peter Cartwright; he was a candidate for the Legis lature against A. Lincoln, and there was a report that he had made a bargain with the candidate for Sheriff, that if the Sheriff would vote for him he would give 500 Methodist votes. Cartwright was reading certificates he had from the Sheriff denouncing the story. Cartwright declared that he would cry perse cution through the district; then went to New Salem in Sangamon County, and worked a short time, and boarded with a Mr. Rut- ledge; Mr. Lincoln boarded there at the same time. But as he was only Abe Lincoln then, and as no one thought he would ever be President, I did not try to get much ac quainted with him. " I then went to Hennepin, and found the people had fled from the west side of the river,and in Hennepin the people were living in block-houses and picket forts. While in Hennepin I slept all alone in John Simpson's house; the family were afraid and were in the fort. I did not know enough about Indians to be afraid of them. Remaining a few days in Hennepin, I went to Petersburg, and helped build the first house of any size in that place. Remained there until November, and in com pany with a young man, we bought a canoe and started for St. Louis. The river was very low; covered often with wild fowls, which at the approach of our canoe would rise in the air and often make a noise like distant thunder. Our canoe was very short and difficult to manage; we camped on the banks, generally with hunters we would find hunting furs and deer. At Alton the wind was so strong we had to lay to for it to fall, and my companion having no baggage, left me here and went on foot, and I then literally had to paddle my own canoe. When the sun set, the wind lulled and I pulled out for St Louis. This was about as lonesome and dreary a night as I ever experienced. The weather was frosty, and I was stiff with cold when 1 reached St. Louis just at daybreak. The hotels were closed, and it was my good luck that a steamboat just then arrived, and I went and warmed at her fires. The next day I shipped for Grand Gulf, Miss., and from there I went to Fort Gibson; I worked here until 1833, and then I returned to Hennepin; in a few days I went to Ottawa and visited the spot on Indian Creek where the HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 139 Hall and Davis families had been massacred, and the Hall girls captured by the Indians. I then came across by Troy Grove and stopped over night, and bought a claim of a man named Thornton. I then started to hunt up the settlers on Bureau Creek, that was known as the Yankee settlement. I got as far as Lost Grove and night came on; seeing a cabin I went to it, but it was deserted. I went out on the prairie, tied my horse to my wrist, and lay down with my saddle for a pillow. In the morning early I resumed my search for the Yankees, but all northeast of where Princeton now is I could see nothing but wild prairie, and so I rode to Hennepin for my breakfast. I then came over to work on Griffin & Wilson's Mill on Bureau Creek, in now Arispie. I worked here some time; in October I was taken very sick — fever and ague; the foreman of the mill died in Henne pin, and Griffin's family were all down sick and the work stopped. As soon as I was well enough to travel, I went south, stopping in East Feliciana, La. Here I remained until after the 4th of July, 1834, when I returned and stopped in Hennepin and built a shop and worked at my trade part of 1834-35. In the winter of 1834 I bought the Spring Mill at Leepertown, which had been built by A. W. Leonard. I improved this property, making a better house, adding a carding- machine. The railroad finally so injured this property it was closed, and eventually from sparks from the railroad engine or by the act of some miscreant, it was fired and burned down. Mr. Leonard was the first mill builder here, and built about all the first mills in the county. Spring Mill was built of round logs, clapboard roof, and the chest was made of large split, hewn logs (such a mill chest would be a veritable curiosity now). " In April, 1835, I married Jane Waldon, and in May moved into Bureau County, where, except six months in McLean County, and nearly two years in La Salle County, I have been ever since. By my first marriage had five children, two now living, both daughters, in La Salle County, Mrs. R. W. Brower, widow, and Miss Celeste Miller; Mrs. Jane Miller died July 26, 1846. In 1847 I purchased 500 acres of land in Berlin Town ship, and in October, 1847, was married to Mrs. Elizabeth Winslow. I moved into Leeper Township, and improved my land in Berlin. By this marriage there were three children, only one living, Asa F., in Iowa. In June, 1856, Mrs. Elizabeth Miller died. I then moved to Galesburg to school my chil dren. Lived there one year, and then broke up housekeeping and boarded my family and gave all my attention to improving my land up to 1860. I had rented my farms, but in this year I commenced farming them myself, although it was my first experience as a farmer, and as I was then over fifty years of age and alone, you can imagine I had a lonely time of it. I then married Mrs. Martha Bryan, my present wife, and in the fall of 1869 quit farming, and for two years lived in Ottawa. In September, 1873, came to Princeton, and have been here since. I was successful as a farmer, more so, no doubt, than the average. "My family were at the Centennial fair in 1876. In 1878, with my daughter, Celeste, went to Europe." Then the notes give many particulars of his travels in Europe, the countries visited, the celebrated places, persons, etc. , with fre quent quaint and original comments as he passed over the world's historic spots. Doubt less the reader will regret that we do not give all these, but our space is limited. " When I landed in Illinois my total capital was 1300. I gave my daughters when mar ried $22,000. I own improved farms: 1,040 140 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". acres, and 1,560 acres in Iowa, 160 in Nebraska, 160 acres in Macon County, 111. Total cash value about §100,000." In the sketch there is much that the intel ligent reader will read between lines. It is full of the general story of the actual daily life and experiences of the young men who footed their way to this new country over fifty years ago. People come now in train loads every day, indeed, almost every hour — flying across the country upon the railroads in coaches, palace, sleeping, dining and buffet cars, with no experiences except yawn ing, eating and sleeping — seeing nothing, experiencing nothing; hardly able to realize that they have stepped out of their splendid parlors and dining-rooms in the eastern cities or their cottages along the sea-shore. The story of their traveling now from ocean to ocean across the continent would be as monot onous as mentally counting an endless row of sheep jumping an imaginary fence. How great a change is here! How insignificent, how completely is the individual now swal lowed up in the crowd. Human individuality is literally gone, it is merged in the great mass, until a man now can only think of him self as the inscrutable atom, a mere protoplasm in the body politic. The realization is not pleasant, it's like living in a limitless cave and peering eternally into the silent gloom. The young pioneers were alone in their hour of severe ordeals and sore trials — nion- archs each and every one, but monarchs of the waste and wilderness . They were a part and parcel of nature in her grandest aspects, fashioned in character and high purposes by the play of her supreme forces. Without rank, alone, and mostly " without a dollar in the world," the story, simple but sublime, when contemplated by an intelligent pos terity, then these unlettered heroes of the new world will easily take their deserved places in the highest niche of fame. Grant it, cynic, that they builded wiser than they knew, yet their works are here, they will remain forever, blessing already millions in this great valley, and will grow and multiply in their benign influences for the unborn generations to come after us. Jacob Galer — Now a resident of Seattle, W. T., says: "I married my first wife, Miss Ruth Burson, the 31st of October, 1844. By her I had four children, the eldest, now Mrs. Lizzie G. Pratt, of Seattle, W. T., was the only one that lived to be grown. My first wife died of consumption, October 5, 1856. On May 8, 1858, I married Lydia Berry, of Milo, Bureau County, 111. By her I had two qhildren — both died in infancy. My second wife died here in Seattle, W. T., June 15, 1878. I lived in Bureau County, from August, 1834, until April, 1860, when I moved to Kansas. I was the first Coroner of Bureau County after it was organized, and my nearest neighbor here in Seattle, was the first County Clerk, Thomas Mercer. He has been on this coast since 1852. His first wife was a daughter of Squire Brigham of Dover. She died on this coast, leaving him four daughters, three of whom are still living and are an honor to their father. He is hale and vigorous for a man of his age, seventy-one years the 11th of last March. He is well to do in this world's goods and has a kindly heart ready to respond to the downcast and desti tute." John Leeper, son of James Leeper, and grandson of Allen Leeper, was born in Cum berland County, Penn., August 23, 1786. The grandfather, Allen Leeper, was born in in County Down, Ireland, where his ances tors had fled from Scotland on account of re ligious persecutions, and he was seven years old when he came to America. James Leep er, the father, went to Georgia when John HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 141 was but a beardless boy. Here he grew to manhood, and was married at the age of twenty, to Fidilis McCord, October 28, 1806. He moved to Marshall County, Tenn., in the year 1808, with their first born daughter — Fanny — and cleared out a farm in the cane- breaks of Rock Creek. Being a very bitter opponent of slavery he left the slave States and moved to Illinois Territory in the year 1816, starting April 5, and arriving at Mad ison County May 23, a journey of forty- eight days, which can now be accomplished by rail in ten hours. Remaining here until fall he removed to Beaver Creek, four miles south of Greenville, Bond County. Mr. Leeper remained here until the fall of 1823, when he removed to Morgan County, arriving on the spot where now the city of Jacksonville stands, November 2. Here he opened up a farm of 400 acres. The city of Jacksonville was laid out in 1825. The county soon be gan to fill up, and Mr. Leeper's family be coming quite large, having nine sons and five daughters, there was a demand for more land. It was necessary to make another move to supply this demand, so on the 10th of October, 1831, Mr. Leeper removed to Putnam County and settled three miles north east of the present town of Hennepin and made a claim of 2,500 acres of land. Here he opened up a large farm, in the summer of 1832, in the time of the Black Hawk war, building a stockade around his log-house for safety, while three of his sons were out on the war-path of the Indians. In the fall of 1833 Mr. Leeper sold his farm and moved into Bureau County and bought an unfinished saw- mill of Timothy Perkins, on Bureau Creek, one and one-half miles northwest of Bureau Junction. At the land sales of 1835, 900 acres of land were entered around this mill site, and the saw-mill was finished and a flour- ing-mill and other machinery was added, and completed in the fall of 1835, and was con sidered one of the finest mills in the State, and sawed the lumber and ground the wheat and corn, and carded the wool for the people for fifty miles around. At this place Mr. Leeper died December 14, 1835, aged forty- nine years three months and twenty- one days, and was buried — his being the second grave in Oakland Cemetery. His death was not caused by ordinary sickness. By lifting heavy timbers in constructing his mills he became ruptured, and taking cold in the wound an abcess was formed which broke and emptied itself inwardly, and mortifica tion set in which soon caused his death. Mr. Leeper in size was about five feet, nine inches high, weight one hundred and sixty pounds. A very energetic, active man, a hard worker, kept well abreast with the most prosperous of his neighbors in accumu lating property. In politics he was a Whig of the Adams type. In religion a Presby terian, for many years a Ruling Elder in churches of that order. As a neighbor, one of the most kind, generous, and universally beloved by all who knew him. It was often said that Judge Leeper had no enemi es and was ever ready to help the needy. His house was always open to entertain the weary traveler, the pioneer preacher and the polite politician. Living as he did most of his life on the fron tier, and before the church was built, his house was occupied as a church by the preachers of every denomination who chose to accept it. Mr. Leeper was always ready and the first to move in building up churches and schools in every place where he lived. At Jacksonville, before any church building was erected, the first organization was affected in his barn — the Presbyterian Church — in 1827. About this time a very amusing incident occurred, illustrating the variety often met 142 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. with in frontier life. Old Father John Brich often preached in Mr. Leeper's house, which was built oE hewn logs. The chimney was made of sticks and clay and near the upper end it receded from the house, leaving a narrow space which was always warm from the fire below. Here was a warm retreat and the hens often sought it as a con venient place to lay, and hatch their young. It so happened on a Sabbath day when Father Brich, a corpulent, old English bach elor, was preaching, in his prayer occurred this sentence, " The Lord bless all the h-ends of the earth. " Just at this juncture two hens were disputing about the possession of said nest. To decide the controversy promptly, Father Brich called a halt in divine service, took his cane, stepped out of the door and proceeded to remove one of the hens and then returned to conclude the exercises. This created no little amusement in the congrega tion but did not upset the preacher. Mr. Leeper's home having always been on the thin edge of civilization, it was never his lot to enjoy many of the privileges and luxuries of an old settled country, but never was be hind the first in effort to subdue the wilder ness and make it blossom and bud as the rose, and to plant the church and the school. Possessed of a modest and retiring nature, he never sought office, but it rather sought him. He was a member of the Legislature of Illinois as early as 1827; was elected County Judge of Morgan County, but refused many offers of public honors, preferring the quiet of a retired life. Mr. Leeper and all his family were radically opposed to slavery and to intoxicating drinks and the use of to bacco. Only four of his once large family are now living: Charles, Mary B., Harvey B. and William H A modest slab of marble now marks the place where his mortal remains were buried in Oakland Cemetery. John Baggs had married a relative of the Thomases. He is a native of Ohio; his sister Sally was Mrs. Abram Stratton, and Eliza beth married George C. Hinsdale. Mr. Baggs removed to Iowa nearly thirty years ago, where he is now living. Another of the Baggs girls, Mrs. Avery, also lives in Iowa. John M. Gay, the Strattons, the Thomases and the Baggses andHinsdales were all very early settlers, all prominent and important people, and by marriages were all related Wiswalls. — This family were Elijah Wis- wall, the father, and Mrs. John H. Bryant, Miss Emily and Noah Wiswall. They came to Bureau in 1834, from Jacksonville. The family were from Bristol County, Mass., and came to Illinois in 1821, first stopping in Bond County and soon from there to Jack sonville. Noah and Elijah were each widow ers when they came here. The first year they made their home with Mr. Bryant. Elijah Wiswall then built a frame business house with residence back, on the corner opposite — west from the present American House. Renting the front to Salisbury & Smith, and occupying the rear; and Wiswall, Sr., died here in 1840. Emily married Micajah Trip lett, and she and husband kept house for her father. After his death they moved to their farm, where she died in 1874, leaving daughters: Mrs. T. P. Streator, Princeton; Mary, now with Mrs. Streator and a son re siding in Wyanet. Triplett was from Ohio, and came with his father to this county in 1834. Stephen Triplett and wife kept hotel for a long time in Princeton. Both died here. Noah Wiswall married Elizabeth Lovejoy, a sister of Owen Lovejoy. They had four sons — three now living: Austin, in Chicago; Charles, in New York; Edward, at Pike's Peak; Clarkson died in the army. The Searls — were from Ohio, the family originally from Chemung County, N. Y. HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 143 Five brothers came to this county; Brown and Job came in 1834; David, 1835; and Timothy and John, in 1836. A big family of big men, and the five sons were a little over a 1,000 pounds of as brave pioneer blood and bones as ever gathered on the bor ders. (See John S. Searl's biography). T. D. Rackley — From Orange County, N. Y., born December 9, 1829, and came to Bureau County in 1838. (See biography). The Huffakers. — Israel Huffaker was a soldier in the Black Hawk war, and thereby came to see the glories of Bureau County. He came in 1835 and entered land, and brought his family and permanently located in 1837. In 1838 Jacob Huffaker came. They were from Kentucky, and by marriage some of the family were related to Abraham Lincoln. They were a hard-working, quiet and economical people. John Welch was born in New York in 1825, of Irish descent. Came to Bureau in 1838. In 1866 he was married to Lucy Dunham, in Princeton ; a daughter of John Dunham. John Wise was born in North Carolina in 1814. His wife, Lucinda Bunch, was a native of Kentucky. They came to Bureau in 1834, living the first winter in Robert Maston's cabin in the forks of Big and Lit tle Bureau; near them was an Indian encamp ment. Wise made many chairs that were used in the cabins for years. Peter Ellis — A Black Hawk war soldier He was known everewhere as Capt. Ellis. A native of Ohio, came in 1830, and settled near Magnolia. Mrs. Peter Ellis died in this county in 1844. Reason B. Hall and his brother Edward came in 1828, and built a cabin in the east part of the county. After occupying it a short time, on account of the many Indians and the entire absence of neighbors, they abandoned the claim "and moved south of the river. Afterward they returned and occupied the place a year or two and removed to the lead mines. In the