1882 History
Chapter 2 - Early Occupation
THE MOUND-BUILDERS —
THEIR REMAINS AND FORTIFICATIONS —
THE INDIANS — TRACES OF THEM IN
MONTGOMERY COUNTY — THEIR SUCCESSORS, THE WHITES — DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED
BY THE EMIGRANTS ON THEIR WAY TO NEW HOMES — INCIDENTS OF THE PIONEER PERIOD
— GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY.
By W. H. Perrin
PRE-HISTORIC research has evolved the fact, that, at a period tying wholly
within the province of conjecture, a semi-civilized people, whose origin and
final fate, as well as their habits and customs, are enshrouded in comparative
mystery, inhabited, not only this country, but most of the Western Continent.
All attempts to unravel the mystery enveloping their peculiar lives meet with
failure, save where their fast-decaying works cast a feeble ray of light on the
otherwise impenetrable darkness. From the northern lakes through the Mississippi
Valley into Mexico, and thence into South America, these relics of a lost race
extend. Many archaeologists believe that their occupation of this country was
anterior to that of the Eastern Hemisphere, and that this continent is really
the Old instead of the New World. However extravagant this opinion may be, there
is no longer any doubt in the mind of the archaeologist that this country was
occupied by a race of people, of whose origin the Indians, found in possession
of the country by the Europeans, knew absolutely nothing. The mounds and
fortifications left by them form by far the most interesting relics of American
antiquity. Some of the most extensive mounds in the United States are in
Illinois, and are located contiguous to the Mississippi River. But our limited
space will not admit of a detailed account of this lost race of people. Their
name, language and history have utterly perished from the earth, and their very
existence even would never have been known but for the almost obliterated
remains which still show the work of their hands. That they did exist, such
writers as Rafinesque, Foster, Lubbock and others, who have spent years in
pre-historic research, stoutly maintained. No traces, however, of the "lost
race" are found in Montgomery County, so as we can learn. Fortifications, camps,
burying-grounds, etc., which some have attributed to the Mound-Builders', and
which are located in different sections of the county, are believed by others,
better informed, to be but the works of the American Indians. The latter theory
is, doubtless, the correct one.
Following the Mound-Builders, and supposed by writers upon the subject to have
been their conquerors, came the Indians, the red sous of the forest. They next
occupied this country and resisted the encroachments of the whites to the bitter
end. From the Atlantic coast, they were pressed backward toward the setting sun,
strewing their path with the bones and skeletons of their martyred warriors.
They crossed the Alleghanies, and, descending its western slope, chanted their
death songs as they moved slowly and mournfully away from the land of their
fathers, before the ever-advancing tide of palefaces. Halting upon the plains of
the "Illini" amid the forests that bounded its streams, they made the last home
of their own choosing. But here they were not allowed to remain in peace. The
handful of whites, who had dropped upon the western shore of the Atlantic, had
grown into a great multitude, and like the little stone cut out of the mountains
by unseen hands, were rolling on, as a mighty avalanche, crushing all that
opposed. In the early dawn of the nineteenth century, the red man was again
forced to take up his line of march from Southern Illinois, nor allowed to rest
until he reached his promised land, the great plains of the far West. His
foot-prints are still visible in what now forms Montgomery County, in
fortifications, burying-grounds, etc.
The Indians occupying this portion of Illinois, were the Kickapoos. The
following extract will be found of interest to our readers: "The Kickapoos, in
1763, occupied the country southwest of the southern extremity of Lake Michigan.
They subsequently moved southward, and at a more recent dale dwelt in portions
of the territory on the Mackinaw and Sangamon Rivers, and had a village on
Kickapoo Creek, and at Elkhart Grove. They were more civilized, industrious,
energetic and cleanly than the neighboring tribes, and it may also be added,
more implacable in their hatred to the Americans. They were among the first to
commence battle, and the last to submit and enter into treaties; unappeasable
enmity led them into the field against Gens. Harmar, St. Clair and Wayne, and to
be the first in all the bloody charges on the field of Tippecanoe. They were
prominent among the Northern nations, which, for more than a century, waged an
exterminating war against the Illinois Confederacy. Their last hostile act of
this kind was perpetrated in 1805, against some poor Kaskaskia children, whom
they found gathering strawberries on the prairie above the town which bears the
name of their tribe. Seizing a considerable number of them, they fled to their
villages before the enraged Kaskaskias could overtake them and rescue their
offspring. During the years of 1810 and 1811, in conjunction with the Chippewas,
Pottawatomies and Ottawas, they committed so many thefts and murders on the
frontier settlements that Gov. Edwards was compelled to employ military force to
suppress them. They claimed relationship with the Pottawatomies, and perhaps
with the Sacs and Foxes and Shawnees. When removed from Illinois, they still
retained their old animosities against the Americans, and went to Texas, then a
province of Mexico, to get beyond the jurisdiction of the United States. There
were other tribes, also, who roamed through this part of the State. The Foxes
sometimes made incursions into this immediate section, and if they did not live
here permanently, they remained at least temporarily. In what is now East Fork
Township, on McDavid's Branch, in Section 34, at a fine spring, the Foxes once
had a village or camp. Of this, however, we have but little that is definite, as
none now living remember the event from their own personal knowledge.
There is a tradition, but how true we do not know, that Capt. Whiteside, the
celebrated pioneer and Indian fighter, once, in company with a few kindred
spirits, fought a battle with the Indians on Shoal Creek, in the southeast part
of North Litchfield Township; but of this battle there remains no record, other
than tradition. Many other traditions may be gathered of the occupation of the
county by the aborigines, but none of them are particularly reliable. In many
parts of the county there are remains of camps, some of them fortified with
something of military order. One of these near Hillsboro still shows the old
fortifications very plainly, and has been examined by military men, who
recognized its situation for a successful defense. Nothing, however, has been
published in regard to it, and few people in the county know the place of its
location.
As the white settlement increased, the Indians left the neighborhood, falling
back, as has ever been their fate, before the advancing tide of immigration.
Their camp fires paled in the sunlight of civilization, and then went out on the
prairies of Illinois forever.
The first white people who traversed this country, and claimed it by the right
of discovery, were the French explorers and travelers. More than two hundred
years ago, such men as La Salle, Marquette, Hennepin, Joliet and other
Frenchmen, had traversed the State of Illinois, or what now forms this great
State, and made settlements along the Mississippi River. Many trees and stones
bore the impress of the fluer de lis of France, and Kaskaskia, Cahokia and
Vincennes became enterprising French towns surrounded by flourishing
settlements. Marquette discovered the Mississippi River, and spent years of toil
in explorations and Christianizing the natives of the great West, then died,
with none to soothe him in his last moments save his faithful Indian converts.
La Salle penetrated to the mouth of the "Great Father of Waters," and after
planting the standard, and claiming the country in the name of his king, was
treacherously murdered by his own followers. Rut time passed on, and eventually
the lilies of France drooped and withered before the majestic tread of the
British lion, who, in his turn, quailed and cowered beneath the scream of the
American eagle. The conquest of Gen. George Rogers Clark made Illinois a county
of Virginia, and wrested it forever from foreign rule. Rut few decades after
Clark captured Kaskaskia and Vincennes, white people from the Eastern States
began to cross the Wabash into the present State of Illinois. The first
settlements were made in the southern part of the State, and not until about the
years 1810-17 was there a settlement made by the whites in what is now
Montgomery County.
It was in the latter part of 1816 or early in 1817 that the first white
settlement was effected in the county. This pioneer settlement was made in the
extreme southern part, on Hurricane Creek. Among the settlers forming it were
Joseph Williams, Henry Pyatt, William McDavid, John and Henry Hill, Jesse
Johnson, Henry Sears, Aaron Case, Harris Reavis, Joseph and Charles Wright,
Easton Whitten, John Kirkpatrick, Henry Rowe, John Russell, David Bradford, E.
Gwinn and others. In what is now Hillsboro Township, on Shoal Creek, the next
settlement was made by an importation of Kentuckians and Tennesseans in 1817-18,
among whom were the following, viz.: Alexander McWilliams, Solomon Prewitt, John
Norton, Roland Shepherd, Jarvis Forehand, Gordon Crandall, William Clark, David
McCoy, Nicholas Lockerman, Hugh Kirkpatrick, Melcher Fogleman, William Griffith,
Joseph Mc Adams, Israel Seward, James Street, Luke Steel, John McPhail, Joel
Smith, David Kirkpatrick, Jesse Townsend, Jacob Cress, Israel Butler, the
Harkeys, and a number of others now forgotten. Hiram Rountree, one of the
prominent men of the county, who is noticed fully elsewhere, settled in this
neighborhood in 1821, and spent the remainder of his life here. These
settlements were made in the timber bordering the water-courses. The people who
composed the original settlements came from timbered countries, abounding in
springs and streams of running water. To them, the broad prairies of waving
grass, overtopped with innumerable blossoms and fragrant flowers (in summer),
presented all the monotony, if not the dreariness, of sandy deserts, and the
groves of timber were as welcome as the "shadow of a great rock in a weary
land." It was not for years after the first settlements were made in the timber
that people ventured out on the prairies. The prairies, they believed, would
never be utilized, except for pasture, as the country afforded an insufficiency
of timber to fence them, and "if God Almighty did not make timber grow on the
prairies," they argued, "it was no use for man to attempt it." Hence, the
prairies would never be fit for anything but pasturage.