fall of 1829, a negro named Adams built a cabin at the mouth of Negro Creek, and from this circumstance the stream gets its name. He was frightened across the river by the Indians and never returned. Cyrus Langworthy settled in the south east corner of Princeton Township; had five children — three sons and two daughters — two sons now living. Franklin the eldest is in Wis consin, and Warren is a printer by trade. Mr. Langworthy was the first Sheriff of Bureau County. He served in this capacity three terms. In 1842 he was elected to the State Legislature and served out the term with creditable efficiency. He was a soldier of the war of 1812, and was in every respect a man much superior to the average of his surround ings. As Sheriff he had to bring the new and sometimes wild elements of border life un der the strong arm of the law. The rough law-breakers at times made it necessary for the officer of the law to exercise the coolest courage in facing these men. Mr. Lang worthy, except a lameness, was a man of re markable physical strength and endurance and his courage was equal to his physical strength. He was crippled when a young man in this way. He was cutting down a tree and as it commenced to fall he noticed one of his small children playing just where the tree was going to fall. He rushed forward and gathered the child and threw it out of danger and saved it, but was caught himself, and his thigh broken. It was never properly set, it seems, and made him lame through life. 144 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. CHAPTER XII. Immke's Group Picture of the Old Settlers — Its Value in Af- tef. Years— Suggestions to the Board of Supervisors— A Valuable Chapter in the County's History — Who are the real Knickerbockers — Etc., etc. IN a preceding chapter reference is made to the picture of the large group of old settlers, made a few years ago, by Mr. Immke, of Princeton. As a work of art it is an inter esting study, as a faithful reflex of over four hundred faces of the men and women who were of the band of Bureau County pioneers. It is already of surpassing interest, and could it be preserved for the people for the coun - try's second centennial, it would be one of the most invaluable contributions to the his tory of the Mississippi Valley that posterity could possess. In the small space of about thirty inches square are preserved by the photagraphic art, at the hands of a master workman, the shadowy lineaments of the fea tures of some of the gray -haired fathers and the "blessed mothers in Israel, ' ' every one of whom of those still left us will probably be laid tenderly away during the next decade of years, and the records made in this book and these shadow reflections will contain all the lesson we can know of these remarkable men and women. As remarked in a previous chapter, the form and substance of history is being reconsidered by this age, and the former judgements as to what history is, the lessons it teaches, and the fundamental facts there of, its true science and philosophy, in short, are opening new fields of thought and evolving the most salutary lessons for our contempla tion and study. The annalist, the chronolo- gist and the historian are the order of the development. When the real historian comes he will give mankind the highest attainable type of instruction and wisdom, because true history is the cause and effect of the exist ence and growth of the mind, its sweeps on ward, its ebbs backward. Let us illustrate the idea we wish to convey. The large majority of men have been taught to regard Martin Luther as the sole author, creator and master of the reformation, and therefore, the liberator of the mind and body of our race from the thrall of ignorant bigot ry, persecution and illiberality. Whereas, the truth is the forces had been at work to this end for more than a century before Luther was born. The spark had been struck that fell upon the ready material to ignite, most probably many centuries before he was born, and secretly and slowly it extended in the dark apartments of the mother church and the state until the glow and heat within brought the surging force of the wind from without that forced open the door and in a moment the leaping flames burst from all parts of the great structure, hot and hissing, licking up the long and patient labors of men who had builded neither wisely nor well. Luther was but the door forced open by a resistless out side pressure, which he no more created or controlled than does the cork direct the mad torrent of waters as it bobs along on the sur face. Every written or spoken word we have of him confirms this beyond all peradven- ture. There is not a question but that he died an old man, wholly ignorant of the ef fects, not upon the church but upon man kind as we have them now, in the liberty of conscience, the freedom of body and mind, the right to discuss, to think and to act, each and every one for himself, and to cast off those heavy burdens of oppressive govern ments, to be men, in short; these are a part of the slow-coming effects of the Reforma tion that are reaching us and that were form ing and growing through the long centuries. HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 145 The surroundings, the conditions, the ripen ing for a great event are always the result of a previous preparation and growth as are the ripe fruits hanging upon the tree. The twig that bears the apple is but the medium through which have worked the little fibers in the deep secrets of the soil, as well as the swinging leaf that is kissed by the sun and drank of the gentle dews of heaven. It is the master purpose of the types, when fashioned into ideas, to transmit tbe images of men's minds to the remotest posterity, and, if aided by the photographer's art, the re production of men who have passed away is not only made more accurate and easy, but far more complete than would otherwise be possible. The old, old saying that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, was well grounded upon that deep trait in the character of all people to feel that it is distance that lends enchantment to the view. We wish we could impress upon the people of Bureau County, especially upon those in authority, and whose duty it is to care for the true interests of the people, the immense importance, the historic value of this group picture of the old settlers; make them under stand that the people of the oounty, the de scendants of the noble men and women who won this rich heritage, are deeply concerned in keeping green their memories, and that they regard the keeping of their good names and fame as a sacred trust, and that it is neither time nor the people's money wasted if the proper steps are taken to put thiB monumental picture in such careful keeping of the county that at tbe end of the next hundred years it may be found. And that from these small portraits life-size pictures may be made, a public building erected for their keeping, and a public resort; reading and social and educational meetings of tbe people will be had and the central and at tractive portions thereof will be the portraits of the old settlers true to life; to each may be appended a short biographical sketch, and in the whole will be found a historical pic ture gallery more highly prized when all now living are dead and gone, than any other one thing it is possible for us to hand down to the unborn generations. Let the old settlers and the new settlers, too, stir this matter up, make their demands upon those who are car ing for the public affairs; convince them that it is first their business, and that it is your imperative wish. If they lag and continue indifferent tell them that there are old set tler voters as well as Republican, Democratic, Butler and St. John voters; that in the " off years," at least, you will vote as old settlers and will politically settle every one who is ready to vote money for every popular de mand and to pooh pooh at the idea of a pub lic memorial to the memory of the noblest race of men and women in the world's history. Mr. Immke is deserving of great commen dation for the excellence of his work, but more for the enterprise and generous public spirit with which he performed the difficult undertaking. We are free to say this be cause as a financial venture it has paid him nothing, and largely, therefore, it is a free offering and a most noble and generous trib ute it is on his behalf. As the custodians of the county's interests, the Board of Supervisors are the proper ones, and to whom the people look to more in this matter, for the simple reason that it must have their official notice in order that the work may be properly attended to. The total expense that would be incurred would be so very trifling that no tax-payer would ever feel it. We believe the only and one thing needful is that this matter be properly brought to the attention of the public authorities, to secure 146 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. prompt and the most efficient action. You have an Old Settlers' Society, of long and rep utable standing, composed of the best rep resentative people of the county. Its yearly meetings, its large attendance and interest ing addresses are an important part of your history, the most interesting part that is now being put upon your records. But few of the links are left of the venerable men and women of the pioneers, and are visibly di minishing at each of your annual gatherings. The larger part of tbe audience are the chil dren and friends of a noble generation that is gone, and their sacred dust, their memory, their finger marks and the results of their immortal lives is the one great trust in the keeping of the people of to-day. You can not remit this noble work to the future, be cause if done at all, it must be done now. When the substance fades, the shadow is gone forever. Lord Bacon, the brightest mind that has yet adorned the human race, speaking of that natural impulse that characterizes mostly the human family, the ambition to be more than the insect or worm that perishes and is for- gotton; to be remembered at least a few hours after death, says: "That whereunto man's nature doth most aspire, which is im mortality or continuance; for to this tendeth generation, and raising of houses and fami lies; to this buildings, foundations, and movements; to this tendeth the desire of memory, fame and celebration, and in effect the strength of all other human desires." Yes, the mainspring in life is the ambition to be not wholly insignificant, but to be re membered — if not by the world, then by the neighbors, and if not by the neighbors then by your children, or if yet alone, then by your faithful dog, or by some animate thing. This is " the strength of all other human desires." Ambition has ruled and fashioned everything human we see about us. It is the spur of all exertion, directly or remotely to all action, good or bad. Without it man would be wholly worthless; with it in any excess, he is generally a selfish, cold-blooded monster. It was the " Ambitious youth who fired the Ephesian dome," in order to link his name with its history, even knowing his life would pay the forfeit of his crime. It was the ambition of Napoleon that drenehed Europe in blood. All war, the great crimes, as well as the grand heroes and man's great est blessings have this common origin. It is deep-seated and wide-spread ignorance that makes ambition a great affliction instead of a blessing. Probably no class of men in tbe world had less of that ambition for the applause of men, for the pomp and power and notoriety that drives so many ambitious men to heroic deeds and great crimes, than the early pioneers of Illinois. The horizon of their ambition closed in at the very doors of their rude cab ins, where were gathered their family idols. Here they could get a home, lands for them selves and their children; to be free men and women, owing no man a dollar that they could not pay, and rear their children with no other masters save their parents. They well knew the hard trials, the risk, the dangers, the suffering and hard toil they had to pay for this little boon of life. Your school children learn the story of an Alexander, a Napoleon, or a Caesar's fame, and yet stand up any of these mistaken great names of history by the side of the least and humblest of the band of Illinois pioneers — compare the permanent good coming of the life work^of one with the other and from such comparisons, how little, contemptible, and insignificant is the great Napoleon to the humble but heroic pioneer in his hempen shirt, his well-worn wamus, his home-made HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 147 shoes and hat, his coarse features, unkempt hair, his broad teeth and his loud voice and rough, uncouth rugged independence. The one butchered bis thousands and thousands and converted the world into a waste and house of mourning — the ambitious architect of death and desolation. The other wrought peace, happy homes, prosperity and joys for the blessed millions to come after. Over the little hole of a door of the brush cabin in letters of living light he blazed the message to the poor and oppressed of all the world: " I have prepared the way. In thy Father's house is enough and to spare. Come and partake." But a few years ago, perhaps it is there yet, was a wood-cut in the school read ers placed there for the delectation, study and admiration of innocent and guilless chil dren. It was called ' ' Napoleon crossing the Alps." He is on his customary mission of robbery, destruction and death. Beyond the background of the miserable picture is burn ing cities, blackened homes, wasted fields — a world's great sob of agony. In a preceding chapter is an account of Abram Stratton, in the. fierce storms and deep snow of the winter of 1830, with his ox- sled and alone, crossing the then dreary wilderness between Chicago and Bureau County. Depending and at the end of that young dauntless pioneer's trip was the laugh ing land. "Look on this picture and then on that," and true history will reverse the pictures in our school-books and in men's minds. His tory must be re-written. The shams and frauds will be exposed, and the really great and good, no matter how humble their lives, how obscure their names, or how little known their good work to those who supposed they were writing history — in the story of the past, they will take their proper places, aud who will dare say, when the whole field is looked over, that among those whose works produoed the best results, there are any who may justly claim the places above the early pioneers. Silly worshippers at the shrine of these false idols and shams of history — these exe crable frauds who are mere buzzards roosting in the eagle's nest, may cry out against the iconoclast who tumbles over their beatified monsters, but the good work will go on, be cause truth is eternal, and because the ulti mate truths of history is the highest type of philosophy, teaching the grand lessons of life by examples. Nothing will more aid the historian in sift ing out the grand heroes of history — the best type of men and women who have appeared and gone in the tide of time, than the work of the photographer. This is a modern in vention, but so is the correct idea of true history. Everything is grist to the hopper of history. Here the biography, the dress, the manners, the thoughts, looks, discussions, poems, books, songs, the work and the play ing — in short, everything of and concerning a people are his materials, that are carefully collated, compared, digested and studied and understood, and then the results of these lives, whether in the field of thought or physi cal walk, are followed out in their immediate and remote effects, and thus the great temple of imperishable fame will rise, stone upon stone, to be seen, honored and revered of all men. We give the list of faces that are preserved in Immke's group, in their alphabetical or der, with the dates of their coming to the county, and in several instances such other facts of each as we could procure. The list includes photographs extending down to the year 1844 : Anthony, A., 1837. Living in southwest part of county. 