Settlements were made in other portions of the county soon after those already
mentioned. Some of the people composing these early settlements, after a
temporary rest, made other settlements. Melchoir Fogleman, with Nicholas Voylis
and William Stephens, settled in what is now Walshville Township some time in
1818. A little later, Austin Grisham, James Baker and John Jordan settled in the
same neighborhood. In what is now Butler Grove Township, Jacob Cress and family,
already mentioned, settled in 1818. The present township of Fillmore was invaded
by a colony from Kentucky about 1820, among whom were James Card, Thomas J.
Todd, John Alexander, Henry and Peter Hill, M. Mason and others. Thus settlers
came in every year, and settlements were made in every body of timber in what is
now Montgomery County. As the population increased, and the timbered laud was
occupied, settlers began to branch out on the prairies. Slowly at first, and
with many misgivings, but as the first venturesome ones did not starve to death,
others soon followed them, until all the prairie land was either settled or
taken up. It is not our purpose to minutely describe the settlements made in
different parts of the county in this connection, but will leave it to chapters
devoted to each individual township.
For a number of years after the first settlements were made in the wilderness,
life possessed few pleasures and comforts, and was hard in the extreme and often
dangerous. The people were exposed to danger, and were forced to undergo the
most arduous toil to maintain life. The following extract from an article by Mr.
Coolidge will give the reader some idea of the life led by the early settlers
until civilization and prosperity improved the times. The article referred to
says: "The earliest houses or cabins were of logs, one story high, and usually
of one room. The door was frequently made of split stuff, and the openings for
light sometimes were defended by a frame or rude sash, with oiled paper for
glass, but more usually the opening was closed only by a solid shutter. In the
summer, this was left unclosed; in the winter, the cabin was lighted down the
chimney or through an open door. In such a residence we have seen the entire
family of father and mother and well grown boys and girls and the occasional
guest sleeping on the floor, and heard Senator Douglas repeat the ludicrous
comments of the grown-up daughters on the 'right small chance of legs' he was
forced to exhibit when dressing in the morning after a night's rest en famille.
The kitchen utensils were a pot for boiling potatoes, a bake-kettle for bread
and a skillet for frying meat. Twenty-five dollars would buy the entire domestic
outfit of a family, the coveted featherbed representing a moiety of the same.
Chairs or seats were made at home, strong, durable and weighty, but not
luxurious. The pantry was a rustic shelf or two in a corner, with a bit of cloth
before them. We are dubious as to the cradles, but the crop of children was sure
and large. They grew up stout, rosy-cheeked, and shy as untamed colts. As for
pocket-money, nobody seems to remember if they had any. The writer's allowance,
when sixteen, was but 5 cents a year. A tea-kettle was a superfluity, and irons
were supplied by a couple of flat stones. The hearth was the naked earth; the
chimney was outside the house. A bank of clay and stone was raised up several
feet; about four feet from the general level, two stout pieces of timber were
fastened on each side of the fire-seat, the upper ends inclining toward each
other, and resting against a loft-beam, a yard and a half from the wall of the
house. The angular space thus enclosed was filled with split sticks and clay
mortar. At a convenient height on each side, a hole was left into which was
thrust a pole from which depended a log chain, into which pot-hooks could be
inserted to sustain a pot or kettle. If the owner was forehanded, he substituted
a trammel for the chain; this was usually a flat bar of iron, the upper part
bent to grip the pole easily, and the lower portion pierced with numerous holes
for the insertion of pot-hooks.
"After 1830, wagons began to be seen. Prior to this, the ox-cart was the
universal vehicle of transportation. Judge Rountree brought his wife and worldly
possessions to the county, drawn by a yoke of two-year-old steers." Thomas C.
Hughes brought his family here in a similar vehicle. These carts were not built
for rapid movement. A yoke of oxen usually lounged onward at the rate of a mile
and a half an hour, and five days was the usual time for a trip to St. Louis.
With the use of wagons horses began to be employed to draw them. Mules were not
seen here until well on in the thirties. If a stranger noticed a house a furlong
or half a mile from a highway, and approached only through several gates, he
knew he was gazing on the site of a pioneer home.
"The plague of insects was intolerable to man and beast. A green-headed fly was
the most formidable pest. In the heat of the day, horses were frantic, and for
safety were put in stables. Cattle would dash through thickets of hazel brush to
dislodge their tormentors or stand midside deep in pools of water. The people
would at times maintain ' smudges ' to drive away mosquitoes, and cattle would
seek and stand in the smoke for hours for relief. With the increase of land
cultivation, these pests have disappeared."
The following incident is related of Judge Rountree's advent in Hillsboro: A
settler was at work upon his "improvement" in the south end of the present town,
when he heard a doleful noise, which he was wholly unable to comprehend, and
which was so perfectly harrowing as to make every particular hair on his head
stand on end. Stories of Indian outrages were rife in the land, and he imagined
it was some Indian device to draw the whites into an ambuscade, and with the
greatest caution, he set out to reconnoiter. When he reached a point commanding
a view of the trail — now the Vandalia road — he saw Judge Rountree coming up
the long slope, driving an ox-cart, the creaking and screaking of the wheels of
which had produced the horrible sounds, so alarming to his sensitive ears, ever
on the alert for danger. — Ed.
In further illustration of the pioneer period, we quote the following from the
"Rountree Letters," published a few years ago in the Hillsboro Democrat:
"Biscuits and corn-dodgers baked in an oven over and under glowing coals at the
fire-place, and johnny-cakes baked on a board in front of the fire, are among
the pleasantest memories. The big pot of lye-hominy was also one of our earliest
delights. Game was so plenty that it rarely happened that meats were scarce. But
the means of obtaining meal and flour for bread were scarce. Mills for flour
came after a while, but hand-mills, run not by steam, horses nor oxen, but by
women and children, were occasionally seen; new corn was often grated by hand
for immediate use ... Instead of our gay chandeliers, and coal oil lamps, were
candles of tallow or wax, and an old-fashioned affair, dignified by the name of
lamp, that was stuck in a crack in the wall and held lard in a heart-shaped
sheet iron basin, in which was a wick which burned well and gave a torch-like
glare. Those who had brass or silver or even iron candlesticks strove to keep
them as bright as their pewter and tinware.
"The clothing for both sexes was made at home. If of cotton, the cotton was
raised, picked, ginned, carded, spun, woven, colored and cut and made at home.
If of wool, the sheep were raised, the wool clipped, picked by hand, carded,
spun, colored, woven and made up at home. All members of the household, male and
female, men, women and children, were usually employed in some part, if not in
all parts, of the manufacture. It is true that the men and boys frequently wore
clothing either made entire of the dressed skins of animals or had their clothes
'foxed' with them. There are no doubt many now living in our old county who can
tell of the long linen shirts, home-made, that were the only summer garments
worn by children and of the moccasins and the buckskin clothing. Boots were
nearly unknown, and shoes were indulged in as a luxury only by the grown people,
while moccasins made at home sufficed for the smaller members. However, as soon
as tanning could be done, and it was also often done at home, it was not
infrequent that the shoe-maker went from house to house with his implements, and
made the shoes for the family. There are no doubt many now living in the county
who never wore boots until they were nearly grown, and, perhaps, never saw any
until nearly grown. Yet while there were days of self-denial, they were days of
sincere happiness; and though the memories are pleasant, would we go back to
them? Would we be willing to live as our fathers lived? Would those who grew up
thus, like to try it again? Times have changed, and with the times our people,
and their notions and tastes; and no doubt it is all right. But the memory is
pleasant."
Such were some of the experiences, and the hardships with which the early
settlers of this county had to contend in reclaiming it from a wilderness. In
the grand march of civilization the great changes that have taken place within
the last half-century is almost beyond the power of the mind to comprehend. When
we look around us at the enterprising cities and towns, the magnificent
residences and broad, productive fields, the manufactories of various kinds, and
the improved machinery in use, thus facilitating men's work and giving
employment to hundreds and thousands of human beings, we are startled at the
fact that fifty or sixty years ago these fertile plains were the abode of
savages and wild beasts; and the few whites, scattered here and there, as little
dreamed of the results of to-day, as we dare predict what the next fifty years
may bring forth. The pioneer's cabin "rude in its simplicity, and simple in its
rudeness," has given place to comfortable homes; the rude implements of
agriculture have disappeared before improvements and inventions that have made
farming not a labor but a science, while the patient ox has been supplanted by
the iron-horse.