148 HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. Anthony, Mrs. M. M., 1837. Ament, John and Sarah, 1830. The Amenta were from Kentucky. John died in 1856, and was buried near his cabin. His widow married again and had quite a large family. We believe all left the State some years ago. There were three brothers came together — Edward, Justus and John. They built a cabin east of Red Oak Grove, Section 1, owned by O. Dunham. Ambrose, William, 1840. Living in the county. Adams, William, 1840. Anthony, Dr. William C, 1841. Born 1807, Vermont. First marriage, 1837; sec ond, 1858; third, 1860, to Lydia Allen, born Ellsworth, Ohio, September, 1833. Came to Illinois in 1857. Mrs. B. Ripley, oldest sis ter, Mrs. A., now in Princeton, another sis ter, Mrs. Cook, here. Dr. Anthony came here an alopath, and for thirty years has been a homoeopathic. Bryant, Arthur, 1833. Bryant, Mrs. A. 1833. Full account of the B's elsewhere. Bryant, JohnH, 1832. Bryant, Cyrus, 1832. Boyd, Alex, 1830. Son of Charles S. Boyd. Residence, Princeton. Boyd, Mrs. Alex, 1834. Native New York; died in Princeton, 1882. Brigham, Joseph, 1832. (See biography). Brigham, Mrs. J. E., 1834. Brigham, Sylvester, 1829. Sold farm and went West. Brigham, Mrs. Polly, 1832. Bacon, A. W. , 1838. (See biography). Bacon, Mrs. Julia, 1839. Barney, Charles and Asa, 1836. From Providence, R. I. ; Asa living in Princeton. Brainard, Mr. and Mrs. D. E., 1841. From Medina County, Ohio. Alna Brainard, elder brother, married A. W. Bacon's sister. He died some years ago here, leaving five children. Brokaw, I., 1840, southern Ohio. Mr. Brokaw died in Kansas, and his widow died in Princeton. Left a large family. A daugh ter, Mrs. Chester Smith, living in Princeton. Ballangee, J., 1836. Ballangee, Mrs. L., 1838. Lives near Dover. Buchan, F. G., 1839. Lives in Buda. Bryant, E W., 1836. Bushong, J. A., 1838. Bushong, Mrs. L. L., 1837. Bennett, George, 1832. Died in West Bureau, leaving widow and children. The family moved in after years to Iowa. Boyd, Charles S. andN., 1830. (See biog raphy and general history). ' Bruce, W. R. and Mrs. E., 1838. Lived near La Moille. Bacon, H. V, 1838. Belknap, Eli B., 1839. Lived north of Dover. Biddleman, Mrs. M. J., 1834 ; was a Triplett; lives in Princeton. Benson, A. 1839; living in Tiskilwa. Bass, Edward, 1840. Lives near Maiden. Barney, Hosea, 1839; living at Providence. Ballou, Judge M., 1839. (See biography and chapter Bench and Bar). Burson, L. A. , 1831 ; lived three miles west of Princeton; died some years ago; one son living here near Adam T. Galer. Brown, George, 1836; died violent death two years ago; a son living in North Prairie. Clapp, John, 1834. Clapp, Mrs. Mariah L., 1835. Mr. Clapp was for a long time a promi nent citizen of the county. His sister was the wife of Caleb Cook. Mr. Clapp died 1882. His brother's widow living in Pince- ton, and his decendents live in La Moille. See elsewhere. Chamberlain, Dr. W. O. and Mrs., 1832. A sister of Mrs. Chamberlain, Sarah Topliff, HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 149 now living in Princeton. Dr. Chamberlain left two children. About the first physician in the county and a good and valuable man. Cusic, D. A. Married Eliza Cox. He was frozen to death, leaving a widow and thir teen children. Coddington, Mr. and Mrs. James, 1835. Natives of Maryland. Children living in county (See biography). Colton, C. D., 1834 (See Colton biogra phy)- Colton, Mrs. E. S., 1835. Cook, Caleb, 1834 (See sketch in general history). Corss, C. C. and Mrs. , 1833 ; came with the Hampshire Colony; living on West Bureau. Cattell, Mrs. A. D., 1836; living in town. Corse, Mrs. M., widow of Martin C. ; liv ing in Princeton. Campbell, Mrs. S., ("Aunt Susie"); liv ing north of Princeton depot. Corss, Henry, 1838; living on West Bureau, son of C. C. Corss. Clapp, SethC, 1836; elder brother of John, died about ten years ago. Widow lives in Princeton; no children living. Clark, Andrew, 1841. Combs, C. W., 1831; native of Kentucky, lived east of Princeton. Colton, L. J, 1835; brother of Chancy Colton; residing now in Kansas. Married a daughter of Deacon Phelps. Was at one time partner proprietor in the Republican of Princeton (See Press chapter). Cummings, Thornton, 1834; native of Vir ginia; reared in Kentucky where he married Sylvia Williams, in 1816, and came to Gallatin County, 111., and from there to Bureau. He settled in French Grove, then heavy timbered. He was the first settler in what is now Concord Township. He died in 1872, and his widow died in 1883 (See Will iam Cummings' biography). Cummings, F. and T., 1834. Crittenden, John and Mrs. B. G., the lat ter now living south of Princeton. One of her sisters married Col. Austin Bryant, and the other sister married Arthur Bryant (See Bryant biography). • Corss, C. G., 1831. Corss, Mrs. Polly, 1832; now living in Princeton. Sister of Joe Brigham. Cole, John, 1831; a minister in the M. E. Church. Cole, Jane, 1831 ;widow, still living, very old. Carey, Mr. and Mrs. Rufus, 1837; widow living in county. Corsey, Lemuel P.; his widow, mother of H. Reasoner's wife. Cusing, Caleb, Mrs. P. and G. B. This family are relatives of the celebrated Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts. G. B. resides near Princeton. Drake, William G., November, 1835; set tled in Dover from New Jersey. Had seven children. Cyrus Langworthy married the oldest daughter, Charlotte; Ann married Rob ert N. Murphy, and lives in Princeton; Mrs. Catharine Gregg, is in Iowa: Rachael L. Stockton, in LaSalle; Mary J. Clark, de ceased. The sons were: David, Morgan and William C, now living in Princeton (see his biography). Mr. Drake died April 29, 1852. aged eighty-one years. His widow died De cember 24, 1849, aged seventy-five years. William T. Drake's widow, Mrs. Michael Watson, came to the county in 1834. Mich ael Watson was the son of Amariah Watson, who came in 1833. Mr. Watson died in Cal ifornia; Amariah died here. Epperson, Harrison and Hezekiah, 1830. Epperson, Mrs. Abbigail. Harrison lives in Iowa, the only one of the family left. Emmerson, Judge Jesse, 1836. Living in Buda (See biography and Bench and Bar Chapter). 150 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". Edwards, Samuel, 1842. From Massachu setts; removed to Mendota. Ellis, Abbott, 1833; living north of Prince ton. Fassett, E. W., 1835; married Pamela Morton; residing in La Moille. Flowers, Sophie, May 1831 (?). Forristol, James G.,May, 1830 (See general history). Forristol, Mrs. M. A., 1836. Frankeberger, W., 1837; died 1882; aged ninety years ; Barrack Mercer married daugh ter. Forster, F. and Mrs. R. B., were Miller- ites in faith; kept tavern where Buda now is, before the town existed. Fritchey, M., September, 1838; lives in Tiskilwa (See Mr. Dunn's sketch). Fay, Sam L. , 1834; from Massachusetts; living in West Bureau. Garten, Robert, 1833; settled in Dover; was a prominent and influential man; one of his sons is a physician. Gilbert, L. C, July, 1840. Gunn, Aaron, 1831 (See general history). Goodspeed, M. L., 1840. Gay, John M. and Mrs., 1830; Gay was from Kentucky; he was a thorough, brave pioneer. At the organization of Putnam County he was elected to office; he lived here a long time and removed to Wisconsin, where he died; he was married to a sister of Henry Thomas. Greeley D. P. and D., 1839; from Rhode Island; he supposed he was related to Hor ace Greeley until he went to New York to claim his kin; the two men looked at each other and agreed that they were probably re lated through Adam, but no closer; he bur ied his wife in the Dover Cemetery and moved away. Gosse, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew, 1839; the first German to locate in Princeton; a pros perous, good family (See biography). Galer, Adam T. and Mrs., 1834 (See bi ography). Griswold, J. A and Mrs. M., September, 1839. Gheer, Hiram and Mrs. S. A., 1842 (See biography). Fifield, Samuel, 1836. Settled near Buda. Hinsdale, G. C, 1831, married Elizabeth Baggs. Hinsdale, Mrs. L., 1828. George C. and S. D. Hinsdale were brothers, George C. is still living, S. D. died about 1880. (See biography). Hammer, Mrs. S. , 1838. There is a family of Hammers now living in Ohio Township. Th8y came, the Hammers, in 1834. Horn, W. H. and Mrs. E. D, 1843. Heaton. Isaac, Reece and Mrs. Sarah, 1836. The Heatons living at Heaton's Point. Har rison Eppersan married one of the girls (see Heaton's biography). Holbrook, J. T., July, 1834. Died in La Moille, in latter part of Seventies; Mrs. King, his sister, lives in Princeton. His son lives in La Moille (see biography). Hills, J. W., May, 1843. Hill, J., 1838. Hassler, Herman, July, 1834. Large fam ily of Hasslers living at Hallowayville. Hughes, Isaac and Mrs. Jane, 1837. Mrs. John Elliott, mother of Gen. I. H. Elliott was a daughter of Isaac Hughes. The Hughes came with Col. John Elliott to this State. They lived five miles north of Princeton. Another daughter of Mr. Hughes is Mrs. Moore, now of Princeton (see Gen. I. H. Elli ott's biography). Headly, John M. and Mrs. Ann, 1841. All moved out of the county. Now in Nebraska. Hentz, Fred, August, 1839. Hentz, Mrs., 1836. Living at Halloway ville. Hinman, Robert and Mrs. M. A, 1838. Lived near Tiskilwa. HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 151 Hetzler, John, 1834. Settled near Hallo- wayville. Hetzler, Mrs. H. P., 1839. Hoblist, W. C. and Mary, 1843. Lived near Wyanet. Hall, John and Mrs. E., 1830. Hall Town ship, originally called Bloom, was named in honor of John Hall. He first settled in Selby. Hallowayville was once Halltown. Mr. Hall made very large farm improvements on his claim. Before land sales he sold this to Hass- ler for $4,000; he then entered a great deal of land in the county. He was an illiterate but a large-minded and great business man. He finally sold out and went to Missouri and merchandised very extensively. Among the early pioneers he was one of the most valu able citizens. John, William and Reason B. Hall were brothers. Hinsdale, S. D., 1838. Died ten years ago. Has a son, Burrett, in New York. Hoskins, William, December, 1830. Judge Hoskins was one of the remarkable early men of the county. Strong, heavy, big-boned muscular man, massive features and very large, broad teeth, a large unkempt and bushy hair, dressed in his home-made clothes. He never dressed up to come to town, and his heavy gait and movement, and his whole con tour presented a figure well calculated to arrest the strangers' attention. He had not much more polish of mind than he had of person, but both were on a scale that made him a big man in any crowd. He would attract the strangers' curiosity, and then when he heard him talk, his interest. A man of very little of the advantages of school edu cation. He was illiterate, but strong in intel lect. Hoskins, J. H, 1832, son of William; family moved West; one of the daughters,' Mrs. Hozier, lives near Trenton. How, Rev. D. J., September, 1834; was of the Church of the Disciples; had a mill, McManus'; died many years ago; large family of children. Hazard, Oran and Mary, 1839; lived near Wyanet. Isaac, Elias, 1834 (See biography of W. L.). Jenkins, George and Mrs. , 1840-41. Mr. Jenkins lived south of Princeton. They are both dead; died in 1868-69. Judd, Eli P., June, 1835. Lived east of Princeton; a son living there now. Judd, Mrs. Sarah, November, 1837; liv ing now in Iowa. Jones, A. H, September, 1836. From New Hampshire; son in Princeton. Jones, William and Mrs., 1840. Kitterman, M., 1830. One of the oldest living settlers in Bureau County. He was first here in 1828; returned in 1830, and brought wife and two children in 1831. Had eleven children after coming here — thirteen in all, ten of whom, six sons and four daughters, are still living. Certainly no two old patriarchs ever lived who better deserved the respect and love of the large family and the host of friends, and the fortune in this world's goods that they possess, than Mr. and Mrs. Kitterman (See biography and sketch in general history). Kitterman, Robert, 1831 (see Kitterman biography). Kendall, A. R., 1840 (See biography). Keeries, R. M., 1839. Knox, Aaron, March, 1840. Knox, William and Mary, 1834. Kimball, James M., 1842. Langworthy, Cyrus, 1834; Mrs., 1834; Dr. A., 1836. Mrs. William Drake, of Princeton, was the widow of Dr. A. Lang worthy. (See Drake's biography and sketch of Langworthy, in general history. 'j Larrison, Mrs. L., 1828; now Mrs. John 152 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". Stechell, living in Peoria. She was Henry Thomas' second daughter. This is another of the three first born babies in the county, Mrs. Sells being another one, and one of M. Ketterman's daughters still another. We account for their all being girls by the fact that the Black Hawk war was near at hand, and the boys all thought to wait until the fighting was over. Landers, Thomas, 1842. Long, John and Rebecca, 1836. There were several of the Longs lived near Senach- wine. Jehu lived in Princeton, was consta ble for many years. Noah and his son Noah lived in the south part of the county. Limerick, Robert, Mrs. L., George, S., 1839. Town of Limerick, north of Princeton, named after Robert Limerick. This family all died near where they settled in the county. Lomax, Mrs. E. J. , November, 1833. There were three brothers Lomax. One married Roland Moseley's daughter, another married a Radcliffe. Lumry, Enoch, 1836. Living near Lim erick. Lumry, Mrs. A., June, 1834. Lumry, Rufus, 1834. Went west and in crossing a stream was drowned some years ago. Rufus was a Wesleyan preacher. Left a large family of children. Leeper, H. B., 1834 (See biography and sketch of Judge John B. Leeper). Long, Noah, 1838; Mrs. R. A, 1840; Levi and James, 1836. Lonnon, John, 1837. Mason, John W., 1841; Mrs. A. M., 1840. Mercer, Dr. W. , living in Princeton; one of the oldest physicians in the county. He is of the Mercers, from Ohio. Martin, P. H, 1843. McPherson, Mrs. M., 1838. Mowry, Geo. A. and Mrs. Nancy, 1841. Matson, Enos and Elizabeth, 1836 (See sketch of the Matsons elsewhere). Mathis, Eli R., 1841; Mrs. E. R., 1834; living at Princeton. Merritt, Mrs. E., 1834. Mosley, Roland, 1831; W. Noble, 1831. Roland Mosely had four sons, all dead. His son Roland married a Radcliffe, now living with Henry Paddock. Martin. W. and Mrs. Jane, 1836; from New Hampshire. Mrs. Martin and Benj. Newell' s wife were sisters. Mr. and Mrs. Martin died here. Mason, Dr. S. R., 1841. Mason, Mrs. M. A., 1841. Munson, A, 1840. Munson, Mrs. J, 1835. Moore, Mrs. W. J. , 1837. Mercer, Ed., 1837; Mrs. J., 1837; B., 1834; Moses, 1834; Dr. Joseph, 1834. Joseph was born January 11, 1828; died May, 1878. Mrs. M. A. Mercer, living in county (See her biography) . Myers, Mrs. Morrella, 1838. Miller, H J., July, 1832. Miller, Mrs. M. A., 1831. Matson, Nehemiah, 1836; Mrs. E. C, 1841. Mr. Matson loved to investigate and write about the early settlers of the county and the Indians. He was not a literary man and yet on this subject he wrote a great deal, and deserves great credit for gathering many im portant items. Musgrove, Mrs. Sarah, May, 1831; widow of John Musgrove, came from New Jersey; died 1882; children are dead. Mohler, Samuel and Mrs. Caroline, 1836; living in Dover; Mrs. Mohler was a Zearing; died two years ago. Miller, H. F., 1833; C. F., 1838; D. F., 1835; Mrs. Sarah, 1835; E. H. 1832; Mrs. M. E., 1840. HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY". 153 Mc Arthur, M., 18.39. Mason, Mrs. A. E., 1834; living in Prince ton. Children dead except one daughter. Miller, A. W., 1837; Mrs. E, 1837; S„ 1832. Masters, Robert E. , 1833 ; son of Richard Masters. Moved to New York. Was Justice of the Peace some years in Princeton. McCasky, Robert, 1836. Matson, Enos C, 1836. McDonald, Mrs. M. J., September, 1829. Mowry, Jesse, 1841. Murphy, Mrs. Ann, 1836. Mason, John, 1841; Mrs. Abigail, 1841; Cyrus P., 1841; W. H, 1841. Norton, George, 1841. Newell, Benjamin and Harriet, September, 1835. (See biography of P. J. Newell). Norton, D. E., 1842. Phelps, Ebenezer S., 1838; Mrs. H. M., 1835; E. S., Jr., 1838; Mrs. E. S., Jr., 1838; E. H, 1831; J. R., 1838; Charles, 1836. Phelps, George R.,1836; C. C, 1839; B., 1839. These families trace their lineage back over 300 years. (See history of Hampshire Colony and general history). Piper, P. H, 1836; Mrs. Harriett, 1833. Phillipps, John, 1833; Mrs. Betsey, 1833. Perkins, Manson and Mrs., 1834; Stephen, 1834. Porter, A. G., 1840; Mrs. C. P., 1840. Prutsman, A. and Mrs. G., 1840. (See biog raphy). Pierce, Caleb, 1837; Mrs. Martha, 1840. Parish, H. R., 1842. Perkins, John, 1842. Piper, Ezekiel, 1836. Porter, B., 1842. Reed, Charles T., 1845. Roberts, Mrs. E., 1836. Reed, J. G., 1834. Robinson, David and Mrs., 1835. Reeve, L., 1832; Lazarus, 1834; Mrs. Sarah L. , 1835. Mr. Reeve is now better and more generally known as " Deacon " Reeve (See Lucy Reeve's biography). Rackley, Nathan and Mrs., 1836; George, 1836. Ross, Mrs. Selina, October, 1830. Robinson, S. F., 1835; widow eighty-nine years old, living with her son, Solomon, in Princeton. Rowell, B. G. and Mrs. A. A. , 1835. Shifflett, Mrs. P., 1844. Smith, J. H, 1840. Swayne, E. H, 1837. Sisler, O. W., 1839. Swan, James T., 1833; Mrs. Susan, 1836. Lived near Hollaway ville; family moved West. Stratton, Abram, November, 1829; Mrs- Sally Stratton, 1829 (See general history full sketch). Smith, Mrs. Eliza, 1834; N., 1837; Mrs. R., 1837. Stephens, Justus, 1842 (See biography). Swanzy, Dr. James and Catharine, 1836. Both died. Andrew Swanzy, a son, lives in Princeton; another son living near Tiskilwa. Studyvin, Madison, 1833; Mrs. F., 1834 (See general history). Searle, L. T., 1834; Mrs. R. G, 1843. Seaton, J. and Mrs. S., 1835; Miss A., 1840 (See biography). Sapp, Solomon, 1835 (See biography) ; Mrs. Ann, 1835. Smith, S., 1836; Mrs., 1834. Smart, Mrs. E., 1840. Smith, J. and Mrs. Sarah, 1835. Sells, Mrs. Mary, January, 1831 (See gen eral history for an account of Sells family). Stannard, S. and Mrs., 1840. Studyvin, S., 1836 (See sketch Madison S.). Smith, Eli; Mrs. C. C, 1831 (See general history of Smiths). Searl, J. S., 1834 (See account of Searle settlement). 154 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". Spratt, Rev. J. W., 1838; G. W., 1838. G. W. Spratt was a tinner and of late years , lived in the Green River country. Smith, Elijah, 1831; Joseph E., 1835 (See general history). Sutherland, Joseph, November, 1832. Smith, D. B. (See biography). Smith, Nick, 1830; son "Dad Joe " Smith. (See sketch of "Dad Joe" and family). Smith, Albert J. , 1839. Scott, M. A, 1842. Spaulding, M. and Mrs., 1836. Searle, J. M., 1836. Sawyer, Anthony, 1838. Sweet, J. L., 1842. Sapp, E. and Mrs. M., 1835. (See bio graphy). Smith, EH, 1831 ; married Clarrissa Childs, a native of Massachusetts; Eli died August 30, 1871, leaving seven grown chil dren — four boys and three girls; Eli Smith was born November 15, 1805, and his wife October 5, 1804. They came in an ox wagon from Massachusetts to this county. With his brother Elijah they lived at first in Foristol's cabin. The children are all living except Harriet and Lucy. Elijah Smith married Sylvia Childs. He kept the widely -known "Yankee Tavern," one and one-half miles northwest of Prince ton. He was also a Postmaster, and we be lieve among the earliest in the county, except Henry Thomas. He kept the postoffice in a split basket, and when hung in the loft it was all safe. He lived here over forty years and removed to Sandwich, where he died. Thomas, Ezekiel, June, 1830. Thomas, Mrs., June, 1830 ; died in the county. Maj. Fisher's wife is a daughter, and Mrs. Houck and Mrs. Corss are daughters of Thomas. Thompson, A. T., 1834; settled near Wy anet; Thompson, M. M., 1834. Thompson, R. E. and Mrs. M., 1839. Thompson, J. W., 1840; Mrs. S. M., 1836. Trowbridge, Mrs. C. O., 1840. Thomas, A. C, May, 1829. Tetnpleton, R. T., 1836. (See general his tory). This immediate family is now extinct. Triplett, A., 1834; Samuel, 1834; Mrs. M. A., 1837. The descendants of this family are still in the county, i. e. , one of the daughters, Mrs. Bidderman, and Mrs. Wills and several of the grandchildren. Tompkins, M., 1834. Trimble, M. , 1840. Thomson, Col. J. J., 1845. (See biog raphy). Wisner, James and Mrs. J., 1840. Winship, M., S. W, R. and Mrs., 1835 (See general history for account of Winship family). Wallace, Moses and Mrs. J., 1843; J. L., 1843. Williams, S. L. and,Mrs., 1834. Wells, David and Mary S., 1838. Wilson, J. and Mrs., 1842. Wells, George, 1841; Mrs. L., 1834. Williams, Curtiss, 1832. (See general his tory). Warren, W. A. and Henrietta, 1843. Winship, E. C., 1837. Wies, J. and Mrs., 1834; settled above Dover two miles, where the family are now residing. White, Alvin and Mrs., 1839. Wilson, James L., 1833; living six miles north of Princeton. Wilhite, J., 1835. Walters, John, 1837; President of Old Set tlers' Society in 1884; lives at Princeton. Williams, S. D., 1834; Sol, 1837. Woodruff, Dr. R. J., 1838; S. M., 1838. Vaughan, J. H. and John, 1837 ; father and son came from Nova Scotia; the father died here and the son removed to Oregon. HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". 155 Zearing, Martin R. , Miss Louisa, Louis, D. S., 1836. (See David Zearing's biog raphy.) Hon. John Wentworth, of Chicago, was Mayor of that city when the Prince of Wales visited it. He gives an amusing account of a citizen coming to him a few days before the prince was to arrive, and in a flutter of excitement over the great occasion, and in anxiety lest the Mayor should not fully ap preciate the importance of the event up to the proper point of toadying to the callow sprout of royalty, he wanted to suggest how to do it. When Wentworth comprehended what his visit was for he invited him to proceed. His first suggestion was that it would be in excellent form to select, say one or two representatives from one hundred of the first families of Chicago, to receive and dance attendance upon his highness. " All right," says Wentworth, " Please make me out a list of the one hundred of the first families of Chicago, so I can select." The visitor studied a moment and confessed he could not do this. The Mayor then asked him to please select ten, that is, nine beside his own. In short he was driven to the con fession that he could only really name one family — his own, of course. Some years afterwards in addressing the old settlers of the city, he read off the names of the city's early settlers, referred to the above anecdote, and remarked, here is more than one hundred of the first families of Chicago— the real blue-blooded Knicker bockers, the F. F. V.'s of the city, and predicted that these men and their descend ants would constitute the names of the " book of peerage" of the city, a record that would be carefully kept and closely studied in the long future by all who desired to es tablish an unquestionable and illustrious lineage. CHAPTER XIII. John H. Bryant— A Brief Sketoh of His Life, in which is Con nected Every Important Historical Event of the County Since His Coming Here — Birth of the Bepublican Party — The Farmer Poet — Etc., etc. " And I think, but not with sadness, When I in earth am laid, How after generations Will bless this grateful shade." — J. H. Bbtant. IN the preceding chapters, wherever we have been enabled to give in their own language, the detailed accounts of the voy aging to this place of any of the pioneers, who were young men mostly in their first rough experiences in the world, we have not hesitated to do so, and to make them as full in details as possible. They are full of his tory and interest, and for the rising genera tion are very instructive; they will find here food for healthy reflection. From the year of the first permanent set tlement here to the present hour, the biogra phy and life of John H. Bryant and his three brothers, has been very nearly the com plete history of the struggle into life of that feeble band and the record, existence and present high standard of the county of Bu reau. There need be no apology then, for making this chapter and placing the title that is found at the head, nor need we further explain that when we have once started upon the story of Bryant's life that it is consistently followed up, although it brings in some of the facts that are of recent date, and in the design of the work, except for this reason, would have only appeared in their consecutive order as the work pro gressed toward completion. The facts here given are in nearly every instance verbatim as we found them in elab- 156 HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. orate notes of the life of Mr. Bryant, by Dr. Richard Edwards, of Princeton, only in cer tain portions being condensed, and some of the details being here omitted, as they are given in other portions of this history. It is probably true that no human being has ever lived, whose record, faithfully kept, might not be useful. Even of the hum blest and most obscure this would be true. The labors and aspirations, the hopes and disap pointments, the successes and failures of men, are an index of the possibilities for good or evil, of a human being. For this reason it happens that no form of literature is more in structive than biography. In the history of another's life each one is reminded of his own experiences, and with the reminder comes in struction. All this is especially true of those lives which have been connected with important events. Every man who has helped in a marked way to mould the institutions of a country, or to conduct its movements, ought in some way to leave a record of what he has done and sought to do. Institutions, political and social movements, are products. They spring from the thoughts and deeds of indi vidual men, and nothing can be more in structive than to observe these developing processes, to note how the labor of head and heart has blossomed into permanent social forces. The life of John Howard Bryant is cer tainly worth being written, not merely on the ground that all lives may be so, but for the important events with which it has been connected. His birth and early residence in New England turn our thoughts to the sturdy civilization which has given that part of our country so much influence at home and abroad. His removal to Illinois will introduce the reader to those movements by which the Mississippi Valley has been made the luxuriant home of many prosperous commu nities. And his concern in political affairs will lead to some study of the great move ment by which the country was freed from the incubus of slavery. Mr. Bryant comes of Puritan stock on both sides, both families having emigrated from Bridgewater, Mass. His father, Dr. Peter Bryant, was a man of considerable promi nence. As a physician and surgeon, his standing seems to have been very high, and he enjoyed the distinction,' not small, of a seat in the State Senate. He was a man of large cult ure and excellent literary taste. The moth er's maiden name was Snell, and she was of a family that had produced a number of distin guished men. She was a woman of strong character, earnest piety and great skill in practical affairs. Her icleal of duty was high and her code of morals rigorous. The second son was the eminent poet and journalist — William Cullen Bryant. The subject of this sketch was born July 22, 1807, in the house, in the town of Cum- mington, known as the Bryant homestead Some time after Dr. Peter Bryant's death, which occurred in 1820, this estate went out of the family, and remained in the possession of strangers for many years. But in the year 1864 it was repurchased by the poet, and now belongs to his daughter. It is beautifully situated, and surrounded by scenes well cal culated to nourish the poetic faculty. John was the seventh child, the youngest of five sons of his parents. Of the scenes of his early life not much is recorded. It is noted, however, that the year 1811 there occurred a notable eclipse of the sun.* * Simultaneously with the eclipse was the great New Madrid earthquake, and the passage, in the midst of the earth's throes, of the first steamboat ever on the Western waters from out the Ohio River and into the Mississippi River. The 18th day of De cember, 1811, at least here in the West, is thus signaled as our great historic day. The eclipse and the earthquake were but manifestations of the forces of nature, the latter by far the most remarkable on this hemisphere so far recorded in history; while the steamboat was a human thought fashioned into a HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 157 This is a well remembered incident, because of its indirect influence upon his early school ing. By looking at the sun with unprotected eyes, his vision was greatly weakened, not until he was about fifteen years of age was he able to apply himself continuously to reading. Thus it appears that about eleven years of his early life were in a large measure lost to him. And this was the very period in which elementary knowledge could be best ac quired. But the loss seems to have been well supplied afterward. As compared with his brothers, however, he was decidedly behind in his studies at the age of fifteen. On the death of Dr. Bryant, the mother found abundant scope for her knowledge of practical affairs. Her husband, in the ardor of his professional enthusiasm, had been careless of money matters. The consequence was he left the estate involved. Accordingly the boys, except Austin, the eldest, and Will iam Cullen, the poet, who had already begun life for themselves, were put to work upon the farm. Cyrus was the manager and John was one of the helpers. In the summer they worked together. In the winter the former taught school and the latter did the chores. The services of Cyrus were considered to be sufficiently important, he being of age, to be paid for by the mother. But of John this does not seem to have been the case. At this time it seems that a neighborhood club was in operation for the improvement of its members in reading and composition. It included the family of Nortons, Briggs, Porters, Packards, Snells and Bryants. The steamboat— the New Orleans, Capt. Roosevelt. Compared to the awful, the appalling play of nature's forces amid which the ves sel rode ou t of the lashing waters of the Ohio into the yet worse troubled waters of the Mississippi, how insignificant it must have appeared, yet like the great inventions and thoughts of genius growing in good and enduring forever— encircling the flobe with its blessings, and lifting up and bearing aloft the uman family. The earthquake, like wars, famines and pesti lences, is but temporary in its effects, and kindly nature covers up and hides forever its wrecks and ruins, and their horrors and the appalling terrors are forgotten. But the thoughts, the dis coveries and inventions of genius grow and live eternally. In the perfect economy of God, they alone are immortal. meetings were held by turns in the houses of the members. The best English litera ture was studied in private, read at the meet ings and commented upon. Mr. Bryant was employed in the combination of farm and literary work for two years; and he declares that during that time he read more good English prose and poetry than in any other period of equal length. The club was an undoubted and permanent benefit to its mem bers. It no doubt had much to do in the formation of the correct literary taste which has always been a marked characteristic of Mr. Bryant. In the year 1826-27 he was a pupil in a select school taught by the Rev. Mr. Hawks, near Cummington Meeting-house. The same teacher was afteward employed in the acad emy in East Cummington, where he attended also, one winter. In the years 1828 and 1829 he taught school in the winters, in the town of Williamsburg. In the spring of 1828 he was a student in the Renselaer school, now the Renselaer Polytecnic Institute, at Troy, N. Y. The principal instructor at that time was the able, but somewhat eccentric, Prof. Amos Eaton. The studies pursued by the young man were chemistry, mineralo gy, geology, natural philosophy (physics), botany and zoology. For a period of two years, which was the time he spent at this school, this seems a formidable list. But a young man with a clear head and an earnest purpose, with the hunger and thirst for learn ing upon him, and sustained by the vigor acquired in a country life, often makes as tonishing progress, accomplishing great re sults in a brief space of time. Another helpful circumstance in this case was the fact that much of the work lay out of doors. Collections in botany, and to some extent in mineralogy, were a part of the required course. Hills were climbed and woods tra- 158 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". versed, as a part of the regular school work. The country about Troy is especially rich in botanical specimens, and the Renselaer student, as he trudges about with his tin cylinder strapped to his back, is cheered and stimulated by the frequent prizes he is able to secure. In this way he attains or preserves the soundest physical health, and at the same time adds most efficiently to his mental possessions. Stndy is made both effective and harmless by an abundance of pure air, wholesome sunshine and vigorous exercise, to say nothing of the benefit derived from the charming beauty of the Rcenery. In June, 1829, he took final leave of Troy, walking home by way of Williamstown, Mass. This place he reached at 9 o' clock at night — a walk of forty miles. Here he spent three or four days with his brother, Arthur, who was then a student in Williams College. The succeeding months of November and Decem ber were spent at the same place, in the study of geometry and trigonometry, and ' ' some Latin. " All his time, however, was not consumed in these dry topics. He wrote poetry for the Williamstown paper and also, by invitation, wrote for a paper called the Philanthropist, published in Boston. These poems are now lost, and the most that Mr. Bryant remembers of them is, that of one of them the subject was "Cohoes Falls." After this he seems to have returned to the farm. Cyrus had given up his supervision of home affairs and gone to South Carolina, and Aus tin had taken his place. He worked several summers on the farm. In the summer of 1830 he took the United States census of that part of Hampshire County that lies west of the Connecticut River. In the winter of 1830-31 he taught school in Plainfield, his compensation being $14 a month and " board around." And now the young man's eyes began to turn away from the home of his childhood. The valley "of the Mississippi had begun to be permanently peopled. Reports came of the gorgeous beauty and inexhaustible fertil ity of the Illinois prairies. The stony hills of Hampshire County began to seem hard and sterile. He resolved to seek a home in the new realm, where land was so cheap, and the soil so wondrously productive. In the spring of 1831 he set out for Illinois. His worldly goods, consisting of clothing, car penter's tools, etc., were stowed into two chests and a trunk. A tanner in West Cum mington was accustomed to make business trips to the State of New York. In this man's wagon Mr. Bryant placed himself and his possessions, and was carried to Hudson, on the river of that name. Leaving the bag gage in that city, he took a trip by river to New York, wishing to look at the metropolis before emigrating to the far West. He left New York on the 18th day of April, 1831, touching at Hudson for his goods, and passed on to Albany. The Erie Canal, the monument of Gov. Clinton, had then been in operation over five years. On this "artificial river," in a "line" boat, a boat for trans porting merchandise, he made the voyage from Albany to Buffalo, at an expense, for meals and passage, of $4.60. The trip oc cupied seven days. But the lake at Buffalo was full of ice, which made it necessary to hire a team to convey the traveler and his baggage to Dun kirk. His plan was to go by way of Lake Erie to Cleveland, and then by the canal to the Ohio River. The Dunkirk harbor was open, and a boat was about to set out for the upper lakes, but Cleveland was not to be one of its stopping places. Mr. Gurnsey, of Dunkirk, who gave the traveler a letter to Judge Lockwood, of Jacksonville, 111., ad vised him to go via Jamestown on Chautauqua HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY". 159 Lake, thence down the Conewango Creek on a raft or flat-boat, and to the Ohio River by way of the Alleghany. After some tribula tion Jamestown was reached, but the Cone wango had subsided; its waters would not float a raft or flat-boat, hence recourse was had to a wagon, and the Alleghany was thus reached at Warren, Penn. It happened to be court week at this place, and the town was filled with people. At that time the country was violently divided on the subject of Masonry. An exciting discussion was going on in Warren, and soon culminated in a street fight; the first thing of the kind he had ever witnessed. The next business was to find a conveyance to Pittsburgh. There happened to be at that time two families of English people who wished to make the same journey, and they had moans of conveyance. They owned an "ark," and had their goods on board of it. The heads of the families were elderly men, both of whom had lost their wives in Toronto. One of them, a Mr. Angell, was accompanied by two stout grown daughters. They made room on the ' ' ark " for Mr. Bryant and his baggage. For a time it floated along the stream without any exciting incident. The passenger made himself useful by going ashore, as occasion required, and shooting squirrels for the table, also by putting up a mast in the hope of accelerating their speed. But one afternoon they struck a rock; the ark was turned so as to lie broadside to the stream. The force of the current tilted it somewhat, the water rushed in and the load ing, among other things a very fine set of joiner's tools belonging to the Englishman, and our hero's two chests and trunk, were thoroughly wet. The owners of the craft were in great tribulation; they supposed they were ruined by the mishap. But the boat was at last righted and tied up for repairs. An attempt was made to dry the wetted tools and clothes, but with only indifferent success. The disaster happened on Satur day, and the boat was not loosed from its moorings until Monday following. In seven days they made the trip from Warren to Pittsburgh. At this point Mr. Bryant shipped on board the steamer Abeona, the largest boat then plying the river. An attempt was made to dry the wet clothes that had been wet in the Alleghany River, on the boat's boilers, but the records say " the con tinuous rains made it difficult." At Louis ville he was transferred to another boat for St. Louis. On board were 125 slaves, the property of a number of Kentuckians emigrating to Missouri. The boat was worn-out, leaky and unclean, having long before seen its best days. Among ¦ the passengers was a clergy man and his wife from Kentucky, with whom our traveler soon formed a most agreeable acquaintance. The weather had continued wet, and a Franklin stove belonging to these good people was a source of great comfort. St. Louis was reached about the 24th of May. The young traveler betook himself to a sail ors' boarding house. It sounds strange to write this of the now great city of St. Louis, or that it was ever so small a village as he found it. Its population was then about.the same as Princeton now. After a brief stay in St. Louis he boarded a steamer for Naples. It was called the " Travelei', " and plied regularly between St. Louis and Naples. On the 27th he reached the latter place. His objective point was Jacksonville, where his brother Arthur had been for some months. From Naples to Jacksonville, about twenty- two miles, he journeyed on foot, reaching his destination before night. In this walk he had for a companion a Mr. Harlam, after ward a prominent merchant and a member of the Legislature. This long and tedious 160 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. journey from Cummington to Jacksonville occupied five weeks, and the expense of the trip was $60; one-tenth the time now , and less than one-quarter the cost, with incomparably more accommodations and com forts, would make the trip between