Additional to other troubles and trials of the pioneers in the early period of
the country were prairie fires. These fires have always been a source of terror
to people living in a prairie country, and much damage and loss of property and
even of life have resulted from them. The tall prairie grass, from four to six
feet high, when dry, with strong winds prevailing, presented combustible matter
only surpassed by kerosene, gunpowder, etc. " In. time of peace prepare for
war," is an adage that was very generally observed by the settlers living on the
verge of the prairies, and later in the prairies themselves. As soon as the
grass began to die and dry up in the fall of the year, preparations against fire
were made by burning or plowing roads around fields and farms. But even these
barriers were sometimes overleaped, and distressing consequences followed to the
poor man, who had but little to begin with, and lost that almost in the
twinkling of an eye. The early inhabitants were often melancholy witnesses to
these great conflagrations — so glorious in their grandeur, and gloomy in their
ruin and waste. The dense smoke arising from them in the days of Indian summer,
often enveloped the land in the "shades of evening," recalling the lines of
Milton —
"The sun,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight
Shed o'er half the nations."
In the natural course of event, everything must have a beginning. As the county settled up and population increased, mills were built, shops and stores established to supply the wants of the community, and highways opened to the markets of the outside world. The first store in the county was kept by John Tilson, a man prominent in the early history of the county. He was from Boston, and located on the farm afterward known as the "Scherer place," about three miles southwest of Hillsboro. He opened a store about the year 1820-21, where he lived, and when the county seat was established at Hillsboro, moved his store to town. He built the first brick house in Hillsboro, and kept the first store in the town as well as in the county. When the post office was established, he became the first Postmaster. Melchoir Fogleman is believed to have been the first blacksmith, and had a shop in the west part of the county. The first mills, manufactories, etc., will be found in other chapters of the work. We are informed by a local authority, that N. Lockerman was the first man married, and that he was married by Rev. James Street, while hoeing corn, but whether it was Mr. Street or Mr. Lockerman hoeing corn, deponent saith not. It is said there is a woman in everything, whether for good or ill, but there is none mentioned in connection with the marriage of Mr. Lockerman, and it may be that he was married by Mr. Street to the corn he was hoeing. We would be glad to describe the toilettes and bridal presents of this pioneer wedding, for the benefit of our lady readers, who are always interested in such things, but, owing to circumstances, are unable to do so. We doubt not, however, but that they were in accordance with the customs of the time. As to the truth of the assertions that
"Full many cares are on the wreath,
That binds the bridal veil,"
we cannot say, but presume that Mr. Lockerman and his bride — if he had one —
lived as happily as the common lot. The second marriage celebrated in the county
was David McCoy to Miss Kirkpatrick, and the third, William H. Brown to Miss
Harriet Seward. The license of the latter couple were the first returned to the
Clerk's office of Montgomery County.
Apropos of "marrying and giving ill marriage," the following incident comes in
place: In the early years of the county, Judge Rountree was the engineer that
ran pretty much all of its machinery. He was Probate Judge, Recorder, County and
Circuit Clerk, Justice of the Peace, legislator, and held a dozen or two other
minor offices "too tedious to mention." Once, while at Springfield on
legislative business, a couple came to town to get married, and when they found
him gone, they seemed greatly troubled in "body and mind." But somebody sent
them to Mrs. Rountree, who told them that she could issue the license if she
could get in the office, but that Mr. Rountree had carried off the key with him
to Springfield. They went to the office, however, when the bridegroom elect set
up a lot of fence-rails against the window and finally succeeded in forcing it
open. He then entered and opened the door from the inside, and Mrs. Rountree
went in where she found a license signed by Judge Rountree, which she filled up
for the happy couple, and sent them on their road to Hymen rejoicing. Since
then, many couples have gone and done likewise; the old, old story, and yet
forever new, has been told over and over again, and still the work goes on. The
date of the first birth is forgotten, but as Mr. Coolidge says, the crop of
children was sure and large; there was a first birth, and, perhaps, at an early
day. The present population of the county indicates their frequency.
The first death which occurred is not now remembered. Sixty-five years have come
and gone since the first white people came here, and now most of them have
passed to that bourn whence no traveler returns.
"Long years have flown o'er the scenes of the past,
And many turned gray in the winter's cold blast;
While others but dream of the time that is gone.
They are bent by the years that are fast rolling on."
It was appointed unto all men to die, says Holy Writ, and pretty faithfully have the pioneers of Montgomery County obeyed the summons. The grass has grown over their graves in the old churchyard, the flowers have bloomed and withered with the coming and waning years, and a new generation now fill their places upon the stage of action.
Extracted 28 Jan 2020 by Norma Hass from History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois, published in 1882, pages 179-185.