these points. The intelligent leader will see at once the importance of these details of this young pioneer's long and dreary journey. It is the vivid story of the changes that have so swiftly taken place in this broad land. Like the stories we give in preceding chapters of Strattons, Kittermans, Henry F. Miller and many others; stories that are full of interest and history. It is impossible for us to realize the increase of value and importance these accounts of the travels of the pioneers will be to the generations that are to come after us hundreds of years from now. Al ready railroads have been so long in opera tion in our country that the younger among our people have but slight conception of how our fathers lived and traveled. It is, therefore, a useful exercise to study the de tails of a journey made by a respectable young man who seems to have availed him self of the best conveyances the country then afforded. The comparison of then and now is , full of wholesome instruction, giving themes for the painter, the poet and the historian. He found his brother Arthur domi ciled at the house of Thomas Wiswall, but he himself stopped at the house of his future father-in-law, Elijah Wiswall, at $1.50 per week for board, with the privilege of paying this in work. The autumn of 1831 was spent in the store of Henry Wiswall, and the following winter he was a clerk in Gillett & Gordon's store. In the spring of 1832 he worked upon his brother's land near Jacksonville, while Arthur was East on a mission of marriage. In the meantime his other brother, Cyrus, had joined him at Jacksonville, and in Sep tember. John and Cyrus started for Bureau. They came on horseback. Their attention had been attracted here by the knowledge that the Hampshire Colony had located at Princeton. The colony had been dispersed by the Black Hawk war. On their way they found Elijah Smith's family, in Tazewell County, the husband and wife teaching school. Near Granville, Putnam County, were John Leeper and family. They looked at the country at various points, but Cyrus had known Roland Moseley in Massachusetts, and having re ceived a favorable impression in regard to the land in Bureau, they pushed on to this point and arrived at the Moseley house, a few miles southeast of Princeton. Among others they were introduced to the elder Dr. Chamberlain. Their friends directed their attention to the spot on which John H. Bryant now lives. This was the land Mr. Kitterman had ' ' claimed " two years before, and which had been jumped by " Curt " Williams. The war had run Williams off, and as he did not return, up to this time, they supposed he had abandoned it and left the country. But "Curt" was on hand in time. Suffice it to say, that Williams was finally bought out, and the Bryants peace ably installed in possession. The two brothers took possession of this little cabin, with its dirt floor and stick chimney. They were their own cooks and housekeepers, and most probably did their own washing and ironing, such as it was. The table groaned beneath pork and corn-dodger chiefly, if it had occasion to do any groaning at all. A heroic resolve and struggle was directed toward the luxury of flour bread of their own construction, once a week. This was a HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 1G1 daring dash at the enervating luxuries of the day, but the young men made it. Their lot was sweetened by the fortunate discovery, in the autumn, of a bee tree, so that, although there was not any flow of milk in this Canaan, yet the honey was not wanting. In their work they had the help of three yoke of oxen, brought with them. Hay for these was cut on the prairie. Cyrus, it seems, tended the kine, while John was chief housekeeper, and mauled rails while resting from the arduous duties of the household, making thus one hundred a day. During the winter they fenced forty acres each. In the spring they began breaking the sod. They had an old Carey plow they had brought from Jacksonville. When the share became dull, it was carried on horseback eighteen miles to the Laughlins, in Florid, to be sharpened. It was an ugly thing to thus carry, and once the perplexed and tired rider was hailed by an old pioneer: "Why didn't you fill a bag of hay on which to lay it? " The two bachelors had not time to set very lonesome, yet sometimes it must have occurred to each of them that there was something lacking about their establishment. Perhaps in the lonely watches of the night, when sleep had been for the moment dis pelled by a vivid dream of two bright young eyes, and waving curls, or innocent laughter, and pearly teeth — ah, precious, guileless girlhood, helpless and dependent, yet the flush of whose laughing eyes are more power ful over poor, lonesome man, than an army with banners. Perhaps — nay, it is now to us quite plain — in the long watches of the dreary winter there came to the young men the first chapter in that old, old story, that is ever new, that is always life's sweetest tryst. In June, 1833, John H. Bryant journeyed back to Jeffersonville for the purpose of being married to Miss Hattie Wiswall, who now for more than fifty-one years has been his worthy and faithful companion and helpmeet. The trip was made on horseback, following the trail made by the soldiers of the Black Hawk war. He was no laggard on a journey so auspicious, as is evidenced by the fact that the last day carried him over seventy-five miles of the road. On the 17th of June the ceremony took place, and the next week the happy pair started for their little cabin in the lonely wilderness. They came by way of Meredosia and the Illinois River to Hen nepin. At this place their goods were placed in a warehouse. High waters had made the river bottom nearly impassable. Young Dr. Chamberlain happened to be in Hennepin, and he had a saddle-horse, the use of which he offered to the young couple. Mrs. Bryant was mounted and the husband trudged along piloting the way on foot, only getting up to ride where the water was too deep to wade. They reached the house of Maj. Chamberlain and spent one night, and the next day they arrived at their cabin and housekeeping commenced. Here they lived for one year, Cyrus remaining with them. That is, he remained during the winter, and in the spring he went east and was married. In the spring of 1834 Mr. Bryant built for himself a cabin on the site where his pres ent elegant residence now stands. All the work, except the window sash, was perfoimed by his own hands. At the "raising" no whisky was used. This was probably the first departure in the county toward temper ance or prohibition. The new house was first occupied in June, 1834. This year John H. Bryant and Joseph Brigham were elected Justices of the Peace for Bureau Precinct, Putnam County. In 1835 the land came into market and Mr. Bryant entered 320 acres. Afterward he pur chased 80 acres at $7 per acre, and in 1859 162 HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. he bought 160 acres, paying therefor $4,000. Mr. Bryant was the prominent agitator of the subject of the division of the county. His wedding trip across the bottoms from Hennepin evidently made a lasting impression on his mind. Lobbyists were sent to Van- dalia to push the project before the Legisla ture, but nothing was accomplished at this session. At the Legislature of 1836-37 Bry ant and Elston went to Vandalia at their own expense, and finally secured the passage of the act which led to the formation of Bu reau County. Stephen A. Douglas was a member and Chairman of the Committee on Counties, and to him these visitors were greatly indebted for the success of their mis sion. The vote on the adoption of the meas ure was taken April 1, 1837. The division carried by a majority of thirty votes. This result was reached and the new county formed only after overcoming the greatest obstacles. The people east of the river and especially in Hennepin, were earnestly opposed to the proj ect that would rob them of the most of their rich territory. The particulars of this strug gle are given in another place. Suffice it to say here, that the important work and the respon sibility rested largely on the shoulders of John H. Bryant. The completion of the or ganization of the county took place in 1837, the year noted in American history as that of the beginning of the hard times commenc ing that year and lasting until 1843. The poor farmers would haul their wheat to Chi cago and after spending ten days in getting there through storms, and sloughs, and mud, and mire, have to sell it, if they could find a buyer at all, for 37 \ cents a bushel and pork $1.50 a hundred. In 1840 Mr. Bryant took the Government census for Bureau County. The entire pop ulation was 3,067. In 1842 he was elected to the Legislature for Bureau, Stark and Pe oria. In 1839 the State Capitol had been removed to Springfield, and the sessions were held in an old stone building on the east , side of the square, now used for a United ! States court room. At this session of 1842 Mr. Bryant was an efficient member, com manding the respect and kind attention of all ! his fellow-members. A law relating to Bu reau County — the Dover Road — was passed by \ his influence. This was the original road to Chicago from Princeton, and marketers had driven straight across the wild country, but when the lands were being fenced it would compel the road to wind around the section lines. The land owners objected, of course, but the people who had to do the wag oning wanted it as short and straight as pos- | sible. Mr. Bryant was again elected to the Legislature in the year of great political ex- | citement in Illinois — 1858. When the county seat was located in Princeton, the owners of the land were re quired by law to donate a certain part of the ground, and to give bonds and security to aid in a large amount in the public buildings. Mr. Bryant was the leader in this part of the work, and in paying for the ground and ex ecuting a bond to the amount of $7,000, re quired by the Locating Commissioners. His name leads in the list of public and liberal- minded men who put their hands in their pock ets and furnished the money, as well as the required bond and security. During these years and afterward he was a prosperous far mer, but not only a farmer. He made roads and bridges, manufactured brick, of which the original part of the court house was built, besides many other houses now stand ing in Princeton. In 1847 he became one of the editors of the Bureau County Advocate, the first paper issued in the county. But of this a complete HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 163 account will be found in the chapter on the Press, in another part of this work. Until 1844 Mr. Bryant had always been a Democrat, but in the action of that party at that time in discarding Van Buren because of his opposition to the annexation, he did not agree with his party and he left it and at once affiliated with the Liberty party, the leader of which was John P. Hale in the United States Senate. This organization was distinct from the original Abolitionists of the Garrison school. The Abolitionists claimed that slav ery was a constitutional institution, and they therefore attacked the constitution. The Lib erty party said that slavery could be abolished under the powers of the constitution; that the spirit of that instrument was hostile to slavery and that whenever the country should become faithful to the spirit, instead of being bound by the letter, the evil would vanish. They believed as did Henry Clay on the subject of slavery, as Jefferson taught, and as was exem plified in the celebrated ordinance of 1787, by Thomas Jefferson, which prohibited the introduction of slavery into all the North west Territory. But his faith in political action did not prevent him from rendering other help to the oppressed. Many times has he entertained fugitive slaves, both before and after the fa mous law of 1850, and the cruel "black laws" of Illinois of 1853. The unreasoning sever ity of these laws was an attempt to scourge men for acts of the highest Christian virtue. Their injustice and cruelty made them repul sive to a large majority of our people, and like all excessive laws, they were treated gen erally with contempt by good men and spit upon. Among the latter were Mr. Bryant. In 1854 he had as many as fifteen runaway slaves on his place at one time. He aided all he could to reach Chicago, sending them in broad daylight over the Chicago, Bur lington & Quincy Railroad to Dr. Dyer, of Chicago. On the 4th of July, 1854, the anti- slavery celebration was held on the ground a little southwest of Mr. Bryant's house. At this meeting the Republican party of Bureau County was organized. Nearly all the Whigs entered the organization, as did many Demo crats. The new party carried the county that year, and Owen Lovejoy was elected to the Legislature. This result was chiefly due to the action of Mr. Bryant. Previous to this, in 1852, Mr. Bryant had been a candidate of the Free Soil party for Congress. But at that time this party had but few earnest supporters in this district. He was a delegate to the Pittsburgh Con vention, February, 1856, for the purpose of a general organization of the Republican party, as were Owen Lovejoy and Charles L. Kelsey. His recollection is that Horace Greeley was much disgusted with a speech in that convention made by Lovejoy. In 1856 a Congressional Convention was held in Ottawa. Mr. Bryant headed the Bureau delegation in the interests of Love joy. Gen. Gridley, of Bloomington, was in favor of nominating Judge Dickey, and he fought Lovejoy with all the intensity of his intense nature. Mr. Lovejoy was triumph antly nominated and elected, and then com menced that remarkable career that ended only with his death, in 1864. The wide re sults flowing out from this nomination of Lovejoy are known to the civilized world, and it is no detraction to his other and many patriotic supporters to say that his nomina tion was in a large part due to his tried and constant friend, John H. Bryant. Mr. Bryant was a delegate to the Repub lican Convention in Chicago in 1860 that nominated Mr. Lincoln for President, and in the war of the Rebellion he was among 164 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. those and the foremost, who gave their time and money to the patriotic work of raising and equipping armies. He visited Spring field and Washington to secure the accept ance of new troops. He advocated and urged the appropriation of money by the towns and county to pay the expenses for the bounties and other purposes connected with the war. In 1862 Mr. Bryant was appointed Collec tor of Internal Revenue for the Fifth Con gressional District of Illinois, and discharged the duties ably and well for four years. His responsibilities were very great; his duties in organizing the most important district in the West, under the new and complex law, were vast and arduous. He not only had to en force the law, organize its vast and complex machinery, but had to teach the people what the law was and how to comply with its in tricate windings. The whole idea of the law and its enforcement were something so for eign to the American people, a people who had never seen or hardly heard of a tax- gatherer of their general government, that this was not small work, but an increase of the responsibilities and labors. Some of the heaviest distillers in the nation were in this district. An American tax-payer was to a tax-gatherer, much like our volunteer soldiers who could see no harm in dodging behind a tree when the enemy was recklessly shooting in front. In short, they had educated one anoth er to believe that there was no serious harm in outwitting a tax-gatherer. The Peoria distil lers found him rather too alert and vigilant for the whisky smuggling operations, and they, aided by Congressman E. C. Ingersoll, trumped up a long string of charges and alle gations, that of course had their temporary effect in discrediting a worthy officer at Washington, but the investigation following was his most triumphant vindication, and in stead of ruining Mr. Bryant it ended forever the political career of E. C. Ingersoll, who, in an overwhelmingly Republican district, was beaten for Congress in the succeeding race by Mr. Stevens, a Democrat. There is a circumstance connected with Mr. Bryant's appointment as Collector that deserves to be told. When the office was created he wrote to Mr. Lincoln and told him he would accept the office with pleasure. Mr. Lincoln knew him personally and inti mately, and thus the two men needed no middle man between them for " infloo- ence." He wrote by return mail, " You shall have it." But soon the busy politician ap peared, claimed the appointment as a per quisite and had arranged this to " go to a friend," etc. Every combination was brought to bear upon the President, to use the office to "grind the ax" for ambitious politicians; a tremendous effort was made in order to promote other interests. Every argument about "fixing fences," etc. , etc. , were brought to bear upon Mr. Lincoln, and all this time Mr. Bryant was at home and unconscious of what was going on to defeat him. He had no reasons in the world to have suspicions — he had none, and the- writer does not know whether Mr. Bryant to this day knows any thing about it; certainly no word has escaped him indicating that he ever possessed such knowledge. He simply trusted Mr. Lincoln, and the evidence of Mr. Lincoln's trust in him is the fact that his commission was promptly sent him, and he entered upon his office, and probably all the politicians in the world could not have changed this result. In 1860 Mr. Bryant was a member of the Board of Supervisors of the county which voted, by one majority, to build a court house. The money was not easy to get. Eastern capital was suspicious of Western securities. He went to New York and obtained $15, 000, but had first to get the bonds secured HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 167 by himself and many leading capitalists of Princeton. The cost of the new improve ment was about $20,000. The effort to establish in Princeton a high school commenced in 1866. The plan as ultimately carried out was a new one, and involved the necessity of procuring a special charter from the Legislature. The law pro vided for high schools in districts, incorpor ated towns and cities, but not for townships. He took the most active and prominent part in this enterprise. A town meeting was called to consider the subject. Although the meeting was legal, it was not certain that what it agreed upon would be legal. It resolved to establish a high school. To this there was only one negative vote in the meet ing. Superintendent Bateman was consulted. A project promising so much in the line of improvements could not fail to enlist that gentleman's sympathy. He encouraged the citizens to proceed. But in order to remove all doubts a charter was secured through the Legislature. It fixed the number of Directors at five, and provided that no new Directors should be elected for three years. The object of this was to permit the school to get fairly under way before its existence could be endangered by opposition. But money was needed to erect the building. Bonds were authorized to be issued, but capital was afraid of this security. Again Mr. Bryant went to New York, taking the bonds with him. Again he got the money but only on a personal guarantee of the leading men of property in Princeton. Total cost about $65,000. Mr. Bryant was the first President of the Board of Directors, and has occupied this position, with a brief intermission ever since. So complete has been the success of this school that by a law of 1874 any township in the State is authorized to establish and maintain a high school. For six years or more Mr. Bryant was a member and President of the Princeton District School Board, and much credit is due to him for the late and marked improve ments in the schools, and especially in the south school building. Of late Mr. Bryant has been residing quietly in Princeton enjoying the comforts of life. His spacious house is surrounded by stately trees of his own planting, and is rendered attractive by many evidences of refined taste. It is situated a few rods from the southern limits of the city of Princeton. Around it extend his broad and fertile acres, including not only fine farming lands, but also charming scenery. There is a consider able extent of primeval forests, reaching down to the banks of the creek. Through this he has, at considerable expense, constructed car riage ways, over which the public are always welcome to drive. Large numbers avail themselves of the privilege. On almost any summer's afternoon many vehicles may be seen making the circuit of "Bryant's woods." Here the lover of nature delights to walk. Here children gather flowers. Here picnics are held. For the comfort of the frequenters of the place the proprietor has been at pains to furnish a fountain of pure and cool water. It is not surprising that amid scenes like these, the owner's natural love of poetry has been nourished and intensified. His claim to distinction as a poet is overshadowed by that of his gifted brother, William Cullen. But a volume published some years ago cer tainly entitles him to a respectable rank among the sweet singers. It is marked by great purity of language, a correct knowledge of metrical laws, and a severe accuracy in the description of natural objects, as well as by the worth and beauty of the thought. The following is inserted as a mere sample: 10 168 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. THE VALLEV BEOOK. Fresh from the fountains of the wood A rivulet of the valley came, And glided on for many a rood Flushed with the morning's ruddy flame. The air was fresh and soft and sweet; The slopes in spring's new verdure lay, And wet with dew-drops, at my feet, Bloomed the young violets of May. No sound of busy life was heard Amid those pastures lone and still, Save the faint chirp of early bird, Or bleat of flocks along the hill. I traced that rivulet's winding way; New scenes of beauty opened round, Where meads of brighter verdure lay, And lovelier blossoms tinged the ground. " Ah, happy valley stream," I said, " Calm glides thy wave amid the flowers, Whose fragrance round thy path is shed, Through all the joyous summer hours. " Oh ! Could my years like thine be passed In some remote and silent glen, Where I could dwell and sleep at last, Far from the bustling haunts of men." But what new echoes greet my ear ! The village school-boy's merry call; And mid the village hum I hear The murmur of the waterfall. I looked; the widening vale betrayed A pool that shone like burnished steel, Where that bright valley stream was stayed To turn the miller's ponderous wheel. Ah ! why should I, I thought with shame Sigh for a life of solitude, When even this stream without a name Is laboring for the common good? No ! never let me shun my part Amid the busy scenes of life, But, with a warm and generous heart, Press onward in the glorious strife. In politics Mr. Bryant has always mani fested a sturdy independence. In the early years of the Republican party, as we have seen, he gave that organization a cordial and efficient support. In later years he has felt at liberty to oppose it. For this his action has been criticised by some, but by none who were broad and liberal enough in their own natures to comprehend his, or they had built conclusions without foundations. Surely an American citizen ought to be allowed to dic tate hiB own politics. Not only has Mr. Bry ant the right to change his party affiliations, when in his judgment the good of the coun try requires it, but it is his solumn duty to do so. It will be a sad day for the Nation when fealty to party becomes stronger than fealty to the republic. And it is to be re membered that the discarding of a party commonly involves to the individual a loss both political and pecuniary. The bolter sel dom secures any outward benefit. As a rule, he neither gets office nor makes money by the operation. The only possible exception to this rule is when the bolt is into the majority party, and from the minority, and never vice versa. His only reward is the comfort that comes from the honest discharge of duty. Mr. Bryant'enjoys the distinction of being one of the oldest and one of the most promi nent and highly respected citizens of Bureau County. He has been the friend of every good enterprise, the eager champion always of the cause of the people of his county and the State, ever giving his time, his talents and his money to promote the cause of the gen eral good. Here he has lived and toiled for fifty-two years, and his imperishable monu ment shall be the good works of his life and the beautiful words he has spoken. Amid the surroundings of a pioneer life with all its scarcity of the advantages for self im provement and the severest labor of the hands, his acquirements are varied and profound. He has drunk deeply of the fountains of En glish literature and philosophy, and kept pace with the thought of this great age. All his writings, in prose or poetry, show the man of thought and cultured taste; his bearing al- HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 169 ways dignified, courteous and polite, with no particle of self-assertion in his nature. Firm and conscientious in all his views, and bold and fearless in their enunciation, he has,at the same time, respect for those who honestly differed from him on even the most vital tenets of his faith. His personal experience, his education, and his reason taught him the fallibility of human judgment and the lia bility of honest and wise men to disagree upon almost every question of political phil osophy in a government constituted as ours is; and he claimed no charity for himself that he was not ready to cordially extend to others. In all the relations of life a sense of duty -stern and inexorable — accompanied him and has characterized his every act, and disregarding selfish and personal considerations, he has obeyed its behests.* CHAPTER XIV. Something about a Great Many People — When Different Places were Settled and by Whom — First Government Land Sur veys— The Denhams — Moseleys— J. V. Thompson — Judge R. T. Templeton — Rev. E. Scudder High, and Doughnuts — To Market to sell a Pig — Walnut and Ohio Townships. 'Again we stray, far, far away, The club-moss crumbling 'neath our tread, Seeking the spot by most forgot, Where sleep the generations dead." — J. H. Bryant. WARREN SHERLEY came, in 1829, with Sylvester Brigham and made his claim at Heaton's Point. His was the first settlement in this part of the county. Eli and Elijah Smith married two sisters and *The editor would say, in addition to Dr. Edward's account of Mr. Bryant, that in compiling this hist"ry of Bureau County he has patiently gone over the records, considetedthe details of every important movement either political, social, or educa tional, as well as the public enterprises, the economic move ments, and the moral, social and intellectual interests of the people, and it is no figure of speech to say that everywhere and their wedding tour was a journey to Illinois. They and Dr. Chamberlain came in company and were a part of the Hampshire Col ony. The three men had bought a wagon and two yoke of oxen and Dr. Chamberlain had the only horse in the crowd. A single instance of this journey will serve as a suf ficient illustration. They had nearly reached their journey's end and were trying to find Foristal's cabin, where they expected to stop. They left Spring Creek timber; with no road to guide them, they took a northwest direc tion. In a stream on the prairie (Brush Creek) their wagon stuck in the mud, and as night was coming on and it seemed impossible to get it out, it was abandoned and they proceeded on their journey. Dr. Chamberlain took Mrs. Eli Smith on his horse behind him; Eli jah Smith and wife were mounted on an ox. Night overtook them at East Bureau, near where Maiden now is, and it was so dark they could not proceed further, so they dis mounted and went into camp. Their only chance was to get brush enough together to sleep on. The next morning they mounted and pursued their journey, only reaching Foristal's late in the afternoon. Elijah Smith was born in Conway, Mass., November 7, 1806, and died March 2, 1882. He settled in Princeton, 111., in July, 1831. Epperson was the only man living in the township when Smith and his company came. Dr. W. Chamberlain settled one-half mile south of Princeton. Eli and Elijah Smith built a double log- cabin on the Bureau Bluffs, three miles north of Princeton. Among the young men of the Hampshire Colony were in every way the foremost name, the one name that was upon every foundation and upon every column has been that of John H.Bryant. Indeed, so much is this the case, thatthe history of the man and the history of the advancement of the people and the county are much one and the same thing. Therefore, the read er will understand that in the general history of the county is constantly recurring Mr. Bryant's name, and that this sketch is but a small part of the record of facts that will some day be the material for the construction of a complete biography of a life, the moral of whose history will be one of great interest and instruction. 170 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. C. G. Corss, George Hinsdale, Aaron Gunn, John P. Blake, E. H. and E. S. Phelps, Jr. Aaron Gunn made a claim on the Doolittle farm, and afterward at LaMoille. Mr. Corss made a claim two and one-half miles southeast of Princeton, on which he lived until his death, which occurred a few years ago. John G. Blake made a claim where Arthur Bryant lived, but soon afterward went east of the river, where he settled. Mr. Blake now lives in Putman County, and for many years was County Judge. E. H. Phelps is ,now living in Princeton, and is one among the few original members left of the Hampshire Colony Church. E. S. Phelps, Sr., died in Princeton. E. S. Phelps. Jr., lived in Wyanet, and is now in Nebraska. The settlement made by the colonists was called Greenfield, and Elijah Smith was ap pointed Postmaster. John Griffith, who owned Griffith's Mill, was one of the rangers, and traveled much over what is now Bureau County, before its settlement. Matson says there were seven young men belonging to the same company of Rangers that Griffith was in, and of whom Matson says: " Seven young men, belonging to this company of rangers, among whom were Madison Studyvin, John Griffith, Ira Ladd, and Jonathan Wilson, being desirous of seeing the country, continued their jour ney westward, and stayed over night at Henry Thomas'. Next day, as they were re turning home, they saw, while on the Prince ton prairie, three men on horseback, traveling westward, and being fond of sport, galloped their horses toward them. These three men proved to be Epperson, Jones and Foot, who were on their way to Epperson's cabin. Mis taking the rangers for Indians, they wheeled their horses about, and fled in the direction of Hennepin. The panic was complete, and the fugitives urged their horses forward under the whip, believing the preservation of their scalps depended on the fleetness of their steeds. Saddle-bags, blankets, and other valuables were thrown away to facilitate their speed. On they went, at a fearful rate, pursued by the rangers. In the flight, Foot's horse fell down, throwing the rider over his head; but Epperson and Jones made no halt, having no time to look after their unfortunate comrade, but leaving him to the tender mercies of savages, they continued on their way. When the fugitives arrived at the Hennepin ferry, they were exhausted from fright and over exertion, their horses were in a foam of sweat, while loud puffs of breath came forth from their expanded nostrils. Above the snorting of the horses and clatter ing of their feet were heard the hoarse voices of the riders, crying at the top of their voice, ' ' Injuns, Injuns. ' ' On the west side of the river were a number of people looking after their cattle, which had been driven from their claims, and on hearing the cry of "Injuns," they, too. ran for their lives. Epper son and his comrade sprang from their horses [ and ran for the ferry-boat, saying they had j been chased by a large body of Indians, who | were but a short distance behind them. As quick as possible the ferry-boat pulled for : the opposite shore : one man being left behind j jumped in and swam to the boat. Soon the pursuers arrived, and the joke was laughed off and the scare was over." Foot and Jones were single men and be longed to the Hampshire Colony. Foot made a claim two miles north of Princeton, now occupied by Shugart, and Jones made a claim where James Garvin's family now live. Land Surveyed. — In the spring of 1819 John C. Sullivan began surveying under the direction of Graham and Phillips, Commis sioners appointed by the President of the United States for the purpose of locating HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. 171 the old Indian boundary line running from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi at the mouth of Rock River. This runs a few de grees south of west, passing through the northern part of Bureau County. This was the standard line in the surveys of the coun ty, causing fractional tracts north and south of it. The surveys south of the Indian boundary were commenced in 1816, and completed in 1822. The last were made in this part of Illinois by Thomas C. and Stephen Rector. Their returns bear date November 6, 1822. The surveys north of the Indian boundary were commenced in 1834 and completed in 1843. The land south of this boundary came into market in August, 1835, and north of it in 1844. The land office in this district was at Galena until 1841, when it was moved to Dixon. The northern boundary of the Military District is a line extending from the great bend in the Illinois River at the mouth of Lake De Pue, to the Mississippi River, a short distance below New Boston. The towns of Wheatland, Milo, Macon and Nepon- Bet, were in part in the Military District, which could not be entered, and for many years settlements could not be made in this reserve. Indiantown, Leepertown and Aris- pie were settled on lands without Govern ment title. Settlements. — In the spring of 1836 there was no one living in the towns of Fairfield, Manlios, Mineral, Neponset, Macon, Gold, Wheatland, Greenville, or Westfield. There was but one family in Milo, one in Walnut, one in Ohio, four in Berlin, five in Bureau, five in Concord, and six in Clarion. The dwellings were log-cabins, built mostly in the edge of the timber by the side of springs. There was but one meeting-house, two or three schoolhouses, only two surveyed roads, and not a stream bridged. The land then under cultivation was a small field here and there adjoining the timber, and the prairies of the county were in a state of nature, a part of which had not been surveyed. In the spring of 1830 Daniel Dimmick made a claim at the head of Dimmick's Grove, and in the fall of the same year Will iam Hall made a claim near him, on the pres ent site of Lamoille. In the spring of 1834 Leonard Roth, G. Hall and Dave Jones made claims in the Grove, and in July of the same year J. T. Holbrook, Moses and Horace Bowen, also settled in the Grove.' In the fall of 1834 Enos Holbrook, Joseph Knox and Heman Downing came. In the spring of 1835 Tracy Reeves and Dr. John Kendall came here and laid out the town of Lamoille. In 1834 Timothy Perkins and his sons claimed all of Perkins' Grove, and sold claims to those coming in afterward. The first cabin built in the Grove was on a farm now owned by John Hetzler, and occupied by S. Perkins and E. Bevens. The second house stood near the present residence of A. G. Porter, and was occupied by Timothy Perkins, In 1836-37 a number of persons came here, among whom were Joseph Screach, Stephen Perkins, J. and A. R. Kendall, J. and E. Fas- sett. In 1842 a postoffice named Perkins' Grove was established, but was discontinued some few years afterward. In the summer of 1828 Reason B. Hall built a cabin on Section 34, town of Hall. In the fall of 1829 a black man named Adams built a cabin at the mouth of Negro Creek, and from him the stream took its name. In the summer of 1831 William Tompkins, Sampson and John Cole made claims on the east side of Spring Creek. In August, 1832, Henry Miller, William and James G. Swan made claims in the town of Hall. In 1833 Robert Scott, Martin Tompkins and A. Hoi- 172 HISTORYr OF BUREAU COUNTY. brook came. Other settlers came in soon after, among whom were Ranson and E. C. Hall, Mr. Wixam, Mr. Wilhite, N. Apple- gate, Dr. Whitehead and C. W. Combs. In 1831 Thomas Washburn made a claim adjoining the county farm, west. He sold out to Benjamin Lamb, and in 1834 Lamb sold to James Triplett. In 1833 John Phil lips, E. Chilson and Thomas Finley came; in 1834 Isaac Spangler, George Coleman, Edward and Aquilla Triplett. They settled in Center Grove. William Allen, C. C. Corss, Lemuel and Rufus Carey, Solomon Sapp, Adam Galer, George Bennett, and Rees Heaton were among these early settlers. In the spring of 1834 Thornton Cummings made a claim on the north side of French Grove, and J. G. Reed at Coal Grove, and built a cabin on the present site of Sheffield. In 1835 Paul Riley, Caleb and Eli Moore, and James Laughrey built cabins in French Grove. A. Fay settled at Menominee Grove, and Benjamin Coal at Bulbona Grove. In 1836 William Studley made a claim at the south end of Barren Grove, and in the following year William and George Norton, W. P. Batlerill and James Tibbetts came. In 1836 Curtis Williams, Thomas Grattidge, John Clark, Dr. Hall, George Squiers and E. D. Kemp settled in the north end of Bar ren Grove. In 1850 a settlement was made in the towns of Gold and Manlius, and among the first settlers were Samuel Mather, S. Barber, T. Rinehart, A. Lathrop, and James Martin. In 1837 a settlement was commenced at Black Walnut Grove, in the town of Macon, and among the early settlers were William Bates, T. Matheral, James B. Akin, Lewis Holmes, and John and Charles Wood. The country along Green River remained unoccupied for many years after settlements had been made in other parts of Bureau County, and was visited only by hunters and trappers. It was known at that time as Winnebago Swamp, but took the name of Green River about the year 1837, about the time a settlement was commenced here. In the Spring of 1837 Cyrus Watson built a cabin near the present site of New Bed ford, and occupied it a short time. Soon afterward Francis and William Adams, D. Brady, Milton Cain, Daniel Davis, Lewis Burroughs, George W. Sprall, T. and N. Hill settled here. The land on Green River north of the Indian boundary did not come into market until 1844, and some of the settlers held their land by pre-emption right. But when the land came into market they were not pre pared to pay for it, and to prevent others from entering their farms they organized a " Settlers' League," with a constitution and by-laws, signed by all those interested. From this Settlers' League originated the once common phrase, '; State of Green." In the north part of the county, except the one cabin at Red Oak Grove, and one at ' ' Dad Joe " Grove, there were very few set tlers until 1850. James Claypall occupied the Ament cabin in Red Oak Grove from 1833 to 1836. Soon after this Luther Den ham moved to this place. He died in this county September 1, 1856, aged fifty-two years. His wife, Eliza, died November 19, 1854, aged forty-eight years. They were buried in Oakland Cemetery, Princeton. A. H. Jones, G. Triplett, T. Culver and Richard Brewer settled in an early day at Walnut Grove. In 1841 F. G. Buchan built a cabin at East Grove, on the north line of Ohio Town ship, and in 1846 William Cleavland built a cabin on the prairie near the middle of the township, but in a little while he abandoned his claim. The prairie really began to settle HISTORY' OF BUREAU COUNTY'. 173 up about 1852. Among the settlers were the celebrated Esq. Falvey, John Kasbeer— to-day one of the most prominent men in that part of the county — William Cowan, S. Wilson, John and Andrew Ross — the Ross family being now one of the largest and most prominent families in the county. The read er is referred to the Ross biographies for further particulars. Also Daniel P. Smith, whose father is fully spoken of in another chap ter, and Dwight Smith were the earliest set tlers in this part of the county. In 1841 there were only a few families in the south part of the county south of Boyd's Grove, among whom were D. Bryant, B. Hagan, John A. Griswold and Isaac Suther land. Soon after this a settlement was made at Lone Tree, in Wheatland Township — John and T. Kirkpatrick, J. Larkins, J. Merritt, Henry and R. Rich, and the large family of Andersons, to one of whom the property now belongs on which once stood the noted Lone Tree. Ferrell Dunn (see Dunn's biography), A. Benson and * Elder Chenoweth were the first settlers in Arispie. The Sac and Fox trail passed by Lost Grove. This part of the county was slow in being taken up by actual settlers. As late as 1837 the Grove was the headquarters for some rather large and fierce looking wolves. In 1837 a traveler named Dunlap from Knox County, Ohio, was murdered at this grove, by, as supposed, a man named Green, whom he had hired to pilot him over the country in looking for land. In the spring of 1831 Mason Dimmick made the first claim at Lost Grove, and com menced a cabin where Arlington now stands, but soon abandoned it. In the fall of 1835 two young men, Blod gett and Findley, made a claim here, and while they were disputing about their claims, Benjamin Briggs entered the land. In 1840 he sold it to Michael Kenedy, who made a large farm her9. He finally laid off the town of Arlington on his land. In 1840 David Roth, who was a railroad contractor, built a house east of the grove, and afterward Bold it to Martin Carley, who made a farm here. Soon after this Daniel Cahill, D. Lyon, James Waugh, Peter Cassa- day, Mr. Okley and others came in here and settled. The first German to settle in the county was Andrew Gosse, who is still one of our most respected citizens. He resides in Prince ton. Butler Denham, a native of Conway, Mass., born July 25, 1805, and died in Princeton, August 8, 1841, was one of the large family of Denhams who were among the early settlers in the county. Jonathan Colton died December 11, 1854, aged seventy-three years. His wife, Betsey, died October 4, 1846, aged sixty-two years. The large Mercer family came from Ohio in 1834. William Mercer died here Decem ber 22, 1844, aged seventy-seven years. His wife, Ann, died July 21, 1844, aged eighty- four years. Aaron Mercer died October 6, 1845, aged fifty-three years. Jane, his wife, died June 8, 1849, aged fifty- five years. Dr. Joseph Mercer died May 30, 1878, aged fifty years. Roland Moseley, a son of William and Lydia Moseley, was born in Westfield, August 20, 1788; died September 19, 1855. He came to Princeton in 1831. His first wife, Aghsah G. Pomeroy, was born in Northampton, Mass., February 6, 1792; died October 2, 1837. His second wife, Caroline H. Cabara, was born in Pennsylvania in 1803, died Octo ber 23, 1855. F. Moseley died November 3, 1865, aged forty-eight years. Dwight Moseley died September 11, 1870, aged forty- four years. W. N. Moseley, born in Stephen- 174 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. son, N. Y., April 11, 1822, died May 6, 1872. Roland P. Moseley died April 29, 1850, aged thirty-four years. Joseph V. Thompson was born in London, October 31, 1814; died May 13, 1871. His wife, Mary E. Kent, was also a native of London; born 1810, died September 15, 1847. Mr. Thompson was one of the leading men of the county for many years. He filled many of the county offices; was Sheriff at one time. Was noted for his good sense, genial nature, and pungent wit. Judge Robert T. Templeton was born October 20, 1811; died February 4, 1865. He was buried in Oakland Cemetery. Look ing at the monument over his grave the writer's attention was arrested and deeply interested in a sentence on one side of the stone, where it was the only mark. It was, " The Grave of My Dear Papa." There was here a great deal of the story of life, love and inexorable death. Could a book tell more of the story of the babe, the little girl, the child and the strong, doting father and the tender affection and love of one to the other. The writer had never seen either of them, yet this short, simple inscription deeply interested him, and in imagination he could not but go over the sweet story that it spoke of a high and holy love that was stronger than death, so strong and so pure that he frankly confesses that it impressed him as the strongest plea for a union and a recogni tion beyond the grave that he had ever met. She was buried by the side of her " dear papa's grave." Surely in death they are not separated. Leonora, wife of Judge Templeton, was born July 11, 1824; died May 19, 1883. Mr. Templeton was the pioneer merchant of Princeton, and he built the first commerce of the county. He was a man of large busi ness capacity, and active in body and mind. For his day he accumulated quite a fortune. He was a member of the State Constitu tional Convention of 1862, was a mem ber of the County Court in 1848, and also Swamp Land and Drainage Commissioner for the county, and in 1839 he was elected County Treasurer. In the building up of Princeton, the organizing the new county and putting its machinery in motion, he was con stantly a prominent and efficient actor. He was widely known and universally respected. Of the union of Mr. and Mrs. Templeton there was but one child — a daughter — Mary Ross Templeton, who was just three years old when her father died. She never mar ried, and died in Princeton in 1878. It will be seen that with the death of Mrs. Tem pleton recently, tbe immediate family of Judge Templeton became extinct. Caleb Cushing was born August 12, 1795, in Seekonk, Mass. Died January 12, 1877, in Providence, Bureau County. He was a son of Charles and Chloe (Carpenter) Cush ing, natives of Massachusetts. Their chil dren were Christopher C, Charles C, Chaun- cey, Polly and Caleb. Rev. E. Scudder High, who resided near Tiskilwa, was among the early and heroic preachers of the Presbyterian faith. He was full of the severe, intense and dogmatic doc trine that so marked his day and age. He was not ashamed to own his Lord and Mas ter, and it never occurred to him to stop and inquire whether this sentiment was duly re ciprocated or not He believed that religion was a solemn, serious and awfully severe thing,, and he loved God exclusively on the ground that a few, only a few, were to be saved, and all else were to be damned, as they richly deserved to be. His God was always du ly angry and jealous and He gave the great mass of mankind the hot end of the poker. The beauties of heaven were beautiful only by the HISTORY' OF BUREAU COUNTY. 175 reflex of the eternal and exquisite tortures of hell. He was severely good, heroically pious and very long-winded in his sermons of love and goodness. He was a bachelor, and who can blame him. He rode long distances over all this part of Illinois, and preached long sermons, and received but short pay. His sermons were so long and dry that it was a serious matter, especially with the young folks who had to sit them out. It is said that one real old benevolent Christian was so moved by the discomforts of the children that he provided himself with a lot of dough nuts, which he passed about among the ur chins, to their infinite relief, and without in the least attracting the holy man's attention or disturbing his " eighteenthly" or breaking the thread of his brimstone sermon. Going to Market to Sell a Nice Pig. — It is not so long ago but many yet living can well remember when the only market for all this part of Illinois was Galena — the Lead Mines — as it was once called. With no roads, no bridges, no places of shelter or retreat from " the night and storm and darkness," no guiding track except the chance Indian trail, or the sun and stars, and hundreds of miles to haul or drive to market and then get $1.50 for , pork, or 50 cents for wheat, it now seems incredible that people would work and struggle to make farms with only such a pros pect as this before them. The farmers usu ally had to form little companies and thus go together, as this was necessary to help each other along over the long slow trip and as a protection against a sort of banditti that made it often unsafe for a man to travel alone. Many are the tales told of the dangers and fatigues between here and Chicago and Galena. We give one instance as a curious circumstance of the times. Robert Caultass, an Englishman living near where Sheffield now is, had arranged to join three men from Stark County and take his drove of hogs with theirs to Galena. These three men from Stark were Robert and William Hall and W. W. Winslow. When the drove from Stark County reached Caul tass' place he joined them and all started for Galena. They moved along slowly but with no great difficulty until they struck the great prairie beyond Edwards River, which was then a stretch of sixteen miles without a halting place. By this time provisions were growing scarce, and they dispatched William Hall ahead with a wagon to obtain some, and have them in readiness at their next camp ing spot beyond the prairie. But hardly had he left them when the wind changed and blew a gale directly in their faces; a driving snow filled the air and almost blinded them, and the hogs most positively refused to face the storm. And these were no lubberly pen- bred hogs, but long-legged "graziers," fat tened in the woods, that had good use of their legs when put to it; they were travel ers from the word go. So the drovers bad hard work to prevent a general stampede back to the Bureau timber. To advance a step was impossible. Here they were on the open prairie, in the driving, blinding storm. What were they to do ? A council was held and they came to the conclusion that they must either perish or follow the hogs home again. But just at this juncture the Peoria and Galena stage, drawn by four stout horses, came dashing along cutting a path through the snow, and for some reason known only to themselves, the hogs took after the stage, fairly pursuing it for miles, squealing furiously, and running at a rate that almost kept them abreast of the horses, to the great relief of the drovers who thereby soon reached a shelter for the night, and glad to think that "all's well that ends well." In the course of time they arrived at Galena 176 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. with their drove, and made arrangements for doing their own slaughtering, as was then common. Some man furnished them yard, board and fire and all conveniences for the work, and in return took the rough fat. And the bold venture turned out very well. John Musgrove was one of the important early settlers. He was from New Jersey, and to this fact Princeton owes its name, aB he was one of the first proprietors of the town, that is, he was one of three that platted and laid off the town, and when they came to select a name for it Musgrove wanted it named Princeton. The others wanted some Massachusetts name, and finally the different names were put in a hat and to Musgrove's joy Princeton was drawn. Mr. Musgrove died October 16, 1839. In the civil history of the county in other parts of this work the name of Justin H. Olds frequently occurs. He was a native of Belchertown, Mass. Born September 4, 1806; died in Peoria, to which place he had removed, November 30, 1878. He was Cir cuit Clerk, County Treasurer of Bureau County and County Surveyor, besides other positions of honor and trust. His wife, Louisa G., was a sister of the Bryants. She died December 13, 1868, aged sixty-one years, eleven months and twenty-three days. Their children, Lucy Wood and Bryant, sleep by their side in Oakland Cemetery. The family reside in Peoria, to which place Mr. Olds removed in consequence of his ap pointment as Inspector in the Revenue Serv ice. Cyrus Bryant died February 19, 1865, aged sixty-six years, seven months and seven days. Julia E., his wife, died April 25, 1875, aged sixty- seven years. Austin Bryant died February 1, 1866, aged seventy -two years, nine months and fifteen days. Mrs. Sarah Snell Bryant, widow of Dr. Peter Bryant, of Cummington, Mass, was born in Bridgewater, December 4, 1768; died in Princeton May 6, 1847. Her illustrious children are the fitting crown to her noble and devoted life. The settlement in Walnut Grove com menced in 1837. Among the first were Thomas Motheral, William Bates, James B. Akin, Lewis Holmes, Charles Lee, T. J. Horton and Charles Wood. Matson in his Reminiscences says: "On the 19th of May, 1830, Daniel Dimmick made a claim a short distance south of Lamoille, on what is now known as the Collins' farm, and from that time the head of Main Bureau timber took the name of Dimmick's Grove. In the fall of 1849 William Hall made a claim and built a cabin on the present site of Lamoille, and occupied it about eighteen months. In April, 1832, Mr. Hall, having sold his claim to Aaron Gunn, moved to Indian Creek, twelve miles north of Ottawa, were himself and part of his family were killed by the Indians a few weeks afterward. At the commencement of the Black Hawk war Dimmick left his claim and never returned to it again, and for two years Dimmick's Grove was without inhabitants ; the cabins and fences went to decay, and the untilled lands grew up in weeds. When Dimmick fled from the grove he left two sows and pigs which increased in a few years to quite a drove of wild hogs, that were hunted in the grove years afterward, and from them some of the early settlers obtained their supply of pork. In the spring of 1834, Leonard Roth, Greenberry Hall, and Dave Jones made claims in the grove, and for a short time Timothy Perkins occupied the Dimmick cabin. In July of the same year, Jonathan T. Hol brook, Moses and Horace Bowen settled in HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 177 the grove. Mr. Holbrook and Moses Bowen bought Gunn's claim aud made farms. In the fall of 1834 Enos Holbrook, Joseph Knox and Heman Downing settled in the grove. In the spring of 1836 Tracy Reeve and Dr. John Kendall bought Moses Bowen's farm and laid off Lamoille. Mr. Bowen had previously made a survey of the town, but made no record of it when he sold to the above named parties. The town was origin ally called Greenfield, but was afterward changed to its present name, on account of obtaining a postoffice. Joseph Knox on leaving Dimmick' s Grove, located at a point of timber which was after ward known as Knox's Grove. One night. while Mr. Knox and his sons were absent, two young Indians came to his house, prob ably without any evil intentions, but it frightened the women so they fled on foot for Dimmick's Grove, eight miles distant. Next morning these two young Indians, accom panied by their father, came to Dimmick's Grove to give an explanation of their visit to the house the night before. There were present Leonard Roth, J. T. Holbrook and Dave Jones. With the two former the explan ation of the Indians was satisfactory, but with the latter it was different; Jones whip ped one of the Indians severely. In the summer of 1831 William Tompkins, Sampson and John Cole made claims on the east side of Spring Creek, and for some time they were the only permanent settlers in the east part of the county. In August, 1832, Henry Miller with his family settled on the farm now occupied by his son, Henry J. Miller. About the same time William Swan made a claim in this vicinity, and the next year James G. Swain made a claim where he now lives. In 1833 Robert Scott became a resident of the settlement, and about the same time Martin Tompkins and Alexander Holbrook made claims near the east line of the county, where H. W. Terry now lives. Other settlers came in soon after, among whom were Reason and E. C. Hall, Mr. Wixam, Mr. Wilhite, Nathaniel Applegate, Dr. Whithead and C. W. Combs. In 1834 Timothy Perkins and sons claimed all of Perkins' Grove. The first house built in the grove was on a farm owned by John Hetzler. This was originally occupied by Solomon Perkins and Elijah Bevens. The second house was built near A. G. Porter's, and was occupied by Timothy Perkins; this house was covered with deer skins. Joseph Search, Stephen Perkins and Mr. Hart set tled in the spring of 1835 on the west side of the grove; J. and A. R. Kendall, J. and E. Fassett were among the early settlers. A postoffice was established here in 1842 and called Perkins' Grove. In 1834 Isaac Spangler, George Coleman and Aquilla Triplett settled on the east of Center Grove; William Allen and C. C. Corss north of it. Providence Colony. — in 1836 a colony was organized in Providence, R. I., for the pur pose of colonizing some place in Illinois. There were seventy-two stockholders in the company, who owned from one to sixteen shares each, and each share was to draw eighty acres of land, which amounted in all to 17,000 acres. Com. Morris, Col. C. Oak ley, Asa Barney, L. Scott, S. G. Wilson, Edward Bailey and Caleb Cushing, were ap pointed a committee to select and enter the lands for the colony. This committee, after exploring the country in different parts of the States selected Township 15, Range 8 (now Indiantown), for their future home. The land in this township was then vacant, except a few tracts in the southeast corner, and it was without inhabitants, with the exception of Martin Tompkins and Mr. Burt. All the HISTORY OP BUREAU COUNTY. vacant land in this township, and some in the adjoining one, was entered by the colony, and a portion of which was soon after made into farms. The colony committee, after entering the land, laid off a town, and in honor of Roger Williams, named it Providence. Two of the committee, Asa Barney and Caleb Cushing, remained until fall for the purpose of erecting a building on their new town site; this building was a large frame structure, built out of the funds of the colony, and in tended to be used for a hotel. In the spring of 1837 about forty persons belonging to the colony arrived at their fu ture home, all of whom found quarters in the house built by the colony until other dwell ings could be erected. With this colony came many of the enterprising citizens of this county, and they received a hearty wel come from the early settlers. This colony, like all others, did not meet the expectations of its projectors, nevertheless, it added much to the wealth and population of the county. Among the members of this colony who settled here were Alfred Anthony, Hosea Barney, J. Shaw, James Harrington, James Pilkington, John Lannon, Thomas Doe, Mathew Dorr, James Dexter, Elias Nick- erson and Thomas Taylor. The first claim made on Chenoweth Prairie, which lies between Senachwine and Main Bureau was in 1834, by Ferrell Dunn, on the farm now owned by Alanson Benson. In the early part of 1835, Elder J. B. Cheno weth (a sketch of whom appears in another chapter), Elisha Searl, H. Sheldon and P. Kirkpatrick, settled here. Hosea Barney came here in 1837. He had a 160-acre interest in the colony. He was from Taunton, Mass., born November 11, 1801. He was a mill wright, and had gone South and in South Car olina had built dams and locks on the canal. In 1835 he went to Cuba and put up for a man in Rhode Island, the first steam-mill in Cuba. He married Hannah Nicholas before coming West. She was a native of Plymouth, Mass. She died here in 1869. Two of her children— Howard E. and Herbert now liv ing on the old homestead. Edward Dana was born in Providence, R. I., March 19, 1804. He commenced his bus iness, a tailor. Married Mary Lockwood. Came to the county in 1837; settled in Prov idence. Portions of the colony had preceded him. On his arrival, he found an unfinished hotel, and there was at work for the company Samuel Morse, Anthony Luther, John Lon- non, Darius Wheeler, George Rose, Caleb Charles and Albert Haskel. Mr. Dana built a log- cabin, and moved into it. On May 8, some of the members of the colony arrived. The most of them in a sorry plight; foot sore, worn-out and badly homesick. Mr. Dana had heard they were coming and his wife had prepared supper for them. They fed them well, but many were wretched and dissatisfied, and Mrs. Cameron declared she would not change her dress until she went back East. As it was fully three months be fore she could return, and she kept her word about changing her dress, the reader can im agine it was literally worn off by the time she got back home. Mr. Dana soon moved into Tiskilwa and followed his trade. In 1846 he commenced farming. Mr. Dana was married the second time to Mrs. Sarah Beaumont (nee Sarah Douglas). An old soldier of the war of 1812 was Thomas Doe, born April 11, 1818, in Lincoln County, Me., and died here December 1, 1868, a carpenter by occupation. He was several years Clerk of his township. Robert Hinman came to Wyanet in 1838. He was born September 5, 1804, in Vermont. He followed the sea for years and in 1826 he was an humble fisherman, "where fishers gang HISTORY' OF BUREAU COUNTY. 170 to fish for cod." He married December 4, 1828, in Vermont, Mindwell A. Bartlett, who is the mother of eight children. A Menonite Church was built in Indian- town Township in 1873, costing $2,600. Joseph Burckey, John Burcky, John Albright and Peter Baufman are the leading members of this church. George E. Dorr was an early tavern-keeper at Bulbona's Grove. He was in his day one of the celebrated landlords along the Galena stage road. He was a native of Chatham County, N. Y. His father was born Novem ber 5, 1821. He came to Illinois in 1837 and improved what is yet known as Dorr's Hill. He was one of the first Postmasters at this place, a position he filled for eight years. He was for a loDg time a Justice of the Peace, The Hunters. — There were fourteen of this family came together to Bureau County, of these, Enoch Hunter was born in the mount ains of Vermont in 1824. He came here with his father and has been one of our most successful and enterprising farmers. In 1847 he was married to Miss Adeline M. Baker, a native of Chautauqua, N.Y., born November 2, 1829; a daughter of Almon and Julia Baker. Of this union have been born six children, David Chase came here in 1834, a native of Roylston, Mass., born April 30, 1811. He married Lucy Brigham in New Hampshire and at once started to Illinois (see sketch of Joseph Brigham). Mrs Chase lived with her son, David W., until her death July 1, 1882. Mr. Chase was a very quiet, good man and always avoided noisy politics. They had three children — Lucy Abagail married Oscar Mead. She died in 1879. David Warren lives on the old homestead, and Mary Ellen is the wife of Arthur Fruett. David W. was born January 11, 1844. and except six years he spent in Iowa has lived all his life in the county. In 1862 he mar ried Miss Mary Coddington, daughter of James Coddington, deceased. She was born December 23, 1840. Walnut and Ohio Townships. — These are two of the choice portions of the county, and yet they remained vacant land mostly until 1850. We have had frequent occasion to name the Ament families. They were the first in this part of the county. In 1833 James Claypool settled here and in 1836 he sold to the Den- hams, who looked at the country and con cluded it would some day be an excellent stock country, and they bought with a view of making a stock-farm— a place to produce improved stock. In the summer of 1836, a man named Martin claimed Walnut Grove; built a cabin, broke and fenced some prairie, but next year A. H. Jones and Greenberry Triplett jumped his claim and made farms here soon after, others settled around the grove, among whom were Truman Culver, Richard Brewer, Peter Mc- Knitt, Thomas Sanders, Richard Langford, E. Kelly, and the large family of Wolf. In the spring of 1830, Dad Joe (Joseph Smith) located at Dad Joe Grove, and lived here for six years without neighbors. In 1836 T. S. Elston came in possession of this claim, and for many years it was occupied by different renters, who kept here a house of entertainment. In 1841 F. G. Buchan built a cabin on the north line of the county, and it was afterward occupied by Mr. Abbot. In 1846 William Cleveland built a cabin on High Prairie, three miles south of Dad Joe Grove, but he abandoned it the next year. A year or two afterward John and Andrew Ross settled on the prairie, and soon afterward others made farms in this vicinity, among whom were Squire Falvey, John Kasbeer, William Cohen, Stephen Wilson, Mr. Hun ter, Daniel P. and Dwight Smith. 180 HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. CHAPTER XV. THE CHURCHES OF THE COUNTY. Ours be meanwhile the cheerful creed, That leaves the spirit free to roam, By mount and river, wood and mead, Till Heaven's kind voice shall call it home. — J. H. Bryant. A NATION'S destiny is shaped by its religious faith more than by anything else. The Christian religion, as we believe it, is the true God-given system of faith, and the one which this Government recog nizes as a divine emanation. "In God we trust," is stamped on our dollars. We accept it, therefore, in its teachings and its practices, as that mighty, moral force which has impelled us onward and upward in our career of unexampled prosperity in civil, moral, intellectual and commercial advance ment. We are but one hundred years old, and yet we surpass all other nations on the globe, in these respects, although most of them are older than America by a thousand years or more. Compare the people who now dwell in this county, with those whose ancestors occupied these rich prairies for a thousand years before, we having had it but fifty. There is no comparison. We affirm that our superiority comes from our under lying religious faith. Their poverty and heathenism came from the want of it. This is without doubt true of all other nations and kingdoms of the world. The Christian religion lifts men and nations into light and knowledge, and into the pos session of all the good that distinguishes them from other peoples. What nation or people now on the globe, except a Christian I nation, ever had a railroad, telegraph, tele phone, steamboat, or any of the ten thousand desirable possessions of civilization, until carried there by a Christian people? When a people become permeated with Christian principles then a superior energy ' impels that people onward and upward, into everything grand and ennobling, like a divine impulse. Hence the wisdom of the early . settlers, as they came to this wilderness country, here to make happy homes and a prosperous State. They planted first the church and the school. Here is a nut for infidelity to crack. Mark what a change came over these prairies in one short fifty years. Instead of the filthy wigwams of the red man, along the marshy bottom-lands, these prairies are dotted all over with splen did mansions, and these limitless land scapes are one broad field of waving corn and wheat. The wild deer and the uncouth i buffalo have given place to the fleet horse, the faithful ox, the patient cow, the profita ble hog. The useful wagon, with glossy bays attached, take the place of the pony and his rider. We have the cooking stove, comfortable furniture, the piano and organ, and ten thousand other conveniences and comforts unknown to the heathen dwellers on this soil fifty years ago. Why the differ ence? The answer is at hand. They had no church or schoolhouse. We have. They had no underlying religious faith. We have. This solves the problem, and points the way from poverty to prosperity. Let us, then, cherish our Christian faith, knowing by delightful experience the truth- , fulness of the promise of our great Bene factor, when He said: " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." In the light of these facts we can see the propriety in giving due prominence to aD HISTORY OF BUREAU COUNTY. 18! account of the rise and progress of the Christian churches in Bureau County. Congregational Church. — The old Hamp shire Colony Church or First Congregational Church, of Princeton, was organized in North ampton, Mass., March 23, 1831. Sermon preached on the occasion by Rev. Ichabod S. Spencer, from the text: ' ' Fear not little flock for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." The following named persons joined the church at this time: E. S. Phelps and wife, Amos C. Morse and wife, Elish Wood and wife, Samuel Brown, David Brown, Dr. Nathaniel Chamberlain, Levi Jones and wife, Alva Whitmarsh and wife, Elijah Smith, Sylvia Childs, Clarissa Childs, Jonn Leonard and Maria Lyman. After farewell meetings were had, and the prelim inaries all completed, the little colony church commenced their journey to the land of promise. The Hampshire Colony had been organized the year previous, and had sent forward two or three of their number to the West to recon- noiter and to locate the colony. The main body did not start until May 7, 1831. They embarked on a canal boat at Albany, with Cot ton Mather as Captain. The first Sabbath found them in Buffalo. From here they took steamer for Detroit. They hired teams to take them from here to Chicago, starting May 25. Mr. Jones had preceded the colony the previous fall and located temporarily at Bailey's Point, eight miles south of LaSalle, near the Vermillion River, where he had built a large double log-house to receive the colony, which arrived June 9, just five weeks and two days from the commencement of their jour ney. They all remained here some time to rest. Finally, on the evening of July 4, they reached the camp of James Foristol, one mile North of Dover. Thus far we have seen the church in the wilderness. Now they reach the promised land, and the first formal meeting the church held in Illinois was October 20, 1831, at the house of Elijah Smith, a little north of the present city of Princeton. The first business done was the election of Dr. Chamberlain as clerk in the place of Mr. Morse, deceased. This little colony was soon reduced in num ber by death and removal until there were but four members left, and these were soon constrained to Beek safety in the older settle ments from the scalping-knife of the Indian. Both the colony and the church were now re duced very near the point of extinction. This was indeed the day of small things. It was the only church in Illinois at this time of the Congregational order. They were cast down but not forsaken. After about two years mem bers began to return, and others coming in joined, and in February, 1834, the church held its first communion season, at which time six persons joined: Joel Doolittle, Laz arus Reeve and Nathaniel Chamberlain, Sr., and their wives. Lucien Farnham became their pastor about the close of 1833, and he reports that at their above meeting the house was full, and that Methodists, Presbyterians and others com muned with them. From this time on the church grew rapid ly. In 1835 they began to build a meeting house, 32x44 feet, two stories high, and used the lower story for a schoolhouse. This was called the Princeton Academy, and com menced its first term in the summer of 1836, under the care of Alvin M. Dixon, who is still living in Edgar, Clay County, Neb. Mr. Farnham was a devout and able minister, but in the fall of 1838 he was obliged to de sist from preaching on account of chronic laryngitis. During his ministry of four years the church increased to 141 members. 182 HISTORY" OF BUREAU COUNTY. Rev. Owen Lovejoy was called to .take the place of Mr. Farnham and commenced his labors as pastor of the church in the fall of 1838. We need not here speak of Mr. Love joy, or his labors at length, as his fame be came world-wide. He was a man of clear, strong convictions. As a public speaker he was logical, energetic, impressive, magnetic and eloquent. As a platform orator he had no equal. In social life he was genial and attractive. He early espoused the anti-slav ery cause and preached an anti-slavery gospel until the people liked it, and then continued preaching it because they did like it. His pastorate continued until the close of 1855, after which he was elected to Congress, and continued to hold that position until his death, March 25, 1864. In 1848 a new church was erected, of brick, and larger, cost ing $4,000. Mr. Lovejoy was succeeded in his ministry by the following persons in or der of time: N. A Keyes, S. D. Cochran, W. B. Christopher, Samuel Day, H. L. Ham mond, D. H. Blake, F. Bascom, R. B. How ard and Richard Edwards, LL. D., who has just resigned and accepted a position with Knox College, and Rev. S. A. Norton, the present pastor. In 1869 the church was re paired, and added to at a cost of $8,000, and supplied with a fine pipe organ. A success ful Sabbath -school has been kept up from the beginning of the church; also a weekly prayer-meeting. The pastor's salaries have increased from time to time from $400 to $3,- 000 a year. Present membership, 300; Sab bath-school, 200. In October, 1837, twenty- four members were dismissed to form the Second Congregational Church of Princeton — now the First Presbyterian Church of this city. In March, 1838, seven members were dismissed to join the Dover Congregational Church; and in May, 1840, a number took letters to the Congregational Church of Lamoille. Methodist Episcopal Church, Princeton. — In the year 1832 Rev. Zadock Hall organ ized a charge called the Peoria Mission. His appointments in Bureau County were at the house of Joseph Smith, north of Prince ton, on Bureau Creek; Samuel Williams', in Hall Town, at John Hall's in Shelby Town, and at Abraham Jones', two miles northwest of Princeton. The names of the members of this class were: James and Betsy Hayes, Abraham and Mary Jones, Barton and Susanna Jones, Robert and Mrs. Clark, Joseph and Mrs. Smith and Eliza Epperson. All of the above persons have gone to the better land. In 1833 Rev. William Royal became the proacher in charge of the northern division of Peoria Mission called the Ottawa Mission. In 1834 tbis Mission was divided and the west part called the Bureau Mission, and the Rev. S. R. Beggs took this charge and re mained through the following year. There were three appointments in the Bu reau Circuit: At Abraham Jones', at John Scott's, Tiskilwa, and at John Hall's, Selby Town. His cash report this year was: Re ceived $70 from 100 members. Rev.. Den ning arrived in Princeton in 1836, and be came class-leader and remained so up to 1842, at which time he joined the Rock River Conference. The class meetings were held at the house of Abraham Jones until 1838, when they were afterward held at the house of Brother Demings, in Princeton. In 1836 an attempt was made to build a church, but the brick was spoiled in the making and the pledges were lost, so ended this effort. Will iam Cummings was pastor this year. In 1837 the old pioneer, Zaddock Hall, was ap pointed to the Princeton Circuit. A church was finally built and occupied about Christ mas, 1838. The preachers on the circuit at this time were Rufus Lumry and George Smith. ,.". , • ..AitfA —